straight-lipped mouth. "And we'd better be away before visitors arrive?"

So he, too, must have thought his way through the sequence of past
action to the same conclusion concerning the Throg movements.

"Can you see, Lantee?" The question was painfully casual, but a note in
it, almost a reaching for reassurance, cut for the first time through
the wall which had stood between them from their chance meeting by the
wrecked ship.

"Better now. I couldn't when I first came to," Shann answered quickly.

Thorvald opened his eyes, but Shann guessed that he was as blind as he
himself had been, He caught at the officer's nearer hand, drawing it to
rest on his own belt.

"Grab hold!" Shann was giving the orders now. "By the look of that
opening we had better try crawling. I've a torch on at low----"

"Good enough." The other's fingers fumbled on the band about Shann's
slim waist until they gripped tight at his back. He started on into the
opening, drawing Thorvald by that hold with him.

Luckily, they did not have to crawl far, for shortly past the entrance
the fault or vein they were following became a passage high enough for
even the tall Thorvald to travel without stooping. And then only a
little later he released his hold on Shann, reporting he could now see
well enough to manage on his own.

The torch beam caught on a wall and awoke from there a glitter which
hurt their eyes--a green-gold cluster of crystals. Several feet on,
there was another flash of embedded crystals. Those might promise
priceless wealth, but neither Terran paused to examine them more closely
or touch their surfaces. From time to time Shann whistled. And always he
was answered by the wolverines, their calls coming from ahead. So the
men continued to hope that they were not walking into a trap from which
the Throgs could extract them.

"Snap off your torch a moment!" Thorvald ordered.

Shann obeyed. The subdued light vanished. Yet there was still light to
be seen--ahead and above.

"Front door," Thorvald observed. "How do we get up?"

The torch showed them that, a narrow ladder of ledges branching off when
the passage they followed took a turn to the left and east. Afterward
Shann remembered that climb with wonder that they had actually made it,
though their advance had been slow, passing the torch from one to
another to make sure of their footing.

Shann was top man when a last spurt of effort enabled him to draw
himself out into the open,