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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science
+February 1930, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 26, 2009 [EBook #28617]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES--SUPER SCIENCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Katherine Ward and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Transcriber's Note: Initial ads moved below main text.
+   The Beetle Horde concludes a story begun in the Jan, 1930 edition.
+   Minor spelling and typographical errors corrected.
+   Variable Spelling and Hyphenations standardized.
+   Full list of changes at end of text.
+   Passages in italics indicated by underscore _italics_.
+   Passages in bold indicated by equals =bold=.]
+
+
+
+
+  ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE
+
+  _On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month_
+
+  W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher
+  HARRY BATES, Editor
+  DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor
+
+
+The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees:
+
+_That_ the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid; by leading
+writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the
+Authors' League of America;
+
+_That_ such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American
+workmen;
+
+_That_ each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit;
+
+_That_ an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages.
+
+_The other Clayton magazines are_:
+
+ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS
+MONTHLY, WIDE WORLD ADVENTURES, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, FLYERS,
+RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, SKY-HIGH LIBRARY MAGAZINE, MISS 1930,
+_and_ FOREST AND STREAM
+
+_More Than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for
+Clayton Magazines._
+
+
+  VOL. I, No. 2               CONTENTS                    FEBRUARY, 1930
+
+  COVER DESIGN                          H. W. WESSOLOWSKI
+  _Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in "Spawn of the Stars."_
+
+  OLD CROMPTON'S SECRET                 HARL VINCENT                 153
+  _Tom's Extraordinary Machine Glowed--and the Years Were Banished
+  from Old Crompton's Body. But There Still Remained, Deep-seated in
+  His Century-old Mind, the Memory of His Crime._
+
+  SPAWN OF THE STARS                    CHARLES WILLARD DIFFIN       166
+  _The Earth Lay Powerless Beneath Those Loathsome, Yellowish
+  Monsters That, Sheathed in Cometlike Globes, Sprang from the Skies
+  to Annihilate Man and Reduce His Cities to Ashes._
+
+  THE CORPSE ON THE GRATING             HUGH B. CAVE                 187
+  _In the Gloomy Depths of the Old Warehouse Dale Saw a Thing That
+  Drew a Scream of Horror to His Dry Lips. It Was a Corpse--the Mold
+  of Decay on Its Long-dead Features--and Yet It Was Alive!_
+
+  CREATURES OF THE LIGHT                SOPHIE WENZEL ELLIS          196
+  _He Had Striven to Perfect the Faultless Man of the Future, and
+  Had Succeeded--Too Well. For in the Pitilessly Cold Eyes of Adam,
+  His Super-human Creation, Dr. Mundson Saw Only Contempt--and
+  Annihilation--for the Human Race._
+
+  INTO SPACE                            STERNER ST. PAUL             221
+  _What Was the Extraordinary Connection Between Dr. Livermore's
+  Sudden Disappearance and the Coming of a New Satellite to the
+  Earth?_
+
+  THE BEETLE HORDE                      VICTOR ROUSSEAU              229
+  _Bullets, Shrapnel, Shell--Nothing Can Stop the Trillions of
+  Famished, Man-sized Beetles Which, Led by a Madman, Sweep Down
+  Over the Human Race._
+
+  MAD MUSIC                             ANTHONY PELCHER              248
+  _The Sixty Stories of the Perfectly Constructed Colossus Building
+  Had Mysteriously Crashed! What Was the Connection Between This
+  Catastrophe and the Weird Strains of the Mad Musician's Violin?_
+
+  THE THIEF OF TIME                     CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK           259
+  _The Teller Turned to the Stacked Pile of Bills. They Were Gone!
+  And No One Had Been Near!_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents)
+  Yearly Subscription, $2.00
+
+Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St., New
+York, N.Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Nathan Goldmann, Secretary.
+Application for entry as second-class mail pending at the Post Office at
+New York, under Act of March 3, 1879. Application for registration of
+title as Trade Mark pending in the U.S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand
+Group--Men's List. For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe & Co.,
+Inc., 25 Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave.,
+Chicago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Old Crompton's Secret
+
+_By Harl Vincent_
+
+
+    Tom's extraordinary machine glowed--and the years were banished
+    from Old Crompton's body. But there still remained, deep-seated
+    in his century-old mind, the memory of his crime.
+
+[Illustration: _Tom tripped on a wire and fell, with his ferocious
+adversary on top._]
+
+
+Two miles west of the village of Laketon there lived an aged recluse who
+was known only as Old Crompton. As far back as the villagers could
+remember he had visited the town regularly twice a month, each time
+tottering his lonely way homeward with a load of provisions. He appeared
+to be well supplied with funds, but purchased sparingly as became a
+miserly hermit. And so vicious was his tongue that few cared to converse
+with him, even the young hoodlums of the town hesitating to harass him
+with the banter usually accorded the other bizarre characters of the
+streets.
+
+The oldest inhabitants knew nothing of his past history, and they had
+long since lost their curiosity in the matter. He was a fixture, as was
+the old town hall with its surrounding park. His lonely cabin was
+shunned by all who chanced to pass along the old dirt road that led
+through the woods to nowhere and was rarely used.
+
+His only extravagance was in the matter of books, and the village book
+store profited considerably by his purchases. But, at the instigation of
+Cass Harmon, the bookseller, it was whispered about that Old Crompton
+was a believer in the black art--that he had made a pact with the devil
+himself and was leagued with him and his imps. For the books he bought
+were strange ones; ancient volumes that Cass must needs order from New
+York or Chicago and that cost as much as ten and even fifteen dollars a
+copy; translations of the writings of the alchemists and astrologers and
+philosophers of the dark ages.
+
+It was no wonder Old Crompton was looked at askance by the simple-living
+and deeply religious natives of the small Pennsylvania town.
+
+But there came a day when the hermit was to have a neighbor, and the
+town buzzed with excited speculation as to what would happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The property across the road from Old Crompton's hut belonged to Alton
+Forsythe, Laketon's wealthiest resident--hundreds of acres of scrubby
+woodland that he considered well nigh worthless. But Tom Forsythe, the
+only son, had returned from college and his ambitions were of a nature
+strange to his townspeople and utterly incomprehensible to his father.
+Something vague about biology and chemical experiments and the like is
+what he spoke of, and, when his parents objected on the grounds of
+possible explosions and other weird accidents, he prevailed upon his
+father to have a secluded laboratory built for him in the woods.
+
+When the workmen started the small frame structure not a quarter of a
+mile from his own hut, Old Crompton was furious. He raged and stormed,
+but to no avail. Tom Forsythe had his heart set on the project and he
+was somewhat of a successful debater himself. The fire that flashed from
+his cold gray eyes matched that from the pale blue ones of the elderly
+anchorite. And the law was on his side.
+
+So the building was completed and Tom Forsythe moved in, bag and
+baggage.
+
+For more than a year the hermit studiously avoided his neighbor, though,
+truth to tell, this required very little effort. For Tom Forsythe became
+almost as much of a recluse as his predecessor, remaining indoors for
+days at a time and visiting the home of his people scarcely oftener than
+Old Crompton visited the village. He too became the target of village
+gossip and his name was ere long linked with that of the old man in
+similar animadversion. But he cared naught for the opinions of his
+townspeople nor for the dark looks of suspicion that greeted him on his
+rare appearances in the public places. His chosen work engrossed him so
+deeply that all else counted for nothing. His parents remonstrated with
+him in vain. Tom laughed away their recriminations and fears, continuing
+with his labors more strenuously than ever. He never troubled his mind
+over the nearness of Old Crompton's hut, the existence of which he
+hardly noticed or considered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It so happened one day that the old man's curiosity got the better of
+him and Tom caught him prowling about on his property, peering
+wonderingly at the many rabbit hutches, chicken coops, dove cotes and
+the like which cluttered the space to the rear of the laboratory.
+
+Seeing that he was discovered, the old man wrinkled his face into a
+toothless grin of conciliation.
+
+"Just looking over your place, Forsythe," he said. "Sorry about the fuss
+I made when you built the house. But I'm an old man, you know, and
+changes are unwelcome. Now I have forgotten my objections and would like
+to be friends. Can we?"
+
+Tom peered searchingly into the flinty eyes that were set so deeply in
+the wrinkled, leathery countenance. He suspected an ulterior motive, but
+could not find it within him to turn the old fellow down.
+
+"Why--I guess so, Crompton," he hesitated: "I have nothing against you,
+but I came here for seclusion and I'll not have anyone bothering me in
+my work."
+
+"I'll not bother you, young man. But I'm fond of pets and I see you have
+many of them here; guinea pigs, chickens, pigeons, and rabbits. Would
+you mind if I make friends with some of them?"
+
+"They're not pets," answered Tom dryly, "they are material for use in my
+experiments. But you may amuse yourself with them if you wish."
+
+"You mean that you cut them up--kill them, perhaps?"
+
+"Not that. But I sometimes change them in physical form, sometimes cause
+them to become of huge size, sometimes produce pigmy offspring of normal
+animals."
+
+"Don't they suffer?"
+
+"Very seldom, though occasionally a subject dies. But the benefit that
+will accrue to mankind is well worth the slight inconvenience to the
+dumb creatures and the infrequent loss of their lives."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Old Crompton regarded him dubiously. "You are trying to find?" he
+interrogated.
+
+"The secret of life!" Tom Forsythe's eyes took on the stare of
+fanaticism. "Before I have finished I shall know the nature of the vital
+force--how to produce it. I shall prolong human life indefinitely;
+create artificial life. And the solution is more closely approached with
+each passing day."
+
+The hermit blinked in pretended mystification. But he understood
+perfectly, and he bitterly envied the younger man's knowledge and
+ability that enabled him to delve into the mysteries of nature which had
+always been so attractive to his own mind. And somehow, he acquired a
+sudden deep hatred of the coolly confident young man who spoke so
+positively of accomplishing the impossible.
+
+During the winter months that followed, the strange acquaintance
+progressed but little. Tom did not invite his neighbor to visit him,
+nor did Old Crompton go out of his way to impose his presence on the
+younger man, though each spoke pleasantly enough to the other on the few
+occasions when they happened to meet.
+
+With the coming of spring they encountered one another more frequently,
+and Tom found considerable of interest in the quaint, borrowed
+philosophy of the gloomy old man. Old Crompton, of course, was
+desperately interested in the things that were hidden in Tom's
+laboratory, but he never requested permission to see them. He hid his
+real feelings extremely well and was apparently content to spend as much
+time as possible with the feathered and furred subjects for experiment,
+being very careful not to incur Tom's displeasure by displaying too
+great interest in the laboratory itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then there came a day in early summer when an accident served to draw
+the two men closer together, and Old Crompton's long-sought opportunity
+followed.
+
+He was starting for the village when, from down the road, there came a
+series of tremendous squawkings, then a bellow of dismay in the voice of
+his young neighbor. He turned quickly and was astonished at the sight of
+a monstrous rooster which had escaped and was headed straight for him
+with head down and wings fluttering wildly. Tom followed close behind,
+but was unable to catch the darting monster. And monster it was, for
+this rooster stood no less than three feet in height and appeared more
+ferocious than a large turkey. Old Crompton had his shopping bag, a
+large one of burlap which he always carried to town, and he summoned
+enough courage to throw it over the head of the screeching, over-sized
+fowl. So tangled did the panic-stricken bird become that it was a
+comparatively simple matter to effect his capture, and the old man rose
+to his feet triumphant with the bag securely closed over the struggling
+captive.
+
+"Thanks," panted Tom, when he drew alongside. "I should never have
+caught him, and his appearance at large might have caused me a great
+deal of trouble--now of all times."
+
+"It's all right, Forsythe," smirked the old man. "Glad I was able to do
+it."
+
+Secretly he gloated, for he knew this occurrence would be an open sesame
+to that laboratory of Tom's. And it proved to be just that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few nights later he was awakened by a vigorous thumping at his door,
+something that had never before occurred during his nearly sixty years
+occupancy of the tumbledown hut. The moon was high and he cautiously
+peeped from the window and saw that his late visitor was none other than
+young Forsythe.
+
+"With you in a minute!" he shouted, hastily thrusting his rheumatic old
+limbs into his shabby trousers. "Now to see the inside of that
+laboratory," he chuckled to himself.
+
+It required but a moment to attire himself in the scanty raiment he wore
+during the warm months, but he could hear Tom muttering and impatiently
+pacing the flagstones before his door.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, as he drew the bolt and emerged into the
+brilliant light of the moon.
+
+"Success!" breathed Tom excitedly. "I have produced growing, living
+matter synthetically. More than this, I have learned the secret of the
+vital force--the spark of life. Immortality is within easy reach. Come
+and see for yourself."
+
+They quickly traversed the short distance to the two-story building
+which comprised Tom's workshop and living quarters. The entire ground
+floor was taken up by the laboratory, and Old Crompton stared aghast at
+the wealth of equipment it contained. Furnaces there were, and retorts
+that reminded him of those pictured in the wood cuts in some of his
+musty books. Then there were complicated machines with many levers and
+dials mounted on their faces, and with huge glass bulbs of peculiar
+shape with coils of wire connecting to knoblike protuberances of their
+transparent walls. In the exact center of the great single room there
+was what appeared to be a dissecting table, with a brilliant light
+overhead and with two of the odd glass bulbs at either end. It was to
+this table that Tom led the excited old man.
+
+"This is my perfected apparatus," said Tom proudly, "and by its use I
+intend to create a new race of supermen, men and women who will always
+retain the vigor and strength of their youth and who can not die
+excepting by actual destruction of their bodies. Under the influence of
+the rays all bodily ailments vanish as if by magic, and organic defects
+are quickly corrected. Watch this now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stepped to one of the many cages at the side of the room and returned
+with a wriggling cottontail in his hands. Old Compton watched anxiously
+as he picked a nickeled instrument from a tray of surgical appliances
+and requested his visitor to hold the protesting animal while he covered
+its head with a handkerchief.
+
+"Ethyl chloride," explained Tom, noting with amusement the look of
+distaste on the old man's face. "We'll just put him to sleep for a
+minute while I amputate a leg."
+
+The struggles of the rabbit quickly ceased when the spray soaked the
+handkerchief and the anaesthetic took effect. With a shining scalpel and
+a surgical saw, Tom speedily removed one of the forelegs of the animal
+and then he placed the limp body in the center of the table, removing
+the handkerchief from its head as he did so. At the end of the table
+there was a panel with its glittering array of switches and electrical
+instruments, and Old Crompton observed very closely the manipulations of
+the controls as Tom started the mechanism. With the ensuing hum of a
+motor-generator from a corner of the room, the four bulbs adjacent to
+the table sprang into life, each glowing with a different color and each
+emitting a different vibratory note as it responded to the energy
+within.
+
+"Keep an eye on Mr. Rabbit now," admonished Tom.
+
+From the body of the small animal there emanated an intangible though
+hazily visible aura as the combined effects of the rays grew in
+intensity. Old Crompton bent over the table and peered amazedly at the
+stump of the foreleg, from which blood no longer dripped. The stump was
+healing over! Yes--it seemed to elongate as one watched. A new limb was
+growing on to replace the old! Then the animal struggled once more, this
+time to regain consciousness. In a moment it was fully awake and, with a
+frightened hop, was off the table and hobbling about in search of a
+hiding place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tom Forsythe laughed. "Never knew what happened," he exulted, "and
+excepting for the temporary limp is not inconvenienced at all. Even that
+will be gone in a couple of hours, for the new limb will be completely
+grown by that time."
+
+"But--but, Tom," stammered the old man, "this is wonderful. How do you
+accomplish it?"
+
+"Ha! Don't think I'll reveal my secret. But this much I will tell you:
+the life force generated by my apparatus stimulates a certain gland
+that's normally inactive in warm blooded animals. This gland, when
+active, possesses the function of growing new members to the body to
+replace lost ones in much the same manner as this is done in case of the
+lobster and certain other crustaceans. Of course, the process is
+extremely rapid when the gland is stimulated by the vital rays from my
+tubes. But this is only one of the many wonders of the process. Here is
+something far more remarkable."
+
+He took from a large glass jar the body of a guinea pig, a body that was
+rigid in death.
+
+"This guinea pig," he explained, "was suffocated twenty-four hours ago
+and is stone dead."
+
+"Suffocated?"
+
+"Yes. But quite painlessly, I assure you. I merely removed the air from
+the jar with a vacuum pump and the little creature passed out of the
+picture very quickly. Now we'll revive it."
+
+Old Crompton stretched forth a skinny hand to touch the dead animal, but
+withdrew it hastily when he felt the clammy rigidity of the body. There
+was no doubt as to the lifelessness of this specimen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tom placed the dead guinea pig on the spot where the rabbit had been
+subjected to the action of the rays. Again his visitor watched carefully
+as he manipulated the controls of the apparatus.
+
+With the glow of the tubes and the ensuing haze of eery light that
+surrounded the little body, a marked change was apparent. The inanimate
+form relaxed suddenly and it seemed that the muscles pulsated with an
+accession of energy. Then one leg was stretched forth spasmodically.
+There was a convulsive heave as the lungs drew in a first long breath,
+and, with that, an astonished and very much alive rodent scrambled to
+its feet, blinking wondering eyes in the dazzling light.
+
+"See? See?" shouted Tom, grasping Old Crompton by the arm in a viselike
+grip. "It is the secret of life and death! Aristocrats, plutocrats and
+beggars will beat a path to my door. But, never fear, I shall choose my
+subjects well. The name of Thomas Forsythe will yet be emblazoned in the
+Hall of Fame. I shall be master of the world!"
+
+Old Crompton began to fear the glitter in the eyes of the gaunt young
+man who seemed suddenly to have become demented. And his envy and hatred
+of his talented host blazed anew as Forsythe gloried in the success of
+his efforts. Then he was struck with an idea and he affected his most
+ingratiating manner.
+
+"It is a marvelous thing, Tom," he said, "and is entirely beyond my poor
+comprehension. But I can see that it is all you say and more. Tell
+me--can you restore the youth of an aged person by these means?"
+
+"Positively!" Tom did not catch the eager note in the old man's voice.
+Rather he took the question as an inquiry into the further marvels of
+his process. "Here," he continued, enthusiastically, "I'll prove that to
+you also. My dog Spot is around the place somewhere. And he is a
+decrepit old hound, blind, lame and toothless. You've probably seen him
+with me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He rushed to the stairs and whistled. There was an answering yelp from
+above and the pad of uncertain paws on the bare wooden steps. A dejected
+old beagle blundered into the room, dragging a crippled hind leg as he
+fawned upon his master, who stretched forth a hand to pat the unsteady
+head.
+
+"Guess Spot is old enough for the test," laughed Tom, "and I have been
+meaning to restore him to his youthful vigor, anyway. No time like the
+present."
+
+He led his trembling pet to the table of the remarkable tubes and lifted
+him to its surface. The poor old beast lay trustingly where he was
+placed, quiet, save for his husky asthmatic breathing.
+
+"Hold him, Crompton," directed Tom as he pulled the starting lever of
+his apparatus.
+
+And Old Crompton watched in fascinated anticipation as the ethereal
+luminosity bathed the dog's body in response to the action of the four
+rays. Somewhat vaguely it came to him that the baggy flesh of his own
+wrinkled hands took on a new firmness and color where they reposed on
+the animal's back. Young Forsythe grinned triumphantly as Spot's
+breathing became more regular and the rasp gradually left it. Then the
+dog whined in pleasure and wagged his tail with increasing vigor.
+Suddenly he raised his head, perked his ears in astonishment and looked
+his master straight in the face with eyes that saw once more. The low
+throat cry rose to a full and joyous bark. He sprang to his feet from
+under the restraining hands and jumped to the floor in a lithe-muscled
+leap that carried him half way across the room. He capered about with
+the abandon of a puppy, making extremely active use of four sound limbs.
+
+"Why--why, Forsythe," stammered the hermit, "it's absolutely incredible.
+Tell me--tell me--what is this remarkable force?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His host laughed gleefully. "You probably wouldn't understand it anyway,
+but I'll tell you. It is as simple as the nose on your face. The spark
+of life, the vital force, is merely an extremely complicated electrical
+manifestation which I have been able to duplicate artificially. This
+spark or force is all that distinguishes living from inanimate matter,
+and in living beings the force gradually decreases in power as the years
+pass, causing loss of health and strength. The chemical composition of
+bones and tissue alters, joints become stiff, muscles atrophied, and
+bones brittle. By recharging, as it were, with the vital force, the
+gland action is intensified, youth and strength is renewed. By repeating
+the process every ten or fifteen years the same degree of vigor can be
+maintained indefinitely. Mankind will become immortal. That is why I say
+I am to be master of the world."
+
+For the moment Old Crompton forgot his jealous hatred in the enthusiasm
+with which he was imbued. "Tom--Tom," he pleaded in his excitement, "use
+me as a subject. Renew my youth. My life has been a sad one and a lonely
+one, but I would that I might live it over. I should make of it a far
+different one--something worth while. See, I am ready."
+
+He sat on the edge of the gleaming table and made as if to lie down on
+its gleaming surface. But his young host only stared at him in open
+amusement.
+
+"What? You?" he sneered, unfeelingly. "Why, you old fossil! I told you I
+would choose my subjects carefully. They are to be people of standing
+and wealth, who can contribute to the fame and fortune of one Thomas
+Forsythe."
+
+"But Tom, I have money," Old Crompton begged. But when he saw the hard
+mirth in the younger man's eyes, his old animosity flamed anew and he
+sprang from his position and shook a skinny forefinger in Tom's face.
+
+"Don't do that to me, you old fool!" shouted Tom, "and get out of here.
+Think I'd waste current on an old cadger like you? I guess not! Now get
+out. Get out, I say!"
+
+Then the old anchorite saw red. Something seemed to snap in his soured
+old brain. He found himself kicking and biting and punching at his host,
+who backed away from the furious onslaught in surprise. Then Tom tripped
+over a wire and fell to the floor with a force that rattled the windows,
+his ferocious little adversary on top. The younger man lay still where
+he had fallen, a trickle of blood showing at his temple.
+
+"My God! I've killed him!" gasped the old man.
+
+With trembling fingers he opened Tom's shirt and listened for his
+heartbeats. Panic-stricken, he rubbed the young man's wrists, slapped
+his cheeks, and ran for water to dash in his face. But all efforts to
+revive him proved futile, and then, in awful fear, Old Crompton dashed
+into the night, the dog Spot snapping at his heels as he ran.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hours later the stooped figure of a shabby old man might have been seen
+stealthily re-entering the lonely workshop where the lights still burned
+brightly. Tom Forsythe lay rigid in the position in which Old Crompton
+had left him, and the dog growled menacingly.
+
+Averting his gaze and circling wide of the body, Old Crompton made for
+the table of the marvelous rays. In minute detail he recalled every move
+made by Tom in starting and adjusting the apparatus to produce the
+incredible results he had witnessed. Not a moment was to be wasted now.
+Already he had hesitated too long, for soon would come the dawn and
+possible discovery of his crime. But the invention of his victim would
+save him from the long arm of the law, for, with youth restored, Old
+Crompton would cease to exist and a new life would open its doors to the
+starved soul of the hermit. Hermit, indeed! He would begin life anew, an
+active man with youthful vigor and ambition. Under an assumed name he
+would travel abroad, would enjoy life, and would later become a
+successful man of affairs. He had enough money, he told himself. And the
+police would never find Old Crompton, the murderer of Tom Forsythe! He
+deposited his small traveling bag on the floor and fingered the controls
+of Tom's apparatus.
+
+He threw the starting switch confidently and grinned in satisfaction as
+the answering whine of the motor-generator came to his ears. One by one
+he carefully made the adjustments in exactly the manner followed by the
+now silenced discoverer of the process. Everything operated precisely as
+it had during the preceding experiments. Odd that he should have
+anticipated some such necessity! But something had told him to observe
+Tom's movements carefully, and now he rejoiced in the fact that his
+intuition had led him aright. Painfully he climbed to the table top and
+stretched his aching body in the warm light of the four huge tubes. His
+exertions during the struggle with Tom were beginning to tell on him.
+But the soreness and stiffness of feeble muscles and stubborn joints
+would soon be but a memory. His pulses quickened at the thought and he
+breathed deep in a sudden feeling of unaccustomed well-being.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dog growled continuously from his position at the head of his
+master, but did not move to interfere with the intruder. And Old
+Crompton, in the excitement of the momentous experience, paid him not
+the slightest attention.
+
+His body tingled from head to foot with a not unpleasant sensation that
+conveyed the assurance of radical changes taking place under the
+influence of the vital rays. The tingling sensation increased in
+intensity until it seemed that every corpuscle in his veins danced to
+the tune of the vibration from those glowing tubes that bathed him in an
+ever-spreading radiance. Aches and pains vanished from his body, but he
+soon experienced a sharp stab of new pain in his lower jaw. With an
+experimental forefinger he rubbed the gum. He laughed aloud as the
+realization came to him that in those gums where there had been no teeth
+for more than twenty years there was now growing a complete new set. And
+the rapidity of the process amazed him beyond measure. The aching area
+spread quickly and was becoming really uncomfortable. But then--and he
+consoled himself with the thought--nothing is brought into being without
+a certain amount of pain. Besides, he was confident that his discomfort
+would soon be over.
+
+He examined his hand, and found that the joints of two fingers long
+crippled with rheumatism now moved freely and painlessly. The misty
+brilliance surrounding his body was paling and he saw that the flesh was
+taking on a faint green fluorescence instead. The rays had completed
+their work and soon the transformation would be fully effected. He
+turned on his side and slipped to the floor with the agility of a
+youngster. The dog snarled anew, but kept steadfastly to his position.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a small mirror over the wash stand at the far end of the room
+and Old Crompton made haste to obtain the first view of his reflected
+image. His step was firm and springy, his bearing confident, and he
+found that his long-stooped shoulders straightened naturally and easily.
+He felt that he had taken on at least two inches in stature, which was
+indeed the case. When he reached the mirror he peered anxiously into its
+dingy surface and what he saw there so startled him that he stepped
+backward in amazement. This was not Larry Crompton, but an entirely new
+man. The straggly white hair had given way to soft, healthy waves of
+chestnut hue. Gone were the seams from the leathery countenance and the
+eyes looked out clearly and steadily from under brows as thick and dark
+as they had been in his youth. The reflected features were those of an
+entire stranger. They were not even reminiscent of the Larry Crompton of
+fifty years ago, but were the features of a far more vigorous and
+prepossessing individual than he had ever seemed, even in the best years
+of his life. The jaw was firm, the once sunken cheeks so well filled out
+that his high cheek bones were no longer in evidence. It was the face of
+a man of not more than thirty-eight years of age, reflecting exceptional
+intelligence and strength of character.
+
+"What a disguise!" he exclaimed in delight. And his voice, echoing in
+the stillness that followed the switching off of the apparatus, was
+deep-throated and mellow--the voice of a new man.
+
+Now, serenely confident that discovery was impossible, he picked up his
+small but heavy bag and started for the door. Dawn was breaking and he
+wished to put as many miles between himself and Tom's laboratory as
+could be covered in the next few hours. But at the door he hesitated.
+Then, despite the furious yapping of Spot, he returned to the table of
+the rays and, with deliberate thoroughness smashed the costly tubes
+which had brought about his rehabilitation. With a pinch bar from a
+nearby tool rack, he wrecked the controls and generating mechanisms
+beyond recognition. Now he was absolutely secure! No meddling experts
+could possibly discover the secret of Tom's invention. All evidence
+would show that the young experimenter had met his death at the hands of
+Old Crompton, the despised hermit of West Laketon. But none would dream
+that the handsome man of means who was henceforth to be known as George
+Voight was that same despised hermit.
+
+He recovered his satchel and left the scene. With long, rapid strides he
+proceeded down the old dirt road toward the main highway where, instead
+of turning east into the village, he would turn west and walk to
+Kernsburg, the neighboring town. There, in not more than two hours time,
+his new life would really begin!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Had you, a visitor, departed from Laketon when Old Crompton did and
+returned twelve years later, you would have noticed very little
+difference in the appearance of the village. The old town hall and the
+little park were the same, the dingy brick building among the trees
+being just a little dingier and its wooden steps more worn and sagged.
+The main street showed evidence of recent repaving, and, in consequence
+of the resulting increase in through automobile traffic; there were two
+new gasoline filling stations in the heart of the town. Down the road
+about a half mile there was a new building, which, upon inquiring from
+one of the natives, would be proudly designated as the new high school
+building. Otherwise there were no changes to be observed.
+
+In his dilapidated chair in the untidy office he had occupied for nearly
+thirty years, sat Asa Culkin, popularly known as "Judge" Culkin. Justice
+of the peace, sheriff, attorney-at-law, and three times Mayor of
+Laketon, he was still a controlling factor in local politics and
+government. And many a knotty legal problem was settled in that gloomy
+little office. Many a dispute in the town council was dependent for
+arbitration upon the keen mind and understanding wit of the old judge.
+
+The four o'clock train had just puffed its labored way from the station
+when a stranger entered his office, a stranger of uncommonly prosperous
+air. The keen blue eyes of the old attorney appraised him instantly and
+classified him as a successful man of business, not yet forty years of
+age, and with a weighty problem on his mind.
+
+"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked, removing his feet from the
+battered desk top.
+
+"You may be able to help me a great deal, Judge," was the unexpected
+reply. "I came to Laketon to give myself up."
+
+"Give yourself up?" Culkin rose to his feet in surprise and
+unconsciously straightened his shoulders in the effort to seem less
+dwarfed before the tall stranger. "Why, what do you mean?" he inquired.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I wish to give myself up for murder," answered the amazing visitor,
+slowly and with decision, "for a murder committed twelve years ago. I
+should like you to listen to my story first, though. It has been kept
+too long."
+
+"But I still do not understand." There was puzzlement in the honest old
+face of the attorney. He shook his gray locks in uncertainty. "Why
+should you come here? Why come to me? What possible interest can I have
+in the matter?"
+
+"Just this, Judge. You do not recognize me now, and you will probably
+consider my story incredible when you hear it. But, when I have given
+you all the evidence, you will know who I am and will be compelled to
+believe. The murder was committed in Laketon. That is why I came to
+you."
+
+"A murder in Laketon? Twelve years ago?" Again the aged attorney shook
+his head. "But--proceed."
+
+"Yes. I killed Thomas Forsythe."
+
+The stranger looked for an expression of horror in the features of his
+listener, but there was none. Instead the benign countenance took on a
+look of deepening amazement, but the smile wrinkles had somehow vanished
+and the old face was grave in its surprised interest.
+
+"You seem astonished," continued the stranger. "Undoubtedly you were
+convinced that the murderer was Larry Crompton--Old Crompton, the
+hermit. He disappeared the night of the crime and has never been heard
+from since. Am I correct?"
+
+"Yes. He disappeared all right. But continue."
+
+Not by a lift of his eyebrow did Culkin betray his disbelief, but the
+stranger sensed that his story was somehow not as startling as it should
+have been.
+
+"You will think me crazy, I presume. But I am Old Crompton. It was my
+hand that felled the unfortunate young man in his laboratory out there
+in West Laketon twelve years ago to-night. It was his marvelous
+invention that transformed the old hermit into the apparently young man
+you see before you. But I swear that I am none other than Larry Crompton
+and that I killed young Forsythe. I am ready to pay the penalty. I can
+bear the flagellation of my own conscience no longer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The visitor's voice had risen to the point of hysteria. But his listener
+remained calm and unmoved.
+
+"Now just let me get this straight," he said quietly. "Do I understand
+that you claim to be Old Crompton, rejuvenated in some mysterious
+manner, and that you killed Tom Forsythe on that night twelve years ago?
+Do I understand that you wish now to go to trial for that crime and to
+pay the penalty?"
+
+"Yes! Yes! And the sooner the better. I can stand it no longer. I am the
+most miserable man in the world!"
+
+"Hm-m--hm-m," muttered the judge, "this is strange." He spoke soothingly
+to his visitor. "Do not upset yourself, I beg of you. I will take care
+of this thing for you, never fear. Just take a seat, Mister--er--"
+
+"You may call me Voight for the present," said the stranger, in a more
+composed tone of voice, "George Voight. That is the name I have been
+using since the mur--since that fatal night."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Voight," replied the counsellor with an air of the
+greatest solicitude, "please have a seat now, while I make a telephone
+call."
+
+And George Voight slipped into a stiff-backed chair with a sigh of
+relief. For he knew the judge from the old days and he was now certain
+that his case would be disposed of very quickly.
+
+With the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, Culkin repeated a
+number. The stranger listened intently during the ensuing silence. Then
+there came a muffled "hello" sounding in impatient response to the call.
+
+"Hello, Alton," spoke the attorney, "this is Asa speaking. A stranger
+has just stepped into my office and he claims to be Old Crompton.
+Remember the hermit across the road from your son's old laboratory?
+Well, this man, who bears no resemblance whatever to the old man he
+claims to be and who seems to be less than half the age of Tom's old
+neighbor, says that he killed Tom on that night we remember so well."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were some surprised remarks from the other end of the wire, but
+Voight was unable to catch them. He was in a cold perspiration at the
+thought of meeting his victim's father.
+
+"Why, yes, Alton," continued Culkin, "I think there is something in this
+story, although I cannot believe it all. But I wish you would accompany
+us and visit the laboratory. Will you?"
+
+"Lord, man, not that!" interrupted the judge's visitor. "I can hardly
+bear to visit the scene of my crime--and in the company of Alton
+Forsythe. Please, not that!"
+
+"Now you just let me take care of this, young man," replied the judge,
+testily. Then, once more speaking into the mouthpiece of the telephone,
+"All right, Alton. We'll pick you up at your office in five minutes."
+
+He replaced the receiver on its hook and turned again to his visitor.
+"Please be so kind as to do exactly as I request," he said. "I want to
+help you, but there is more to this thing than you know and I want you
+to follow unquestioningly where I lead and ask no questions at all for
+the present. Things may turn out differently than you expect."
+
+"All right, Judge." The visitor resigned himself to whatever might
+transpire under the guidance of the man he had called upon to turn him
+over to the officers of the law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seated in the judge's ancient motor car, they stopped at the office of
+Alton Forsythe a few minutes later and were joined by that red-faced and
+pompous old man. Few words were spoken during the short run to the
+well-remembered location of Tom's laboratory, and the man who was known
+as George Voight caught at his own throat with nervous fingers when they
+passed the tumbledown remains of the hut in which Old Crompton had spent
+so many years. With a screeching of well-worn brakes the car stopped
+before the laboratory, which was now almost hidden behind a mass of
+shrubs and flowers.
+
+"Easy now, young man," cautioned the judge, noting the look of fear
+which had clouded his new client's features. The three men advanced to
+the door through which Old Crompton had fled on that night of horror,
+twelve years before. The elder Forsythe spoke not a word as he turned
+the knob and stepped within. Voight shrank from entering, but soon
+mastered his feelings and followed the other two. The sight that met his
+eyes caused him to cry aloud in awe.
+
+At the dissecting table, which seemed to be exactly as he had seen it
+last but with replicas of the tubes he had destroyed once more in place,
+stood Tom Forsythe! Considerably older and with hair prematurely gray,
+he was still the young man Old Crompton thought he had killed. Tom
+Forsythe was not dead after all! And all of his years of misery had gone
+for nothing. He advanced slowly to the side of the wondering young man,
+Alton Forsythe and Asa Culkin watching silently from just inside the
+door.
+
+"Tom--Tom," spoke the stranger, "you are alive? You were not dead when I
+left you on that terrible night when I smashed your precious tubes?
+Oh--it is too good to be true! I can scarcely believe my eyes!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stretched forth trembling fingers to touch the body of the young man
+to assure himself that it was not all a dream.
+
+"Why," said Tom Forsythe, in astonishment. "I do not know you, sir.
+Never saw you in my life. What do you mean by your talk of smashing my
+tubes, of leaving me for dead?"
+
+"Mean?" The stranger's voice rose now; he was growing excited. "Why,
+Tom, I am Old Crompton. Remember the struggle, here in this very room?
+You refused to rejuvenate an unhappy old man with your marvelous
+apparatus, a temporarily insane old man--Crompton. I was that old man
+and I fought with you. You fell, striking your head. There was blood.
+You were unconscious. Yes, for many hours I was sure you were dead and
+that I had murdered you. But I had watched your manipulations of the
+apparatus and I subjected myself to the action of the rays. My youth was
+miraculously restored. I became as you see me now. Detection was
+impossible, for I looked no more like Old Crompton than you do. I
+smashed your machinery to avoid suspicion. Then I escaped. And, for
+twelve years, I have thought myself a murderer. I have suffered the
+tortures of the damned!"
+
+Tom Forsythe advanced on this remarkable visitor with clenched fists.
+Staring him in the eyes with cold appraisal, his wrath was all too
+apparent. The dog Spot, young as ever, entered the room and, upon
+observing the stranger, set up an ominous growling and snarling. At
+least the dog recognized him!
+
+"What are you trying to do, catechise me? Are you another of these
+alienists my father has been bringing around?" The young inventor was
+furious. "If you are," he continued, "you can get out of here--now! I'll
+have no more of this meddling with my affairs. I'm as sane as any of you
+and I refuse to submit to this continual persecution."
+
+The elder Forsythe grunted, and Culkin laid a restraining hand on his
+arm. "Just a minute now, Tom," he said soothingly. "This stranger is no
+alienist. He has a story to tell. Please permit him to finish."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Somewhat mollified, Tom Forsythe shrugged his assent.
+
+"Tom," continued the stranger, more calmly now, "what I have said is the
+truth. I shall prove it to you. I'll tell you things no mortals on earth
+could know but we two. Remember the day I captured the big rooster for
+you--the monster you had created? Remember the night you awakened me and
+brought me here in the moonlight? Remember the rabbit whose leg you
+amputated and re-grew? The poor guinea pig you had suffocated and whose
+life you restored? Spot here? Don't you remember rejuvenating him? I was
+here. And you refused to use your process on me, old man that I was.
+Then is when I went mad and attacked you. Do you believe me, Tom?"
+
+Then a strange thing happened. While Tom Forsythe gazed in growing
+belief, the stranger's shoulders sagged and he trembled as with the
+ague. The two older men who had kept in the background gasped their
+astonishment as his hair faded to a sickly gray, then became as white as
+the driven snow. Old Crompton was reverting to his previous state!
+Within five minutes, instead of the handsome young stranger, there
+stood before them a bent, withered old man--Old Crompton beyond a doubt.
+The effects of Tom's process were spent.
+
+"Well I'm damned!" ejaculated Alton Forsythe. "You have been right all
+along, Asa. And I am mighty glad I did not commit Tom as I intended. He
+has told us the truth all these years and we were not wise enough to see
+it."
+
+"We!" exclaimed the judge. "You, Alton Forsythe! I have always upheld
+him. You have done your son a grave injustice and you owe him your
+apologies if ever a father owed his son anything."
+
+"You are right, Asa." And, his aristocratic pride forgotten, Alton
+Forsythe rushed to the side of his son and embraced him.
+
+The judge turned to Old Crompton pityingly. "Rather a bad ending for
+you, Crompton," he said. "Still, it is better by far than being branded
+as a murderer."
+
+"Better? Better?" croaked Old Crompton. "It is wonderful, Judge. I have
+never been so happy in my life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The face of the old man beamed, though scalding tears coursed down the
+withered and seamed cheeks. The two Forsythes looked up from their
+demonstrations of peacemaking to listen to the amazing words of the old
+hermit.
+
+"Yes, happy for the first time in my life," he continued. "I am one
+hundred years of age, gentlemen, and I now look it and feel it. That is
+as it should be. And my experience has taught me a final lasting lesson.
+None of you know it, but, when I was but a very young man I was bitterly
+disappointed in love. Ha! ha! Never think it to look at me now, would
+you? But I was, and it ruined my entire life. I had a little
+money--inherited--and I traveled about in the world for a few years,
+then settled in that old hut across the road where I buried myself for
+sixty years, becoming crabbed and sour and despicable. Young Tom here
+was the first bright spot and, though I admired him, I hated him for
+his opportunities, hated him for that which he had that I had not. With
+the promise of his invention I thought I saw happiness, a new life for
+myself. I got what I wanted, though not in the way I had expected. And I
+want to tell you gentlemen that there is nothing in it. With
+developments of modern science you may be able to restore a man's
+youthful vigor of body, but you can't cure his mind with electricity.
+Though I had a youthful body, my brain was the brain of an old
+man--memories were there which could not be suppressed. Even had I not
+had the fancied death of young Tom on my conscience I should still have
+been miserable. I worked. God, how I worked--to forget! But I could not
+forget. I was successful in business and made a lot of money. I am more
+independent--probably wealthier than you, Alton Forsythe, but that did
+not bring happiness. I longed to be myself once more, to have the aches
+and pains which had been taken from me. It is natural to age and to die.
+Immortality would make of us a people of restless misery. We would
+quarrel and bicker and long for death, which would not come to relieve
+us. Now it is over for me and I am glad--glad--glad!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He paused for breath, looking beseechingly at Tom Forsythe. "Tom," he
+said, "I suppose you have nothing for me in your heart but hatred. And I
+don't blame you. But I wish--I wish you would try and forgive me. Can
+you?"
+
+The years had brought increased understanding and tolerance to young
+Tom. He stared at Old Crompton and the long-nursed anger over the
+destruction of his equipment melted into a strange mixture of pity and
+admiration for the courageous old fellow.
+
+"Why, I guess I can, Crompton," he replied. "There was many a day when I
+struggled hopelessly to reconstruct my apparatus, cursing you with every
+bit of energy in my make-up. I could cheerfully have throttled you, had
+you been within reach. For twelve years I have labored incessantly to
+reproduce the results we obtained on the night of which you speak.
+People called me insane--even my father wished to have me committed to
+an asylum. And, until now, I have been unsuccessful. Only to-day has it
+seemed for the first time that the experiments will again succeed. But
+my ideas have changed with regard to the uses of the process. I was a
+cocksure young pup in the old days, with foolish dreams of fame and
+influence. But I have seen the error of my ways. Your experience, too,
+convinces me that immortality may not be as desirable as I thought. But
+there are great possibilities in the way of relieving the sufferings of
+mankind and in making this a better world in which to live. With your
+advice and help I believe I can do great things. I now forgive you
+freely and I ask you to remain here with me to assist in the work that
+is to come. What do you say to the idea?"
+
+At the reverent thankfulness in the pale eyes of the broken old man who
+had so recently been a perfect specimen of vigorous youth, Alton
+Forsythe blew his nose noisily. The little judge smiled benevolently and
+shook his head as if to say, "I told you so." Tom and Old Crompton
+gripped hands--mightily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _COMING, NEXT MONTH_
+  BRIGANDS OF THE MOON
+  By RAY CUMMINGS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Spawn of the Stars
+
+_By Charles Willard Diffin_
+
+
+    The Earth lay powerless beneath those loathsome, yellowish
+    monsters that, sheathed in cometlike globes, sprang from the
+    skies to annihilate man and reduce his cities to ashes.
+
+[Illustration: _The sky was alive with winged shapes, and high in the
+air shone the glittering menace, trailing five plumes of gas._]
+
+
+When Cyrus R. Thurston bought himself a single-motored Stoughton job he
+was looking for new thrills. Flying around the east coast had lost its
+zest: he wanted to join that jaunty group who spoke so easily of hopping
+off for Los Angeles.
+
+And what Cyrus Thurston wanted he usually obtained. But if that young
+millionaire-sportsman had been told that on his first flight this
+blocky, bulletlike ship was to pitch him headlong into the exact center
+of the wildest, strangest war this earth had ever seen--well, it is
+still probable that the Stoughton company would not have lost the sale.
+
+They were roaring through the starlit, calm night, three thousand feet
+above a sage sprinkled desert, when the trip ended. Slim Riley had the
+stick when the first blast of hot oil ripped slashingly across the
+pilot's window. "There goes your old trip!" he yelled. "Why don't they
+try putting engines in these ships?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He jammed over the throttle and, with motor idling, swept down toward
+the endless miles of moonlit waste. Wind? They had been boring into it.
+Through the opened window he spotted a likely stretch of ground. Setting
+down the ship on a nice piece of Arizona desert was a mere detail for
+Slim.
+
+"Let off a flare," he ordered, "when I give the word."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The white glare of it faded the stars as he sideslipped, then
+straightened out on his hand-picked field. The plane rolled down a clear
+space and stopped. The bright glare persisted while he stared curiously
+from the quiet cabin. Cutting the motor he opened both windows, then
+grabbed Thurston by the shoulder.
+
+"'Tis a curious thing, that," he said unsteadily. His hand pointed
+straight ahead. The flare died, but the bright stars of the desert
+country still shone on a glistening, shining bulb.
+
+It was some two hundred feet away. The lower part was lost in shadow,
+but its upper surfaces shone rounded and silvery like a giant bubble. It
+towered in the air, scores of feet above the chaparral beside it. There
+was a round spot of black on its side, which looked absurdly like a
+door....
+
+"I saw something moving," said Thurston slowly. "On the ground I saw....
+Oh, good Lord, Slim, it isn't real!"
+
+Slim Riley made no reply. His eyes were riveted to an undulating,
+ghastly something that oozed and crawled in the pale light not far from
+the bulb. His hand was reaching, reaching.... It found what he sought;
+he leaned toward the window. In his hand was the Very pistol for
+discharging the flares. He aimed forward and up.
+
+The second flare hung close before it settled on the sandy floor. Its
+blinding whiteness made the more loathsome the sickening yellow of the
+flabby flowing thing that writhed frantically in the glare. It was
+formless, shapeless, a heaving mound of nauseous matter. Yet even in its
+agonized writhing distortions they sensed the beating pulsations that
+marked it a living thing.
+
+There were unending ripplings crossing and recrossing through the
+convolutions. To Thurston there was suddenly a sickening likeness: the
+thing was a brain from a gigantic skull--it was naked--was
+suffering....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The thing poured itself across the sand. Before the staring gaze of the
+speechless men an excrescence appeared--a thick bulb on the mass--that
+protruded itself into a tentacle. At the end there grew instantly a
+hooked hand. It reached for the black opening in the great shell, found
+it, and the whole loathsome shapelessness poured itself up and through
+the hole.
+
+Only at the last was it still. In the dark opening the last slippery
+mass held quiet for endless seconds. It formed, as they watched, to a
+head--frightful--menacing. Eyes appeared in the head; eyes flat and
+round and black save for a cross slit in each; eyes that stared horribly
+and unchangingly into theirs. Below them a gaping mouth opened and
+closed.... The head melted--was gone....
+
+And with its going came a rushing roar of sound.
+
+From under the metallic mass shrieked a vaporous cloud. It drove at
+them, a swirling blast of snow and sand. Some buried memory of gas
+attacks woke Riley from his stupor. He slammed shut the windows
+an instant before the cloud struck, but not before they had seen,
+in the moonlight, a gleaming, gigantic, elongated bulb rise
+swiftly--screamingly--into the upper air.
+
+The blast tore at their plane. And the cold in their tight compartment
+was like the cold of outer space. The men stared, speechless, panting.
+Their breath froze in that frigid room into steam clouds.
+
+"It--it...." Thurston gasped--and slumped helpless upon the floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an hour before they dared open the door of their cabin. An hour
+of biting, numbing cold. Zero--on a warm summer night on the desert!
+Snow in the hurricane that had struck them!
+
+"'Twas the blast from the thing," guessed the pilot; "though never did
+I see an engine with an exhaust like that." He was pounding himself with
+his arms to force up the chilled circulation.
+
+"But the beast--the--the _thing_!" exclaimed Thurston. "It's monstrous;
+indecent! It thought--no question of that--but no body! Horrible! Just a
+raw, naked, thinking protoplasm!"
+
+It was here that he flung open the door. They sniffed cautiously of the
+air. It was warm again--clean--save for a hint of some nauseous odor.
+They walked forward; Riley carried a flash.
+
+The odor grew to a stench as they came where the great mass had lain. On
+the ground was a fleshy mound. There were bones showing, and horns on a
+skull. Riley held the light close to show the body of a steer. A body of
+raw bleeding meat. Half of it had been absorbed....
+
+"The damned thing," said Riley, and paused vainly for adequate words.
+"The damned thing was eating.... Like a jelly-fish, it was!"
+
+"Exactly," Thurston agreed. He pointed about. There were other heaps
+scattered among the low sage.
+
+"Smothered," guessed Thurston, "with that frozen exhaust. Then the
+filthy thing landed and came out to eat."
+
+"Hold the light for me," the pilot commanded. "I'm goin' to fix that
+busted oil line. And I'm goin' to do it right now. Maybe the creature's
+still hungry."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They sat in their room. About them was the luxury of a modern hotel.
+Cyrus Thurston stared vacantly at the breakfast he was forgetting to
+eat. He wiped his hands mechanically on a snowy napkin. He looked from
+the window. There were palm trees in the park, and autos in a ceaseless
+stream. And people! Sane, sober people, living in a sane world. Newsboys
+were shouting; the life of the city was flowing.
+
+"Riley!" Thurston turned to the man across the table. His voice was
+curiously toneless, and his face haggard. "Riley, I haven't slept for
+three nights. Neither have you. We've got to get this thing straight. We
+didn't both become absolute maniacs at the same instant, but--it was
+_not_ there, it was _never_ there--not _that_...." He was lost in
+unpleasant recollections. "There are other records of hallucinations."
+
+"Hallucinations--hell!" said Slim Riley. He was looking at a Los Angeles
+newspaper. He passed one hand wearily across his eyes, but his face was
+happier than it had been in days.
+
+"We didn't imagine it, we aren't crazy--it's real! Would you read that
+now!" He passed the paper across to Thurston. The headlines were
+startling.
+
+"Pilot Killed by Mysterious Airship. Silvery Bubble Hangs Over New York.
+Downs Army Plane in Burst of Flame. Vanishes at Terrific Speed."
+
+"It's our little friend," said Thurston. And on his face, too, the lines
+were vanishing; to find this horror a reality was positive relief.
+"Here's the same cloud of vapor--drifted slowly across the city,
+the accounts says, blowing this stuff like steam from underneath.
+Airplanes investigated--an army plane drove into the vapor--terrific
+explosion--plane down in flames--others wrecked. The machine ascended
+with meteor speed, trailing blue flame. Come on, boy, where's that old
+bus? Thought I never wanted to fly a plane again. Now I don't want to do
+anything but."
+
+"Where to?" Slim inquired.
+
+"Headquarters," Thurston told him. "Washington--let's go!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Los Angeles to Washington is not far, as the plane flies. There was
+a stop or two for gasoline, but it was only a day later that they were
+seated in the War Office. Thurston's card had gained immediate
+admittance. "Got the low-down," he had written on the back of his card,
+"on the mystery airship."
+
+"What you have told me is incredible," the Secretary was saying,
+"or would be if General Lozier here had not reported personally on
+the occurrence at New York. But the monster, the thing you have
+described.... Cy, if I didn't know you as I do I would have you locked
+up."
+
+"It's true," said Thurston, simply. "It's damnable, but it's true. Now
+what does it mean?"
+
+"Heaven knows," was the response. "That's where it came from--out of the
+heavens."
+
+"Not what we saw," Slim Riley broke in. "That thing came straight out of
+Hell." And in his voice was no suggestion of levity.
+
+"You left Los Angeles early yesterday; have you seen the papers?"
+
+Thurston shook his head.
+
+"They are back," said the Secretary. "Reported over London--Paris--the
+West Coast. Even China has seen them. Shanghai cabled an hour ago."
+
+"Them? How many are there?"
+
+"Nobody knows. There were five seen at one time. There are more--unless
+the same ones go around the world in a matter of minutes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston remembered that whirlwind of vapor and a vanishing speck in the
+Arizona sky. "They could," he asserted. "They're faster than anything on
+earth. Though what drives them ... that gas--steam--whatever it is...."
+
+"Hydrogen," stated General Lozier. "I saw the New York show when poor
+Davis got his. He flew into the exhaust; it went off like a million
+bombs. Characteristic hydrogen flame trailed the damn thing up out of
+sight--a tail of blue fire."
+
+"And cold," stated Thurston.
+
+"Hot as a Bunsen burner," the General contradicted. "Davis' plane almost
+melted."
+
+"Before it ignited," said the other. He told of the cold in their plane.
+
+"Ha!" The General spoke explosively. "That's expansion. That's a tip on
+their motive power. Expansion of gas. That accounts for the cold and
+the vapor. Suddenly expanded it would be intensely cold. The moisture of
+the air would condense, freeze. But how could they carry it? Or"--he
+frowned for a moment, brows drawn over deep-set gray eyes--"or generate
+it? But that's crazy--that's impossible!"
+
+"So is the whole matter," the Secretary reminded him. "With the
+information Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have given us, the whole affair
+is beyond any gage our past experience might supply. We start from the
+impossible, and we go--where? What is to be done?"
+
+"With your permission, sir, a number of things shall be done. It would
+be interesting to see what a squadron of planes might accomplish, diving
+on them from above. Or anti-aircraft fire."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No," said the Secretary of War, "not yet. They have looked us over,
+but they have not attacked. For the present we do not know what they
+are. All of us have our suspicions--thoughts of interplanetary
+travel--thoughts too wild for serious utterance--but we know nothing.
+
+"Say nothing to the papers of what you have told me," he directed
+Thurston. "Lord knows their surmises are wild enough now. And for you,
+General, in the event of any hostile move, you will resist."
+
+"Your order was anticipated, sir." The General permitted himself a
+slight smile. "The air force is ready."
+
+"Of course," the Secretary of War nodded. "Meet me here to-night--nine
+o'clock." He included Thurston and Riley in the command. "We need to
+think ... to think ... and perhaps their mission is friendly."
+
+"Friendly!" The two flyers exchanged glances as they went to the door.
+And each knew what the other was seeing--a viscous ocherous mass that
+formed into a head where eyes devilish in their hate stared coldly into
+theirs....
+
+"Think, we need to think," repeated Thurston later. "A creature that is
+just one big hideous brain, that can think an arm into existence--think
+a head where it wishes! What does a thing like that think of? What
+beastly thoughts could that--that _thing_ conceive?"
+
+"If I got the sights of a Lewis gun on it," said Riley vindictively,
+"I'd make it think."
+
+"And my guess is that is all you would accomplish," Thurston told him.
+"I am forming a few theories about our visitors. One is that it would be
+quite impossible to find a vital spot in that big homogeneous mass."
+
+The pilot dispensed with theories: his was a more literal mind. "Where
+on earth did they come from, do you suppose, Mr. Thurston?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were walking to their hotel. Thurston raised his eyes to the summer
+heavens. Faint stars were beginning to twinkle; there was one that
+glowed steadily.
+
+"Nowhere on earth," Thurston stated softly, "nowhere on earth."
+
+"Maybe so," said the pilot, "maybe so. We've thought about it and talked
+about it ... and they've gone ahead and done it." He called to a
+newsboy; they took the latest editions to their room.
+
+The papers were ablaze with speculation. There were dispatches from all
+corners of the earth, interviews with scientists and near scientists.
+The machines were a Soviet invention--they were beyond anything
+human--they were harmless--they would wipe out civilization--poison
+gas--blasts of fire like that which had enveloped the army flyer....
+
+And through it all Thurston read an ill-concealed fear, a reflection of
+panic that was gripping the nation--the whole world. These great
+machines were sinister. Wherever they appeared came the sense of being
+watched, of a menace being calmly withheld. And at thought of the
+obscene monsters inside those spheres, Thurston's lips were compressed
+and his eyes hardened. He threw the papers aside.
+
+"They are here," he said, "and that's all that we know. I hope the
+Secretary of War gets some good men together. And I hope someone is
+inspired with an answer."
+
+"An answer is it?" said Riley. "I'm thinkin' that the answer will come,
+but not from these swivel-chair fighters. 'Tis the boys in the cockpits
+with one hand on the stick and one on the guns that will have the
+answer."
+
+But Thurston shook his head. "Their speed," he said, "and the gas!
+Remember that cold. How much of it can they lay over a city?"
+
+The question was unanswered, unless the quick ringing of the phone was a
+reply.
+
+"War Department," said a voice. "Hold the wire." The voice of the
+Secretary of War came on immediately.
+
+"Thurston?" he asked. "Come over at once on the jump, old man. Hell's
+popping."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The windows of the War Department Building were all alight as they
+approached. Cars were coming and going; men in uniform, as the Secretary
+had said, "on the jump." Soldiers with bayonets stopped them, then
+passed Thurston and his companion on. Bells were ringing from all sides.
+But in the Secretary's office was perfect quiet.
+
+General Lozier was there, Thurston saw, and an imposing array of
+gold-braided men with a sprinkling of those in civilian clothes. One he
+recognized: MacGregor from the Bureau of Standards. The Secretary handed
+Thurston some papers.
+
+"Radio," he explained. "They are over the Pacific coast. Hit near
+Vancouver; Associated Press says city destroyed. They are working down
+the coast. Same story--blast of hydrogen from their funnel shaped base.
+Colder than Greenland below them; snow fell in Seattle. No real attack
+since Vancouver and little damage done--" A message was laid before
+him.
+
+"Portland," he said. "Five mystery ships over city. Dart repeatedly
+toward earth, deliver blast of gas and then retreat. Doing no damage.
+Apparently inviting attack. All commercial planes ordered grounded.
+Awaiting instructions.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Secretary, "I believe I speak for all present when
+I say that, in the absence of first hand information, we are utterly
+unable to arrive at any definite conclusion or make a definite plan.
+There is a menace in this, undeniably. Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have
+been good enough to report to me. They have seen one machine at close
+range. It was occupied by a monster so incredible that the report would
+receive no attention from me did I not know Mr. Thurston personally.
+
+"Where have they come from? What does it mean--what is their mission?
+Only God knows.
+
+"Gentlemen, I feel that I must see them. I want General Lozier to
+accompany me, also Doctor MacGregor, to advise me from the scientific
+angle. I am going to the Pacific Coast. They may not wait--that is
+true--but they appear to be going slowly south. I will leave to-night
+for San Diego. I hope to intercept them. We have strong air-forces
+there; the Navy Department is cooperating."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He waited for no comment. "General," he ordered, "will you kindly
+arrange for a plane? Take an escort or not as you think best.
+
+"Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley will also accompany us. We want all the
+authoritative data we can get. This on my return will be placed before
+you, gentlemen, for your consideration." He rose from his chair. "I hope
+they wait for us," he said.
+
+Time was when a commander called loudly for a horse, but in this day a
+Secretary of War is not kept waiting for transportation. Sirening
+motorcycles preceded them from the city. Within an hour, motors roaring
+wide open, propellers ripping into the summer night, lights slipping
+eastward three thousand feet below, the Secretary of War for the United
+States was on his way. And on either side from their plane stretched the
+arms of a V. Like a flight of gigantic wild geese, fast fighting planes
+of the Army air service bored steadily into the night, guarantors of
+safe convoy.
+
+"The Air Service is ready," General Lozier had said. And Thurston and
+his pilot knew that from East coast to West, swift scout planes, whose
+idling engines could roar into action at a moment's notice, stood
+waiting; battle planes hidden in hangars would roll forth at the
+word--the Navy was cooperating--and at San Diego there were strong naval
+units, Army units, and Marine Corps.
+
+"They don't know what we can do, what we have up our sleeve: they are
+feeling us out," said the Secretary. They had stopped more than once for
+gas and for wireless reports. He held a sheaf of typewritten briefs.
+
+"Going slowly south. They have taken their time. Hours over San
+Francisco and the bay district. Repeating same tactics; fall with
+terrific speed to cushion against their blast of gas. Trying to draw us
+out, provoke an attack, make us show our strength. Well, we shall beat
+them to San Diego at this rate. We'll be there in a few hours."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon sun was dropping ahead of them when they sighted the
+water. "Eckener Pass," the pilot told them, "where the Graf Zeppelin
+came through. Wonder what these birds would think of a Zepp!
+
+"There's the ocean," he added after a time. San Diego glistened against
+the bare hills. "There's North Island--the Army field." He stared
+intently ahead, then shouted: "And there they are! Look there!"
+
+Over the city a cluster of meteors was falling. Dark underneath, their
+tops shone like pure silver in the sun's slanting glare. They fell
+toward the city, then buried themselves in a dense cloud of steam,
+rebounding at once to the upper air, vapor trailing behind them.
+
+The cloud billowed slowly. It struck the hills of the city, then lifted
+and vanished.
+
+"Land at once," requested the Secretary. A flash of silver countermanded
+the order.
+
+It hung there before them, a great gleaming globe, keeping always its
+distance ahead. It was elongated at the base, Thurston observed. From
+that base shot the familiar blast that turned steamy a hundred feet
+below as it chilled the warm air. There were round orifices, like ports,
+ranged around the top, where an occasional jet of vapor showed this to
+be a method of control. Other spots shone dark and glassy. Were they
+windows? He hardly realized their peril, so interested was he in the
+strange machine ahead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then: "Dodge that vapor," ordered General Lozier. The plane wavered in
+signal to the others and swung sharply to the left. Each man knew the
+flaming death that was theirs if the fire of their exhaust touched that
+explosive mixture of hydrogen and air. The great bubble turned with them
+and paralleled their course.
+
+"He's watching us," said Riley, "giving us the once over, the slimy
+devil. Ain't there a gun on this ship?"
+
+The General addressed his superior. Even above the roar of the motors
+his voice seemed quiet, assured. "We must not land now," he said. "We
+can't land at North Island. It would focus their attention upon our
+defenses. That thing--whatever it is--is looking for a vulnerable spot.
+We must.... Hold on--there he goes!"
+
+The big bulb shot upward. It slanted above them, and hovered there.
+
+"I think he is about to attack," said the General quietly. And, to the
+commander of their squadron: "It's in your hands now, Captain. It's
+your fight."
+
+The Captain nodded and squinted above. "He's got to throw heavier stuff
+than that," he remarked. A small object was falling from the cloud. It
+passed close to their ship.
+
+"Half-pint size," said Cyrus Thurston, and laughed in derision. There
+was something ludicrous in the futility of the attack. He stuck his head
+from a window into the gale they created. He sheltered his eyes to try
+to follow the missile in its fall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were over the city. The criss-cross of streets made a grill-work of
+lines; tall buildings were dwarfed from this three thousand foot
+altitude. The sun slanted across a projecting promontory to make golden
+ripples on a blue sea and the city sparkled back in the clear air. Tiny
+white faces were massed in the streets, huddled in clusters where the
+futile black missile had vanished.
+
+And then--then the city was gone....
+
+A white cloud-bank billowed and mushroomed. Slowly, it seemed to the
+watcher--so slowly.
+
+It was done in the fraction of a second. Yet in that brief time his eyes
+registered the chaotic sweep in advance of the cloud. There came a
+crashing of buildings in some monster whirlwind, a white cloud engulfing
+it all.... It was rising--was on them.
+
+"God," thought Thurston, "why can't I move!" The plane lifted and
+lurched. A thunder of sound crashed against them, an intolerable force.
+They were crushed to the floor as the plane was hurled over and upward.
+
+Out of the mad whirling tangle of flying bodies, Thurston glimpsed one
+clear picture. The face of the pilot hung battered and blood-covered
+before him, and over the limp body the hand of Slim Riley clutched at
+the switch.
+
+"Bully boy," he said dazedly, "he's cutting the motors...." The thought
+ended in blackness.
+
+There was no sound of engines or beating propellers when he came to his
+senses. Something lay heavy upon him. He pushed it to one side. It was
+the body of General Lozier.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He drew himself to his knees to look slowly about, rubbed stupidly at
+his eyes to quiet the whirl, then stared at the blood on his hand. It
+was so quiet--the motors--what was it that happened? Slim had reached
+for the switch....
+
+The whirling subsided. Before him he saw Slim Riley at the controls. He
+got to his feet and went unsteadily forward. It was a battered face that
+was lifted to his.
+
+"She was spinning," the puffed lips were muttering slowly. "I brought
+her out ... there's the field...." His voice was thick; he formed the
+words slowly, painfully. "Got to land ... can you take it? I'm--I'm--"
+He slumped limply in his seat.
+
+Thurston's arms were uninjured. He dragged the pilot to the floor and
+got back of the wheel. The field was below them. There were planes
+taxiing out; he heard the roar of their motors. He tried the controls.
+The plane answered stiffly, but he managed to level off as the brown
+field approached.
+
+Thurston never remembered that landing. He was trying to drag Riley from
+the battered plane when the first man got to him.
+
+"Secretary of War?" he gasped. "In there.... Take Riley; I can walk."
+
+"We'll get them," an officer assured him. "Knew you were coming. They
+sure gave you hell! But look at the city!"
+
+Arms carried him stumbling from the field. Above the low hangars he saw
+smoke clouds over the bay. These and red rolling flames marked what had
+been an American city. Far in the heavens moved five glinting specks.
+
+His head reeled with the thunder of engines. There were planes standing
+in lines and more erupting from hangars, where khaki-clad men, faces
+tense under leather helmets, rushed swiftly about.
+
+"General Lozier is dead," said a voice. Thurston turned to the man. They
+were bringing the others. "The rest are smashed up some," the officer
+told him, "but I think they'll pull through."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Secretary of War for the United States lay beside him. Men with red
+on their sleeves were slitting his coat. Through one good eye he
+squinted at Thurston. He even managed a smile.
+
+"Well, I wanted to see them up close," he said. "They say you saved us,
+old man."
