A few hours before it was time for the sun to set, they split up. We had been crossing one of the few level spots on the planet, a great stretch of grassland. The tall, hardy grass reached almost over my head. The Rumi were a good bit taller than I, so much taller in fact that I could see their heads above the grass when they still could not see me. I watched them split up in an attempt to cut me off from the hills which they took to be my destination. Half an hour after they split up, I killed the first of them and doubled back in the direction of the river bed. Now I had a weapon, one of those deadly Rumi heat rays called flamers. They wear them strapped to their forepaws because of their lack of a grasping hand. As I put on an extra burst of speed I wasn’t much worried about the other two. They had gotten well off the scent in their attempt to head me off and by the time they realized that they had lost me, night would have closed in and I didn’t put much store in the ability of those jungle cats to survive a night on Thirty. There were still three of them left back at the wreck and they would either have returned to their lifeboat or made a camp--I hoped it would be the latter. My luck was still holding for when I reached the river bed I found them huddled about a fire in the shelter of the wrecked Terran ship. An officer and two others made perfect targets against the firelight but I couldn’t fire because the figure of the girl sat in the circle of light near them. With such an unfamiliar and widely destructive weapon, I would be almost certain to cut her down as well as her captors. Once more I took advantage of a downwind position to work my way around their camp and in among the wreckage of the _Star Lady_. The feel of the magnesium flare in my pocket had given me an idea. If I could just panic them and spread them out where the girl wouldn’t be in my line of fire, I would have a good chance of picking them off. As silently as possible I climbed up on what remained of the fore section of the craft and dragged myself to a spot that was almost directly over their heads. In the leaping light of the fire, I looked almost squarely into the narrow, fur-covered faces of the raiders and could also see the pale, pretty face of the girl framed in blond hair. Quietly but with my heart pounding, I edged forward even closer--I had to be close--I couldn’t afford to miss. If any of them looked up now they couldn’t miss seeing me. Slowly I worked the flare out of my pocket and let it roll off the edge of the wreck. An intense white light shot upward temporarily blinding the Rumi. Two of them did just what I had hoped, they stumbled off in the direction of their lifeboat. The officer did what I had hoped they wouldn’t do, he grabbed the girl and pulled her back out of the light.