s discovered the site for the thermometer
factory. He will be organizing a Chamber of Commerce next."

He left out a portion of the cooked meat for Kreiss' later attention,
and he and Harkness rolled a supply into leaf-wrapped packages and
stowed them in the pockets of their coats before they started on. Again
the little procession took up the march with Harkness leading.

"Leave as little trail as possible," Harkness ordered. "We don't want to
shout to Schwartzmann where we have gone."

They left the Valley of the Fires to follow the stream-bed in another
hollow between great hills. Chet found himself looking back at the
familiar flares with regret. Here was the only place on this new world
which was not utterly strange to his eyes. He continued to glance behind
him, long after the smoky fires were lost to sight; but he would not
admit even to himself that it was for another reason.

Nineteen seventy-three!--and he was a man of the modern civilization.
Yet deep within him there stirred ancient instincts--racial memories,
perhaps. And, as he splashed through the little stream and bent to make
his way through strange-leafed vines and leprous-spotted trees, a
warning voice spoke inaudibly within his own mind--spoke as it might
have whispered to some ancestor scores of centuries dead.

"You are followed!" it told him. "Listen!--there is one who follows on
the trail!"

CHAPTER X

_A Mysterious Rescuer_

Their way led through tangled growths of trees and vines that were like
unreal things of a dream. Unreal they were, too, in their strange degree
of livingness, for there were snaky tendrils that drew back as if in
fear at their approach and stalks that folded great, thorny leaves
protectingly about pulpy centers at the first touch of a hand. The world
of vegetation seemed strangely sentient and aware of their approach.
Only the leprous-white trees remained motionless; their red-veined
trunks towered high in air, and the sun of late afternoon shot
slantingly through a leafy roof overhead.

Twice Chet let the others go on ahead while he slipped silently into
some rocky concealment and watched with staring, anxious eyes back along
their trail. But the little stream's gurgling whisper was the only
voice, and in all the weird jungle there was no movement but for the
unfolding of the vegetation where they had passed.

"Nerves!" he reproached himself. "You're getting jumpy, and that won't
do." But once more he l