The box now held four men, three rabbits--panting in terror in one
corner--half a dozen game birds and the just-arrived porcupine. All
the wild creatures shrank away from the men. At any sudden movement
the birds tended to fly hysterically about in the dimness, dashing
themselves against the metal wall.

"I'd say," observed Lockley, "that his guess," he nodded at the tall
man, "is the most likely one. Rabbits and birds and porcupines would
be considered specimens of the local living creatures. We could be
considered specimens too. Maybe we are. Maybe we're simply being held
caged until there's time for a scientific examination of us. Let's
hope they don't happen to drop a bear down here to wait with us!"

The tall man said, "Or rattlers! I wonder what time it is. I'll feel
better when dark comes. They're not so likely to find rattlers in the
dark."

Lockley said nothing. But if Boulder Lake had been chosen for a
landing place on the basis of previously acquired information, it
wasn't likely that either bears or rattlesnakes would be put in
confinement with the men. The men would have been killed immediately,
unless there was a practical use to be made of them. He began to make
guesses. He could make a great many, but none of them added up exactly
right.

Only one seemed promising, and that assumed a lot of items Lockley
couldn't be sure of. He did know, though, that he'd been lifted up
before he was dropped into the round opening of this tank-like metal
shell. The top of the box was well above ground. It was not sunk in
place as it would eventually be. Evidently it was not yet in its