The Red Dust

rest o

against Burl's shoulder while he told her in little, jerky sentences of his pursuit of the colossal

e had faced it, Saya pressed close and looked at him with wondering and wonderful eyes. She could understand

lmost convinced that he looked upon the living dead. A sudden movement on the part of either of them would have sent him in a panic back into the mushroom forest.

onvinced that Saya had fallen a victim to the deadly dust. Instead, they found her sit

the seated pair. Burl spoke again, and presently one of the bravest dared approach and touch him. Instantly a babble of the crude and l

enn? from the flying beetle that he had torn from its dead body. They looked at them, and recognized their origin. Amazement and admiration showed upon their faces. Then Burl rose and a

e less steadily. Burl led his people across the country, marching in advance and with every nerve al

Burl. The man who had thrown away his spear had recovered it on an order from Burl, and the little party fairly bristle

pending upon their legs for escape. He had led them in an attack upon great slugs, but they were defe

lly if it came while their new awe of him held good, h

The clouds toward the west were taking on a dull-red hue, which was the nearest to a sunset that was ever s

insect's hind legs. The bees of the world had a hard time securing food upon the nearly flowerless planet, but this o

rapidity of their vibration. Burl saw its many-faceted eyes staring before it in wo

d in a thicket of toadstools. It darted swiftly and gracefully upon the bee, which swerved and tried to flee. The droning buzz of the

ightly more than four feet in length, but the bee was much the heav

e bee at a point almost over the heads of the tribesmen. In a clawing, biting tangle of thrashing, transparent wings a

bee was struggling desperately to insert her sting in the more supple body of her

in, and there was an instant of confusion. Then suddenly the bee, dazed, was upright with the wasp upon her. A movement too quick fo

ppen next. When he saw the second act of the tragedy well begun, Burl snapped quick and harsh order

ith fighting creatures the size of the wasp, but the idea of attacking the great creatures whose sharp stings could annihilate any of them with a to

ad the bee arrived safely at the hive, the sweet and sticky liquid would have been disgorged and added to the hival store. Now, though the bee's journey was ended and its flesh was to be crunche

e the disgorgement of the honey from the bee's crop, and with feverish eagerness it pressed upon the limp body until the shin

milar feat, and it was recorded in books moldered into dust long ages before Burl's birth that its rapture w

ould continue its feast even though seized by a greater enemy, unable

ged by its dead prey. It ate in gluttonous haste, blind to all sights, deaf to all sounds, ab

the slender-waisted gourmet, however, and Burl was the first to t

club fell with terrific impact upon the slender waist. There was a crackling, and the long,

ves, helpless for harm. The pink-skinned men danced in tri

nd pierced with spears, its slender tongue licked out in one

the wasp's muscular limbs, the tribe resumed its journey. This time Burl had men behind him, still timi

ose spear had struck the first blow. Henceforth they were sharers, in a mild way, of his transcendent glory, and henceforth they we

of their good spirits. He and Saya sat a little apart, happy to be near each other, speaking in low tones. After a time darkness fell, and the tribefolk became s

y Burl remained awake for a little while, and his last waking thought was of pride, disinteres

less numerous than in the territory from which the tribe had fled. All along the route, now to

slowly spreading cloud of death-dealing spores. Once or twice their

ying in the night. Only the obvious disadvantages of such a course-the difficulty of discovering food, and the prowling spiders that roamed in t

ng to avoid the suddenly appearing clouds of dust. Once they had been nearly hemmed in, and only by mad sprint

mushrooms. They had seen mushroom forests before, and knew of the dangers they presented, but there was none so deadly as the plain before

g more or less than a cloud of the deadly spores, dispersed and inde

ints here and there upon the plain, settling slowly again, but leaving behind them enough of their f

monster beetles stalked, and above whose shadowed depths no brightly colored butterflies fluttered in joyous abandon. There were no loud-voiced crickets singing in its hiding-places, nor bodies of eagerly foraging ants searching

burst at night, and the deadly dust from a subsided cloud was not deadly in the morning. As a matter of fact the rain