+
+Thurston waved that aside. "Thank Riley--" he began, but the words ended
+in the roar of an exhaust. A plane darted swiftly away to shoot
+vertically a hundred feet in the air. Another followed and another. In a
+cloud of brown dust they streamed endlessly out, zooming up like angry
+hornets, eager to get into the fight.
+
+"Fast little devils!" the ambulance man observed. "Here come the big
+boys."
+
+A leviathan went deafeningly past. And again others came on in quick
+succession. Farther up the field, silvery gray planes with rudders
+flaunting their red, white and blue rose circling to the heights.
+
+"That's the Navy," was the explanation. The surgeon straightened the
+Secretary's arm. "See them come off the big airplane carriers!"
+
+If his remarks were part of his professional training in removing a
+patient's thoughts from his pain, they were effective. The Secretary
+stared out to sea, where two great flat-decked craft were shooting
+planes with the regularity of a rapid fire gun. They stood out sharply
+against a bank of gray fog. Cyrus Thurston forgot his bruised body,
+forgot his own peril--even the inferno that raged back across the bay:
+he was lost in the sheer thrill of the spectacle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Above them the sky was alive with winged shapes. And from all the
+disorder there was order appearing. Squadron after squadron swept to
+battle formation. Like flights of wild ducks the true sharp-pointed Vs
+soared off into the sky. Far above and beyond, rows of dots marked the
+race of swift scouts for the upper levels. And high in the clear air
+shone the glittering menace trailing their five plumes of gas.
+
+A deeper detonation was merging into the uproar. It came from the ships,
+Thurston knew, where anti-aircraft guns poured a rain of shells into the
+sky. About the invaders they bloomed into clusters of smoke balls. The
+globes shot a thousand feet into the air. Again the shells found them,
+and again they retreated.
+
+"Look!" said Thurston. "They got one!"
+
+He groaned as a long curving arc of speed showed that the big bulb was
+under control. Over the ships it paused, to balance and swing, then shot
+to the zenith as one of the great boats exploded in a cloud of vapor.
+
+The following blast swept the airdrome. Planes yet on the ground went
+like dry autumn leaves. The hangars were flattened.
+
+Thurston cowered in awe. They were sheltered, he saw, by a slope of the
+ground. No ridicule now for the bombs!
+
+A second blast marked when the gas-cloud ignited. The billowing flames
+were blue. They writhed in tortured convulsions through the air. Endless
+explosions merged into one rumbling roar.
+
+MacGregor had roused from his stupor; he raised to a sitting position.
+
+"Hydrogen," he stated positively, and pointed where great volumes of
+flame were sent whirling aloft. "It burns as it mixes with air." The
+scientist was studying intently the mammoth reaction. "But the volume,"
+he marveled, "the volume! From that small container! Impossible!"
+
+"Impossible," the Secretary agreed, "but...." He pointed with his one
+good arm toward the Pacific. Two great ships of steel, blackened and
+battered in that fiery breath, tossed helplessly upon the pitching,
+heaving sea. They furnished to the scientist's exclamation the only
+adequate reply.
+
+Each man stared aghast into the pallid faces of his companions. "I think
+we have underestimated the opposition," said the Secretary of War
+quietly. "Look--the fog is coming in, but it's too late to save them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The big ships were vanishing in the oncoming fog. Whirls of vapor were
+eddying toward them in the flame-blaster air. Above them the watchers
+saw dimly the five gleaming bulbs. There were airplanes attacking: the
+tapping of machine-gun fire came to them faintly.
+
+Fast planes circled and swooped toward the enemy. An armada of big
+planes drove in from beyond. Formations were blocking space above....
+Every branch of the service was there, Thurston exulted, the army,
+Marine Corps, the Navy. He gripped hard at the dry ground in a paralysis
+of taut nerves. The battle was on, and in the balance hung the fate of
+the world.
+
+The fog drove in fast. Through straining eyes he tried in vain to
+glimpse the drama spread above. The world grew dark and gray. He buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+And again came the thunder. The men on the ground forced their gaze to
+the clouds, though they knew some fresh horror awaited.
+
+The fog-clouds reflected the blue terror above. They were riven and
+torn. And through them black objects were falling. Some blazed as they
+fell. They slipped into unthought maneuvers--they darted to earth
+trailing yellow and black of gasoline fires. The air was filled with the
+dread rain of death that was spewed from the gray clouds. Gone was the
+roaring of motors. The air-force of the San Diego area swept in silence
+to the earth, whose impact alone could give kindly concealment to their
+flame-stricken burden.
+
+Thurston's last control snapped. He flung himself flat to bury his face
+in the sheltering earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Only the driving necessity of work to be done saved the sanity of the
+survivors. The commercial broadcasting stations were demolished, a part
+of the fuel for the terrible furnace across the bay. But the Naval radio
+station was beyond on an outlying hill. The Secretary of War was in
+charge. An hour's work and this was again in commission to flash to the
+world the story of disaster. It told the world also of what lay ahead.
+The writing was plain. No prophet was needed to forecast the doom and
+destruction that awaited the earth.
+
+Civilization was helpless. What of armies and cannon, of navies, of
+aircraft, when from some unreachable height these monsters within their
+bulbous machines could drop coldly--methodically--their diminutive
+bombs. And when each bomb meant shattering destruction; each explosion
+blasting all within a radius of miles; each followed by the blue blast
+of fire that melted the twisted framework of buildings and powdered the
+stones to make of a proud city a desolation of wreckage, black and
+silent beneath the cold stars. There was no crumb of comfort for the
+world in the terror the radio told.
+
+Slim Riley was lying on an improvised cot when Thurston and the
+representative of the Bureau of Standards joined him. Four walls of a
+room still gave shelter in a half-wrecked building. There were candles
+burning: the dark was unbearable.
+
+"Sit down," said MacGregor quietly; "we must think...."
+
+"Think!" Thurston's voice had an hysterical note. "I can't think! I
+mustn't think! I'll go raving crazy...."
+
+"Yes, think," said the scientist. "Had it occurred to you that that is
+our only weapon left?
+
+"We must think, we must analyze. Have these devils a vulnerable spot? Is
+there any known means of attack? We do not know. We must learn. Here in
+this room we have all the direct information the world possesses of this
+menace. I have seen their machines in operation. You have seen more--you
+have looked at the monsters themselves. At one of them, anyway."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The man's voice was quiet, methodical. Mr. MacGregor was attacking a
+problem. Problems called for concentration; not hysterics. He could have
+poured the contents from a beaker without spilling a drop. His poise was
+needed: they were soon to make a laboratory experiment.
+
+The door burst open to admit a wild-eyed figure that snatched up their
+candles and dashed them to the floor.
+
+"Lights out!" he screamed at them. "There's one of 'em coming back." He
+was gone from the room.
+
+The men sprang for the door, then turned to where Riley was clumsily
+crawling from his couch. An arm under each of his, and the three men
+stumbled from the room.
+
+They looked about them in the night. The fog-banks were high, drifting
+in from the ocean. Beneath them the air was clear; from somewhere above
+a hidden moon forced a pale light through the clouds. And over the
+ocean, close to the water, drifted a familiar shape. Familiar in its
+huge sleek roundness, in its funnel-shaped base where a soft roar made
+vaporous clouds upon the water. Familiar, too, in the wild dread it
+inspired.
+
+The watchers were spellbound. To Thurston there came a fury of impotent
+frenzy. It was so near! His hands trembled to tear at that door, to rip
+at that foul mass he knew was within.... The great bulb drifted past. It
+was nearing the shore. But its action! Its motion!
+
+Gone was the swift certainty of control. The thing settled and sank, to
+rise weakly with a fresh blast of gas from its exhaust. It settled
+again, and passed waveringly on in the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston was throbbingly alive with hope that was certainty. "It's been
+hit," he exulted; "it's been hit. Quick! After it, follow it!" He dashed
+for a car. There were some that had been salvaged from the less ruined
+buildings. He swung it quickly around where the others were waiting.
+
+"Get a gun," he commanded. "Hey, you,"--to an officer who
+appeared--"your pistol, man, quick! We're going after it!" He caught the
+tossed gun and hurried the others into the car.
+
+"Wait," MacGregor commanded. "Would you hunt elephants with a pop-gun?
+Or these things?"
+
+"Yes," the other told him, "or my bare hands! Are you coming, or aren't
+you?"
+
+The physicist was unmoved. "The creature you saw--you said that it
+writhed in a bright light--you said it seemed almost in agony. There's
+an idea there! Yes, I'm going with you, but keep your shirt on, and
+think."
+
+He turned again to the officer. "We need lights," he explained, "bright
+lights. What is there? Magnesium? Lights of any kind?"
+
+"Wait." The man rushed off into the dark.
+
+He was back in a moment to thrust a pistol into the car. "Flares," he
+explained. "Here's a flashlight, if you need it." The car tore at the
+ground as Thurston opened it wide. He drove recklessly toward the
+highway that followed the shore.
+
+The high fog had thinned to a mist. A full moon was breaking through to
+touch with silver the white breakers hissing on the sand. It spread its
+full glory on dunes and sea: one more of the countless soft nights where
+peace and calm beauty told of an ageless existence that made naught of
+the red havoc of men or of monsters. It shone on the ceaseless surf
+that had beaten these shores before there were men, that would thunder
+there still when men were no more. But to the tense crouching men in the
+car it shone only ahead on a distant, glittering speck. A wavering
+reflection marked the uncertain flight of the stricken enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston drove like a maniac; the road carried them straight toward
+their quarry. What could he do when he overtook it? He neither knew nor
+cared. There was only the blind fury forcing him on within reach of the
+thing. He cursed as the lights of the car showed a bend in the road. It
+was leaving the shore.
+
+He slackened their speed to drive cautiously into the sand. It dragged
+at the car, but he fought through to the beach, where he hoped for firm
+footing. The tide was out. They tore madly along the smooth sand,
+breakers clutching at the flying wheels.
+
+The strange aircraft was nearer; it was plainly over the shore, they
+saw. Thurston groaned as it shot high in the air in an effort to clear
+the cliffs ahead. But the heights were no longer a refuge. Again it
+settled. It struck on the cliff to rebound in a last futile leap. The
+great pear shape tilted, then shot end over end to crash hard on the
+firm sand. The lights of the car struck the wreck, and they saw the
+shell roll over once. A ragged break was opening--the spherical top fell
+slowly to one side. It was still rocking as they brought the car to a
+stop. Filling the lower shell, they saw dimly, was a mucouslike mass
+that seethed and struggled in the brilliance of their lights.
+
+MacGregor was persisting in his theory. "Keep the lights on it!" he
+shouted. "It can't stand the light."
+
+While they watched, the hideous, bubbling beast oozed over the side of
+the broken shell to shelter itself in the shadow beneath. And again
+Thurston sensed the pulse and throb of life in the monstrous mass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He saw again in his rage the streaming rain of black airplanes; saw,
+too, the bodies, blackened and charred as they saw them when first they
+tried rescue from the crashed ships; the smoke clouds and flames from
+the blasted city, where people--his people, men and women and little
+children--had met terrible death. He sprang from the car. Yet he
+faltered with a revulsion that was almost a nausea. His gun was gripped
+in his hand as he ran toward the monster.
+
+"Come back!" shouted MacGregor. "Come back! Have you gone mad?" He was
+jerking at the door of the car.
+
+Beyond the white funnel of their lights a yellow thing was moving. It
+twisted and flowed with incredible speed a hundred feet back to the base
+of the cliff. It drew itself together in a quivering heap.
+
+An out-thrusting rock threw a sheltering shadow; the moon was low in the
+west. In the blackness a phosphorescence was apparent. It rippled and
+rose in the dark with the pulsing beat of the jellylike mass. And
+through it were showing two discs. Gray at first, they formed to black,
+staring eyes.
+
+Thurston had followed. His gun was raised as he neared it. Then out of
+the mass shot a serpentine arm. It whipped about him, soft, sticky,
+viscid--utterly loathsome. He screamed once when it clung to his face,
+then tore savagely and in silence at the encircling folds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The gun! He ripped a blinding mass from his face and emptied the
+automatic in a stream of shots straight toward the eyes. And he knew as
+he fired that the effort was useless; to have shot at the milky surf
+would have been as vain.
+
+The thing was pulling him irresistibly; he sank to his knees; it dragged
+him over the sand. He clutched at a rock. A vision was before him: the
+carcass of a steer, half absorbed and still bleeding on the sand of an
+Arizona desert....
+
+To be drawn to the smothering embrace of that glutinous mass ... for
+that monstrous appetite.... He tore afresh at the unyielding folds, then
+knew MacGregor was beside him.
+
+In the man's hand was a flashlight. The scientist risked his life on a
+guess. He thrust the powerful light into the clinging serpent. It was
+like the touch of hot iron to human flesh. The arm struggled and flailed
+in a paroxysm of pain.
+
+Thurston was free. He lay gasping on the sand. But MacGregor!... He
+looked up to see him vanish in the clinging ooze. Another thick tentacle
+had been projected from the main mass to sweep like a whip about the
+man. It hissed as it whirled about him in the still air.
+
+The flashlight was gone; Thurston's hand touched it in the sand. He
+sprang to his feet and pressed the switch. No light responded; the
+flashlight was out--broken.
+
+A thick arm slashed and wrapped about him.... It beat him to the ground.
+The sand was moving beneath him; he was being dragged swiftly,
+helplessly, toward what waited in the shadow. He was smothering.... A
+blinding glare filled his eyes....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The flares were still burning when he dared look about. MacGregor was
+pulling frantically at his arm. "Quick--quick!" he was shouting.
+Thurston scrambled to his feet.
+
+One glimpse he caught of a heaving yellow mass in the white light; it
+twisted in horrible convulsions. They ran stumblingly--drunkenly--toward
+the car.
+
+Riley was half out of the machine. He had tried to drag himself to their
+assistance. "I couldn't make it," he said: "then I thought of the
+flares."
+
+"Thank Heaven," said MacGregor with emphasis, "it was your legs that
+were paralyzed, Riley, not your brain."
+
+Thurston found his voice. "Let me have that Very pistol. If light hurts
+that damn thing, I am going to put a blaze of magnesium into the middle
+of it if I die for it."
+
+"They're all gone," said Riley.
+
+"Then let's get out of here. I've had enough. We can come back later
+on."
+
+He got back of the wheel and slammed the door of the sedan. The
+moonlight was gone. The darkness was velvet just tinged with the gray
+that precedes the dawn. Back in the deeper blackness at the cliff-base a
+phosphorescent something wavered and glowed. The light rippled and
+flowed in all directions over the mass. Thurston felt, vaguely, its
+mystery--the bulk was a vast, naked brain; its quiverings were like
+visible thought waves....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The phosphorescence grew brighter. The thing was approaching. Thurston
+let in his clutch, but the scientist checked him.
+
+"Wait," he implored, "wait! I wouldn't miss this for the world." He
+waved toward the east, where far distant ranges were etched in palest
+rose.
+
+"We know less than nothing of these creatures, in what part
+of the universe they are spawned, how they live, where they
+live--Saturn!--Mars!--the Moon! But--we shall soon know how one dies!"
+
+The thing was coming from the cliff. In the dim grayness it seemed less
+yellow, less fluid. A membrane enclosed it. It was close to the car. Was
+it hunger that drove it, or cold rage for these puny opponents? The
+hollow eyes were glaring; a thick arm formed quickly to dart out toward
+the car. A cloud, high above, caught the color of approaching day....
+
+Before their eyes the vile mass pulsed visibly; it quivered and beat.
+Then, sensing its danger, it darted like some headless serpent for its
+machine.
+
+It massed itself about the shattered top to heave convulsively. The top
+was lifted, carried toward the rest of the great metal egg. The sun's
+first rays made golden arrows through the distant peaks.
+
+The struggling mass released its burden to stretch its vile length
+toward the dark caves under the cliffs. The last sheltering fog-veil
+parted. The thing was halfway to the high bank when the first bright
+shaft of direct sunlight shot through.
+
+Incredible in the concealment of night, the vast protoplasmic pod was
+doubly so in the glare of day. But it was there before them, not a
+hundred feet distant. And it boiled in vast tortured convulsions. The
+clean sunshine struck it, and the mass heaved itself into the air in a
+nauseous eruption, then fell limply to the earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The yellow membrane turned paler. Once more the staring black eyes
+formed to turn hopelessly toward the sheltering globe. Then the bulk
+flattened out on the sand. It was a jellylike mound, through which
+trembled endless quivering palpitations.
+
+The sun struck hot, and before the eyes of the watching, speechless men
+was a sickening, horrible sight--a festering mass of corruption.
+
+The sickening yellow was liquid. It seethed and bubbled with liberated
+gases; it decomposed to purplish fluid streams. A breath of wind blew in
+their direction. The stench from the hideous pool was overpowering,
+unbearable. Their heads swam in the evil breath.... Thurston ripped the
+gears into reverse, nor stopped until they were far away on the clean
+sand.
+
+The tide was coming in when they returned. Gone was the vile
+putrescence. The waves were lapping at the base of the gleaming machine.
+
+"We'll have to work fast," said MacGregor. "I must know, I must learn."
+He drew himself up and into the shattered shell.
+
+It was of metal, some forty feet across, its framework a maze of
+latticed struts. The central part was clear. Here in a wide, shallow pan
+the monster had rested. Below this was tubing, intricate coils, massive,
+heavy and strong. MacGregor lowered himself upon it, Thurston was
+beside him. They went down into the dim bowels of the deadly instrument.
+
+"Hydrogen," the physicist was stating. "Hydrogen--there's our starting
+point. A generator, obviously, forming the gas--from what? They couldn't
+compress it! They couldn't carry it or make it, not the volume that they
+evolved. But they did it, they did it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Close to the coils a dim light was glowing. It was a pin-point of
+radiance in the half-darkness about them. The two men bent closer.
+
+"See," directed MacGregor, "it strikes on this mirror--bright metal and
+parabolic. It disperses the light, doesn't concentrate it! Ah! Here is
+another, and another. This one is bent--broken. They are adjustable. Hm!
+Micrometer accuracy for reducing the light. The last one could reflect
+through this slot. It's light that does it, Thurston, it's light that
+does it!"
+
+"Does what?" Thurston had followed the other's analysis of the diffusion
+process. "The light that would finally reach that slot would be hardly
+perceptible."
+
+"It's the agent," said MacGregor, "the activator--the catalyst! What
+does it strike upon? I must know--I must!"
+
+The waves were splashing outside the shell. Thurston turned in a
+feverish search of the unexplored depths. There was a surprising
+simplicity, an absence of complicated mechanism. The generator, with its
+tremendous braces to carry its thrust to the framework itself, filled
+most of the space. Some of the ribs were thicker, he noticed. Solid
+metal, as if they might carry great weights. Resting upon them were
+ranged numbers of objects. They were like eggs, slender, and inches in
+length. On some were propellers. They worked through the shells on long
+slender rods. Each was threaded finely--an adjustable arm engaged the
+thread. Thurston called excitedly to the other.
+
+"Here they are," he said. "Look! Here are the shells. Here's what blew
+us up!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He pointed to the slim shafts with their little propellerlike fans.
+"Adjustable, see? Unwind in their fall ... set 'em for any length of
+travel ... fires the charge in the air. That's how they wiped out our
+air fleet."
+
+There were others without the propellers; they had fins to hold them
+nose downward. On each nose was a small rounded cap.
+
+"Detonators of some sort," said MacGregor. "We've got to have one. We
+must get it out quick; the tide's coming in." He laid his hands upon one
+of the slim, egg-shaped things. He lifted, then strained mightily. But
+the object did not rise; it only rolled sluggishly.
+
+The scientist stared at it amazed. "Specific gravity," he exclaimed,
+"beyond anything known! There's nothing on earth ... there is no such
+substance ... no form of matter...." His eyes were incredulous.
+
+"Lots to learn," Thurston answered grimly. "We've yet to learn how to
+fight off the other four."
+
+The other nodded. "Here's the secret," he said. "These shells liberate
+the same gas that drives the machine. Solve one and we solve both--then
+we learn how to combat it. But how to remove it--that is the problem.
+You and I can never lift this out of here."
+
+His glance darted about. There was a small door in the metal beam. The
+groove in which the shells were placed led to it; it was a port for
+launching the projectiles. He moved it, opened it. A dash of spray
+struck him in the face. He glanced inquiringly at his companion.
+
+"Dare we do it?" he asked. "Slide one of them out?"
+
+Each man looked long into the eyes of the other. Was this, then, the end
+of their terrible night? One shell to be dropped--then a bursting
+volcano to blast them to eternity....
+
+"The boys in the planes risked it," said Thurston quietly. "They got
+theirs." He stopped for a broken fragment of steel. "Try one with a fan
+on; it hasn't a detonator."
+
+The men pried at the slim thing. It slid slowly toward the open port.
+One heave and it balanced on the edge, then vanished abruptly. The spray
+was cold on their faces. They breathed heavily with the realization that
+they still lived.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were days of horror that followed, horror tempered by a numbing
+paralysis of all emotions. There were bodies by thousands to be heaped
+in the pit where San Diego had stood, to be buried beneath countless
+tons of debris and dirt. Trains brought an army of helpers; airplanes
+came with doctors and nurses and the beginning of a mountain of
+supplies. The need was there; it must be met. Yet the whole world was
+waiting while it helped, waiting for the next blow to fall.
+
+Telegraph service was improvised, and radio receivers rushed in. The
+news of the world was theirs once more. And it told of a terrified,
+waiting world. There would be no temporizing now on the part of the
+invaders. They had seen the airplanes swarming from the ground--they
+would know an airdrome next time from the air. Thurston had noted the
+windows in the great shell, windows of dull-colored glass which would
+protect the darkness of the interior, essential to life for the horrible
+occupant, but through which it could see. It could watch all directions
+at once.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great shell had vanished from the shore. Pounding waves and the
+shifting sands of high tide had obliterated all trace. More than once
+had Thurston uttered devout thanks for the chance shell from an
+anti-aircraft gun that had entered the funnel beneath the machine, had
+bent and twisted the arrangement of mirrors that he and MacGregor had
+seen, and, exploding, had cracked and broken the domed roof of the
+bulb. They had learned little, but MacGregor was up north within reach
+of Los Angeles laboratories. And he had with him the slim cylinder of
+death. He was studying, thinking.
+
+Telephone service had been established for official business. The whole
+nation-wide system, for that matter, was under military control. The
+Secretary of War had flown back to Washington. The whole world was on a
+war basis. War! And none knew where they should defend themselves, nor
+how.
+
+An orderly rushed Thurston to the telephone. "You are wanted at once;
+Los Angeles calling."
+
+The voice of MacGregor was cool and unhurried as Thurston listened.
+"Grab a plane, old man," he was saying, "and come up here on the jump."
+
+The phrase brought a grim smile to Thurston's tired lips. "Hell's
+popping!" the Secretary of War had added on that evening those long ages
+before. Did MacGregor have something? Was a different kind of hell
+preparing to pop? The thoughts flashed through the listener's mind.
+
+"I need a good deputy," MacGregor said. "You may be the whole works--may
+have to carry on--but I'll tell you it all later. Meet me at the
+Biltmore."
+
+"In less than two hours," Thurston assured him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A plane was at his disposal. Riley's legs were functioning again, after
+a fashion. They kept the appointment with minutes to spare.
+
+"Come on," said MacGregor, "I'll talk to you in the car." The automobile
+whirled them out of the city to race off upon a winding highway that
+climbed into far hills. There was twenty miles of this; MacGregor had
+time for his talk.
+
+"They've struck," he told the two men. "They were over Germany
+yesterday. The news was kept quiet: I got the last report a half-hour
+ago. They pretty well wiped out Berlin. No air-force there. France and
+England sent a swarm of planes, from the reports. Poor devils! No need
+to tell you what they got. We've seen it first hand. They headed west
+over the Atlantic, the four machines. Gave England a burst or two from
+high up, paused over New York, then went on. But they're here somewhere,
+we think. Now listen:
+
+"How long was it from the time when you saw the first monster until we
+heard from them again?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston forced his mind back to those days that seemed so far in the
+past. He tried to remember.
+
+"Four days," broke in Riley. "It was the fourth day after we found the
+devil feeding."
+
+"Feeding!" interrupted the scientist. "That's the point I am making.
+Four days. Remember that!
+
+"And we knew they were down in the Argentine five days ago--that's
+another item kept from an hysterical public. They slaughtered some
+thousands of cattle; there were scores of them found where the
+devils--I'll borrow Riley's word--where the devils had fed. Nothing left
+but hide and bones.
+
+"And--mark this--that was four days before they appeared over Berlin.
+
+"Why? Don't ask me. Do they have to lie quiet for that period miles up
+there in space? God knows. Perhaps! These things seem outside the
+knowledge of a deity. But enough of that! Remember: four days! Let us
+assume that there is this four days waiting period. It will help us to
+time them. I'll come back to that later.
+
+"Here is what I have been doing. We know that light is a means of
+attack. I believe that the detonators we saw on those bombs merely
+opened a seal in the shell and forced in a flash of some sort. I believe
+that radiant energy is what fires the blast.
+
+"What is it that explodes? Nobody knows. We have opened the shell,
+working in the absolute blackness of a room a hundred feet underground.
+We found in it a powder--two powders, to be exact.
+
+"They are mixed. One is finely divided, the other rather granular. Their
+specific gravity is enormous, beyond anything known to physical science
+unless it would be the hypothetical neutron masses we think are in
+certain stars. But this is not matter as we know matter; it is something
+new.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Our theory is this: the hydrogen atom has been split, resolved into
+components, not of electrons and the proton centers, but held at some
+halfway point of decomposition. Matter composed only of neutrons would
+be heavy beyond belief. This fits the theory in that respect. But the
+point is this: When these solids are formed--they are dense--they
+represent in a cubic centimeter possibly a cubic mile of hydrogen gas
+under normal pressure. That's a guess, but it will give you the idea.
+
+"Not compressed, you understand, but all the elements present in other
+than elemental form for the reconstruction of the atom ... for a million
+billions of atoms.
+
+"Then the light strikes it. These dense solids become instantly a
+gas--miles of it held in that small space.
+
+"There you have it: the gas, the explosion, the entire absence of
+heat--which is to say, its terrific cold--when it expands."
+
+Slim Riley was looking bewildered but game. "Sure, I saw it snow," he
+affirmed, "so I guess the rest must be O.K. But what are we going to do
+about it? You say light kills 'em, and fires their bombs. But how can we
+let light into those big steel shells, or the little ones either?"
+
+"Not through those thick walls," said MacGregor. "Not light. One of our
+anti-aircraft shells made a direct hit. That might not happen again in a
+million shots. But there are other forms of radiant energy that do
+penetrate steel...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car had stopped beside a grove of eucalyptus. A barren, sun-baked
+hillside stretched beyond. MacGregor motioned them to alight.
+
+Riley was afire with optimism. "And do you believe it?" he asked
+eagerly. "Do you believe that we've got 'em licked?"
+
+Thurston, too, looked into MacGregor's face: Riley was not the only one
+who needed encouragement. But the gray eyes were suddenly tired and
+hopeless.
+
+"You ask what I believe," said the scientist slowly. "I believe we are
+witnessing the end of the world, our world of humans, their struggles,
+their grave hopes and happiness and aspirations...."
+
+He was not looking at them. His gaze was far off in space.
+
+"Men will struggle and fight with their puny weapons, but these monsters
+will win, and they will have their way with us. Then more of them will
+come. The world, I believe, is doomed...."
+
+He straightened his shoulders. "But we can die fighting," he added, and
+pointed over the hill.
+
+"Over there," he said, "in the valley beyond, is a charge of their
+explosive and a little apparatus of mine. I intend to fire the charge
+from a distance of three hundred yards. I expect to be safe, perfectly
+safe. But accidents happen.
+
+"In Washington a plane is being prepared. I have given instructions
+through hours of phoning. They are working night and day. It will
+contain a huge generator for producing my ray. Nothing new! Just the
+product of our knowledge of radiant energy up to date. But the man who
+flies that plane will die--horribly. No time to experiment with
+protection. The rays will destroy him, though he may live a month.
+
+"I am asking you," he told Cyrus Thurston, "to handle that plane. You
+may be of service to the world--you may find you are utterly powerless.
+You surely will die. But you know the machines and the monsters; your
+knowledge may be of value in an attack." He waited. The silence lasted
+for only a moment.
+
+"Why, sure," said Cyrus Thurston.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He looked at the eucalyptus grove with earnest appraisal. The sun made
+lovely shadows among their stripped trunks: the world was a beautiful
+place. A lingering death, MacGregor had intimated--and horrible....
+"Why, sure," he repeated steadily.
+
+Slim Riley shoved him firmly aside to stand facing MacGregor.
+
+"Sure, hell!" he said. "I'm your man, Mr. MacGregor.
+
+"What do you know about flying?" he asked Cyrus Thurston. "You're
+good--for a beginner. But men like you two have got brains, and I'm
+thinkin' the world will be needin' them. Now me, all I'm good for is
+holdin' a shtick"--his brogue had returned to his speech, and was
+evidence of his earnestness.
+
+"And, besides"--the smile faded from his lips, and his voice was
+suddenly soft--"them boys we saw take their last flip was just pilots to
+you, just a bunch of good fighters. Well, they're buddies of mine. I
+fought beside some of them in France.... I belong!"
+
+He grinned happily at Thurston. "Besides," he said, "what do you know
+about dog-fights?"
+
+MacGregor gripped him by the hand. "You win," he said. "Report to
+Washington. The Secretary of War has all the dope."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned to Thurston. "Now for you! Get this! The enemy machines almost
+attacked New York. One of them came low, then went back, and the four
+flashed out of sight toward the west. It is my belief that New York is
+next, but the devils are hungry. The beast that attacked us was
+ravenous, remember. They need food and lots of it. You will hear of
+their feeding, and you can count on four days. Keep Riley
+informed--that's your job.
+
+"Now I'm going over the hill. If this experiment works, there's a chance
+we can repeat it on a larger scale. No certainty, but a chance! I'll be
+back. Full instructions at the hotel in case...." He vanished into the
+scrub growth.
+
+"Not exactly encouraging," Thurston pondered, "but he's a good man, Mac,
+a good egg! Not as big a brain as the one we saw, but perhaps it's a
+better one--cleaner--and it's working!"
+
+They were sheltered under the brow of the hill, but the blast from the
+valley beyond rocked them like an earthquake. They rushed to the top of
+the knoll. MacGregor was standing in the valley; he waved them a
+greeting and shouted something unintelligible.
+
+The gas had mushroomed into a cloud of steamy vapor. From above came
+snowflakes to whirl in the churning mass, then fall to the ground. A
+wind came howling about them to beat upon the cloud. It swirled slowly
+back and down the valley. The figure of MacGregor vanished in its
+smothering embrace.
+
+"Exit, MacGregor!" said Cyrus Thurston softly. He held tight to the
+struggling figure of Slim Riley.
+
+"He couldn't live a minute in that atmosphere of hydrogen," he
+explained. "They can--the devils!--but not a good egg like Mac. It's our
+job now--yours and mine."
+
+Slowly the gas retreated, lifted to permit their passage down the slope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MacGregor was a good prophet. Thurston admitted that when, four days
+later, he stood on the roof of the Equitable Building in lower New York.
+
+The monsters had fed as predicted. Out in Wyoming a desolate area marked
+the place of their meal, where a great herd of cattle lay smothered and
+frozen. There were ranch houses, too, in the circle of destruction,
+their occupants frozen stiff as the carcasses that dotted the plains.
+The country had stood tense for the following blow. Only Thurston had
+lived in certainty of a few days reprieve. And now had come the fourth
+day.
+
+In Washington was Riley. Thurston had been in touch with him frequently.
+
+"Sure, it's a crazy machine," the pilot had told him, "and 'tis not much
+I think of it at all. Neither bullets nor guns, just this big glass
+contraption and speed. She's fast, man, she's fast ... but it's little
+hope I have." And Thurston, remembering the scientist's words, was
+heartless and sick with dreadful certainty.
+
+There were aircraft ready near New York; it was generally felt that here
+was the next objective. The enemy had looked it over carefully. And
+Washington, too, was guarded. The nation's capital must receive what
+little help the aircraft could afford.
+
+There were other cities waiting for destruction. If not this
+time--later! The horror hung over them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fourth day! And Thurston was suddenly certain of the fate of New
+York. He hurried to a telephone. Of the Secretary of War he implored
+assistance.
+
+"Send your planes," he begged. "Here's where we will get it next. Send
+Riley. Let's make a last stand--win or lose."
+
+"I'll give you a squadron," was the concession. "What difference whether
+they die there or here...?" The voice was that of a weary man, weary
+and sleepless and hopeless.
+
+"Good-by Cy, old man!" The click of the receiver sounded in Thurston's
+ear. He returned to the roof for his vigil.
+
+To wait, to stride nervously back and forth in impotent expectancy. He
+could leave, go out into open country, but what were a few days or
+months--or a year--with this horror upon them? It was the end. MacGregor
+was right. "Good old Mac!"
+
+There were airplanes roaring overhead. It meant.... Thurston abruptly
+was cold; a chill gripped at his heart.
+
+The paroxysm passed. He was doubled with laughter--or was it he who was
+laughing? He was suddenly buoyantly carefree. Who was he that it
+mattered? Cyrus Thurston--an ant! And their ant-hill was about to be
+snuffed out....
+
+He walked over to a waiting group and clapped one man on the shoulder.
+"Well, how does it feel to be an ant?" he inquired and laughed loudly at
+the jest. "You and your millions of dollars, your acres of factories,
+your steamships, railroads!"
+
+The man looked at him strangely and edged cautiously away. His eyes,
+like those of the others, had a dazed, stricken look. A woman was
+sobbing softly as she clung to her husband. From the streets far below
+came a quavering shrillness of sound.
+
+The planes gathered in climbing circles. Far on the horizon were four
+tiny glinting specks....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston stared until his eyes were stinging. He was walking in a waking
+sleep as he made his way to the stone coping beyond which was the street
+far below. He was dead--dead!--right this minute. What were a few
+minutes more or less? He could climb over the coping; none of the
+huddled, fear-gripped group would stop him. He could step out into space
+and fool them, the devils. They could never kill him....
+
+What was it MacGregor had said? Good egg, MacGregor! "But we can die
+fighting...." Yes, that was it--die fighting. But he couldn't fight; he
+could only wait. Well, what were the others doing, down there in the
+streets--in their homes? He could wait with them, die with them....
+
+He straightened slowly and drew one long breath. He looked steadily and
+unafraid at the advancing specks. They were larger now. He could see
+their round forms. The planes were less noisy: they were far up in the
+heights--climbing--climbing.
+
+The bulbs came slantingly down. They were separating. Thurston wondered
+vaguely.
+
+What had they done in Berlin? Yes, he remembered. Placed themselves at
+the four corners of a great square and wiped out the whole city in one
+explosion. Four bombs dropped at the same instant while they shot up to
+safety in the thin air. How did they communicate? Thought transference,
+most likely. Telepathy between those great brains, one to another. A
+plane was falling. It curved and swooped in a trail of flame, then fell
+straight toward the earth. They were fighting....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston stared above. There were clusters of planes diving down from on
+high. Machine-guns stuttered faintly. "Machine-guns--toys! Brave, that
+was it! 'We can die fighting.'" His thoughts were far off; it was like
+listening to another's mind.
+
+The air was filled with swelling clouds. He saw them before the blast
+struck where he stood. The great building shuddered at the impact. There
+were things falling from the clouds, wrecks of planes, blazing and
+shattered. Still came others; he saw them faintly through the clouds.
+They came in from the West; they had gone far to gain altitude. They
+drove down from the heights--the enemy had drifted--they were over the
+bay.
+
+More clouds, and another blast thundering at the city. There were
+specks, Thurston saw, falling into the water.
+
+Again the invaders came down from the heights where they had escaped
+their own shattering attack. There was the faint roar of motors behind,
+from the south. The squadron from Washington passed overhead.
+
+They surely had seen the fate that awaited. And they drove on to the
+attack, to strike at an enemy that shot instantly into the sky leaving
+crashing destruction about the torn dead.
+
+"Now!" said Cyrus Thurston aloud.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The big bulbs were back. They floated easily in the air, a plume of
+vapor billowing beneath. They were ranging to the four corners of a
+great square.
+
+One plane only was left, coming in from the south, a lone straggler,
+late for the fray. One plane! Thurston's shoulders sagged heavily. All
+they had left! It went swiftly overhead.... It was fast--fast. Thurston
+suddenly knew. It was Riley in that plane.
+
+"Go back, you fool!"--he was screaming at the top of his
+voice--"Back--back--you poor, damned, decent Irishman!"
+
+Tears were streaming down his face. "His buddies," Riley had said. And
+this was Riley, driving swiftly in, alone, to avenge them....
+
+He saw dimly as the swift plane sped over the first bulb, on and over
+the second. The soft roar of gas from the machines drowned the sound of
+his engine. The plane passed them in silence to bank sharply toward the
+third corner of the forming square.
+
+He was looking them over, Thurston thought. And the damn beasts
+disregarded so contemptible an opponent. He could still leave. "For
+God's sake, Riley, beat it--escape!"
+
+Thurston's mind was solely on the fate of the lone voyager--until the
+impossible was borne in upon him.
+
+The square was disrupted. Three great bulbs were now drifting. The wind
+was carrying them out toward the bay. They were coming down in a long,
+smooth descent. The plane shot like a winged rocket at the fourth great,
+shining ball. To the watcher, aghast with sudden hope, it seemed barely
+to crawl.
+
+"The ray! The ray...." Thurston saw as if straining eyes had pierced
+through the distance to see the invisible. He saw from below the swift
+plane, the streaming, intangible ray. That was why Riley had flown
+closely past and above them--the ray poured from below. His throat was
+choking him, strangling....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last enemy took alarm. Had it seen the slow sinking of its
+companions, failed to hear them in reply to his mental call? The shining
+pear shape shot violently upward; the attacking plane rolled to a
+vertical bank as it missed the threatening clouds of exhaust. "What do
+you know about dog-fights?" And Riley had grinned ... Riley belonged!
+
+The bulb swelled before Thurston's eyes in its swift descent. It canted
+to one side to head off the struggling plane that could never escape,
+did not try to escape. The steady wings held true upon their straight
+course. From above came the silver meteor; it seemed striking at the
+very plane itself. It was almost upon it before it belched forth the
+cushioning blast of gas.
+
+Through the forming clouds a plane bored in swiftly. It rolled slowly,
+was flying upside down. It was under the enemy! Its ray.... Thurston was
+thrown a score of feet away to crash helpless into the stone coping by
+the thunderous crash of the explosion.
+
+There were fragments falling from a dense cloud--fragments of curved and
+silvery metal ... the wing of a plane danced and fluttered in the
+air....
+
+"He fired its bombs," whispered Thurston in a shaking voice. "He killed
+the other devils where they lay--he destroyed this with its own
+explosive. He flew upside down to shoot up with the ray, to set off its
+shells...."
+
+His mind was fumbling with the miracle of it. "Clever pilot, Riley, in a
+dog-fight...." And then he realized.
+
+Cyrus Thurston, millionaire sportsman, sank slowly, numbly to the roof
+of the Equitable Building that still stood. And New York was still there
+... and the whole world....
+
+He sobbed weakly, brokenly. Through his dazed brain flashed a sudden,
+mind-saving thought. He laughed foolishly through his sobs.
+
+"And you said he'd die horribly, Mac, a horrible death." His head
+dropped upon his arms, unconscious--and safe--with the rest of
+humanity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Corpse on the Grating
+
+_By Hugh B. Cave_
+
+
+    In the gloomy depths of the old warehouse Dale saw a thing that
+    drew a scream of horror to his dry lips. It was a corpse--the
+    mold of decay on its long-dead features--and yet it was alive!
+
+[Illustration: _It was a corpse, standing before me like some propped-up
+thing from the grave._]
+
+
+It was ten o'clock on the morning of December 5 when M. S. and I left
+the study of Professor Daimler. You are perhaps acquainted with M. S.
+His name appears constantly in the pages of the Illustrated News, in
+conjunction with some very technical article on psycho-analysis or with
+some extensive study of the human brain and its functions. He is a
+psycho-fanatic, more or less, and has spent an entire lifetime of some
+seventy-odd years in pulling apart human skulls for the purpose of
+investigation. Lovely pursuit!
+
+For some twenty years I have mocked him, in a friendly, half-hearted
+fashion. I am a medical man, and my own profession is one that does not
+sympathize with radicals.
+
+As for Professor Daimler, the third member of our triangle--perhaps, if
+I take a moment to outline the events of that evening, the Professor's
+part in what follows will be less obscure. We had called on him, M. S.
+and I, at his urgent request. His rooms were in a narrow, unlighted
+street just off the square, and Daimler himself opened the door to us. A
+tall, loosely built chap he was, standing in the doorway like a
+motionless ape, arms half extended.
+
+"I've summoned you, gentlemen," he said quietly, "because you two, of
+all London, are the only persons who know the nature of my recent
+experiments. I should like to acquaint you with the results!"
+
+He led the way to his study, then kicked the door shut with his foot,
+seizing my arm as he did so. Quietly he dragged me to the table that
+stood against the farther wall. In the same even, unemotional tone of a
+man completely sure of himself, he commanded me to inspect it.
+
+For a moment, in the semi-gloom of the room, I saw nothing. At length,
+however, the contents of the table revealed themselves, and I
+distinguished a motley collection of test tubes, each filled with some
+fluid. The tubes were attached to each other by some ingenious
+arrangement of thistles, and at the end of the table, where a chance
+blow could not brush it aside, lay a tiny phial of the resulting serum.
+From the appearance of the table, Daimler had evidently drawn a certain
+amount of gas from each of the smaller tubes, distilling them through
+acid into the minute phial at the end. Yet even now, as I stared down at
+the fantastic paraphernalia before me, I could sense no conclusive
+reason for its existence.
+
+I turned to the Professor with a quiet stare of bewilderment. He smiled.
+
+"The experiment is over," he said. "As to its conclusion, you, Dale, as
+a medical man, will be sceptical. And you"--turning to M. S.--"as a
+scientist you will be amazed. I, being neither physician nor scientist,
+am merely filled with wonder!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stepped to a long, square table-like structure in the center of the
+room. Standing over it, he glanced quizzically at M. S., then at me.
+
+"For a period of two weeks," he went on, "I have kept, on the table
+here, the body of a man who has been dead more than a month. I have
+tried, gentlemen, with acid combinations of my own origination, to bring
+that body back to life. And ... I have--failed!
+
+"But," he added quickly, noting the smile that crept across my face,
+"that failure was in itself worth more than the average scientist's
+greatest achievement! You know, Dale, that heat, if a man is not truly
+dead, will sometimes resurrect him. In a case of epilepsy, for instance,
+victims have been pronounced dead only to return to life--sometimes in
+the grave.
+
+"I say 'if a man be not truly dead.' But what if that man _is_ truly
+dead? Does the cure alter itself in any manner? The motor of your car
+dies--do you bury it? You do not; you locate the faulty part, correct
+it, and infuse new life. And so, gentlemen, after remedying the ruptured
+heart of this dead man, by operation, I proceeded to bring him back to
+life.
+
+"I used heat. Terrific heat will sometimes originate a spark of new life
+in something long dead. Gentlemen, on the fourth day of my tests,
+following a continued application of electric and acid heat, the
+patient--"
+
+Daimler leaned over the table and took up a cigarette. Lighting it, he
+dropped the match and resumed his monologue.
+
+"The patient turned suddenly over and drew his arm weakly across his
+eyes. I rushed to his side. When I reached him, the body was once again
+stiff and lifeless. And--it has remained so."
+
+The Professor stared at us quietly, waiting for comment. I answered him,
+as carelessly as I could, with a shrug of my shoulders.
+
+"Professor, have you ever played with the dead body of a frog?" I said
+softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He shook his head silently.
+
+"You would find it interesting sport," I told him. "Take a common dry
+cell battery with enough voltage to render a sharp shock. Then apply
+your wires to various parts of the frog's anatomy. If you are lucky, and
+strike the right set of muscles, you will have the pleasure of seeing a
+dead frog leap suddenly forward. Understand, he will not regain life.
+You have merely released his dead muscles by shock, and sent him
+bolting."
+
+The Professor did not reply. I could feel his eyes on me, and had I
+turned, I should probably had found M. S. glaring at me in honest hate.
+These men were students of mesmerism, of spiritualism, and my
+commonplace contradiction was not over welcome.
+
+"You are cynical, Dale," said M. S. coldly, "because you do not
+understand!"
+
+"Understand? I am a doctor--not a ghost!"
+
+But M. S. had turned eagerly to the Professor.
+
+"Where is this body--this experiment?" he demanded.
+
+Daimler shook his head. Evidently he had acknowledged failure and did
+not intend to drag his dead man before our eyes, unless he could bring
+that man forth alive, upright, and ready to join our conversation!
+
+"I've put it away," he said distantly. "There is nothing more to be
+done, now that our reverend doctor has insisted in making a matter of
+fact thing out of our experiment. You understand, I had not intended to
+go in for wholesale resurrection, even if I had met with success. It was
+my belief that a dead body, like a dead piece of mechanism, can be
+brought to life again, provided we are intelligent enough to discover
+the secret. And by God, it is _still_ my belief!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That was the situation, then, when M. S. and I paced slowly back along
+the narrow street that contained the Professor's dwelling-place. My
+companion was strangely silent. More than once I felt his eyes upon me
+in an uncomfortable stare, yet he said nothing. Nothing, that is, until
+I had opened the conversation with some casual remark about the lunacy
+of the man we had just left.
+
+"You are wrong in mocking him, Dale," M. S. replied bitterly. "Daimler
+is a man of science. He is no child, experimenting with a toy; he is a
+grown man who has the courage to believe in his powers. One of these
+days...."
+
+He had intended to say that some day I should respect the Professor's
+efforts. One of these days! The interval of time was far shorter than
+anything so indefinite. The first event, with its succeeding series of
+horrors, came within the next three minutes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had reached a more deserted section of the square, a black,
+uninhabited street extending like a shadowed band of darkness between
+gaunt, high walls. I had noticed for some time that the stone structure
+beside us seemed to be unbroken by door or window--that it appeared to
+be a single gigantic building, black and forbidding. I mentioned the
+fact to M. S.
+
+"The warehouse," he said simply. "A lonely, God-forsaken place. We shall
+probably see the flicker of the watchman's light in one of the upper
+chinks."
+
+At his words, I glanced up. True enough, the higher part of the grim
+structure was punctured by narrow, barred openings. Safety vaults,
+probably. But the light, unless its tiny gleam was somewhere in the
+inner recesses of the warehouse, was dead. The great building was like
+an immense burial vault, a tomb--silent and lifeless.
+
+We had reached the most forbidding section of the narrow street, where a
+single arch-lamp overhead cast a halo of ghastly yellow light over the
+pavement. At the very rim of the circle of illumination, where the
+shadows were deeper and more silent, I could make out the black
+mouldings of a heavy iron grating. The bars of metal were designed, I
+believe, to seal the side entrance of the great warehouse from night
+marauders. It was bolted in place and secured with a set of immense
+chains, immovable.
+
+This much I saw as my intent gaze swept the wall before me. This huge
+tomb of silence held for me a peculiar fascination, and as I paced along
+beside my gloomy companion, I stared directly ahead of me into the
+darkness of the street. I wish to God my eyes had been closed or
+blinded!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was hanging on the grating. Hanging there, with white, twisted hands
+clutching the rigid bars of iron, straining to force them apart. His
+whole distorted body was forced against the barrier, like the form of a
+madman struggling to escape from his cage. His face--the image of it
+still haunts me whenever I see iron bars in the darkness of a
+passage--was the face of a man who has died from utter, stark horror. It
+was frozen in a silent shriek of agony, staring out at me with fiendish
+maliciousness. Lips twisted apart. White teeth gleaming in the light.
+Bloody eyes, with a horrible glare of colorless pigment. And--_dead_.
+
+I believe M. S. saw him at the very instant I recoiled. I felt a sudden
+grip on my arm; and then, as an exclamation came harshly from my
+companion's lips, I was pulled forward roughly. I found myself staring
+straight into the dead eyes of that fearful thing before me, found
+myself standing rigid, motionless, before the corpse that hung within
+reach of my arm.
+
+And then, through that overwhelming sense of the horrible, came the
+quiet voice of my comrade--the voice of a man who looks upon death as
+nothing more than an opportunity for research.
+
+"The fellow has been frightened to death, Dale. Frightened most
+horribly. Note the expression of his mouth, the evident struggle to
+force these bars apart and escape. Something has driven fear to his
+soul, killed him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember the words vaguely. When M. S. had finished speaking, I did
+not reply. Not until he had stepped forward and bent over the distorted
+face of the thing before me, did I attempt to speak. When I did, my
+thoughts were a jargon.
+
+"What, in God's name," I cried, "could have brought such horror to a
+strong man? What--"
+
+"Loneliness, perhaps," suggested M. S. with a smile. "The fellow is
+evidently the watchman. He is alone, in a huge, deserted pit of
+darkness, for hours at a time. His light is merely a ghostly ray of
+illumination, hardly enough to do more than increase the darkness. I
+have heard of such cases before."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. Even as he spoke, I sensed the evasion in his
+words. When I replied, he hardly heard my answer, for he had suddenly
+stepped forward, where he could look directly into those fear twisted
+eyes.
+
+"Dale," he said at length, turning slowly to face me, "you ask for an
+explanation of this horror? There _is_ an explanation. It is written
+with an almost fearful clearness on this fellow's mind. Yet if I tell
+you, you will return to your old skepticism--your damnable habit of
+disbelief!"
+
+I looked at him quietly. I had heard M. S. claim, at other times, that
+he could read the thoughts of a dead man by the mental image that lay on
+that man's brain. I had laughed at him. Evidently, in the present
+moment, he recalled those laughs. Nevertheless, he faced me seriously.
+
+"I can see two things, Dale," he said deliberately. "One of them is a
+dark, narrow room--a room piled with indistinct boxes and crates, and
+with an open door bearing the black number 4167. And in that open
+doorway, coming forward with slow steps--alive, with arms extended and a
+frightful face of passion--is a decayed human form. A corpse, Dale. A
+man who has been dead for many days, and is now--_alive_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+M. S. turned slowly and pointed with upraised hand to the corpse on the
+grating.
+
+"That is why," he said simply, "this fellow died from horror."
+
+His words died into emptiness. For a moment I stared at him. Then, in
+spite of our surroundings, in spite of the late hour, the loneliness of
+the street, the awful thing beside us, I laughed.
+
+He turned upon me with a snarl. For the first time in my life I saw M.
+S. convulsed with rage. His old, lined face had suddenly become savage
+with intensity.
+
+"You laugh at me, Dale," he thundered. "By God, you make a mockery out
+of a science that I have spent more than my life in studying! You call
+yourself a medical man--and you are not fit to carry the name! I will
+wager you, man, that your laughter is not backed by courage!"
+
+I fell away from him. Had I stood within reach, I am sure he would have
+struck me. Struck me! And I have been nearer to M. S. for the past ten
+years than any man in London. And as I retreated from his temper, he
+reached forward to seize my arm. I could not help but feel impressed at
+his grim intentness.
+
+"Look here, Dale," he said bitterly, "I will wager you a hundred pounds
+that you will not spend the remainder of this night in the warehouse
+above you! I will wager a hundred pounds against your own courage that
+you will not back your laughter by going through what this fellow has
+gone through. That you will not prowl through the corridors of this
+great structure until you have found room 4167--_and remain in that room
+until dawn_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no choice. I glanced at the dead man, at the face of fear and
+the clutching, twisted hands, and a cold dread filled me. But to refuse
+my friend's wager would have been to brand myself an empty coward. I had
+mocked him. Now, whatever the cost, I must stand ready to pay for that
+mockery.
+
+"Room 4167?" I replied quietly, in a voice which I made every effort to
+control, lest he should discover the tremor in it. "Very well, I will do
+it!"
+
+It was nearly midnight when I found myself alone, climbing a musty,
+winding ramp between the first and second floors of the deserted
+building. Not a sound, except the sharp intake of my breath and the
+dismal creak of the wooden stairs, echoed through that tomb of death.
+There was no light, not even the usual dim glow that is left to
+illuminate an unused corridor. Moreover, I had brought no means of light
+with me--nothing but a half empty box of safety matches which, by some
+unholy premonition, I had forced myself to save for some future moment.
+The stairs were black and difficult, and I mounted them slowly, groping
+with both hands along the rough wall.
+
+I had left M. S. some few moments before. In his usual decisive manner
+he had helped me to climb the iron grating and lower myself to the
+sealed alley-way on the farther side. Then, leaving him without a word,
+for I was bitter against the triumphant tone of his parting words, I
+proceeded into the darkness, fumbling forward until I had discovered the
+open door in the lower part of the warehouse.
+
+And then the ramp, winding crazily upward--upward--upward, seemingly
+without end. I was seeking blindly for that particular room which was to
+be my destination. Room 4167, with its high number, could hardly be on
+the lower floors, and so I had stumbled upward....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was at the entrance of the second floor corridor that I struck the
+first of my desultory supply of matches, and by its light discovered a
+placard nailed to the wall. The thing was yellow with age and hardly
+legible. In the drab light of the match I had difficulty in reading
+it--but, as far as I can remember, the notice went something like this:
+
+    WAREHOUSE RULES
+
+    1. No light shall be permitted in any room or corridor, as a
+    prevention against fire.
+
+    2. No person shall be admitted to rooms or corridors unless
+    accompanied by an employee.
+
+    3. A watchman shall be on the premises from 7 P.M. until 6 A.M.
+    He shall make the round of the corridors every hour during that
+    interval, at a quarter past the hour.
+
+    4. Rooms are located by their numbers: the first figure in the
+    room number indicating its floor location.
+
+I could read no further. The match in my fingers burned to a black
+thread and dropped. Then, with the burnt stump still in my hand, I
+groped through the darkness to the bottom of the second ramp.
+
+Room 4167, then, was on the fourth floor--the topmost floor of the
+structure. I must confess that the knowledge did not bring any renewed
+burst of courage! The top floor! Three black stair-pits would lie
+between me and the safety of escape. There would be no escape! No human
+being in the throes of fear could hope to discover that tortured outlet,
+could hope to grope his way through Stygian gloom down a triple ramp of
+black stairs. And even though he succeeded in reaching the lower
+corridors, there was still a blind alley-way, sealed at the outer end by
+a high grating of iron bars....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Escape! The mockery of it caused me to stop suddenly in my ascent and
+stand rigid, my whole body trembling violently.
+
+But outside, in the gloom of the street, M. S. was waiting, waiting with
+that fiendish glare of triumph that would brand me a man without
+courage. I could not return to face him, not though all the horrors of
+hell inhabited this gruesome place of mystery. And horrors must surely
+inhabit it, else how could one account for that fearful thing on the
+grating below? But I had been through horror before. I had seen a man,
+supposedly dead on the operating table, jerk suddenly to his feet and
+scream. I had seen a young girl, not long before, awake in the midst of
+an operation, with the knife already in her frail body. Surely, after
+those definite horrors, no _unknown_ danger would send me cringing back
+to the man who was waiting so bitterly for me to return.
+
+Those were the thoughts pregnant in my mind as I groped slowly,
+cautiously along the corridor of the upper floor, searching each closed
+door for the indistinct number 4167. The place was like the center of a
+huge labyrinth, a spider-web of black, repelling passages, leading into
+some central chamber of utter silence and blackness. I went forward with
+dragging steps, fighting back the dread that gripped me as I went
+farther and farther from the outlet of escape. And then, after losing
+myself completely in the gloom, I threw aside all thoughts of return and
+pushed on with a careless, surface bravado, and laughed aloud.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So, at length, I reached that room of horror, secreted high in the
+deeper recesses of the deserted warehouse. The number--God grant I never
+see it again!--was scrawled in black chalk on the door--4167. I pushed
+the half-open barrier wide, and entered.
+
+It was a small room, even as M. S. had forewarned me--or as the dead
+mind of that thing on the grate had forewarned M. S. The glow of my
+out-thrust match revealed a great stack of dusty boxes and crates, piled
+against the farther wall. Revealed, too, the black corridor beyond the
+entrance, and a small, upright table before me.
+
+It was the table, and the stool beside it, that drew my attention and
+brought a muffled exclamation from my lips. The thing had been thrust
+out of its usual place, pushed aside as if some frenzied shape had
+lunged against it. I could make out its former position by the marks on
+the dusty floor at my feet. Now it was nearer to the center of the room,
+and had been wrenched sidewise from its holdings. A shudder took hold of
+me as I looked at it. A living person, sitting on the stool before me,
+staring at the door, would have wrenched the table in just this manner
+in his frenzy to escape from the room!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The light of the match died, plunging me into a pit of gloom. I struck
+another and stepped closer to the table. And there, on the floor, I
+found two more things that brought fear to my soul. One of them was a
+heavy flash-lamp--a watchman's lamp--where it had evidently been
+dropped. Been dropped in flight! But what awful terror must have gripped
+the fellow to make him forsake his only means of escape through those
+black passages? And the second thing--a worn copy of a leather-bound
+book, flung open on the boards below the stool!
+
+The flash-lamp, thank God! had not been shattered. I switched it on,
+directing its white circle of light over the room. This time, in the
+vivid glare, the room became even more unreal. Black walls, clumsy,
+distorted shadows on the wall, thrown by those huge piles of wooden
+boxes. Shadows that were like crouching men, groping toward me. And
+beyond, where the single door opened into a passage of Stygian darkness,
+that yawning entrance was thrown into hideous detail. Had any upright
+figure been standing there, the light would have made an unholy
+phosphorescent specter out of it.
+
+I summoned enough courage to cross the room and pull the door shut.
+There was no way of locking it. Had I been able to fasten it, I should
+surely have done so; but the room was evidently an unused chamber,
+filled with empty refuse. This was the reason, probably, why the
+watchman had made use of it as a retreat during the intervals between
+his rounds.
+
+But I had no desire to ponder over the sordidness of my surroundings. I
+returned to my stool in silence, and stooping, picked up the fallen book
+from the floor. Carefully I placed the lamp on the table, where its
+light would shine on the open page. Then, turning the cover, I began to
+glance through the thing which the man before me had evidently been
+studying.
+
+And before I had read two lines, the explanation of the whole horrible
+thing struck me. I stared dumbly down at the little book and laughed.
+Laughed harshly, so that the sound of my mad cackle echoed in a thousand
+ghastly reverberations through the dead corridors of the building.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a book of horror, of fantasy. A collection of weird, terrifying,
+supernatural tales with grotesque illustrations in funereal black and
+white. And the very line I had turned to, the line which had probably
+struck terror to that unlucky devil's soul, explained M. S.'s "decayed
+human form, standing in the doorway with arms extended and a frightful
+face of passion!" The description--the same description--lay before me,
+almost in my friend's words. Little wonder that the fellow on the
+grating below, after reading this orgy of horror, had suddenly gone mad
+with fright. Little wonder that the picture engraved on his dead mind
+was a picture of a corpse standing in the doorway of room 4167!
+
+I glanced at that doorway and laughed. No doubt of it, it was that awful
+description in M. S.'s untempered language that had made me dread my
+surroundings, not the loneliness and silence of the corridors about me.
+Now, as I stared at the room, the closed door, the shadows on the wall,
+I could not repress a grin.
+
+But the grin was not long in duration. A six-hour siege awaited me
+before I could hear the sound of human voice again--six hours of
+silence and gloom. I did not relish it. Thank God the fellow before me
+had had foresight enough to leave his book of fantasy for my amusement!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I turned to the beginning of the story. A lovely beginning it was,
+outlining in some detail how a certain Jack Fulton, English adventurer,
+had suddenly found himself imprisoned (by a mysterious black gang of
+monks, or something of the sort) in a forgotten cell at the monastery of
+El Toro. The cell, according to the pages before me, was located in the
+"empty, haunted pits below the stone floors of the structure...." Lovely
+setting! And the brave Fulton had been secured firmly to a huge metal
+ring set in the farther wall, opposite the entrance.
+
+I read the description twice. At the end of it I could not help but lift
+my head to stare at my own surroundings. Except for the location of the
+cell, I might have been in they same setting. The same darkness, same
+silence, same loneliness. Peculiar similarity!
+
+And then: "Fulton lay quietly, without attempt to struggle. In the dark,
+the stillness of the vaults became unbearable, terrifying. Not a
+suggestion of sound, except the scraping of unseen rats--"
+
+I dropped the book with a start. From the opposite end of the room in
+which I sat came a half inaudible scuffling noise--the sound of hidden
+rodents scrambling through the great pile of boxes. Imagination? I am
+not sure. At the moment, I would have sworn that the sound was a
+definite one, that I had heard it distinctly. Now, as I recount this
+tale of horror, I am not sure.
+
+But I am sure of this: There was no smile on my lips as I picked up the
+book again with trembling fingers and continued.
+
+"The sound died into silence. For an eternity, the prisoner lay rigid,
+staring at the open door of his cell. The opening was black, deserted,
+like the mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to hell. And then, suddenly,
+from the gloom beyond that opening, came an almost noiseless, padded
+footfall!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This time there was no doubt of it. The book fell from my fingers,
+dropped to the floor with a clatter. Yet even through the sound of its
+falling, I heard that fearful sound--the shuffle of a living foot! I sat
+motionless, staring with bloodless face at the door of room 4167. And as
+I stared, the sound came again, and again--_the slow tread of dragging
+footsteps, approaching along the black corridor without_!
+
+I got to my feet like an automaton, swaying heavily. Every drop of
+courage ebbed from my soul as I stood there, one hand clutching the
+table, waiting....
+
+And then, with an effort, I moved forward. My hand was outstretched to
+grasp the wooden handle of the door. And--I did not have the courage.
+Like a cowed beast I crept back to my place and slumped down on the
+stool, my eyes still transfixed in a mute stare of terror.
+
+I waited. For more than half an hour I waited, motionless. Not a sound
+stirred in the passage beyond that closed barrier. Not a suggestion of
+any living presence came to me. Then, leaning back against the wall with
+a harsh laugh, I wiped away the cold moisture that had trickled over my
+forehead into my eyes.
+
+It was another five minutes before I picked up the book again. You call
+me a fool for continuing it? A fool? I tell you, even a story of horror
+is more comfort than a room of grotesque shadows and silence. Even a
+printed page is better than grim reality!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so I read on. The story was one of suspense, madness. For the next
+two pages I read a cunning description of the prisoner's mental
+reaction. Strangely enough, it conformed precisely with my own.
+
+"Fulton's head had fallen to his chest," the script read. "For an
+endless while he did not stir, did not dare to lift his eyes. And then,
+after more than an hour of silent agony and suspense, the boy's head
+came up mechanically. Came up--and suddenly jerked rigid. A horrible
+scream burst from his dry lips as he stared--stared like a dead man--at
+the black entrance to his cell. There, standing without motion in the
+opening, stood a shrouded figure of death. Empty eyes, glaring with
+awful hate, bored into his own. Great arms, bony and rotten, extended
+toward him. Decayed flesh--"
+
+I read no more. Even as I lunged to my feet, with that mad book still
+gripped in my hand, I heard the door of my room grind open. I screamed,
+screamed in utter horror at the thing I saw there. Dead? Good God, I do
+not know. It was a corpse, a dead human body, standing before me like
+some propped-up thing from the grave. A face half eaten away, terrible
+in its leering grin. Twisted mouth, with only a suggestion of lips,
+curled back over broken teeth. Hair--writhing, distorted--like a mass of
+moving, bloody coils. And its arms, ghastly white, bloodless, were
+extended toward me, with open, clutching hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was alive! Alive! Even while I stood there, crouching against the
+wall, it stepped forward toward me. I saw a heavy shudder pass over it,
+and the sound of its scraping feet burned its way into my soul. And
+then, with its second step, the fearful thing stumbled to its knees. The
+white, gleaming arms, thrown into streaks of living fire by the light of
+my lamp, flung violently upwards, twisting toward the ceiling. I saw the
+grin change to an expression of agony, of torment. And then the thing
+crashed upon me--dead.
+
+With a great cry of fear I stumbled to the door. I groped out of that
+room of horror, stumbled along the corridor. No light. I left it behind,
+on the table, to throw a circle of white glare over the decayed,
+living-dead intruder who had driven me mad.
+
+My return down those winding ramps to the lower floor was a nightmare of
+fear. I remember that I stumbled, that I plunged through the darkness
+like a man gone mad. I had no thought of caution, no thought of anything
+except escape.
+
+And then the lower door, and the alley of gloom. I reached the grating,
+flung myself upon it and pressed my face against the bars in a futile
+effort to escape. The same--as the fear-tortured man--who had--come
+before--me.
+
+I felt strong hands lifting me up. A dash of cool air, and then the
+refreshing patter of falling rain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the afternoon of the following day, December 6, when M. S. sat
+across the table from me in my own study. I had made a rather hesitant
+attempt to tell him, without dramatics and without dwelling on my own
+lack of courage, of the events of the previous night.
+
+"You deserved it, Dale," he said quietly. "You are a medical man,
+nothing more, and yet you mock the beliefs of a scientist as great as
+Daimler. I wonder--do you still mock the Professor's beliefs?"
+
+"That he can bring a dead man to life?" I smiled, a bit doubtfully.
+
+"I will tell you something, Dale," said M. S. deliberately. He was
+leaning across the table, staring at me. "The Professor made only one
+mistake in his great experiment. He did not wait long enough for the
+effect of his strange acids to work. He acknowledged failure too soon,
+and got rid of the body." He paused.
