Other than the plants, Blade found nothing really dangerous in the jungle as he tramped west. Or at least he found nothing really dangerous to a large, strong man in top physical condition, continuously alert, and ready to eat or drink almost anything that would keep him alive.
Blade suspected that the average backpacker from Home Dimension might have lasted no more than two or three days.
Three times Blade saw the animals that left the long-toed clawed footprints. They were catlike, with long tails, smooth grayish-blue coats, enormous tufted ears, and pale green eyes. The largest of them couldn't have weighed more than eighty pounds, but half that weight seemed to be claws and teeth and the rest muscle and sinew. They still weren't ready to attack something the size of a man unless provoked, and Blade was careful to avoid provoking them.
The plants did make Blade's progress much slower than it would have been without them. He didn't dare travel by night, or even on cloudy days when there wasn't enough sunlight to reveal lurking creepers. He also had to zigzag back and forth through the jungle among the groves and the rogues. On some days he covered ten or twelve miles on the ground to make a mile toward the west.
Meanwhile his beard and hair grew, his skin turned black with dirt and plant sap, he collected a dozen insect bites and thorn pricks each day, and he lost enough weight so that his ribs began to show. By the time he saw the plants begin to thin out ahead, he knew he must look more like something escaped from the monkey house at the zoo than a human being. However, he didn't plan to start worrying about how he might look to the people of this Dimension until he was safely out of reach of the killer plants.