Jed tried to put down this kind of talk when it came up. He reminded them it was Lotus Land thinking, and would be the ruination of a prime bunch of colonists. He reminded them they'd been through hardships worse than this, and had ought to keep their wits about them. Funny thing, though. He couldn't get very excited about it. Just did it because it was his duty. Maybe not even that strong, maybe because once upon a time, long ago, hardly remembered, it had been his duty. It was the next day that things got real rough. Somebody, in a clearer-thinking moment, said they couldn't be sure when the rescue ship would get here; that when the rescuers came and didn't see any village they wouldn't know what to think--maybe they'd just go away. Shows we weren't thinking so straight after all, to believe that you'd go away just because you didn't find our village. Anyhow, hadn't we ought to work out some kind of a message? Maybe scrape some kind of a message on the ground? They decided the smooth sand above the tide line down on the sea shore was the best place for it. Nobody had anything else to do, so the whole colony, all forty of them, walked the couple of miles down to the seashore. They picked out a nice stretch of white sand, and with a broken piece of driftwood they started to scratch a message, just a big SOS. The driftwood wriggled out of their hands like a snake. Nobody could hold it. Several men tried together, made no difference. Somebody started scooping out a furrow with his hands. The furrow closed up and smoothed out right behind him. Somebody tried piling up sand, first in letters, then in code signals. Made no difference. Sand smoothed right out again. Then somebody got a bright idea. All right, he said. Didn't need to use a stick, or scoop out a furrow, or pile up the sand. They had their bare feet, didn't they? They could tromp out the letters that way. Footprints, close together, would be as good as a furrow. That's when it happened. Jed tried it himself. And his footprints disappeared. They just weren't there. Everybody looked behind himself, where he'd been walking. Nobody was leaving any footprints. That's when they bolted in panic. 17 Jed looked quickly at Cal when he told him how the colonists had spooked, bolted in panic. As if he expected disbelief. "Maybe that seems funny to you," he commented. "After taking so much we'd spook like crazy animals and hightail for the woods over not making footprints." "Pretty fundamental thing," Cal said with a shrug. "Animals are aware of spoor long before they are aware of tools. It hit deep down into fundamental being, a thing like that."