+
+"When the Professor stored his patient away, Dale," he said quietly, "he
+stored it in room 4170, at the great warehouse. If you are acquainted
+with the place, you will know that room 4170 is directly across the
+corridor from 4167."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Creatures of the Light
+
+_By Sophie Wenzel Ellis_
+
+
+    He had striven to perfect the faultless man of the future, and
+    had succeeded--too well. For in the pitilessly cold eyes of
+    Adam, his super-human creation, Dr. Mundson saw only
+    contempt--and annihilation--for the human race.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+In a night club of many lights and much high-pitched laughter, where he
+had come for an hour of forgetfulness and an execrable dinner, John
+Northwood was suddenly conscious that Fate had begun shuffling the cards
+of his destiny for a dramatic game.
+
+First, he was aware that the singularly ugly and deformed man at the
+next table was gazing at him with an intense, almost excited scrutiny.
+But, more disturbing than this, was the scowl of hate on the face of
+another man, as handsome as this other was hideous, who sat in a far
+corner hidden behind a broad column, with rude elbows on the table,
+gawking first at Northwood and then at the deformed, almost hideous
+man.
+
+[Illustration: _The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of
+corruption, swung in a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls._]
+
+Northwood's blood chilled over the expression on the handsome,
+fair-haired stranger's perfectly carved face. If a figure in marble
+could display a fierce, unnatural passion, it would seem no more
+eldritch than the hate in the icy blue eyes.
+
+It was not a new experience for Northwood to be stared at: he was not
+merely a good-looking young fellow of twenty-five, he was scenery,
+magnificent and compelling. Furthermore, he had been in the public eye
+for years, first as a precocious child and, later, as a brilliant young
+scientist. Yet, for all his experience with hero worshippers to put an
+adamantine crust on his sensibilities, he grew warm-eared under the gaze
+of these two strangers--this hunchback with a face like a grotesque mask
+in a Greek play, this other who, even handsomer than himself, chilled
+the blood queerly with the cold perfection of his godlike masculine
+beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood sensed something familiar about the hunchback. Somewhere he
+had seen that huge, round, intelligent face splattered with startling
+features. The very breadth of the man's massive brow was not altogether
+unknown to him, nor could Northwood look into the mournful, near-sighted
+black eyes without trying to recall when and where he had last seen
+them.
+
+But this other of the marble-perfect nose and jaw, the blond,
+thick-waved hair, was totally a stranger, whom Northwood fervently hoped
+he would never know too well.
+
+Trying to analyze the queer repugnance that he felt for this handsome,
+boldly staring fellow, Northwood decided: "He's like a newly-made wax
+figure endowed with life."
+
+Shivering over his own fantastic thought, he again glanced swiftly at
+the hunchback, who he noticed was playing with his coffee, evidently to
+prolong the meal.
+
+One year of calm-headed scientific teaching in a famous old eastern
+university had not made him callous to mysteries. Thus, with a feeling
+of high adventure, he finished his supper and prepared to go. From the
+corner of his eye, he saw the hunchback leave his seat, while the
+handsome man behind the column rose furtively, as though he, too,
+intended to follow.
+
+Northwood was out in the dusky street about thirty seconds, when the
+hunchback came from the foyer. Without apparently noticing Northwood, he
+hailed a taxi. For a moment, he stood still, waiting for the taxi to
+pull up at the curb. Standing thus, with the street light limning every
+unnatural angle of his twisted body and every queer abnormality of his
+huge features, he looked almost repulsive.
+
+On his way to the taxi, his thick shoulder jostled the younger man.
+Northwood felt something strike his foot, and, stooping in the crowded
+street, picked up a black leather wallet.
+
+"Wait!" he shouted as the hunchback stepped into the waiting taxi.
+
+But the man did not falter. In a moment, Northwood lost sight of him as
+the taxi moved away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He debated with himself whether or not he should attempt to follow. And
+while he stood thus in indecision, the handsome stranger approached him.
+
+"Good evening to you," he said curtly. His rich, musical voice, for all
+its deepness, held a faint hint of the tremulous, birdlike notes heard
+in the voice of a young child who has not used his vocal chords long
+enough for them to have lost their exquisite newness.
+
+"Good evening," echoed Northwood, somewhat uncertainly. A sudden aura of
+repulsion swept coldly over him. Seen close, with the brilliant light of
+the street directly on his too perfect face, the man was more sinister
+than in the café. Yet Northwood, struggling desperately for a reason to
+explain his violent dislike, could not discover why he shrank from this
+splendid creature, whose eyes and flesh had a new, fresh appearance
+rarely seen except in very young boys.
+
+"I want what you picked up," went on the stranger.
+
+"It isn't yours!" Northwood flashed back. Ah! that effluvium of hatred
+which seemed to weave a tangible net around him!
+
+"Nor is it yours. Give it to me!"
+
+"You're insolent, aren't you?"
+
+"If you don't give it to me, you will be sorry." The man did not raise
+his voice in anger, yet the words whipped Northwood with almost physical
+violence. "If he knew that I saw everything that happened in there--that
+I am talking to you at this moment--he would tremble with fear."
+
+"But you can't intimidate me."
+
+"No?" For a long moment, the cold blue eyes held his contemptuously.
+"No? I can't frighten you--you worm of the Black Age?"
+
+Before Northwood's horrified sight, he vanished; vanished as though he
+had turned suddenly to air and floated away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The street was not crowded at that time, and there was no pressing group
+of bodies to hide the splendid creature. Northwood gawked stupidly,
+mouth half open, eyes searching wildly everywhere. The man was gone. He
+had simply disappeared, in this sane, electric-lighted street.
+
+Suddenly, close to Northwood's ear, grated a derisive laugh. "I can't
+frighten you?" From nowhere came that singularly young-old voice.
+
+As Northwood jerked his head around to meet blank space, a blow struck
+the corner of his mouth. He felt the warm blood run over his chin.
+
+"I could take that wallet from you, worm, but you may keep it, and see
+me later. But remember this--the thing inside never will be yours."
+
+The words fell from empty air.
+
+For several minutes, Northwood waited at the spot, expecting another
+demonstration of the abnormal, but nothing else occurred. At last,
+trembling violently, he wiped the thick moisture from his forehead and
+dabbed at the blood which he still felt on his chin.
+
+But when he looked at his handkerchief, he muttered:
+
+"Well, I'll be jiggered!"
+
+The handkerchief bore not the slightest trace of blood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Under the light in his bedroom, Northwood examined the wallet. It was
+made of alligator skin, clasped with a gold signet that bore the initial
+M. The first pocket was empty; the second yielded an object that sent a
+warm flush to his face.
+
+It was the photograph of a gloriously beautiful girl, so seductively
+lovely that the picture seemed almost to be alive. The short, curved
+upper lip, the full, delicately voluptuous lower, parted slightly in a
+smile that seemed to linger in every exquisite line of her face. She
+looked as though she had just spoken passionately, and the spirit of her
+words had inspired her sweet flesh and eyes.
+
+Northwood turned his head abruptly and groaned, "Good Heavens!"
+
+He had no right to palpitate over the picture of an unknown beauty. Only
+a month ago, he had become engaged to a young woman whose mind was as
+brilliant as her face was plain. Always he had vowed that he would never
+marry a pretty girl, for he detested his own masculine beauty sincerely.
+
+He tried to grasp a mental picture of Mary Burns, who had never stirred
+in him the emotion that this smiling picture invoked. But, gazing at the
+picture, he could not remember how his fiancée looked.
+
+Suddenly the picture fell from his fingers and dropped to the floor on
+its face, revealing an inscription on the back. In a bold, masculine
+hand, he read: "Your future wife."
+
+"Some lucky fellow is headed for a life of bliss," was his jealous
+thought.
+
+He frowned at the beautiful face. What was this girl to that hideous
+hunchback? Why did the handsome stranger warn him, "_The thing inside
+never will be yours_?"
+
+Again he turned eagerly to the wallet.
+
+In the last flap he found something that gave him another surprise: a
+plain white card on which a name and address were written by the same
+hand that had penned the inscription on the picture.
+
+  Emil Mundson, Ph. D.,
+  44-1/2 Indian Court
+
+Emil Mundson, the electrical wizard and distinguished scientific writer,
+friend of the professor of science at the university where Northwood was
+an assistant professor; Emil Mundson, whom, a week ago, Northwood had
+yearned mightily to meet.
+
+Now Northwood knew why the hunchback's intelligent, ugly face was
+familiar to him. He had seen it pictured as often as enterprising news
+photographers could steal a likeness from the over-sensitive scientist,
+who would never sit for a formal portrait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even before Northwood had graduated from the university where he now
+taught, he had been avidly interested in Emil Mundson's fantastic
+articles in scientific journals. Only a week ago, Professor Michael had
+come to him with the current issue of New Science, shouting excitedly:
+
+"Did you read this, John, this article by Emil Mundson?" His shaking,
+gnarled old fingers tapped the open magazine.
+
+Northwood seized the magazine and looked avidly at the title of the
+article, "Creatures of the Light."
+
+"No, I haven't read it," he admitted. "My magazine hasn't come yet."
+
+"Run through it now briefly, will you? And note with especial care the
+passages I have marked. In fact, you needn't bother with anything else
+just now. Read this--and this--and this." He pointed out penciled
+paragraphs.
+
+Northwood read:
+
+    Man always has been, always will be a creature of the light. He
+    is forever reaching for some future point of perfected evolution
+    which, even when his most remote ancestor was a fish creature
+    composed of a few cells, was the guiding power that brought him
+    up from the first stinking sea and caused him to create gods in
+    his own image.
+
+    It is this yearning for perfection which sets man apart from all
+    other life, which made him _man_ even in the rudimentary stages
+    of his development. He was man when he wallowed in the slime of
+    the new world and yearned for the air above. He will still be
+    man when he has evolved into that glorious creature of the
+    future whose body is deathless and whose mind rules the
+    universe.
+
+Professor Michael, looking over Northwood's shoulder, interrupted the
+reading:
+
+"_Man always has been man_," he droned emphatically. "That's not
+original with friend Mundson, of course; yet it is a theory that has not
+received sufficient investigation." He indicated another marked
+paragraph. "Read this thoughtfully, John. It's the crux of Mundson's
+thought."
+
+Northwood continued:
+
+    Since the human body is chemical and electrical, increased
+    knowledge of its powers and limitations will enable us to work
+    with Nature in her sublime but infinitely slow processes of
+    human evolution. We need not wait another fifty thousand years
+    to be godlike creatures. Perhaps even now we may be standing at
+    the beginning of the splendid bridge that will take us to that
+    state of perfected evolution when we shall be Creatures who have
+    reached the Light.
+
+Northwood looked questioningly at the professor. "Queer, fantastic
+thing, isn't it?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Professor Michael smoothed his thin, gray hair with his dried-out hand.
+"Fantastic?" His intellectual eyes behind the thick glasses sought the
+ceiling. "Who can say? Haven't you ever wondered why all parents expect
+their children to be nearer perfection than themselves, and why is it a
+natural impulse for them to be willing to sacrifice themselves to better
+their offspring?" He paused and moistened his pale, wrinkled lips.
+"Instinct, Northwood. We Creatures of the Light know that our race shall
+reach that point in evolution when, as perfect creatures, we shall rule
+all matter and live forever." He punctuated the last words with blows
+on the table.
+
+Northwood laughed dryly. "How many thousands of years are you looking
+forward, Professor?"
+
+The professor made an obscure noise that sounded like a smothered sniff.
+"You and I shall never agree on the point that mental advancement may
+wipe out physical limitations in the human race, perhaps in a few
+hundred years. It seems as though your profound admiration for Dr.
+Mundson would win you over to this pet theory."
+
+"But what sane man can believe that even perfectly developed beings,
+through mental control, could overcome Nature's fixed laws?"
+
+"We don't know! We don't know!" The professor slapped the magazine with
+an emphatic hand. "Emil Mundson hasn't written this article for nothing.
+He's paving the way for some announcement that will startle the
+scientific world. I know him. In the same manner he gave out veiled
+hints of his various brilliant discoveries and inventions long before he
+offered them to the world."
+
+"But Dr. Mundson is an electrical wizard. He would not be delving
+seriously into the mysteries of evolution, would he?"
+
+"Why not?" The professor's wizened face screwed up wisely. "A year ago,
+when he was back from one of those mysterious long excursions he takes
+in that weirdly different aircraft of his, about which he is so
+secretive, he told me that he was conducting experiments to prove his
+belief that the human brain generates electric current, and that the
+electrical impulses in the brain set up radioactive waves that some day,
+among other miracles, will make thought communication possible. Perfect
+man, he says, will perform mental feats which will give him complete
+mental domination over the physical."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood finished reading and turned thoughtfully to the window. His
+profile in repose had the straight-nosed, full-lipped perfection of a
+Greek coin. Old, wizened Professor Michael, gazing at him covertly,
+smothered a sigh.
+
+"I wish you knew Dr. Mundson," he said. "He, the ugliest man in the
+world, delights in physical perfection. He would revel in your splendid
+body and brilliant mind."
+
+Northwood blushed hotly. "You'll have to arrange a meeting between us."
+
+"I have." The professor's thin, dry lips pursed comically. "He'll drop
+in to see you within a few days."
+
+And now John Northwood sat holding Dr. Mundson's card and the wallet
+which the scientist had so mysteriously dropped at his feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here was high adventure, perhaps, for which he had been singled out by
+the famous electrical wizard. While excitement mounted in his blood,
+Northwood again examined the photograph. The girl's strange eyes, odd in
+expression rather than in size or shape, seemed to hold him. The young
+man's breath came quicker.
+
+"It's a challenge," he said softly. "It won't hurt to see what it's all
+about."
+
+His watch showed eleven o'clock. He would return the wallet that night.
+Into his coat pocket he slipped a revolver. One sometimes needed weapons
+in Indian Court.
+
+He took a taxi, which soon turned from the well-lighted streets into a
+section where squalid houses crowded against each other, and dirty
+children swarmed in the streets in their last games of the day.
+
+Indian Court was little more than an alley, dark and evil smelling.
+
+The chauffeur stopped at the entrance and said:
+
+"If I drive in, I'll have to back out, sir. Number forty-four and a half
+is the end house, facing the entrance."
+
+"You've been here before?" asked Northwood.
+
+"Last week I drove the queerest bird here--a fellow as good-looking as
+you, who had me follow the taxi occupied by a hunchback with a face
+like Old Nick." The man hesitated and went on haltingly: "It might sound
+goofy, mister, but there was something funny about my fare. He jumped
+out, asked me the charge, and, in the moment I glanced at my taxi-meter,
+he disappeared. Yes, sir. Vanished, owing me four dollars, six bits. It
+was almost ghostlike, mister."
+
+Northwood laughed nervously and dismissed him. He found his number and
+knocked at the dilapidated door. He heard a sudden movement in the
+lighted room beyond, and the door opened quickly.
+
+Dr. Mundson faced him.
+
+"I knew you'd come!" he said with a slight Teutonic accent. "Often I'm
+not wrong in sizing up my man. Come in."
+
+Northwood cleared his throat awkwardly. "You dropped your wallet at my
+feet, Dr. Mundson. I tried to stop you before you got away, but I guess
+you did not hear me."
+
+He offered the wallet, but the hunchback waved it aside.
+
+"A ruse, of course," he confessed. "It just was my way of testing what
+your Professor Michael told about you--that you are extraordinarily
+intelligent, virile, and imaginative. Had you sent the wallet to me, I
+should have sought elsewhere for my man. Come in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood followed him into a living room evidently recently furnished
+in a somewhat hurried manner. The furniture, although rich, was not
+placed to best advantage. The new rug was a trifle crooked on the floor,
+and the lamp shades clashed in color with the other furnishings.
+
+Dr. Mundson's intense eyes swept over Northwood's tall, slim body.
+
+"Ah, you're a man!" he said softly. "You are what all men would be if we
+followed Nature's plan that only the fit shall survive. But modern
+science is permitting the unfit to live and to mix their defective
+beings with the developing race!" His huge fist gesticulated madly.
+"Fools! Fools! They need me and perfect men like you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you can help me in my plan to populate the earth with a new
+race of godlike people. But don't question me too closely now. Even if I
+should explain, you would call me insane. But watch; gradually I shall
+unfold the mystery before you, so that you will believe."
+
+He reached for the wallet that Northwood still held, opened it with a
+monstrous hand, and reached for the photograph. "She shall bring you
+love. She's more beautiful than a poet's dream."
+
+A warm flush crept over the young man's face.
+
+"I can easily understand," he said, "how a man could love her, but for
+me she comes too late."
+
+"Pooh! Fiddlesticks!" The scientist snapped his fingers. "This girl was
+created for you. That other--you will forget her the moment you set eyes
+on the sweet flesh of this Athalia. She is an houri from Paradise--a
+maiden of musk and incense." He held the girl's photograph toward the
+young man. "Keep it. She is yours, if you are strong enough to hold
+her."
+
+Northwood opened his card case and placed the picture inside, facing
+Mary's photograph. Again the warning words of the mysterious stranger
+rang in his memory: "_The thing inside never will be yours._"
+
+"Where to," he said eagerly; "and when do we start?"
+
+"To the new Garden of Eden," said the scientist, with such a beatific
+smile that his face was less hideous. "We start immediately. I have
+arranged with Professor Michael for you to go."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood followed Dr. Mundson to the street and walked with him a few
+blocks to a garage where the scientist's motor car waited.
+
+"The apartment in Indian Court is just a little eccentricity of mine,"
+explained Dr. Mundson. "I need people in my work, people whom I must
+select through swift, sure tests. The apartment comes in handy, as
+to-night."
+
+Northwood scarcely noted where they were going, or how long they had
+been on the way. He was vaguely aware that they had left the city
+behind, and were now passing through farms bathed in moonlight.
+
+At last they entered a path that led through a bit of woodland. For half
+a mile the path continued, and then ended at a small, enclosed field. In
+the middle of this rested a queer aircraft. Northwood knew it was a
+flying machine only by the propellers mounted on the top of the huge
+ball-shaped body. There were no wings, no birdlike hull, no tail.
+
+"It looks almost like a little world ready to fly off into space," he
+commented.
+
+"It is just about that." The scientist's squat, bunched-out body,
+settled squarely on long, thin, straddled legs, looked gnomelike in the
+moonlight. "One cannot copy flesh with steel and wood, but one can make
+metal perform magic of which flesh is not capable. My sun-ship is not a
+mechanical reproduction of a bird. It is--but, climb in, young friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood followed Dr. Mundson into the aircraft. The moment the
+scientist closed the metal door behind them, Northwood was instantly
+aware of some concealed horror that vibrated through his nerves. For one
+dreadful moment, he expected some terrific agent of the shadows that
+escaped the electric lights to leap upon him. And this was odd, for
+nothing could be saner than the globular interior of the aircraft,
+divided into four wedge-shaped apartments.
+
+Dr. Mundson also paused at the door, puzzled, hesitant.
+
+"Someone has been here!" he exclaimed. "Look, Northwood! The bunk has
+been occupied--the one in this cabin I had set aside for you."
+
+He pointed to the disarranged bunk, where the impression of a head could
+still be seen on a pillow.
+
+"A tramp, perhaps."
+
+"No! The door was locked, and, as you saw, the fence around this field
+was protected with barbed wire. There's something wrong. I felt it on my
+trip here all the way, like someone watching me in the dark. And don't
+laugh! I have stopped laughing at all things that seem unnatural. You
+don't know what is natural."
+
+Northwood shivered. "Maybe someone is concealed about the ship."
+
+"Impossible. Me, I thought so, too. But I looked and looked, and there
+was nothing."
+
+All evening Northwood had burned to tell the scientist about the
+handsome stranger in the Mad Hatter Club. But even now he shrank from
+saying that a man had vanished before his eyes.
+
+Dr. Mundson was working with a succession of buttons and levers. There
+was a slight jerk, and then the strange craft shot up, straight as a
+bullet from a gun, with scarcely a sound other than a continuous
+whistle.
+
+"The vertical rising aircraft perfected," explained Dr. Mundson. "But
+what would you think if I told you that there is not an ounce of
+gasoline in my heavier-than-air craft?"
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised. An electrical genius would seek for a less
+obsolete source of power."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the bright flare of the electric lights, the scientist's ugly face
+flushed. "The man who harnesses the sun rules the world. He can make the
+desert places bloom, the frozen poles balmy and verdant. You, John
+Northwood, are one of the very few to fly in a machine operated solely
+by electrical energy from the sun's rays."
+
+"Are you telling me that this airship is operated with power from the
+sun?"
+
+"Yes. And I cannot take the credit for its invention." He sighed. "The
+dream was mine, but a greater brain developed it--a brain that may be
+greater than I suspect." His face grew suddenly graver.
+
+A little later Northwood said: "It seems that we must be making fabulous
+speed."
+
+"Perhaps!" Dr. Mundson worked with the controls. "Here, I've cut her
+down to the average speed of the ordinary airplane. Now you can see a
+bit of the night scenery."
+
+Northwood peeped out the thick glass porthole. Far below, he saw two
+tiny streaks of light, one smooth and stationery, the other wavering as
+though it were a reflection in water.
+
+"That can't be a lighthouse!" he cried.
+
+The scientist glanced out. "It is. We're approaching the Florida Keys."
+
+"Impossible! We've been traveling less than an hour."
+
+"But, my young friend, do you realize that my sun-ship has a speed of
+over one thousand miles an hour, how much over I dare not tell you?"
+
+Throughout the night, Northwood sat beside Dr. Mundson, watching his
+deft fingers control the simple-looking buttons and levers. So fast was
+their flight now that, through the portholes, sky and earth looked the
+same: dark gray films of emptiness. The continuous weird whistle from
+the hidden mechanism of the sun-ship was like the drone of a monster
+insect, monotonous and soporific during the long intervals when the
+scientist was too busy with his controls to engage in conversation.
+
+For some reason that he could not explain, Northwood had an aversion to
+going into the sleeping apartment behind the control room. Then, towards
+morning, when the suddenly falling temperature struck a biting chill
+throughout the sun-ship, Northwood, going into the cabin for fur coats,
+discovered why his mind and body shrank in horror from the cabin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After he had procured the fur coats from a closet, he paused a moment,
+in the privacy of the cabin, to look at Athalia's picture. Every nerve
+in his body leaped to meet the magnetism of her beautiful eyes. Never
+had Mary Burns stirred emotion like this in him. He hung over Mary's
+picture, wistfully, hoping almost prayerfully that he could react to her
+as he did to Athalia; but her pale, over-intellectual face left him
+cold.
+
+"Cad!" he ground out between his teeth. "Forgetting her so soon!"
+
+The two pictures were lying side by side on a little table. Suddenly an
+obscure noise in the room caught his attention. It was more vibration
+than noise, for small sounds could scarcely be heard above the whistle
+of the sun-ship. A slight compression of the air against his neck gave
+him the eery feeling that someone was standing close behind him. He
+wheeled and looked over his shoulder. Half ashamed of his startled
+gesture, he again turned to his pictures. Then a sharp cry broke from
+him.
+
+Athalia's picture was gone.
+
+He searched for it everywhere in the room, in his own pockets, under the
+furniture. It was nowhere to be found.
+
+In sudden, overpowering horror, he seized the fur coats and returned to
+the control room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Mundson was changing the speed.
+
+"Look out the window!" he called to Northwood.
+
+The young man looked and started violently. Day had come, and now that
+the sun-ship was flying at a moderate speed, the ocean beneath was
+plainly visible; and its entire surface was covered with broken floes of
+ice and small, ragged icebergs. He seized a telescope and focused it
+below. A typical polar scene met his eyes: penguins strutted about on
+cakes of ice, a whale blowing in the icy water.
+
+"A part of the Antarctic that has never been explored," said Dr.
+Mundson; "and there, just showing on the horizon, is the Great Ice
+Barrier." His characteristic smile lighted the morose black eyes. "I am
+enough of the dramatist to wish you to be impressed with what I shall
+show you within less than an hour. Accordingly, I shall make a landing
+and let you feel polar ice under your feet."
+
+After less than a minute's search, Dr. Mundson found a suitable place on
+the ice for a landing, and, with a few deft manipulations of the
+controls, brought the sun-ship swooping down like an eagle on its prey.
+
+For a long moment after the scientist had stepped out on the ice,
+Northwood paused at the door. His feet were chained by a strange
+reluctance to enter this white, dead wilderness of ice. But Dr.
+Mundson's impatient, "Ready?" drew from him one last glance at the cozy
+interior of the sun-ship before he, too, went out into the frozen
+stillness.
+
+They left the sun-ship resting on the ice like a fallen silver moon,
+while they wandered to the edge of the Barrier and looked at the gray,
+narrow stretch of sea between the ice pack and the high cliffs of the
+Barrier. The sun of the commencing six-months' Antarctic day was a low,
+cold ball whose slanted rays struck the ice with blinding whiteness.
+There were constant falls of ice from the Barrier, which thundered into
+the ocean amid great clouds of ice smoke that lingered like wraiths
+around the edge. It was a scene of loneliness and waiting death.
+
+"What's that?" exclaimed the scientist suddenly.
+
+Out of the white silence shrilled a low whistle, a familiar whistle.
+Both men wheeled toward the sun-ship.
+
+Before their horrified eyes, the great sphere jerked and glided up, and
+swerved into the heavens.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up it soared; then, gaining speed, it swung into the blue distance
+until, in a moment, it was a tiny star that flickered out even as they
+watched.
+
+Both men screamed and cursed and flung up their arms despairingly. A
+penguin, attracted by their cries, waddled solemnly over to them and
+regarded them with manlike curiosity.
+
+"Stranded in the coldest spot on earth!" groaned the scientist.
+
+"Why did it start itself, Dr. Mundson!" Northwood narrowed his eyes as
+he spoke.
+
+"It didn't!" The scientist's huge face, red from cold, quivered with
+helpless rage. "Human hands started it."
+
+"What! Whose hands?"
+
+"_Ach!_ Do I know?" His Teutonic accent grew more pronounced, as it
+always did when he was under emotional stress. "Somebody whose brain is
+better than mine. Somebody who found a way to hide away from our eyes.
+_Ach, Gott!_ Don't let me think!"
+
+His great head sank between his shoulders, giving him, in his fur suit,
+the grotesque appearance of a friendly brown bear.
+
+"Doctor Mundson," said Northwood suddenly, "did you have an enemy, a man
+with the face and body of a pagan god--a great, blond creature with eyes
+as cold and cruel as the ice under our feet?"
+
+"Wait!" The huge round head jerked up. "How do you know about Adam? You
+have not seen him, won't see him until we arrive at our destination."
+
+"But I have seen him. He was sitting not thirty feet from you in the Mad
+Hatter's Club last night. Didn't you know? He followed me to the street,
+spoke to me, and then--" Northwood stopped. How could he let the insane
+words pass his lips?
+
+"Then, what? Speak up!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood laughed nervously. "It sounds foolish, but I saw him vanish
+like that." He snapped his fingers.
+
+"_Ach, Gott!_" All the ruddy color drained from the scientist's face. As
+though talking to himself, he continued:
+
+"Then it is true, as he said. He has crossed the bridge. He has reached
+the Light. And now he comes to see the world he will conquer--came
+unseen when I refused my permission."
+
+He was silent for a long time, pondering. Then he turned passionately to
+Northwood.
+
+"John Northwood, kill me! I have brought a new horror into the world.
+From the unborn future, I have snatched a creature who has reached the
+Light too soon. Kill me!" He bowed his great, shaggy head.
+
+"What do you mean, Dr. Mundson: that this Adam has arrived at a point in
+evolution beyond this age?"
+
+"Yes. Think of it! I visioned godlike creatures with the souls of gods.
+But, Heaven help us, man always will be man: always will lust for
+conquest. You and I, Northwood, and all others are barbarians to Adam.
+He and his kind will do what men always do to barbarians--conquer and
+kill."
+
+"Are there more like him?" Northwood struggled with a smile of unbelief.
+
+"I don't know. I did not know that Adam had reached a point so near the
+ultimate. But you have seen. Already he is able to set aside what we
+call natural laws."
+
+Northwood looked at the scientist closely. The man was surely mad--mad
+in this desert of white death.
+
+"Come!" he said cheerfully. "Let's build an Eskimo snow house. We can
+live on penguins for days. And who knows what may rescue us?"
+
+For three hours the two worked at cutting ice blocks. With snow for
+mortar, they built a crude shelter which enabled them to rest out of the
+cold breath of the spiral polar winds that blew from the south.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Mundson was sitting at the door of their hut, moodily pulling at his
+strong, black pipe. As though a fit had seized him, he leaped up and let
+his pipe fall to the ice.
+
+"Look!" he shouted. "The sun-ship!"
+
+It seemed but a moment before the tiny speck on the horizon had swept
+overhead, a silver comet on the grayish-blue polar sky. In another
+moment it had swooped down, eaglewise, scarcely fifty feet from the ice
+hut.
+
+Dr. Mundson and Northwood ran forward. From the metal sphere stepped the
+stranger of the Mad Hatter Club. His tall, straight form, erect and
+slim, swung toward them over the ice.
+
+"Adam!" shouted Dr. Mundson. "What does this mean? How dare you!"
+
+Adam's laugh was like the happy demonstration of a boy. "So? You think
+you still are master? You think I returned because I reverenced you
+yet?" Hate shot viciously through the freezing blue eyes. "You worm of
+the Black Age!"
+
+Northwood shuddered. He had heard those strange words addressed to
+himself scarcely more than twelve hours ago.
+
+Adam was still speaking: "With a thought I could annihilate you where
+you are standing. But I have use for you. Get in." He swept his hand to
+the sun-ship.
+
+Both men hesitated. Then Northwood strode forward until he was within
+three feet of Adam. They stood thus, eyeing each other, two splendid
+beings, one blond as a Viking, the other dark and vital.
+
+"Just what is your game?" demanded Northwood.
+
+The icy eyes shot forth a gleam like lightning. "I needn't tell you, of
+course, but I may as well let you suffer over the knowledge." He curled
+his lips with superb scorn. "I have one human weakness. I want Athalia."
+The icy eyes warmed for a fleeting second. "She is anticipating her
+meeting with you--bah! The taste of these women of the Black Age! I
+could kill you, of course; but that would only inflame her. And so I
+take you to her, thrust you down her throat. When she sees you, she will
+fly to me." He spread his magnificent chest.
+
+"Adam!" Dr. Mundson's face was dark with anger. "What of Eve?"
+
+"Who are you to question my actions? What a fool you were to let me,
+whom you forced into life thousands of years too soon, grow more
+powerful than you! Before I am through with all of you petty creatures
+of the Black Age, you will call me more terrible than your Jehovah! For
+see what you have called forth from unborn time."
+
+He vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the startled men could recover from the shock of it, the vibrant,
+too-new voice went on:
+
+"I am sorry for you, Mundson, because, like you, I need specimens for my
+experiments. What a splendid specimen you will be!" His laugh was ugly
+with significance. "Get in, worms!"
+
+Unseen hands cuffed and pushed them into the sun-ship.
+
+Inside, Dr. Mundson stumbled to the control room, white and drawn of
+face, his great brain seemingly paralyzed by the catastrophe.
+
+"You needn't attempt tricks," went on the voice. "I am watching you
+both. You cannot even hide your thoughts from me."
+
+And thus began the strange continuation of the journey. Not once, in
+that wild half-hour's rush over the polar ice clouds, did they see Adam.
+They saw and heard only the weird signs of his presence: a puffing cigar
+hanging in midair, a glass of water swinging to unseen lips, a ghostly
+voice hurling threats and insults at them.
+
+Once the scientist whispered: "Don't cross him; it is useless. John
+Northwood, you'll have to fight a demigod for your woman!"
+
+Because of the terrific speed of the sun-ship, Northwood could
+distinguish nothing of the topographical details below. At the end of
+half-an-hour, the scientist slowed enough to point out a tall range of
+snow-covered mountains, over which hovered a play of colored lights like
+the _aurora australis_.
+
+"Behind those mountains," he said, "is our destination."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost in a moment, the sun-ship had soared over the peaks. Dr. Mundson
+kept the speed low enough for Northwood to see the splendid view below.
+
+In the giant cup formed by the encircling mountain range was a green
+valley of tropical luxuriance. Stretches of dense forest swept half up
+the mountains and filled the valley cup with tangled verdure. In the
+center, surrounded by a broad field and a narrow ring of woods, towered
+a group of buildings. From the largest, which was circular, came the
+auroralike radiance that formed an umbrella of light over the entire
+valley.
+
+"Do I guess right," said Northwood, "that the light is responsible for
+this oasis in the ice?"
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Mundson. "In your American slang, it is canned sunshine
+containing an overabundance of certain rays, especially the Life Ray,
+which I have isolated." He smiled proudly. "You needn't look startled,
+my friend. Some of the most common things store sunlight. On very dark
+nights, if you have sharp eyes, you can see the radiance given off by
+certain flowers, which many naturalists say is trapped sunshine. The
+familiar nasturtium and the marigold opened for me the way to hold
+sunshine against the long polar night, for they taught me how to apply
+the Einstein theory of bent light. Stated simply, during the polar
+night, when the sun is hidden over the rim of the world, we steal some
+of his rays; during the polar day we concentrate the light."
+
+"But could stored sunshine alone give enough warmth for the luxuriant
+growth of those jungles?"
+
+"An overabundance of the Life Ray is responsible for the miraculous
+growth of all life in New Eden. The Life Ray is Nature's most powerful
+force. Yet Nature is often niggardly and paradoxical in her use of her
+powers. In New Eden, we have forced the powers of creation to take
+ascendency over the powers of destruction."
+
+At Northwood's sudden start, the scientist laughed and continued: "Is it
+not a pity that Nature, left alone, requires twenty years to make a man
+who begins to die in another ten years? Such waste is not tolerated in
+New Eden, where supermen are younger than babes and--"
+
+"Come, worms; let's land."
+
+It was Adam's voice. Suddenly he materialized, a blond god, whose eyes
+and flesh were too new.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were in a world of golden skylight, warmth and tropical vegetation.
+The field on which they had landed was covered with a velvety green
+growth of very soft, fine-bladed grass, sprinkled with tiny, star-shaped
+blue flowers. A balmy, sweet-scented wind, downy as the breeze of a
+dream, blew gently along the grass and tingled against Northwood's skin
+refreshingly. Almost instantly he had the sensation of perfect well
+being, and this feeling of physical perfection was part of the ecstasy
+that seemed to pervade the entire valley. Grass and breeze and golden
+skylight were saturated with a strange ether of joyousness.
+
+At one end of the field was a dense jungle, cut through by a road that
+led to the towering building from which, while above in the sun-ship,
+they had seen the golden light issue.
+
+From the jungle road came a man and a woman, large, handsome people,
+whose flesh and eyes had the sinister newness of Adam's. Even before
+they came close enough to speak, Northwood was aware that while they
+seemed of Adam's breed, they were yet unlike him. The difference was
+psychical rather than physical; they lacked the aura of hate and horror
+that surrounded Adam. The woman drew Adam's head down and kissed him
+affectionately on both cheeks.
+
+Adam, from his towering height, patted her shoulder impatiently and
+said: "Run on back to the laboratory, grandmother. We're following
+soon. You have some new human embryos, I believe you told me this
+morning."
+
+"Four fine specimens, two of them being your sister's twins."
+
+"Splendid! I was sure that creation had stopped with my generation. I
+must see them." He turned to the scientist and Northwood. "You needn't
+try to leave this spot. Of course I shall know instantly and deal with
+you in my own way. Wait here."
+
+He strode over the emerald grass on the heels of the woman.
+
+Northwood asked: "Why does he call that girl grandmother?"
+
+"Because she is his ancestress." He stirred uneasily. "She is of the
+first generation brought forth in the laboratory, and is no different
+from you or I, except that, at the age of five years, she is the
+ancestress of twenty generations."
+
+"My God!" muttered Northwood.
+
+"Don't start being horrified, my friend. Forget about so-called natural
+laws while you are in New Eden. Remember, here we have isolated the Life
+Ray. But look! Here comes your Athalia!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood gazed covertly at the beautiful girl approaching them with a
+rarely graceful walk. She was tall, slender, round-bosomed,
+narrow-hipped, and she held her lovely body in the erect poise of
+splendid health. Northwood had a confused realization of uncovered
+bronzy hair, drawn to the back of a white neck in a bunch of short
+curls; of immense soft black eyes; lips the color of blood, and
+delicate, plump flesh on which the golden skylight lingered graciously.
+He was instantly glad to see that while she possessed the freshness of
+young girlhood, her skin and eyes did not have the horrible newness of
+Adam's.
+
+When she was still twenty feet distant, Northwood met her eyes and she
+smiled shyly. The rich, red blood ran through her face; and he, too,
+flushed.
+
+She went to Dr. Mundson and, placing her hands on his thick shoulders,
+kissed him affectionately.
+
+"I've been worried about you, Daddy Mundson." Her rich contralto voice
+matched her exotic beauty. "Since you and Adam had that quarrel the day
+you left, I did not see him until this morning, when he landed the
+sun-ship alone."
+
+"And you pleaded with him to return for us?"
+
+"Yes." Her eyes drooped and a hot flush swept over her face.
+
+Dr. Mundson smiled. "But I'm back now, Athalia, and I've brought some
+one whom I hope you will be glad to know."
+
+Reaching for her hand, he placed it simply in Northwood's.
+
+"This is John, Athalia. Isn't he handsomer than the pictures of him
+which I televisioned to you? God bless both of you."
+
+He walked ahead and turned his back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A magical half hour followed for Northwood and Athalia. The girl told
+him of her past life, how Dr. Mundson had discovered her one year ago
+working in a New York sweat shop, half dead from consumption. Without
+friends, she was eager to follow the scientist to New Eden, where he
+promised she would recover her health immediately.
+
+"And he was right, John," she said shyly. "The Life Ray, that marvelous
+energy ray which penetrates to the utmost depths of earth and ocean,
+giving to the cells of all living bodies the power to grow and remain
+animate, has been concentrated by Dr. Mundson in his stored sunshine.
+The Life Ray healed me almost immediately."
+
+Northwood looked down at the glorious girl beside him, whose eyes
+already fluttered away from his like shy black butterflies. Suddenly he
+squeezed the soft hand in his and said passionately:
+
+"Athalia! Because Adam wants you and will get you if he can, let us set
+aside all the artificialities of civilization. I have loved you madly
+ever since I saw your picture. If you can say the same to me, it will
+give me courage to face what I know lies before me."
+
+Athalia, her face suddenly tender, came closer to him.
+
+"John Northwood, I love you."
+
+Her red lips came temptingly close; but before he could touch them, Adam
+suddenly pushed his body between him and Athalia. Adam was pale, and all
+the iciness was gone from his blue eyes, which were deep and dark and
+very human. He looked down at Athalia, and she looked up at him, two
+handsome specimens of perfect manhood and womanhood.
+
+"Fast work, Athalia!" The new vibrant voice was strained. "I was hoping
+you would be disappointed in him, especially after having been wooed by
+me this morning. I could take you if I wished, of course; but I prefer
+to win you in the ancient manner. Dismiss him!" He jerked his thumb over
+his shoulder in Northwood's direction.
+
+Athalia flushed vividly and looked at him almost compassionately. "I am
+not great enough for you, Adam. I dare not love you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adam laughed, and still oblivious of Northwood and Dr. Mundson, folded
+his arms over his breast. With the golden skylight on his burnished
+hair, he was a valiant, magnificent spectacle.
+
+"Since the beginning of time, gods and archangels have looked upon the
+daughters of men and found them fair. Mate with me, Athalia, and I,
+fifty thousand years beyond the creature Mundson has selected for you,
+will make you as I am, the deathless overlord of life and all nature."
+
+He drew her hand to his bosom.
+
+For one dark moment, Northwood felt himself seared by jealousy, for,
+through the plump, sweet flesh of Athalia's face, he saw the red blood
+leap again. How could she withhold herself from this splendid superman?
+
+But her answer, given with faltering voice, was the old, simple one: "I
+have promised him, Adam. I love him." Tears trembled on her thick
+lashes.
+
+"So! I cannot get you in the ancient manner. Now I'll use my own."
+
+He seized her in his arms crushed her against him, and, laughing over
+her head at Northwood, bent his glistening head and kissed her on the
+mouth.
+
+There was a blinding flash of blue electric sparks--and nothing else.
+Both Adam and Athalia had vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adam's voice came in a last mocking challenge: "I shall be what no other
+gods before me have been--a good sport. I'll leave you both to your own
+devices, until I want you again."
+
+White-lipped and trembling, Northwood groaned: "What has he done now?"
+
+Dr. Mundson's great head drooped. "I don't know. Our bodies are electric
+and chemical machines; and a super intelligence has discovered new laws
+of which you and I are ignorant."
+
+"But Athalia...."
+
+"She is safe; he loves her."
+
+"Loves her!" Northwood shivered. "I cannot believe that those freezing
+eyes could ever look with love on a woman."
+
+"Adam is a man. At heart he is as human as the first man-creature that
+wallowed in the new earth's slime." His voice dropped as though he were
+musing aloud. "It might be well to let him have Athalia. She will help
+to keep vigor in the new race, which would stop reproducing in another
+few generations without the injection of Black Age blood."
+
+"Do you want to bring more creatures like Adam into the world?"
+Northwood flung at him. "You have tampered with life enough, Dr.
+Mundson. But, although Adam has my sympathy, I'm not willing to turn
+Athalia over to him."
+
+"Well said! Now come to the laboratory for chemical nourishment and rest
+under the Life Ray."
+
+They went to the great circular building from whose highest tower issued
+the golden radiance that shamed the light of the sun, hanging low in the
+northeast.
+
+"John Northwood," said Dr. Mundson, "with that laboratory, which is the
+center of all life in New Eden, we'll have to whip Adam. He gave us what
+he called a 'sporting chance' because he knew that he is able to send us
+and all mankind to a doom more terrible than hell. Even now we might be
+entering some hideous trap that he has set for us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They entered by a side entrance and went immediately to what Dr. Mundson
+called the Rest Ward. Here, in a large room, were ranged rows of cots,
+on many of which lay men basking in the deep orange flood of light which
+poured from individual lamps set above each cot.
+
+"It is the Life Ray!" said Dr. Mundson reverently. "The source of all
+growth and restoration in Nature. It is the power that bursts open the
+seed and brings forth the shoot, that increases the shoot into a giant
+tree. It is the same power that enables the fertilized ovum to develop
+into an animal. It creates and recreates cells almost instantly;
+accordingly, it is the perfect substitute for sleep. Stretch out, enjoy
+its power; and while you rest, eat these nourishing tablets."
+
+Northwood lay on a cot, and Dr. Mundson turned the Life Ray on him. For
+a few minutes a delicious drowsiness fell upon him, producing a spell of
+perfect peace which the cells of his being seemed to drink in. For
+another delirious, fleeting space, every inch of him vibrated with a
+thrilling sensation of freshness. He took a deep, ecstatic breath and
+opened his eyes.
+
+"Enough," said Dr. Mundson, switching off the Ray. "After three minutes
+of rejuvenation, you are commencing again with perfect cells. All
+ravages from disease and wear have been corrected."
+
+Northwood leaped up joyously. His handsome eyes sparkled, his skin
+glowed. "I feel great! Never felt so good since I was a kid."
+
+A pleased grin spread over the scientist's homely face. "See what my
+discovery will mean to the world! In the future we shall all go to the
+laboratory for recuperation and nourishment. We'll have almost
+twenty-four hours a day for work and play."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stretched out on the bed contentedly. "Some day, when my work is
+nearly done, I shall permit the Life Ray to cure my hump."
+
+"Why not now?"
+
+Dr. Mundson sighed. "If I were perfect, I should cease to be so
+overwhelmingly conscious of the importance of perfection." He settled
+back to enjoyment of the Life Ray.
+
+A few minutes later, he jumped up, alert as a boy. "_Ach!_ That's fine.
+Now I'll show you how the Life Ray speeds up development and produces
+four generations of humans a year."
+
+With restored energy, Northwood began thinking of Athalia. As he
+followed Dr. Mundson down a long corridor, he yearned to see her again,
+to be certain that she was safe. Once he imagined he felt a gentle,
+soft-fleshed touch against his hand, and was disappointed not to see her
+walking by his side. Was she with him, unseen? The thought was sweet.
+
+Before Dr. Mundson opened the massive bronze door at the end of the
+corridor, he said:
+
+"Don't be surprised or shocked over anything you see here, John
+Northwood. This is the Baby Laboratory."
+
+They entered a room which seemed no different from a hospital ward. On
+little white beds lay naked children of various sizes, perfect,
+solemn-eyed youngsters and older children as beautiful as animated
+statues. Above each bed was a small Life Ray projector. A white-capped
+nurse went from bed to bed.
+
+"They are recuperating from the daily educational period," said the
+scientist. "After a few minutes of this they will go into the growing
+room, which I shall have to show you through a window. Should you and I
+enter, we might be changed in a most extraordinary manner." He laughed
+mischievously. "But, look, Northwood!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He slid back a panel in the wall, and Northwood peered in through a
+thick pane of clear glass. The room was really an immense outdoor arena,
+its only carpet the fine-bladed grass, its roof the blue sky cut in the
+middle by an enormous disc from which shot the aurora of trapped
+sunshine which made a golden umbrella over the valley. Through openings
+in the bottom of the disc poured a fine rain of rays which fell
+constantly upon groups of children, youths and young girls, all clad in
+the merest scraps of clothing. Some were dancing, others were playing
+games, but all seemed as supremely happy as the birds and butterflies
+which fluttered about the shrubs and flowers edging the arena.
+
+"I don't expect you to believe," said Dr. Mundson, "that the oldest
+young man in there is three months old. You cannot see visible changes
+in a body which grows as slowly as the human being, whose normal period
+of development is twenty years or more. But I can give you visible proof
+of how fast growth takes place under the full power of the Life Ray.
+Plant life, which, even when left to nature, often develops from seed to
+flower within a few weeks or months, can be seen making its miraculous
+changes under the Life Ray. Watch those gorgeous purple flowers over
+which the butterflies are hovering."
+
+Northwood followed his pointing finger. Near the glass window through
+which they looked grew an enormous bank of resplendent violet colored
+flowers, which literally enshrouded the entire bush with their royal
+glory. At first glance it seemed as though a violent wind were
+snatching at flower and bush, but closer inspection proved that the
+agitation was part of the plant itself. And then he saw that the
+movements were the result of perpetual composition and growth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He fastened his eyes on one huge bud. He saw it swell, burst, spread out
+its passionate purple velvet, lift the broad flower face to the light
+for a joyous minute. A few seconds later a butterfly lighted airily to
+sample its nectar and to brush the pollen from its yellow dusted wings.
+Scarcely had the winged visitor flown away than the purple petals began
+to wither and fall away, leaving the seed pod on the stem. The visible
+change went on in this seed pod. It turned rapidly brown, dried out, and
+then sent the released seeds in a shower to the rich black earth below.
+Scarcely had the seeds touched the ground than they sent up tiny green
+shoots that grew larger each moment. Within ten minutes there was a new
+plant a foot high. Within half an hour, the plant budded, blossomed, and
+cast forth its own seed.
+
+"You understand?" asked the scientist. "Development is going on as
+rapidly among the children. Before the first year has passed, the
+youngest baby will have grandchildren; that is, if the baby tests out
+fit to pass its seed down to the new generation. I know it sounds
+absurd. Yet you saw the plant."
+
+"But Doctor," Northwood rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, "Nature's forces of
+destruction, of tearing down, are as powerful as her creative powers.
+You have discovered the ultimate in creation and upbuilding. But
+perhaps--oh, Lord, it is too awful to think!"
+
+"Speak, Northwood!" The scientist's voice was impatient.
+
+"It is nothing!" The pale young man attempted a smile. "I was only
+imagining some of the horror that could be thrust on the world if a
+supermind like Adam's should discover Nature's secret of death and
+destruction and speed it up as you have sped the life force."
+
+"_Ach Gott!_" Dr. Mundson's face was white. "He has his own laboratory,
+where he works every day. Don't talk so loud. He might be listening. And
+I believe he can do anything he sets out to accomplish."
+
+Close to Northwood's ear fell a faint, triumphant whisper: "Yes, he can
+do anything. How did you guess, worm?"
+
+It was Adam's voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now come and see the Leyden jar mothers," said Dr. Mundson. "We do not
+wait for the child to be born to start our work."
+
+He took Northwood to a laboratory crowded with strange apparatus, where
+young men and women worked. Northwood knew instantly that these people,
+although unusually handsome and strong, were not of Adam's generation.
+None of them had the look of newness which marked those who had grown up
+under the Life Ray.
+
+"They are the perfect couples whom I combed the world to find," said the
+scientist. "From their eugenic marriages sprang the first children that
+passed through the laboratory. I had hoped," he hesitated and looked
+sideways at Northwood, "I had dreamed of having the children of you and
+Athalia to help strengthen the New Race."
+
+A wave of sudden disgust passed over Northwood.
+
+"Thanks," he said tartly. "When I marry Athalia, I intend to have an
+old-fashioned home and a Black Age family. I don't relish having my
+children turned into--experiments."
+
+"But wait until you see all the wonders of the laboratory! That is why I
+am showing you all this."
+
+Northwood drew his handkerchief and mopped his brow. "It sickens me,
+Doctor! The more I see, the more pity I have for Adam--and the less I
+blame him for his rebellion and his desire to kill and to rule. Heavens!
+What a terrible thing you have done, experimenting with human life."
+
+"Nonsense! Can you say that all life--all matter--is not the result of
+scientific experiment? Can you?" His black gaze made Northwood
+uncomfortable. "Buck up, young friend, for now I am going to show you a
+marvelous improvement on Nature's bungling ways--the Leyden jar mother."
+He raised his voice and called, "Lilith!"
+
+The woman whom they had met on the field came forward.
+
+"May we take a peep at Lona's twins?" asked the scientist. "They are
+about ready to go to the growing dome, are they not?"
+
+"In five more minutes," said the woman. "Come see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She lifted one of the black velvet curtains that lined an entire side of
+the laboratory and thereby disclosed a globular jar of glass and metal,
+connected by wires to a dynamo. Above the jar was a Life Ray projector.
+Lilith slid aside a metal portion of the jar, disclosing through the
+glass underneath the squirming, kicking body of a baby, resting on a bed
+of soft, spongy substance, to which it was connected by the navel cord.
+
+"The Leyden jar mother," said Dr. Mundson. "It is the dream of us
+scientists realized. The human mother's body does nothing but nourish
+and protect her unborn child, a job which science can do better. And so,
+in New Eden, we take the young embryo and place it in the Leyden jar
+mother, where the Life Ray, electricity, and chemical food shortens the
+period of gestation to a few days."
+
+At that moment a bell under the Leyden jar began to ring. Dr. Mundson
+uncovered the jar and lifted out the child, a beautiful, perfectly
+formed boy, who began to cry lustily.
+
+"Here is one baby who'll never be kissed," he said. "He'll be nourished
+chemically, and, at the end of the week, will no longer be a baby. If
+you are patient, you can actually see the processes of development
+taking place under the Life Ray, for babies develop very fast."
+
+Northwood buried his face in his hands. "Lord! This is awful. No
+childhood; no mother to mould his mind! No parents to watch over him, to
+give him their tender care!"
+
+"Awful, fiddlesticks! Come see how children get their education, how
+they learn to use their hands and feet so they need not pass through the
+awkwardness of childhood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He led Northwood to a magnificent building whose façade of white marble
+was as simply beautiful as a Greek temple. The side walls, built almost
+entirely of glass, permitted the synthetic sunshine to sweep from end to
+end. They first entered a library, where youths and young girls poured
+over books of all kinds. Their manner of reading mystified Northwood.
+With a single sweep of the eye, they seemed to devour a page, and then
+turned to the next. He stepped closer to peer over the shoulder of a
+beautiful girl. She was reading "Euclid's Elements of Geometry," in
+Latin, and she turned the pages as swiftly as the other girl occupying
+her table, who was devouring "Paradise Lost."
+
+Dr. Mundson whispered to him: "If you do not believe that Ruth here is
+getting her Euclid, which she probably never saw before to-day, examine
+her from the book; that is, if you are a good enough Latin scholar."
+
+Ruth stopped her reading to talk to him, and, in a few minutes, had
+completely dumbfounded him with her pedantic replies, which fell from
+lips as luscious and unformed as an infant's.
+
+"Now," said Dr. Mundson, "test Rachael on her Milton. As far as she has
+read, she should not misquote a line, and her comments will probably
+prove her scholarly appreciation of Milton."
+
+Word for word, Rachael was able to give him "Paradise Lost" from memory,
+except the last four pages, which she had not read. Then, taking the
+book from him, she swept her eyes over these pages, returned the book to
+him, and quoted copiously and correctly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Mundson gloated triumphantly over his astonishment. "There, my
+friend. Could you now be satisfied with old-fashioned children who spend
+long, expensive years in getting an education? Of course, your children
+will not have the perfect brains of these, yet, developed under the Life
+Ray, they should have splendid mentality.
+
+"These children, through selective breeding, have brains that make
+everlasting records instantly. A page in a book, once seen, is indelibly
+retained by them, and understood. The same is true of a lecture, of an
+explanation given by a teacher, of even idle conversation. Any man or
+woman in this room should be able to repeat the most trivial
+conversation days old."
+
+"But what of the arts, Dr. Mundson? Surely even your supermen and women
+cannot instantly learn to paint a masterpiece or to guide their fingers
+and their brains through the intricacies of a difficult musical
+composition."
+
+"No?" His dark eyes glowed. "Come see!"
+
+Before they entered another wing of the building, they heard a violin
+being played masterfully.
+
+Dr. Mundson paused at the door.
+
+"So that you may understand what you shall see, let me remind you that
+the nerve impulses and the coordinating means in the human body are
+purely electrical. The world has not yet accepted my theory, but it
+will. Under superman's system of education, the instantaneous records
+made on the brain give immediate skill to the acting parts of the body.
+Accordingly, musicians are made over night."
+
+He threw open the door. Under a Life Ray projector, a beautiful,
+Juno-esque woman was playing a violin. Facing her, and with eyes
+fastened to hers, stood a young man, whose arms and slender fingers
+mimicked every motion she made. Presently she stopped playing and handed
+the violin to him. In her own masterly manner, he repeated the score she
+had played.
+
+"That is Eve," whispered Dr. Mundson. "I had selected her as Adam's
+wife. But he does not want her, the most brilliant woman of the New
+Race."
+
+Northwood gave the woman an appraising look. "Who wants a perfect woman?
+I don't blame Adam for preferring Athalia. But how is she teaching her
+pupil?"
+
+"Through thought vibration, which these perfect people have developed
+until they can record permanently the radioactive waves of the brains of
+others."
+
+Eve turned, caught Northwood's eyes in her magnetic blue gaze, and
+smiled as only a goddess can smile upon a mortal she has marked as her
+own. She came toward him with outflung hands.
+
+"So you have come!" Her vibrant contralto voice, like Adam's, held the
+birdlike, broken tremulo of a young child's. "I have been waiting for
+you, John Northwood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her eyes, as blue and icy as Adam's, lingered long on him, until he
+flinched from their steely magnetism. She slipped her arm through his
+and drew him gently but firmly from the room, while Dr. Mundson stood
+gaping after them.
+
+They were on a flagged terrace arched with roses of gigantic size, which
+sent forth billows of sensuous fragrance. Eve led him to a white marble
+seat piled with silk cushions, on which she reclined her superb body,
+while she regarded him from narrowed lids.
+
+"I saw your picture that he televisioned to Athalia," she said. "What a
+botch Dr. Mundson has made of his mating." Her laugh rippled like
+falling water. "I want you, John Northwood!"
+
+Northwood started and blushed furiously. Smile dimples broke around her
+red, humid lips.
+
+"Ah, you're old-fashioned!"
+
+Her large, beautiful hand, fleshed more tenderly than any woman's hand
+he had ever seen, went out to him appealingly. "I can bring you amorous
+delight that your Athalia never could offer in her few years of youth.
+And I'll never grow old, John Northwood."
+
+She came closer until he could feel the fragrant warmth of her tawny,
+ribbon bound hair pulse against his face. In sudden panic he drew back.
+
+"But I am pledged to Athalia!" tumbled from him. "It is all a dreadful
+mistake, Eve. You and Adam were created for each other."
+
+"Hush!" The lightning that flashed from her blue eyes changed her from
+seductress to angry goddess. "Created for each other! Who wants a
+made-to-measure lover?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The luscious lips trembled slightly, and into the vivid eyes crept a
+suspicion of moisture. Eternal Eve's weapons! Northwood's handsome face
+relaxed with pity.
+
+"I want you, John Northwood," she continued shamelessly. "Our love will
+be sublime." She leaned heavily against him, and her lips were like a
+blood red flower pressed against white satin. "Come, beloved, kiss me!"
+
+Northwood gasped and turned his head. "Don't, Eve!"
+
+"But a kiss from me will set you apart from all your generation, John
+Northwood, and you shall understand what no man of the Black Age could
+possibly fathom."
+
+Her hair had partly fallen from its ribbon bandage and poured its
+fragrant gold against his shoulder.
+
+"For God's sake, don't tempt me!" he groaned. "What do you mean?"
+
+"That mental and physical and spiritual contact with me will temporarily
+give you, a three-dimension creature, the power of the new sense, which
+your race will not have for fifty thousand years."
+
+White-lipped and trembling, he demanded: "Explain!"
+
+Eve smiled. "Have you not guessed that Adam has developed an additional
+sense? You've seen him vanish. He and I have the sixth sense of Time
+Perception--the new sense which enables us to penetrate what you of the
+Black Age call the Fourth Dimension. Even you whose mentalities are
+framed by three dimensions have this sixth sense instinct. Your very
+religion is based on it, for you believe that in another life you shall
+step into Time, or, as you call it, eternity." She leaned closer so that
+her hair brushed his cheek. "What is eternity, John Northwood? Is it not
+keeping forever ahead of the Destroyer? The future is eternal, for it is
+never reached. Adam and I, through our new sense which comprehends Time
+and Space, can vanish by stepping a few seconds into the future, the
+Fourth Dimension of Space. Death can never reach us, not even accidental
+death, unless that which causes death could also slip into the future,
+which is not yet possible."
+
+"But if the Fourth Dimension is future Time, why can one in the third
+dimension feel the touch of an unseen presence in the Fourth
+Dimension--hear his voice, even?"
+
+"Thought vibration. The touch is not really felt nor the voice heard:
+they are only imagined. The radioactive waves of the brain of even you
+Black Age people are swift enough to bridge Space and Time. And it is
+the mind that carries us beyond the third dimension."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her red mouth reached closer to him, her blue eyes touched hidden forces
+that slept in remote cells of his being. "You are going into Eternal
+Time, John Northwood, Eternity without beginning or end. You understand?
+You feel it? Comprehend it? Now for the contact--kiss me!"
+
+Northwood had seen Athalia vanish under Adam's kiss. Suddenly, in one
+mad burst of understanding, he leaned over to his magnificent temptress.
+
+For a split second he felt the sweet pressure of baby-soft lips, and
+then the atoms of his body seemed to fly asunder. Black chaos held him
+for a frightful moment before he felt sanity return.
+
+He was back on the terrace again, with Eve by his side. They were
+standing now. The world about him looked the same, yet there was a
+subtle change in everything.
+
+Eve laughed softly. "It is puzzling, isn't it? You're seeing everything
+as in a mirror. What was left before is now right. Only you and I are
+real. All else is but a vision, a dream. For now you and I are existing
+one minute in future time, or, more simply, we are in the Fourth
+Dimension. To everything in the third dimension, we are invisible. Let
+me show you that Dr. Mundson cannot see you."
+
+They went back to the room beyond the terrace. Dr. Mundson was not
+present.
+
+"There he goes down the jungle path," said Eve, looking out a window.
+She laughed. "Poor old fellow. The children of his genius are worrying
+him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were standing in the recess formed by a bay window. Eve picked up
+his hand and laid it against her face, giving him the full, blasting
+glory of her smiling blue eyes.
+
+Northwood, looking away miserably, uttered a low cry. Coming over the
+field beyond were Adam and Athalia. By the trimming on the blue dress
+she wore, he could see that she was still in the Fourth Dimension, for
+he did not see her as a mirror image.
+
+A look of fear leaped to Eve's face. She clutched Northwood's arm,
+trembling.
+
+"I don't want Adam to see that I have passed you beyond," she gasped.
+"We are existing but one minute in the future. Always Adam and I have
+feared to pass too far beyond the sweetness of reality. But now, so that
+Adam may not see us, we shall step five minutes into what-is-yet-to-be.
+And even he, with all his power, cannot see into a future that is more
+distant than that in which he exists."
+
+She raised her humid lips to his. "Come, beloved."
+
+Northwood kissed her. Again came the moment of confusion, of the awful
+vacancy that was like death, and then he found himself and Eve in the
+laboratory, following Adam and Athalia down a long corridor. Athalia was
+crying and pleading frantically with Adam. Once she stopped and threw
+herself at his feet in a gesture of dramatic supplication, arms
+outflung, streaming eyes wide open with fear.
+
+Adam stooped and lifted her gently and continued on his way, supporting
+her against his side.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eve dug her fingers into Northwood's arm. Horror contorted her face,
+horror mixed with rage.
+
+"My mind hears what he is saying, understands the vile plan he has made,
+John Northwood. He is on his way to his laboratory to destroy not only
+you and most of these in New Eden, but me as well. He wants only
+Athalia."
+
+Striding forward like an avenging goddess, she pulled Northwood after
+her.
+
+"Hurry!" she whispered. "Remember, you and I are five minutes in the
+future, and Adam is only one. We are witnessing what will occur four
+minutes from now. We yet have time to reach the laboratory before him
+and be ready for him when he enters. And because he will have to go back
+to Present Time to do his work of destruction, I will be able to destroy
+him. Ah!"
+
+Fierce joy burned in her flashing blue eyes, and her slender nostrils
+quivered delicately. Northwood, peeping at her in horror, knew that no
+mercy could be expected of her. And when she stopped at a certain door
+and inserted a key, he remembered Athalia. What if she should enter with
+Adam in Present Time?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were inside Adam's laboratory, a huge apartment filled with queer
+apparatus and cages of live animals. The room was a strange paradox.
+Part of the equipment, the walls, and the floor was glistening with
+newness, and part was moulding with extreme age. The powers of
+disintegration that haunt a tropical forest seemed to be devouring
+certain spots of the room. Here, in the midst of bright marble, was a
+section of wall that seemed as old as the pyramids. The surface of the
+stone had an appalling mouldiness, as though it had been lifted from an
+ancient graveyard where it had lain in the festering ground for
+unwholesome centuries.
+
+Between cracks in this stained and decayed section of stone grew fetid
+moss that quivered with the microscopic organisms that infest age-rotten
+places. Sections of the flooring and woodwork also reeked with
+mustiness. In one dark, webby corner of the room lay a pile of bleached
+bones, still tinted with the ghastly grays and pinks of putrefaction.
+Northwood, overwhelmingly nauseated, withdrew his eyes from the bones,
+only to see, in another corner, a pile of worm-eaten clothing that lay
+on the floor in the outline of a man.
+
+Faint with the reek of ancient mustiness, Northwood retreated to the
+door, dizzy and staggering.
+
+"It sickens you," said Eve, "and it sickens me also, for death and decay
+are not pleasant. Yet Nature, left to herself, reduces all to this.
+Every grave that has yawned to receive its prey hides corruption no less
+shocking. Nature's forces of creation and destruction forever work in
+partnership. Never satisfied with her composition, she destroys and
+starts again, building, building towards the ultimate of perfection.
+Thus, it is natural that if Dr. Mundson isolated the Life Ray, Nature's
+supreme force of compensation, isolation of the Death Ray should closely
+follow. Adam, thirsting for power, has succeeded. A few sweeps of his
+unholy ray of decomposition will undo all Dr. Mundson's work in this
+valley and reduce it to a stinking holocaust of destruction. And the
+time for his striking has come!"
+
+She seized his face and drew it toward her. "Quick!" she said. "We'll
+have to go back to the third dimension. I could leave you safe in the
+fourth, but if anything should happen to me, you would be stranded
+forever in future time."
+
+She kissed his lips. In a moment, he was back in the old familiar world,
+where right is right and left is left. Again the subtle change wrought
+by Eve's magic lips had taken place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eve went to a machine standing in a corner of the room.
+
+"Come here and get behind me, John Northwood. I want to test it before
+he enters."
+
+Northwood stood behind her shoulder.
+
+"Now watch!" she ordered. "I shall turn it on one of those cages of
+guinea pigs over there."
+
+She swung the projector around, pointed it at the cage of small,
+squealing animals, and threw a lever. Instantly a cone of black mephitis
+shot forth, a loathsome, bituminous stream of putrefaction that reeked
+of the grave and the cesspool, of the utmost reaches of decay before the
+dust accepts the disintegrated atoms. The first touch of seething,
+pitchy destruction brought screams of sudden agony from the guinea pigs,
+but the screams were cut short as the little animals fell in shocking,
+instant decay. The very cage which imprisoned them shriveled and
+retreated from the hellish, devouring breath that struck its noisome rot
+into the heart of the wood and the metal, reducing both to revolting
+ruin.
