But would Frane succeed with his experiments? It seemed now as though Nixon's life hung on that. Then there was a day when Nona said impulsively,

"My father is more sure than ever of success. But Tork refuses to believe it."

"Refuses?" Nixon echoed. "Look here, what do you mean by that? I reckon there's still plenty you're not telling me, Nona."

There was indeed! There was so much going on out there in the busy little Orite world that the caged giant could not see. Nona and Loto tried to explain it.

"Tork is surely planning something," Loto said. "Something more than just working for the success of the drug."

There had been rumors of trouble. Talk of plans that were being made by secret meetings in the night. And Tork's followers seemed increasing. More and more the rumors involved him as a leader.

"Planning what?" Nixon demanded. "Is he aiming to seize your government?"

Perhaps it was that. Frane himself could not believe that Tork had any sinister plans; for so many years he had trusted Tork. And Frane was absorbed with his work. An impractical old man.

"So are most of our leaders," Loto said bitterly. "Too old. What you would call rusting on the job."

"One thing I'm sure," Nixon said. "Whatever that fellow Tork is up to, he'd mighty well like to tack my hide to his cabin door."

The days passed. And Nixon saw himself like a monstrous dumb creature waiting to be slaughtered. There must be something that he could do to get out of here! He began planning it and as the plan evolved, the thing looked feasible, if only he could persuade Nona and the youthful Loto!

He put his plan to them one evening when they came to talk to him, as they now did quite often. In the glow of the purple bars he sat with the two small figures perched on his upraised knee.

"Look," Nixon said softly. "I'm not willing to go on like this. And you—you're just stalling around giving Tork and his men every chance to pull off what they're after."

Nixon felt desperate, and he knew he looked it—ragged and dirty, his clothes tattered where the barrage had burned them, and his face with sunken cheeks covered by a ragged growth of black beard. And he knew he was ill. The lack of exercises 

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