Filled with quick visions, he'd figured his treasure up on the spot. It would cost about fifty dollars a ton to get it out of the swamp, smelt the asphalt and ship the ore to Earth. On Earth xanite ore was worth over a thousand dollars a ton. Then the fates ran amuck. His plane's fuel tank sprang a leak. Flip lost every drop of the reserve that was to carry him back to the mainland. The mainland was 25,000 miles away. Then his sending set blew a transformer and he couldn't radio for help. Last, while trying to ascertain his position on the receiving set, he heard that I.M.C.--Interstellar Metallurgical Company--had just opened a gigantic xanite deposit on Mars. The Market quoted xanite now at twenty dollars a ton. Venusian xanite suddenly wasn't worth swamp water. "It shore is too bad," continued Charlie with smiling sympathy. "You probably wished it on me," said Flip, "so you could have company on this mildewed damn island." That was the one blessing in his barrage by malevolent fates--he'd glided to Charlie's island and the old fellow, one of many of his kind in the Venusian swamps, had placed his metal shack, his canned beans and his _loku_ at Flip's disposal. To all of which he was doomed till the supply ship came around after the rains--forty days ahead. "I wish one of your pirates would show up," mused Flip. "I might could bum a ride out of here." "Don't wish that, boy," said Charlie with quick seriousness. "I've been pretty lucky so far but I told you about the fellow who used to be here--he's buried out yonder in the mud. These here Venusian pirates're about the meanest critters you find anywheres." "They come around during the nights, huh." "Yeah, when the season's catch is ready for packing. They kill the fellow and take his pelts. You quit talking about pirates, boy. They'd just as soon skin you as an otter." "Say! What about this female pirate I heard about on the mainland?" "Captain Vixen? I never seen her--never knew nobody that had. She don't come out here and the natives won't talk about her. But you can bet your Sunday space-togs she's behind this swamp raiding--she runs everything on the mainland, about ruined the big industries there. Supposed to be a native queen back in the hills; hates foreigners. They say she's nursed scorpions and killed men with her fingernails." "Pretty tough date, huh." And now the twilight was coming on, it was starting to rain--and soon it would be blackness and constant rain for forty dreary days. "Oh, hell," yawned Flip. "And I didn't bring my bathing suit." He joined Charlie in a drink. * * * * * The thirty-eighth century Haliburton and the Black Swamp Bacchus were doing nicely with the sixteenth verse of _Lulu Drank Loku on Pluto_ when one of the more technical gestures necessary to the famous ditty caused the bottle to be overturned. "Now look what you've done," said Flip. "We've got only enough left for thirty-nine days."