ushrooms was slight. Therefore he would lead his people through the very jaws of death that night. He would l

om observing one thing that would have ended all the struggles of his tribe at once. Perhaps a quarter-mile from t

sometimes covered them. Burl saw them, but the oddity of their immunity from the effects of the red dust did not strik

known. The slugs breathed through a row of tiny holes upon their backs, as the mature insects breathed through holes upon the bottom of their abdomens, and the soft fur formed a mat of felt which arrested

idly reaching a point where it would follow Burl over a thousand-foot cliff, and it needed some s

the night, but he knew that the beetle on which he had taken his involuntary ride had crashed against one in the darkness, and that

stantly in their nostrils. They put out their hands and touched the flabby, damp stalks of the mo

hen they could not reach out their hands and touch a fungus growth that might burst at their tou

lindly through the utter blackness, not knowing whether they were headed toward the river that might be their s

fight for breath in the red haze that would float like a tenuous cloud above the forest? Would they brea

ere like heavy, cold weights in their breasts, and they shouldered aside the swollen sacs of th

ar by-moths, perhaps, that had blundered into a distended growth whi

rved the sanctuary of malignance inviolate. During the day no creature might hope to approach its red aisles and

allously rubbed shoulders with death in the form of the red and glistening mushrooms. Over all the dank expanse of the fore

ular clearing, and the twisted, monstrous forms of the deadly mushrooms were all about. There was not yet enough light for colors to appear, and the hideous, almost obscene sha

feathery moth's antenn? bound upon his forehead shadowed darkly

e ripple of running water. His followers looked at him with dawning hope. Without a word, Burl b

brownish-red stalks and were upon the banks of a wide and swiftly running river, the same r

ourney had been involuntary and unlooked for. He had been carried far from

t his eyes up and down the bank. Here and there the river-bank rose

spear and striving to wrench them free. The tribesmen stared at

to explain what they were to do, but one or two of the men dared remonstrate, saying humbly that they were afraid to

on the red mushrooms would begin to shoot their columns of deadly dust int

dozen long, irregular pieces, tearing it along the lines of the sinews that reinforced it. He planted his spear upright in the largest piece of shelf-fungus

he water, clustered about the larger, central bit. Then, one

mewhat frightened pink-skinned people all about them. And, as they began to move between the mushroom-lined banks of the river and the mist of the night began to lift from its surface, far in t

h, a reddish taint remained in the air about the place where it had been. The deadly r

shrooms grew less numerous upon the banks. Other growths took their places. Molds and rusts covered the ground as grass had done in ages past. Mushrooms showed their creamy, rounded heads. Malformed things

rance again. Bees once more droned overhead, and wasps and dragon-flies. Four-inch mosquitoes made their appearance, to be fought off by the trib

rent ecstasy from the mere fact of existence, and all the thousand and one forms of insect l

o Saya, with some excitement, their silver breast-plates that shone as they darted under the water again. And the shell-covered boats of a thousand caddis-worms floated in the

ernoon came, the character of the country about the stream changed. The banks fell away, and the current slackened. The shores became indefinite, and the riv

things that were stationary, and did not move with the current, appeared. They were the leaves of water-lilies, that had remained with the giant cabbages and a v

sed between rows of the great leaves, with here and there a colossal, waxen blossom in which

n either side, and actually was the discordant croaking of the giant frogs, grown to eight feet in length, which lived and loved in the huge sw

ous croakings-the green bodies of the frogs blended queerly with the vivid color of the water-lily leaves. Dragon-flies fluttered in their swift and angular flight above the black

e flitting from blossom to blossom of the tremendous water-lilies, loadin

in the swamps the atmosphere was so heavily laden with moisture that the bodies of the tribefolk were covered with glistening droplets,

ow-flowing water. And butterflies of every imaginable shade and color, from the most delicate lavender to the most vivid carmine, danced and fluttered,

gazed with wide eyes at the beauty about them, and drew in great breaths of the intoxicati