+
+Eve cut off the frightful power, and the black cone disappeared, leaving
+the room putrid with its defilement.
+
+"And Adam would do that to the world," she said, her blue eyes like
+electric-shot icicles. "He would do it to you, John Northwood--and to
+me!" Her full bosom strained under the passion beneath.
+
+"Listen!" She raised her hand warningly. "He comes! The destroyer
+comes!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hand was at the door. Eve reached for the lever, and, the same moment,
+Northwood leaned over her imploringly.
+
+"If Athalia is with him!" he gasped. "You will not harm her?"
+
+A wild shriek at the door, a slight scuffle, and then the doorknob was
+wrenched as though two were fighting over it.
+
+"For God's sake, Eve!" implored Northwood. "Wait! Wait!"
+
+"No! She shall die, too. You love her!"
+
+Icy, cruel eyes cut into him, and a new-fleshed hand tried to push him
+aside. The door was straining open. A beloved voice shrieked. "John!"
+
+Eve and Northwood both leaped for the lever. Under her tender white
+flesh she was as strong as a man. In the midst of the struggle, her red,
+humid lips approached his--closer. Closer. Their merest pressure would
+thrust him into Future Time, where the laboratory and all it contained
+would be but a shadow, and where he would be helpless to interfere with
+her terrible will.
+
+He saw the door open and Adam stride into the room. Behind him, lying
+prone in the hall where she had probably fainted, was Athalia. In a mad
+burst of strength he touched the lever together with Eve.
+
+The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of corruption swung in
+a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls--and then straight at Adam.
+
+Then, quicker than thought, came the accident. Eve, attempting to throw
+Northwood off, tripped, fell half over the machine, and, with a short
+scream of despair, dropped into the black path of destruction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood paused, horrified. The Death Ray was pointed at an inner wall
+of the room, which, even as he looked, crumbled and disappeared,
+bringing down upon him dust more foul than any obscenity the bowels of
+the earth might yield. In an instant the black cone ate through the
+outer parts of the building, where crashing stone and screams that were
+more horrible because of their shortness followed the ruin that swept
+far into the fair reaches of the valley.
+
+The paralyzing odor of decay took his breath, numbed his muscles, until,
+of all that huge building, the wall behind him and one small section of
+the room by the doorway alone remained whole. He was trying to nerve
+himself to reach for the lever close to that quiet formless thing still
+partly draped over the machine, when a faint sound in the door
+electrified him. At first, he dared not look, but his own name, spoken
+almost in a gasp, gave him courage.
+
+Athalia lay on the floor, apparently untouched.
+
+He jerked the lever violently before running to her, exultant with the
+knowledge that his own efforts to keep the ray from the door had saved
+her.
+
+"And you're not hurt!" He gathered her close.
+
+"John! I saw it get Adam." She pointed to a new mound of mouldy clothes
+on the floor. "Oh, it is hideous for me to be so glad, but he was going
+to destroy everything and everyone except me. He made the ray projector
+for that one purpose."
+
+Northwood looked over the pile of putrid ruins which a few minutes ago
+had been a building. There was not a wall left intact.
+
+"His intention is accomplished, Athalia," he said sadly. "Let's get out
+before more stones fall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a moment they were in the open. An ominous stillness seemed to grip
+the very air--the awful silence of the polar wastes which lay not far
+beyond the mountains.
+
+"How dark it is, John!" cried Athalia. "Dark and cold!"
+
+"The sunshine projector!" gasped Northwood. "It must have been
+destroyed. Look, dearest! The golden light has disappeared."
+
+"And the warm air of the valley will lift immediately. That means a
+polar blizzard." She shuddered and clung closer to him. "I've seen
+Antarctic storms, John. They're death."
+
+Northwood avoided her eyes. "There's the sun-ship. We'll give the ruins
+the once over in case there are any survivors; then we'll save
+ourselves."
+
+Even a cursory examination of the mouldy piles of stone and dust
+convinced them that there could be no survivors. The ruins looked as
+though they had lain in those crumbling piles for centuries. Northwood,
+smothering his repugnance, stepped among them--among the green, slimy
+stones and the unspeakable revolting débris, staggering back and faint
+and shocked when he came upon dust that was once human.
+
+"God!" he groaned, hands over eyes. "We're alone, Athalia! Alone in a
+charnal house. The laboratory housed the entire population, didn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Needing no sleep nor food, we did not need houses. We all worked
+here, under Dr. Mundson's generalship, and, lately under Adam's, like a
+little band of soldiers fighting for a great cause."
+
+"Let's go to the sun-ship, dearest."
+
+"But Daddy Mundson was in the library," sobbed Athalia. "Let's look for
+him a little longer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sudden remembrance came to Northwood. "No, Athalia! He left the library.
+I saw him go down the jungle path several minutes before I and Eve went
+to Adam's laboratory."
+
+"Then he might be safe!" Her eyes danced. "He might have gone to the
+sun-ship."
+
+Shivering, she slumped against him. "Oh, John! I'm cold."
+
+Her face was blue. Northwood jerked off his coat and wrapped it around
+her, taking the intense cold against his unprotected shoulders. The low,
+gray sky was rapidly darkening, and the feeble light of the sun could
+scarcely pierce the clouds. It was disturbing to know that even the
+summer temperature in the Antarctic was far below zero.
+
+"Come, girl," said Northwood gravely. "Hurry! It's snowing."
+
+They started to run down the road through the narrow strip of jungle.
+The Death Ray had cut huge swathes in the tangle of trees and vines, and
+now areas of heaped débris, livid with the colors of recent decay,
+exhaled a mephitic humidity altogether alien to the snow that fell in
+soft, slow flakes. Each hesitated to voice the new fear: had the
+sun-ship been destroyed?
+
+By the time they reached the open field, the snow stung their flesh like
+sharp needles, but it was not yet thick enough to hide from them a
+hideous fact.
+
+The sun-ship was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It might have occupied one of several black, foul areas on the green
+grass, where the searching Death Ray had made the very soil putrefy, and
+the rocks crumble into shocking dust.
+
+Northwood snatched Athalia to him, too full of despair to speak. A
+sudden terrific flurry of snow whirled around them, and they were almost
+blown from their feet by the icy wind that tore over the unprotected
+field.
+
+"It won't be long," said Athalia faintly. "Freezing doesn't hurt, John,
+dear."
+
+"It isn't fair, Athalia! There never would have been such a marriage as
+ours. Dr. Mundson searched the world to bring us together."
+
+"For scientific experiment!" she sobbed. "I'd rather die, John. I want
+an old-fashioned home, a Black Age family. I want to grow old with you
+and leave the earth to my children. Or else I want to die here now under
+the kind, white blanket the snow is already spreading over us." She
+drooped in his arms.
+
+Clinging together, they stood in the howling wind, looking at each other
+hungrily, as though they would snatch from death this one last picture
+of the other.
+
+Northwood's freezing lips translated some of the futile words that
+crowded against them. "I love you because you are not perfect. I hate
+perfection!"
+
+"Yes. Perfection is the only hopeless state, John. That is why Adam
+wanted to destroy, so that he might build again."
+
+They were sitting in the snow now, for they were very tired. The storm
+began whistling louder, as though it were only a few feet above their
+heads.
+
+"That sounds almost like the sun-ship," said Athalia drowsily.
+
+"It's only the wind. Hold your face down so it won't strike your flesh
+so cruelly."
+
+"I'm not suffering. I'm getting warm again." She smiled at him sleepily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little icicles began to form on their clothing, and the powdery snow
+frosted their uncovered hair.
+
+Suddenly came a familiar voice: "_Ach Gott!_"
+
+Dr. Mundson stood before them, covered with snow until he looked like a
+polar bear.
+
+"Get up!" he shouted. "Quick! To the sun-ship!"
+
+He seized Athalia and jerked her to her feet. She looked at him sleepily
+for a moment, and then threw herself at him and hugged him frantically.
+
+"You're not dead?"
+
+Taking each by the arm, he half dragged them to the sun-ship, which had
+landed only a few feet away. In a few minutes he had hot brandy for
+them.
+
+While they sipped greedily, he talked, between working the sun-ship's
+controls.
+
+"No, I wouldn't say it was a lucky moment that drew me to the sun-ship.
+When I saw Eve trying to charm John, I had what you American slangists
+call a hunch, which sent me to the sun-ship to get it off the ground so
+that Adam couldn't commandeer it. And what is a hunch but a mental
+penetration into the Fourth Dimension?" For a long moment, he brooded,
+absent-minded. "I was in the air when the black ray, which I suppose is
+Adam's deviltry, began to destroy everything it touched. From a safe
+elevation I saw it wreck all my work." A sudden spasm crossed his face.
+"I've flown over the entire valley. We're the only survivors--thank
+God!"
+
+"And so at last you confess that it is not well to tamper with human
+life?" Northwood, warmed with hot brandy, was his old self again.
+
+"Oh, I have not altogether wasted my efforts. I went to elaborate pains
+to bring together a perfect man and a perfect woman of what Adam called
+our Black Age." He smiled at them whimsically.
+
+"And who can say to what extent you have thus furthered natural
+evolution?" Northwood slipped his arm around Athalia. "Our children
+might be more than geniuses, Doctor!"
+
+Dr. Mundson nodded his huge, shaggy head gravely.
+
+"The true instinct of a Creature of the Light," he declared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Remember_
+  ASTOUNDING STORIES
+  _Appears on Newsstands_
+  THE FIRST THURSDAY IN EACH MONTH
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Into Space
+
+_By Sterner St. Paul_
+
+
+    What was the extraordinary connection between Dr. Livermore's
+    sudden disappearance and the coming of a new satellite to the
+    Earth?
+
+[Illustration: _A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile
+rose, gaining speed rapidly._]
+
+
+Many of my readers will remember the mysterious radio messages which
+were heard by both amateur and professional short wave operators during
+the nights of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of last September, and
+even more will remember the astounding discovery made by Professor
+Montescue of the Lick Observatory on the night of September
+twenty-fifth. At the time, some inspired writers tried to connect the
+two events, maintaining that the discovery of the fact that the earth
+had a new satellite coincident with the receipt of the mysterious
+messages was evidence that the new planetoid was inhabited and that the
+messages were attempts on the part of the inhabitants to communicate
+with us.
+
+The fact that the messages were on a lower wave length than any receiver
+then in existence could receive with any degree of clarity, and the
+additional fact that they appeared to come from an immense distance lent
+a certain air of plausibility to these ebullitions in the Sunday
+magazine sections. For some weeks the feature writers harped on the
+subject, but the hurried construction of new receivers which would work
+on a lower wave length yielded no results, and the solemn pronouncements
+of astronomers to the effect that the new celestial body could by no
+possibility have an atmosphere on account of its small size finally put
+an end to the talk. So the matter lapsed into oblivion.
+
+While quite a few people will remember the two events I have noted, I
+doubt whether there are five hundred people alive who will remember
+anything at all about the disappearance of Dr. Livermore of the
+University of Calvada on September twenty-third. He was a man of some
+local prominence, but he had no more than a local fame, and few papers
+outside of California even noted the event in their columns. I do not
+think that anyone ever tried to connect up his disappearance with the
+radio messages or the discovery of the new earthly satellite; yet the
+three events were closely bound up together, and but for the Doctor's
+disappearance, the other two would never have happened.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Livermore taught physics at Calvada, or at least he taught the
+subject when he remembered that he had a class and felt like teaching.
+His students never knew whether he would appear at class or not; but he
+always passed everyone who took his courses and so, of course, they
+were always crowded. The University authorities used to remonstrate with
+him, but his ability as a research worker was so well known and
+recognized that he was allowed to go about as he pleased. He was a
+bachelor who lived alone and who had no interests in life, so far as
+anyone knew, other than his work.
+
+I first made contact with him when I was a freshman at Calvada, and for
+some unknown reason he took a liking to me. My father had insisted that
+I follow in his footsteps as an electrical engineer; as he was paying my
+bills, I had to make a show at studying engineering while I
+clandestinely pursued my hobby, literature. Dr. Livermore's courses were
+the easiest in the school and they counted as science, so I regularly
+registered for them, cut them, and attended a class in literature as an
+auditor. The Doctor used to meet me on the campus and laughingly scold
+me for my absence, but he was really in sympathy with my ambition and he
+regularly gave me a passing mark and my units of credit without regard
+to my attendance, or, rather, lack of it.
+
+When I graduated from Calvada I was theoretically an electrical
+engineer. Practically I had a pretty good knowledge of contemporary
+literature and knew almost nothing about my so-called profession. I
+stalled around Dad's office for a few months until I landed a job as a
+cub reporter on the San Francisco _Graphic_ and then I quit him cold.
+When the storm blew over, Dad admitted that you couldn't make a silk
+purse out of a sow's ear and agreed with a grunt to my new line of work.
+He said that I would probably be a better reporter than an engineer
+because I couldn't by any possibility be a worse one, and let it go at
+that. However, all this has nothing to do with the story. It just
+explains how I came to be acquainted with Dr. Livermore, in the first
+place, and why he sent for me on September twenty-second, in the second
+place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morning of the twenty-second the City Editor called me in and asked
+me if I knew "Old Liverpills."
+
+"He says that he has a good story ready to break but he won't talk to
+anyone but you," went on Barnes. "I offered to send out a good man, for
+when Old Liverpills starts a story it ought to be good, but all I got
+was a high powered bawling out. He said that he would talk to you or no
+one and would just as soon talk to no one as to me any longer. Then he
+hung up. You'd better take a run out to Calvada and see what he has to
+say. I can have a good man rewrite your drivel when you get back."
+
+I was more or less used to that sort of talk from Barnes so I paid no
+attention to it. I drove my flivver down to Calvada and asked for the
+Doctor.
+
+"Dr. Livermore?" said the bursar. "Why, he hasn't been around here for
+the last ten months. This is his sabbatical year and he is spending it
+on a ranch he owns up at Hat Creek, near Mount Lassen. You'll have to go
+there if you want to see him."
+
+I knew better than to report back to Barnes without the story, so there
+was nothing to it but to drive up to Hat Creek, and a long, hard drive
+it was. I made Redding late that night; the next day I drove on to
+Burney and asked for directions to the Doctor's ranch.
+
+"So you're going up to Doc Livermore's, are you?" asked the Postmaster,
+my informant. "Have you got an invitation?"
+
+I assured him that I had.
+
+"It's a good thing," he replied, "because he don't allow anyone on his
+place without one. I'd like to go up there myself and see what's going
+on, but I don't want to get shot at like old Pete Johnson did when he
+tried to drop in on the Doc and pay him a little call. There's something
+mighty funny going on up there."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Naturally I tried to find out what was going on but evidently the
+Postmaster, who was also the express agent, didn't know. All he could
+tell me was that a "lot of junk" had come for the Doctor by express and
+that a lot more had been hauled in by truck from Redding.
+
+"What kind of junk?" I asked him.
+
+"Almost everything, Bub: sheet steel, machinery, batteries, cases of
+glass, and Lord knows what all. It's been going on ever since he landed
+there. He has a bunch of Indians working for him and he don't let a
+white man on the place."
+
+Forced to be satisfied with this meager information, I started old
+Lizzie and lit out for the ranch. After I had turned off the main trail
+I met no one until the ranch house was in sight. As I rounded a bend in
+the road which brought me in sight of the building, I was forced to put
+on my brakes at top speed to avoid running into a chain which was
+stretched across the road. An Indian armed with a Winchester rifle stood
+behind it, and when I stopped he came up and asked my business.
+
+"My business is with Dr. Livermore," I said tartly.
+
+"You got letter?" he inquired.
+
+"No," I answered.
+
+"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," he replied, and walked stolidly
+back to his post.
+
+"This is absurd," I shouted, and drove Lizzie up to the chain. I saw
+that it was merely hooked to a ring at the end, and I climbed out and
+started to take it down. A thirty-thirty bullet embedded itself in the
+post an inch or two from my head, and I changed my mind about taking
+down that chain.
+
+"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," said the Indian laconically as
+he pumped another shell into his gun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was balked, until I noticed a pair of telephone wires running from the
+house to the tree to which one end of the chain was fastened.
+
+"Is that a telephone to the house?" I demanded.
+
+The Indian grunted an assent.
+
+"Dr. Livermore telephoned me to come and see him," I said. "Can't I call
+him up and see if he still wants to see me?"
+
+The Indian debated the question with himself for a minute and then
+nodded a doubtful assent. I cranked the old coffee mill type of
+telephone which I found, and presently heard the voice of Dr. Livermore.
+
+"This is Tom Faber, Doctor," I said. "The _Graphic_ sent me up to get a
+story from you, but there's an Indian here who started to murder me when
+I tried to get past your barricade."
+
+"Good for him," chuckled the Doctor. "I heard the shot, but didn't know
+that he was shooting at you. Tell him to talk to me."
+
+The Indian took the telephone at my bidding and listened for a minute.
+
+"You go in," he agreed when he hung up the receiver.
+
+He took down the chain and I drove on up to the house, to find the
+Doctor waiting for me on the veranda.
+
+"Hello, Tom," he greeted me heartily. "So you had trouble with my guard,
+did you?"
+
+"I nearly got murdered," I said ruefully.
+
+"I expect that Joe would have drilled you if you had tried to force your
+way in," he remarked cheerfully. "I forgot to tell him that you were
+coming to-day. I told him you would be here yesterday, but yesterday
+isn't to-day to that Indian. I wasn't sure you would get here at all, in
+point of fact, for I didn't know whether that old fool I talked to in
+your office would send you or some one else. If anyone else had been
+sent, he would have never got by Joe, I can tell you. Come in. Where's
+your bag?"
+
+"I haven't one," I replied. "I went to Calvada yesterday to see you, and
+didn't know until I got there that you were up here."
+
+The Doctor chuckled.
+
+"I guess I forgot to tell where I was," he said. "That man I talked to
+got me so mad that I hung up on him before I told him. It doesn't
+matter, though. I can dig you up a new toothbrush, and I guess you can
+make out with that. Come in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I followed him into the house, and he showed me a room fitted with a
+crude bunk, a washstand, a bowl and a pitcher.
+
+"You won't have many luxuries here, Tom," he said, "but you won't need
+to stay here for more than a few days. My work is done: I am ready to
+start. In fact, I would have started yesterday instead of to-day, had
+you arrived. Now don't ask any questions; it's nearly lunch time."
+
+"What's the story, Doctor?" I asked after lunch as I puffed one of his
+excellent cigars. "And why did you pick me to tell it to?"
+
+"For several reasons," he replied, ignoring my first question. "In the
+first place, I like you and I think that you can keep your mouth shut
+until you are told to open it. In the second place, I have always found
+that you had the gift of vision or imagination and have the ability to
+believe. In the third place, you are the only man I know who had the
+literary ability to write up a good story and at the same time has the
+scientific background to grasp what it is all about. Understand that
+unless I have your promise not to write this story until I tell you that
+you can, not a word will I tell you."
+
+I reflected for a moment. The _Graphic_ would expect the story when I
+got back, but on the other hand I knew that unless I gave the desired
+promise, the Doctor wouldn't talk.
+
+"All right," I assented, "I'll promise."
+
+"Good!" he replied. "In that case, I'll tell you all about it. No doubt
+you, like the rest of the world, think that I'm crazy?"
+
+"Why, not at all," I stammered. In point of fact, I had often harbored
+such a suspicion.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," he went on cheerfully. "I _am_ crazy, crazy as a
+loon, which, by the way, is a highly sensible bird with a well balanced
+mentality. There is no doubt that I am crazy, but my craziness is not of
+the usual type. Mine is the insanity of genius."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He looked at me sharply as he spoke, but long sessions at poker in the
+San Francisco Press Club had taught me how to control my facial muscles,
+and I never batted an eye. He seemed satisfied, and went on.
+
+"From your college work you are familiar with the laws of magnetism," he
+said. "Perhaps, considering just what your college career really was, I
+might better say that you are supposed to be familiar with them."
+
+I joined with him in his laughter.
+
+"It won't require a very deep knowledge to follow the thread of my
+argument," he went on. "You know, of course, that the force of magnetic
+attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distances
+separating the magnet and the attracted particles, and also that each
+magnetized particle had two poles, a positive and a negative pole, or a
+north pole and a south pole, as they are usually called?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Consider for a moment that the laws of magnetism, insofar as concerns
+the relation between distance and power of attraction, are exactly
+matched by the laws of gravitation."
+
+"But there the similarity between the two forces ends," I interrupted.
+
+"But there the similarity does _not_ end," he said sharply. "That is the
+crux of the discovery which I have made: that magnetism and gravity are
+one and the same, or, rather, that the two are separate, but similar
+manifestations of one force. The parallel between the two grows closer
+with each succeeding experiment. You know, for example, that each
+magnetized particle has two poles. Similarly each gravitized particle,
+to coin a new word, had two poles, one positive and one negative. Every
+particle on the earth is so oriented that the negative poles point
+toward the positive center of the earth. This is what causes the
+commonly known phenomena of gravity or weight."
+
+"I can prove the fallacy of that in a moment," I retorted.
+
+"There are none so blind as those who will not see," he quoted with an
+icy smile. "I can probably predict your puerile argument, but go ahead
+and present it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If two magnets are placed so that the north pole of one is in
+juxtaposition to the south pole of the other, they attract one another,"
+I said. "If the position of the magnets be reversed so that the two
+similar poles are opposite, they will repel. If your theory were
+correct, a man standing on his head would fall off the earth."
+
+"Exactly what I expected," he replied. "Now let me ask you a question.
+Have you ever seen a small bar magnet placed within the field of
+attraction of a large electromagnet? Of course you have, and you have
+noticed that, when the north pole of the bar magnet was pointed toward
+the electromagnet, the bar was attracted. However, when the bar was
+reversed and the south pole pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar
+was still attracted. You doubtless remember that experiment."
+
+"But in that case the magnetism of the electromagnet was so large that
+the polarity of the small magnet was reversed!" I cried.
+
+"Exactly, and the field of gravity of the earth is so great compared to
+the gravity of a man that when he stands on his head, his polarity is
+instantly reversed."
+
+I nodded. His explanation was too logical for me to pick a flaw in it.
+
+"If that same bar magnet were held in the field of the electromagnet
+with its north pole pointed toward the magnet and then, by the action of
+some outside force of sufficient power, its polarity were reversed, the
+bar would be repelled. If the magnetism were neutralized and held
+exactly neutral, it would be neither repelled nor attracted, but would
+act only as the force of gravity impelled it. Is that clear?"
+
+"Perfectly," I assented.
+
+"That, then, paves the way for what I have to tell you. I have
+developed an electrical method of neutralizing the gravity of a body
+while it is within the field of the earth, and also, by a slight
+extension, a method of entirely reversing its polarity."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I nodded calmly.
+
+"Do you realize what this means?" he cried.
+
+"No," I replied, puzzled by his great excitement.
+
+"Man alive," he cried, "it means that the problem of aerial flight is
+entirely revolutionized, and that the era of interplanetary travel is at
+hand! Suppose that I construct an airship and then render it neutral to
+gravity. It would weigh nothing, _absolutely nothing_! The tiniest
+propeller would drive it at almost incalculable speed with a minimum
+consumption of power, for the only resistance to its motion would be the
+resistance of the air. If I were to reverse the polarity, it would be
+repelled from the earth with the same force with which it is now
+attracted, and it would rise with the same acceleration as a body falls
+toward the earth. It would travel to the moon in two hours and forty
+minutes."
+
+"Air resistance would--"
+
+"There is no air a few miles from the earth. Of course, I do not mean
+that such a craft would take off from the earth and land on the moon
+three hours later. There are two things which would interfere with that.
+One is the fact that the propelling force, the gravity of the earth,
+would diminish as the square of the distance from the center of the
+earth, and the other is that when the band of neutral attraction, or
+rather repulsion, between the earth and the moon had been reached, it
+would be necessary to decelerate so as to avoid a smash on landing. I
+have been over the whole thing and I find that it would take twenty-nine
+hours and fifty-two minutes to make the whole trip. The entire thing is
+perfectly possible. In fact, I have asked you here to witness and report
+the first interplanetary trip to be made."
+
+"Have you constructed such a device?" I cried.
+
+"My space ship is finished and ready for your inspection," he replied.
+"If you will come with me, I will show it to you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hardly knowing what to believe, I followed him from the house and to a
+huge barnlike structure, over a hundred feet high, which stood nearby.
+He opened the door and switched on a light, and there before me stood
+what looked at first glance to be a huge artillery shell, but of a size
+larger than any ever made. It was constructed of sheet steel, and while
+the lower part was solid, the upper sections had huge glass windows set
+in them. On the point was a mushroom shaped protuberance. It measured
+perhaps fifty feet in diameter and was one hundred and forty feet high,
+the Doctor informed me. A ladder led from the floor to a door about
+fifty feet from the ground.
+
+I followed the Doctor up the ladder and into the space flier. The door
+led us into a comfortable living room through a double door arrangement.
+
+"The whole hull beneath us," explained the Doctor, "is filled with
+batteries and machinery except for a space in the center, where a shaft
+leads to a glass window in the bottom so that I can see behind me, so to
+speak. The space above is filled with storerooms and the air purifying
+apparatus. On this level is my bedroom, kitchen, and other living rooms,
+together with a laboratory and an observatory. There is a central
+control room located on an upper level, but it need seldom be entered,
+for the craft can be controlled by a system of relays from this room or
+from any other room in the ship. I suppose that you are more or less
+familiar with imaginative stories of interplanetary travel?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I nodded an assent.
+
+"In that case there is no use in going over the details of the air
+purifying and such matters," he said. "The story writers have worked
+out all that sort of thing in great detail, and there is nothing novel
+in my arrangements. I carry food and water for six months and air enough
+for two months by constant renovating. Have you any question you wish to
+ask?"
+
+"One objection I have seen frequently raised to the idea of
+interplanetary travel is that the human body could not stand the rapid
+acceleration which would be necessary to attain speed enough to ever get
+anywhere. How do you overcome this?"
+
+"My dear boy, who knows what the human body can stand? When the
+locomotive was first invented learned scientists predicted that the
+limit of speed was thirty miles an hour, as the human body could not
+stand a higher speed. To-day the human body stands a speed of three
+hundred and sixty miles an hour without ill effects. At any rate, on my
+first trip I intend to take no chances. We know that the body can stand
+an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second without trouble. That is
+the rate of acceleration due to gravity and is the rate at which a body
+increases speed when it falls. This is the acceleration which I will
+use.
+
+"Remember that the space traveled by a falling body in a vacuum is equal
+to one half the acceleration multiplied by the square of the elapsed
+time. The moon, to which I intend to make my first trip, is only 280,000
+miles, or 1,478,400,000 feet, from us. With an acceleration of
+thirty-two feet per second, I would pass the moon two hours and forty
+minutes after leaving the earth. If I later take another trip, say to
+Mars, I will have to find a means of increasing my acceleration,
+possibly by the use of the rocket principle. Then will be time enough to
+worry about what my body will stand."
+
+A short calculation verified the figures the Doctor had given me, and I
+stood convinced.
+
+"Are you really going?" I asked.
+
+"Most decidedly. To repeat, I would have started yesterday, had you
+arrived. As it is, I am ready to start at once. We will go back to the
+house for a few minutes while I show you the location of an excellent
+telescope through which you may watch my progress, and instruct you in
+the use of an ultra-short-wave receiver which I am confident will pierce
+the Heaviside layer. With this I will keep in communication with you,
+although I have made no arrangements for you to send messages to me on
+this trip. I intend to go to the moon and land. I will take atmosphere
+samples through an air port and, if there is an atmosphere which will
+support life, I will step out on the surface. If there is not, I will
+return to the earth."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes was enough for me to grasp the simple manipulations which
+I would have to perform, and I followed him again to the space flier.
+
+"How are you going to get it out?" I asked.
+
+"Watch," he said.
+
+He worked some levers and the roof of the barn folded back, leaving the
+way clear for the departure of the huge projectile. I followed him
+inside and he climbed the ladder.
+
+"When I shut the door, go back to the house and test the radio," he
+directed.
+
+The door clanged shut and I hastened into the house. His voice came
+plainly enough. I went back to the flier and waved him a final farewell,
+which he acknowledged through a window; then I returned to the receiver.
+A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile rose and flew out
+through the open roof, gaining speed rapidly until it was a mere speck
+in the sky. It vanished. I had no trouble in picking him up with the
+telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor through one of the windows.
+
+"I have passed beyond the range of the atmosphere, Tom," came his voice
+over the receiver, "and I find that everything is going exactly as it
+should. I feel no discomfort, and my only regret is that I did not
+install a transmitter in the house so that you could talk to me; but
+there is no real necessity for it. I am going to make some observations
+now, but I will call you again with a report of progress in
+half-an-hour."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the rest of the afternoon and all of that night I received his
+messages regularly, but with the coming of daylight they began to fade.
+By nine o'clock I could get only a word here and there. By noon I could
+hear nothing. I went to sleep hoping that the night would bring better
+reception, nor was I disappointed. About eight o'clock I received a
+message, rather faintly, but none the less distinctly.
+
+"I regret more than ever that I did not install a transmitter so that I
+could learn from you whether you are receiving my messages," his voice
+said faintly. "I have no idea of whether you can hear me or not, but I
+will keep on repeating this message every hour while my battery holds
+out. It is now thirty hours since I left the earth and I should be on
+the moon, according to my calculations. But I am not, and never will be.
+I am caught at the neutral point where the gravity of the earth and the
+moon are exactly equal.
+
+"I had relied on my momentum to carry me over this point. Once over it,
+I expected to reverse my polarity and fall on the moon. My momentum did
+not do so. If I keep my polarity as it was when left the earth, both the
+earth and the moon repel me. If I reverse it, they both attract me, and
+again I cannot move. If I had equipped my space flier with a rocket so
+that I could move a few miles, or even a few feet, from the dead line, I
+could proceed, but I did not do so, and I cannot move forward or back.
+Apparently I am doomed to stay here until my air gives out. Then my
+body, entombed in my space ship, will endlessly circle the earth as a
+satellite until the end of time. There is no hope for me, for long
+before a duplicate of my device equipped with rockets could be
+constructed and come to my rescue, my air would be exhausted. Good-by,
+Tom. You may write your story as soon as you wish. I will repeat my
+message in one hour. Good-by!"
+
+At nine and at ten o'clock the message was repeated. At eleven it
+started again but after a few sentences the sound suddenly ceased and
+the receiver went dead. I thought that the fault was with the receiver
+and I toiled feverishly the rest of the night, but without result. I
+learned later that the messages heard all over the world ceased at the
+same hour.
+
+The next morning Professor Montescue announced his discovery of the
+world's new satellite.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Coming_--
+  MURDER MADNESS
+  _An Extraordinary Four-Part Novel_
+
+  _By_ MURRAY LEINSTER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Beetle Horde
+
+_By Victor Rousseau_
+
+
+    Bullets, shrapnel, shell--nothing can stop the trillions of
+    famished, man-sized beetles which, led by a madman, sweep down
+    over the human race.
+
+[Illustration: _The hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits and began
+their abominable meal._]
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+Tommy Travers and James Dodd, of the Travers Antarctic Expedition, crash
+in their plane somewhere near the South Pole, and are seized by a swarm
+of man-sized beetles. They are carried down to Submundia, a world under
+the earth's crust, where the beetles have developed their civilization
+to an amazing point, using a wretched race of degenerated humans, whom
+they breed as cattle, for food.
+
+The insect horde is ruled by a human from the outside world--a
+drug-doped madman. Dodd recognizes this man as Bram, the archaeologist
+who had been lost years before at the Pole and given up for dead by a
+world he had hated because it refused to accept his radical scientific
+theories. His fiendish mind now plans the horrible revenge of leading
+his unconquerable horde of monster insects forth to ravage the world,
+destroy the human race and establish a new era--the era of the insect.
+
+The world has to be warned of the impending doom. The two, with Haidia,
+a girl of Submundia, escape, and pass through menacing dangers to within
+two miles of the exit. There, suddenly, Tommy sees towering over him a
+creature that turns his blood cold--a gigantic praying mantis. Before he
+has time to act, the monster springs at them!
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_Through the Inferno_
+
+Fortunately, the monster miscalculated its leap. The huge legs, whirling
+through the air, came within a few inches of Tommy's head, but passed
+over him, and the mantis plunged into the stream. Instantly the water
+was alive with leaping things with faces of such grotesque horror that
+Tommy sat paralyzed in his rocking shell, unable to avert his eyes.
+
+Things no more than a foot or two in length, to judge from the slender,
+eel-like bodies that leaped into the air, but things with catfish heads
+and tentacles, and eyes waving on stalks; things with clawlike
+appendages to their ventral fins, and mouths that widened to fearful
+size, so that the whole head seemed to disappear above them, disclosing
+fangs like wolves'. Instantly the water was churned into phosphorescent
+fire as they precipitated themselves upon the struggling mantis, whose
+enormous form, extending halfway from shore to shore, was covered with
+the river monsters, gnawing, rending, tearing.
+
+Luckily the struggles of the dying monster carried it downstream instead
+of up. In a few moments the immediate danger was past. And suddenly
+Haidia awoke, sat up.
+
+"Where are we?" she cried. "Oh, I can see! I can see! Something has
+burned away from my eyes! I know this place. A wise man of my people
+once came here, and returned to tell of it. We must go on. Soon we shall
+be safe on the wide river. But there is another way that leads to here.
+We must go on! We must go on!"
+
+Even as she spoke they heard the distant rasping of the beetle-legs. And
+before the shells were well in mid-current they saw the beetle horde
+coming round the bend; in the front of them Bram, reclining on his shell
+couch, and drawn by the eight trained beetles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bram saw the fugitives, and a roar of ironic mirth broke from his lips,
+resounding high above the strident rasping of the beetle-legs, and
+roaring over the marshes.
+
+"I've got you, Dodd and Travers," he bellowed, as the trained beetles
+hovered above the shell canoes. "You thought you were clever, but you're
+at my mercy. Now's your last chance, Dodd. I'll save you still if you'll
+submit to me, if you'll admit that there were fossil monotremes before
+the pleistocene epoch. Come, it's so simple! Say it after me: 'The
+marsupial lion--'"
+
+"You go to hell!" yelled Dodd, nearly upsetting his shell as he shook
+his fist at his enemy.
+
+High above the rasping sound came Bram's shrill whistle. Just audible to
+human ears, though probably sounding like the roar of thunder to those
+of the beetles, there was no need to wonder what it was.
+
+It was the call to slaughter.
+
+Like a black cloud the beetles shot forward. A serried phalanx covered
+the two men and the girl, hovering a few feet overhead, the long legs
+dangling to within arm's reach. And a terrible cry of fear broke from
+Haidia's lips.
+
+Suddenly Tommy remembered Bram's cigarette-lighter. He pulled it from
+his pocket and ignited it.
+
+Small as the flame was, it was actinically much more powerful than the
+brighter phosphorescence of the fungi behind them. The beetle-cloud
+overhead parted. The strident sound was broken into a confused buzzing
+as the terrified, blinded beetles plopped into the stream.
+
+None of them, fortunately, fell into either of the three shells, but the
+mass of struggling monsters in the water was hardly less formidable to
+the safety of the occupants than that menacing cloud overhead.
+
+"Get clear!" Tommy yelled to Dodd, trying to help the shell along with
+his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He heard Bram's cry of baffled rage, and, looking backward, could not
+refrain from a laugh of triumph. Bram's trained steeds had taken fright
+and overset him. Bram had fallen into the red mud beside the stream,
+from which he was struggling up, plastered from head to feet, and
+shaking his fists and evidently cursing, though his words could not be
+heard.
+
+"How about your marsupial lion now, Bram?" yelled Dodd. "No monotremes
+before the pleistocene! D'you get that? That's my slogan now and for
+ever more!"
+
+Bram shrieked and raved, and seemed to be inciting the beetles to a
+renewed assault. The air was still thick with them, but Tommy was waving
+the cigarette-lighter in a flaming arc, which cleared the way for them.
+
+Then suddenly came disaster. The flame went out! Tommy closed the
+lighter with a snap and opened it. In vain. In his excitement he must
+have spilled all the contents, for it would not catch.
+
+Bram saw and yelled derision. The beetle-cloud was thickening. Tommy,
+now abreast of his companions on the widening stream, saw the imminent
+end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And then once more fate intervened. For, leaping through the air out of
+the places where they had lain concealed, six mantises launched
+themselves at their beetle prey.
+
+Those awful bounds of the long-legged monsters, the scourges of the
+insect world, carried them clear from one bank to the other--fortunately
+for the occupants of the shells. In an instant the beetle-cloud
+dissolved. And it had all happened in a few seconds. Before Dodd or
+Tommy had quite taken in the situation, the mantises, each carrying a
+victim in its grooved legs, had vanished like the beetles. There was no
+sign of Bram. The three were alone upon the face of the stream, which
+went swirling upward into renewed darkness.
+
+Tommy saw Dodd bend toward Haidia as she lay on her shell couch. He
+heard the sound of a noisy kiss. And he lay back in the hollow of his
+shell, with the feeling that nothing that could happen in the future
+could be worse than what they had passed through.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Days went by, days when the sense of dawning freedom filled their hearts
+with hope. Haidia told Dodd and Tommy that, according to the legends of
+her people, the river ran into the world from which they had been driven
+by the floods, ages before.
+
+There had been no further signs of Bram or the beetle horde, and Dodd
+and Tommy surmised that it had been disorganized by the attack of the
+mantises, and that Bram was engaged in regaining his control over it.
+But neither of them believed that the respite would be a long one, and
+for that reason they rested ashore only for the briefest intervals, just
+long enough to snatch a little sleep, and to eat some of the shrimps
+that Haidia was adept at finding--or to pull some juicy fruit
+surreptitiously from a tree.
+
+Incidents there were, nevertheless, during those days. For hours their
+shells were followed by a school of the luminous river monsters, which,
+nevertheless, made no attempt to attack them. And once, hearing a cry
+from Haidia, as she was gathering shrimps, Dodd ran forward to see her
+battling furiously with a luminous scorpion, eight feet in length, that
+had sprung at her from its lurking place behind a pear shrub.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd succeeded in stunning and dispatching the monster without suffering
+any injury from it, but the strain of the period was beginning to tell
+on all of them. Worst of all, they seemed to have left all the luminous
+vegetation behind them, and were entering a region of almost total
+darkness, in which Haidia had to be their eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Something had happened to the girl's sight in the journey over the
+petrol spring. As a matter of fact, the third, or nictitating membrane,
+which the humans of Submundia possessed, in common with birds, had been
+burned away. Haidia could see as well as ever in the dark, but she could
+bear more light than formerly as well. Unobtrusively she assumed command
+of the party. She anticipated their wants, dug shrimps in the darkness,
+and fed Tommy and Dodd with her own hands.
+
+"God, what a girl!" breathed Dodd to his friend. "I've always had the
+reputation of being a woman-hater, Tommy, but once I get that girl to
+civilization I'm going to take her to the nearest Little Church Around
+the Corner in record time."
+
+"I wish you luck, old man, I'm sure," answered Tommy. Dodd's words did
+not seem strange to him. Civilization was growing very remote to him,
+and Broadway seemed like a memory of some previous incarnation.
+
+The river was growing narrower again, and swifter, too. On the last day,
+or night, of their journey--though they did not know that it was to be
+their last--it swirled so fiercely that it threatened every moment to
+overset their beetle-shells. Suddenly Tommy began to feel giddy. He
+gripped the side of his shell with his hand.
+
+"Tommy, we're going round!" shouted Dodd in front of him.
+
+There was no longer any doubt of it. The shells were revolving in a
+vortex of rushing, foaming water.
+
+"Haidia!" they shouted.
+
+The girl's voice came back thickly across the roaring torrent. The
+circles grew smaller. Tommy knew that he was being sucked nearer and
+nearer to the edge of some terrific whirlpool in that inky blackness.
+Now he could no longer hear Dodd's shouts, and the shell was tipping so
+that he could feel the water rushing along the edge of it. But for the
+exercise of centrifugal force he would have been flung from his perilous
+seat, for he was leaning inward at an angle of forty-five degrees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then suddenly his progress was arrested. He felt the shell being drawn
+to the shore. He leaped out, and Haidia's strong hands dragged the shell
+out of the torrent, while Tommy sank down, gasping.
+
+"What's the matter?" he heard Dodd demanding.
+
+"There is no more river," said Haidia calmly. "It goes into a hole in
+the ground. So much I have heard from the wise men of my people. They
+say that it is near such a place that they fled from the flood in years
+gone by."
+
+"Then we're near safety," shouted Tommy. "That river must emerge as a
+stream somewhere in the upper world, Dodd. I wonder where the road
+lies."
+
+"There is a road here," came Haidia's calm voice. "Let us put on our
+shells again, since who knows whether there may not be beetles here."
+
+"Did you ever see such a girl as that?" demanded Dodd ecstatically.
+"First she saves our lives, and then she thinks of everything. Good
+lord, she'll remember my meals, and to wind my watch for me, and--and--"
+
+But Haidia's voice, some distance ahead, interrupted Dodd's soliloquy,
+and, hoisting the beetle-shells upon their backs, they started along the
+rough trail that they could feel with their feet over the stony ground.
+It was still as dark as pitch, but soon they found themselves traveling
+up a sunken way that was evidently a dry watercourse. And now and again
+Haidia's reassuring voice would come from in front of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The road grew steeper. There could no longer be any doubt that they were
+ascending toward the surface of the earth. But even the weight of the
+beetle-shells and the steepness could not account for the feeling of
+intense weakness that took possession of them. Time and again they
+stopped, panting.
+
+"We must be very near the surface, Dodd," said Tommy. "We've surely
+passed the center of gravity. That's what makes it so difficult."
+
+"Come on," Haidia said in her quiet voice, stretching out her hand
+through the darkness. And for very shame they had to follow her.
+
+On and on, hour after hour, up the steep ascent, resting only long
+enough to make them realize their utter fatigue. On because Haidia was
+leading them, and because in the belief that they were about to leave
+that awful land behind them their desires lent new strength to their
+limbs continuously.
+
+Suddenly Haidia uttered a fearful cry. Her ears had caught what became
+apparent to Dodd and Jimmy several seconds later.
+
+Far down in the hollow of the earth, increased by the echoes that came
+rumbling up, they heard the distant, strident rasp of the beetle swarm.
+
+Then it was Dodd's turn to support Haidia and whisper consolation in her
+ears. No thought of resting now. If they were to be overwhelmed at last
+by the monsters, they meant to be overwhelmed in the upper air.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was growing insufferably hot. Blasts of air, as if from a furnace,
+began to rush up and down past them. And the trail was growing steeper
+still, and slippery as glass.
+
+"What is it, Jim?" Tommy panted, as Dodd, leaving Haidia for a moment,
+came back to him.
+
+"I'd say lava," Dodd answered. "If only one could see something! I don't
+know how she finds her way. My impression is that we are coming out
+through the interior of an extinct volcano."
+
+"But where are there volcanoes in the south polar regions?" inquired
+Tommy.
+
+"There are Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, in South Victoria Land, active
+volcanoes discovered by Sir James Ross in 1841, and again by
+Borchgrevink, in 1899. If that's where we're coming out--well, Tommy,
+we're doomed, because it's the heart of the polar continent. We might as
+well turn back."
+
+"But we won't turn back," said Tommy. "I'm damned if we do."
+
+"We're damned if we don't," said Dodd.
+
+"Come along please!" sang Haidia's voice high up the slope.
+
+They struggled on. And now a faint luminosity was beginning to penetrate
+that infernal darkness. The rasping of the beetle-legs, too, was no
+longer audible. Perhaps they had thrown Bram off their track! Perhaps in
+the darkness he had not known which way they had gone after leaving the
+whirlpool!
+
+That thought encouraged them to a last effort. They pushed their
+flagging limbs up, upward through an inferno of heated air. Suddenly
+Dodd uttered a yell and pointed upward.
+
+"God!" ejaculated Tommy. Then he seized Dodd in his arms and nearly
+crushed him. For high above them, a pin-point in the black void, they
+saw--a star!
+
+They were almost at the earth's surface!
+
+One more effort, and suddenly the ground seemed to give beneath them.
+They breathed the outer air, and went sliding down a chute of sand, and
+stopped, half buried, at the bottom.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Recaptured_
+
+"Where are we?" each demanded of the other, as they staggered out.
+
+It was a moonless night, and the air was chill, but they were certainly
+nowhere near the polar regions, for there was no trace of snow to be
+seen anywhere. All about them was sand, with here and there a spiny
+shrub standing up stiff and erect and solitary.
+
+When they had disengaged themselves from the clinging sand they could
+see that they were apparently in the hollow of a vast crater, that must
+have been half a mile in circumference. It was low and worn down to an
+elevation of not more than two or three hundred feet, and evidently the
+volcano that had thrown it up had been extinct for millennia.
+
+"Water!" gasped Dodd.
+
+They looked all about them. They could see no signs of a spring
+anywhere, and both were parched with thirst after their terrific climb.
+
+"We must find water, Haidia," said Tommy. "Why, what's the matter?"
+
+Haidia was pointing upward at the starry heaven, and shivering with
+fear. "Eyes!" she cried. "Big beetles waiting for us up there!"
+
+"No, no, Haidia," Dodd explained. "Those are stars. They are
+worlds--places where people live."
+
+"Will you take me up there?" asked Haidia.
+
+"No, this is our world," said Dodd. "And by and by the sun will rise,
+that's a big ball of fire up there. He watches over the world and gives
+us light and warmth. Don't be afraid. I'll take care of you."
+
+"Haidia is not afraid with Jimmydodd to take care of her," replied the
+girl with dignity. "Haidia smells water--over there." She pointed across
+one side of the crater.
+
+"There we'd better hurry," said Tommy, "because I can't hold out much
+longer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The three scrambled over the soft sand, which sucked in their feet to
+the ankle at every step. It was with the greatest difficulty that they
+succeeded in reaching the crater's summit, low though it was. Then Dodd
+uttered a cry, and pointed. In front of them extended a long pool of
+water, with a scrubby growth around the edges.
+
+The ground was firmer here, and they hurried toward it. Tommy was the
+first to reach it. He lay down on his face and drank eagerly. He had
+taken in a quart before he discovered that the water was saline.
+
+At the same time Dodd uttered an exclamation of disgust. Haidia, too,
+after sipping a little of the fluid, had stood up, chattering excitedly
+in her own language.
+
+But she was not chattering about the water. She was pointing toward the
+scrub. "Men there!" she cried. "Men like you and Tommy, Jimmydodd."
+
+Tommy and Dodd looked at each other, the water already forgotten in
+their excitement at Haidia's information, which neither of them doubted.
+
+Brave as she was, the girl now hung back behind Dodd, letting the two
+men take precedence of her. The water, saline as it was, had partly
+quenched their thirst. They felt their strength reviving.
+
+And it was growing light. In the east the sky was already flecked with
+yellow pink. They felt a thrill of intense excitement at the prospect of
+meeting others of their kind.
+
+"Where do you think we are?" asked Tommy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd stopped to look at a shrub that was growing near the edge of the
+pool. "I don't think, I know, Tommy," he answered. "This is wattle."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"We're somewhere in the interior regions of the Australian
+continent--and that's not going to help us much."
+
+"Over there--over there," panted Haidia. "Hold me, Jimmydodd. I can't
+see. Ah, this terrible light!"
+
+She screwed her eyelids tightly together to shut out the pale light of
+dawn. The men had already discovered that the third membrane had been
+burned away.
+
+"We must get her out of here," whispered Dodd to Tommy. "Somewhere where
+it's dark, before the sun rises. Let's go back to the entrance of the
+crater."
+
+But Haidia, her arm extended, persisted, "Over there! Over there!"
+
+Suddenly a spear came whirling out of a growth of wattle beside the
+pool. It whizzed past Tommy's face and dropped into the sand behind.
+Between the trunks of the wattles they could see the forms of a party of
+blackfellows, watching them intently.
+
+Tommy held up his arms and moved forward with a show of confidence that
+he was far from feeling. After what he had escaped in the underworld he
+was in no mood to be massacred now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the blacks were evidently not hostile. It was probable that the
+spear had not been aimed to kill. At the sight of the two white men, and
+the white woman, they came forward doubtfully, then more fearlessly,
+shouting in their language. In another minute Tommy and Dodd were the
+center of a group of wondering savages.
+
+Especially Haidia. Three or four gins, or black women, had crept out of
+the scrub, and were already examining her with guttural cries, and
+fingering the hair garment that she wore.
+
+"Water!" said Tommy, pointing to his throat, and then to the pool, with
+a frown of disgust.
+
+The blackfellows grinned, and led the three a short distance to a place
+where a large hollow had been scooped in the sandy floor of the desert.
+It was full of water, perfectly sweet to the taste. The three drank
+gratefully.
+
+Suddenly the edge of the sun appeared above the horizon, gilding the
+sand with gold. The sunlight fell upon the three, and Haidia uttered a
+terrible cry of distress. She dropped upon the sand, her hands pressed
+to her eyes convulsively. Tommy and Dodd dragged her into the thickest
+part of the scrub, where she lay moaning.
+
+They contrived bandages from the remnants of their clothing, and these,
+damped with cold water, and bound over the girl's eyes, alleviated her
+suffering somewhat. Meanwhile the blackfellows had prepared a meal of
+roast opossum. After their long diet of shrimps, it tasted like ambrosia
+to the two men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Much to their surprise, Haidia seemed to enjoy it too. The three
+squatted in the scrub among the friendly blacks, discussing their
+situation.
+
+"These fellows will save us," said Dodd. "It may be that we're quite
+near the coast, but, any way, they'll stick to us, even if only out of
+curiosity. They'll take us somewhere. But as soon as we get Haidia to
+safety we'll have to go back along our trail. We mustn't lose our
+direction. Suppose I was laughed at when I get back, called a liar! I
+tell you, we've got to have something to show, to prove my statements,
+before I can persuade anybody to fit out an expedition into Submundia.
+Even those three beetle-shells that we dropped in the crater won't be
+conclusive evidence for the type of mind that sits in the chairs of
+science to-day. And, speaking of that, we must get those blacks to carry
+those shells for us. I tell you, nobody will believe--"
+
+"What's that?" cried Tommy sharply, as a rasping sound rose above the
+cries of the frightened blacks.
+
+But there was no need to ask. Out of the crater two enormous beetles
+were winging their way toward them, two beetles larger than any that
+they had seen.
+
+Fully seven feet in length, they were circling about each other,
+apparently engaged in a vicious battle.
+
+The fearful beaks stabbed at the flesh beneath the shells, and they
+alternately stabbed and drew back, all the while approaching the party,
+which watched them, petrified with terror.
+
+It was evident that the monsters had no conception of the presence of
+humans. Blinded by the sun, only one thing could have induced them to
+leave the dark depths of Submundia. That was the mating instinct. The
+beetles were evidently rival leaders of some swarm, engaged in a duel to
+the death.
+
+Round and round they went in a dizzy maze, stabbing and thrusting, jaws
+closing on flesh, until they dropped, close-locked in battle, not more
+than twenty feet from the little party of blacks and whites, both
+squirming in the agonies of death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I don't think that necessarily means that the swarm is on our trail,"
+said Tommy, a little later, as the three stood beside the shells that
+they had discarded. "Those two were strays, lost from the swarm and
+maddened by the mating instinct. Still, it might be as well to wear
+these things for a while, in case they do follow us."
+
+"You're right," answered Dodd, as he placed one of the shells around
+Haidia. "We've got to get this little lady to civilization, and we've
+got to protect our lives in order to give this great new knowledge to
+the world. If we are attacked, you must sacrifice your life for me,
+Tommy, so that I can carry back the news."
+
+"Righto!" answered Tommy with alacrity. "You bet I will, Jim."
+
+The glaring sun of mid-afternoon was shining down upon the desert, but
+Haidia was no longer in pain. It was evident that she was fast becoming
+accustomed to the sunlight, though she still kept her eyes screwed up
+tightly, and had to be helped along by Dodd and Jimmy. In high good
+humor the three reached the encampment, to find that the blacks were
+feasting on the dead beetles, while the two eldest members of the party
+had proudly donned the shells.
+
+It was near sunset before they finally started. Dodd and Tommy had
+managed to make it clear to them that they wished to reach civilization,
+but how near this was there was, of course, no means of determining.
+They noted, however, that the party started in a southerly direction.
+
+"I should say," said Dodd, "that we are in South Australia, probably
+three or four hundred miles from the coast. We've got a long journey
+before us, but these blackfellows will know how to procure food for us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They certainly knew how to get water, for, just as it began to grow
+dark, when the three were already tormented by thirst, they stopped at
+what seemed a mere hollow among the stones and boulders that strewed the
+face of the desert, and scooped away the sand, leaving a hole which
+quickly filled with clear, cold water of excellent taste.
+
+After which they made signs that they were to camp there for the night.
+The moon was riding high in the sky. As it grew dark, Haidia opened her
+eyes, saw the luminary, and uttered an exclamation, this time not of
+fear, but of wonder.
+
+"Moon," said Dodd. "That's all right, girl. She watches over the night,
+as the sun does over the day."
+
+"Haidia likes the moon better than the sun," said the girl wistfully.
+"But the moon not strong enough to keep away the beetles."
+
+"If I was you, I'd forget about the beetles, Haidia," said Dodd. "They
+won't come out of that hole in the ground. You'll never see them again."
+
+And, as he spoke, they heard a familiar rasping sound far in the
+distance.
+
+"How the wind blows," said Tommy, desperately resolved not to believe
+his ears. "I think a storm's coming up."
+
+But Haidia, with a scream of fear, was clinging to Dodd, and the blacks
+were on their feet, spears and boomerangs in their hands, looking
+northward.
+
+Out of that north a little black cloud was gathering. A cloud that
+spread gradually, as a thunder-cloud, until it covered a good part of
+the sky. And still more of the sky, and still more. All the while that
+faint, distant rasping was audible, but it did not increase in volume.
+It was as if the beetles had halted until the full number of the swarm
+had come up out of the crater.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the cloud, which by now covered half the sky, began to take
+geometric form. It grew square, the ragged edges seemed to trim
+themselves away, streaks of light shot through it at right angles, as if
+it was marshaling itself into companies.
+
+The doomed men and the girl stood perfectly still, staring at that
+phenomenon. They knew that only a miracle could save them. They did not
+even speak, but Haidia clung more tightly to Dodd's arm.
+
+Then suddenly the cloud spread upward and covered the face of the moon.
+
+"Well, this is good-by, Tommy," said Dodd, gripping his friend's hand.
+"God, I wish I had a revolver, or a knife!" He looked at Haidia.
+
+Suddenly the rasping became a whining shriek. A score of enormous
+beetles, the advance guards of the army, zoomed out of the darkness into
+a ray of straggling moonlight. Shrieking, the blacks, who had watched
+the approaching swarm perfectly immobile, threw away the two shells and
+bolted.
+
+"Good Lord," Dodd shouted, "did you see the color of their shells,
+Tommy?" Even in that moment the scientific observer came uppermost in
+him. "Those red edges? They must be young ones, Tommy. It's the new
+brood! No wonder Bram stayed behind! He was waiting for them to hatch!
+The new brood! We're doomed--doomed! All my work wasted!"
+
+The blackfellows did not get very far. A hundred yards from the place
+where they started to run they dropped, their bodies hidden beneath the
+clustering monsters, their screams cut short as those frightful beaks
+sought their throats, and those jaws crunched through flesh and bone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Circling around Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia, as if puzzled by their
+appearance, the beetles kept up a continuous, furious droning that
+sounded like the roar of Niagara mixed with the shrieking of a thousand
+sirens. The moon was completely hidden, and only a dim, nebulous light
+showed the repulsive monsters as they flew within a few feet of the
+heads of the fugitives. The stench was overpowering.
+
+But suddenly a ray of white light shot through the darkness, and, with a
+changed note, just perceptible to the ears of the two men, but doubtless
+of the greatest significance to the beetles, the swarm fled apart to
+right and left, leaving a clear lane, through which appeared--Bram,
+reclining on his shell-couch above his eight trained beetle steeds!
+
+Hovering overhead, the eight huge monsters dropped lightly to the ground
+beside the three. Bram sat up, a vicious grin upon his twisted face. In
+his hand he held a large electric bulb, its sides sheathed in a roughly
+carved wooden frame; the wire was attached to a battery behind him.
+
+"Well met, my friends!" he shouted exultantly. "I owe you more thanks
+than I can express for having so providentially left the electrical
+equipment of your plane undamaged after you crashed at the entrance to
+Submundia. I had a hunch about it--and the hunch worked!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He grinned more malevolently as he looked from one man to the other.
+
+"You've run your race," he said. "But I'm going to have a little fun
+with you before you die. I'm going to use you as an object lesson.
+You'll find it out in a little while."
+
+"Go ahead, go ahead, Bram," Dodd grinned back at him. "Just a few
+million years ago, and you were a speck of protoplasm--in that
+pre-pleistocene age--swimming among the invertebrate crustaceans that
+characterized that epoch."
+
+"Invertebrates and monotremes, Dodd," said Bram, almost wistfully. "The
+mammals were already existent on the earth, as you know--" Suddenly he
+broke off, as he realized that Dodd was spoofing him. A yell of
+execration broke from his lips. He uttered a high whistle, and instantly
+the whiplike lashes of a hundred beetles whizzed through the darkness
+and remained poised over Dodd's head.
+
+"Not even the marsupial lion, Bram," grinned Dodd, undismayed. "Go
+ahead, go ahead, but I'll not die with a lie upon my lips!"
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_The Trail of Death_
+
+"There's sure some sort of hoodoo on these Antarctic expeditions,
+Wilson," said the city editor of _The Daily Record_ to the star rewrite
+man. He glanced through the hastily typed report that had come through
+on the wireless set erected on the thirty-sixth story of the Record
+Building. "Tommy Travers gone, eh? And James Dodd, too! There'll be woe
+and wailing along the Great White Way to-night when this news gets out.
+They say that half the chorus girls in town considered themselves
+engaged to Tommy. Nice fellow, too! Always did like him!"
+
+"Queer, that curtain of fog that seems to lie on the actual site of the
+south pole," he continued, glancing over the report again. "So Storm
+thinks that Tommy crashed in it, and that it's a million to one against
+their ever finding his remains. What's this about beetles? Shells of
+enormous prehistoric beetles found by Tommy and Dodd! That'll make good
+copy, Wilson. Let's play that up. Hand it to Jones, and tell him to
+scare up a catching headline or two."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He beckoned to the boy who was hurrying toward his desk, a flimsy in his
+hand, glanced through it, and tossed it toward Wilson.
+
+"What do they think this is, April Fool's Day?" he asked. "I'm surprised
+that the International Press should fall for such stuff as that!"
+
+"Why, to-morrow is the first of April!" exclaimed Wilson, tossing back
+the cable dispatch with a contemptuous laugh.
+
+"Well, it won't do the I. P. much good to play those tricks on their
+subscribers," said the city editor testily. "I'm surprised, to say the
+least. I guess their Adelaide correspondent has gone off his head or
+something. Using poor Travers's name, too! Of course that fellow didn't
+know he was dead, but still...."
+
+That was how _The Daily Record_ missed being the first to give out
+certain information that was to stagger the world. The dispatch, which
+had evidently outrun an earlier one, was as follows:
+
+    ADELAIDE, South Australia, March 31.--Further telegraphic
+    communications arriving almost continuously from Settler's
+    Station, signed by Thomas Travers, member of Travers Antarctic
+    Expedition, who claims to have penetrated earth's interior at
+    south pole and to have come out near Victoria Desert. Travers
+    states that swarm of prehistoric beetles, estimated at two
+    trillion, and as large as men, with shells impenetrable by rifle
+    bullets, now besieging Settler's Station, where he and Dodd and
+    Haidia, woman of subterranean race whom they brought away, are
+    shut up in telegraph office. Bram, former member of Greystoke
+    Expedition, said to be in charge of swarm, with intention of
+    obliterating human race. Every living thing at Settler's Station
+    destroyed, and swarm moving south.
+
+It was a small-town paper a hundred miles from New York that took a
+chance on publishing this report from the International Press, in spite
+of frantic efforts on the parts of the head office to recall it after it
+had been transmitted. This paper published the account as an April
+Fool's Day joke, though later it took to itself the credit for having
+believed it. But by the time April Fool's Day dawned all the world knew
+that the account was, if anything, an under-estimate of the fearful
+things that were happening "down under."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was known now that the swarm of monsters had originated in the Great
+Victoria Desert, one of the worst stretches of desolation in the world,
+situated in the south-east corner of Western Australia. Their numbers
+were incalculable. Wimbush, the aviator, who was attempting to cross the
+continent from east to west, reported afterward that he had flown for
+four days, skirting the edge of the swarm, and that the whole of that
+time they were moving in the same direction, a thick cloud that left a
+trail of dense darkness on earth beneath them, like the path of an
+eclipse. Wimbush escaped them only because he had a ceiling of twenty
+thousand feet, to which apparently the beetles could not soar.
+
+And this swarm was only about one-fourth of the whole number of the
+monsters. This was the swarm that was moving westward, and subsequently
+totally destroyed all living things in Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Perth,
+and all the coastal cities of Western Australia.
+
+Ships were found drifting in the Indian Ocean, totally destitute of
+crews and passengers; not even their skeletons were found, and it was
+estimated that the voracious monsters had carried them away bodily,
+devoured them in the air, and dropped the remains into the water.
+
+All the world knows now how the sea elephant herd on Kerguelen Island
+was totally destroyed, and of the giant shells that were found lying
+everywhere on the deserted beaches, in positions that showed the
+monsters had in the end devoured one another.
+
+Mauritius was the most westerly point reached by a fraction of the
+swarm. A little over twenty thousand of the beetles reached that lovely
+island, by count of the shells afterward, and all the world knows now of
+the desperate and successful fight that the inhabitants waged against
+them. Men and women, boys and girls, blacks and whites, finding that the
+devils were invulnerable against rifle fire, sallied forth boldly with
+knives and choppers, and laid down a life for a life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the second day after their appearance, the main swarm, a trillion and
+a half strong, reached the line of the transcontinental railway, and
+moved eastward into South Australia, traveling, it was estimated, at the
+rate of two hundred miles an hour. By the next morning they were in
+Adelaide, a city of nearly a quarter of a million people. By nightfall
+every living thing in Adelaide and the suburbs had been eaten, except
+for a few who succeeded in hiding in walled-up cellars, or in the
+surrounding marshes.
+
+That night the swarm was on the borders of New South Wales and Victoria,
+and moving in two divisions toward Melbourne and Sydney.
+
+The northern half, it was quickly seen, was flying "wild," with no
+particular objective, moving in a solid cohort two hundred miles in
+length, and devouring game, stock, and humans indiscriminately. It was
+the southern division, numbering perhaps a trillion, that was under
+command of Bram, and aimed at destroying Melbourne as Adelaide had been
+destroyed.
+
+Bram, with his eight beetle steeds, was by this time known and execrated
+throughout the world. He was pictured as Anti-Christ, and the fulfilment
+of the prophecies of the Rock of Revelations.
+
+And all this while--or, rather, until the telegraph wires were
+cut--broken, it was discovered later, by perching beetles--Thomas
+Travers was sending out messages from his post at Settler's Station.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon it was known that prodigious creatures were following in the wake
+of the devastating horde. Mantises, fifteen feet in height, winged
+things like pterodactyls, longer than bombing airplanes, followed,
+preying on the stragglers. But the main bodies never halted, and the
+inroads that the destroyers made on their numbers were insignificant.
+
+Before the swarm reached Adelaide the Commonwealth Government had taken
+action. Troops had been called out, and all the available airplanes in
+the country had been ordered to assemble at Broken Hill, New South
+Wales, a strategic point commanding the approaches to Sydney and
+Melbourne. Something like four hundred airplanes were assembled, with
+several batteries of anti-aircraft guns that had been used in the Great
+War. Every amateur aviator in Australia was on the spot, with machines
+ranging from tiny Moths to Handley-Pages--anything that could fly.
+
+Nocturnal though the beetles had been, they no longer feared the light
+of the sun. In fact, it was ascertained later that they were blind. An
+opacity had formed over the crystalline lens of the eye. Blind, they
+were no less formidable than with their sight. They existed only to
+devour, and their numbers made them irresistible, no matter which way
+they turned.
+
+As soon as the vanguard of the dark cloud was sighted from Broken Hill,
+the airplanes went aloft. Four hundred planes, each armed with machine
+guns, dashed into the serried hosts, drumming out volleys of lead. In a
+long line, extending nearly to the limits of the beetle formation, thus
+giving each aviator all the room he needed, the planes gave battle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first terror that fell upon the airmen was the discovery that, even
+at close range, the machine gun bullets failed to penetrate the shells.
+The force of the impact whirled the beetles around, drove them together
+in bunches, sent them groping with weaving tentacles through the
+air--but that was all. On the main body of the invaders no impression
+was made whatever.
+
+The second terror was the realization that the swarm, driven down here
+and there from an altitude of several hundred feet, merely resumed their
+progress on the ground, in a succession of gigantic leaps. Within a few
+minutes, instead of presenting an inflexible barrier, the line of
+airplanes was badly broken, each plane surrounded by swarms of the
+monsters.
+
+Then Bram was seen. And that was the third terror, the sight of the
+famous beetle steeds, four pairs abreast, with Bram reclining like a
+Roman emperor upon the surface of the shells. It is true, Bram had no
+inclination to risk his own life in battle. At the first sight of the
+aviators he dodged into the thick of the swarm, where no bullet could
+reach him. Bram managed to transmit an order, and the beetles drew
+together.
