them, the chosen one would
have felt a stabbing thing like a red-hot sword penetrate to his vitals.
He knew that swift paralysis would have followed the thrust. He knew
that then the victim would have been taken back, helpless and motionless
as the spider was, to be laid side by side with other helpless but still
conscious victims in the fetid depths of the wasp's nest. And he knew
that finally an egg would have been laid on the victim's chest; an egg
that would eventually hatch and deliver a bit of life that would calmly
and leisurely devour the paralyzed food supply alive.

"Let's hurry," he suggested, glancing up to see if any more wasps were
hovering about.

The lowering tunnel mouth was very near now. Barely twenty yards away.
What with the crowding monsters around them, the tunnel began to look
like a haven. Almost at a run, they continued toward it.

* * * * *

Then a commotion like that which might be made by a mighty army sounded
in the underbrush behind them. Dennis looked back over his shoulder.

"Hurry!" he gasped, suddenly accelerating his pace into frank flight.
"Ants...."

Jim glanced back, too--and joined Denny in his flight. Pouring toward
them at express train speed, flinging aside fallen stalks, climbing over
obstructions as though no obstructions were there, was coming a grim and
armored horde. Far in the lead, probably the one that had seen the men
first and started the deadly chase, was a single ant.

The solitary leader was a monster of its kind. As tall as Jim, clashing
in its horny armor, it rushed toward the fugitives.

"It's going to reach the tunnel before we do," Jim panted. "We've got to
kill the thing--and do it before the rest get to us...."

The monster was on them. Blindly, ferociously it hurled its bulk at the
things that smelled like termites however little they resembled them.
The termite-paste was, in this instance, the most deadly of challenges.

Jim stepped to the fore, with his spear point slanted to receive the
onslaught, spear butt grounded at his feet.

Whether the six-legged horror would have had wit enough to comprehend
the nature of the defense offered, and would have striven to circumvent
it, had time been given it, is a question that will never be answered.
For the thing wasn't given the time.

In mid-air it seemed to writhe and try to change the direction of its
leap. But it was on the point and had transfixed itself before its