From her handbag, she took out a small address book and a pencil, found a blank sheet at the back, and drew the following diagrams: A | D | G --------- B | E | H --------- C | F | I . | . | . J | M | P --------- .K | N.| Q. --------- L | O | R . . . \ S / V \ /T / \ / U \ . \ W / . Z\ /X . / \ / Y \ . "See?" she said. "It's very simple, really. You just remember the position of each letter in its portion of the diagram, and draw the corresponding shape instead of the letter; a square for E, square-plus-dot for N, an L-shape for G, same with a dot for P, an inverted V-shape for U--" "I get it," I said. "Gad, it looks positively runic when you write that way." Snow put the address book back into her bag. "So that's what I found scratched onto that supporting beam. The message said, simply: SNOW I AM ALL RIGHT FIND CLATCLIT THE SUGARFOOT AND HE WILL EXPLAIN." I stared at her. "Not a very easy task he set, was it?" "Nothing easier, as it turned out," she said airily. "Of course," she admitted, when I gave her a cold stare, "I didn't know it was easy, at the time. I was actually pretty much bewildered. I mean, I thought, like everybody else, that sugarfeet were like cats or dogs." "So how'd you accomplish locating him?" I said. She grinned. "I went into Marsport, went up to the first one I saw--they're as common as pigeons around the town--and said, feeling like a damned fool, 'Clatclit?' Instead of the blank-eyed stare of uncomprehending nonintelligence which I expected for my efforts, the thing looked to left and right, I guess to insure that no Earthmen were watching, then beckoned to me and started waddling off. Still feeling like an idiot, I followed it. It led me back toward the airstrip. For a while, I had the stupid impression that it was going to point me out the spot from which the boys had vanished, and that I'd be right back where I started." "So what happened?" I demanded impatiently. "Back of the berth where the _Phobos II_ had been, there was a slope, the beginning of the hills that surround Marsport. I followed the sugarfoot partway up the slope to a sort of cave mouth, and it gestured that I should go inside." "Okay, okay," I prodded. "You went inside, and--" Snow shook her head. "No, I didn't. If _you_ were on a strange planet, would you go into a cave after a red-scaled creature that looked like a pint-sized dragon?" She added, matter-of-factly, "Besides, there was a sign in front of the cave mouth, telling Earth people that it was forbidden to enter any of the many Martian caves that lay on the hillsides. It seems they're old volcanic tunnels, and wind like labyrinths into the planet. Some of the earlier colonists vanished there, you know." "Ye gods!" I growled. "What did you do, then? Leave the sugarfoot standing at the cave mouth like an untipped bellboy?"