"It's not so barren. Far below the ice are green growing things, at least this far south there is. Those blue tube-things ride down with the ice twice a year, feed, and then migrate back to the north.
"Vegetarians, eh?" Jim grunted. "Then what were those two chewing on me for?"
"Blood's something comparatively new to them, and it seems to drive them wild. They can sense it for amazing distances. They come flocking beneath the ice to wherever anyone stops. There's a story of an Earthman who was lost up here once, and—Well, never mind. Anyway we'll take turns on guard tonight."
Jim slept fitfully. There were fragmentary nightmares of the ice opening to spew hordes of bluish tube creatures up at him. He was glad when Kaarji awakened him for his turn at guard.
But Kaarji did not return to sleep either. He seemed restless and brooding. He sat beside Jim against one of the sleds, and for a long time there was silence as he stared far out to the north with troubled eyes.
"Jim Landor," he broke the silence at last, "there is one thing I did not tell you."
"I thought there was."
"Frank Landor and I found something. The body of a man in the ice far to the north of here. It had been there a long time."
Jim merely waited for him to go on.