+
+Some thought afterward that it was by thought transference he effected
+this maneuver, for instantly the beetles, which had hitherto flown in
+loose order, became a solid wall, a thousand feet in height, closing in
+on the planes. The propellers struck them and snapped short, and as the
+planes went weaving down, the hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits
+and began their abominable meal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not a single plane came back. Planes and skeletons, and here and there a
+shell of a dead beetle, itself completely devoured, were all that was
+found afterward.
+
+The gunners stayed at their posts till the last moment, firing round
+after round of shell and shrapnel, with insignificant results. Their
+skeletons were found not twenty paces from their guns--where the
+Gunners' Monument now stands.
+
+Half an hour after the flight had first been sighted the news was being
+radioed to Sydney, Melbourne, and all other Australian cities, advising
+instant flight to sea as the only chance of safety. That radio message
+was cut short--and men listened and shuddered. After that came the
+crowding aboard all craft in the harbors, the tragedies of the _Eustis_,
+the _All Australia_, the _Sepphoris_, sunk at their moorings. The
+innumerable sea tragedies. The horde of fugitives that landed in New
+Zealand. The reign of terror when the mob got out of hand, the burning
+of Melbourne, the sack of Sydney.
+
+And south and eastward, like a resistless flood, the beetle swarm came
+pouring. Well had Bram boasted that he would make the earth a desert!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hundred miles of poisoned carcasses of sheep, extended outside
+Sydney's suburbs, gave the first promise of success. Long mounds of
+beetle shells testified to the results; moreover, the beetles that fed
+on the carcasses of their fellows, were in turn poisoned and died. But
+this was only a drop in the bucket. What counted was that the swift
+advance was slowing down. As if exhausted by their efforts, or else
+satiated with food, the beetles were doing what the soldiers did.
+
+They were digging in!
+
+Twenty-four miles from Sydney, eighteen outside Melbourne, the advance
+was stayed.
+
+Volunteers who went out from those cities reported that the beetles
+seemed to be resting in long trenches that they had excavated, so that
+only their shells appeared above ground. Trees were covered with
+clinging beetles, every wall, every house was invisible beneath the
+beetle armor.
+
+Australia had a respite. Perhaps only for a night or day, but still
+time to draw breath, time to consider, time for the shiploads of
+fugitives to get farther from the continent that had become a shambles.
+
+And then the cry went up, not only from Australia, but from all the
+world, "Get Travers!"
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_At Bay_
+
+Bram put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, a shrill whistle, yet
+audible to Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia. Instantly three pairs of beetles
+appeared out of the throng. Their tentacles went out, and the two men
+and the girl found themselves hoisted separately upon the backs of the
+pairs. Next moment they were flying side by side, high in the air above
+the surrounding swarm.
+
+They could see one another, but it was impossible for them to make their
+voices heard above the rasping of the beetles' legs. Hours went by,
+while the moon crossed the sky and dipped toward the horizon. Tommy knew
+that the moon would set about the hour of dawn. And the stars were
+already beginning to pale when he saw a line of telegraph poles, then
+two lines of shining metals, then a small settlement of stone and brick
+houses.
+
+Tommy was not familiar with the geography of Australia, but he knew this
+must be the transcontinental line.
+
+Whirling onward, the cloud of beetles suddenly swooped downward. For a
+moment Tommy could see the frightened occupants of the settlement
+crowding into the single street, then he shuddered with sick horror as
+he saw them obliterated by the swarm.
+
+There was no struggle, no attempt at flight or resistance. One moment
+those forty-odd men were there--the next minute they existed no longer.
+There was nothing but a swarm of beetles, walking about like men with
+shells upon their backs.
+
+And now Tommy saw evidences of Bram's devilish control of the swarm.
+For out of the cloud dropped what seemed to be a phalanx of beetle
+guards, the military police of beetledom, and, lashing fiercely with
+their tentacles, they drove back all the swarm that sought to join their
+companions in their ghoulish feast. There was just so much food and no
+more; the rest must seek theirs further.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But even beetles, it may be presumed, are not entirely under discipline
+at all times. The pair of beetles that bore Tommy, suddenly swooped
+apart, ten or a dozen feet from the ground, and dashed into the thick of
+the struggling, frenzied mass, flinging their rider to earth.
+
+Tommy struck the soft sand, sat up, half dazed, saw his shell lying a
+few feet away from him, and retrieved it just as a couple of the
+monsters came swooping down at him.
+
+He looked about him. Not far away stood Dodd and Haidia, with their
+shells on their backs. They recognized Tommy and ran toward him.
+
+Not more than twenty yards away stood the railroad station, with several
+crates of goods on the platform. Next to it was a substantial house of
+stone, with the front door open.
+
+Tommy pointed to it, and Dodd understood and shouted something that was
+lost in the furious buzz of the beetles' wings as they devoured their
+prey. The three raced for the entrance, gained it unmolested, and closed
+the door.
+
+There was a key in the door, and it was light enough for them to see a
+chain, which Dodd pulled into position. There was only one story, and
+there were three rooms, apparently, with the kitchen. Tommy rushed to
+the kitchen door, locked it, too, and, with almost super-human efforts,
+dragged the large iron stove against it. He rushed to the window, but it
+was a mere loophole, not large enough to admit a child. Nevertheless, he
+stood the heavy table on end so that it covered it. Then he ran back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd had already barricaded the window of the larger room, which was a
+bed-sitting room, with a heavy wardrobe, and the wooden bedstead,
+jamming the two pieces sidewise against the wall, so that they could not
+be forced apart without being demolished. He was now busy in the smaller
+room, which seemed to be the station-master's office, dragging an iron
+safe across the floor. But the window was criss-crossed with iron bars,
+and it was evident that the safe, which was locked, contained at times
+considerable money, for the window could hardly have been forced save by
+a charge of nitro-glycerine or dynamite. However, it was against the
+door that Dodd placed the safe, and he stood back, panting.
+
+"Good," said Haidia. "That will hold them."
+
+The two men looked at her doubtfully. Did Haidia know what she was
+talking about?
+
+The sun had risen. A long shaft shot into the room. Outside the beetles
+were still buzzing as they turned over the vestiges of their prey. There
+were as yet no signs of attack. Suddenly Tommy grasped Dodd's arm.
+
+"Look!" he shouted, pointing to a corner which had been in gloom a
+moment before.
+
+There was a table there, and on it a telegraphic instrument. Telegraphy
+had been one of Tommy's hobbies in boyhood. In a moment he was busy at
+the table.
+
+Dot-dash-dot-dash! Then suddenly outside a furious hum, and the impact
+of beetle bodies against the front door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tommy got up, grinning. That was the first, interrupted message from
+Tommy that was received.
+
+Through the barred window the three could see the furious efforts of the
+beetles to force an entrance. But the very tensile strength of the
+beetle-shells, which rendered them impervious to bullets, required a
+laminate construction which rendered them powerless against brick or
+stone.
+
+Desperately the swarm dashed itself against the walls, until the ground
+outside was piled high with stunned beetles. Not the faintest impression
+was made on the defenses.
+
+"Watch them, Jim," said Tom. "I'll go see if the rear's secure."
+
+That thought of his seemed to have been anticipated by the beetles, for
+as Tommy reached the kitchen the swarm came dashing against door and
+window, always recoiling. Tommy came back, grinning all over his face.
+
+"You were right, Haidia," he said. "We've held them all right, and the
+tables are turned on Bram. Also I got a message through, I think," he
+added to Dodd.
+
+Dash--dot--dash--dot from the instrument. Tommy ran to the table again.
+Dash--dot went back. For five minutes Tommy labored, while the beetles
+hammered now on one door, now on another, now on the windows. Then Tommy
+got up.
+
+"It was some station down the line," he said. "I've told them, and
+they're sending a man up here to replace the telegraphist, also a couple
+of cops. They think I'm crazy. I told them again. That's the best I
+could do."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Dodd! Travers! For the last time--let's talk!"
+
+The cloud of beetles seemed to have thinned, for the sun was shining
+into the room. Bram's voice was perfectly audible, though he himself was
+invisible; probably he thought it likely that the defenders had obtained
+firearms.
+
+"Nothing to say to you, Bram," called Dodd. "We've finished our
+discussion on the monotremes."
+
+"I want you fellows to stand in with me," came Bram's plaintive tones.
+"It's so lonesome all by one's self, Dodd."
+
+"Ah, you're beginning to find that out, are you?" Dodd could not resist
+answering. "You'll be lonelier yet before you're through."
+
+"Dodd, I didn't bring that swarm up here. I swear it. I've been trying
+to control them from the beginning. I saw what was coming. I believe I
+can avert this horror, drive them into the sea or something like that.
+Don't make me desperate, Dodd.
+
+"And listen, old man. About those monotremes--sensible men don't quarrel
+over things like that. Why can't we agree to differ?"
+
+"Ah, now you're talking, Bram," Dodd answered. "Only you're too late.
+After what's happened here to-day, we'll have no truck with you. That's
+final."
+
+"Damn you," shrieked Bram. "I'll batter down this house. I'll--"
+
+"You'll do nothing, Bram, because you can't," Dodd answered. "Travers
+has wired full information about your devil-horde, and likewise about
+you, and all Australia will be prepared to give you a warm reception
+when you arrive."
+
+"I tell you I'm invincible," Bram screamed. "In three days Australia
+will be a ruin, a depopulated desert. In a week, all southern Asia, in
+three weeks Europe, in two months America."
+
+"You've been taking too many of those pellets, Bram," Dodd answered.
+"Stand back now! Stand back, wherever you are, or I'll open the door and
+throw the slops over you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bram's screech rose high above the droning of the wings. In another
+moment the interior of the room had grown as black as night. The rattle
+of the beetle shells against the four walls of the house was like the
+clattering of stage thunder.
+
+All through the darkness Dodd could hear the unhurried clicking of the
+key.
+
+At last the rattling ceased. The sun shone in again. The ground all
+around the house was packed with fallen beetles, six feet high, a
+writhing mass that creaked and clattered as it strove to disengage
+itself.
+
+Bram's voice once more: "I'm leaving a guard, Dodd. They'll get you if
+you try to leave. But they won't eat you. I'm going to have you three
+sliced into little pieces, the Thousand Deaths of the Chinese. The
+beetles will eat the parts that are sliced away--and you'll live to
+watch them. I'll be back with a stick or two of dynamite to-morrow."
+
+"Yeah, but listen, Bram," Dodd sang out. "Listen, you old marsupial
+tiger. When those pipe dreams clear away, I'm going to build a gallows
+of beetle-shells reaching to the moon, to hang you on!"
+
+Bram's screech of madness died away. The strident rasping of the
+beetles' legs began again. For hours the three heard it; it was not
+until nightfall that it died away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bram had made good his threat, for all around the house, extending as
+far as they could see, was the host of beetle-guards. To venture out,
+even with their shells about them, was clearly a hazardous undertaking.
+There was neither food nor water in the place.
+
+"We'll just have to hold out," said Dodd, breaking one of the long
+periods of silence.
+
+Tommy did not answer; he did not hear him, for he was busy at the key.
+Suddenly he leaped to his feet.
+
+"God, Jimmy," he cried, "that devil's making good his threat! The
+swarm's in South Australia, destroying every living thing, wiping out
+whole towns and villages! And they--they believe me now!"
+
+He sank into a chair. For the first time the strain of the awful past
+seemed to grip him. Haidia came to his side.
+
+"The beetles are finish," she said in her soft voice.
+
+"How d'you know, Haidia?" demanded Dodd.
+
+"The beetles are finish," Haidia repeated quietly, and that was all that
+Dodd could get out of her. But again the key began to click, and Tommy
+staggered to the table. Dot--dash--dash--dot. Presently he looked up
+once more.
+
+"The swarm's halfway to Adelaide," he said. "They want to know if I can
+help them. Help them!" He burst into hysterical laughter.
+
+Toward evening he came back after an hour at the key. "Line must be
+broken," he said. "I'm getting nothing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the moonlight they could see the huge compound eyes of the beetle
+guards glittering like enormous diamonds outside. They had not been
+conscious of thirst during the day, but now, with the coming of the cool
+night their desire for water became paramount.
+
+"Tommy, there must be water in the station," said Dodd. "I'm going to
+get a pitcher from the kitchen and risk it, Tommy. Take care of Haidia
+if--" he added.
+
+But Haidia laid her hand upon his arm. "Do not go, Jimmydodd," she said.
+"We can be thirsty to-night, and to-morrow the beetles will be finish."
+
+"How d'you know?" asked Dodd again. But now he realized that Haidia had
+never learned the significance of an interrogation. She only repeated
+her statement, and again the two men had to remain content.
+
+The long night passed. Outside the many facets of the beetle eyes.
+Inside the two men, desperate with anxiety, not for themselves, but for
+the fate of the world, snatching a few moments' sleep from time to time,
+then looking up to see those glaring eyes from the silent watchers.
+
+Then dawn came stealing over the desert, and the two shook themselves
+free from sleep. And now the eyes were gone.
+
+But there was immense activity among the beetles. They were scurrying to
+and fro, and, as they watched, Dodd and Tommy began to see some
+significance in their movements.
+
+"Why, they're digging trenches!" Tommy shouted. "That's horrible, Jimmy!
+Are they intending to conduct sapping operations against us like
+engineers, or what?"
+
+Dodd did not reply, and Tommy hardly expected any answer. As the two
+men, now joined by Haidia, watched, they saw that the beetles were
+actually digging themselves into the sand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within the space of an hour, by the time the first shafts of sunlight
+began to stream into the room, there was to be seen only the massive,
+rounded shells of the monsters as they squatted in the sand.
+
+"Now you may fetch water," said Haidia, smiling at her lover. "No, you
+do not need the shells," she added. "The beetles are finish. It is as
+the wise men of my people told me."
+
+Wondering, hesitating, Tommy and Dodd unlocked the front door. They
+stood upon the threshold ready to bolt back again. But there was no
+stirring among the beetle hosts.
+
+Growing bolder, they advanced a few steps; then, shamed by Haidia's
+courage, they followed her, still cautiously to the station.
+
+Dodd shouted as he saw a water-tank, and a receptacle above it with a
+water-cock. They let Haidia drink, then followed suit, and for a few
+moments, as they appeased their thirst, the beetles were forgotten.
+
+Then they turned back. There had been no movement in that line of shells
+that glinted in the morning sunlight.
+
+"Come, I shall show you," said Haidia confidently, advancing toward the
+trench.
+
+Dodd would have stopped her, but the girl moved forward quickly, eluded
+him with a graceful, mirthful gesture, and stooped down over the trench.
+
+She rose up, raising in her arms an empty beetle-shell!
+
+Dodd, who had reached the trench before Tommy, turned round and yelled
+to him excitedly. Tommy ran forward--and then he understood.
+
+The shells were empty. The swarm, whose life cycle Bram had admitted he
+did not understand, had just moulted!
+
+It had moulted because the bodies, gorged with food, had grown too large
+for the shells. In time, if left alone, the monsters would grow larger
+shells, become invincible again. But just now they were defenseless as
+new-born babes--and knew it.
+
+Deep underneath the empty shells they had burrowed into the ground.
+Everywhere at the bottom of the deep trenches were the naked, bestial
+creatures, waving helpless tentacles and squirming over one another as
+they strove to find shelter and security.
+
+A sudden madness came over Tommy and Dodd. "Dynamite--there must be
+dynamite!" Dodd shouted, as he ran back to the station.
+
+"Something better than dynamite," shouted Tommy, holding up one of a
+score of drums of petrol!
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_The World Set Free_
+
+They waited two days at Settler's Station. To push along the line into
+the desert would have been useless, and both men were convinced that an
+airplane would arrive for them. But it was not until the second
+afternoon that the aviator arrived, half-dead with thirst and fatigue,
+and almost incoherent.
+
+His was the last plane on the Australian continent. He brought the news
+of the destruction of Adelaide, and of the siege of Melbourne and
+Sydney, as he termed it. He told Dodd and Tommy that the two cities had
+been surrounded with trenches and barbed wire. Machine guns and
+artillery were bombarding the trenches in which the beetles had taken
+shelter.
+
+"Has any one been out on reconnaissance?" asked Tommy.
+
+Nobody had been permitted to pass through the barbed wire, though there
+had been volunteers. It meant certain death. But, unless the beetles
+were sapping deep in the ground, what their purpose was, nobody knew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tommy and Dodd led him to the piles of smoking, stinking débris and told
+him.
+
+That was where the aviator fainted from sheer relief.
+
+"The Commonwealth wants you to take supreme command against the
+beetles," he told Tommy, when he had recovered. "I'm to bring you back.
+Not that they expect me back. But--God, what a piece of news! Forgive my
+swearing--I used to be a parson. Still am, for the matter of that."
+
+"How are you going to bring us three back in your plane?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I shall stay here with Jimmydodd," said Haidia suavely. "There is not
+the least danger any more. You must destroy the beetles before their
+shells have grown again, that's all."
+
+"Used to be a parson, you say? Still are?" shouted Dodd excitedly.
+"Thank God! I mean, I'm glad to hear it. Come inside, and come quick. I
+want you too, Tommy!"
+
+Then Tommy understood. And it seemed as if Haidia understood, by some
+instinct that belongs exclusively to women, for her cheeks were flushed
+as she turned and smiled into Dodd's eyes.
+
+Ten minutes later Tommy hopped into the biplane, leaving the happy
+married couple at Settler's Station. His eyes grew misty as the plane
+took the air, and he saw them waving to him from the ground. Dodd and
+Haidia and he had been through so many adventures, and had reached
+safety. He must not fail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He did not fail. He found himself at Sydney in command of thirty
+thousand men, all enthusiastic for the fight for the human race,
+soldiers and volunteers ready to fight until they dropped. When the news
+of the situation was made public, an immense wave of hope ran through
+the world.
+
+National differences were forgotten, color and creed and race grew more
+tolerant of one another. A new day had dawned--the day of humanity's
+true liberation.
+
+Tommy's first act was to call out the fire companies and have the
+beetles' trenches saturated with petrol from the fire hoses. Then
+incendiary bullets, shot from guns from a safe distance, quickly
+converted them into blazing infernos.
+
+But even so only a tithe of the beetle army had been destroyed. Two
+hundred planes had already been rushed from New Zealand, and their
+aviators went up and scoured the country far and wide. Everywhere they
+found trenches, and, where the soil was stony, millions of the beetles
+clustered helplessly beneath great mounds of discarded shells.
+
+An army of black trackers had been brought in planes from all parts of
+the country, and they searched out the beetle masses everywhere along
+the course that the invaders had taken. Then incendiary bombs were
+dropped from above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Day after day the beetle massacre went on. By the end of a week the
+survivors of the invasion began to take heart again. It was certain that
+the greater portion of the horde had been destroyed.
+
+There was only one thing lacking. No trace of Bram had been seen since
+his appearance at the head of his beetle army in front of Broken Hill.
+And louder and more insistent grew the world clamor that he should be
+found, and put to death in some way more horrible than any yet devised.
+
+The ingenuity of a million minds worked upon this problem. Newspapers
+all over the world offered prizes for the most suitable form of death.
+Ingenious Oriental tortures were rediscovered.
+
+The only thing lacking was Bram.
+
+A spy craze ran through Australia. Five hundred Brams were found, and
+all of them were in imminent danger of death before they were able to
+prove an alias.
+
+And, oddly enough, it was Tommy and Dodd who found Bram. For Dodd had
+been brought back east, together with his bride, and given an important
+command in the Army of Extermination.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd had joined Tommy not far from Broken Hill, where a swarm of a
+hundred thousand beetles had been found in a little known valley. The
+monsters had begun to grow new shells, and the news had excited a fresh
+wave of apprehension. The airplanes had concentrated for an attack upon
+them, and Tommy and Dodd were riding together, Tommy at the controls,
+and Dodd observing.
+
+Dodd called through the tube to Tommy, and indicated a mass that was
+moving through the scrub--some fifty thousand beetles, executing short
+hops and evidently regaining some vitality. Tommy nodded.
+
+He signalled, and the fleet of planes circled around and began to drop
+their incendiary bombs. Within a few minutes the beetles were ringed
+with a wall of fire. Presently the whole terrain was a blazing furnace.
+
+Hours later, when the fires had died away, Tommy and Dodd went down to
+look at the destruction that had been wrought. The scene was horrible.
+Great masses of charred flesh and shell were piled up everywhere.
+
+"I guess that's been a pretty thorough job," said Tommy. "Let's get
+back, Jim."
+
+"What's that?" cried Dodd, pointing. Then, "My God, Tommy, it's one of
+our men!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a man, but it was not one of their men, that creeping, maimed,
+half-cinder and half-human thing that was trying to crawl into the
+hollow of a rock. It was Bram, and recognition was mutual.
+
+Bram dropping, moaning; he was only the shell of a man, and it was
+incredible how he had managed to survive that ordeal of fire. The
+remainder of his life, which only his indomitable will had held in that
+shattered body, was evidently a matter of minutes, but he looked up at
+Dodd and laughed.
+
+"So--you're--here, damn you!" he snarled. "And--you think--you've won.
+I've--another card--another invasion of the world--beside which this is
+child's play. It's an invasion--"
+
+Bram was going, but he pulled himself together with a supreme effort.
+
+"Invasion by--new species of--monotremes," he croaked. "Deep
+down in--earth. Was saving to--prove you the liar you are.
+Monotremes--egg-laying platypus big as an elephant--existent long
+before pleistocene epoch--make you recant, you lying fool!"
+
+Bram died, an outburst of bitter laughter on his lips. Dodd stood silent
+for a while; then reverently he removed his hat.
+
+"He was a madman and a devil, but he had the potentialities of a god,
+Tommy," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  SUCH WELL-KNOW WRITERS AS
+
+  Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings, Victor Rousseau, R. F. Starzl, A.
+  T. Locke, Capt. S. P. Meek and Arthur J. Burks
+
+  Write for
+
+  =ASTOUNDING STORIES=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Mad Music
+
+_By Anthony Pelcher_
+
+
+    The sixty stories of the perfectly constructed Colossus building
+    had mysteriously crashed! What was the connection between this
+    catastrophe and the weird strains of the Mad Musician's violin?
+
+[Illustration: _In an inner room they found a diabolical machine._]
+
+
+To the accompaniment of a crashing roar, not unlike rumbling thunder,
+the proud Colossus Building, which a few minutes before had reared its
+sixty stories of artistic architecture towards the blue dome of the sky,
+crashed in a rugged, dusty heap of stone, brick, cement and mortar. The
+steel framework, like the skeleton of some prehistoric monster, still
+reared to dizzy heights but in a bent and twisted shape of grotesque
+outline.
+
+No one knew how many lives were snuffed out in the avalanche.
+
+As the collapse occurred in the early dawn it was not believed the
+death list would be large. It was admitted, however, that autos, cabs
+and surface cars may have been caught under the falling rock. One train
+was known to have been wrecked in the subway due to a cave-in from the
+surface under the ragged mountain of debris.
+
+The litter fairly filled a part of Times Square, the most congested
+cross-roads on God's footstool. Straggling brick and rock had rolled
+across the street to the west and had crashed into windows and doors of
+innocent small tradesmen's shops.
+
+A few minutes after the crash a mad crowd of people had piled from
+subway exits as far away as Penn Station and Columbus Circle and from
+cross streets. These milled about, gesticulating and shouting
+hysterically. All neighboring police stations were hard put to handle
+the growing mob.
+
+Hundreds of dead and maimed were being carried to the surface from the
+wrecked train in the subway. Trucks and cabs joined the ambulance crews
+in the work of transporting these to morgues and hospitals. As the
+morning grew older and the news of the disaster spread, more milling
+thousands tried to crowd into the square. Many were craning necks
+hopelessly on the outskirts of the throng, blocks away, trying vainly to
+get a view of what lay beyond.
+
+The fire department and finally several companies of militia joined the
+police in handling the crowd. Newsies, never asleep, yowled their
+"Wuxtras" and made much small money.
+
+The newspapers devoted solid pages in attempting to describe what had
+happened. Nervously, efficient reporters had written and written, using
+all their best adjectives and inventing new ones in attempts to picture
+the crash and the hysterics which followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the excitement was at its height a middle-aged man, bleeding at the
+head, clothes torn and dusty, staggered into the West 47th street
+police station. He found a lone sergeant at the desk.
+
+The police sergeant jumped to his feet as the bedraggled man entered and
+stumbled to a bench.
+
+"I'm Pat Brennan, street floor watchman of the Colossus," he said. "I
+ran for it. I got caught in the edge of the wreck and a brick clipped
+me. I musta been out for some time. When I came around I looked back
+just once at the wreck and then I beat it over here. Phone my boss."
+
+"I'll let you phone your boss," said the sergeant, "but first tell me
+just what happened."
+
+"Earthquake, I guess. I saw the floor heaving in waves. Glass was
+crashing and falling into the street. All windows in the arcade buckled,
+either in or out. I ran into the street and looked up. God, what a
+sight! The building from sidewalk to towers was rocking and waving and
+twisting and buckling and I saw it was bound to crumple, so I lit out
+and ran. I heard a roar like all Hell broke loose and then something
+nicked me and my light went out."
+
+"How many got caught in the building?"
+
+"Nobody got out but me, I guess. There weren't many tenants. The
+building is all rented, but not everybody had moved in yet and those as
+had didn't spend their nights there. There was a watchman for every five
+stories. An engineer and his crew. Three elevator operators had come in.
+There was no names of tenants in or out on my book after 4 A.M. The
+crash musta come about 6. That's all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Throughout the country the news of the crash was received with great
+interest and wonderment, but in one small circle it caused absolute
+consternation. That was in the offices of the Muller Construction
+Company, the builders of the Colossus. Jason V. Linane, chief engineer
+of the company, was in conference with its president, James J. Muller.
+
+Muller sat with his head in his hands, and his face wore an expression
+of a man in absolute anguish. Linane was pacing the floor, a wild
+expression in his eyes, and at times he muttered and mumbled under his
+breath.
+
+In the other offices the entire force from manager to office boys was
+hushed and awed, for they had seen the expressions on the faces of the
+heads of the concern when they stalked into the inner office that
+morning.
+
+Muller finally looked up, rather hopelessly, at Linane.
+
+"Unless we can prove that the crash was due to some circumstance over
+which we had no control, we are ruined," he said, and there actually
+were tears in his eyes.
+
+"No doubt about that," agreed Linane, "but I can swear that the Colossus
+went up according to specifications and that every ounce and splinter of
+material was of the best. The workmanship was faultless. We have built
+scores of the biggest blocks in the world and of them all this Colossus
+was the most perfect. I had prided myself on it. Muller, it was
+perfection. I simply cannot account for it. I cannot. It should have
+stood up for thousands of years. The foundation was solid rock. It
+positively was not an earthquake. No other building in the section was
+even jarred. No other earthquake was ever localized to one half block of
+the earth's crust, and we can positively eliminate an earthquake or an
+explosion as the possible cause. I am sure we are not to blame, but we
+will have to find the exact cause."
+
+"If there was some flaw?" questioned Muller, although he knew the
+answer.
+
+"If there was some flaw, then we're sunk. The newspapers are already
+clamoring for probes, of us, of the building, of the owners and
+everybody and everything. We have got to have something damned plausible
+when we go to bat on this proposition or every dollar we have in the
+world will have to be paid out."
+
+"That is not all," said Muller: "not only will we be penniless, but we
+may have to go to jail and we will never be able to show our faces in
+reputable business circles again. Who was the last to go over that
+building?"
+
+"I sent Teddy Jenks. He is a cub and is swell headed and too big for his
+pants, but I would bank my life on his judgment. He has the judgment of
+a much older man and I would also bank my life and reputation on his
+engineering skill and knowledge. He pronounced the building positively
+O.K.--100 per cent."
+
+"Where is Jenks?"
+
+"He will be here as soon as his car can drive down from Tarrytown. He
+should be here now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they talked Jenks, the youngest member of the engineering force,
+entered. He entered like a whirlwind. He threw his hat on the floor and
+drew out a drawer of a cabinet. He pulled out the plans for the
+Colossus, big blue prints, some of them yards in extent, and threw them
+on the floor. Then he dropped to his knees and began poring over them.
+
+"This is a hell of a time for you to begin getting around," exploded
+Muller. "What were you doing, cabareting all night?"
+
+"It sure is terrible--awful," said Jenks, half to himself.
+
+"Answer me," thundered Muller.
+
+"Oh yes," said Jenks, looking up. He saw the look of anguish on his
+boss's face and forgot his own excitement in sympathy. He jumped to his
+feet, placed his arm about the shoulders of the older man and led him to
+a chair. Linane only scowled at the young man.
+
+"I was delayed because I stopped by to see the wreck. My God, Mr.
+Muller, it is awful." Jenks drew his hand across his eye as if to erase
+the scene of the wrecked building. Then patting the older man
+affectionately on the back he said:
+
+"Buck up. I'm on the job, as usual. I'll find out about it. It could not
+have been our fault. Why man, that building was as strong as Gibraltar
+itself!"
+
+"You were the last to inspect it," accused Muller, with a break in his
+voice.
+
+"Nobody knows that better than I, and I can swear by all that's square
+and honest that it was no fault of the material or the construction. It
+must have been--"
+
+"Must have been what?"
+
+"I'll be damned if I know."
+
+"That's like him," said Linane, who, while really kindly intentioned,
+had always rather enjoyed prodding the young engineer.
+
+"Like me, like the devil," shouted Jenks, glaring at Linane. "I suppose
+you know all about it, you're so blamed wise."
+
+"No, I don't know," admitted Linane. "But I do know that you don't like
+me to tell you anything. Nevertheless, I am going to tell you that you
+had better get busy and find out what caused it, or--"
+
+"That's just what I'm doing," said Jenks, and he dived for his plans on
+the floor.
+
+Newspaper reporters, many of them, were fighting outside to get in.
+Muller looked at Linane when a stenographer had announced the reporters
+for the tenth time.
+
+"We had better let them in," he said, "it looks bad to crawl for cover."
+
+"What are you going to tell them?" asked Linane.
+
+"God only knows," said Muller.
+
+"Let me handle them," said Jenks, looking up confidently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The newspapermen had rushed the office. They came in like a wild wave.
+Questions flew like feathers at a cock-fight.
+
+Muller held up his hand and there was something in his grief-stricken
+eyes that held the gentlemen of the press in silence. They had time to
+look around. They saw the handsome, dark-haired, brown-eyed Jenks poring
+over the plans. Dust from the carpet smudged his knees, and he had
+rubbed some of it over a sweating forehead, but he still looked the
+picture of self-confident efficiency.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Muller slowly, "I can answer all your questions at
+once. Our firm is one of the oldest and staunchest in the trade. Our
+buildings stand as monuments to our integrity--"
+
+"All but one," said a young Irishman.
+
+"You are right. All but one," confessed Muller. "But that one, believe
+me, has been visited by an act of God. Some form of earthquake or some
+unlooked for, uncontrolled, almost unbelievable catastrophe has
+happened. The Muller company stands back of its work to its last dollar.
+Gentlemen, you know as much as we do. Mr. Jenks there, whose reputation
+as an engineer is quite sturdy, I assure you, was the last to inspect
+the building. He passed upon it when it was finished. He is at your
+service."
+
+Jenks arose, brushed some dust from his knees.
+
+"You look like you'd been praying," bandied the Irishman.
+
+"Maybe I have. Now let me talk. Don't broadside me with questions. I
+know what you want to know. Let me talk."
+
+The newspapermen were silent.
+
+"There has been talk of probing this disaster, naturally," began Jenks.
+"You all know, gentlemen, that we will aid any inquiry to our utmost.
+You want to know what we have to say about it--who is responsible. In a
+reasonable time I will have a statement to make that will be startling
+in the extreme. I am not sure of my ground now."
+
+"How about the ground under the Colossus?" said the Irishman.
+
+"Don't let's kid each other," pleaded Jenks. "Look at Mr. Muller: it is
+as if he had lost his whole family. We are good people. I am doing all I
+can. Mr. Linane, who had charge of the construction, is doing all he
+can. We believe we are blameless. If it is proven otherwise we will
+acknowledge our fault, assume financial responsibility, and take our
+medicine. Believe me, that building was perfection plus, like all our
+buildings. That covers the entire situation."
+
+Hundreds of questions were parried and answered by the three engineers,
+and the reporters left convinced that if the Muller Construction Company
+was responsible, it was not through any fault of its own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fact that Jenks and Linane were not strong for each other, except to
+recognize each other's ability as engineers, was due to an incident of
+the past. This incident had caused a ripple of mirth in engineering
+circles when it happened, and the laugh was on the older man, Linane.
+
+It was when radio was new. Linane, a structural engineer, had paid
+little attention to radio. Jenks was the kind of an engineer who dabbled
+in all sciences. He knew his radio.
+
+When Jenks first came to work with a technical sheepskin and a few tons
+of brass, Linane accorded him only passing notice. Jenks craved the
+plaudits of the older man and his palship. Linane treated him as a son,
+but did not warm to his social advances.
+
+"I'm as good an engineer as he is," mused Jenks, "and if he is going to
+high-hat me, I'll just put a swift one over on him and compel his
+notice."
+
+The next day Jenks approached Linane in conference and said:
+
+"I've got a curious bet on, Mr. Linane. I am betting sound can travel a
+mile quicker than it travels a quarter of a mile."
+
+"What?" said Linane.
+
+"I'm betting fifty that sound can travel a mile quicker than it can
+travel a quarter of a mile."
+
+"Oh no--it can't," insisted Linane.
+
+"Oh yes--it can!" decided Jenks.
+
+"I'll take some of that fool money myself," said Linane.
+
+"How much?" asked Jenks.
+
+"As much as you want."
+
+"All right--five hundred dollars."
+
+"How you going to prove your contention?"
+
+"By stop watches, and your men can hold the watches. We'll bet that a
+pistol shot can be heard two miles away quicker than it can be heard a
+quarter of a mile away."
+
+"Sound travels about a fifth of a mile a second. The rate varies
+slightly according to temperature," explained Linane. "At the freezing
+point the rate is 1,090 feet per second and increases a little over one
+foot for every degree Fahrenheit."
+
+"Hot or cold," breezed Jenks, "I am betting you five hundred dollars
+that sound can travel two miles quicker than a quarter-mile."
+
+"You're on, you damned idiot!" shouted the completely exasperated
+Linane.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks let Linane's friends hold the watches and his friend held the
+money. Jenks was to fire the shot.
+
+Jenks fired the shot in front of a microphone on a football field. One
+of Linane's friends picked the sound up instantaneously on a three-tube
+radio set two miles away. The other watch holder was standing in the
+open a quarter of a mile away and his watch showed a second and a
+fraction.
+
+All hands agreed that Jenks had won the bet fairly. Linane never exactly
+liked Jenks after that.
+
+Then Jenks rather aggravated matters by a habit. Whenever Linane would
+make a very positive statement Jenks would look owl-eyed and say: "Mr.
+Linane, I'll have to sound you out about that." The heavy accent on the
+word "sound" nettled Linane somewhat.
+
+Linane never completely forgave Jenks for putting over this "fast one."
+Socially they were always more or less at loggerheads, but neither let
+this feeling interfere with their work. They worked together faithfully
+enough and each recognized the ability of the other.
+
+And so it was that Linane and Jenks, their heads together, worked all
+night in an attempt to find some cause that would tie responsibility
+for the disaster on mother nature.
+
+They failed to find it and, sleepy-eyed, they were forced to admit
+failure, so far.
+
+The newspapers, to whom Muller had said that he would not shirk any
+responsibility, began a hue and cry for the arrest of all parties in any
+way concerned with the direction of the building of the Colossus.
+
+When the death list from the crash and subway wreck reached 97, the
+press waxed nasty and demanded the arrest of Muller, Linane and Jenks in
+no uncertain tones.
+
+Half dead from lack of sleep, the three men were taken by the police to
+the district attorney's offices and, after a strenuous grilling, were
+formally placed under arrest on charges of criminal negligence. They put
+up a $50,000 bond in each case and were permitted to go and seek further
+to find the cause of what the newspapers now began calling the "Colossal
+Failure."
+
+Several days were spent by Linane and Jenks in examining the wreckage
+which was being removed from Times Square, truckload after truckload, to
+a point outside the city. Here it was again sorted and examined and
+piled for future disposal.
+
+So far as could be found every brick, stone and ounce of material used
+in the building was perfect. Attorneys, however, assured Linane, Jenks
+and Muller that they would have to find the real cause of the disaster
+if they were to escape possible long prison sentences.
+
+Night after night Jenks courted sleep, but it would not come. He began
+to grow wan and haggard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks took to walking the streets at night, mile after mile, thinking,
+always thinking, and searching his mind for a solution of the mystery.
+
+It was evening. He had walked past the scene of the Colossus crash
+several times. He found himself on a side street. He looked up and saw
+in electric lights:
+
+  TOWN HALL
+
+  _Munsterbergen, the Mad Musician_
+  Concert Here To-night.
+
+He took five dollars from his pocket and bought a ticket. He entered
+with the crowd and was ushered to a seat. He looked neither to the right
+or left. His eyes were sunken, his face lined with worry.
+
+Something within Jenks caused him to turn slightly. He was curiously
+aware of a beautiful girl who sat beside him. She had a mass of golden
+hair which seemed to defy control. It was wild, positively tempestuous.
+Her eyes were deep blue and her skin as white as fleecy clouds in
+spring. He was dimly conscious that those glorious eyes were troubled.
+
+She glanced at him. She was aware that he was suffering. A great surge
+of sympathy welled in her heart. She could not explain the feeling.
+
+A great red plush curtain parted in the center and drew in graceful
+folds to the edges of the proscenium. A small stage was revealed.
+
+A tousle-headed man with glaring, beady black eyes, dressed in black
+evening clothes stepped forward and bowed. Under his arm was a violin.
+He brought the violin forward. His nose, like the beak of some great
+bird, bobbed up and down in acknowledgment of the plaudits which greeted
+him. His long nervous fingers began to caress the instrument and his
+lips began to move.
+
+Jenks was aware that he was saying something, but was not at all
+interested. What he said was this:
+
+"Maybe, yes, I couldn't talk so good English, but you could understood
+it, yes? Und now I tell you dot I never play the compositions of any
+man. I axtemporize exgloosively. I chust blay und blay, und maybe you
+should listen, yes? If I bleeze you I am chust happy."
+
+Jenks' attention was drawn to him. He noted his wild appearance.
+
+"He sure looks mad enough," mused Jenks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The violinist flipped the fiddle up under his chin. He drew the bow over
+the strings and began a gentle melody that reminded one of rain drops
+falling on calm waters.
+
+Jenks forgot his troubles. He forgot everything. He slumped in his seat
+and his eyes closed. The rain continued falling from the strings of the
+violin.
+
+Suddenly the melody changed to a glad little lilting measure, as sweet
+as love itself. The sun was coming out again and the birds began to
+sing. There was the trill of a canary with the sun on its cage. There
+was the song of the thrush, the mocking-bird and the meadow lark. These
+blended finally into a melodious burst of chirping melody which seemed a
+chorus of the wild birds of the forest and glen. Then the lilting love
+measure again. It tore at the heart strings, and brought tears to one's
+eyes.
+
+Unconsciously the girl next to Jenks leaned towards him. Involuntarily
+he leaned to meet her. Their shoulders touched. The cloud of her golden
+hair came to rest against his dark locks. Their hands found each other
+with gentle pressure. Both were lost to the world.
+
+Abruptly the music changed. There was a succession of broken treble
+notes that sounded like the crackling of flames. Moans deep and
+melancholy followed. These grew more strident and prolonged, giving
+place to abject howls, suggesting the lamentations of the damned.
+
+The hands of the boy and girl gripped tensely. They could not help
+shuddering.
+
+The violin began to produce notes of a leering, jeering character,
+growing more horrible with each measure until they burst in a loud
+guffaw of maniacal laughter.
+
+The whole performance was as if someone had taken a heaven and plunged
+it into a hell.
+
+The musician bowed jerkily, and was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no applause, only wild exclamations. Half the house was on its
+feet. The other half sat as if glued to chairs.
+
+The boy and the girl were standing, their hands still gripping tensely.
+
+"Come, let's get out of here," said Jenks. The girl took her wrap and
+Jenks helped her into it. Hand in hand they fled the place.
+
+In the lobby their eyes met, and for the first time they realized they
+were strangers. Yet deep in their hearts was a feeling that their fates
+had been sealed.
+
+"My goodness!" burst from the girl.
+
+"It can't be helped now," said Jenks decisively.
+
+"What can't be helped?" asked the girl, although she knew in her heart.
+
+"Nothing can be helped," said Jenks. Then he added: "We should know each
+other by this time. We have been holding hands for an hour."
+
+The girl's eyes flared. "You have no right to presume on that
+situation," she said.
+
+Jenks could have kicked himself. "Forgive me," he said. "It was only
+that I just wanted so to know you. Won't you let me see you home?"
+
+"You may," said the girl simply, and she led the way to her own car.
+
+They drove north.
+
+Their bodies seemed like magnets. They were again shoulder to shoulder,
+holding hands.
+
+"Will you tell me your name?" pleaded Jenks.
+
+"Surely," replied the girl. "I am Elaine Linane."
+
+"What?" exploded Jenks. "Why, I work with a Linane, an engineer with the
+Muller Construction Company."
+
+"He is my father," she said.
+
+"Why, we are great friends," said the boy. "I am Jenks, his
+assistant--at least we work together."
+
+"Yes, I have heard of you," said the girl. "It is strange, the way we
+met. My father admires your work, but I am afraid you are not great
+friends." The girl had forgotten her troubles. She chuckled. She had
+heard the way Jenks had "sounded" her father out.
+
+Jenks was speechless. The girl continued:
+
+"I don't know whether to like you or to hate you. My father is an old
+dear. You were cruel to him."
+
+Jenks was abject. "I did not mean to be," he said. "He rather belittled
+me without realizing it. I had to make my stand. The difference in our
+years made him take me rather too lightly. I had to compel his notice,
+if I was to advance."
+
+"Oh!" said the girl.
+
+"I am sorry--so sorry."
+
+"You might not have been altogether at fault," said the girl. "Father
+forgets at times that I have grown up. I resent being treated like a
+child, but he is the soul of goodness and fatherly care."
+
+"I know that," said Jenks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every engineer knows his mathematics. It was this fact, coupled with
+what the world calls a "lucky break," that solved the Colossus mystery.
+Nobody can get around the fact that two and two make four.
+
+Jenks had happened on accomplishment to advance in the engineering
+profession, and it was well for him that he had reached a crisis. He had
+never believed in luck or in hunches, so it was good for him to be
+brought face to face with the fact that sometimes the footsteps of man
+are guided. It made him begin to look into the engineering of the
+universe, to think more deeply, and to acknowledge a Higher Power.
+
+With Linane he had butted into a stone wall. They were coming to know
+what real trouble meant. The fact that they were innocent did not make
+the steel bars of a cage any more attractive. Their troubles began to
+wrap about them with the clammy intimacy of a shroud. Then came the
+lucky break.
+
+Next to his troubles, Jenks' favorite topic was the Mad Musician. He
+tried to learn all he could about this uncanny character at whose
+concert he had met the girl of his life. He learned two facts that made
+him perk up and think.
+
+One was that the Mad Musician had had offices and a studio in the
+Colossus and was one of the first to move in. The other was that the Mad
+Musician took great delight in shattering glassware with notes of or
+vibrations from a violin. Nearly everyone knows that a glass tumbler can
+be shattered by the proper note sounded on a violin. The Mad Musician
+took delight in this trick. Jenks courted his acquaintance, and saw him
+shatter a row of glasses of different sizes by sounding different notes
+on his fiddle. The glasses crashed one after another like gelatine balls
+hit by the bullets of an expert rifleman.
+
+Then Jenks, the engineer who knew his mathematics, put two and two
+together. It made four, of course.
+
+"Listen, Linane," he said to his co-worker: "this fiddler is crazier
+than a flock of cuckoos. If he can crack crockery with violin sound
+vibrations, is it not possible, by carrying the vibrations to a much
+higher power, that he could crack a pile of stone, steel, brick and
+cement, like the Colossus?"
+
+"Possible, but hardly probable. Still," Linane mused, "when you think
+about it, and put two and two together.... Let's go after him and see
+what he is doing now."
+
+Both jumped for their coats and hats. As they fared forth, Jenks cinched
+his argument:
+
+"If a madman takes delight in breaking glassware with a vibratory wave
+or vibration, how much more of a thrill would he get by crashing a
+mountain?"
+
+"Wild, but unanswerable," said Linane.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks had been calling on the Mad Musician at his country place. "He had
+a studio in the Colossus," he reminded Linane. "He must have re-opened
+somewhere else in town. I wonder where."
+
+"Musicians are great union men," said Linane. "Phone the union."
+
+Teddy Jenks did, but the union gave the last known town address as the
+Colossus.
+
+"He would remain in the same district around Times Square," reasoned
+Jenks. "Let's page out the big buildings and see if he is not preparing
+to crash another one."
+
+"Fair enough," said Linane, who was too busy with the problem at hand to
+choose his words.
+
+Together the engineers started a canvass of the big buildings in the
+theatrical district. After four or five had been searched without result
+they entered the 30-story Acme Theater building.
+
+Here they learned that the Mad Musician had leased a four-room suite
+just a few days before. This suite was on the fifteenth floor, just half
+way up in the big structure.
+
+They went to the manager of the building and frankly stated their
+suspicions. "We want to enter that suite when the tenant is not there,"
+they explained, "and we want him forestalled from entering while we are
+examining the premises."
+
+"Hadn't we better notify the police?" asked the building manager, who
+had broken out in a sweat when he heard the dire disaster which might be
+in store for the stately Acme building.
+
+"Not yet," said Linane. "You see, we are not sure: we have just been
+putting two and two together."
+
+"We'll get the building detective, anyway," insisted the manager.
+
+"Let him come along, but do not let him know until we are sure. If we
+are right we will find a most unusual infernal machine," said Linane.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The three men entered the suite with a pass-key. The detective was left
+outside in the hall to halt anyone who might disturb the searchers. It
+was as Jenks had thought. In an inner room they found a diabolical
+machine--a single string stretched across two bridges, one of brass and
+one of wood. A big horsehair bow attached to a shaft operated by a motor
+was automatically sawing across the string. The note resulting was
+evidently higher than the range of the human ear, because no audible
+sound resulted. It was later estimated that the destructive note was
+several octaves higher than the highest note on a piano.
+
+The entire machine was enclosed in a heavy wire-net cage, securely
+bolted to the floor. Neither the string or bow could be reached. It was
+evidently the Mad Musician's idea that the devilish contrivance should
+not be reached by hands other than his own.
+
+How long the infernal machine had been operating no one knew, but the
+visitors were startled when the building suddenly began to sway
+perceptibly. Jenks jumped forward to stop the machine but could not find
+a switch.
+
+"See if the machine plugs in anywhere in a wall socket!" he shouted to
+Linane, who promptly began examining the walls. Jenks shouted to the
+building manager to phone the police to clear the streets around the big
+building.
+
+"Tell the police that the Acme Theater building may crash at any
+moment," he instructed.
+
+The engineers were perfectly cool in face of the great peril, but the
+building manager lost his head completely and began to run around in
+circles muttering: "Oh, my God, save me!" and other words of
+supplication that blended into an incoherent babel.
+
+Jenks rushed to the man, trying to still his wild hysteria.
+
+The building continued to sway dangerously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks looked from a window. An enormous crowd was collecting, watching
+the big building swinging a foot out of plumb like a giant pendulum. The
+crowd was growing. Should the building fall the loss of life would be
+appalling. It was mid-morning. The interior of the building teemed with
+thousands of workers, for all floors above the third were offices.
+
+Teddy Jenks turned suddenly. He heard the watchman in the hall scream in
+terror. Then he heard a body fall. He rushed to the door to see the Mad
+Musician standing over the prostrate form of the detective, a devilish
+grin on his distorted countenance.
+
+The madman turned, saw Jenks, and started to run. Jenks took after him.
+Up the staircase the madman rushed toward the roof. Teddy followed him
+two floors and then rushed out to take the elevators. The building in
+its mad swaying had made it impossible for the lifts to be operated.
+Teddy realized this with a distraught gulp in his throat. He returned to
+the stairway and took up the pursuit of the madman.
+
+The corridors were beginning to fill with screaming men and wailing
+girls. It was a sight never to be forgotten.
+
+Laboriously Jenks climbed story after story without getting sight of the
+madman. Finally he reached the roof. It was waving like swells on a lake
+before a breeze. He caught sight of the Mad Musician standing on the
+street wall, thirty stories from the street, a leer on his devilish
+visage. He jumped for him.
+
+The madman grasped him and lifted him up to the top of the wall as a cat
+might have lifted a mouse. Both men were breathing heavily as a result
+of their 15-story climb.
+
+The madman tried to throw Teddy Jenks to the street below. Teddy clung
+to him. The two battled desperately as the building swayed.
+
+The dense crowd in the street had caught sight of the two men fighting
+on the narrow coping, and the shout which rent the air reached the ears
+of Jenks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mind of the engineer was still working clearly, but a wild fear
+gripped his heart. His strength seemed to be leaving him. The madman
+pushed him back, bending his spine with brute strength. Teddy was forced
+to the narrow ledge that had given the two men footing. The fingers of
+the madman gripped his throat.
+
+He was dimly conscious that the swaying of the building was slowing
+down. His reason told him that Linane had found the wall socket and had
+stopped the sawing of the devil's bow on the engine of hell.
+
+He saw the madman draw a big knife. With his last remaining strength he
+reached out and grasped the wrist above the hand which held the weapon.
+In spite of all he could do he saw the madman inching the knife nearer
+and nearer his throat.
+
+Grim death was peering into the bulging eyes of Teddy Jenks, when his
+engineering knowledge came to his rescue. He remembered the top stories
+of the Acme building were constructed with a step of ten feet in from
+the street line, for every story of construction above the 24th floor.
+
+"If we fall," he reasoned, "we can only fall one story." Then he
+deliberately rolled his own body and the weight of the madman, who held
+him, over the edge of the coping. At the same time he twisted the
+madman's wrist so the point of the knife pointed to the madman's body.
+
+There was a dim consciousness of a painful impact. Teddy had fallen
+underneath, but the force of the two bodies coming together had thrust
+the knife deep into the entrails of the Mad Musician.
+
+Clouds which had been collecting in the sky began a splattering
+downpour. The storm grew in fury and lightning tore the heavens, while
+thunder boomed and crackled. The rain began falling in sheets.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This served to revive the unconscious Teddy. He painfully withdrew his
+body from under that of the madman. The falling rain, stained with the
+blood of the Mad Musician, trickled over the edge of the building.
+
+Teddy dragged himself through a window and passed his hand over his
+forehead, which was aching miserably. He tried to get to his feet and
+fell back, only to try again. Several times he tried and then, his
+strength returning, he was able to walk.
+
+He made his way to the studio where he had left Linane and found him
+there surrounded by police, reporters and others. The infernal machine
+had been rendered harmless, but was kept intact as evidence.
+
+Catching sight of Teddy, Linane shouted with joy. "I stopped the damned
+thing," he chuckled, like a pleased schoolboy. Then, observing Teddy's
+exhausted condition he added:
+
+"Why, you look like you have been to a funeral!"
+
+"I have," said Teddy. "You'll find that crazy fiddler dead on the
+twenty-ninth story. Look out the window of the thirtieth story," he
+instructed the police, who had started to recover the body. "He stabbed
+himself. He is either dead or dying."
+
+It proved that he was dead.
+
+No engineering firm is responsible for the actions of a madman. So the
+Muller Construction Company was given a clean bill of health.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks and Elaine Linane were with the girl's father in his study. They
+were asking for the paternal blessing.
+
+Linane was pretending to be hard to convince.
+
+"Now, my daughter," he said, "this young man takes $500 of my good money
+by sounding me out, as he calls it. Then he comes along and tries to
+take my daughter away from me. It is positively high-handed. It dates
+back to the football game--"
+
+"Daddy, dear, don't be like that!" said Elaine, who was on the arm of
+his chair with her own arms around him.
+
+"I tell you, Elaine, this dates back to the fall of 1927."
+
+"It dates back to the fall of Eve," said Elaine. "When a girl finds her
+man, no power can keep him from her. If you won't give me to Teddy
+Jenks, I'll elope with him."
+
+"Well, all right then. Kiss me," said Linane as he turned towards his
+radio set.
+
+"One and one makes one," said Teddy Jenks.
+
+Every engineer knows his mathematics.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Have you written in to_
+
+  ASTOUNDING STORIES
+
+  _Yet, to Tell the Editors Just What Kind of Stories You Would
+  Like Them to Secure for You?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Thief of Time
+
+_By Captain S. P. Meek_
+
+
+    The teller turned to the stacked pile of bills. They were gone!
+    And no one had been near!
+
+[Illustration: "_That man never entered and stole that money as the
+picture shows, unless he managed to make himself invisible._"]
+
+
+Harvey Winston, paying teller of the First National Bank of Chicago,
+stripped the band from a bundle of twenty dollar bills, counted out
+seventeen of them and added them to the pile on the counter before him.
+
+"Twelve hundred and thirty-one tens," he read from the payroll change
+slip before him. The paymaster of the Cramer Packing Company nodded an
+assent and Winston turned to the stacked bills in his rear currency
+rack. He picked up a handful of bundles and turned back to the grill.
+His gaze swept the counter where, a moment before, he had stacked the
+twenties, and his jaw dropped.
+
+"You got those twenties, Mr. Trier?" he asked.
+
+"Got them? Of course not, how could I?" replied the paymaster. "There
+they are...."
+
+His voice trailed off into nothingness as he looked at the empty
+counter.
+
+"I must have dropped them," said Winston as he turned. He glanced back
+at the rear rack where his main stock of currency was piled. He stood
+paralyzed for a moment and then reached under the counter and pushed a
+button.
+
+The bank resounded instantly to the clangor of gongs and huge steel
+grills shot into place with a clang, sealing all doors and preventing
+anyone from entering or leaving the bank. The guards sprang to their
+stations with drawn weapons and from the inner offices the bank
+officials came swarming out. The cashier, followed by two men, hurried
+to the paying teller's cage.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Winston?" he cried.
+
+"I've been robbed!" gasped the teller.
+
+"Who by? How?" demanded the cashier.
+
+"I--I don't know, sir," stammered the teller. "I was counting out Mr.
+Trier's payroll, and after I had stacked the twenties I turned to get
+the tens. When I turned back the twenties were gone."
+
+"Where had they gone?" asked the cashier.
+
+"I don't know, sir. Mr. Trier was as surprised as I was, and then I
+turned back, thinking that I had knocked them off the counter, and I saw
+at a glance that there was a big hole in my back racks. You can see
+yourself, sir."
+
+The cashier turned to the paymaster.
+
+"Is this a practical joke, Mr. Trier?" he demanded sharply.
+
+"Of course not," replied the paymaster. "Winston's grill was closed. It
+still is. Granted that I might have reached the twenties he had piled
+up, how could I have gone through a grill and taken the rest of the
+missing money without his seeing me? The money disappeared almost
+instantly. It was there a moment before, for I noticed when Winston
+took the twenties from his rack that it was full."
+
+"But someone must have taken it," said the bewildered cashier. "Money
+doesn't walk off of its own accord or vanish into thin air--"
+
+A bell interrupted his speech.
+
+"There are the police," he said with an air of relief. "I'll let them
+in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The smaller of the two men who had followed the cashier from his office
+when the alarm had sounded stepped forward and spoke quietly. His
+voice was low and well pitched yet it carried a note of authority and
+power that held his auditors' attention while he spoke. The voice
+harmonized with the man. The most noticeable point about him was the
+inconspicuousness of his voice and manner, yet there was a glint of
+steel in his gray eyes that told of enormous force in him.
+
+"I don't believe that I would let them in for a few moments, Mr.
+Rogers," he said. "I think that we are up against something a little
+different from the usual bank robbery."
+
+"But, Mr. Carnes," protested the cashier, "we must call in the police in
+a case like this, and the sooner they take charge the better chance
+there will be of apprehending the thief."
+
+"Suit yourself," replied the little man with a shrug of his shoulders.
+"I merely offered my advice."
+
+"Will you take charge, Mr. Carnes?" asked the cashier.
+
+"I can't supersede the local authorities in a case like this," replied
+Carnes. "The secret service is primarily interested in the suppression
+of counterfeiting and the enforcement of certain federal statutes, but I
+will be glad to assist the local authorities to the best of my ability,
+provided they desire my help. My advice to you would be to keep out the
+patrolmen who are demanding admittance and get in touch with the chief
+of police. I would ask that his best detective together with an expert
+finger-print photographer be sent here before anyone else is admitted.
+If the patrolmen are allowed to wipe their hands over Mr. Winston's
+counter they may destroy valuable evidence."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Carnes," exclaimed the cashier. "Mr. Jervis, will
+you tell the police that there is no violence threatening and ask them
+to wait for a few minutes? I'll telephone the chief of police at once."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the cashier hurried away to his telephone Carnes turned to his
+companion who had stood an interested, although silent spectator of the
+scene. His companion was a marked contrast to the secret service
+operator. He stood well over six feet in height, and his protruding jaw
+and shock of unruly black hair combined with his massive shoulders and
+chest to give him the appearance of a man who labored with his
+hands--until one looked at them. His hands were in strange contrast to
+the rest of him. Long, slim, mobile hands they were, with tapering
+nervous fingers--the hands of a thinker or of a musician. Telltale
+splotches of acid told of hours spent in a laboratory, a tale that was
+confirmed by the almost imperceptible stoop of his shoulders.
+
+"Do you agree with my advice, Dr. Bird?" asked Carnes deferentially.
+
+The noted scientist, who from his laboratory in the Bureau of Standards
+had sent forth many new things in the realms of chemistry and physics,
+and who, incidentally, had been instrumental in solving some of the most
+baffling mysteries which the secret service had been called upon to
+face, grunted.
+
+"It didn't do any harm," he said, "but it is rather a waste of time. The
+thief wore gloves."
+
+"How in thunder do you know that?" demanded Carnes.
+
+"It's merely common sense. A man who can do what he did had at least
+some rudiments of intelligence, and even the feeblest-minded crooks know
+enough to wear gloves nowadays."
+
+Carnes stepped a little closer to the doctor.
+
+"Another reason why I didn't want patrolmen tramping around," he said in
+an undertone, "is this. If Winston gave the alarm quickly enough, the
+thief is probably still in the building."
+
+"He's a good many miles away by now," replied Dr. Bird with a shrug of
+his shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carnes' eyes opened widely. "Why?--how?--who?" he stammered. "Have you
+any idea of who did it, or how it was done?"
+
+"Possibly I have an idea," replied Dr. Bird with a cryptic smile. "My
+advice to you, Carnes, is to keep away from the local authorities as
+much as possible. I want to be present when Winston and Trier are
+questioned and I may possibly wish to ask a few questions myself. Use
+your authority that far, but no farther. Don't volunteer any information
+and especially don't let my name get out. We'll drop the counterfeiting
+case we were summoned here on for the present and look into this a
+little on our own hook. I will want your aid, so don't get tied up with
+the police."
+
+"At that, we don't want the police crossing our trail at every turn,"
+protested Carnes.
+
+"They won't," promised the doctor. "They will never get any evidence on
+this case, if I am right, and neither will we--for the present. Our
+stunt is to lie low and wait for the next attempt of this nature and
+thus accumulate some evidence and some idea of where to look."
+
+"Will there be another attempt?" asked Carnes.
+
+"Surely. You don't expect a man who got away with a crime like this to
+quit operations just because a few flatfeet run around and make a
+hullabaloo about it, do you? I may be wrong in my assumption, but if I
+am right, the most important thing is to keep all reference to my name
+or position out of the press reports."
+
+The cashier hastened up to them.
+
+"Detective-Captain Sturtevant will be here in a few minutes with a
+photographer and some other men," he said. "Is there anything that we
+can do in the meantime, Mr. Carnes?"
+
+"I would suggest that Mr. Trier and his guard and Mr. Winston go into
+your office," replied Carnes. "My assistant and I would like to be
+present during the questioning, if there are no objections."
+
+"I didn't know that you had an assistant with you," answered the
+cashier.
+
+Carnes indicated Dr. Bird.
+
+"This gentleman is Mr. Berger, my assistant," he said. "Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Certainly. I am sure there will be no objection to your presence, Mr.
+Carnes," replied the cashier as he led the way to his office.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes later Detective-Captain Sturtevant of the Chicago police
+was announced. He acknowledged the introductions gruffly and got down to
+business at once.
+
+"What were the circumstances of the robbery?" he asked.
+
+Winston told his story, Trier and the guard confirming it.
+
+"Pretty thin!" snorted the detective when they had finished. He whirled
+suddenly on Winston.
+
+"Where did you hide the loot?" he thundered.
+
+"Why--uh--er--what do you mean?" gulped the teller.
+
+"Just what I said," replied the detective. "Where did you hide the
+loot?"
+
+"I didn't hide it anywhere," said the teller. "It was stolen."
+
+"You had better think up a better one," sneered Sturtevant. "If you
+think that you can make me believe that that money was stolen from you
+in broad daylight with two men in plain sight of you who didn't see it,
+you might just as well get over it. I know that you have some hiding
+place where you have slipped the stuff and the quicker you come clean
+and spill it, the better it will be for you. Where did you hide it?"
+
+"I didn't hide it!" cried the teller, his voice trembling. "Mr. Trier
+can tell you that I didn't touch it from the time I laid it down until I
+turned back."
+
+"That's right," replied the paymaster. "He turned his back on me for a
+moment, and when he turned back, it was gone."
+
+"So you're in on it too, are you?" said Sturtevant.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded the paymaster hotly.
+
+"Oh nothing, nothing at all," replied the detective. "Of course Winston
+didn't touch it and it disappeared and you never saw it go, although you
+were within three feet of it all the time. Did _you_ see anything?" he
+demanded of the guard.
+
+"Nothing that I am sure of," answered the guard. "I thought that a
+shadow passed in front of me for an instant, but when I looked again, it
+was gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Bird sat forward suddenly. "What did this shadow look like?" he
+asked.
+
+"It wasn't exactly a shadow," said the guard. "It was as if a person had
+passed suddenly before me so quickly that I couldn't see him. I seemed
+to feel that there was someone there, but I didn't rightly _see_
+anything."
+
+"Did you notice anything of the sort?" demanded the doctor of Trier.
+
+"I don't know," replied Trier thoughtfully. "Now that Williams has
+mentioned it, I did seem to feel a breath of air or a motion as though
+something had passed in front of me. I didn't think of it at the time."
+
+"Was this shadow opaque enough to even momentarily obscure your vision?"
+went on the doctor.
+
+"Not that I am conscious of. It was just a breath of air such as a
+person might cause by passing very rapidly."
+
+"What made you ask Trier if he had the money when you turned around?"
+asked the doctor of Winston.
+
+"Say-y-y," broke in the detective. "Who the devil are you, and what do
+you mean by breaking into my examination and stopping it?"
+
+Carnes tossed a leather wallet on the table.
+
+"There are my credentials," he said in his quiet voice. "I am chief of
+one section of the United States Secret Service as you will see, and
+this is Mr. Berger, my assistant. We were in the bank, engaged on a
+counterfeiting case, when the robbery took place. We have had a good
+deal of experience along these lines and we are merely anxious to aid
+you."
+
+Sturtevant examined Carnes' credentials carefully and returned them.
+
+"This is a Chicago robbery," he said, "and we have had a little
+experience in robberies and in apprehending robbers ourselves. I think
+that we can get along without your help."
+
+"You have had more experience with robberies than with apprehending
+robbers if the papers tell the truth," said Dr. Bird with a chuckle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The detective's face flushed.
+
+"That will be enough from you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said. "If you
+open your mouth again, I'll arrest you as a material witness and as a
+possible accomplice."
+
+"That sounds like Chicago methods," said Carnes quietly. "Now listen to
+me, Captain. My assistant and I are merely trying to assist you in this
+case. If you don't desire our assistance we'll proceed along our own
+lines without interfering, but in the meantime remember that this is a
+National Bank, and that our questions will be answered. The United
+States is higher than even the Chicago police force, and I am here under
+orders to investigate a counterfeiting case. If I desire, I can seal the
+doors of this bank and allow no one in or out until I have the evidence
+I desire. Do you understand?"
+
+Sturtevant sprang to his feet with an oath, but the sight of the gold
+badge which Carnes displayed stopped him.
+
+"Oh well," he said ungraciously. "I suppose that no harm will come of
+letting Winston answer your fool questions, but I'll warn you that I'll
+report to Washington that you are interfering with the course of justice
+and using your authority to aid the getaway of a criminal."
+
+"That is your privilege," replied Carnes quietly. "Mr. Winston, will you
+answer Mr. Berger's question?"
+
+"Why, I asked him because he was right close to the money and I thought
+that he might have reached through the wicket and picked it up. Then,
+too--"
+
+He hesitated for a moment and Dr. Bird smiled encouragingly.
+
+"What else?" he asked.
+
+"Why, I can't exactly tell. It just seemed to me that I had heard the
+rustle that bills make when they are pulled across a counter. When I saw
+them gone, I thought that he might have taken them. Then when I turned
+toward him, I seemed to hear the rustle of bills behind me, although I
+knew that I was alone in the cage. When I looked back the money was
+gone."
