nd that was queer, too--but you'll hear
about it when I come to it. We just loosened our revolvers and crept on
along that ghostly street.

"The street curved and twisted and subdivided. I kept careful note of
our directions, since we couldn't risk getting lost in that gigantic
maze. Without our thermo-skin bags, night would finish us, even if what
lurked in the ruins didn't. By and by, I noticed that we were veering
back toward the canal, the buildings ended and there were only a few
dozen ragged stone huts which looked as though they might have been
built of debris from the city. I was just beginning to feel a bit
disappointed at finding no trace of Tweel's people here when we rounded
a corner and there he was!

"I yelled 'Tweel!' but he just stared, and then I realized that he
wasn't Tweel, but another Martian of his sort. Tweel's feathery
appendages were more orange hued and he stood several inches taller than
this one. Leroy was sputtering in excitement, and the Martian kept his
vicious beak directed at us, so I stepped forward as peace-maker. I said
'Tweel?' very questioningly, but there was no result. I tried it a dozen
times, and we finally had to give it up; we couldn't connect.

"Leroy and I walked toward the huts, and the Martian followed us. Twice
he was joined by others, and each time I tried yelling 'Tweel' at them
but they just stared at us. So we ambled on with the three trailing us,
and then it suddenly occurred to me that my Martian accent might be at
fault. I faced the group and tried trilling it out the way Tweel himself
did: 'T-r-r-rwee-r-rl!' Like that.

"And that worked! One of them spun his head around a full ninety
degrees, and screeched 'T-r-r-rweee-r-rl!' and a moment later, like an
arrow from a bow, Tweel came sailing over the nearer huts to land on his
beak in front of me!

"Man, we were glad to see each other! Tweel set up a twittering and
chirping like a farm in summer and went sailing up and coming down on
his beak, and I would have grabbed his hands, only he wouldn't keep
still long enough.

"The other Martians and Leroy just stared, and after a while, Tweel
stopped bouncing, and there we were. We couldn't talk to each other any
more than we could before, so after I'd said 'Tweel' a couple of times
and he'd said 'Tick,' we were more or less helpless. However, it was
only mid-morning, and it seemed important to learn all we could about
Tweel and the city, so I suggested that he gui