John Thomas scrambled to his feet. "Hey, stop that!"
Lummox stopped. "What's the matter, Johnnie?" he asked in a hurt voice. There was a pile of rocks in front of him; he was just reaching for one.
"Don't throw rocks at trees."
"But you do, Johnnie."
"Yes, but I don't ruin them. It's all right to eat trees, but don't just spoil them."
"I'll eat them. I was going to."
"All right." Johnnie looked around. It was dusk, they could start again in a few minutes. "Go ahead and have them for supper. Here, wait a minute." He examined Lummox's arms. They were the same color as the rest of him, and beginning to get armor hard. But the most striking change was that they were twice as thick as they had been at first-as big around as Johnnie's thighs. Most of the loose hide had sloughed off; Johnnie found that he could tear off the rest. "Okay. Chow time."
Lummox finished the aspens in the time it took John Thomas to prepare and eat his simple meal, and was ready to eat the empty container as a sweet. It was dark by then; they took to the road.
The second night was even less eventful than the first. It grew steadily colder as they wound even higher; presently Johnnie plugged the power pack of his sleeping bag into his suit. Shortly he was warm and drowsy. "Lum-if I go to sleep, call me when it starts to get light."
"Okay, Johnnie." Lummox stored the order in his after brain, just in case. Cold did not bother him, he was not conscious of it, as his body thermostat was more efficient than was Johnnie's-even more efficient than the one controlling the power pack.
John Thomas dozed and woke up and dozed. He was dozing when Lummox called him, just as the first rays brushed distant peaks. Johnnie sat up and began watching for a place to pull out and hide. Luck was against him; it was straight up on one side and the other side swung over a deep, dismal drop. As minutes wore away and it turned broad daylight he began to get panicky.
But there was nothing to do but plod ahead.
A stratoship passed in the distance. He could hear the thunderclap, but he could not see it; he could only hope that it was not scanning for him. A few minutes later, while searching all around, he spotted behind them a dot that he hoped was an eagle.
Very soon he was forced to admit that it was a single human in a flight harness. "Stop, Lummox! Pull over to the wall. You're a landslide."
"A landslide, Johnnie?"
"Shut up and do it!" Lummox shut up and did it. John Thomas slid down and hid behind Lummox's head, making himself small. He waited for the flier to pass over.
The flier did not pass, but swooped in a familiar shoot-the-works style and came in for a landing. Johnnie sighed with relief as Betty Sorenson landed on the spot he had just vacated. She called out, "Howdy, Lummie," then turned to Johnnie, put her hands on her hips and said, "Well! Aren't you a pretty sight! Running off without telling me!"
"Uh, I meant to, Slugger, I really did. But I didn't have a chance to... I'm sorry."
She dropped her fierce expression and smiled. "Never mind. I think better of you than I have in some time. At least you did something. Johnnie, I was afraid you were just a big lummox yourself-pushed around by anybody."
John Thomas decided not to argue, being too pleased to see her to take offense. "Uh... well, anyway, how did you manage to spot us?"
"Huh? Knothead, you've been gone two nights and you are still only a short flight from town... how could you expect not to be spotted?"
"Yes, but how did you know where to look?"
She shrugged. "The old rule: I thought like a mule and went where the mule would. I knew you would be along this road, so I started out at barely 'can-see' and swooped along it. And if you don't want to be caught in the next few minutes we had better boost out of here and get under cover. Come on! Lummie old boy, start your engines."
She put down a hand and Johnnie swung aboard; the procession started up. "I've been trying to get off the road," Johnnie explained nervously, "but we haven't come to a spot."
"I see. Well, hold your breath, 'cause around this bend is Adam-and-Eve Falls and we can get off the road just above them."
"Oh, is that where we are?"
"Yes." Betty leaned forward in a futile attempt to see around a rock shoulder ahead. So doing, she caught her first glimpse of Lummox's arms. She grabbed John Thomas. "Johnnie! There's a boa constrictor on Lummie!"
"What? Don't be silly. That's just his right arm."
"His what? Johnnie, you're ill."
"Level off and quit grabbing me. I said 'arms'-those tumor things were arms."
"The tumors... were arms?" She sighed. "I got up too early and I haven't had breakfast. I can't take shocks like that. All right, tell him to stop. I got to see this."
"How about getting under cover?"
"Oh. Yes, you're right You're usually right, Johnnie-two or three weeks late."
"Don't strain yourself. There are the falls." They passed the falls; the floor of the canyon thereby came up to meet them. John Thomas took the first chance to get off the road, a spot like their bivouac of the day before. He felt much better to have Lummox back under thick trees again. While he prepared breakfast, Betty examined Lummox's brand-new arms.
"Lummox," she said reprovingly, "you didn't tell mama about this."
"You didn't ask me," he objected.
"Excuses, always excuses. Well, what can you do with them?"
"I can throw rocks. Johnnie, is it all right?"
"No!" John Thomas said hastily. "Betty, how do you want your coffee?"
"Just bare-footed," she answered absently and went on inspecting the limbs. There was a notion hovering in her mind about them, but it would not light . which annoyed her, as she expected her mind to work for her with the humming precision of a calculator and no nonsense, please! Oh, well... breakfast first.
After they had fed the dirty dishes to Lummox, Betty lounged back and said to John Thomas, "Problem child, have you any idea what a storm you have stirred up?"
"Uh, I guess I've got Chief Dreiser's goat."
"No doubt and correct. But you might as well turn it loose; there won't be room in the pen."
"Mr. Perkins?"
"Right. Keep trying."
"Mum, of course."
"Of course. She alternates between weeping for her lost baby and announcing that you are no son of hers?'
"Yeah. I know Mum," he admitted uneasily. "Well, I don't care... I knew they'd all be sore at me. But I had to."
"Of course you had to, Knothead darling, even though you did it with the eager grace of a hippopotamus. But I don't mean them."
"Huh?"
"Johnnie, there is a little town in Georgia named Adrian. It's too small to have a regular safety force, just a constable. Do you happen to know that constable's name?"
"Huh? Of course not."
"Too bad. For as near as I was able to find out, that constable is the only cop who isn't looking for you, which is why I rallied around-even though you, you dirty name, ran off without bothering to alert me."
"I told you I was sorry!"
"And I forgave you. I'll let you forget it in ten years or so."
"What's this nonsense about this constable? And why should everybody be out after me? Aside from Chief Dreiser, I mean?"
"Because he has put out a general alarm and offered a reward for Lummie, alive or dead... preferably dead. They are serious about it, Johnnie... terribly serious. So whatever plan you had we now junk and shift to a good one. What did you have in mind? Or did you?"
John Thomas turned pale and answered slowly, "Well... I meant to keep on like this for a night or two, until we reached a place to hide."
She shook her head. "No good. In their stumbling official way they will have concluded by now that this is where you would head... since it is the only place near Westville where a creature the size of Lummox could possibly hide. And..."