om both sides Tom and Connel poured their weapons' power into
the giant beast. Blinded, near death, the monster wavered uncertainly.
Bellowing in fear and pain, it turned and lumbered back down the trail.

Connel and Tom watched it until they were certain it could not attack
them without warning again, and then they hurried to Roger. The heavy
tree limb had landed across his back, pinning him to the ground.

"Roger!" yelled Tom. "Roger, are you all right?"

The blond-haired cadet didn't answer. Grabbing a stout branch lying on
the ground near by, Connel and Tom worked it beneath the limb which lay
across Roger's body and pried it up.

"I've got it," said Connel, holding the weight of the limb on his
shoulder. "Pull him out!"

Tom quickly pulled the unconscious cadet clear and laid him on the
ground. Dropping the limb, Connel bent down to examine the boy. He ran
his fingers along Roger's spine, feeling the bones one by one through
the skin-tight jungle suit. Finally he straightened and shook his head.
"I can't tell anything," he said. "We'll have to take him back to
Sinclair's right away." He stood up. "I'll make a stretcher for him.
Meanwhile, you go after that tyranno and finish him off. He's pretty
far gone, but you never can tell."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Tom. He picked up his rifle and reloaded it,
checking it carefully. He repeated the precaution with Roger's blaster.

"Hurry up," urged Connel, already reaching for a suitable branch. "Time
means everything now."

"Be right back, sir," replied Tom. And as he walked away, he looked back
at the unconscious form of his unit mate. He could not help reflecting
on the bitter fact that already two members of the expedition were in
danger, and they were no closer to their goal of finding the
Nationalists' hidden base.

Moving carefully, one of the two rifles slung over his shoulder, the
other in his hand ready for use, Tom followed the trail of the
tyrannosaurus. Two thousand yards farther along he saw a place where the
monster had fallen and then struggled back to its feet to stagger on.
Rounding a turn in the trail, Tom stopped abruptly. Before him, not a
hundred feet away, the beast lay sprawled on the ground. The area all
around was devoid of any vegetation. It was trampled down to the black
soil. Tom deduced that it was the beast's lair. He pressed forward
cautiously until he was a scant thirty feet away, and crouched between
the roots of a huge tree where