"And I owe you thanks for saving my life."

"Oh, 'twas no great matter." She shouldered the crossbow. "Come, for the Skygors will be about our heels."

She picked her way rapidly among the steam, with the surest and cleverest of feet. Women on Earth were never so graceful or sure, decided Planter, hurrying after. He was aware that he did not step on the muddy surface of Venus, but upon a matted over-floor, of roots, fallen stems, ground-vines, sometimes great sturdy leaves like lily-pads grown to the size of double mattresses. "Wait, young lady," he called, "who are the Skygors, you mentioned and why should they be after us?"

She halted again, swung and studied him with more of that disdainful curiosity. "'Tis a gruel-brained idiot," she decided, as if to herself. "For that they cast him out. Methought 'twas strange that a man should flee, of himself, from sure shelter and victual."

It was raining harder. The great roof of vegetation only partially broke that downpour. It sluiced away the coating of mud from Planter, and soaked his stout garments through. He felt miserable in the dampness, but his girl guide throve, if anything, in the drops that struck and rolled down her bare arms and shoulders.

He saw, too, that she followed something of a trail among the stalks and stems. It was barely wider than his own stalwart shoulders could pass, and wound crazily here and there; but one must stick to it, for to right and left the jungle grew thicker than a basket. He called out again.

"Miss! Young lady!"

She turned, as before. "What now?"

"This path—what is it? Did you make it? Tell me things." He made a gesture of appeal, for she was putting on that look of contempt once more. "You see, I'm no more than an hour old on this planet—"

"Od so! Your brain is younger than that. Leave me, I have no time for idiots."

Abruptly she stiffened, widened her eyes, lifted a finger to her red lips for silence. The two of them stood close together in the misty rain, their ears sharpened. Planter heard what she had heard—a rustling, crunching approach, along some other angle of the jungle path.

The girl wrenched apart two sappy lengths of vine, and with a jerk of her head bade Planter slip through into the great thicket. He did so, and she followed. 

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