"Perhaps if we succeed in killing a couple of them the others will stop to devour them, thus giving us another chance to get closer to the wood," I argued with an assumed optimism.
As we waited for the next move of our antagonists, we heard a loud shout in the direction from which we had come. Looking quickly up, I saw a man seated upon the back of a four footed animal at the rim of the depression in which we stood.
At the sound of the human voice, the beasts surrounding us looked in the direction of the interruption and immediately commenced to cackle. The man on the beast rode slowly down toward us, and as he came to the ring of beasts they moved aside and let him pass through their savage ranks.
"It is fortunate for you that I came when I did," said the stranger, as the beast he rode stopped in front of us; "these kazars of mine are a ferocious lot." He was eyeing us intently, especially Duare. "Who are you, and where are you from?" he demanded.
"We are strangers, and we are lost," I replied. "I am from California." I did not wish to tell him that we were from Vepaja until we knew more of him. If he was a Thorist he was an enemy; and the less he knew about us the better, especially that we were from the country of Mintep, the jong, than whom the Thorists have no more bitter enemy.
"California," he repeated. "I never heard of such a country. Where is it?"
"In North America," I replied, but he only shook his head. "And who are you," I asked, "and what country is this?"
"This is Noobol, but that of course you already know. This part of it is known as Morov. I am Skor, the jong of Morov. But you have not told me your names."
"This is Duare," I replied, "and I am Carson." I did not give my surname as they are seldom used on Venus.