They piled a small cairn of the red rocks and Bradford planted the green and white flag of the Federated Nations. Encased in its protective covering he placed a note at its foot indicating their destination.
"We ought to sign it 'Kilroy,'" Canham grunted as they trudged forward. "Say, how far do we have to walk?"
"Around a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles."
Their concerted whistle of dismay echoing oddly in their ear-phones, they set out in thoughtful silence across the red face of Mars, the hovering dust blotting out their footprints as they went.
Three days and seventy five miles later, they huddled wearily against the face of a small cliff shivering in the icy chill of the night wind. They had found a desiccated bush or two in a protected nook during the afternoon and carried it with them. Now, they fed the wiry twigs into the fire with miserly care glad of its meager light against the haunted dark.
Rodriguez held a branch to the firelight. "Looks like a sort of poorhouse cousin to birch," he hazarded. "Wonder if they ever had forests on this God-forgotten planet?"
Palmer grinned. "Well, at least there is still life of sorts. Rutherford would have flipped his lid over those comical little fellows we saw today."
A half dozen times they had seen furry little marsupials, downy as chinchillas, their young poking out inquisitive snouts toward the interlopers and as promptly getting them slapped down again.
A flicker of motion on the perimeter of firelight caught his eye. "We've got a visitor," he whispered. "There's one of the little beggars now."