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“And, you rather hope that something will turn up, Mr. Correy?”

Correy grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

“It would break the monotony, wouldn’t it, sir? And, too, if anything should happen to them”—and he glanced up the river, in the direction taken by the three scientists—”we’d know something about what we had to contend with, wouldn’t we?”

I’m not sure whether it was Correy’s argument or my own venturesome disposition which swayed me, but immediately after lunch Correy and I, with a picked crew of men, started out from the ship.

Up until that time, we had confined our activities to the area between the ship and the shore—a small enough space at best. Now we rounded the shining blunt bow of the Ertak and headed inland, Correy and myself in the lead, the two portable disintegrator ray-men immediately behind us, and the four other men of the party flanking the ray operators, two on each side.

It was hot, but the air was dry and invigorating. There was not a cloud visible in the sky. Far ahead was a low line of bluish, fronded, vegetation; whether small trees or some fern-like undergrowth, we could not determine. The ground between the ship and the line of vegetation was almost completely barren, the only growth being a lichenous sort of vegetation, gray-green in color.