"Absolutely—right now is the best chance we'll ever have, and something tells me that we'd better make it snappy. They'll be back, and next time they won't be so easy to take."
"All x, then—hold me, Steve, I can't stand the sight of that—-let alone wade through it. I'm going to faint or something, sure."
"As you were!" he snapped. "You aren't going to pass out now that it's all over! It's a pretty ghastly mess, I know, but shut your eyes and I'll carry you out of sight."
"Aren't we out of sight of that place yet?" she demanded after a time.
"I have been for quite a while," he confessed, "but you're sitting pretty, aren't you? And you aren't very heavy—not here on Ganymede, anyway!"
"Put me down!" she commanded. "After that crack I won't play with you any more at all—I'll pick up my marbles and go home!"
He released her and they hurried hack toward their waterfall, keeping wary eyes sharp-set for danger in any form, animal or vegetable. On the way back across the foothills Stevens shot another hexaped, and upon the plateau above the river Nadia bagged several birds and small animals, but it was not until they were actually in their own little canyon that their rapid pace slackened and their vigilance relaxed.
"After this, ace, we hunt together and we go back to wearing armor while we're hunting. It scared me out of a year's growth when you checked up missing."
"We sure do, Steve," she concurred emphatically. "I'm not going to get more than a meter away from you from now on. What do you suppose those horrible things are?"
"Which?"