and is a chance I won't get back. You'll have to keep on hiking."

He plodded on. His memory of the terrain around the mining settlement
told him that there was no definite destination in the girl's mind.
But she was in no such despair as to want deliberately to be lost.
She'd guessed, Calhoun believed, that if there were Darians on the
planet, they'd keep the landing-grid under observation.

If they saw her leave that area and could see that she was alone, they
should intercept her to find out the meaning of the Med Ship's
landing. Then she could identify herself as one of them and give them
the terribly necessary warning of Weald's suspicions.

"But," said Calhoun sourly, "if she's right, they'll have seen me
marching after her now, which spoils her scheme. And I'd like to help
it, but the way she's going is too dangerous!"

He went down into one of the hollows of the uneven plain. He saw a
clump of a dozen or so cattle a little distance away. The bull looked
up and snorted. The cows regarded him truculently. Their air was not
one of bovine tranquility.

He was up the farther hillside and out of sight before the bull worked
himself up to a charge. Then Calhoun suddenly remembered one of the
items in the data about cattle he'd looked into just the other day. He
felt himself grow pale.

"Murgatroyd!" he said sharply. "We've got to catch up! Fast! Stay with
me if you can, but--" he was jog-trotting as he spoke--"even if you
get lost I have to hurry!"