“Dulnop,” said she, with a laugh in her voice, “ye will do well to seek the nut tree, first as last.”  She nonchalantly crushed another shell in her mouth.  “Neither Cunora nor I can spare good food to a kiss-hungry lout like thee!”

He only laughed again and made as though to come toward her.  She stood ready to dodge, chuckling excitedly, and he evidently gave it up as a bad job.  “Tell me whence cameth the nuts, Cunora!” he begged; but the girl pretended to be cross, and shut her mouth as firmly as its contents would allow.

Next moment there was a shout from the thicket, together with a crashing sound; and shortly the fourth Sanusian appeared.  He was by far the larger; but his size was a matter of width rather than of height.  An artist would have picked him as a model for Ajax himself.  His muscles fairly strained the huge lion’s skin in which he was clad, and he had twice the weight of Dulnop within the same height.  Also, to the doctor’s eye, he was nearer Rolla’s age.

His face was strong and handsome in a somewhat fierce, relentless way; his complexion darker than the rest.  He carried a huge club, such as must have weighed all of forty pounds, while his belt was jammed full of stone weapons.  The doctor classed him and the younger girl together because of their vigor and independence, while Dulnop and Rolla seemed to have dispositions very similar in their comparative gentleness and restraint.

“Hail, all of ye!” shouted this latest arrival in a booming baritone.  He strode forward with scarcely a glance at the two younger people; his gaze was fixed upon Rolla, his expression unmistakable.  The woman quietly turned upon Dulnop and Cunora.

“Look!” she exclaimed, pointing to a spot back of them.  “See the curious bird!” They wheeled instantly, with the unquestioning faith of two children; and before they had brought their gazes back again, the big man had seized Rolla, crushed her to his breast and kissed her passionately.  She responded just as warmly, pushing him away only in order to avoid being seen by the others.  They showed only an innocent disappointment at having missed seeing the “curious bird.”

“A simple-minded people, basically good-humored,” was the way the doctor summed the matter up when reporting what he had seen.  However, it was not so easy to analyze certain things that were said during the time the four Sanusians spent in each other’s company.  For one thing—­

“Did They give thee permission to go?” Rolla was asked by the big man.  His name, it seemed, was Corrus.

“Yes, Corrus.  They seemed to think it a good idea for us to take a little recreation to-day.  I suppose ye left thy herd with thy brother?”

He nodded; and the doctor was left to wonder whom “They” might be.  Were They a small group of humans, whose function was to superintend?  Or were They, as the books from Venus seemed to indicate, another type of creature, entirely different from the humans, and yet, because of the peculiar Sanusian conditions, superior to the humans?