+
+"Did you see or hear anything like a shadow or a person moving?"
+
+"No--yes--I don't know. Just as I turned around it seemed to me that the
+rear door to my cage had moved and there may have been a shadow for an
+instant. I don't know. I hadn't thought of it before."
+
+"How long after that did you ring the alarm gongs?"
+
+"Not over a second or two."
+
+"That's all," said Dr. Bird.
+
+"If your high and mightiness has no further questions to ask, perhaps
+you will let me ask a few," said Sturtevant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Go ahead, ask all you wish," replied Dr. Bird with a laugh. "I have all
+the information I desire here for the present. I may want to ask other
+questions later, but just now I think we'll be going."
+
+"If you find any strange finger-prints on Winston's counter, I'll be
+glad to have them compared with our files," said Carnes.
+
+"I am not bothering with finger-prints," snorted the detective. "This is
+an open and shut case. There would be lots of Winston's finger-prints
+there and no others. There isn't the slightest doubt that this is an
+inside case and I have the men I want right here. Mr. Rogers, your bank
+is closed for to-day. Everyone in it will be searched and then all those
+not needed to close up will be sent away. I will get a squad of men here
+to go over your building and locate the hiding place. Your money is
+still on the premises unless these men slipped it to a confederate who
+got out before the alarm was given. I'll question the guards about that.
+If that happened, a little sweating will get it out of them."
+
+"Are you going to arrest me?" demanded Trier in surprise.
+
+"Yes, dearie," answered the detective. "I am going to arrest you and
+your two little playmates if these Washington experts will allow me to.
+You will save a lot of time and quite a few painful experiences if you
+will come clean now instead of later."
+
+"I demand to see my lawyer and to communicate with my firm," said the
+paymaster.
+
+"Time enough for that when I am through with you," replied the
+detective.
+
+He turned to Carnes.
+
+"Have I your gracious permission to arrest these three criminals?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes indeed, Captain," replied Carnes sweetly. "You have my gracious
+permission to make just as big an ass of yourself as you wish. We're
+going now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"By the way, Captain," said Dr. Bird as he followed Carnes out. "When
+you get through playing with your prisoners and start to look for the
+thief, here is a tip. Look for a left-handed man who has a thorough
+knowledge of chemistry and especially toxicology."
+
+"It's easy enough to see that he was left-handed if he pulled that money
+out through the grill from the positions occupied by Trier and his
+guard, but what the dickens led you to suspect that he is a chemist and
+a toxicologist?" asked Carnes as he and the doctor left the bank.
+
+"Merely a shrewd guess, my dear Watson," replied the doctor with a
+chuckle. "I am likely to be wrong, but there is a good chance that I am
+right. I am judging solely from the method used."
+
+"Have you solved the method?" demanded Carnes in amazement. "What on
+earth was it? The more I have thought about it, the more inclined I am
+to believe that Sturtevant is right and that it is an inside job. It
+seems to me impossible that a man could have entered in broad daylight
+and lifted that money in front of three men and within sight of a
+hundred more without some one getting a glimpse of him. He must have
+taken the money out in a grip or a sack or something like that, yet the
+bank record shows that no one but Trier entered with a grip and no one
+left with a package for ten minutes before Trier entered."
+
+"There may be something in what you say, Carnes, but I am inclined to
+have a different idea. I don't think it is the usual run of bank
+robbery, and I would rather not hazard a guess just now. I am going back
+to Washington to-night. Before I go any further into the matter, I need
+some rather specialized knowledge that I don't possess and I want to
+consult with Dr. Knolles. I'll be back in a week or so and then we can
+look into that counterfeiting case after we get this disposed of."
+
+"What am I to do?" asked Carnes.
+
+"Sit around the lobby of your hotel, eat three meals a day, and read the
+papers. If you get bored, I would recommend that you pay a visit to the
+Art Institute and admire the graceful lions which adorn the steps.
+Artistic contemplations may well improve your culture."
+
+"All right," replied Carnes. "I'll assume a pensive air and moon at the
+lions, but I might do better if you told me what I was looking for."
+
+"You are looking for knowledge, my dear Carnes," said the doctor with a
+laugh. "Remember the saying of the sages: To the wise man, no knowledge
+is useless."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A huge Martin bomber roared down to a landing at the Maywood airdrome,
+and a burly figure descended from the rear cockpit and waved his hand
+jovially to the waiting Carnes. The secret service man hastened over to
+greet his colleague.
+
+"Have you got that truck I wired you to have ready?" demanded the
+doctor.
+
+"Waiting at the entrance; but say, I've got some news for you."
+
+"It can wait. Get a detail of men and help us to unload this ship. Some
+of the cases are pretty heavy."
+
+Carnes hurried off and returned with a gang of laborers, who took from
+the bomber a dozen heavy packing cases of various sizes, several of them
+labelled either "Fragile" or "Inflammable" in large type.
+
+"Where do they go, Doctor?" he asked when the last of them had been
+loaded onto the waiting truck.
+
+"To the First National Bank," replied Dr. Bird, "and Casey here goes
+with them. You know Casey, don't you, Carnes? He is the best
+photographer in the Bureau."
+
+"Shall I go along too?" asked Carnes as he acknowledged the
+introduction.
+
+"No need for it. I wired Rogers and he knows the stuff is coming and
+what to do with it. Unpack as soon as you get there, Casey, and start
+setting up as soon as the bank closes."
+
+"All right, Doctor," replied Casey as he mounted the truck beside the
+driver.
+
+"Where do we go, Doctor?" asked Carnes as the truck rolled off.
+
+"To the Blackstone Hotel for a bath and some clean clothes," replied the
+doctor. "And now, what is the news you have for me?"
+
+"The news is this, Doctor. I carried out your instructions diligently
+and, during the daylight hours, the lions have not moved."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Bird looked contrite.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Carnes," he said. "I really didn't think when I left
+you so mystified how you must have felt. Believe me, I had my own
+reasons, excellent ones, for secrecy."
+
+"I have usually been able to maintain silence when asked to," replied
+Carnes stiffly.
+
+"My dear fellow, I didn't mean to question your discretion. I know that
+whatever I tell you is safe, but there are angles to this affair that
+are so weird and improbable that I don't dare to trust my own
+conclusions, let alone share them. I'll tell you all about it soon. Did
+you get those tickets I wired for?"
+
+"Of course I got them, but what have two tickets to the A. A. U. track
+meet this afternoon got to do with a bank robbery?"
+
+"One trouble with you, Carnes," replied the doctor with a judicial air,
+"is that you have no idea of the importance of proper relaxation. Is it
+possible that you have no desire to see Ladd, this new marvel who is
+smashing records right and left, run? He performs for the Illinois
+Athletic Club this afternoon, and it would not surprise me to see him
+lower the world's record again. He has already lowered the record for
+the hundred yard dash from nine and three-fifths to eight and
+four-fifths. There is no telling what he will do."
+
+"Are we going to waste the whole afternoon just to watch a man run?"
+demanded Carnes in disgust.
+
+"We will see many men run, my dear fellow, but there is only one in
+whom I have a deep abiding interest, and that is Mr. Ladd. Have you
+your binoculars with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then by all means beg, borrow or steal two pairs before this afternoon.
+We might easily miss half the fun without them. Are our seats near the
+starting line for the sprints?"
+
+"Yes. The big demand was for seats near the finish line."
+
+"The start will be much more interesting, Carnes. I was somewhat of a
+minor star in track myself in my college days and it will be of the
+greatest interest to me to observe the starting form of this new speed
+artist. Now Carnes, don't ask any more questions. I may be barking up
+the wrong tree and I don't want to give you a chance to laugh at me.
+I'll tell you what to watch for at the track."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sprinters lined up on the hundred yard mark and Dr. Bird and Carnes
+sat with their glasses glued to their eyes watching the slim figure in
+the colors of the Illinois Athletic Club, whose large "62" on his back
+identified him as the new star.
+
+"On your mark!" cried the starter. "Get set!"
+
+"Ah!" cried Dr. Bird. "Did you see that Carnes?"
+
+The starting gun cracked and the runners were off on their short grind.
+Ladd leaped into the lead and rapidly distanced the field, his legs
+twinkling under him almost faster than the eye could follow. He was
+fully twenty yards in the lead when his speed suddenly lessened and the
+balance of the runners closed up the gap he had opened. His lead was too
+great for them, and he was still a good ten yards in the lead when he
+crossed the tape. The official time was posted as eight and nine-tenths
+seconds.
+
+"Another thirty yards and he would have been beaten," said Carnes as he
+lowered his glasses.
+
+"That is the way he has won all of his races," replied the doctor. "He
+piles up a huge lead at first and then loses a good deal at the finish.
+His speed doesn't hold up. Never mind that, though, it is only an
+additional point in my favor. Did you notice his jaws just before the
+gun went?"
+
+"They seemed to clench and then he swallowed, but most of them did some
+thing like that."
+
+"Watch him carefully for the next heat and see if he puts anything into
+his mouth. That is the important thing."
+
+Dr. Bird sank into a brown study and paid no attention to the next few
+events, but he came to attention promptly when the final heat of the
+hundred yard dash was called. With his glasses he watched Ladd closely
+as the runner trotted up to the starting line.
+
+"There, Carnes!" he cried suddenly. "Did you see?"
+
+"I saw him wipe his mouth," said Carnes doubtfully.
+
+"All right, now watch his jaws just before the gun goes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The final heat was a duplicate of the first preliminary. Ladd took an
+early lead which he held for three-fourths of the distance to the tape,
+then his pace slackened and he finished only a bare ten yards ahead of
+the next runner. The time tied his previous world's record of eight and
+four-fifths seconds.
+
+"He crunched and swallowed all right, Doctor," said Carnes.
+
+"That is all I wanted to be sure of. Now Carnes, here is something for
+you to do. Get hold of the United States Commissioner and get a John Doe
+warrant and go back to the hotel with it and wait for me. I may phone
+you at any minute and I may not. If I don't, wait in your room until you
+hear from me. Don't leave it for a minute."
+
+"Where are you going, Doctor?"
+
+"I'm going down and congratulate Mr. Ladd. An old track man like me
+can't let such an opportunity pass."
+
+"I don't know what this is all about, Doctor," replied Carnes, "but I
+know you well enough to obey orders and to keep my mouth shut until it
+is my turn to speak."
+
+Few men could resist Dr. Bird when he set out to make a favorable
+impression, and even a world's champion is apt to be flattered by the
+attention of one of the greatest scientists of his day, especially when
+that scientist has made an enviable reputation as an athlete in his
+college days and can talk the jargon of the champion's particular sport.
+Henry Ladd promptly capitulated to the charm of the doctor and allowed
+himself to be led away to supper at Bird's club. The supper passed off
+pleasantly, and when the doctor requested an interview with the young
+athlete in a private room, he gladly consented. They entered the room
+together, remained for an hour and a half, and then came out. The smile
+had left Ladd's face and he appeared nervous and distracted. The doctor
+talked cheerfully with him but kept a firm grip on his arm as they
+descended the stairs together. They entered a telephone booth where the
+doctor made several calls, and then descended to the street, where they
+entered a taxi.
+
+"Maywood airdrome," the doctor told the driver.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two hours later the big Martin bomber which had carried the doctor to
+Chicago roared away into the night, and Bird turned back, reentered the
+taxi, and headed for the city alone.
+
+When Carnes received the telephone call, which was one of those the
+doctor made from the booth in his club, he hurried over to the First
+National Bank. His badge secured him an entrance and he found Casey
+busily engaged in rigging up an elaborate piece of apparatus on one of
+the balconies where guards were normally stationed during banking hours.
+
+"Dr. Bird said to tell you to keep on the job all night if necessary,"
+he told Casey. "He thinks he will need your machine to-morrow."
+
+"I'll have it ready to turn on the power at four A.M.," replied Casey.
+
+Carnes watched him curiously for a while as he soldered together the
+electrical connections and assembled an apparatus which looked like a
+motion picture projector.
+
+"What are you setting up?" he asked at length.
+
+"It is a high speed motion picture camera," replied Casey, "with a
+telescopic lens. It is a piece of apparatus which Dr. Bird designed
+while he was in Washington last week and which I made from his sketches,
+using some apparatus we had on hand. It's a dandy, all right."
+
+"What is special about it?"
+
+"The speed. You know how fast an ordinary movie is taken, don't you? No?
+Well, it's sixteen exposures per second. The slow pictures are taken
+sometimes at a hundred and twenty-eight or two hundred and fifty-six
+exposures per second, and then shown at sixteen. This affair will take
+half a million pictures per second."
+
+"I didn't know that a film would register with that short an exposure."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's slow," replied Casey with a laugh. "It all depends on the light.
+The best flash-light powder gives a flash about one ten-thousandth of a
+second in duration, but that is by no means the speed limit of the film.
+The only trouble is enough light and sufficient shutter speed. Pictures
+have been taken by means of spark photography with an exposure of less
+than one three-millionth of a second. The whole secret of this machine
+lies in the shutter. This big disc with the slots in the edge is set up
+before the lens and run at such a speed that half a million slots per
+second pass before the lens. The film, which is sixteen millimeter
+X-ray film, travels behind the lens at a speed of nearly five miles per
+second. It has to be gradually worked up to this speed, and after the
+whole thing is set up, it takes it nearly four hours to get to full
+speed."
+
+"At that speed, it must take a million miles of film before you get up
+steam."
+
+"It would, if the film were being exposed. There is only about a hundred
+yards of film all told, which will run over these huge drums in an
+endless belt. There is a regular camera shutter working on an electric
+principle which remains closed. When the switch is tripped, the shutter
+opens in about two thirty-thousandths of a second, stays open just one
+one-hundredth of a second, and then closes. This time is enough to
+expose nearly all of our film. When we have our picture, I shut the
+current down, start applying a magnetic brake, and let it slow down. It
+takes over an hour to stop it without breaking the film. It sounds
+complicated, but it works all right."
+
+"Where is your switch?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That is the trick part of it. It is a remote control affair. The
+shutter opens and starts the machine taking pictures when the back door
+of the paying teller's cage is opened half an inch. There is also a hand
+switch in the line that can be opened so that you can open the door
+without setting off the camera, if you wish. When the hand switch is
+closed and the door opened, this is what happens. The shutter on the
+camera opens, the machine takes five thousand pictures during the next
+hundredth of a second, and then the shutter closes. Those five thousand
+exposures will take about five minutes to show at the usual rate of
+sixteen per second."
+
+"You said that you had to get plenty of light. How are you managing
+that?"
+
+"The camera is equipped with a special lens ground out of rock crystal.
+This lens lets in ultra-violet light which the ordinary lens shuts out,
+and X-ray film is especially sensitive to ultra-violet light. In order
+to be sure that we get enough illumination, I will set up these two
+ultra-violet floodlights to illumine the cage. The teller will have to
+wear glasses to protect his eyes and he'll get well sunburned, but
+something has to be sacrificed to science, as Dr. Bird is always telling
+me."
+
+"It's too deep for me," said Carnes with a sigh. "Can I do anything to
+help? The doctor told me to stand by and do anything I could."
+
+"I might be able to use you a little if you can use tools," said Casey
+with a grin. "You can start bolting together that light proof shield if
+you want to."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Carnes, did you have an instructive night?" asked Dr. Bird
+cheerfully as he entered the First National Bank at eight-thirty the
+next morning.
+
+"I don't see that I did much good, Doctor. Casey would have had the
+machine ready on time anyway, and I'm no machinist."
+
+"Well, frankly, Carnes, I didn't expect you to be of much help to him,
+but I did want you to see what Casey was doing, and a little of it was
+pretty heavy for him to handle alone. I suppose that everything is
+ready?"
+
+"The motor reached full speed about fifteen minutes ago and Casey went
+out to get a cup of coffee. Would you mind telling me the object of the
+whole thing?"
+
+"Not at all. I plan to make a permanent record of the work of the most
+ingenious bank robber in the world. I hope he keeps his word."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Three days ago when Sturtevant sweated a 'confession' out of poor
+Winston, the bank got a message that the robbery would be repeated this
+morning and dared them to prevent it. Rogers thought it was a hoax, but
+he telephoned me and I worked the Bureau men night and day to get my
+camera ready in time for him. I am afraid that I can't do much to
+prevent the robbery, but I may be able to take a picture of it and thus
+prevent other cases of a like nature."
+
+"Was the warning written?"
+
+"No. It was telephoned from a pay station in the loop district, and by
+the time it was traced and men got there, the telephoner was probably a
+mile away. He said that he would rob the same cage in the same manner as
+he did before."
+
+"Aren't you taking any special precautions?"
+
+"Oh, yes, the bank is putting on extra guards and making a lot of fuss
+of that sort, probably to the great amusement of the robber."
+
+"Why not close the cage for the day?"
+
+"Then he would rob a different one and we would have no way of
+photographing his actions. To be sure, we will put dummy money there,
+bundles with bills on the outside and paper on the inside, so if I don't
+get a picture of him, he won't get much. Every bill in the cage will be
+marked as well."
+
+"Did he say at what time he would operate?"
+
+"No, he didn't, so we'll have to stand by all day. Oh, hello, Casey, is
+everything all right?"
+
+"As sweet as chocolate candy, Doctor. I have tested it out thoroughly,
+and unless we have to run it so long that the film wears out and breaks,
+we are sitting pretty. If we don't get the pictures you are looking for,
+I'm a dodo, and I haven't been called that yet."
+
+"Good work, Casey. Keep the bearings oiled and pray that the film
+doesn't break."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bank had been opened only ten minutes when the clangor of gongs
+announced a robbery. It was practically a duplicate of the first. The
+paying teller had turned from his window to take some bills from his
+rack and had found several dozens of bundles missing. As the gongs
+sounded, Dr. Bird and Casey leaped to the camera.
+
+"She snapped, Doctor!" cried Casey as he threw two switches. "It'll take
+an hour to stop and half a day to develop the film, but I ought to be
+able to show you what we got by to-night."
+
+"Good enough!" cried Dr. Bird. "Go ahead while I try to calm down the
+bank officials. Will you have everything ready by eight o'clock?"
+
+"Easy, Doctor," replied Casey as he turned to the magnetic brake.
+
+By eight o'clock quite a crowd had assembled in a private room at the
+Blackstone Hotel. Besides Dr. Bird and Carnes, Rogers and several other
+officials of the First National Bank were present, together with
+Detective-Captain Sturtevant and a group of the most prominent
+scientists and physicians gathered from the schools of the city.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Dr. Bird when all had taken seats facing a miniature
+moving picture screen on one wall, "to-night I expect to show you some
+pictures which will, I am sure, astonish you. It marks the advent of a
+new departure in transcendental medicine. I will be glad to answer any
+questions you may wish to ask and to explain the pictures after they are
+shown, but before we start a discussion, I will ask that you examine
+what I have to show you. Lights out, please!"
+
+He stepped to the rear of the room as the lights went out. As his eyes
+grew used to the dimness of the room he moved forward and took a vacant
+seat. His hand fumbled in his pocket for a second.
+
+"Now!" he cried suddenly.
+
+In the momentary silence which followed his cry, two dull metallic
+clicks could be heard, and a quick cry that was suddenly strangled as
+Dr. Bird clamped his hand over the mouth of the man who sat between him
+and Carnes.
+
+"All right, Casey," called the doctor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whir of a projection machine could be heard and on the screen before
+them leaped a picture of the paying teller's cage of the First National
+Bank. Winston's successor was standing motionless at the wicket, his
+lips parted in a smile, but the attention of all was riveted on a figure
+who moved at the back of the cage. As the picture started, the figure
+was bent over an opened suitcase, stuffing into it bundles of bills. He
+straightened up and reached to the rack for more bills, and as he did so
+he faced the camera full for a moment. He picked up other bundles of
+bills, filled the suitcase, fastened it in a leisurely manner, opened
+the rear door of the cage and walked out.
+
+"Again, please!" called Dr. Bird. "And stop when he faces us full."
+
+The picture was repeated and stopped at the point indicated.
+
+"Lights, please!" cried the doctor.
+
+The lights flashed on and Dr. Bird rose to his feet, pulling up after
+him the wilted figure of a middle-aged man.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the doctor in ringing tones, "allow me to present to
+you Professor James Kirkwood of the faculty of the Richton University,
+formerly known as James Collier of the Bureau of Standards, and robber
+of the First National Bank."
+
+Detective-Captain Sturtevant jumped to his feet and cast a searching
+glance at the captive.
+
+"He's the man all right," he cried. "Hang on to him until I get a wagon
+here!"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Carnes. "He's under federal arrest just now, charged
+with the possession of narcotics. When we are through with him, you can
+have him if you want him."
+
+"How did you get that picture, Doctor?" cried the cashier. "I watched
+that cage every minute during the morning and I'll swear that man never
+entered and stole that money as the picture shows, unless he managed to
+make himself invisible."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're closer to the truth than you suspect, Mr. Rogers," said Dr.
+Bird. "It is not quite a matter of invisibility, but something pretty
+close to it. It is a matter of catalysts."
+
+"What kind of cats?" asked the cashier.
+
+"Not cats, Mr. Rogers, catalysts. Catalysts is the name of a chemical
+reaction consisting essentially of a decomposition and a new combination
+effected by means of a catalyst which acts on the compound bodies in
+question, but which goes through the reaction itself unchanged. There
+are a great many of them which are used in the arts and in
+manufacturing, and while their action is not always clearly understood,
+the results are well known and can be banked on.
+
+"One of the commonest instances of the use of a catalyst is the use of
+sponge platinum in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. I will not burden
+you with the details of the 'contact' process, as it is known, but the
+combination is effected by means of finely divided platinum which is
+neither changed, consumed or wasted during the process. While there are
+a number of other catalysts known, for instance iron in reactions in
+which metallic magnesium is concerned, the commonest are the metals of
+the platinum group.
+
+"Less is known of the action of catalysts in the organic reactions, but
+it has been the subject of intensive study by Dr. Knolles of the Bureau
+of Standards for several years. His studies of the effects of different
+colored lights, that is, rays of different wave-lengths, on the
+reactions which constitute growth in plants have had a great effect on
+hothouse forcing of plants and promise to revolutionize the truck
+gardening industry. He has speeded up the rate of growth to as high as
+ten times the normal rate in some cases.
+
+"A few years ago, he and his assistant, James Collier, turned their
+attention toward discovering a catalyst which would do for the metabolic
+reactions in animal life what his light rays did for plants. What his
+method was, I will not disclose for obvious reasons, but suffice it to
+say that he met with great success. He took a puppy and by treating it
+with his catalytic drugs, made it grow to maturity, pass through its
+entire normal life span, and die of old age in six months."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That is very interesting, Doctor, but I fail to see what bearing it has
+on the robbery."
+
+"Mr. Rogers, how, on a dark day and in the absence of a timepiece, would
+you judge the passage of time?"
+
+"Why, by my stomach, I guess."
+
+"Exactly. By your metabolic rate. You eat a meal, it digests, you expend
+the energy which you have taken into your system, your stomach becomes
+empty and your system demands more energy. You are hungry and you judge
+that some five or six hours must have passed since you last ate. Do you
+follow?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Let us suppose that by means of some tonic, some catalytic drug, your
+rate of metabolism and also your rate of expenditure of energy has been
+increased six fold. You would eat a meal and in one hour you would be
+hungry again. Having no timepiece, and assuming that you were in a
+light-proof room, you would judge that some five hours had passed, would
+you not?"
+
+"I expect so."
+
+"Very well. Now suppose that this accelerated rate of digestion and
+expenditure of energy continued. You would be sleepy in perhaps three
+hours, would sleep about an hour and a quarter, and would then wake,
+ready for your breakfast. In other words, you would have lived through a
+day in four hours."
+
+"What advantage would there be in that?"
+
+"None, from your standpoint. It would, however, increase the rate of
+reproduction of cattle greatly and might be a great boom to agriculture,
+but we will not discuss this phase now. Suppose it were possible to
+increase your rate of metabolism and expenditure of energy, in other
+words, your rate of living, not six times, but thirty thousand times. In
+such a case you would live five minutes in one one-hundredth of a
+second."
+
+"Naturally, and you would live a year in about seventeen and one-half
+minutes, and a normal lifespan of seventy years in about twenty hours.
+You would be as badly off as any common may-fly."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Agreed, but suppose that you could so regulate the dose of your
+catalyst that its effect would last for only one one-hundredth of a
+second. During that short period of time, you would be able to do the
+work that would ordinarily take you five minutes. In other words, you
+could enter a bank, pack a satchel with currency and walk out. You would
+be working in a leisurely manner, yet your actions would have been so
+quick that no human eye could have detected them. This is my theory of
+what actually took place. For verification, I will turn to Dr. Kirkwood,
+as he prefers to be known now."
+
+"I don't know how you got that picture, but what you have said is about
+right," replied the prisoner.
+
+"I got that picture by using a speed of thirty thousand times the normal
+sixteen exposures per second," replied Dr. Bird. "That figure I got from
+Dr. Knolles, the man who perfected the secret you stole when you left
+the Bureau three years ago. You secured only part of it and I suppose it
+took all your time since to perfect and complete it. You gave yourself
+away when you experimented on young Ladd. I was a track man myself in my
+college days and when I saw an account of his running, I smelt a rat, so
+I came back and watched him. As soon as I saw him crush and swallow a
+capsule just as the gun was fired, I was sure, and got hold of him. He
+was pretty stubborn, but he finally told me what name you were running
+under now, and the rest was easy. I would have got you in time anyway,
+but your bravado in telling us when you would next operate gave me the
+idea of letting you do it and photographing you at work. That is all I
+have to say. Captain Sturtevant, you can take your prisoner whenever you
+want him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I reckoned without you, Dr. Bird, but the end hasn't come yet. You may
+send me up for a few years, but you'll never find that money. I'm sure
+of that."
+
+"Tut, tut, Professor," laughed Carnes. "Your safety deposit box in the
+Commercial National is already sealed until a court orders it opened.
+The bills you took this morning were all marked, so that is merely
+additional proof, if we needed it. You surely didn't think that such a
+transparent device as changing your name from 'James Collier' to 'John
+Collyer' and signing with your left hand instead of your right would
+fool the secret service, did you? Remember, your old Bureau records
+showed you to be ambidextrous."
+
+"What about Winston's confession?" asked Rogers suddenly.
+
+"Detective-Captain Sturtevant can explain that to a court when Mr.
+Winston brings suit against him for false arrest and brutal treatment,"
+replied Carnes.
+
+"A very interesting case, Carnes," remarked the doctor a few hours
+later. "It was an enjoyable interlude in the routine of most of the
+cases on which you consult me, but our play time is over. We'll have to
+get after that counterfeiting case to-morrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+IN THE NEXT ISSUE
+
+  BRIGANDS OF THE MOON
+  _Beginning an Amazing Four-part Interplanetary Novel_
+  By RAY CUMMINGS
+
+  THE SOUL MASTER
+  _A Thrilling Novelette of the Substitution of Personality_
+  By WILL SMITH and R. J. ROBBINS
+
+  COLD LIGHT
+  _An Extraordinary Scientific Mystery_
+  By CAPT. S. P. MEEK
+
+--_AND MANY OTHER STORIES, OF COURSE_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: "_She is Yours, Master!_"]
+
+Sick at heart, the trembling girl shuddered at the words that delivered
+her to this terrible fate of the East. How could she escape from this
+Oriental monster into whose hands she had been given--this mysterious
+man of mighty power whose face none had yet seen?
+
+    Here is an _extraordinary situation_. What was to be the fate of
+    this beautiful girl? Who was this strange emissary whom no one
+    really knew?
+
+_To know the answer to this and the most exciting tales of Oriental
+adventure and mystery ever told, read on through the most thrilling,
+absorbing, entertaining and fascinating pages ever written._
+
+  Masterpieces of Oriental Mystery
+  11 Superb Volumes by SAX ROHMER
+  Written with his uncanny knowledge of things Oriental
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: _New!_ _Patented_]
+
+Just A Twist Of The Wrist
+
+Banishes Old-Style Can Openers to the Scrap Heap and BRINGS AGENTS $5 to
+$12 IN AN HOUR
+
+Women universally detest the old-style can opener. Yet in every home in
+the land cans are being opened with it, often several times a day.
+Imagine how thankfully they welcome this new method--this automatic way
+of doing their most distasteful job. With the Speedo can opening machine
+you can just put the can in the machine, turn the handle, and almost
+instantly the job is done.
+
+
+End This Waste and Danger
+
+You undoubtedly know what a nasty, dangerous job it is to open cans with
+the old-fashioned can opener. You have to hack your way along
+slowly--ripping a jagged furrow around the edge. Next thing you know,
+the can opener slips. Good night! You've torn a hole in your finger. As
+often as not it will get infected and stay sore a long time. Perhaps
+even your life will be endangered from blood poisoning!
+
+You may be lucky enough to get the can open without cutting yourself.
+But there's still the fact to consider that the ragged edge of tin left
+around the top makes it almost impossible to pour out all of the food.
+Yet now, all this trouble, waste and danger is ended. No wonder salesmen
+everywhere are finding this invention a truly revolutionary money maker!
+
+
+New "Million Dollar" Can Opening Machine
+
+The Speedo holds the can--opens it, flips up the lid so you can grab
+it--and gives you back the can without a drop spilled, without any rough
+edges to snag your fingers--all in a couple of seconds! It's so easy
+even a 10-year-old child can do it in perfect safety! No wonder
+women--and men, too--simply go wild over it! No wonder Speedo salesmen
+often sell to every house in the block and make up to $10 an hour.
+
+
+Generous Free Test Offer
+
+Frankly, men, I realize that the profit possibilities of this
+proposition as outlined briefly here may seem almost incredible to you.
+So I've worked out a plan by-which you can examine the invention and
+test its profits without risking one penny.
+
+Get my free test offer while the territory you want is still open--I'll
+hold it for you while you make the test. I'll send you all the facts
+about others making $25 to $150 in a week. I'll also tell you about
+another fast-selling item that brings you two profits on every call. All
+you risk is a 2¢ stamp--so grab your pencil and shoot me the coupon
+right now.
+
+
+AGENTS!
+
+Full Time $265 in a Week
+
+"Here is my record for first 50 days with Speedo:
+
+  June 13,   60 Speedos;
+  June 20,   84 Speedos;
+  June 30,  192 Speedos;
+  July  6,  288 Speedos.
+
+Speedo sells to 9 out of 10 prospects."
+
+M. Ornoff, Va.
+
+  PART TIME
+  14 sales in 2 hours
+
+J. J. Corwin, Ariz., says: "Send more order books. I sold first 14
+orders in 2 hours."
+
+  SPARE TIME
+  Big Money Spare Time
+
+Bart, W. Va. says:
+
+"Was only out a few evenings, and got 20 orders."
+
+
+  CENTRAL STATES MFG. CO., Dept. B-2403
+  4500 Mary Ave. (Est. over 20 years) St. Louis, Mo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  SPEEDO
+
+  Central States Mfg. Co.,
+  4500 Mary Ave. Dept. B-2403
+  St. Louis, Mo.
+
+Yes, rush me the facts and details of your FREE OFFER.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+  [ ] Check here if interested only in one for your home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Half a Million People
+
+_have learned music this easy way_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+You, too, Can Learn to Play Your Favorite Instrument Without a Teacher
+
+_Easy as_ A-B-C
+
+Yes, half a million delighted men and women all over the world have
+learned music this quick, easy way.
+
+Half a million--500,000--what a gigantic orchestra they would make! Some
+are playing on the stage, others in orchestras, and many thousands are
+daily enjoying the pleasure and popularity of being able to play some
+instrument.
+
+Surely this is convincing proof of the success of the _new, modern
+method_ perfected by the U.S. School of Music! And what these people
+have done, YOU, too, can do!
+
+Many of this half million didn't know one note from another--others had
+never touched an instrument--yet in half the usual time they learned to
+play their favorite instrument. Best of all, they found learning music
+_amazingly_ easy. No monotonous hours of exercises--no tedious
+scales--no expensive teachers. This simplified method made learning
+music as easy as A-B-C!
+
+It is like a fascinating game. From the very start you are playing
+_real_ tunes, perfectly, by _note_. You simply can't go wrong, for every
+step, from beginning to end, is right before your eyes in print and
+picture. First you are _told_ how to do a thing, then a picture _shows_
+you how, then you do it yourself and _hear_ it. And almost before you
+know it, you are playing your favorite pieces--jazz, ballads, classics.
+No private teacher could make it clearer. Little theory--plenty of
+accomplishment. That's why students of the U.S. School of Music get
+ahead twice as fast--_three times as fast_ as those who study
+old-fashioned, plodding methods.
+
+You don't need any special "talent." Many of the half-million who have
+already become accomplished players never dreamed they possessed musical
+ability. They only wanted to play some instrument--just like you--and
+they found they could quickly learn how this easy way. Just a little of
+your spare time each day is needed--and you enjoy every minute of it.
+The cost is surprisingly low--averaging only a few cents a day--and the
+price is the same for whatever instrument you choose. And remember, you
+are studying right in your own home--without paying big fees to private
+teachers.
+
+Don't miss any more good times! Learn now to play your favorite
+instrument and surprise all your friends. Change from a wallflower to
+the center of attraction. Music is the best thing to offer at a
+party--musicians are invited everywhere. Enjoy the popularity you have
+been missing. Get your share of the musician's pleasure and profit!
+Start now!
+
+
+Free Booklet and Demonstration Lesson
+
+If you are in earnest about wanting to join the crowd of entertainers
+and be a "big hit" at any party--if you really _do_ want to play your
+favorite instrument, to become a performer whose services will be in
+demand--fill out and mail the convenient coupon asking for our Free
+Booklet and Free Demonstration Lesson. These explain our wonderful
+method fully and show you how easily and quickly you can learn to play
+at little expense. This booklet will also tell you all about the amazing
+new _Automatic Finger Control_. Instruments are supplied when
+needed--cash or credit, U.S. School of Music 3692 Brunswick Bldg., New
+York City.
+
+  WHAT INSTRUMENT FOR YOU?
+  Piano
+  Organ
+  Violin
+  Clarinet
+  Flute
+  Harp
+  Coronet
+  'Cello
+  Guitar
+  Ukulele
+  Saxophone
+  Banjo, (Plectrum 5-String or Tenor)
+  Piccolo
+  Hawaiian Steel Guitar
+  Drums and Traps
+  Mandolin
+  Sight Singing
+  Trombone
+  Piano
+  Accordion
+  Voice and Speech Culture
+  Harmony and Composition
+  Automatic Finger Control
+  Italian and German Accordion
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  U.S. SCHOOL OF MUSIC,
+  3692 Brunswick Bldg., New York City.
+
+Please send me your free book, "Music Lessons in Your Own Home," with
+introduction by Dr. Frank Crane, Free Demonstration Lesson, and
+particulars of your easy payment plan. I am interested in the following
+course:
+
+              Have you an instrument: .........
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Only 28 years old and earning $15,000 a year
+
+[Illustration: _Works in Shoe Factory_]
+
+W. T. Carson was forced to leave school at an early age. His help was
+needed at home. He took a "job" in a shoe factory in Huntington, W. Va.,
+at $12 a week.
+
+[Illustration: _Starts Studying at Home_]
+
+Carson determined to make something of himself before it was too late,
+so he took up a course with the International Correspondence Schools and
+studied in spare time.
+
+[Illustration: _Now Owns Big Business_]
+
+Today W. T. Carson is the owner of one of the largest battery service
+stations in West Virginia, with an income of $15,000 a year. And he is
+only 28 years old!
+
+[Illustration: _Lectures at College_]
+
+Just a few months ago a large college asked Carson to lecture before a
+class in electricity. That shows the practical value of his I. C. S.
+course.
+
+[Illustration: _How to Earn More Money_]
+
+If the I. C. S. can smooth the path to success for men like W. T. Carson
+it can help you. If it can help other men to earn more money it can help
+you too.
+
+[Illustration: _The Boss is Watching You_]
+
+Show him you are ambitious and are really trying to get ahead. Decide
+today that you are at least going to find out all about the I. C. S.
+and what it can do for you.
+
+=INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS. Box 2124-E, Scranton, Penns.=
+
+Without cost or obligation, please send me a copy of your booklet, "=Who
+Wins and Why=," and full particulars about the course _before_ which I
+have marked X in the list below:
+
+
+BUSINESS TRAINING COURSES
+
+  [ ] Business Management
+  [ ] Industrial Management
+  [ ] Personnel Management
+  [ ] Traffic Management
+  [ ] Accounting and C.P.A. Coaching
+  [ ] Cost Accounting
+  [ ] Bookkeeping
+  [ ] Secretarial Work
+  [ ] Spanish
+  [ ] French
+  [ ] Salesmanship
+  [ ] Advertising
+  [ ] Business Correspondence
+  [ ] Show Card and Sign Lettering
+  [ ] Stenography and Typing
+  [ ] English
+  [ ] Civil Service
+  [ ] Railway Mail Clerk
+  [ ] Mail Carrier
+  [ ] Grade School Subjects
+  [ ] High School Subjects
+  [ ] Cartooning
+  [ ] Illustrating
+  [ ] Lumber Dealer
+
+
+TECHNICAL AND INDUSTRIAL COURSES
+
+  [ ] Architect
+  [ ] Architectural Draftsman
+  [ ] Building Foreman
+  [ ] Concrete Builder
+  [ ] Contractor and Builder
+  [ ] Structural Draftsman
+  [ ] Structural Engineer
+  [ ] Electrical Engineer
+  [ ] Electrical Contractor
+  [ ] Electric Wiring
+  [ ] Electric Lighting
+  [ ] Electric Car Running
+  [ ] Telegraph Engineer
+  [ ] Telephone Work
+  [ ] Mechanical Engineer
+  [ ] Mechanical Draftsman
+  [ ] Machine Shop Practice
+  [ ] Toolmaker
+  [ ] Patternmaker
+  [ ] Civil Engineer
+  [ ] Surveying and Mapping
+  [ ] Bridge Engineer
+  [ ] Gas Engine Operating
+  [ ] Automobile Work
+  [ ] Aviation Engines
+  [ ] Plumber and Steam Fitter
+  [ ] Plumbing Inspector
+  [ ] Foreman Plumber
+  [ ] Heating and Ventilation
+  [ ] Sheet-Metal Worker
+  [ ] Steam Engineer
+  [ ] Marine Engineer
+  [ ] Refrigeration Engineer
+  [ ] R.R. Positions
+  [ ] Highway Engineer
+  [ ] Chemistry
+  [ ] Pharmacy
+  [ ] Mining Engineer
+  [ ] Navigation
+  [ ] Assayer
+  [ ] Iron and Steel Worker
+  [ ] Textile Overseer or Supt.
+  [ ] Cotton Manufacturing
+  [ ] Woolen Manufacturing
+  [ ] Agriculture
+  [ ] Fruit Growing
+  [ ] Poultry Farming
+  [ ] Mathematics
+  [ ] Radio
+
+  Name ................. Address ..............
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LET RCA INSTITUTES START YOU ON THE ROAD TO ... SUCCESS IN RADIO
+
+[Illustration: Radio-Mechanic and Inspector $1800 to $4000 a Year.]
+
+[Illustration: Broadcast Station Mechanic $1800 to $3600 a Year.]
+
+[Illustration: Land Station Operator $1800 to $4000 a Year.]
+
+[Illustration: Broadcast Operators $1800 to $4800 a Year.]
+
+_Radio needs you_.... That's why the entire Radio industry is calling
+for trained men. Radio is thrilling work ... easy hours, vacations with
+pay and a chance to see the world. Manufacturers and broadcasting
+stations are now eagerly seeking trained RCA Institutes men. Millions of
+sets need servicing ... thousands of ships require experienced
+operators.... Never before was there an opportunity like this!
+
+
+_This is the Only Course Sponsored by Radio Corporation of America_
+
+RCA sets the standards for the entire Radio industry.... The RCA
+Institutes' Home Laboratory Training Course enables you to quickly learn
+all the secrets of Radio.... In your spare time you can obtain a
+thorough, practical education in Radio.
+
+You learn Radio by actual experience with the remarkable outlay of
+apparatus given to every student. That's why every graduate of RCA
+Institutes has the experience, the ability and the confidence to hold a
+big-money Radio job.
+
+For the added convenience of students who prefer a Resident
+Study Course, RCA Institutes, Inc., has established Resident Schools in
+the following cities:
+
+  New York                326 Broadway
+  Boston, Mass.        899 Boylston St.
+  Philadelphia, Pa.   1211 Chestnut St.
+  Baltimore, Md.    1215 N. Charles St.
+  Newark, N.J.            560 Broad St.
+
+Home Study graduates may also attend any one of our resident schools for
+post-graduate instruction at no extra charge.
+
+
+_Graduates of RCA Institutes Find It Easier to Get Good Jobs_
+
+Students of RCA Institutes get first-hand knowledge, get it quickly and
+get it complete. Success in Radio depends upon training and that's the
+training you get with RCA Institutes. That's why every graduate of RCA
+Institutes who desired a position has been able to get one.... That's
+why graduates are always in big demand!
+
+
+_Study Radio at the Oldest and Largest Commercial Training Organization
+in the World_
+
+Send for this Free Book ... or step in at any of our resident schools
+and see for yourself how thousands of men are already on the road to
+success in Radio. Remember that you, too, can speed up your earning
+capacity ... can earn more money in Radio than you ever earned before.
+The man who trains today will hold down the big-money Radio job of the
+future. Come in and get this free book or send for it by mail.
+Everything you want to know about Radio. 40 fascinating pages, packed
+with pictures and descriptions of the brilliant opportunities in this
+gigantic, world-wide money-making profession.
+
+=SEND FOR IT TODAY!=
+
+
+Clip this Coupon _NOW_!
+
+  SPONSORED BY
+  RCA INSTITUTES, INC.
+
+  Formerly
+  Radio Institute of America
+
+[Illustration: RCA]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  RCA INSTITUTES, Inc.
+  Dept. NS-2, 326 Broadway,
+  New York, N.Y.
+
+Gentlemen: Please send me your FREE 40-page book which illustrates the
+brilliant opportunities in Radio and describes your laboratory-method of
+instruction at home!
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"INTO THE AFRICAN BLUE"
+
+_High Spots in the Life of a Big Game Photographer_
+
+_By_ MARTIN JOHNSON
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Into the African Blue" is Africa--the land of romance--of adventure.
+
+African big game is rapidly being shot off; the end is in sight, and it
+is for the purpose of recording in pictures and in story the remarkable
+wild life which soon must vanish, that Martin and Osa Johnson undertake
+their safaris into the remotest corners of the "Blue."
+
+Johnson's photographs are magnificent! They portray the primitive drama
+of the wilderness. We see close-ups of elephants and giraffes suckling
+their young; lions lolling in the broiling sun or disputing possession
+of a zebra kill. We are introduced into the inner family circle of
+rhinos, leopards, eland, oryx, gazelle and others--all unconscious of
+the nearby presence of man. And there are, of course, thrilling moments
+when a cantankerous rhino, elephant or lion resents the intrusion and
+charges the camera with deadly intent.
+
+=This thrilling serial, profusely illustrated with photographs by the
+author, began in the December issue of FOREST and STREAM. Follow Martin
+and Osa Johnson through the Soudan, the Congo, Kenya and Tanganyika;
+share their adventures=--
+
+  Forest and Stream
+  80 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y.
+
+
+SPECIAL OFFER
+
+In addition to this thrilling serial, which in book form would cost not
+less than $3.00, the next six issues of FOREST and STREAM will contain
+much of interest to the outdoorsman--angler, hunter, camper and nature
+lover.
+
+FOREST and STREAM brings to you the best outdoor literature written by
+the foremost authorities in their respective fields. By making use of
+the coupon to the left you can secure six issues of FOREST and STREAM
+containing the complete story "Into the African Blue" for the special
+price of $1.00, and you will receive in addition to the magazine and
+without extra cost volumes 1 and 2 of the Sportsmen's Encyclopedia, an
+invaluable reference book which presents in handy form accurate and
+comprehensive information on every branch of outdoor sport.
+
+Send in the coupon--"_DO IT NOW!_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Department C
+
+Here's my $1.00. I want the 6 issues beginning with the December number,
+and Vols. 1 and 2 of the Sportsmen's Encyclopedia.
+
+...............................................
+
+...............................................
+
+...............................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+I Will Train You at Home to Fill a Big-Pay Radio Job
+
+_Here's the_ PROOF
+
+=$375 One Month In Spare Time=
+
+"Recently I made $375 in one month in my spare time installing,
+servicing, selling Radio Sets."
+
+  Earle Cummings,
+  18 Webster St.,
+  Haverhill, Mass.
+
+=$450 a Month=
+
+"I work in what I believe to be the largest and best-equipped Radio shop
+in the Southwest and also operate KGFI. I am averaging $450 a month."
+
+  Frank M. Jones,
+  922 Guadalupe St.,
+  San Angelo, Tex.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+You can build 100 circuits with the six big outfits of
+Radio parts I give you
+
+_3 of the 100 you can build_
+
+_Find out quick about this practical way to big pay_
+
+If you are earning a penny less than $50 a week, send for my book of
+information on the opportunities in Radio. It's FREE. Clip the coupon
+NOW. A flood of gold is pouring into Radio, creating hundreds of big-pay
+jobs. Why go along at $25, $30 or $45 a week when the good jobs in Radio
+pay $50, $75 and up to $250 a week? "Rich Rewards in Radio" gives full
+information on these big jobs and explains how you can quickly learn
+Radio through my easy, practical home-study training.
+
+
+Salaries of $50 to $250 a Week Not Unusual
+
+The amazing growth of Radio has astounded the world. In a few short
+years three hundred thousand jobs have been created. And the biggest
+growth is still to come. That's why salaries of $50 to $250 a week are
+not unusual. Radio simply hasn't got nearly the number of thoroughly
+trained men it needs.
+
+
+You Can Learn Quickly and Easily in Spare Time
+
+Hundreds of N. R. I. trained men are today making big money--holding
+down big jobs--in the Radio field. You, too, should get into Radio. You
+can stay home, hold your job and learn in your spare time. Lack of high
+school education or Radio experience are no drawbacks.
+
+
+Many Earn $15, $20, $30 Weekly On the Side While Learning
+
+I teach you to begin making money shortly after you enroll. My new
+practical method makes this possible. I give you SIX BIG OUTFITS of
+Radio parts and teach you to build practically every type of receiving
+set known. M. E. Sullivan, 412 73rd St., Brooklyn, N.Y., writes: "I made
+$720 while studying." G. W. Page, 1807 21st Ave. S., Nashville, Tenn.,
+"I picked up $935 in my spare time while studying."
+
+
+Your Money Back If Not Satisfied
+
+My course fits you for all lines--manufacturing, selling, servicing
+sets, in business for yourself, operating on board ship, or in a
+broadcasting station--and many others. I back up my training with a
+signed agreement to refund every penny of your money if, after
+completion, you are not satisfied with the lessons and instructions I
+give you.
+
+
+Act NOW--NEW 64-Page Book is FREE
+
+[Illustration: RADIO NEEDS TRAINED MEN!]
+
+Send for this big book of Radio information. It has put hundreds of
+fellows on the road to bigger pay and success. Get it. See what Radio
+offers you, and how my Employment Department helps you get into Radio
+after you graduate. Clip or tear out the coupon and mail it RIGHT NOW.
+
+  J. E. Smith, President, Dept. OBM
+  National Radio Institute
+  Washington, D.C.
+
+
+Employment Service to all Graduates
+
+Originators of Radio Home Study Training
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mail This FREE COUPON Today
+
+  J. E. Smith, President,
+  Dept. OBM, National Radio Institute,
+  Washington, D.C.
+
+Dear Mr. Smith: Send me your Free book "Rich Rewards in Radio," giving
+information on the big-money opportunities in Radio and your practical
+method of teaching with six Radio Outfits. I understand this places me
+under no obligation.
+
+  Name ......................... Age ..........
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_A Year's Protection Against_ SICKNESS
+
+Less than 3¢ a Day!
+
+_A Year's Protection Against_ ACCIDENT
+
+[Illustration: CASH _or sympathy_?]
+
+
+_Which do you want?_
+
+Suppose you met with an accident or sickness to-night--salary
+stopped--which would you prefer,
+
+$25 Weekly ... or Sympathy?
+
+_Which will your family want?_
+
+In case of your accidental death, which would you rather give your
+family
+
+
+$10,000 Cash ... or Sympathy?
+
+_Which would you Pay?_
+
+Would you rather pay bills and household expenses out of a slim savings
+account or a
+
+=$10 bill=
+
+
+_For a Whole Year's Protection Against_
+
+SICKNESS AND ACCIDENT
+
+_Get Cash instead of Sympathy_
+
+If you met with an accident in your home, on the street, or road, in the
+field, or on your job--will your income continue? Remember, few escape
+without accident--and none of us can tell what to-morrow holds for us.
+While you are reading this warning, somewhere some ghastly tragedy is
+taking its toll of human life or limb, some flood or fire, some
+automobile or train disaster. Protect yourself now.
+
+_Get Cash instead of Sympathy_
+
+If you suddenly became ill--would your income stop? What if you
+contracted lobar pneumonia, appendicitis operation, or any of the many
+common ills which are covered in this strong policy, wouldn't you rest
+easier and convalesce more quickly if you knew that this old line
+company stood ready to help lift from your shoulders distressing
+financial burdens in case of a personal tragedy. Protect yourself now.
+
+_Get Cash instead of Sympathy_
+
+=Don't Wait for Misfortune to Overtake You=
+
+_Mail the Coupon today!_
+
+Mail the Coupon before it's too late to protect yourself against the
+chances of fate picking you out as its next victim.
+
+  =NO MEDICAL EXAMINATION=
+
+  $10 A Year Entire Costs. No Dues. No Assessments.
+
+  =MEN AND WOMEN=
+  16 to 70 Years Accepted.
+
+  =$10,000=
+  Principal Sum.
+
+  =$10,000=
+  Loss of hands, feet or eyesight.
+
+  =$25 Weekly Benefits=
+  for stated accidents or sicknesses.
+
+Doctor's Bills, Hospital Benefit, Emergency Benefit and other liberal
+features to help in time of need--all clearly shown in policy.
+
+This is a simple and understandable policy--without complicated or
+misleading clauses. You know exactly what every word means--and every
+word means exactly what it says.
+
+=Largest and Oldest Exclusive Health and Accident Insurance Company in
+America.=
+
+_Under Supervision of All State Insurance Departments_
+
+=ESTABLISHED OVER 40 YEARS=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  North American Accident Insurance Co., [of Chicago]
+  388 Wallach Building, Newark, New Jersey.
+
+Gentlemen: At no cost to me send details of New $10,000 Premier $10
+Policy.
+
+  _Name_ ............................
+
+  _Address_ .........................
+
+  _City_ ............................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Pledge to the Public on Used Car Sales
+
+1 Every used car is conspicuously marked with its lowest price in plain
+figures, and that price, just as the price of our new cars, is rigidly
+maintained.
+
+2 All Studebaker automobiles which are marked as CERTIFIED CARS have
+been properly reconditioned, and carry a 30-day guarantee for
+replacement of defective parts and free service on adjustments.
+
+3 Every purchaser of a used car may drive it for five days, and then, if
+not satisfied for any reason, bring it back and apply the money paid as
+a credit on the purchase of any other car in stock--new or used. (It is
+assumed that the car has not been damaged in the meantime.)
+
+© 1929 The Studebaker Corporation of America.
+
+
+You can save money and get a better motor car
+
+_if you buy according to the Studebaker Pledge plan_
+
+OVER 150,000 THRIFTY AMERICAN CITIZENS DID LAST YEAR!
+
+A well constructed car, sold at 40 or 50 per cent of its original price,
+offers maximum transportation value. Studebaker dealers offer many fine
+used cars--Studebakers, Erskines and other makes--which have been driven
+only a few thousand miles.
+
+Reconditioning of mechanical parts, refinishing of bodies give new car
+life to these cars at prices no greater than you must pay for a cheap
+new car. And as a final measure of protection, these cars are sold
+according to the Studebaker Pledge--which offers 5 days' driving trial
+on all cars and a 30-day guarantee on all certified cars.
+
+Prices being plainly marked provides the same price for everyone.
+Millions of people buy "used" houses. Every car on the road is a used
+car the week after it is purchased.
+
+_Invest 2¢--you may save $200_
+
+Mail the coupon below for the free booklet.--The 2¢ stamp is an
+investment which may save you as much as $200 in buying a motorcar!
+
+[Illustration: How to judge a used car]
+
+
+STUDEBAKER
+
+_Builder of Champions_
+
+  The Studebaker Corporation of America
+  Dept. 232, South Bend, Indiana
+
+  Please send me copy of "How to Judge a Used Car"
+
+  _Name_ ..........................................
+
+  _Street_ ........................................
+
+  _City_ ...................... _State_ ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: Amazingly Easy Way to Get Into ELECTRICITY]
+
+Don't spend your life waiting for $5 raises in a dull, hopeless job. Now
+... and forever ... say good-bye to 25 and 35 dollars a week. Let me
+teach you how to prepare for positions that lead to $50, $64, and on up
+to $200 a week in Electricity--NOT by correspondence, but by an amazing
+way to teach =right here in the great Coyne Shops= that makes you a
+practical expert in 90 days! Getting into electricity is far easier than
+you imagine!
+
+
+LEARN WITHOUT BOOKS--In 90 Days _By Actual Work--in the Great Coyne
+Shops_
+
+Lack of experience--age, or advanced education bars no one. I don't care
+if you don't know an armature from an air brake--I don't expect you to!
+It makes no difference! Don't let lack of money stop you. Most of the
+men at Coyne have no more money than you have. That's why I have worked
+out my astonishing offers.
+
+
+_Earn While Learning_
+
+If you need part-time work to help pay your living expenses I'll help
+you get it and when you graduate I'll give you lifetime employment
+service. And, in 12 brief weeks, =in the great roaring shops of Coyne=,
+I train you as you never dreamed you could be trained ... on one of the
+greatest outlays of electrical apparatus ever assembled ... real
+dynamos, engines, power plants, autos, switchboards, transmitting
+stations ... everything from door bells to farm power and lighting ...
+full sized ... in full operation every day!
+
+
+_No Books--No Lessons_
+
+No dull books, no baffling charts, no classes, you get individual
+training ... all real actual work ... building real batteries ...
+winding real armatures, operating real motors, dynamos and generators,
+wiring houses, etc.
+
+=GET THE FACTS= Coyne is your one great chance to get into electricity.
+Every obstacle is removed. This school is 30 years old--Coyne training
+is tested--proven beyond all doubt--endorsed by many large electrical
+concerns. You can find out everything absolutely free. Simply mail the
+coupon and let me send you the big, free Coyne book of 150 photographs
+... facts ... jobs ... salaries ... opportunities. Tells you how many
+earn expenses while training and how we assist our graduates in the
+field. This does not obligate you. So act at once. Just mail coupon.
+
+
+BIG BOOK _FREE_!
+
+Send for my big book containing 150 photographs telling complete
+story--absolutely FREE
+
+  COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL
+  500 S. Paulina St., Dept. 20-66, Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL, H. C. Lewis, Pres.
+  500 S. Paulina Street,
+  Dept. 20-66,
+  Chicago, Illinois
+
+Dear Mr. Lewis: Without obligation send me your big, free catalog and
+all details of Free Employment Service, Radio, Airplane, and Automotive
+Electrical Courses, and how I may "earn while learning."
+
+  _Name_ ..........................................
+
+  _Street_ ........................................
+
+  _City_ ...................... _State_ ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: Buy a Watch the Modern Way]
+
+This 21 Jewel--Santa Fe Special Sent You On-Approval Wear 30 Days
+=Free=!
+
+Thank you for making it possible for me to own a 21-jewel Santa Fe
+Special, write thousands of our customers.
+
+
+Buy Direct
+
+Our catalogue is our showroom. Any watch will be sent for you to see
+without one penny down. No obligation to buy.
+
+
+Save 1/3 to 1/2
+
+on the price you pay for a similar watch made by other Manufacturers.
+Most liberal offer. Our "Direct to You" offer and Extra Special
+Distribution Plan is fully explained in the New Santa Fe Special Booklet
+just off the press. The "Santa Fe Special" Plan means a big saving of
+money to you and you get the best watch value on the market today.
+
+
+Railroad Accuracy Beauty Unsurpassed Life-long Dependability
+
+--all are combined in the highest degree in the famous "Santa Fe
+Special" Watch.
+
+These watches are now in service on practically every railroad in the
+United States and in every branch of the Army and Naval service.
+Thousands of them are distributed around the world. You will never miss
+the few cents a day that will make you own one of these watches.
+
+
+Just Out!
+
+Send coupon for our New Watch Book--just off the press. All the newest
+watch case designs in white or green gold, fancy shapes and thin models
+are shown. Read our easy payment offer. Wear the watch 30 days FREE.
+
+  SANTA FE WATCH CO.
+  Dept. 255
+  Thomas Bldg.
+  Topeka, Kans.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SANTA FE WATCH CO., Dept. 255, Thomas Bldg., Topeka, Kansas.
+
+Please send me absolutely Free your New Watch Book [ ] Diamond Book [ ].
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address ...................... State ........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: COOLS while you shave and the coolness lingers! Listerine
+Shaving Cream]
+
+
+"Pardon me, gentlemen!"
+
+_Business men gargle daily to check colds and sore throat_
+
+Why is Listerine to be found in the offices of a majority of American
+business men? Why do they use it at the noon hour? Why do they sometimes
+halt important meetings, to gargle with it?
+
+Simply because, like you, they recognize in this safe antiseptic a
+swift, effective enemy of sore throat and the common cold. Used at the
+first sign of trouble, it has prevented thousands of cases from becoming
+serious.
+
+Its effectiveness is due to its amazing power to destroy disease germs,
+millions of which lodge in the oral cavity. Though safe to use and
+pleasant to taste, full strength Listerine kills even such resistant
+organisms as the Staphylococcus Aureus (pus) and Bacillus Typhosus
+(typhoid) in counts ranging to 200,000,000 in 15 seconds. We could not
+make this statement unless prepared to prove it to the entire
+satisfaction of the medical profession and the U.S. Government.
+
+As a preventive of sore throat and colds use Listerine systematically
+every day. And at the first definite sign that either is developing,
+increase the frequency of the gargle. You will be amazed to see how
+quickly the condition disappears. Lambert Pharmacal Co., St. Louis, Mo.
+
+
+LISTERINE _for_ SORE THROAT
+
+_Kills 200,000,000 germs in 15 seconds_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Go to School at Home!
+
+[Illustration: High School Course in Two Years!]
+
+
+You Want to Earn Big Money!
+
+=And you will not be satisfied unless you earn steady promotion.= But
+are you prepared for the job ahead of you? Do you measure up to the
+standard that insures success? For a more responsible position a fairly
+good education is necessary. To write a sensible business letter, to
+prepare estimates, to figure cost and to compute interest, you must have
+a certain amount of preparation. All this you must be able to do before
+you will earn promotion.
+
+Many business houses hire no men whose general knowledge is not equal to
+a high school course. Why? Because big business refuses to burden itself
+with men who are barred from promotion by the lack of elementary
+education.
+
+
+Can You Qualify for a Better Position
+
+We have a plan whereby you can. We can give you a complete but
+simplified high school course in two years, giving you all the
+essentials that form the foundation of practical business. It will
+prepare you to hold your own where competition is keen and exacting. Do
+not doubt your ability, but make up your mind to it and you will soon
+have the requirements that will bring you success and big money. YOU CAN
+DO IT.
+
+Let us show you how to get on the road to success. It will not cost you
+a single working hour. Write today. It costs you nothing but a stamp.
+
+
+American School
+
+  Dept. H-237
+  Drexel Ave. and 58th St., Chicago
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  =American School=
+  Dept. H-237
+  Drexel Ave. and 58th St., Chicago
+
+Send me full information on the subject checked and how you will help me
+win success.
+
+  ....Architect
+  ....Building Contractor
+  ....Automobile Engineer
+  ....Automobile Repairman
+  ....Civil Engineer
+  ....Structural Engineer
+  ....Business Manager
+  ....Cert. Public Accountant
+  ....Accountant and Auditor
+  ....Bookkeeper
+  ....Draftsman and Designer
+  ....Electrical Engineer
+  ....Electric Light & Power
+  ....General Education
+  ....Vocational Guidance
+  ....Business Law
+  ....Lawyer
+  ....Machine Shop Practice
+  ....Mechanical Engineer
+  ....Shop Superintendent
+  ....Employment Manager
+  ....Steam Engineer
+  ....Foremanship
+  ....Sanitary Engineer
+  ....Surveyor (& Mapping)
+  ....Telephone Engineer
+  ....Telegraph Engineer
+  ....High School Graduate
+  ....Wireless Radio
+  ....Undecided
+
+  Name .....................................
+
+  Address ..................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+EXTRA STRONG IMPROVED MODEL COPPER BOILER
+
+Catalog Free
+
+[Illustration:
+  SOLID CAST
+  NO SCREW TOP]
+
+  HEAVY COPPER
+
+  5 Gallon  $6.50
+  7          8.85
+  10        11.90
+  15        14.20
+  20        18.50
+  25        22.50
+  30        27.50
+
+
+SAVE 20% _NOW_!
+
+Most Practical Boiler & Cooker
+
+Made with large 5-inch Improved Cap and Spout. Safe, practical and
+simple. Nothing to get out of order, most substantial and durable on the
+market. Will last a lifetime, gives real service and satisfaction.
+
+
+Easily Cleaned
+
+Cap removed in a second; no burning of hands. An ideal low
+pressure-boiler and pasteurizer for home and farm.
+
+=Save 20%= by ordering direct from factory. No article of such high
+quality and utility ever sold at such amazingly low prices. Prices
+quoted are each with order or one-fourth cash, balance C.O.D. Send check
+or money order: prompt shipment made in plain strong box. The only
+boiler worth having. Large Catalog Free.
+
+  HOME MANUFACTURING CO.
+  Dept. 5850
+  18 E. Kinzie St.
+  Chicago, Illinois
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Agents! Sell Shirts
+
+[Illustration: Bostonian]
+
+Start =without investment= in a profitable shirt business of your own.
+Take orders in your district for nationally known Bostonian Shirts.
+=$1.50 commission= for you on sale of 3 shirts for $6.95--=Postage
+Paid=. $9 value, guaranteed fast colors. No experience needed. Complete
+selling equipment =FREE=!
+
+
+=Good Pay for Honest Workers=
+
+Big earnings for ambitious workers. Genuine Broadcloth in four fast
+colors. Write for money-making plan, free outfit, with actual cloth
+samples and everything need to start. Name and address on postal will
+do. =Write TODAY! SURE!=
+
+BOSTONIAN MFG. CO., B-300, 89 Bickford St., Boston, Mass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DEAFNESS IS MISERY
+
+Multitudes of persons with defective hearing and Head Noises enjoy
+conversation, go to Theatre and Church because they Use Leonard
+Invisible Ear Drums which resemble Tiny Megaphones fitting in the Ear
+entirely out of sight. No wires, batteries or head piece. They are
+inexpensive. Write for booklet and sworn statement of the inventor who
+was himself deaf.
+
+=A. O. LEONARD, Inc., Suite 683, 70 5th Ave., New York=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Denison's Plays
+
+_54 Years of Hits_
+
+We supply all entertainment needs for dramatic clubs, schools, lodges,
+etc., and for every occasion.
+
+  Songs
+  Minstrels
+  Musical Comedies
+  Revues
+  Vaudeville Acts
+  Blackface Skits
+
+_Catalogue Free_
+
+=T. S. Denison & Co. 623 S. Wabash, Dept. 130 Chicago=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Don't Stop Tobacco
+
+Without precautions against injurious effects. Baco-Cure gives the
+necessary assistance. Use tobacco while you take it. Has aided hundreds.
+Complete $5.00 treatment guaranteed to get results or money refunded.
+Write for booklet.
+
+Eureka Chemical Co., B-26 Columbus, Ohio
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Easy, Quick Way To Get Into Aviation
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Let_ Major Rockwell Train You AT HOME
+
+My new, practical, amazing, Home Study Course prepares you quickly to
+fill any of the fascinating Aviation jobs, either on the ground or as a
+skilled flyer, paying $50 to $150 a week. I train you to succeed
+quickly, to fill one of the thousands of air and ground jobs now open,
+and I help you find your right place in Aviation.
+
+
+=I'll Help You Get Your Job=
+
+[Illustration: FREE BOOK WRITE!]
+
+Learn at home in your spare hours. In 12 short weeks you can be ready to
+take your flying instructions at greatly reduced rates at any airport
+near your home, or right here in Dayton. Or you can step into any
+aviation ground job with my help. Experience or advanced education not
+necessary. Aviation--the fastest growing industry is calling you! You
+risk nothing. If you are not satisfied after completing my course, I'll
+refund your tuition. Take the first step by writing NOW for my big FREE
+Book and Tuition offer. State age.
