"I saw a valley; I think I can find it again. When Towahg guided me back to the ship, when we were here before, I saw the valley beyond the third range of hills. We go up Fire Valley; follow the stream that comes in from the side—"
"Water?" Chet questioned.
"Yes; I saw a lake."
"Cover? Trees? Not the man-eating ones?"
"Everything: open ground, hills, woods. It looked good to me then; it will look a lot better now," said Walt enthusiastically.
"Walk faster," said Chet; "I'm stepping on your heels."
They reached the valley floor some distance above the fumerole and the clouds of poison gas; and the march began. The attack of the flying reptiles had taught them the danger of exposure in the open, and they kept close to the trees that fringed the valley.
Once Chet left them and vanished among the trees, to return with the body of an animal slung over one shoulder.
"Moon-pig!" he told the others. "Ask Doctor Kreiss if you want to know its species and ancestry and such things. All I know is that it has got hams, and I am going to roast a slice or so before we start."