"Not me," Harry said. "Guess I was too busy studying unpaid bills. What's a Wompan?"
"I quit too," Talbot Kramer said suddenly. "You can't expect a hunter to hang around when the bearers have quit on you. Not anyways, with a Wompan around camp."
"Will somebody please tell me," Harry begged, "what a Wompan is?"
"I'll take the swamp-buggy," Kramer said, getting ready to go outside.
"The hell you will," Harry and I both said together.
"Listen. You guys owe me some wages. I know you don't have the cash, but I'm not complaining. I'll take the swamp-buggy. Hell, its the only way out of here anyways."
"Some friend," said Harry. "We won't have any way out ourselves. We'll be trapped in this damn swamp."
"Trapped?" Kramer said incredulously. "Did you say trapped? It's your place of business. There's all the food you need—in the swamp. What's your hurry to leave? Besides, Mr. Gil Roberts here told himself: one of these days you're going to get a lot of rich customers coming in with their own spaceships. Well, got to be going now."
We went outside with him and over to the squat, ugly shape of the swamp-buggy. The treads were a foot deep in mud, a normal state of affairs for the swamp-buggy. It would run, though. It would take Talbot Kramer, ex big-game hunter with a reputation and not much else, back to an outpost of civilization. And leave us without a guide if we ever got any customers.
"If you give us a little time," I said as Kramer climbed into the buggy through the roof hatch.