"What a planet!" exclaimed the captain philosophically. "Even the lower animals can fly; what then may we expect of the higher creatures, the intelligent races?" "You'll notice, however," said Zesmo, who had in the meantime succeeded in capturing one of these aerial dancers, "that they fly entirely without artificial aids. It is made possible by the dense atmosphere of Earth." * * * * * As we moved forward among the thick and moderately lofty vegetation, small, furred, four-legged creatures leaped out of the underbrush and scampered rapidly away. Using ray-guns at low power, we paralyzed several of these; but, after close examination, we were forced to conclude that we must look further for the intelligent inhabitants of the planet. "It's quite possible that there isn't any intelligent race," said Zesmo gloomily. "If they were very bright, I should think they'd have crossed space to Mars before now." "Don't expect too much of the poor Earthman, Zesmo," retorted Ikleek. "Remember that our own race discovered space travel only three generations ago, and that ours is the first rocket powerful enough to dare Earth's gravitational field. Due to the high velocity of escape, the development of space travel by Earthman would be very much retarded. They might have a high civilization and never get off the ground." "Aerial flight should be easy," argued Zesmo. "Look at even those ignorant little--" He was interrupted by a shrill shout from one of the crew. One and all, we turned toward the sound, and saw him hastening toward us through the trees as fast as Earth's tremendous gravity would let him, waving his tentacles and glowing with terror. "A monster!" he sputtered. "A metal monster!" We hastily adjusted our ray-guns to full power, and awaited anxiously the onslaught of whatever formidable being might come against us. We had not long to wait, for in a moment we saw approaching among the trees a fantastic creature. For some moments we gaped foolishly at the thing before we realized that it was actually a compound monster--two animals in one, so to speak. Except that one was not an animal, but evidently a machine! The Earth-monster had not yet seen us; and at this juncture I took the opportunity to hastily scribble some notes which I very shortly regretted. However, to illustrate the fact that anyone may make mistakes and that even the most apparent truths may be misinterpreted, I will here reproduce what I wrote: