Yet four hours later they were jerked awake by the sound of her screams, faint and terrified in the night shadows of the forest. They found her a thousand yards from the cottage. Her back was against a wall of boulders and with her frail, white hands she was trying to beat off a snarling cougar which had already clawed her uniform to shreds. * * * * * Lanny drew his knife and leaped at the animal. Gill threw a stone which might have broken the skull with bullet force, but at that moment the cougar whirled toward them. Its claw slashed at Lanny. He bent low, driving his knife upward. Momentum carried the big cat forward. As the tearing fury struck his chest, Lanny plunged his knife again into the thick hide. The cougar fell, writhing and howling. Gill smashed a broken tree limb into the yawning jaws, and the big cat died. Tak Laleen stumbled toward them. She tried to speak. The words of gratitude choked in her throat and she fainted. Again! Lanny thought, with disgust. The Almost-men--or at least their missionary women--had a limited gamut of emotional reactions. It seemed an inadequate way to solve a problem. They left Tak Laleen where she lay. Gill expertly stripped off the skin of the animal they had killed, another hide they could fashion into a jacket for Juan Pendillo. Lanny had been superficially wounded--a long, shallow scratch across his chest. He examined it carefully, feeling through the severed body cells with his mind and directing the blood purifiers to seal off the few germ colonies which were present. When the skin seemed to require no healing exposure to the sun, he allowed the scratch to heal at once. Gill shouldered the cougar hide, still warm and dripping blood. Lanny picked up the missionary and they returned to the cottage. Tak Laleen's uniform was torn and useless, but the material was a tough plastic which had protected her from any serious wound. Her chest and arms were criss-crossed with scores of tiny abrasions. It puzzled Lanny that she had made no effort to repair her body. It occured to him, with something of a shock, that the Almost-men might use machines to do that, too. Tak Laleen regained consciousness when Lanny put her on the bed in front of the fire. Pendillo tore off her battered uniform and bathed the scratches with hot water. "You saved me; you risked your own life!" She said it with a peculiar fervor. Lanny couldn't understand why she thought an element of risk had been involved. A hunter with half his skill and experience could have done as much. "I won't try to run away again," she promised. Not much of a concession, Lanny thought, suppressing a grin.