"The Tarks!" Thejah Doris cried, eluding him and running to the window. "They've seen our light! Oh, my chieftain, the mortal enemies of my people threaten us once again!" "Oh, for Pete's sake!" Thon-Smith said, throwing up his hands. "No wonder my stories get bounced!" * * * * * Resignedly he went over and joined her at the window. Sure enough, the Tark horde was back in the running again. Wearily he explored his mind for the next sequence. All he could find were the words, END OF PART ONE. That was when he remembered that he'd been trying his hand at a serial and had neglected to plot it beyond the first installment. "Oh, my chieftain, what are we going to do?" He did not answer. He was thinking--thinking furiously. If a writer could write himself so completely into a story that he became physically involved in it, was there any reason why he couldn't extricate himself by writing a factual account of his real life? It was worth a try. The alternative was to plot Installment Two, and somehow he didn't feel quite up to it. Installment One had been rather an enervating experience. Abruptly another thought struck him: _Why a factual account?_ He remembered his dingy little apartment, his dilapidated typewriter, his collection of rejection slips, his nagging, flat-chested wife--Suddenly he looked at Thejah Doris standing beside him with heaving breast, anxiously watching the relentless approach of the Tarks. Why a factual account indeed! He concentrated. When he had the plot firmly fixed in his mind he sat down at the table to write. A momentary crises arose. There was no paper, no pen, not even a pencil. Then he remembered what Thejah Doris had said about the wandering bards, and he began searching for a drawer. Even Martian poets needed something to write on. Presently he found one and pulled it out. Sure enough, it contained several sheets of parchment-like paper, a long quill pen and a small vial of black fluid. The thunder of padded toat hooves was growing louder by the minute. "Oh, my chieftain, what are we going to do!" Thejah Doris cried again. "We're going to swap serials," Thon-Smith said, and began to write. * * * * * It was a fine bright morning. Harold Worthington Smith awoke late and lay for a while watching the robins flitting among the branches of the box elder outside his bedroom window. Then he got up and slipped leisurely into his lounging robe. Yawning, he stepped across the hall to his study. Below him in the kitchen his wife was humming happily, and he could smell coffee perking, wheatcakes frying and sausage sizzling.