+
+  =MAJOR R. L. ROCKWELL=
+
+  _The Dayton School of Aviation_
+  =Desk B-6=
+  =Dayton, Ohio=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SAXOPHONE
+
+  Easy to Play
+  Easy To Pay
+
+Simplified Key Arrangement
+
+Fingers fall naturally into playing position. Makes it extremely easy to
+play rapidly on the Buescher.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Buescher True-Tone Saxophone is the easiest of all wind instruments
+to play and one of the most beautiful. You can learn the scale in an
+hour, and in a few weeks be playing popular music. First 3 lessons free,
+with each new Saxophone. For home entertainment--church--lodge--school
+or for Orchestra Dance Music, the Saxophone is the ideal instrument.
+
+=FREE TRIAL=--We allow 6 days' free trial on any Buescher Saxophone in
+your own home and arrange easy payments so you can pay while you play.
+Write for Saxophone Catalog.
+
+  BUESCHER BAND INSTRUMENT CO.
+  2980 Buescher Block (553)
+  ELKHART, INDIANA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: =MEN WANTED FOR RAILROADS=]
+
+Nearest their homes--everywhere--to train for Firemen, Brakemen; average
+wages $150-$200 monthly. Promoted to Conductor or Engineer--highest
+wages on railroads. Also clerks. Railway Educational Association, Dept.
+D-30, Brooklyn, New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BIG MONEY _IN POULTRY_!
+
+[Illustration: How to RAISE POULTRY for PROFIT]
+
+If you want a real job--at real pay or if you want to start profitable
+business of your own--become a trained Poultryman. It's interesting,
+healthful, profitable. Our famous home study Course gives short cuts to
+success. Write for Free Book, "How to Raise Poultry for Profit."
+
+=National Poultry Institute, Dept. 415-F, Washington, D.C.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SPORT OF A THOUSAND THRILLS
+
+[Illustration: _Model shown is the popular "45" Twin_]
+
+EAGER power under instant control--speed that leaves the car-parades
+behind--lightning response to throttle and brakes--these are just a few
+of the thousand thrills of motorcycling. Ask any Harley-Davidson
+rider--he'll tell you of dozens more. And they are all yours at low
+cost, in a Harley-Davidson "45"--the wonderful Twin at a popular price.
+
+    Let your dealer show you the 1930 features of this
+    motorcycle--try the comfortable, low-swung saddle--get the
+    "feel" of this wonder Twin. Ask about his Pay-As-You-Ride Plan.
+
+
+_Mail the Coupon!_
+
+_for literature showing our full line of Singles, Twins, and Sidecars.
+Motorcycle prices range from $235 f. o. b. factory_.
+
+RIDE A HARLEY-DAVIDSON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  HARLEY-DAVIDSON MOTOR COMPANY
+  Dept. N. S. G., Milwaukee, Wis.
+
+  Interested in your motorcycles. Send literature.
+
+  Name .....................................
+
+  Address ..................................
+
+  My age is [ ] 16-19 years, [ ] 20-30 years, [ ] 31 years and
+  up, [ ] under 16 years. Check your age group.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"How I Licked Wretched Old Age at 63"
+
+    I Quit Getting up Nights--Banished Foot and Leg Pains ... Got
+    Rid of Rheumatic Pains and Constipation ... Improved My Health
+    Generally ... Found Renewed Strength.
+
+"At 61, I thought I was through. I blamed old age, but it never occurred
+to me to actually fight back. I was only half-living, getting up nights
+... constipated ... constantly tormented by aches and pains. At 62 my
+condition became almost intolerable. I had about given up hope when a
+doctor recommended your treatment. Then at 63, it seemed that I shook
+off 20 years almost overnight."
+
+
+_Forty_--The Danger Age
+
+These are the facts, just as I learned them. In 65% of all men, the
+vital prostate gland shows up soon after all. No pain is experienced,
+but as this distressing condition continues, sciatica, backache, severe
+bladder weakness, constipation, etc., often develop.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+PROSTATE TROUBLE
+
+These are frequently the signs of prostate trouble. Now thousands suffer
+these handicaps needlessly! For a prominent American Scientist after
+seven years of research, discovered a new, safe way to stimulate the
+prostate gland to normal health and activity in many cases. This new
+hygiene is worthy to be called a notable achievement of the age.
+
+
+A National Institution for Men Past 40
+
+Its success has been startling, its growth rapid. This new hygiene is
+rapidly gaining in national prominence. The institution in Steubenville
+has now reached large proportions. Scores and even hundreds of letters
+pour in every day, and in many cases reported results have been little
+short of amazing. In case after case, men have reported that they have
+felt ten years younger in six days. Now physicians in every part of the
+country are using and recommending this treatment.
+
+Quick as is the response to this new hygiene, it is actually a pleasant,
+natural relaxation, involving no drugs, medicine or electric rays
+whatever. The scientist explains this discovery and tells why many men
+are old at forty in a new book now sent free, in 24-page, illustrated
+form. Send for it. Every man past forty should know the true meaning of
+three frank facts. No cost or obligation is incurred. But act at once
+before this free edition is exhausted. Simply fill in your name below,
+tear off and mail.
+
+  =THE ELECTRO THERMAL COMPANY=
+  4826 Morris Avenue
+  Steubenville, Ohio
+
+    If you live West of the Rockies, address The Electro Thermal
+    Co., 303 Van Nuys Building, Dept. 48-C, Los Angeles, Calif. In
+    Canada, address The Electro Thermal Co., Desk 48-C, 53 Yonge
+    St., Toronto, Can.
+
+  THE ELECTRO THERMAL CO.,
+  4826 Morris Ave., Steubenville, Ohio.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+How To Secure A Government Position
+
+Why worry about strikes, layoffs, hard times? Get a Government job!
+Increased salaries, steady work, travel, good pay. Examinations coming.
+I'll help you become a Custom House Clerk, Railway Postal Clerk, Post
+Office Clerk, City Mail Carrier, Rural Carrier--or get into any other
+Government job you want. I was a Secretary-Examiner of Civil Service
+Commission for 8 years. Have helped thousands.
+
+
+NOW FREE
+
+My 32-page book tells about the jobs open--and how I can help you get
+one. Write TODAY. ARTHUR R. PATTERSON. Civil Service Expert. PATTERSON
+SCHOOL, 1082 Wisner Building, Rochester. N.Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Photos ENLARGED
+
+Size 16x20 inches
+
+98¢
+
+Same price for full length or best form groups, landscapes, or pet
+animals, etc., enlargements of any part of group picture. Safe return of
+your own original photo guaranteed.
+
+   SPECIAL
+   FREE OFFER
+
+=SEND NO MONEY= Just mail photo or snapshot (any size) and within a week
+you will receive your beautiful life-like enlargement size 16x20 in.
+guaranteed fadeless. Pay postman 98¢ plus postage or send $1.00 with
+order and we pay postage. With each enlargement we will send FREE a
+hand-tinted miniature reproduction of photo sent. Take advantage now of
+this amazing offer--send your photo today.
+
+  =UNITED PORTRAIT COMPANY=
+  1652 Ogden Ave. Dept. B-590, Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BLANK CARTRIDGE PISTOL
+
+This well made and effective pistol is modelled on the pattern of the
+latest type of Revolver, the appearance of which alone is enough to
+scare a burglar, whilst, when loaded, it will probably prove just as
+effective as a revolver with real bullets without the danger to life. It
+takes the standard .22 Calibre Blank Cartridges, that are obtainable
+most everywhere. Special cash with order offer: 1 superior quality Blank
+Cartridge Pistol. 100 Blank Cartridges, and our new 550-page DeLuxe
+Catalog of latest novelties all for =ONLY $1.50=. Shipped by express
+only. Cannot go by parcel post. Extra Blank Cartridges =50¢ per 100=.
+Remember it is quite harmless, as it will not accommodate loaded
+cartridges. Special Holster (Cowboy Type) for pistol 50¢. No C.O.D.
+Shipments.
+
+=Special Offer=
+
+1 Blank Cartridge Pistol, 100 Blank Cartridges, 1 550-page Novelty
+Catalog =ONLY $1.50=
+
+The Lot Shipped by Express Only Cash with Order Only
+
+=JOHNSON SMITH & COMPANY.= Dept 212, Racine, Wisconsin
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BE A RAILWAY TRAFFIC INSPECTOR
+
+EARN UP TO $250 Per Month Expenses Paid
+
+[Illustration: No Hunting For a Position]
+
+Unusual opportunities for men 19 to 55 in this uncrowded profession.
+Travel or remain near home. Pleasant, fascinating work. Advancement
+rapid. Prepare in 3 months' spare time, home instruction. We assist you
+to a position upon completion, paying $120 to $135 per month, plus
+expenses or refund your tuition. Learn about Traffic Inspection now. Our
+free booklet shows how it can make your future a certainty. Write for it
+today.
+
+  =Standard Business Training Institute=
+  =DIV. 13=
+  =Buffalo, N.Y.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Sleep Disturbed?
+
+If irritating kidney excretions frequently disturb your sleep or cause
+backache, leg pains and make you feel tired, achy, depressed and
+discouraged, why not try the Cystex 48 Hour Test? No dopes or
+habit-forming drugs. List of pure ingredients in each package. Get
+Cystex (pronounced Siss-tex) at your drug store for only 60¢. Use all of
+it. See how it works. Money back if it doesn't satisfy you completely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NEW WAY TO MAKE MONEY
+
+
+Easy Cash--Sure and Quick
+
+An opportunity to earn $15 a day or more taking orders from your friends
+and neighbors for our fine tailoring. Orders come easy when you show our
+swell samples and smart styles. =We Show You How=--you don't need to
+know anything about tailoring--simply follow our directions--we make it
+easy.
+
+
+FREE SUIT OFFER
+
+Make a few sales to your friends and get it finely tailored to your
+order suit, in any style, absolutely FREE, in addition to your cash
+profits.
+
+  =FREE
+  New, Big Sample
+  OUTFIT=
+
+New style convenient carrying outfit, large all-wool samples--all
+supplies necessary to start at once--furnished =FREE=. =Write at once.=
+
+=PROGRESS TAILORING CO., Dept. P-204, Chicago=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MORE PAY with QUAKER FREE OUTFIT
+
+  FREE SHIRTS TIES
+  CASH BONUS GIVEN
+
+_Earn big money right from the start. Let Quaker help you. Wonderful
+free Sample outfit gets orders everywhere. Men's Shirts, Ties,
+Underwear, Hosiery. Unmatchable values. Unique Selling features.
+Ironclad guarantee. You can't fail with Quaker. Write for your Free
+outfit NOW._
+
+  QUAKER SHIRT CORPORATION
+  Dept. K-2
+  1107 Broadway, N.Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FRENCH LOVE DROPS
+
+An enchanting exotic perfume of irresistible charm, clinging for hours
+like lovers loath to part. Just a few drops are enough. Full size bottle
+98¢ prepaid or $1.39 C.O.D. plus postage. Directions with every order.
+FREE: 1 full size bottle if you order 2 vials.
+
+  =D'ORO CO.=
+  =Box 90, Varick Station, New York=
+  =Dept NSG 2=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  NO JOKE TO BE DEAF
+  --EVERY DEAF PERSON KNOWS THAT
+
+[Illustration: Medicated Ear Drum]
+
+I make myself hear, after being deaf for 25 years, with these Artificial
+Ear Drums. I wear them day and night. They stop head noises and ringing
+ears. They are perfectly comfortable. No one sees them. Write me and I
+will tell you a true story, how I got deaf and how I make you hear.
+Address
+
+  GEO. P. WAY, Artificial Ear Drum Co. (Inc.)
+  300 Hoffman Bldg.
+  Detroit, Mich.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Be A Detective
+
+_Make Secret Investigations_
+
+Earn Big Money. Work home or travel. Fascinating work. Experience
+unnecessary. =DETECTIVE= Particulars FREE, Write NOW to =GEO. N. WAGNER,
+2190 Broadway, New York=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TOBACCO
+
+Habit Overcome Or No Pay
+
+Over 500,000 men and women used Superba Remedy to help stop Cigarettes,
+Cigars, Pipe, Chewing or Snuff. Write for full treatment on trial.
+Contains no dope or habit forming drugs. Costs $2.00 if successful,
+nothing if not. SUPERBA CO., A-11, Baltimore, Md.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Get Strong WITH
+
+These Improved Muscle Builders
+
+_All for $5.00_
+
+[Illustration: Save $20.00 with this OFFER]
+
+_Send no money_
+
+GUARANTEE SATISFACTION OR MONEY BACK
+
+Why pay an extravagant price for strength--here's an opportunity to get
+all the equipment you require along with an excellent course of
+instructions for only $5.00. Realize your ambition and develop muscles
+of a super-man. Get strong and amaze your friends. We show you how to
+easily master feats which now seem difficult--or if you just want
+physical culture for your health's sake, this equipment is just what you
+need. With this special offer you save at least $20.00. We furnish a ten
+cable chest expander which is adjustable to give resistance up to 200
+lbs. It is made of new live extra strength, springy rubber so as to
+ensure long wear and give the resistance you need for real muscle
+development. You also get a pair of patented hand grips for developing
+powerful grip and forearms.
+
+We include wall exercising parts which permit you to develop your back,
+arms and legs--a real muscle necessity. You know that business men and
+athletes, too, first show their age in their legs. Develop your leg
+muscles with the foot strap which we furnish. This will give you speed
+and endurance--but that isn't all that you get. In addition we include a
+specially written course which contains pictures and diagrams showing
+you how to develop any part of your body so that you will quickly get on
+with these exercises and gain the greatest advantage from their use. Act
+now while you can get in on this special offer. It might be withdrawn,
+so rush the coupon.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY
+
+All of the items pictured on this page are included in this big special
+reduction offer. Sign your name and address to the coupon below and rush
+it to us. We will send your ten cable chest developer, the wall parts, a
+pair of hand grips, foot strap and the course by return mail. Pay the
+postman only $5.00, plus the few cents postage on arrival. (If you
+desire to send check or money order in advance, we pay postage.)
+
+
+GUARANTEE
+
+All Crusader products are guaranteed to give entire satisfaction or
+money back.
+
+
+  CRUSADER APPARATUS CO.,
+  Dept. 2002, 44 Parker Ave., Maplewood, N.J.
+
+I accept your offer. Send me everything described in your advertisement
+by return mail. I will pay postman $5.00 plus postage on arrival. It is
+understood if I am not entirely satisfied after examination I can return
+the goods and you will refund my money.
+
+Note:--No C.O.D. Orders to Foreign Countries or Canada.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Win $3,500.00
+
+Prizes from $1800.00 to $4245.00 each have been won through our unique
+advertising plan. In our last, an old man of 69, out of work, won over
+$5000.00. A boy, only 15, won $900.00. In next 3 or 4 months thousands
+of dollars will be awarded to fortunate persons who solve our puzzles
+and win our prizes.
+
+
+FIND THE TWIN FLYERS
+
+Watch out! These twelve pictures of a famous woman flyer all look
+alike--BUT--two, and only two, are exactly alike. Find these twin
+flyers! Some pictures are different in the collar, helmet, goggles, or
+tie. Remember, only two of the twelve are exactly alike. Find them, and
+send the numbers of the twin flyers on a post card or letter today. If
+correct, your answer will qualify you for this opportunity.
+
+
+=$7160.00 IN PRIZES GIVEN THIS TIME=
+
+Over 25 prizes, and duplicate prizes in case of ties. It's up to the
+winner whether he or she chooses $2875.00 in cash or a new Waco
+airplane, a big automobile, or a new home. A gorgeous prize list! ANYONE
+WHO ANSWERS THIS PUZZLE CORRECTLY MAY RECEIVE PRIZES OR CASH.
+
+
+=$625.00 ADDITIONAL FOR PROMPTNESS=
+
+Be prompt! It pays. Find the real twin flyers, and I will send
+Certificate which will be good for $625.00 if you are prompt and win
+first prize. Imagine, a first prize of $3500.00!
+
+NO MORE PUZZLES TO SOLVE. Any man, woman, boy, or girl in the
+U.S.A.--anyone at all, except residents of Chicago, Illinois, and former
+major prize winners. 25 of the people who take up this offer are going
+to win these wonderful prizes. Be one of them. Send the numbers of the
+twin flyers. Send no money, but be prompt.
+
+=J. D. SNYDER, Dept. 36, 54 W. Illinois St., Chicago, Ill.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TRAIN FOR AVIATION AT HOME
+
+Hundreds of men are already training for big-pay Aviation jobs through
+Lt. Hinton's practical home-study course. This thorough training is just
+the foundation you need to enter Aviation in any of its many branches,
+for the course covers Terms and Definitions, Principles of Flight,
+Rigging, Repairing, Construction, Instruments, Aerology, Engines,
+Ignition, Carburetion, Airports; _Aviation from A to Z_. After
+graduation Hinton's Employment Department puts you in touch with real
+jobs, or, if you want to be a pilot, Hinton arranges special flying
+rates at an accredited Air College near your home. Hinton-trained men
+are in demand and they are making good. His Big Free Book explains
+everything. Send for your copy at once!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  =SEND FOR FREE BOOK=
+  =MAIL NOW!=
+
+  WALTER HINTON, President, 316-D
+  Aviation Institute of U.S.A.
+  1115 Conn. Ave., Washington, D.C.
+
+  Name .......................... Age .........
+                                 (Must be 18)
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+$8 often made in one day by many of our sales Agents
+
+[Illustrations]
+
+Sell finest line new guaranteed hosiery you ever saw, for men, women,
+children. Written guarantee to wear and satisfy or replaced. 126 styles,
+colors. Finest silks. All at lowest prices.
+
+
+NEW FORD CAR
+
+We offer our agents a =new Ford Car= when earned under our plan. Your
+commission daily. Credit given. Extra bonus. We deliver or you
+deliver--suit yourself.
+
+
+FINE SILK HOSE
+
+Our new plan gives you =fine silk hosiery= for your own use. I want men
+and women to act as Local Sales Agents. Spare time is satisfactory.
+Write quick. A post card will do.
+
+  =WILKNIT HOSIERY CO.=
+  =No. 2807 Greenfield, Ohio=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NEW SCIENTIFIC WONDER
+
+="X-RAY" CURIO=
+
+[Illustration: Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.]
+
+=PRICE 10¢ 3-25¢ no stamps=
+
+BIG FUN
+
+=BOYS= You apparently see thru Clothes, Wood, Stone, any object. See
+Bones in Flesh. FREE Pkg. radio picture films, takes pictures without
+camera. You'll like 'em. (1 pkg. with each 25¢ order.)
+
+=MARVEL MFG. CO. Dept. 86, NEW HAVEN, CONN.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TRAVEL--for 'UNCLE SAM'
+
+=RAILWAY POSTAL CLERKS=
+
+=MAIL CARRIERS--POSTOFFICE CLERKS GENERAL CLERKS--CUSTOMS INSPECTORS=
+
+$1700 to $3400 a Year for Life
+
+No "layoffs" because of strikes, poor business, etc.--sure pay--rapid
+advancement. Many other U.S. Government Jobs. City and country residents
+stand same chance. Common sense education usually sufficient.
+
+
+STEADY WORK
+
+Cut coupon and mail it before turning the page
+
+=MEN--BOYS 18 to 45=
+
+=Use Coupon Before You Lose It=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COUPON
+
+FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, Dept. E267, Rochester, N.Y.
+
+Rush to me, free of charge. (1) A full description of the positions
+checked below. (2) 32-page book with list of positions obtainable. (3)
+Tell me how to get the positions checked.
+
+  [ ] Railway Postal Clerk ($1900 to $2700)
+  [ ] Postoffice Clerk ($1700 to $2300)
+  [ ] City Mail Carrier ($1700 to $2100)
+  [ ] General Clerk ($1200 to $2100)
+  [ ] Customs Inspector ($2100 up)
+  [ ] Rural Mail Carrier ($2100 to $3300)
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Get Strong QUICKLY
+
+Giant Chest Expander
+
+ONLY $2.00
+
+Here's an opportunity for everyone to develop big muscles and obtain
+great strength by using this heavy-tensioned PROGRESSIVE EXERCISER,
+adjustable from 20 to 200 lbs. resistance. Complete instructions with
+each exerciser.
+
+Get rid of those aches and pains, indigestion, constipation, headaches,
+etc. Build up your body and look like a real He-man.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY!
+
+Simply pay the postman $2.00, plus a few cents postage, for five-cabled
+exerciser or $4.00 plus a few cents postage, for ten-cabled exerciser.
+_Money back in five days if dissatisfied._
+
+  Progressive Exerciser Co.
+  Dept. 5002, Langdon Building
+  Duane Street and Broadway
+  New York City
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LAW
+
+STUDY AT HOME
+
+Become a lawyer. Legally trained men win high positions and big success
+in business and public life. Be independent. Greater opportunities now
+than ever before. Big corporations are headed by men with legal
+training. Earn
+
+=$5,000 to $10,000 Annually=
+
+We guide you step by step. You can train at home during spare time.
+Degree of LL. B. conferred. LaSalle students found among practicing
+attorneys of every state. We furnish all text material, including
+fourteen-volume Law Library. Low cost, easy terms. Get our valuable
+64-page "Law Guide" and "Evidence" books FREE. Send for them NOW.
+
+  LaSalle Extension University, Dept. 275-L, Chicago
+  The World's Largest Business Training Institution
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW SHARP IS YOUR RAZOR?
+
+Did you have trouble shaving this morning? If your razor blade scraped
+and pulled you will appreciate this remarkable new discovery.... Gold
+Nugget Strop Dressing ... can be used satisfactorily on all stropping
+devices ... puts keen cutting edge on any razor blade.... Easy to apply
+... results assured. Makes you feel like singing when you shave. $1
+postpaid.
+
+  NO-HONE COMPANY
+  3124 California St.
+  Omaha, Nebraska
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PATENTS
+
+Time counts in applying for patents. Don't risk delay in protecting your
+ideas. Send sketch or model for instructions or write for FREE book.
+"How to Obtain a Patent" and "Record of Invention" form. No charge for
+information on how to proceed. Communications strictly confidential.
+Prompt, careful, efficient service. Clarence A. O'Brien, Registered
+Patent Attorney, 1876 Security Savings and Comm'l Bank Building
+(directly across street from Patent Office) Washington, D.C.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STOP Tobacco
+
+No human being can escape the harmful effects of tobacco. Don't try to
+quit without assistance. Let our simple inexpensive remedy help you. A
+complete treatment costs but $2.00. Every penny promptly refunded if you
+do not get desired results.
+
+Ours is a harmless preparation, carefully compounded to overcome the
+condition, that will make quitting of tobacco pleasant, and easy. It
+comes with a money back guarantee.
+
+  =Anti-Tobacco League=
+  P.O. Box H-2
+  OMAHA, NEBR.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SONG WRITERS!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+SUBSTANTIAL ADVANCE ROYALTIES are paid on work found acceptable for
+publication. Anyone wishing to write _either the words_ or music for
+songs may submit work for free examination and advice. _Past experience
+unnecessary_. New demand created by "Talking Pictures" fully described
+in our free book. Write for it Today.
+
+  NEWCOMER ASSOCIATES
+  723 Earle Building, New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Learn to PAINT SIGNS and SHOW CARDS
+
+We quickly teach you by mail, or at school. In spare time. Enormous
+demand. Big future. Interesting work. Oldest and foremost school.
+
+
+EARN $50 TO $200 WEEKLY
+
+Otto Wiegand, Md., home-study graduate, made $12,000 from his business
+in one year. John Vassoe, N.Y., gets $25 for a show card. Crawford,
+B.C., writes: "Earned $200 while taking course." Write for complete
+information.
+
+  DETROIT SCHOOL OF LETTERING
+  Est. 1889
+  180 Stimson Ave.
+  DETROIT, MICH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STOP WORRYING about Money
+
+[Illustration: _Here's a New, Easy Way to Make_ $15 a Day]
+
+YES--here's a wonderful opportunity to start right in making $15 in a
+day. You can have plenty of money to pay your bills, to spend for new
+clothes, furniture, radio, pleasure trips, or whatever you want. No more
+pinching pennies or counting the nickels and dimes. No more saying "We
+can't afford it." That's the biggest mistake any man or woman ever made.
+=And I'll prove it.=
+
+
+Van Allen Makes $100 a Week
+
+Just send me your name and address and I'll give you some facts that
+will open your eyes. I'll show you how L. C. Van Allen, of Illinois,
+quit a $23-a-week job, took hold of my proposition, and made better than
+$100 a week! Then there's Gustav Karnath, of Minnesota, who cleared
+$20.35 the first five hours, and Mrs. B. L. Hodges, of New York, who
+says she never fails to make a profit of $18 to $20 a day. I have
+letters from men and women everywhere that tell about profits of $10,
+$15, $20 and as high as $25 and $30 in a single day.
+
+
+Start Right In
+
+You don't need any experience or capital to make big money my way. No
+course of training is necessary. You simply act as my Representative in
+your locality and look after my business there. All you have to do is
+call on your friends and my established customers and take care of their
+orders for my fast selling line of Groceries, Toilet Articles and other
+Household Necessities. I have thousands of customers in every section of
+every State. They must order from you because I never sell through
+stores. Last year my Representatives made nearly two million dollars.
+When I get the coupon from you I send full details by return mail. You
+can quickly be making money just like I said. I will also supply you
+with Groceries and other Household Necessities at lowest, wholesale
+prices.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY
+
+If you want ready cash--a chance to make $15 or more a day starting at
+once--and Groceries at wholesale--just send me your name and address on
+the coupon. It costs you nothing to investigate. Keep your present job
+and start in spare time if you want to. Oscar Stuart, of W. Virginia,
+reports $18 profit in 2-1/2 hours' spare time. So you see there's
+everything to gain. Simply mail the coupon. _I_ will give you full
+details of my plan without cost or obligation to you. I'll give you the
+big opportunity you've been waiting for. So don't lose a moment. Mail
+the coupon NOW.
+
+
+FREE!
+
+[Illustration: New Ford Tudor Sedan]
+
+NOT a contest. I offer a brand-new car free to producers as an extra
+reward or bonus--in addition to their large cash profits. Mail coupon
+for particulars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MAIL THIS NOW!
+
+  =ALBERT MILLS, Pres., American Products Co.,=
+  =5441 Monmouth Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio.=
+
+Send me, without cost or obligation, all the facts about your new
+proposition that offers a wonderful opportunity to make quick profits of
+$15 or more a day and Groceries at wholesale.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  .............................................
+  © A. P. Co.        (Print or Write Plainly)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+What's Wrong With This Picture?
+
+See If You Can Find the Mistakes in This Picture
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We will spend over $167,000.00 this year for the purpose of conducting
+free prize offers to advertise and expand our business. Thousands of
+persons are going to receive valuable prizes or cash awards and
+compensations this year through our offers. The sky is the limit! Anyone
+living in the United States outside of Chicago, except employees of this
+company, members of their families, or our previous auto or first prize
+winners, or members of their families, may enter an answer to this
+puzzle.
+
+
+$7,346 In Prizes Given in This One Offer
+
+Seven Big New 6-Cylinder Sedans and Other Valuable Prizes
+
+Try your skill--it costs you nothing. Study the picture shown here, but
+look carefully. The artist has purposely made many mistakes. Can you
+find four or more of them? These mistakes can be found in various
+objects is the picture--that's all the hint we can give you. If you
+think you can find four or more mistakes, answer at once. Just mark the
+mistakes in pencil on the picture, or tell me what they are in a letter
+or on a post card. Only four mistakes are required for a perfect answer.
+
+
+Anyone Who Answers This Puzzle Correctly May Receive Prizes or Cash!
+
+Man, woman, boy, or girl--it doesn't matter who or what you are. Seven
+of the people who take up this offer are going to win wonderful
+automobiles. You can be among them. Answer today! Duplicate prizes
+awarded in case of ties.
+
+
+=Additional $500.00 for Promptness= $500.00 extra will be awarded in
+addition to first prize if you are prompt. If your answer is judged to
+be perfect, I will tell you without delay about winning the prizes.
+Hurry now! Address your answer to G. W. ALDERTON, Advertising Manager,
+Dept. 143, 510 North Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AGENTS--Represent THE Carlton LINE--_America's Best Paying Proposition_!
+
+SAMPLES FREE
+
+
+SELL FROM A MILLION DOLLAR STOCK
+
+
+Shirts, Neckwear and Underwear.
+
+No substitutions. 4 Hour Shipping Service. Highest Commissions Bonuses.
+Profit Sharing. Biggest Company. Mail Coupon.
+
+
+  CARLTON MILLS, 114 FIFTH AVE., N.Y.C.
+  _Send me your Famous Sample Outfit_
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  100-G
+
+
+  CARLTON MILLS INC.
+  114 FIFTH AVE.
+  NEW YORK
+  =Dept. 186-6=
+
+MAIL COUPON
+
+$1000 LIFE Insurance Policy Free
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BE A JAZZ MUSIC MASTER
+
+Play Piano By Ear
+
+[Illustration: Niagara School Free Book]
+
+Play popular song hits perfectly. Name the tune, play it by ear. No
+teacher--self-instruction. No tedious ding-dong daily practice--just 20
+brief, entertaining lessons, easily mastered.
+
+
+At Home in Your Spare Time
+
+Send for FREE BOOK. Learn many styles of bass and syncopation--trick
+endings. If 10¢ (coin or stamps) is enclosed, you also receive wonderful
+booklet "_How to Entertain at Piano_"--and many new tricks, stunts, etc.
+
+  _Niagara School of Music_
+  Dept. 350 Niagara Falls, N.Y.
+
+Send for this Free Book
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Learn How to BOX
+
+=$2.98= brings you the famous boxing course by mail of Jimmy DeForest,
+=World's Greatest Trainer=, the system that trained Dempsey and great
+champions. Covers everything in scientific boxing from fundamentals to
+ring generalship. Twenty weeks makes you a finished DeForest trained
+boxer. Hundreds of DeForest trained men are making good in the ring
+today. Complete course sent in one mailing. Send $2.98 or C.O.D order
+paying postman $2.98 plus actual postage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  =Jimmy DeForest Boxing Course=
+  =347 Madison Ave., Box 42, New York City=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Radium Is Restoring Health to Thousands
+
+No medicine, drugs or dieting. Just a light, small, comfortable
+inexpensive Radio-Active Pad, worn on the back by day and over the
+stomach at night. Sold on trial. You can be sure it is helping you
+before you buy it. Over 150,000 sold on this plan. Thousands have
+written us that it healed them of Neuritis, Rheumatism, High Blood
+Pressure, Constipation, Nervous Prostration, Heart, Lungs, Liver, Kidney
+and Bladder trouble, etc. No matter what you have tried, or what your
+trouble may be, try Degnen's Radio-Active Solar Pad at our risk. Write
+today for Trial offer and descriptive literature. Radium Appliance Co.,
+2833 Bradbury Bldg., Los Angeles, Cal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HYPNOTIZE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+25 Lessons in Hypnotism, Mind Reading and Magnetic Healing. Tells how
+experts hypnotize at a glance, make others obey their commands. How to
+overcome bad habits, how to give a home performance, get on the stage,
+etc. Helpful to every man and woman, executives, salesmen, doctors,
+mothers, etc. Simple, easy. Learn at home. Only $1.10, including the
+"Hypnotic Eye," a new aid for amateurs. Send stamps or M.O. (or pay
+C.O.D. plus postage). Guaranteed. =Educator Press, 19 Park Row, New
+York. Dept. H-41=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AVIATION Information FREE
+
+Send us your name and address for full information regarding the
+Aviation and Airplane business. Find out about the many great
+opportunities now open and how we prepare you at home, during spare
+time, to qualify. Our new book, _Opportunities in the Airplane industry_
+also sent free if you answer at once.
+
+  AMERICAN SCHOOL OF AVIATION
+  Dept. 1182 3601 Michigan Ave. CHICAGO
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Charming--Captivating--Irresistible
+
+  DESIR D'AMOUR
+  [Love's Desire]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This exotic perfume goes straight to the heart like Cupid's arrows. Its
+strength and mystic aroma thrills and delights young and old. Triple
+strength full size vial 98 cents prepaid or $1.32 C.O.D. plus shipping
+charges. Directions free. One bottle GRATIS if you order three vials.
+MAGNUS WORKS, Box 12, Varick Sta., New York, N.Y., Dept. NSG-2.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: On your feet--_In a good Paying Business_]
+
+We start you in the shoe and hosiery business. Inexperienced workers
+earn Big Money yearly. Direct-to-Wearer plan. Just show Tanners Famous
+Line of Footwear.
+
+    We tell how and where to sell. Perfect fit through Patented
+    System. Collect your pay daily. We furnish $40.00 Sample Outfit
+    of actual shoes and hosiery. 83 styles.
+
+=Send for free book "Getting Ahead" and full particulars.= No
+obligation.
+
+  TANNERS SHOE CO.
+  892 C Street, Boston, Mass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+=Play the Hawaiian Guitar like the Hawaiians!=
+
+=Only 4 Motions= used in playing this fascinating instrument Our native
+Hawaiian instructors teach you to master them quickly. Pictures show
+how. Everything explained clearly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Play in Half Hour
+
+After you get the four easy motions you play harmonious chords with very
+little practice. No previous musical knowledge needed.
+
+
+Easy Lessons
+
+Even if you don't know one note from another, the 52 printed lessons and
+clear pictures make it easy to learn quickly. Pay as you play.
+
+
+GIVEN _when you enroll_--a sweet toned HAWAIIAN GUITAR, Carrying Case
+and Playing Outfit--Value $18 to $20
+
+_No extras--everything included_
+
+=WRITE AT ONCE= for attractive offer and easy terms. You have
+everything to gain. A postcard will do. =ACT!=
+
+
+OTHER COURSES
+
+Tenor Banjo, Violin, Tiple, Tenor Guitar, Ukulele, Banjo Ukulele. Under
+well known instructors.
+
+  FIRST HAWAIIAN CONSERVATORY of MUSIC, Inc.
+  9th Floor, Woolworth Bldg, Dept. 269 New York, N.Y.
+
+_Approved as a Correspondence School Under the Laws of the State of New
+York--Member National Home Study Council_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SELL ROSECLIFF SHIRTS
+
+_Make Steady Money_
+
+
+YOUR OWN SHIRTS and TIES
+
+Showing Samples
+
+Men's Shirts Ties, Underwear brings you big cash commissions. One Year
+Guarantee. No substitutions. Free silk initials. More exclusive
+Rosecliff features establish leadership. Write for your FREE Outfit NOW!
+
+  ROSECLIFF SHIRT CORP.
+  Dept. J-2
+  1237 Broadway, N.Y.
+
+_Outfit Free_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+GOV'T. POSITIONS
+
+  $35 TO $75 WEEKLY
+  MEN--WOMEN
+  AGE 18 to 55
+
+  ( ) By. Mail Clerk
+  ( ) P. O. Laborer
+  ( ) R. F. D. Carrier
+  ( ) Special Agent (investigator)
+  ( ) City Mail Carrier
+  ( ) Meat Inspector
+  ( ) P. O. Clerk
+  ( ) File Clerk
+  ( ) General Clerk
+  ( ) Matron
+  ( ) Steno-Typist
+  ( ) Immigrant Inspector
+  ( ) Seamstress
+  ( ) Auditor
+  ( ) Steno-Secretary
+  ( ) U.S. Border Patrol
+  ( ) Chauffeur-Carrier
+  ( ) Watchman
+  ( ) Skilled Laborer
+  ( ) Postmaster
+  ( ) Typist
+
+INSTRUCTION BUREAU, 112-B, St. Louis, Mo.
+
+Send me FREE particulars How To Qualify for positions marked "X."
+Salaries, locations, opportunities, etc. ALL SENT FREE.
+
+  Name ............................................
+
+  Address .........................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: FREE! Body Chart]
+
+If you will mail the coupon below, this Anatomical and Physiological
+Chart will be mailed to you without one cent of expense. It shows the
+location of the Organs, Bones of the Body, Muscles of the Body, Head and
+Vertebra Column and tells you how the nerves radiate from your spinal
+cord to all organs of the body. This chart should be in every home.
+
+
+Where Is That PAIN?
+
+It may be in the neck, back, hips, stomach, liver, legs or arms.
+Wherever it is, the chart will help to show you the location and cause
+of your ailment. For instance, this chart will help you locate vermiform
+appendix pains. Hundreds of lives might have been saved if people had
+known the location and character of the pain and had received proper
+attention.
+
+
+Stop that Pain
+
+  _By Relieving the Cause with_
+  Violet Ray--Vibration
+  Ozone--Medical Electricity
+  _The Four Greatest Curative Powers Generated by This_
+  =Great New Invention!=
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Elco Health Generators at last are ready for you! If you want more
+health--greater power to enjoy the pleasures and delights about you, or
+if more beauty is your desire--_write_! Ask for the book on these
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+Re-vitalize yourself. Bring back energy. Be wholly alive. Write today!
+
+
+   _Elco_
+   Electric Health Generators
+
+Here's What Elco Users Say--
+
+    "Wouldn't Take $1000 for my Elco."
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+    "Cured my stomach trouble."
+    "Cured my weakness."
+    "Now I sleep soundly all night."
+    "Thanks to Elco my strength and vigor are back."
+    "No more pain." "Colds never bother me now."
+    "Chronic Constipation banished."
+
+Free Trial
+
+These great new inventions generate Violet Ray, Vibration, Electricity
+and Ozone--combined or separate. They operate on the electric light in
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+Elco Health Generators are positively the only instruments which can
+give you in one outfit Electricity, Violet Ray--Vibration and Ozone--the
+four greatest curative agents. Send the coupon below. Get the Free Book
+NOW!
+
+
+MAIL COUPON for FREE BOOK
+
+[Illustration: Health Power Beauty]
+
+Do not put this paper down without sending the coupon. Don't go on as
+you are with pains and with almost no life and energy. You owe it to
+yourself to be a better man or woman. You were put here to enjoy
+life--not just to drag through it. So do not rest another day until you
+have put your name on the coupon here. That will bring the whole story
+of these great new inventions. Do it today--now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Lindstrom & Co.
+  _Makers of Therapeutic Apparatus since 1892_.
+  2322 Indiana Avenue
+  Dept. 15-62
+  Chicago
+
+Please send me your free book, "Heal--Power--Beauty" and full
+information of your 10-day Free Trial Offer.
+
+  _Name_ ........................................
+
+  _Address_ .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Who Wants an Auto FREE?
+
+STUDEBAKER--BUICK--NASH! Your choice! OR $2000.00 CASH
+
+[Illustration: MARK YOUR STAR
+
+MAIL THE CIRCLE]
+
+Thousands of dollars in new autos and grand prizes will positively be
+given free to advertise and make new friends for my firm. Choice of
+Studebaker or Buick or Nash new 4-door sedan delivered free, or $2000.00
+cash. Also Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Fords, diamonds, other fine
+prizes and cash will be given free. No problems to do. No fine writing
+required. No words to make. No figures to add. Bank guarantees all
+prizes.
+
+
+Pick Your Lucky Star!
+
+All the stars in the circle are exactly alike except one. That star is
+different to all the others and it may be a lucky star for you. Can you
+pick it out? If you can, mark the different star and send the circle to
+me at once along with your name and address. A prompt answer can start
+you on the way to win the great $2000.00 free prize.
+
+
+BE PROMPT--WIN $650.00 EXTRA
+
+Someone like you who will write me at once can get $650.00 cash fast for
+being prompt, so you may thank your lucky stars if you send your answer
+right off. No risk. Nothing to buy. Nothing hard to do. Over $7000.00 in
+valuable prizes will be given free of cost. Send today and I will show
+you just how you can get your free choice of these splendid new sedans
+or $2000.00 cash, without cost or obligation of any kind. All win plan!
+A reward for everybody! SEND NO MONEY. Answer AT ONCE.
+
+Address GEO. WILSON, DEPT. 27, AUGUSTA, MAINE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+RUPTURE IS NOT A TEAR
+
+Your physician will tell you that hernia (rupture) is a muscular
+weakness in the abdominal wall.--Do not be satisfied with merely bracing
+these weakened muscles, with your condition probably growing worse every
+day!--Strike at the real cause of the trouble, and
+
+    =WHEN=--
+
+    The weakened muscles recover their strength and elasticity,
+    and--
+
+    The unsightly, unnatural protrusion disappears, and--
+
+    You recover your vim, vigor and vitality,--your strength and
+    energy,--and you look and feel better in every way,--and your
+    friends notice the difference,--
+
+    =THEN=--
+
+    You'll know your rupture is gone, and
+
+    You'll know why for almost a quarter of a century numerous sworn
+    statements report complete recovery and freedom from
+    uncomfortable mechanical supports, without delay from work.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY
+
+A Test of the scientific self-treatment mentioned in coupon below is now
+available to you, whether you are young or old, man or woman. It costs
+you nothing to make this test.--For your own good mail the coupon
+NOW--TODAY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=FREE TEST COUPON=
+
+Plapao Laboratories, 692 Stuart Bldg., St. Louis, Mo.
+
+Send me a Free 10-day test supply of the remedial factor Plapao and 48
+page illustrated book on Rupture; no charge for this now or later.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NEW AND SIMPLE DISCOVERY
+
+CLEARS-THE-SKIN
+
+We prove it to you, =FREE=. =SEND NO MONEY.= Write today for =PROOF=
+and full details of our liberal prepaid FULL SIZE TRIAL PACKAGE.
+
+
+GUARANTEED FOR ALL SKIN TROUBLES
+
+Quickly ends Pimples, Blackheads, Whiteheads, Coarse Pores, Wrinkles,
+Oily Shiny Skin, Freckles, Chronic Eczema, Stubborn Psoriasis, Scales,
+Crusts, Pustules, Barbers Itch, Itching Skin, Scabbies, softens and
+whitens the skin. =Just send us your name and address.=
+
+ANDRE & CO., 751 E. 42nd St., Suite 77, Chicago
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HAVE YOU READ?
+
+  "ONE WOMAN'S WAR"
+  _By_ Helene Reynolds Moffatt
+
+  "BROADWAY'S CHILDREN"
+  _By_ Achmed Abdullah and Faith Baldwin
+
+  "THE LOST DREAM"
+  _By_ Hector Hawton
+
+  "THE LIFE HE STOLE"
+  _By_ Roy Vickers
+
+  "FOOLISH FIRE"
+  _By_ Virginia Swain
+
+  "LIFE'S COMEBACKS"
+  _By_ Jan Cruze
+
+  "THE WHIRL OF YOUTH"
+  _By_ Evelyn Campbell
+
+  "FLAME OF FIRE WEED"
+  _By_ James French Dorrance
+
+  "A PRAIRIE PRINCESS"
+  _By_ Frank C. Robertson
+
+
+These complete novels, each one a story of unusual significance, are now
+being offered to you at the special price of
+
+  25 cents each
+  or five for $1.00, postpaid
+
+  THE READERS' GUILD,
+  80 LAFAYETTE STREET, 12th FLOOR,
+  NEW YORK CITY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TYPEWRITER 1/2 Price
+
+[Illustration: Free Trial]
+
+World's best makes--Underwood, Remington, Royal--also portables--prices
+smashed to below half. (_Easy terms._)
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY!
+
+All late models completely rebuilt and refinished brand new. _Guaranteed
+for ten years._ Send no money--big _Free_ catalog shows actual machines
+in full colors. Get our direct-to-you easy payment plan and 10 day free
+trial offer. Amazing values--send at once.
+
+  International Typewriter Exch.,
+  231 W. Monroe St.
+  Dept. 272, Chicago
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PANTS MATCHED
+
+TO ANY SUIT--FREE SAMPLE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+=DON'T DISCARD YOUR OLD SUIT.= Wear the coat and vest another year by
+getting new trousers to match. Tailored to your measure. With over
+100,000 patterns to select from we can match almost any pattern. Send
+vest or sample of cloth today, and we will submit _FREE_ best match
+obtainable.
+
+  AMERICAN MATCH PANTS CO.
+  Dept D. N. 6 W. Randolph St., Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+QUIT TOBACCO
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No man or woman can escape the harmful effects of tobacco. Don't try to
+banish unaided the hold tobacco has upon you. Join the thousands of
+inveterate tobacco users that have found it easy to quit with the aid of
+the Keeley Treatment.
+
+
+KEELEY
+
+  Treatment For
+  _Tobacco Habit_
+  Successful For
+  Over 50 Years
+
+Quickly banishes all craving for tobacco. Write today for Free Book
+telling how to quickly Free yourself from the tobacco habit and our
+Money Back Guarantee.
+
+  THE KEELEY INSTITUTE
+  Dept. E-211
+  Dwight, Illinois
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Styled On Fifth Avenue._
+
+TIES & SHIRTS PAY BIG
+
+MAKE STEADY MONEY
+
+weekly selling this combined line. Public Service offers the best
+money-maker in the country for full time or spare time workers.
+
+Splendid Fifth Ave. Styled shirts. Beautiful fabrics to satisfy every
+taste. Sell on sight to men and women at factory prices. Biggest
+assortment in the business. Collect your commissions in advance. Finest
+new Spring Outfit FREE. Start earning more money at once. Write TODAY.
+
+  PUBLIC SERVICE MILLS, Inc.
+  517-J Thirtieth Street, North Bergen, N.J.
+  Canadian Office, 110 Dundas St., London, Ontario, Canada
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MONEY FOR YOU
+
+Men or women can earn $15 to $25 weekly in spare time at home making
+display cards. Light, pleasant work. No canvassing. We instruct you and
+supply you with work. Write today for full particulars.
+
+  The MENHENITT COMPANY Limited
+  245 Dominion Bldg., Toronto, Can.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  DIRECT FROM MOVIELAND
+  THRILLING LOVE LETTERS
+  LOVE'S PSYCHOLOGY
+  BEAUTY PSYCHOLOGY
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  LOVE DROPS
+  PERFUME
+  SECRET EXTRACT
+
+A New Creation, an Enchanting, powerful aroma, with that alluring blend
+that stirs the soul of rich and poor, old and young to surrender to its
+charms. $2.50 value, $1.00 post paid or $1.27 C.O.D. with instructions
+for use. Also Free our 2 new books totaling 120 pages including
+
+
+THRILLING LOVE LETTERS
+
+burning love epistles of many of history's famous characters, also
+secrets of Love's Psychology and Art of winning the One You Love with
+the original 7 Psychological and Successful plans for winning and
+holding the love of the one you love.
+
+  Wons Co., Dept. N-15
+  Box 1250, Hollywood, Calif.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BECOME AN EXPERT ACCOUNTANT
+
+Executive Accountants and C.P.A.'s earn $8,000 to $10,000 a year.
+Thousands of firms need them. Only 9,000 Certified Public Accountants in
+the Unites States. We train you thoroughly at home in spare time for
+C.P.A. examinations or executive accounting positions. Previous
+experience unnecessary. Training under the personal supervision of
+William B. Castenholz, A.M., C.P.A., and a large staff of C.P.A.'s
+including members of the American Institute of Accountants. Write for
+free book, "Accountancy, the Profession that Pays."
+
+  =La Salle Extension University, Dept. 275-H Chicago=
+  =The World's Largest Business Training Institution=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LEARN TO Mount Birds
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We teach you =At Home by Mail= to mount _Birds_, _Animals_, _Heads_,
+_Tan Furs and Make Rugs_. Be a taxidermy artist. Easily, quickly learned
+by men, women and boys. Tremendously interesting and fascinating.
+Decorate home and den with beautiful art. _Make Big Profits from Spare
+Time Selling Specimens and Mounting for Others._
+
+=Free Book=--Yes absolutely Free--beautiful book telling all about how
+to learn taxidermy. Send =Today=. You will be delighted. Don't Delay!
+
+  Northwestern School of Taxidermy
+  1032 Elwood Bldg.
+  OMAHA, NEB.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FREE
+
+[Illustration: My Pay-Raising Plan]
+
+send you these Genuine high quality, Imported Drawing Instruments, 14
+Other Tools and a Drafting Table--All included in my Home Training
+Course.
+
+"My Pay-Raising Plan"
+
+It Shows You How I Prepare You at Home For
+
+
+EMPLOYMENT
+
+_In These and Other Great Industries_
+
+Automobile--Electricity--Motor Bus--Aviation--Building Construction.
+
+There are jobs for Draftsmen in all of these industries and in hundreds
+of others.
+
+Aviation is expanding to enormous proportions.
+
+Electricity is getting bigger every day. Motor Bus building is becoming
+a leading world industry.
+
+Building of stores, homes, factories and office buildings is going on
+all the time. No structure can be erected without plans drawn by a
+draftsman. No machinery can be built without plans drawn by a draftsman.
+I train you at home, in Drafting. Keep the job you have now while
+learning.
+
+
+Earn As You Learn
+
+I tell you how to start earning extra money a few weeks after beginning
+my training.
+
+I will train you in drafting right where you are in your spare time. I
+have trained men who are making $3,500.00 to $9,000.00 a year. Get
+started now toward a better position, paying a good, straight salary,
+the year around. Comfortable surroundings. Inside work.
+
+
+Employment Service
+
+After training you I help you to get a job without charging you a cent
+for this service. Employers of Draftsmen come to me for men. Employers
+know they are not taking chances on men trained by me.
+
+
+No Experience Necessary
+
+You do not need to be a college man nor high school graduate to learn by
+this method. No previous experience necessary. I make a positive money
+back guarantee with you before I begin to train you.
+
+If you are now earning less than
+
+
+$70.00 a WEEK
+
+[Illustration: _I train you at home!_]
+
+_Write For My FREE "Pay-Raising Plan"_
+
+Mail this coupon at once. Get "My Pay-Raising Plan". It certainly points
+the way to success. You owe it to yourself to send for this book. Find
+out how I help you find big opportunities in practically all big
+industries. The book will come to you post paid and FREE. Mail the
+coupon for it today.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  =Engineer Dobe=
+  =1951 Lawrence Ave., Div. 15-62=
+  =Chicago=
+
+Send me Free of all cost, "My Pay-Raising Plan". Also plan to earn money
+while learning to be a draftsman and proof of big money paying positions
+in great industries.
+
+  _Name_..................................  _Age_.........
+
+  _Address_...............................................
+
+  _Post Office_.........................  _State_.........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Clear-Tone Clears the Skin
+
+Clear-Tone is a penetrating, purifying lotion, used at night with
+astounding success to clear the skin of pimples, blotches, black-heads
+and other annoying, unsightly skin irritations due to external causes.
+More than one-half million persons have cleared their skins with
+Clear-Tone in the last 12 years. "Complexion Tragedies with Happy
+Endings", filled with facts supplied by Clear-Tone users sent Free on
+request. Clear-Tone can be had at your druggist--or direct from us.
+GIVENS CHEMICAL CO., 2557 Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  SELL PIONEER All Wool Tailoring
+
+  _Full or Part Time_
+
+  $4.50 to $7.00 (WITH BONUS)
+  PROFIT Per SUIT
+
+Cash Paid Daily
+
+An opportunity to make $12 a day from the start, selling famous Pioneer
+tailored-to-measure, all-wool suits at $25. Commissions paid in advance.
+=Chance for own clothes at no cost.= Striking Big Outfit of over 100
+large swatches furnished free--other equally remarkable values at $30
+and $35. We train the inexperienced. Men willing to work for success
+will write for this big money-making opportunity, today.
+
+  =PIONEER TAILORING CO.=
+  =Congress and Throop Sts., Dept. P-1184, Chicago=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ruptured?
+
+[Illustration: Trade Mark
+
+C. K. Brooks, Inventor]
+
+Be Comfortable--
+
+Three million of these comfortable sanitary appliances sold. No
+obnoxious springs or pads. Automatic Air Cushion gently assists nature
+in drawing together the broken parts. Durable. Cheap. Sent on 10-day
+trial to prove its worth. Beware of imitations. Every appliance made to
+individual measurements and sent direct from Marshall. Full information
+and Rupture booklet sent free in plain, sealed envelope. Write for all
+the facts today.
+
+=BROOKS APPLIANCE CO., 173-B State Street, Marshall, Mich.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CORRECT Your NOSE!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thousands have used the Anita Nose Adjuster to improve their appearance.
+Shapes flesh and cartilage of the nose--safely, painlessly, while you
+sleep. Results are lasting. Doctors approve it. Money back guarantee.
+Gold Medal winner. Write for 30-Day TRIAL OFFER and FREE BOOKLET.
+
+=ANITA INSTITUTE, 242 Anita Building, Newark, N.J.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHAT EVERY ELECTRICIAN WANTS TO _KNOW_!
+
+Is easily found in AUDELS NEW ELECTRIC LIBRARY. Electricity made simple
+as ABC. Up-to-date, trade dope for the expert and ALL electrical
+workers.
+
+Questions, answers, diagrams, calculations, underwriter's code; design,
+construction, operation and maintenance of modern electrical machines
+and appliances FULLY COVERED.
+
+All available at small cost, easy terms. BOOK-A-MONTH service puts this
+NEW information in your hands for 6¢ a day.
+
+Write TODAY for Electrical Folder and FREE TRIAL offer.
+
+Theo. Audel & Co. 65 W. 23rd St. New York, Dept. 20
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ever Get Nervous When You're Reading?
+
+--_You might see a doctor_,
+
+--_But if you are a girl, and wise_,
+
+--_You'll try reading_
+
+=MISS 1930=
+
+_instead_
+
+
+--IT'S A TONIC
+
+--A Chance To See your picture in a magazine.
+
+--Real laughs.
+
+--Choosing a Career
+
+--The Fate of Your Name
+
+--Youthful Styles
+
+--And the Best Fiction in any
+
+MAGAZINE FOR THE MODERN GIRL
+
+  MISS 1930
+  80 Lafayette Street, New York City
+
+  25¢. AT YOUR NEWSDEALER
+  SUBSCRIPTION $3.00 PER YEAR
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: FOR THOUSANDS OF MEN]
+
+Tobacco Habit Banished
+
+Let Us Help You
+
+Stop craving tobacco in any form. Tobacco Redeemer in most cases
+relieves all craving for it in a few days' time. Don't try to quit the
+tobacco habit unaided. It's often a losing fight against heavy odds, and
+may mean a distressing shock to the nervous system. Let Tobacco Redeemer
+help the habit to quit _you_. Tobacco users usually can depend upon this
+help by simply using Tobacco Redeemer according to simple directions. It
+is pleasant to use, acts quickly, and is thoroughly reliable.
+
+
+Not a Substitute
+
+Tobacco Redeemer contains no habit-forming drugs of any kind. It is in
+no sense a substitute for tobacco. After finishing the treatment, there
+should be no desire to use tobacco again or to continue the use of the
+remedy. In case the treatment is not perfectly satisfactory, we will
+gladly refund any money paid. It makes not a particle of difference how
+long tobacco has been used, or in what form--whether it is cigars,
+cigarettes, pipe, plug, fine cut or snuff. In most cases Tobacco
+Redeemer removes all craving for tobacco in any form in a very few days.
+And remember, it is offered with a positive money-back guarantee. Write
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+of Akron, O., "just by wearing a Director Belt. Stomach now firm,
+doesn't sag and I feel fine."
+
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+  =332 S. La Salle St., Chicago, Ill.=
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+
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+of your trial offer.
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+
+[Illustration: WANTED--for murder!]
+
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+
+In a dirty, forelorn shack by the river's edge they found the mutilated
+body of Genevieve Martin. Her pretty face was swollen and distorted.
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+  =Dept. 15-62 1920 Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago, Ill.=
+
+Gentlemen: Without any obligation whatever, send me your new, fully
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+Confidential Reports of Operator No. 38 made to His Chief.
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+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Muscles 5¢ apiece!
+
+Wouldn't it be great if we could buy muscles by the bag--take them home
+and paste them on our shoulders? Then our rich friends with money to buy
+them, sure would be socking us all over the lots. But they don't come
+that easy, fellows. If you want muscle you have to work for it. That's
+the reason why the lazy fellow never can hope to be strong. So if you're
+lazy and don't want to work--you had better quit right here. This talk
+was never meant for you.
+
+[Illustration: =EARLE LIEDERMAN, The Muscle Builder=]
+
+_Author of "Muscle Building," "Science of Wrestling and Jiu Jitsu,"
+"Secrets of Strength," "Here's Health," "Endurance," Etc._
+
+
+I WANT LIVE ONES
+
+I've been making big men out of little ones for over fifteen years. I've
+made pretty near as many strong men as Heinz has made pickles. My system
+never fails. That's why I guarantee my works to do the trick. That's why
+they gave me the name of "The Muscle Builder."
+
+I have the surest bet that you ever heard of. Eugen Sandow himself said
+that my system is the shortest and surest that America ever had to
+offer.
+
+Follow me closely now and I'll tell you a few things I'm going to do for
+you.
+
+
+HERE'S WHAT I GUARANTEE
+
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+add two inches to your chest in the same length of time. But that's
+nothing. I've only started; get this--I'm going to put knobs of muscles
+on your shoulders like baseballs. I'm going to deepen your chest so that
+you will double your lung capacity. Each breath you take will flood
+every crevice of your pulmonary cavity with oxygen. This will load your
+blood with red corpuscles, shooting life and vitality throughout your
+entire system. I'm going to give you arms and legs like pillars. I'm
+going to work on every inner muscle as well, toning up your liver, your
+heart, etc. You'll have a snap to your step and a flash to your eye.
+You'll feel the real pep shooting up and down your old backbone. You'll
+stretch out your big brawny arms and crave for a chance to crush
+everything before you. You'll just bubble over with vim and animation.
+
+Sounds pretty good, what? You can bet your old ukulele it's good. It's
+wonderful. And don't forget, fellow--I'm not just promising all this--I
+guarantee it. Well, let's get busy, I want action--So do you.
+
+
+Send for my new 64-page book "_Muscular Development_"
+
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+
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+many prize-winning pupils I have trained. Some of these came to me as
+pitiful weaklings, imploring me to help them. Look them over now, and
+you will marvel at their present physiques. This book will prove an
+impetus and a real inspiration to you. It will thrill you through and
+through. This will not obligate you at all, but for the sake of your
+future health and happiness, do not put it off. Send today--right now,
+before you turn this page.
+
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+  DEPT. 1702
+  305 BROADWAY, N.Y. CITY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  =EARLE LIEDERMAN=
+  =Dept. 1702, 305 Broadway, New York City=
+
+Dear Sir:--Please send me without any obligation on my part whatever, a
+copy of your latest book "Muscular Development." (Please write or print
+plainly.)
+
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+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  change to
+  OLD GOLD
+  in kindness to your
+  THROAT
+
+THE SMOKE SCREEN THAT KEEPS OUT THROAT-SCRATCH
+
+
+"COLD" WEATHER IS OLD GOLD WEATHER
+
+[Illustration: Old Gold Cigarettes]
+
+In raw, damp, or cold weather, change to OLD GOLD. Its naturally good
+tobaccos are smooth and kind to your throat.
+
+Just clean, ripe tobacco, blended to honey-smoothness. And a flavor that
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+THREE years! Take a carton home. Do it today. For this is the weather
+for mild OLD GOLD.
+
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+a carload"=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHEN CRITICAL SMOKERS GET TOGETHER
+
+[Illustration: Camel]
+
+Their experience recognizes that Camel is indeed "a better cigarette":
+
+    Better in its quality of mellow, fragrant tobacco.
+
+    Better in the mildness and satisfying taste of the Camel blend.
+
+When they learn the difference they flock to Camels.
+
+CAMEL _CIGARETTES_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber Corrections:
+
+He turned quickly and was astonished at the sight of [added 'the']
+
+shook a skinny forefinger [standardized 'fore-finger'] in Tom's face.
+
+I was successful [was 'successsful'] in business
+
+His eyes were riveted [standardized 'rivetted'] to an undulating,
+
+One is that it would be [was 'would me']
+
+propellers [standardized 'propellors'] ripping into the summer night
+
+The thing was halfway [standardized 'half-way'] to the high bank
+
+On some were propellers [standardized 'propellors'].
+
+the slim shafts with their little propellerlike [standardized
+'propellorlike'] fans.
+
+There were others without the propellers; [standardized 'propellors']
+
+He saw from below the swift plane, [added comma] the streaming,
+intangible ray
+
+does not sympathize [was 'symphathize'] with radicals.
+
+and took up a cigarette. Lighting [was 'Lightning'] it
+
+The light of the match died, plunging me into a pit of gloom. [was ,]
+
+more comfort than [was 'that'] a room of grotesque shadows
+
+familiar [was 'familar'] to him. He had seen it pictured
+
+throughout the sun-ship, [standardized 'sun ship'] Northwood, going
+into the cabin for fur coats,
+
+Athalia's [was 'Athania's'] picture was gone.
+
+He seized a telescope and focused [was 'focusd'] it
+
+Northwood [was 'Norwood'] narrowed his eyes as
+
+"Do I guess right," said Northwood, [was ;] "that the light is
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Mundson. [was 'Munson'] "In your American slang,
+
+New Eden, [was 'Elden'] where supermen are younger than babes
+
+while she possessed the freshness of young girlhood, [changed from ;]
+her skin and eyes
+
+the iciness [was 'icyness'] was gone from his blue eyes
+
+you would be disappointed in him, [added ,] especially after having
+
+which she probably never saw before to-day, [standardized 'today']
+
+I don't blame Adam for preferring [was 'prefering'] Athalia.
+
+the atoms of his body seemed to fly asunder. [was 'assunder']
+
+Every grave that has yawned to receive its prey hides [was 'pray']
+
+thrust him into Future Time, where the laboratory [was hyphenated
+between lines as 'labor-ratory']
+
+there could be no survivors. [standardized 'survivers']
+
+could receive with any [was 'and'] degree of clarity,
+
+always passed everyone [standardized 'every one'] who took his
+courses
+
+that he was allowed to go [was 'do'] about as he pleased.
+
+I can have a good man rewrite [standardized 're-write'] your drivel
+
+isn't to-day [standardized 'today'] to that Indian.
+
+would be necessary to decelerate [was 'decellerate']
+
+what looked at first [was 'fist'] glance to be a huge artillery shell
+
+To-day [standardized 'Today'] the human body stands a speed
+
+A few minutes was enough for [removed duplicate 'for'] me to grasp
+
+Suppose I was laughed [was 'to laughed'] at when I get back,
+
+in the chairs of science to-day. [standardized 'today']
+
+pre-pleistocene [was 'pre-pleistocence'] age--swimming among the
+invertebrate
+
+and, with almost super-human [standardized 'superhuman'] efforts,
+
+"The swarm's halfway [standardized 'half-way'] to Adelaide," he said.
+
+"Tommy, there must be water in the station," said [was 'and'] Dodd.
+
+The entire machine was enclosed [standardized 'inclosed'] in a
+
+inconspicuousness [was 'inconspicuous'] of his voice and manner
+
+replied the detective. "Where did you hide the loot?" [was ,]
+
+a person might [was 'mighty'] cause by passing very rapidly.
+
+more experience with robberies than [was 'that'] with apprehending
+
+is closed for to-day. [standardized 'today']
+
+replied the doctor with a judicial [was 'judical'] air,
+
+"Are we going to waste the whole afternoon [was 'afternon']
+
+showed you to be ambidextrous." [was 'ambidexterous']
+
+SUBSCRIPTION [was 'SUBSCSRIPTION'] $3.00 PER YEAR
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science
+February 1930, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES--SUPER SCIENCE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 28617-8.txt or 28617-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+      Astounding Stories of Super-Science, February, 1930, by Various.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science
+February 1930, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 26, 2009 [EBook #28617]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES--SUPER SCIENCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Katherine Ward and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="trnote">
+<p><b>Transcriber's Note</b></p>
+
+<p>
+Initial advertisements moved <a href="#Advertisements">below main text</a>.<br />
+The Beetle Horde concludes a story begun in the Jan, 1930 edition.<br />
+Minor spelling and typographical errors corrected.<br />
+Variable Spelling and Hyphenations standardized.<br />
+The changes from the original text are <ins class="correction" title="original here">highlighted</ins>.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width:auto">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="360" height="518" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>ASTOUNDING<br />
+STORIES<br />
+OF SUPER-SCIENCE</h1>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smaller"><i>On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month</i></span></p>
+
+<table summary="masthead2" width="100%">
+  <col width="30%" />
+  <col width="40%" />
+  <col width="30%" />
+  <tr>
+    <td align="left">W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher</td>
+    <td class="center">HARRY BATES, Editor</td>
+    <td class="ralign">DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/146.png" width="99" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees:</p>
+
+<blockquote class="smaller">
+<p><i>That</i> the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid; by leading writers of the day and purchased
+under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America;</p>
+
+<p><i>That</i> such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen;</p>
+
+<p><i>That</i> each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit;</p>
+
+<p><i>That</i> an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>The other Clayton magazines are</i>:</p>
+
+<p class="center">ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS
+MONTHLY, WIDE WORLD ADVENTURES, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, FLYERS,
+RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, SKY-HIGH LIBRARY MAGAZINE,
+MISS 1930, <i>and</i> FOREST AND STREAM</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center"><i>More Than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for Clayton Magazines.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div style="margin-bottom:1em">
+<table summary="masthead" width="100%">
+  <col width="30%" />
+  <col width="45%" />
+  <col width="25%" />
+  <tr>
+    <td align="left">VOL. I, No. 2</td>
+    <td class="center larger">CONTENTS</td>
+    <td class="ralign">FEBRUARY, 1930</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<table summary="TOC" width="100%">
+  <col width="45%" />
+  <col width="45%" />
+  <col width="10%" />
+  <tr>
+    <td>COVER DESIGN</td>
+    <td>H. W. WESSOLOWSKI</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="toc_desc"><i>Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in "Spawn of the Stars."</i></td>
+  </tr>
+
+<tr><td>OLD CROMPTON'S SECRET</td><td>HARL VINCENT</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#Old_Cromptons_Secret">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>Tom's Extraordinary Machine Glowed&mdash;and the Years Were Banished from Old Crompton's
+Body. But There Still Remained, Deep-seated in His Century-old Mind, the
+Memory of His Crime.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>SPAWN OF THE STARS</td><td>CHARLES WILLARD DIFFIN</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#Spawn_of_the_Stars">166</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>The Earth Lay Powerless Beneath Those Loathsome, Yellowish Monsters That, Sheathed
+in Cometlike Globes, Sprang from the Skies to Annihilate Man and Reduce His Cities
+to Ashes.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>THE CORPSE ON THE GRATING</td><td>HUGH B. CAVE</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#The_Corpse_on_the_Grating">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>In the Gloomy Depths of the Old Warehouse Dale Saw a Thing That Drew a Scream of
+Horror to His Dry Lips. It Was a Corpse&mdash;the Mold of Decay on Its Long-dead
+Features&mdash;and Yet It Was Alive!</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>CREATURES OF THE LIGHT</td><td>SOPHIE WENZEL ELLIS</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#Creatures">196</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>He Had Striven to Perfect the Faultless Man of the Future, and Had Succeeded&mdash;Too
+Well. For in the Pitilessly Cold Eyes of Adam, His Super-human Creation, Dr.
