The Dragon Slayers

Bliss Kenton had not gone far from their Venusian jungle cabin that morning before the vacuum snake hung one on her. The thick, two-foot-long pest lay very still on the ground, and she only got a glimpse of it before it jumped. Out it whipped to its full, slim, six-foot length and wrapped around her throat. Fangs struck, and in three seconds--with a loud _slurp_--it had withdrawn a quart of her blood. Then it unwrapped just as swiftly as it had come, and leaped into the cover of the jungle.

The hefty young matron wobbled back to the cabin.

"Pole!" she called as she hurried in. "I've been slurped!"

"Again?" her lanky husband asked, looking up from the reports on his desk.

"I'm so sorry, Pole," she said contritely.

"Well, sit down and start recovering, Bliss," he said in a kindly manner. "You can't pick any pretzins today."

"But I wanted to pick pretzins, Pole. Darn that vacuum snake and his fast draft."

"I just hope the neighborhood dragon doesn't come around while you're in that weakened condition, Bliss," Pole worried as he totaled up the month's production on his reports. He decided, "I had better take time off from pretzin hunting today so I can be handy to help you with your getaway, if need arises."

"Oh, the dragon never bothers us," Bliss said uneasily.

"He has gotten close enough to burn up several of our pretzin patches, though. He may get to this cabin some day."

"He doesn't mean any harm," defended Bliss. "I'm sure he wouldn't want to eat us. They are known to be strictly vegetarians."

"No, he won't eat us. He'll cook us, unless we can run away fast enough--but he'll never eat us."

They heard a faraway sound.

"What is that crisp crackling that sounds like a dank forest burning?" wondered Bliss.

Pole scrambled to the door. "The dragon is coming! He's headed straight for this cabin!"

"Shall we be going?" asked Bliss, grabbing her clothes.

A few minutes later, at a distance of a thousand yards, Pole and Bliss, loaded with all their portable possessions, watched their cabin burst into flames as a roaring, forty-foot lizard, with fifty-foot flames gouting from his mouth, ambled through their clearing.

"There, he's gone," said Pole as the dragon passed on. "I'd better put out the fire."

Dipping water from a nearby pond with a bucket, Pole had, after fifty-three fast buckets, a blackened ruin of what had formerly been their rude jungle cabin.

Pole moved a new, nearly finished split-pole settee he had been working on back in the jungle to their front porch. As they seated themselves, he complacently surveyed the slits burned between the charred boards of the walls and roof. "The roof will leak a mite when it rains, but it will let in lots of light," he observed optimistically.