By the time they reached the tall grass beyond the perimeter of the burn, Tom McManus had become attached to the little fur-ball, with its whiskery nose and knob-like feet, and found that it snuggled nicely in his breast pocket. Pritchard smiled indulgently and they all waded into the waist-high grass. * * * * * They went slowly, partly out of caution and partly because the long, thick-growing blades clogged and bunched around their legs. Little things went hopping and chittering out of their way, and the sun began to lay its heat on them. Birds, as yet unseen, called and cried and whistled in the dense growth ahead. They went down a long slope, and then bushes began to shoulder up above the grass-tips and trees sprang up, some arching their feathery fern-like trunks until they began to lace together overhead and others dangling enormous round leaves from long drooping stems. The transition to jungle was gradual, with more and more sunlight filtered out of the growing shade, and vines and creepers becoming abundant about the ankles. The choppers appeared and began swinging and slashing, and all were grateful for the shade and its attendant coolness. Something crashed heavily away, hidden by the dark brown-green wall before them. It began to be real jungle. Pritchard stopped before a sturdy hedge. He had chopped into it and found a long tough root from which the heavy chopper only seemed to bounce back. "Hell," he grunted as McManus came up. "Joe," he called, "let's have the flamer here." "Ah, what's the matter with you!" grinned McManus. He took his own chopper between both hands and raised it high over his head. "You must be ... getting ... _old_!" And he brought the heavy blade down with all his force. Pritchard had stepped back, amusement twisting his lips. Majinski was shouldering forward with the flamer's nozzle ready. The chopper's edge chunked into the root-- And it came alive. The whole length of it flailed up into the air, flinging the whirling chopper off into the gloom. The next instant the air was full of writhing ropey lengths that whipped down on the men, lashing thick branches off as they came. "Look out!" yelled Pritchard needlessly, as the men cowered and ducked, arms flung over their heads. Then something whipped about him hard, stinging and driving the breath from him. He felt himself swung up, his arms pinioned. He caught a glimpse of other bodies rising with him, heard hoarse screaming and yelling. Branches lashed by him and suddenly he was looking down on the jungle from high in the air, looking down on a sea of foliage, big, dish-shaped leaves lying atop the spreading ferns. Then he was curving down again, dizzyingly. He saw it. A great maw, like the throat of an orchid, with a fringe of giant tentacles. It seemed to be rushing up at him.