aped behind our cage and ran down
toward the shore.

Larry and Tina stood white and confused. Larry panted, "But, George. I
can help you fight him! Hide here in the cage--"

"Get away, I tell you! It's his death or mine this time! I'll get him
if I can!"

I shoved Larry violently away and ducked back into our doorway. Only a
few breathless seconds had passed; Tugh was still several hundred feet
away from us. Larry and Tina ran behind the cage, darted between the
boulders of the ridge and vanished.

I crouched in the cage. Tugh was not visible from here. A moment
passed. Dared I remain? If I could get Tugh within twenty feet of me,
my shot was as good as his.... The silence was horrible. Was he coming
forward? Did he know I was in here? I thought surely he must have seen
Larry and Tina run away, and me dart in here: we had all been in plain
sight of him.

This horrible silence! Was he creeping up on me? Would he fire through
the doorway, or appear abruptly at the window? I could not tell where
to place myself in the room--and it could mean my life or death.

The silence was split by Tina calling, "Tugh, we have caught you!"

* * * * *

Her voice was to one side and behind our cage, calling defiance at
Tugh to distract his attention from me. Through the window I saw the
flash of his beam, slanting sidewise at Tina. I gauged the source of
his ray to be still some distance off, and crept to the door,
cautiously peering.

Tugh stood on the open rock surface. He had swung to my right and was
near the little ridge of rocks where it turned and bent down to the
shore. Behind me came Tina's voice again:

"At last we have you, Tugh!"

I saw Tina poised on the top of the ridge, partially behind me at the
elbow of the ridge-curve. She screamed her defiance, and again Tugh
fired at her. The beam slanted over me, but still was short.

Larry had vanished. Then I saw him, though Tugh did not. He had run
along behind the ridge, and appeared, now, well down toward the shore.
He was barely a hundred feet from the cripple. I saw him stoop, seize
a chunk of rock, and throw it. The missile bounded and passed close to
Tugh.

Larry instantly ducked back out of sight. The bounding stone startled
Tugh; he whirled toward it and fired over the ridge. Tina again had
changed her position and was shouting at him. They were trying to
exhaust his cylinder charges; and if they could do that he would be
hel