the dark or not; and just between you and me, I’m not particularly keen on night travel in
these parts after what’s just happened. Are you?”
“Anything else but,” she assured him, fervently. I’d lots rather stay hungry until
tomorrow.”
“No need of that—I’ve brought along enough supper for both of us. I’m hungry as
a wolf, too, now that I have time to think of it. We’ll eat and den up somewhere—or
climb a tree. Those wampuses probably can’t climb trees!”
“There’s a nice little cave back there about a hundred meters. We’ll pretend it’s
the Ritz,” and they soon had a merry fire blazing in front of the retreat. There they ate of
the provisions Stevens had brought. Then, while the man rolled up boulders before the
narrow entrance of the cave, Nadia gathered leaves and made a soft bed upon its
warm, dry floor.
“Good night, lover,” and the girl, untroubled and secure now that Stevens was at
her side, was almost instantly asleep; but the man was not sleepy. He thought of the
power plant, even now sending its terrific stream of energy into his accumulators. He
thought of the ultra-radio—where could he get all the materials needed? He thought of
his friends, wondering whether or not they would receive his message. He thought of
Breckenridge and the other human beings who had been aboard the Arcturus,
wondering poignantly as to their fate. He thought of Newton and of his own people, who
had certainly given them up for dead long since.
But above all he thought of the beautiful, steel-true companion lying there asleep
at his mailed feet, and he gazed down at her, his heart in his eyes. The firelight shone
through the chinks Between the boulders, casting a flickering ruddy light throughout the
little cavern. Nadia lay there, her head pillowed upon one strong, brown little hand. Her
lips were red and sweetly curved, her cheek was smooth and firm as so much brown
velvet. She was literally aglow with sheer beauty and with perfect health; and the man
reflected, as he studied her hungrily, that this wild life certainly had agreed with
her—she was becoming more surpassingly beautiful with every passing day.
“You little trump—you wonderful, lovely, square little brick!” he breathed silently,
and bent over to touch her cheek lightly with his lips. Slight as the caress was, it
disturbed her, and even in her sleep her subconscious mind sent out an exploring hand,
to touch her Steve and thus be reassured. He pressed her hand and she settled back
comfortably, with a long, deep breath; and he stretched his ironclad length beside her
and closed his eyes, firmly resolved not to waste a minute of this wonderful night in
sleep.
When he opened them an instant later it was broad daylight, the boulders had
been rolled away, the fragrance of roasting meat permeated the atmosphere, and Nadia
was making a deafening clamor, beating his steel breastplate lustily with the flat of his
huge saber.
“Daylight in the swamp, you sleeper!” she exclaimed. “Roll out or roll up! Come
and get it, before I throw it away!”
“I must’ve been kind of tired,” he said sheepishly, when he saw that she had shot
a bird and had cooked breakfast for them both while he had been buried in oblivion.
“Peculiar, too, isn’t it?” Nadia asked, pointedly. “You only did about ten day’s
work yesterday in ten minutes, swinging this frightful snickersnee of yours. Why, you
played with it ~as though it were a knitting-needle, and when I wanted to wake you up
with it, I could hardly lift it.”
“Thought you didn’t want that subject ever mentioned?” he tried to steer the talk
away from his prowess with the broad-sword.
“That was yesterday,” airily. “Besides, I don’t mind talking about you—it’s thinking
about us being—you know
—that I can’t stand.”
“All x, ace. I get you—right. Let’s eat.”
Breakfast over, they started down the valley, Stevens carrying his helmet under
his arm. Hardly had they started, however, than Nadia’s keen eyes saw a movement
through the trees, and she stopped and pointed. Stevens looked once, then hand in
hand they dashed back to their cave.
“We’ll pile up some of the boulders and you lie low,” he instructed her as he
screwed on his helmet. She snapped open his face-plate.
“But what about you ? Aren’t you coming in, too ?” she demanded.
“Can’t—they’d surround us and starve us out. I’m safe in this armor—thank
Heaven we made it as solid as we did —and I’ll fight ’em in the open. I’ll show ’em what
the bear did to the buckwheat!”
“All x, I guess, but I wish I had my armor, too,” she mourned as he snapped shut
his plate and walled her into the cave with the same great rocks he had used the night
before. Then, Nadia safe from attack, he drew his quiver of war-arrows into position
over his shoulder, placed one at the ready in his bow, and turned to face the horde of
things rushing up the valley toward him. Wild animals he had supposed them, but as he
stood firm and raised his weapon shrill whistles sounded in the throng, and he gasped
as he realized that those frightful creatures must be intelligent beings, for not only did
they signal to each other, but he saw that they were armed with bows and arrows,
spears, and slings!
Six-limbed creatures they were, of a purplish-red color, with huge, tricornigerous
heads and with staring, green, phosphorescent eyes. Two of the six limbs were always
legs, two always arms; the intermediate two, due to a mid-section jointing of the six-foot-
long, almost cylindrical body, could be used at will as either legs or arms. Now, out of
range, as they supposed, they halted and gathered about one who was apparently their
leader; some standing erect and waving four hands while shaking their horns savagely
in Stevens’ direction, others trotting around on four legs, busily gathering stones of
suitable size for their vicious slings.
Too far away to use their own weapons and facing only one small four-limbed
creature, they considered their game already in the bag, but they had no
comprehension of Earthly muscles, nor any understanding of the power and range of a
hundred-pound bow driving a steel-headed war arrow. Thus, while they were arguing
Stevens took the offensive, and a cruelly barbed steel war-head tore completely through
the body of their leader and mortally wounded the creature next beyond him. Though
surprised, they were not to be frightened off, but with wild, shrill screams rushed to the
attack. Stevens had no ammunition to waste, and every, time that mighty bow twanged
a yard-long arrow transfixed at least one of the red horde—and a body through which
had torn one of those ghastly, hand-forged arrow-heads was of very little use thereafter.
Accurately-sped arrows splintered harmlessly against the re-enforced windows of his
helmet and against the steel guards protecting his hands. He was almost deafened by
the din as the stone missiles of the slingers rebounded from his reverberating shell of
steel, but he fired carefully, steadily, and powerfully until his last arrow had been loosed.
Then, the wicked dirk in his left hand and the long and heavy saber weaving a circular
path of brilliance in the sun, he stepped forward a couple of paces to meet the
attackers. For a few moments nothing could stand before that fiercely driven blade —
severed heads, limbs, and fragments of torsos literally filled the air, but sheer weight of
numbers bore him down. As he fell he saw the white shaft of one of Nadia’s hunting-
arrows flash past his helmet and bury itself to the nock in the body of one of the horde
above him. Nadia knew that her arrows could not harm her lover, and through a chink
between two boulders she was shooting into the thickest of the mob, speeding her light
arrows with the full power of her bow.
Though down, the savages soon discovered that Stevens was not out. In such
close quarters he could not use his sword, but the fourteen-inch blade of the dirk,
needle-pointed as it was and with two razor-sharp, serrated cutting edges, was itself no
mean weapon, and time after time he drove it deep, taking life at every thrust. Four
more red monsters threw themselves upon the prostrate man, but, not sufficiently
versed in armor to seek out its joints, their fierce short spear-thrusts did no damage.
Presently four more corpses lay still and Stevens, with his to them incredible Earthly
strength, was once more upon his feet in spite of their utmost efforts to pinion his mighty
limbs, and was again swinging his devastating weapon. Half their force lying upon the
field, wiped out by a small, but invincible and apparently invulnerable being, the
remainder broke and ran, pursued by Stevens to the point where the red monsters had