uch bush was wilted. He stopped. He bent
over and carefully felt of the stones about it. A small rock came out.
The bush had been out of the ground before. It had carefully been
replaced. By someone.

"The rockets came this way," said the sergeant, with finality. "Hauled
over this pass to the _Cerberus_. Somebody must've knocked this bush
loose while workin' at getting 'em along. So he replanted it. Only not
good enough. It wilted."

"Who did it?" demanded Patrolman Willis.

"Who we want to know about," growled Sergeant Madden. "Maybe Huks. Come
on!"

He scrambled ahead. He wheezed as he climbed and descended. After half a
mile, Patrolman Willis said abruptly:

"You figure they all left, before anybody tried to find 'em?"

The sergeant grunted affirmatively. A quarter mile still farther, the
rocky ground fell away. There was the gleam of water below them. Rocky
cliffs enclosed an arm of the sea that came deep into the land, here. In
the cliffs rock-strata tilted insanely. There were red and yellow and
black layers--mostly yellow and black. They showed in startlingly clear
contrast.

"Right!" said Sergeant Madden in morose satisfaction. "I thought there
might've been a boat. But this's it!"

He went down a steep descent to the very edge of the sound--it was even
more like a fjord--where the waters of the ocean came in among the
island's hills. On the far side, a little cascade leaped and bubbled
down to join the sea.

"You go that way," commanded Sergeant Madden, "and I'll go this. We've
got two things to look for--a shallow place in the water coming right up
to shore. And look for signs of traffic from the cliffs to the water. By
the color of those rocks, we'd ought to find both."

He lumbered away along the water's edge. There were no creatures which
sang or chirped. The only sounds were wind and the lapping of waves
against the shore. It was very, very lonely.

Half a mile from the point of his first descent, the sergeant found a
shoal. It was a flat space of shallow water--discoverable by the color
of the bottom. The water was not over four feet deep. It was a
remarkably level shoal place.

He whistled on his fingers. When Patrolman Willis reached him, he
pointed to the cliffs directly across the beach from the shallow water.
Lurid yellow tints stained the cliff walls. Odd masses of fallen stone
dotted the cliff foot. At one place they were piled high. That pile
looked quite natural--except that it wa