nly with our atomic pistols.
We did not dare use the rays; there were a dozen men caught up
everywhere in those hellish tentacles.

"I don't know what I thought we could do. I knew only that I must do
something. Our leaps carried us over the tops of the trees that were
fighting for the ... the bodies of McClellan and the rest of the landing
crew. I saw then, when it was too late, that there was nothing we could
do. The trees ... had done their work. They ... they were _feeding_....

"Perhaps that is why we escaped. We came down in a tangle of whipping
branches. Several of my men were snatched up. The rest of us saw how
helpless our position was ... that there was nothing we could do. We
saw, too, that the ground was literally honeycombed, and we dived down
these burrows, out of the reach of the trees.

"There were nineteen of us that escaped. I can't tell you how we
lived--I would not if I could. The burrows had been dug by the pig-like
animals that the trees live upon, and they led, eventually, to the
shore, where there was water--horrible, bitter stuff, but not salty, and
apparently not poisonous."

We lived on these pig-like animals, and we learned something of their
way of life. The trees seem to sleep, or become inactive, at night. Not
unless they are touched do they lash about with their tentacles. At
night the animals feed, largely upon the large, soft fruit of these
trees. Of course, large numbers of them make a fatal step each night,
but they are prolific, and their ranks do not suffer.

"Of course, we tried to get back to the clearing, and the _Dorlos_;
first by tunneling. That was impossible, we found, because the rays used
by the _Filanus_ in clearing a landing place had acted somewhat upon the
earth beneath, and it was like powder. Our burrows fell in upon us
faster than we could dig them out! Two of my men lost their lives that
way.

"Then we tried creeping back by night; but we could not see as can the
other animals here, and we quickly found that it was suicide to attempt
such tactics. Two more of the men were lost in that fashion. That left
fourteen.

"We decided then to wait. We knew there would be another ship along,
sooner or later. Luckily, one of the men had somehow retained his
menore. We treasured that as we treasured our lives. To-day, when, deep
in our runways beneath the surface, we felt, or heard, the crashing of
the trees, we knew the Service had not forgotten us. I put on the
menor