He put down his tools and headed toward a clump of oddly-shaped trees near the forest's rim. As he neared them he whistled. The temperature of the Lakes region must have changed. They were palms! It was only then that he turned to look back at the _Time Bubble_. He was thinking that Horn would be interested in his discovery of this tropical growth so far north. His eyes blinked stupidly. He blinked again. The _Time Bubble's_ ugly ovoid of space-scarred metal was gone! * * * * * Several hours had passed since the space ship's uncanny disappearance. The Earthman was picking his way along a narrow game trail in the semi-twilight of the mighty forest that crowded close up to Lake Erie's shoreline. Caution had impelled him to seek safety in the wilderness until the truth about the spacer's disappearance was revealed. The trail cut across a rock-strewn highway, deeply-rutted by wheeled vehicles. Just across the way, half-hidden by a tangle of wild vines and brush, was a small log cabin. Smoke oozed slowly skyward from its mud-daubed stick chimney. The odor of cooking meat sent Orth trotting hungrily across the road. He had forgotten any possible danger until an arrow hissed viciously past his ear. He dropped forward on his belly in a shallow depression soggy with dead leaves. A second arrow thwocked lightly through the gray-barked tangle of brush that his head was ramming into. His fingers went to the flat pocket machine gun that all three scientists aboard the _Time Bubble_ carried. This weapon, complete with ten thousand tiny explosive cartridges, and a compact kit of tools and essential equipment, they carried with them at all times when away from the space ship. Behind a light gray shaft of scaly bark, a huge tree's bole, something red moved. His machine gun slapped a dozen needle-sized slugs at the half-seen target. The explosions splintered and ripped at the tree's thick trunk. The red thing leaped clear, yelling. Before Devin could stop his weapon, it stepped into several small incredibly bright explosions. [Illustration: _Before Devin could stop firing, the thing leaped clear, yelling._] Then, from the cabin, a broad-shouldered young man emerged. He was clad somewhat after the fashion of the early American pioneers: fur cap, shapeless brown homespun shirt, rough skinny-legged trousers, and thick-soled moccasins. In his hands he lifted a cumbersome weapon, having six wooden barrels or tubes, from each of which protruded a sharp-pointed metal dart. "There been trouble?" he cried out in badly mangled but understandable English. For an instant Orth was stunned by the wonder of it. After three million years--a man speaking English! "Shot at me from over there," he told the frontiersman warily. The man catfooted over to the scarred tree, his clumsy weapon poised ready. He grunted something in badly garbled English. Then he motioned to the Earthman to join him. "Redskin," he told Orth.