t and as round as a ball of bovine butter. I can knock 'em over
with a rock, and you can use your neuro, in a pinch."

They did, in fact, succeed in capturing one of the little creatures
soon afterward, and, dropping a moistened fire pellet on top of a
pulp-mound, soon were roasting their meat.

Not once, however, did either one relax his vigilance. Almost
simultaneously they discovered the little black dot that seemed to pop
out of the irregular southern horizon. They leaped to their feet,
kicked out the fire. They would have covered the ashes with sand but
for hundreds of feet in either direction there was nothing but bare
rock.

"Never mind!" Murray said. "Let's make for cover. They may think it's
an old fireplace. With rains only about once in three years that spot
will look like that indefinitely."

"Yes," Tuman agreed, running along, "if they didn't see the smoke!"

* * * * *

As the craft neared they could make out the orange and green of the
Martian army.

"From the fort," Murray guessed. "Scar Balta must have had his doubts
about me. He ordered them out to finish the job, if necessary."

"It's drifting," Tuman observed. "The driving tail seems to be
missing."

"Well, anyway, it's coming down, and where an army ship comes down is
no place for us."

They heard the scrape of her keel as she settled down. Murray gave a
gasp of surprise.

"Tuman," he muttered, "that fellow wearing the Martian uniform is an
I. F. P. agent named Hemingway. The uniform doesn't fit and I bet the
man he took it from is no longer alive. Do you know the giant with
him?"

"Under that dirt and blood, I'd say he's Tolto, Princess Sira's
special pet. No other man of Mars could be that big! Seven or eight
years ago--she was just a kid, you know--she picked him up in some
rural province. Kids just naturally do run to pets, don't they? And
the princess was no exception. But he looks like nobody's pet now. I'd
rather have him peg me with his neuro, though, than to take me in his
hands!"

They watched as Sime and Tolto slowly walked about in widening
circles, and when they were sufficiently far away Murray and Tuman
closed in. They had no expectation of finding the ship unlocked, and
wasted no time trying to get it. Instead they climbed a flat-topped
block of stone about ten feet high. From this position they could
command, with Murray's neuro, anyone who might seek to enter the ship.

"These fello