She halted again, swung and studied him with more of that disdainful curiosity. "'Tis a gruel-brained idiot," she decided, as if to herself. "For that they cast him out. Methought 'twas strange that a man should flee, of himself, from sure shelter and victual." It was raining harder. The great roof of vegetation only partially broke that downpour. It sluiced away the coating of mud from Planter, and soaked his stout garments through. He felt miserable in the dampness, but his girl guide throve, if anything, in the drops that struck and rolled down her bare arms and shoulders. He saw, too, that she followed something of a trail among the stalks and stems. It was barely wider than his own stalwart shoulders could pass, and wound crazily here and there; but one must stick to it, for to right and left the jungle grew thicker than a basket. He called out again. "Miss! Young lady!" She turned, as before. "What now?" "This path--what is it? Did you make it? Tell me things." He made a gesture of appeal, for she was putting on that look of contempt once more. "You see, I'm no more than an hour old on this planet--" "Od so! Your brain is younger than that. Leave me, I have no time for idiots." Abruptly she stiffened, widened her eyes, lifted a finger to her red lips for silence. The two of them stood close together in the misty rain, their ears sharpened. Planter heard what she had heard--a rustling, crunching approach, along some other angle of the jungle path. The girl wrenched apart two sappy lengths of vine, and with a jerk of her head bade Planter slip through into the great thicket. He did so, and she followed. Turning, her lithe body close against his, she brought her crossbow to the ready. "Danger?" whispered Planter, and she nodded bleakly. The approach was coming near. Planter judged that whatever threatened them was two-legged, weighty, and great-lunged--many yards off, it wheezed like a faulty engine. His companion's ears were better than his, or more experienced. She gauged the nearness of the stranger, and the crossbow went to her shoulder like a rifle. Planter saw that it operated on a spring trigger that would trip a latch and release the string. The bow, violently recovering from its bending, would force the missile along a groove in the top of the stock. All parts--stock, bow, and string--were of some massive dark metal, apparently treated with grease to save it from the constant dampness. The missile itself was not an arrow, but seemed the size and shape of a silvery fountain pen. Planter burned to ask questions about it; but the enemy was in sight by now, something of mottled green and black that shouldered upright along the way between the thickets.