John Drinkard caught the loop lowered to him. Its texture was strange to his mountaineer's hands. It was down-soft, warm to the touch, and he felt its strength instinctively. He climbed it easily, hand over hand. The stranger stood three strides back from the crevasse lip, negligently holding the rope with one heavy-gauntleted hand--yet he was slender, slight of build, and when Drinkard rose to his feet, he towered over his rescuer. Big John thrust out his hand. "Well, thanks. Lucky for me _somebody_ has sense enough to walk around ice cracks." The man seemed to hesitate, then extended his own gloved hand. "You must not mind the glove," he said. "It is for your protection. The hand has not yet cooled." * * * * * John Drinkard was glad of the dimness of the moonlight, for his jaw dropped. But the man turned promptly away. "Come," he said, "I have made an easy way. The one with the swollen foot is concerned for you." John Drinkard, who had climbed scores of peaks up and down the Rockies, followed and felt like a tenderfoot. The man's odd voice and stilted phrases tantalized him, yet he knew they were not entirely strange. And the matter of the hot hand.... Drinkard dropped back a couple of paces. The man was setting his booted feet into a line of holes that had not been on the glacier earlier; Drinkard would have sworn to that. They made the traverse of the ice field a simple matter. As they approached the glacier's edge, Drinkard realized that he could see his companion with an amazing clarity. He seemed limned with a dim red glow, which grew brighter with each step. In a few moments, he became as a man outlined in flame, and Drinkard could feel a warmth radiating from him. Yet the snow did not melt under his tread. "It is the boots," said his guide, just as though Drinkard had spoken his thoughts aloud. "They insulate." John Drinkard held onto his poise with something of an effort. "Thank you," he managed drily. "Not only do you light up, but you pick brains. They're both good tricks." The man ahead chuckled tentatively. "A joke," he said, but it was almost a question. "He really doesn't know," thought John Drinkard in astonishment. "That is true," admitted his guide. "Everything else I understand with ease. Even the many kinds of speech are not difficult. But only on Earth are there jokes. We can never be sure about them." "We, huh? I thought a gag like this would take cooperation. How many of you boys are in on it?" They had left the ice and were threading along the little ledge that gave onto the boulder field. "We are four," said the man. He seemed to sense no sarcasm in the question. Drinkard noted, almost without surprise, that the ruddy glow had faded completely and that the man was simply a dark silhouette ahead. * * * * *