+Mundson Saw Only Contempt&mdash;and Annihilation&mdash;for the Human Race.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>INTO SPACE</td><td>STERNER ST. PAUL</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#Into_Space">221</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>What Was the Extraordinary Connection Between Dr. Livermore's Sudden Disappearance
+and the Coming of a New Satellite to the Earth?</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>THE BEETLE HORDE</td><td>VICTOR ROUSSEAU</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#The_Beetle_Horde">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>Bullets, Shrapnel, Shell&mdash;Nothing Can Stop the Trillions of Famished, Man-sized Beetles
+Which, Led by a Madman, Sweep Down Over the Human Race.</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>MAD MUSIC</td><td>ANTHONY PELCHER</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#Mad_Music">248</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>The Sixty Stories of the Perfectly Constructed Colossus Building Had Mysteriously
+Crashed! What Was the Connection Between This Catastrophe and the Weird
+Strains of the Mad Musician's Violin?</i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>THE THIEF OF TIME</td><td>CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK</td><td class="ralign"><a href="#The_Thief_of_Time">259</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="toc_desc hang1st"><i>The Teller Turned to the Stacked Pile of Bills. They Were Gone! And No One Had
+Been Near!</i></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="smaller">
+<table summary="masthead" width="100%">
+  <col width="55%" />
+  <col width="35%" />
+  <tr>
+    <td align="left">Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents)</td>
+    <td class="ralign">Yearly Subscription, $2.00</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St., New York, N.Y. W. M. Clayton, President;
+Nathan Goldmann, Secretary. Application for entry as second-class mail pending at the Post Office at
+New York, under Act of March 3, 1879. Application for registration of title as Trade Mark pending in the
+U.S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List. For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe &amp; Co.,
+Inc., 25 Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave., Chicago.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153">[153]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Old_Cromptons_Secret" id="Old_Cromptons_Secret"></a>Old Crompton's Secret</h2>
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Harl Vincent</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/153.png" width="400" height="355" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>Tom tripped on a
+wire and fell, with
+his ferocious adversary
+on top.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Two</span> miles west of the village
+of Laketon there lived an aged
+recluse who was known only as
+Old Crompton. As far back as
+the villagers could remember he had
+visited the town
+regularly twice a
+month, each time
+tottering his lonely
+way homeward
+with a load of
+provisions. He
+appeared to be
+well supplied with funds, but purchased
+sparingly as became a miserly
+hermit. And so vicious was his tongue
+that few cared to converse with him,
+even the young hoodlums of the town
+hesitating to harass him with the banter
+usually accorded the other bizarre
+characters of the streets.</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">Tom's extraordinary machine glowed&mdash;and
+the years were banished from Old
+Crompton's body. But there still remained,
+deep-seated in his century-old
+mind, the memory of his crime.</p>
+
+<p>The oldest inhabitants knew nothing
+of his past history, and they had long
+since lost their curiosity in the matter.
+He was a fixture,
+as was the old
+town hall with
+its surrounding
+park. His lonely
+cabin was shunned
+by all who chanced
+to pass along the
+old dirt road that led through the
+woods to nowhere and was rarely used.</p>
+
+<p>His only extravagance was in the
+matter of books, and the village book
+store profited considerably by his purchases.
+But, at the instigation of Cass<span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154">[154]</a></span>
+Harmon, the bookseller, it was whispered
+about that Old Crompton was a
+believer in the black art&mdash;that he had
+made a pact with the devil himself and
+was leagued with him and his imps.
+For the books he bought were strange
+ones; ancient volumes that Cass must
+needs order from New York or Chicago
+and that cost as much as ten and even
+fifteen dollars a copy; translations of
+the writings of the alchemists and astrologers
+and philosophers of the dark
+ages.</p>
+
+<p>It was no wonder Old Crompton was
+looked at askance by the simple-living
+and deeply religious natives of the
+small Pennsylvania town.</p>
+
+<p>But there came a day when the hermit
+was to have a neighbor, and the
+town buzzed with excited speculation
+as to what would happen.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> property across the road from
+Old Crompton's hut belonged to
+Alton Forsythe, Laketon's wealthiest
+resident&mdash;hundreds of acres of scrubby
+woodland that he considered well nigh
+worthless. But Tom Forsythe, the only
+son, had returned from college and his
+ambitions were of a nature strange to
+his townspeople and utterly incomprehensible
+to his father. Something
+vague about biology and chemical experiments
+and the like is what he spoke
+of, and, when his parents objected on
+the grounds of possible explosions and
+other weird accidents, he prevailed
+upon his father to have a secluded laboratory
+built for him in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>When the workmen started the small
+frame structure not a quarter of a mile
+from his own hut, Old Crompton was
+furious. He raged and stormed, but to
+no avail. Tom Forsythe had his heart
+set on the project and he was somewhat
+of a successful debater himself.
+The fire that flashed from his cold gray
+eyes matched that from the pale blue
+ones of the elderly anchorite. And the
+law was on his side.</p>
+
+<p>So the building was completed and
+Tom Forsythe moved in, bag and baggage.</p>
+
+<p>For more than a year the hermit studiously
+avoided his neighbor, though,
+truth to tell, this required very little
+effort. For Tom Forsythe became almost
+as much of a recluse as his predecessor,
+remaining indoors for days
+at a time and visiting the home of his
+people scarcely oftener than Old
+Crompton visited the village. He too
+became the target of village gossip and
+his name was ere long linked with that
+of the old man in similar animadversion.
+But he cared naught for the
+opinions of his townspeople nor for the
+dark looks of suspicion that greeted
+him on his rare appearances in the public
+places. His chosen work engrossed
+him so deeply that all else counted for
+nothing. His parents remonstrated
+with him in vain. Tom laughed away
+their recriminations and fears, continuing
+with his labors more strenuously
+than ever. He never troubled his mind
+over the nearness of Old Crompton's
+hut, the existence of which he hardly
+noticed or considered.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> so happened one day that the old
+man's curiosity got the better of
+him and Tom caught him prowling
+about on his property, peering wonderingly
+at the many rabbit hutches, chicken
+coops, dove cotes and the like which
+cluttered the space to the rear of the
+laboratory.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that he was discovered, the
+old man wrinkled his face into a toothless
+grin of conciliation.</p>
+
+<p>"Just looking over your place, Forsythe,"
+he said. "Sorry about the fuss
+I made when you built the house. But
+I'm an old man, you know, and changes
+are unwelcome. Now I have forgotten
+my objections and would like to be
+friends. Can we?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom peered searchingly into the
+flinty eyes that were set so deeply in
+the wrinkled, leathery countenance.
+He suspected an ulterior motive, but
+could not find it within him to turn the
+old fellow down.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;I guess so, Crompton," he
+hesitated: "I have nothing against you,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155">[155]</a></span>
+but I came here for seclusion and I'll
+not have anyone bothering me in my
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not bother you, young man. But
+I'm fond of pets and I see you have
+many of them here; guinea pigs, chickens,
+pigeons, and rabbits. Would you
+mind if I make friends with some of
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're not pets," answered Tom
+dryly, "they are material for use in my
+experiments. But you may amuse yourself
+with them if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you cut them up&mdash;kill
+them, perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that. But I sometimes change
+them in physical form, sometimes cause
+them to become of huge size, sometimes
+produce pigmy offspring of normal
+animals."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't they suffer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very seldom, though occasionally a
+subject dies. But the benefit that will
+accrue to mankind is well worth the
+slight inconvenience to the dumb creatures
+and the infrequent loss of their
+lives."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Old Crompton</span> regarded him
+dubiously. "You are trying to
+find?" he interrogated.</p>
+
+<p>"The secret of life!" Tom Forsythe's
+eyes took on the stare of fanaticism.
+"Before I have finished I shall know
+the nature of the vital force&mdash;how to
+produce it. I shall prolong human life
+indefinitely; create artificial life. And
+the solution is more closely approached
+with each passing day."</p>
+
+<p>The hermit blinked in pretended
+mystification. But he understood perfectly,
+and he bitterly envied the
+younger man's knowledge and ability
+that enabled him to delve into the mysteries
+of nature which had always been
+so attractive to his own mind. And
+somehow, he acquired a sudden deep
+hatred of the coolly confident young
+man who spoke so positively of accomplishing
+the impossible.</p>
+
+<p>During the winter months that followed,
+the strange acquaintance progressed
+but little. Tom did not invite
+his neighbor to visit him, nor did Old
+Crompton go out of his way to impose
+his presence on the younger man,
+though each spoke pleasantly enough
+to the other on the few occasions when
+they happened to meet.</p>
+
+<p>With the coming of spring they encountered
+one another more frequently,
+and Tom found considerable of interest
+in the quaint, borrowed philosophy
+of the gloomy old man. Old Crompton,
+of course, was desperately interested in
+the things that were hidden in Tom's
+laboratory, but he never requested permission
+to see them. He hid his real
+feelings extremely well and was apparently
+content to spend as much time as
+possible with the feathered and furred
+subjects for experiment, being very
+careful not to incur Tom's displeasure
+by displaying too great interest in the
+laboratory itself.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Then</span> there came a day in early
+summer when an accident served
+to draw the two men closer together,
+and Old Crompton's long-sought opportunity
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>He was starting for the village when,
+from down the road, there came a series
+of tremendous squawkings, then a bellow
+of dismay in the voice of his young
+neighbor. He turned quickly and was
+astonished at <ins class="correction" title="Added the">the sight</ins> of a monstrous
+rooster which had escaped and was
+headed straight for him with head
+down and wings fluttering wildly.
+Tom followed close behind, but was
+unable to catch the darting monster.
+And monster it was, for this rooster
+stood no less than three feet in height
+and appeared more ferocious than a
+large turkey. Old Crompton had his
+shopping bag, a large one of burlap
+which he always carried to town, and
+he summoned enough courage to throw
+it over the head of the screeching, over-sized
+fowl. So tangled did the panic-stricken
+bird become that it was a comparatively
+simple matter to effect his
+capture, and the old man rose to his
+feet triumphant with the bag securely
+closed over the struggling captive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156">[156]</a></span>
+"Thanks," panted Tom, when he
+drew alongside. "I should never have
+caught him, and his appearance at large
+might have caused me a great deal of
+trouble&mdash;now of all times."</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, Forsythe," smirked the
+old man. "Glad I was able to do it."</p>
+
+<p>Secretly he gloated, for he knew this
+occurrence would be an open sesame to
+that laboratory of Tom's. And it
+proved to be just that.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A few</span> nights later he was awakened
+by a vigorous thumping at
+his door, something that had never before
+occurred during his nearly sixty
+years occupancy of the tumbledown
+hut. The moon was high and he cautiously
+peeped from the window and
+saw that his late visitor was none other
+than young Forsythe.</p>
+
+<p>"With you in a minute!" he shouted,
+hastily thrusting his rheumatic old
+limbs into his shabby trousers. "Now
+to see the inside of that laboratory," he
+chuckled to himself.</p>
+
+<p>It required but a moment to attire
+himself in the scanty raiment he wore
+during the warm months, but he could
+hear Tom muttering and impatiently
+pacing the flagstones before his door.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he asked, as he drew
+the bolt and emerged into the brilliant
+light of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>"Success!" breathed Tom excitedly.
+"I have produced growing, living matter
+synthetically. More than this, I
+have learned the secret of the vital
+force&mdash;the spark of life. Immortality
+is within easy reach. Come and see
+for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>They quickly traversed the short distance
+to the two-story building which
+comprised Tom's workshop and living
+quarters. The entire ground floor was
+taken up by the laboratory, and Old
+Crompton stared aghast at the wealth
+of equipment it contained. Furnaces
+there were, and retorts that reminded
+him of those pictured in the wood cuts
+in some of his musty books. Then
+there were complicated machines with
+many levers and dials mounted on their
+faces, and with huge glass bulbs of peculiar
+shape with coils of wire connecting
+to knoblike protuberances of their
+transparent walls. In the exact center
+of the great single room there was what
+appeared to be a dissecting table, with
+a brilliant light overhead and with two
+of the odd glass bulbs at either end.
+It was to this table that Tom led the
+excited old man.</p>
+
+<p>"This is my perfected apparatus,"
+said Tom proudly, "and by its use I
+intend to create a new race of supermen,
+men and women who will always
+retain the vigor and strength of their
+youth and who can not die excepting
+by actual destruction of their bodies.
+Under the influence of the rays all
+bodily ailments vanish as if by magic,
+and organic defects are quickly corrected.
+Watch this now."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> stepped to one of the many
+cages at the side of the room and
+returned with a wriggling cottontail in
+his hands. Old Compton watched anxiously
+as he picked a nickeled instrument
+from a tray of surgical appliances
+and requested his visitor to hold the
+protesting animal while he covered its
+head with a handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Ethyl chloride," explained Tom,
+noting with amusement the look of distaste
+on the old man's face. "We'll
+just put him to sleep for a minute while
+I amputate a leg."</p>
+
+<p>The struggles of the rabbit quickly
+ceased when the spray soaked the handkerchief
+and the anaesthetic took effect.
+With a shining scalpel and a surgical
+saw, Tom speedily removed one
+of the forelegs of the animal and then
+he placed the limp body in the center
+of the table, removing the handkerchief
+from its head as he did so. At
+the end of the table there was a panel
+with its glittering array of switches
+and electrical instruments, and Old
+Crompton observed very closely the
+manipulations of the controls as Tom
+started the mechanism. With the ensuing
+hum of a motor-generator from a
+corner of the room, the four bulbs ad<span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157">[157]</a></span>jacent
+to the table sprang into life, each
+glowing with a different color and each
+emitting a different vibratory note as
+it responded to the energy within.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep an eye on Mr. Rabbit now,"
+admonished Tom.</p>
+
+<p>From the body of the small animal
+there emanated an intangible though
+hazily visible aura as the combined effects
+of the rays grew in intensity. Old
+Crompton bent over the table and
+peered amazedly at the stump of the
+foreleg, from which blood no longer
+dripped. The stump was healing over!
+Yes&mdash;it seemed to elongate as one
+watched. A new limb was growing on
+to replace the old! Then the animal
+struggled once more, this time to regain
+consciousness. In a moment it
+was fully awake and, with a frightened
+hop, was off the table and hobbling
+about in search of a hiding place.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Tom Forsythe</span> laughed. "Never
+knew what happened," he exulted,
+"and excepting for the temporary limp
+is not inconvenienced at all. Even that
+will be gone in a couple of hours, for
+the new limb will be completely grown
+by that time."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but, Tom," stammered the old
+man, "this is wonderful. How do you
+accomplish it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! Don't think I'll reveal my
+secret. But this much I will tell you:
+the life force generated by my apparatus
+stimulates a certain gland that's
+normally inactive in warm blooded animals.
+This gland, when active, possesses
+the function of growing new
+members to the body to replace lost
+ones in much the same manner as this
+is done in case of the lobster and certain
+other crustaceans. Of course, the
+process is extremely rapid when the
+gland is stimulated by the vital rays
+from my tubes. But this is only one
+of the many wonders of the process.
+Here is something far more remarkable."</p>
+
+<p>He took from a large glass jar the
+body of a guinea pig, a body that was
+rigid in death.</p>
+
+<p>"This guinea pig," he explained, "was
+suffocated twenty-four hours ago and
+is stone dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Suffocated?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But quite painlessly, I assure
+you. I merely removed the air from
+the jar with a vacuum pump and the
+little creature passed out of the picture
+very quickly. Now we'll revive it."</p>
+
+<p>Old Crompton stretched forth a skinny
+hand to touch the dead animal, but
+withdrew it hastily when he felt the
+clammy rigidity of the body. There
+was no doubt as to the lifelessness of
+this specimen.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Tom</span> placed the dead guinea pig on
+the spot where the rabbit had been
+subjected to the action of the rays.
+Again his visitor watched carefully as
+he manipulated the controls of the apparatus.</p>
+
+<p>With the glow of the tubes and the
+ensuing haze of eery light that surrounded
+the little body, a marked
+change was apparent. The inanimate
+form relaxed suddenly and it seemed
+that the muscles pulsated with an accession
+of energy. Then one leg was
+stretched forth spasmodically. There
+was a convulsive heave as the lungs
+drew in a first long breath, and, with
+that, an astonished and very much alive
+rodent scrambled to its feet, blinking
+wondering eyes in the dazzling light.</p>
+
+<p>"See? See?" shouted Tom, grasping
+Old Crompton by the arm in a viselike
+grip. "It is the secret of life and
+death! Aristocrats, plutocrats and beggars
+will beat a path to my door. But,
+never fear, I shall choose my subjects
+well. The name of Thomas Forsythe
+will yet be emblazoned in the Hall of
+Fame. I shall be master of the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Crompton began to fear the glitter
+in the eyes of the gaunt young man
+who seemed suddenly to have become
+demented. And his envy and hatred of
+his talented host blazed anew as Forsythe
+gloried in the success of his efforts.
+Then he was struck with an idea
+and he affected his most ingratiating
+manner.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158">[158]</a></span>
+"It is a marvelous thing, Tom," he
+said, "and is entirely beyond my poor
+comprehension. But I can see that it
+is all you say and more. Tell me&mdash;can
+you restore the youth of an aged person
+by these means?"</p>
+
+<p>"Positively!" Tom did not catch the
+eager note in the old man's voice. Rather
+he took the question as an inquiry
+into the further marvels of his process.
+"Here," he continued, enthusiastically,
+"I'll prove that to you also. My dog
+Spot is around the place somewhere.
+And he is a decrepit old hound, blind,
+lame and toothless. You've probably
+seen him with me."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> rushed to the stairs and whistled.
+There was an answering
+yelp from above and the pad of uncertain
+paws on the bare wooden steps.
+A dejected old beagle blundered into
+the room, dragging a crippled hind leg
+as he fawned upon his master, who
+stretched forth a hand to pat the unsteady
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess Spot is old enough for the
+test," laughed Tom, "and I have been
+meaning to restore him to his youthful
+vigor, anyway. No time like the present."</p>
+
+<p>He led his trembling pet to the table
+of the remarkable tubes and lifted him
+to its surface. The poor old beast lay
+trustingly where he was placed, quiet,
+save for his husky asthmatic breathing.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold him, Crompton," directed Tom
+as he pulled the starting lever of his
+apparatus.</p>
+
+<p>And Old Crompton watched in fascinated
+anticipation as the ethereal luminosity
+bathed the dog's body in response
+to the action of the four rays.
+Somewhat vaguely it came to him that
+the baggy flesh of his own wrinkled
+hands took on a new firmness and color
+where they reposed on the animal's
+back. Young Forsythe grinned triumphantly
+as Spot's breathing became
+more regular and the rasp gradually
+left it. Then the dog whined in pleasure
+and wagged his tail with increasing
+vigor. Suddenly he raised his head,
+perked his ears in astonishment and
+looked his master straight in the face
+with eyes that saw once more. The low
+throat cry rose to a full and joyous
+bark. He sprang to his feet from under
+the restraining hands and jumped
+to the floor in a lithe-muscled leap that
+carried him half way across the room.
+He capered about with the abandon of
+a puppy, making extremely active use
+of four sound limbs.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why, Forsythe," stammered
+the hermit, "it's absolutely incredible.
+Tell me&mdash;tell me&mdash;what is this remarkable
+force?"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">His</span> host laughed gleefully. "You
+probably wouldn't understand it
+anyway, but I'll tell you. It is as simple
+as the nose on your face. The spark
+of life, the vital force, is merely an extremely
+complicated electrical manifestation
+which I have been able to duplicate
+artificially. This spark or force
+is all that distinguishes living from inanimate
+matter, and in living beings
+the force gradually decreases in power
+as the years pass, causing loss of health
+and strength. The chemical composition
+of bones and tissue alters, joints
+become stiff, muscles atrophied, and
+bones brittle. By recharging, as it
+were, with the vital force, the gland
+action is intensified, youth and strength
+is renewed. By repeating the process
+every ten or fifteen years the same degree
+of vigor can be maintained indefinitely.
+Mankind will become immortal.
+That is why I say I am to be master of
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>For the moment Old Crompton forgot
+his jealous hatred in the enthusiasm
+with which he was imbued. "Tom&mdash;Tom,"
+he pleaded in his excitement,
+"use me as a subject. Renew my youth.
+My life has been a sad one and a lonely
+one, but I would that I might live it
+over. I should make of it a far different
+one&mdash;something worth while. See,
+I am ready."</p>
+
+<p>He sat on the edge of the gleaming
+table and made as if to lie down on its
+gleaming surface. But his young host<span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159">[159]</a></span>
+only stared at him in open amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"What? You?" he sneered, unfeelingly.
+"Why, you old fossil! I told
+you I would choose my subjects carefully.
+They are to be people of standing
+and wealth, who can contribute to
+the fame and fortune of one Thomas
+Forsythe."</p>
+
+<p>"But Tom, I have money," Old
+Crompton begged. But when he saw
+the hard mirth in the younger man's
+eyes, his old animosity flamed anew
+and he sprang from his position and
+shook a skinny <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from fore-finger">forefinger</ins> in Tom's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do that to me, you old fool!"
+shouted Tom, "and get out of here.
+Think I'd waste current on an old cadger
+like you? I guess not! Now get
+out. Get out, I say!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the old anchorite saw red.
+Something seemed to snap in his soured
+old brain. He found himself kicking
+and biting and punching at his host,
+who backed away from the furious onslaught
+in surprise. Then Tom tripped
+over a wire and fell to the floor with a
+force that rattled the windows, his ferocious
+little adversary on top. The
+younger man lay still where he had
+fallen, a trickle of blood showing at
+his temple.</p>
+
+<p>"My God! I've killed him!" gasped
+the old man.</p>
+
+<p>With trembling fingers he opened
+Tom's shirt and listened for his heartbeats.
+Panic-stricken, he rubbed the
+young man's wrists, slapped his cheeks,
+and ran for water to dash in his face.
+But all efforts to revive him proved
+futile, and then, in awful fear, Old
+Crompton dashed into the night, the
+dog Spot snapping at his heels as he
+ran.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Hours</span> later the stooped figure of
+a shabby old man might have
+been seen stealthily re-entering the
+lonely workshop where the lights still
+burned brightly. Tom Forsythe lay
+rigid in the position in which Old
+Crompton had left him, and the dog
+growled menacingly.</p>
+
+<p>Averting his gaze and circling wide
+of the body, Old Crompton made for
+the table of the marvelous rays. In
+minute detail he recalled every move
+made by Tom in starting and adjusting
+the apparatus to produce the incredible
+results he had witnessed. Not a
+moment was to be wasted now. Already
+he had hesitated too long, for
+soon would come the dawn and possible
+discovery of his crime. But the invention
+of his victim would save him from
+the long arm of the law, for, with youth
+restored, Old Crompton would cease to
+exist and a new life would open its
+doors to the starved soul of the hermit.
+Hermit, indeed! He would begin life
+anew, an active man with youthful vigor
+and ambition. Under an assumed
+name he would travel abroad, would
+enjoy life, and would later become a
+successful man of affairs. He had
+enough money, he told himself. And
+the police would never find Old Crompton,
+the murderer of Tom Forsythe!
+He deposited his small traveling bag
+on the floor and fingered the controls
+of Tom's apparatus.</p>
+
+<p>He threw the starting switch confidently
+and grinned in satisfaction as
+the answering whine of the motor-generator
+came to his ears. One by one he
+carefully made the adjustments in exactly
+the manner followed by the now
+silenced discoverer of the process.
+Everything operated precisely as it
+had during the preceding experiments.
+Odd that he should have anticipated
+some such necessity! But something
+had told him to observe Tom's movements
+carefully, and now he rejoiced
+in the fact that his intuition had led
+him aright. Painfully he climbed to
+the table top and stretched his aching
+body in the warm light of the four huge
+tubes. His exertions during the struggle
+with Tom were beginning to tell
+on him. But the soreness and stiffness
+of feeble muscles and stubborn joints
+would soon be but a memory. His
+pulses quickened at the thought and he
+breathed deep in a sudden feeling of
+unaccustomed well-being.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> dog growled continuously
+from his position at the head of
+his master, but did not move to interfere
+with the intruder. And Old
+Crompton, in the excitement of the momentous
+experience, paid him not the
+slightest attention.</p>
+
+<p>His body tingled from head to foot
+with a not unpleasant sensation that
+conveyed the assurance of radical
+changes taking place under the influence
+of the vital rays. The tingling
+sensation increased in intensity until
+it seemed that every corpuscle in his
+veins danced to the tune of the vibration
+from those glowing tubes that
+bathed him in an ever-spreading radiance.
+Aches and pains vanished from
+his body, but he soon experienced a
+sharp stab of new pain in his lower jaw.
+With an experimental forefinger he
+rubbed the gum. He laughed aloud as
+the realization came to him that in
+those gums where there had been no
+teeth for more than twenty years there
+was now growing a complete new set.
+And the rapidity of the process amazed
+him beyond measure. The aching area
+spread quickly and was becoming really
+uncomfortable. But then&mdash;and he
+consoled himself with the thought&mdash;nothing
+is brought into being without
+a certain amount of pain. Besides, he
+was confident that his discomfort
+would soon be over.</p>
+
+<p>He examined his hand, and found
+that the joints of two fingers long crippled
+with rheumatism now moved freely
+and painlessly. The misty brilliance
+surrounding his body was paling and
+he saw that the flesh was taking on a
+faint green fluorescence instead. The
+rays had completed their work and
+soon the transformation would be fully
+effected. He turned on his side and
+slipped to the floor with the agility of
+a youngster. The dog snarled anew,
+but kept steadfastly to his position.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">There</span> was a small mirror over
+the wash stand at the far end of
+the room and Old Crompton made haste
+to obtain the first view of his reflected
+image. His step was firm and springy,
+his bearing confident, and he found
+that his long-stooped shoulders
+straightened naturally and easily. He
+felt that he had taken on at least two
+inches in stature, which was indeed the
+case. When he reached the mirror he
+peered anxiously into its dingy surface
+and what he saw there so startled him
+that he stepped backward in amazement.
+This was not Larry Crompton,
+but an entirely new man. The straggly
+white hair had given way to soft,
+healthy waves of chestnut hue. Gone
+were the seams from the leathery countenance
+and the eyes looked out clearly
+and steadily from under brows as thick
+and dark as they had been in his youth.
+The reflected features were those of an
+entire stranger. They were not even
+reminiscent of the Larry Crompton of
+fifty years ago, but were the features
+of a far more vigorous and prepossessing
+individual than he had ever seemed,
+even in the best years of his life. The
+jaw was firm, the once sunken cheeks
+so well filled out that his high cheek
+bones were no longer in evidence. It
+was the face of a man of not more than
+thirty-eight years of age, reflecting exceptional
+intelligence and strength of
+character.</p>
+
+<p>"What a disguise!" he exclaimed in
+delight. And his voice, echoing in the
+stillness that followed the switching
+off of the apparatus, was deep-throated
+and mellow&mdash;the voice of a new man.</p>
+
+<p>Now, serenely confident that discovery
+was impossible, he picked up his
+small but heavy bag and started for the
+door. Dawn was breaking and he
+wished to put as many miles between
+himself and Tom's laboratory as could
+be covered in the next few hours.
+But at the door he hesitated. Then,
+despite the furious yapping of Spot,
+he returned to the table of the rays and,
+with deliberate thoroughness smashed
+the costly tubes which had brought
+about his rehabilitation. With a pinch
+bar from a nearby tool rack, he wrecked
+the controls and generating mechanisms
+beyond recognition. Now he was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161">[161]</a></span>
+absolutely secure! No meddling experts
+could possibly discover the secret
+of Tom's invention. All evidence
+would show that the young experimenter
+had met his death at the hands
+of Old Crompton, the despised hermit
+of West Laketon. But none would
+dream that the handsome man of means
+who was henceforth to be known as
+George Voight was that same despised
+hermit.</p>
+
+<p>He recovered his satchel and left the
+scene. With long, rapid strides he
+proceeded down the old dirt road toward
+the main highway where, instead
+of turning east into the village, he
+would turn west and walk to Kernsburg,
+the neighboring town. There, in
+not more than two hours time, his new
+life would really begin!</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Had</span> you, a visitor, departed from
+Laketon when Old Crompton did
+and returned twelve years later, you
+would have noticed very little difference
+in the appearance of the village.
+The old town hall and the little park
+were the same, the dingy brick building
+among the trees being just a little
+dingier and its wooden steps more
+worn and sagged. The main street
+showed evidence of recent repaving,
+and, in consequence of the resulting increase
+in through automobile traffic;
+there were two new gasoline filling stations
+in the heart of the town. Down
+the road about a half mile there was a
+new building, which, upon inquiring
+from one of the natives, would be
+proudly designated as the new high
+school building. Otherwise there were
+no changes to be observed.</p>
+
+<p>In his dilapidated chair in the untidy
+office he had occupied for nearly thirty
+years, sat Asa Culkin, popularly known
+as "Judge" Culkin. Justice of the
+peace, sheriff, attorney-at-law, and
+three times Mayor of Laketon, he was
+still a controlling factor in local politics
+and government. And many a
+knotty legal problem was settled in
+that gloomy little office. Many a dispute
+in the town council was dependent
+for arbitration upon the keen mind and
+understanding wit of the old judge.</p>
+
+<p>The four o'clock train had just puffed
+its labored way from the station when
+a stranger entered his office, a stranger
+of uncommonly prosperous air. The
+keen blue eyes of the old attorney appraised
+him instantly and classified him
+as a successful man of business, not yet
+forty years of age, and with a weighty
+problem on his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do for you, sir?" he
+asked, removing his feet from the battered
+desk top.</p>
+
+<p>"You may be able to help me a great
+deal, Judge," was the unexpected reply.
+"I came to Laketon to give myself up."</p>
+
+<p>"Give yourself up?" Culkin rose to
+his feet in surprise and unconsciously
+straightened his shoulders in the effort
+to seem less dwarfed before the tall
+stranger. "Why, what do you mean?"
+he inquired.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">I</span><span class="dcap"> wish</span> to give myself up for murder,"
+answered the amazing visitor,
+slowly and with decision, "for a
+murder committed twelve years ago. I
+should like you to listen to my story
+first, though. It has been kept too
+long."</p>
+
+<p>"But I still do not understand."
+There was puzzlement in the honest old
+face of the attorney. He shook his
+gray locks in uncertainty. "Why
+should you come here? Why come to
+me? What possible interest can I have
+in the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just this, Judge. You do not recognize
+me now, and you will probably
+consider my story incredible when you
+hear it. But, when I have given you
+all the evidence, you will know who I
+am and will be compelled to believe.
+The murder was committed in Laketon.
+That is why I came to you."</p>
+
+<p>"A murder in Laketon? Twelve
+years ago?" Again the aged attorney
+shook his head. "But&mdash;proceed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I killed Thomas Forsythe."</p>
+
+<p>The stranger looked for an expression
+of horror in the features of his
+listener, but there was none. Instead<span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162">[162]</a></span>
+the benign countenance took on a look
+of deepening amazement, but the smile
+wrinkles had somehow vanished and
+the old face was grave in its surprised
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem astonished," continued
+the stranger. "Undoubtedly you were
+convinced that the murderer was Larry
+Crompton&mdash;Old Crompton, the hermit.
+He disappeared the night of the crime
+and has never been heard from since.
+Am I correct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He disappeared all right. But
+continue."</p>
+
+<p>Not by a lift of his eyebrow did Culkin
+betray his disbelief, but the stranger
+sensed that his story was somehow
+not as startling as it should have been.</p>
+
+<p>"You will think me crazy, I presume.
+But I am Old Crompton. It was my
+hand that felled the unfortunate young
+man in his laboratory out there in West
+Laketon twelve years ago to-night. It
+was his marvelous invention that transformed
+the old hermit into the apparently
+young man you see before you.
+But I swear that I am none other than
+Larry Crompton and that I killed
+young Forsythe. I am ready to pay
+the penalty. I can bear the flagellation
+of my own conscience no longer."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> visitor's voice had risen to the
+point of hysteria. But his listener
+remained calm and unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>"Now just let me get this straight,"
+he said quietly. "Do I understand that
+you claim to be Old Crompton, rejuvenated
+in some mysterious manner, and
+that you killed Tom Forsythe on that
+night twelve years ago? Do I understand
+that you wish now to go to trial
+for that crime and to pay the penalty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Yes! And the sooner the better.
+I can stand it no longer. I am
+the most miserable man in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hm-m&mdash;hm-m," muttered the judge,
+"this is strange." He spoke soothingly
+to his visitor. "Do not upset yourself,
+I beg of you. I will take care of this
+thing for you, never fear. Just take a
+seat, Mister&mdash;er&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You may call me Voight for the
+present," said the stranger, in a more
+composed tone of voice, "George
+Voight. That is the name I have been
+using since the mur&mdash;since that fatal
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Mr. Voight," replied the
+counsellor with an air of the greatest
+solicitude, "please have a seat now,
+while I make a telephone call."</p>
+
+<p>And George Voight slipped into a
+stiff-backed chair with a sigh of relief.
+For he knew the judge from the old
+days and he was now certain that his
+case would be disposed of very quickly.</p>
+
+<p>With the telephone receiver pressed
+to his ear, Culkin repeated a number.
+The stranger listened intently during
+the ensuing silence. Then there came
+a muffled "hello" sounding in impatient
+response to the call.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Alton," spoke the attorney,
+"this is Asa speaking. A stranger has
+just stepped into my office and he
+claims to be Old Crompton. Remember
+the hermit across the road from your
+son's old laboratory? Well, this man,
+who bears no resemblance whatever to
+the old man he claims to be and who
+seems to be less than half the age of
+Tom's old neighbor, says that he killed
+Tom on that night we remember so
+well."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">There</span> were some surprised remarks
+from the other end of the
+wire, but Voight was unable to catch
+them. He was in a cold perspiration
+at the thought of meeting his victim's
+father.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, Alton," continued Culkin,
+"I think there is something in this
+story, although I cannot believe it all.
+But I wish you would accompany us
+and visit the laboratory. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, man, not that!" interrupted
+the judge's visitor. "I can hardly bear
+to visit the scene of my crime&mdash;and in
+the company of Alton Forsythe.
+Please, not that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now you just let me take care of
+this, young man," replied the judge,
+testily. Then, once more speaking into
+the mouthpiece of the telephone, "All<span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163">[163]</a></span>
+right, Alton. We'll pick you up at
+your office in five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>He replaced the receiver on its hook
+and turned again to his visitor. "Please
+be so kind as to do exactly as I request,"
+he said. "I want to help you,
+but there is more to this thing than
+you know and I want you to follow unquestioningly
+where I lead and ask no
+questions at all for the present. Things
+may turn out differently than you expect."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Judge." The visitor resigned
+himself to whatever might
+transpire under the guidance of the
+man he had called upon to turn him
+over to the officers of the law.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Seated</span> in the judge's ancient
+motor car, they stopped at the
+office of Alton Forsythe a few minutes
+later and were joined by that red-faced
+and pompous old man. Few words
+were spoken during the short run to
+the well-remembered location of Tom's
+laboratory, and the man who was
+known as George Voight caught at his
+own throat with nervous fingers when
+they passed the tumbledown remains
+of the hut in which Old Crompton had
+spent so many years. With a screeching
+of well-worn brakes the car stopped
+before the laboratory, which was now
+almost hidden behind a mass of shrubs
+and flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy now, young man," cautioned
+the judge, noting the look of fear
+which had clouded his new client's features.
+The three men advanced to the
+door through which Old Crompton had
+fled on that night of horror, twelve
+years before. The elder Forsythe spoke
+not a word as he turned the knob and
+stepped within. Voight shrank from
+entering, but soon mastered his feelings
+and followed the other two. The
+sight that met his eyes caused him to
+cry aloud in awe.</p>
+
+<p>At the dissecting table, which seemed
+to be exactly as he had seen it last but
+with replicas of the tubes he had destroyed
+once more in place, stood Tom
+Forsythe! Considerably older and
+with hair prematurely gray, he was still
+the young man Old Crompton thought
+he had killed. Tom Forsythe was not
+dead after all! And all of his years
+of misery had gone for nothing. He
+advanced slowly to the side of the wondering
+young man, Alton Forsythe and
+Asa Culkin watching silently from just
+inside the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom&mdash;Tom," spoke the stranger,
+"you are alive? You were not dead
+when I left you on that terrible night
+when I smashed your precious tubes?
+Oh&mdash;it is too good to be true! I can
+scarcely believe my eyes!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> stretched forth trembling fingers
+to touch the body of the
+young man to assure himself that it
+was not all a dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Tom Forsythe, in astonishment.
+"I do not know you, sir.
+Never saw you in my life. What do
+you mean by your talk of smashing my
+tubes, of leaving me for dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mean?" The stranger's voice rose
+now; he was growing excited. "Why,
+Tom, I am Old Crompton. Remember
+the struggle, here in this very room?
+You refused to rejuvenate an unhappy
+old man with your marvelous apparatus,
+a temporarily insane old man&mdash;Crompton.
+I was that old man and I
+fought with you. You fell, striking
+your head. There was blood. You
+were unconscious. Yes, for many hours
+I was sure you were dead and that I
+had murdered you. But I had watched
+your manipulations of the apparatus
+and I subjected myself to the action of
+the rays. My youth was miraculously
+restored. I became as you see me now.
+Detection was impossible, for I looked
+no more like Old Crompton than you
+do. I smashed your machinery to avoid
+suspicion. Then I escaped. And, for
+twelve years, I have thought myself a
+murderer. I have suffered the tortures
+of the damned!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom Forsythe advanced on this remarkable
+visitor with clenched fists.
+Staring him in the eyes with cold appraisal,
+his wrath was all too apparent.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164">[164]</a></span>
+The dog Spot, young as ever, entered
+the room and, upon observing the stranger,
+set up an ominous growling and
+snarling. At least the dog recognized
+him!</p>
+
+<p>"What are you trying to do, catechise
+me? Are you another of these
+alienists my father has been bringing
+around?" The young inventor was furious.
+"If you are," he continued, "you
+can get out of here&mdash;now! I'll have
+no more of this meddling with my affairs.
+I'm as sane as any of you and I
+refuse to submit to this continual persecution."</p>
+
+<p>The elder Forsythe grunted, and
+Culkin laid a restraining hand on his
+arm. "Just a minute now, Tom," he
+said soothingly. "This stranger is no
+alienist. He has a story to tell. Please
+permit him to finish."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Somewhat</span> mollified, Tom Forsythe
+shrugged his assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom," continued the stranger, more
+calmly now, "what I have said is the
+truth. I shall prove it to you. I'll tell
+you things no mortals on earth could
+know but we two. Remember the day
+I captured the big rooster for you&mdash;the
+monster you had created? Remember
+the night you awakened me and
+brought me here in the moonlight? Remember
+the rabbit whose leg you amputated
+and re-grew? The poor guinea
+pig you had suffocated and whose life
+you restored? Spot here? Don't you
+remember rejuvenating him? I was
+here. And you refused to use your
+process on me, old man that I was.
+Then is when I went mad and attacked
+you. Do you believe me, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>Then a strange thing happened.
+While Tom Forsythe gazed in growing
+belief, the stranger's shoulders sagged
+and he trembled as with the ague. The
+two older men who had kept in the
+background gasped their astonishment
+as his hair faded to a sickly gray, then
+became as white as the driven snow.
+Old Crompton was reverting to his
+previous state! Within five minutes,
+instead of the handsome young stranger,
+there stood before them a bent,
+withered old man&mdash;Old Crompton beyond
+a doubt. The effects of Tom's
+process were spent.</p>
+
+<p>"Well I'm damned!" ejaculated Alton
+Forsythe. "You have been right
+all along, Asa. And I am mighty glad
+I did not commit Tom as I intended.
+He has told us the truth all these years
+and we were not wise enough to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"We!" exclaimed the judge. "You,
+Alton Forsythe! I have always upheld
+him. You have done your son a
+grave injustice and you owe him your
+apologies if ever a father owed his son
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Asa." And, his aristocratic
+pride forgotten, Alton Forsythe
+rushed to the side of his son and
+embraced him.</p>
+
+<p>The judge turned to Old Crompton
+pityingly. "Rather a bad ending for
+you, Crompton," he said. "Still, it is
+better by far than being branded as a
+murderer."</p>
+
+<p>"Better? Better?" croaked Old
+Crompton. "It is wonderful, Judge. I
+have never been so happy in my life!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> face of the old man beamed,
+though scalding tears coursed
+down the withered and seamed cheeks.
+The two Forsythes looked up from
+their demonstrations of peacemaking
+to listen to the amazing words of the
+old hermit.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, happy for the first time in my
+life," he continued. "I am one hundred
+years of age, gentlemen, and I now look
+it and feel it. That is as it should be.
+And my experience has taught me a
+final lasting lesson. None of you know
+it, but, when I was but a very young
+man I was bitterly disappointed in love.
+Ha! ha! Never think it to look at me
+now, would you? But I was, and it
+ruined my entire life. I had a little
+money&mdash;inherited&mdash;and I traveled
+about in the world for a few years, then
+settled in that old hut across the road
+where I buried myself for sixty years,
+becoming crabbed and sour and despicable.
+Young Tom here was the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165">[165]</a></span>
+first bright spot and, though I admired
+him, I hated him for his opportunities,
+hated him for that which he had that
+I had not. With the promise of his invention
+I thought I saw happiness, a
+new life for myself. I got what I wanted,
+though not in the way I had expected.
+And I want to tell you gentlemen
+that there is nothing in it. With developments
+of modern science you may
+be able to restore a man's youthful vigor
+of body, but you can't cure his mind
+with electricity. Though I had a
+youthful body, my brain was the brain
+of an old man&mdash;memories were there
+which could not be suppressed. Even
+had I not had the fancied death of
+young Tom on my conscience I should
+still have been miserable. I worked.
+God, how I worked&mdash;to forget! But I
+could not forget. I was <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'successsful'">successful</ins> in
+business and made a lot of money.
+I am more independent&mdash;probably
+wealthier than you, Alton Forsythe, but
+that did not bring happiness. I longed
+to be myself once more, to have the
+aches and pains which had been taken
+from me. It is natural to age and to
+die. Immortality would make of us
+a people of restless misery. We would
+quarrel and bicker and long for death,
+which would not come to relieve us.
+Now it is over for me and I am glad&mdash;glad&mdash;glad!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> paused for breath, looking beseechingly
+at Tom Forsythe.
+"Tom," he said, "I suppose you have
+nothing for me in your heart but
+hatred. And I don't blame you. But I
+wish&mdash;I wish you would try and forgive
+me. Can you?"</p>
+
+<p>The years had brought increased understanding
+and tolerance to young
+Tom. He stared at Old Crompton and
+the long-nursed anger over the destruction
+of his equipment melted into a
+strange mixture of pity and admiration
+for the courageous old fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I guess I can, Crompton," he
+replied. "There was many a day when
+I struggled hopelessly to reconstruct
+my apparatus, cursing you with every
+bit of energy in my make-up. I could
+cheerfully have throttled you, had you
+been within reach. For twelve years
+I have labored incessantly to reproduce
+the results we obtained on the night of
+which you speak. People called me insane&mdash;even
+my father wished to have
+me committed to an asylum. And, until
+now, I have been unsuccessful. Only
+to-day has it seemed for the first time
+that the experiments will again succeed.
+But my ideas have changed with
+regard to the uses of the process. I
+was a cocksure young pup in the old
+days, with foolish dreams of fame and
+influence. But I have seen the error of
+my ways. Your experience, too, convinces
+me that immortality may not be
+as desirable as I thought. But there
+are great possibilities in the way of relieving
+the sufferings of mankind and
+in making this a better world in which
+to live. With your advice and help I
+believe I can do great things. I now
+forgive you freely and I ask you to remain
+here with me to assist in the work
+that is to come. What do you say to
+the idea?"</p>
+
+<p>At the reverent thankfulness in the
+pale eyes of the broken old man who
+had so recently been a perfect specimen
+of vigorous youth, Alton Forsythe blew
+his nose noisily. The little judge
+smiled benevolently and shook his head
+as if to say, "I told you so." Tom and
+Old Crompton gripped hands&mdash;mightily.</p>
+
+<p class="adbox">
+<i>COMING, NEXT MONTH</i><br />
+BRIGANDS OF THE MOON<br />
+By RAY CUMMINGS<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166">[166]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="Spawn_of_the_Stars" id="Spawn_of_the_Stars"></a>Spawn of the Stars</h2>
+
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Charles Willard Diffin</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/166.png" width="400" height="406" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">The sky was alive with winged shapes,
+and high in the air shone the glittering
+menace, trailing five plumes of gas.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">When</span> Cyrus R. Thurston
+bought himself a single-motored
+Stoughton job he
+was looking for new thrills.
+Flying around the east coast had lost
+its zest: he wanted
+to join that
+jaunty group who
+spoke so easily of
+hopping off for
+Los Angeles.</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">The Earth lay powerless beneath those
+loathsome, yellowish monsters that,
+sheathed in cometlike globes, sprang from
+the skies to annihilate man and reduce
+his cities to ashes.</p>
+
+<p>And what Cyrus
+Thurston
+wanted he usually obtained. But if
+that young millionaire-sportsman had
+been told that on his first flight this
+blocky, bulletlike ship was to pitch him
+headlong into the exact center of the
+wildest, strangest war this earth had
+ever seen&mdash;well, it is still probable that
+the Stoughton
+company would
+not have lost the
+sale.</p>
+
+<p>They were
+roaring through
+the starlit, calm
+night, three thousand
+feet above a sage sprinkled desert,
+when the trip ended. Slim Riley had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167">[167]</a></span>
+the stick when the first blast of hot oil
+ripped slashingly across the pilot's
+window. "There goes your old trip!"
+he yelled. "Why don't they try putting
+engines in these ships?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/167.png" width="400" height="551" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>He jammed over the throttle and,
+with motor idling, swept down toward
+the endless miles of moonlit waste.
+Wind? They had been boring into it.
+Through the opened window he
+spotted a likely stretch of ground.
+Setting down the ship on a nice piece
+of Arizona desert was a mere detail for
+Slim.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168">[168]</a></span>
+"Let off a flare," he ordered, "when
+I give the word."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> white glare of it faded the
+stars as he sideslipped, then
+straightened out on his hand-picked
+field. The plane rolled down a clear
+space and stopped. The bright glare
+persisted while he stared curiously
+from the quiet cabin. Cutting the motor
+he opened both windows, then
+grabbed Thurston by the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a curious thing, that," he said
+unsteadily. His hand pointed straight
+ahead. The flare died, but the bright
+stars of the desert country still shone
+on a glistening, shining bulb.</p>
+
+<p>It was some two hundred feet away.
+The lower part was lost in shadow, but
+its upper surfaces shone rounded and
+silvery like a giant bubble. It towered
+in the air, scores of feet above the
+chaparral beside it. There was a
+round spot of black on its side, which
+looked absurdly like a door....</p>
+
+<p>"I saw something moving," said
+Thurston slowly. "On the ground I
+saw.... Oh, good Lord, Slim, it isn't
+real!"</p>
+
+<p>Slim Riley made no reply. His eyes
+were <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'rivetted'">riveted</ins> to an undulating, ghastly
+something that oozed and crawled
+in the pale light not far from the bulb.
+His hand was reaching, reaching....
+It found what he sought; he leaned toward
+the window. In his hand was the
+Very pistol for discharging the flares.
+He aimed forward and up.</p>
+
+<p>The second flare hung close before
+it settled on the sandy floor. Its blinding
+whiteness made the more loathsome
+the sickening yellow of the flabby
+flowing thing that writhed frantically
+in the glare. It was formless, shapeless,
+a heaving mound of nauseous matter.
+Yet even in its agonized writhing
+distortions they sensed the beating pulsations
+that marked it a living thing.</p>
+
+<p>There were unending ripplings
+crossing and recrossing through the
+convolutions. To Thurston there was
+suddenly a sickening likeness: the
+thing was a brain from a gigantic skull&mdash;it
+was naked&mdash;was suffering....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> thing poured itself across the
+sand. Before the staring gaze of
+the speechless men an excrescence appeared&mdash;a
+thick bulb on the mass&mdash;that
+protruded itself into a tentacle. At the
+end there grew instantly a hooked
+hand. It reached for the black opening
+in the great shell, found it, and the
+whole loathsome shapelessness poured
+itself up and through the hole.</p>
+
+<p>Only at the last was it still. In the
+dark opening the last slippery mass held
+quiet for endless seconds. It formed,
+as they watched, to a head&mdash;frightful&mdash;menacing.
+Eyes appeared in the head;
+eyes flat and round and black save for
+a cross slit in each; eyes that stared
+horribly and unchangingly into theirs.
+Below them a gaping mouth opened
+and closed.... The head melted&mdash;was
+gone....</p>
+
+<p>And with its going came a rushing
+roar of sound.</p>
+
+<p>From under the metallic mass
+shrieked a vaporous cloud. It drove at
+them, a swirling blast of snow and
+sand. Some buried memory of gas
+attacks woke Riley from his stupor. He
+slammed shut the windows an instant
+before the cloud struck, but not before
+they had seen, in the moonlight, a
+gleaming, gigantic, elongated bulb rise
+swiftly&mdash;screamingly&mdash;into the upper
+air.</p>
+
+<p>The blast tore at their plane. And
+the cold in their tight compartment
+was like the cold of outer space. The
+men stared, speechless, panting. Their
+breath froze in that frigid room into
+steam clouds.</p>
+
+<p>"It&mdash;it...." Thurston gasped&mdash;and
+slumped helpless upon the floor.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was an hour before they dared
+open the door of their cabin. An
+hour of biting, numbing cold. Zero&mdash;on
+a warm summer night on the desert!
+Snow in the hurricane that had struck
+them!</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas the blast from the thing,"
+guessed the pilot; "though never did<span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169">[169]</a></span>
+I see an engine with an exhaust like
+that." He was pounding himself with
+his arms to force up the chilled circulation.</p>
+
+<p>"But the beast&mdash;the&mdash;the <i>thing</i>!" exclaimed
+Thurston. "It's monstrous;
+indecent! It thought&mdash;no question of
+that&mdash;but no body! Horrible! Just a
+raw, naked, thinking protoplasm!"</p>
+
+<p>It was here that he flung open the
+door. They sniffed cautiously of the
+air. It was warm again&mdash;clean&mdash;save
+for a hint of some nauseous odor. They
+walked forward; Riley carried a flash.</p>
+
+<p>The odor grew to a stench as they
+came where the great mass had lain.
+On the ground was a fleshy mound.
+There were bones showing, and horns
+on a skull. Riley held the light close
+to show the body of a steer. A body
+of raw bleeding meat. Half of it had
+been absorbed....</p>
+
+<p>"The damned thing," said Riley, and
+paused vainly for adequate words. "The
+damned thing was eating.... Like a
+jelly-fish, it was!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," Thurston agreed. He
+pointed about. There were other heaps
+scattered among the low sage.</p>
+
+<p>"Smothered," guessed Thurston,
+"with that frozen exhaust. Then the
+filthy thing landed and came out to
+eat."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold the light for me," the pilot
+commanded. "I'm goin' to fix that
+busted oil line. And I'm goin' to do
+it right now. Maybe the creature's still
+hungry."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> sat in their room. About
+them was the luxury of a modern
+hotel. Cyrus Thurston stared vacantly
+at the breakfast he was forgetting to
+eat. He wiped his hands mechanically
+on a snowy napkin. He looked from
+the window. There were palm trees
+in the park, and autos in a ceaseless
+stream. And people! Sane, sober
+people, living in a sane world. Newsboys
+were shouting; the life of the city
+was flowing.</p>
+
+<p>"Riley!" Thurston turned to the man
+across the table. His voice was curiously
+toneless, and his face haggard.
+"Riley, I haven't slept for three nights.
+Neither have you. We've got to get
+this thing straight. We didn't both
+become absolute maniacs at the same
+instant, but&mdash;it was <i>not</i> there, it was
+<i>never</i> there&mdash;not <i>that</i>...." He was
+lost in unpleasant recollections. "There
+are other records of hallucinations."</p>
+
+<p>"Hallucinations&mdash;hell!" said Slim
+Riley. He was looking at a Los Angeles
+newspaper. He passed one hand
+wearily across his eyes, but his face
+was happier than it had been in days.</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't imagine it, we aren't
+crazy&mdash;it's real! Would you read that
+now!" He passed the paper across to
+Thurston. The headlines were startling.</p>
+
+<p>"Pilot Killed by Mysterious Airship.
+Silvery Bubble Hangs Over New York.
+Downs Army Plane in Burst of Flame.
+Vanishes at Terrific Speed."</p>
+
+<p>"It's our little friend," said Thurston.
+And on his face, too, the lines
+were vanishing; to find this horror a
+reality was positive relief. "Here's the
+same cloud of vapor&mdash;drifted slowly
+across the city, the accounts says, blowing
+this stuff like steam from underneath.
+Airplanes investigated&mdash;an army
+plane drove into the vapor&mdash;terrific explosion&mdash;plane
+down in flames&mdash;others
+wrecked. The machine ascended with
+meteor speed, trailing blue flame.
+Come on, boy, where's that old bus?
+Thought I never wanted to fly a plane
+again. Now I don't want to do anything
+but."</p>
+
+<p>"Where to?" Slim inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Headquarters," Thurston told him.
+"Washington&mdash;let's go!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">From</span> Los Angeles to Washington
+is not far, as the plane flies. There
+was a stop or two for gasoline, but it
+was only a day later that they were
+seated in the War Office. Thurston's
+card had gained immediate admittance.
+"Got the low-down," he had written on
+the back of his card, "on the mystery
+airship."</p>
+
+<p>"What you have told me is incred<span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170">[170]</a></span>ible,"
+the Secretary was saying, "or
+would be if General Lozier here had
+not reported personally on the occurrence
+at New York. But the monster,
+the thing you have described.... Cy,
+if I didn't know you as I do I would
+have you locked up."</p>
+
+<p>"It's true," said Thurston, simply.
+"It's damnable, but it's true. Now what
+does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven knows," was the response.
+"That's where it came from&mdash;out of
+the heavens."</p>
+
+<p>"Not what we saw," Slim Riley broke
+in. "That thing came straight out of
+Hell." And in his voice was no suggestion
+of levity.</p>
+
+<p>"You left Los Angeles early yesterday;
+have you seen the papers?"</p>
+
+<p>Thurston shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"They are back," said the Secretary.
+"Reported over London&mdash;Paris&mdash;the
+West Coast. Even China has seen
+them. Shanghai cabled an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Them? How many are there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows. There were five
+seen at one time. There are more&mdash;unless
+the same ones go around the
+world in a matter of minutes."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Thurston</span> remembered that
+whirlwind of vapor and a vanishing
+speck in the Arizona sky. "They
+could," he asserted. "They're faster
+than anything on earth. Though what
+drives them ... that gas&mdash;steam&mdash;whatever
+it is...."</p>
+
+<p>"Hydrogen," stated General Lozier.
+"I saw the New York show when poor
+Davis got his. He flew into the exhaust;
+it went off like a million bombs.
+Characteristic hydrogen flame trailed
+the damn thing up out of sight&mdash;a tail
+of blue fire."</p>
+
+<p>"And cold," stated Thurston.</p>
+
+<p>"Hot as a Bunsen burner," the General
+contradicted. "Davis' plane almost
+melted."</p>
+
+<p>"Before it ignited," said the other.
+He told of the cold in their plane.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" The General spoke explosively.
+"That's expansion. That's a tip on
+their motive power. Expansion of gas.
+That accounts for the cold and the
+vapor. Suddenly expanded it would be
+intensely cold. The moisture of the
+air would condense, freeze. But how
+could they carry it? Or"&mdash;he frowned
+for a moment, brows drawn over deep-set
+gray eyes&mdash;"or generate it? But
+that's crazy&mdash;that's impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"So is the whole matter," the Secretary
+reminded him. "With the information
+Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley
+have given us, the whole affair is beyond
+any gage our past experience
+might supply. We start from the impossible,
+and we go&mdash;where? What is
+to be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"With your permission, sir, a number
+of things shall be done. It would
+be interesting to see what a squadron
+of planes might accomplish, diving on
+them from above. Or anti-aircraft
+fire."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">N</span><span class="dcap">o,"</span> said the Secretary of War,
+"not yet. They have looked us
+over, but they have not attacked. For
+the present we do not know what they
+are. All of us have our suspicions&mdash;thoughts
+of interplanetary travel&mdash;thoughts
+too wild for serious utterance&mdash;but
+we know nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Say nothing to the papers of what
+you have told me," he directed Thurston.
+"Lord knows their surmises are
+wild enough now. And for you, General,
+in the event of any hostile move,
+you will resist."</p>
+
+<p>"Your order was anticipated, sir."
+The General permitted himself a slight
+smile. "The air force is ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," the Secretary of War
+nodded. "Meet me here to-night&mdash;nine
+o'clock." He included Thurston and
+Riley in the command. "We need to
+think ... to think ... and perhaps their
+mission is friendly."</p>
+
+<p>"Friendly!" The two flyers exchanged
+glances as they went to the
+door. And each knew what the other
+was seeing&mdash;a viscous ocherous mass
+that formed into a head where eyes
+devilish in their hate stared coldly into
+theirs....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171">[171]</a></span>
+"Think, we need to think," repeated
+Thurston later. "A creature that is just
+one big hideous brain, that can think
+an arm into existence&mdash;think a head
+where it wishes! What does a thing
+like that think of? What beastly
+thoughts could that&mdash;that <i>thing</i> conceive?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I got the sights of a Lewis gun
+on it," said Riley vindictively, "I'd
+make it think."</p>
+
+<p>"And my guess is that is all you
+would accomplish," Thurston told him.
+"I am forming a few theories about our
+visitors. One is that it <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'would me'">would be</ins> quite
+impossible to find a vital spot in that
+big homogeneous mass."</p>
+
+<p>The pilot dispensed with theories:
+his was a more literal mind. "Where
+on earth did they come from, do you
+suppose, Mr. Thurston?"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> were walking to their hotel.
+Thurston raised his eyes to the
+summer heavens. Faint stars were
+beginning to twinkle; there was one
+that glowed steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Nowhere on earth," Thurston stated
+softly, "nowhere on earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe so," said the pilot, "maybe
+so. We've thought about it and talked
+about it ... and they've gone ahead and
+done it." He called to a newsboy; they
+took the latest editions to their room.</p>
+
+<p>The papers were ablaze with speculation.
+There were dispatches from all
+corners of the earth, interviews with
+scientists and near scientists. The machines
+were a Soviet invention&mdash;they
+were beyond anything human&mdash;they
+were harmless&mdash;they would wipe out
+civilization&mdash;poison gas&mdash;blasts of fire
+like that which had enveloped the army
+flyer....</p>
+
+<p>And through it all Thurston read an
+ill-concealed fear, a reflection of panic
+that was gripping the nation&mdash;the
+whole world. These great machines
+were sinister. Wherever they appeared
+came the sense of being
+watched, of a menace being calmly
+withheld. And at thought of the obscene
+monsters inside those spheres,
+Thurston's lips were compressed and
+his eyes hardened. He threw the papers
+aside.</p>
+
+<p>"They are here," he said, "and that's
+all that we know. I hope the Secretary
+of War gets some good men together.
+And I hope someone is inspired with
+an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"An answer is it?" said Riley. "I'm
+thinkin' that the answer will come, but
+not from these swivel-chair fighters.
+'Tis the boys in the cockpits with one
+hand on the stick and one on the guns
+that will have the answer."</p>
+
+<p>But Thurston shook his head. "Their
+speed," he said, "and the gas! Remember
+that cold. How much of it can they
+lay over a city?"</p>
+
+<p>The question was unanswered, unless
+the quick ringing of the phone was
+a reply.</p>
+
+<p>"War Department," said a voice.
+"Hold the wire." The voice of the Secretary
+of War came on immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"Thurston?" he asked. "Come over
+at once on the jump, old man. Hell's
+popping."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> windows of the War Department
+Building were all alight
+as they approached. Cars were coming
+and going; men in uniform, as the
+Secretary had said, "on the jump."
+Soldiers with bayonets stopped them,
+then passed Thurston and his companion
+on. Bells were ringing from all
+sides. But in the Secretary's office
+was perfect quiet.</p>
+
+<p>General Lozier was there, Thurston
+saw, and an imposing array of gold-braided
+men with a sprinkling of those
+in civilian clothes. One he recognized:
+MacGregor from the Bureau of Standards.
+The Secretary handed Thurston
+some papers.</p>
+
+<p>"Radio," he explained. "They are
+over the Pacific coast. Hit near Vancouver;
+Associated Press says city destroyed.
+They are working down the
+coast. Same story&mdash;blast of hydrogen
+from their funnel shaped base. Colder
+than Greenland below them; snow fell
+in Seattle. No real attack since Van<span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172">[172]</a></span>couver
+and little damage done&mdash;" A
+message was laid before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Portland," he said. "Five mystery
+ships over city. Dart repeatedly toward
+earth, deliver blast of gas and then
+retreat. Doing no damage. Apparently
+inviting attack. All commercial planes
+ordered grounded. Awaiting instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said the Secretary, "I
+believe I speak for all present when I
+say that, in the absence of first hand
+information, we are utterly unable to
+arrive at any definite conclusion or
+make a definite plan. There is a menace
+in this, undeniably. Mr. Thurston
+and Mr. Riley have been good enough
+to report to me. They have seen one
+machine at close range. It was occupied
+by a monster so incredible that the
+report would receive no attention from
+me did I not know Mr. Thurston personally.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have they come from? What
+does it mean&mdash;what is their mission?
+Only God knows.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, I feel that I must see
+them. I want General Lozier to accompany
+me, also Doctor MacGregor, to
+advise me from the scientific angle. I
+am going to the Pacific Coast. They
+may not wait&mdash;that is true&mdash;but they
+appear to be going slowly south. I will
+leave to-night for San Diego. I hope
+to intercept them. We have strong
+air-forces there; the Navy Department
+is cooperating."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> waited for no comment. "General,"
+he ordered, "will you kindly
+arrange for a plane? Take an escort
+or not as you think best.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley will
+also accompany us. We want all the
+authoritative data we can get. This on
+my return will be placed before you,
+gentlemen, for your consideration."
+He rose from his chair. "I hope they
+wait for us," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Time was when a commander called
+loudly for a horse, but in this day a
+Secretary of War is not kept waiting
+for transportation. Sirening motorcycles
+preceded them from the city.
+Within an hour, motors roaring wide
+open, <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'propellors'">propellers</ins> ripping into the summer
+night, lights slipping eastward
+three thousand feet below, the Secretary
+of War for the United States was
+on his way. And on either side from
+their plane stretched the arms of a V.
+Like a flight of gigantic wild geese,
+fast fighting planes of the Army air
+service bored steadily into the night,
+guarantors of safe convoy.</p>
+
+<p>"The Air Service is ready," General
+Lozier had said. And Thurston and
+his pilot knew that from East coast to
+West, swift scout planes, whose idling
+engines could roar into action at a moment's
+notice, stood waiting; battle
+planes hidden in hangars would roll
+forth at the word&mdash;the Navy was cooperating&mdash;and
+at San Diego there
+were strong naval units, Army units,
+and Marine Corps.</p>
+
+<p>"They don't know what we can do,
+what we have up our sleeve: they are
+feeling us out," said the Secretary.
+They had stopped more than once for
+gas and for wireless reports. He held
+a sheaf of typewritten briefs.</p>
+
+<p>"Going slowly south. They have
+taken their time. Hours over San
+Francisco and the bay district. Repeating
+same tactics; fall with terrific
+speed to cushion against their blast of
+gas. Trying to draw us out, provoke
+an attack, make us show our strength.
+Well, we shall beat them to San Diego
+at this rate. We'll be there in a few
+hours."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> afternoon sun was dropping
+ahead of them when they sighted
+the water. "Eckener Pass," the pilot
+told them, "where the Graf Zeppelin
+came through. Wonder what these
+birds would think of a Zepp!</p>
+
+<p>"There's the ocean," he added after
+a time. San Diego glistened against
+the bare hills. "There's North Island&mdash;the
+Army field." He stared intently
+ahead, then shouted: "And there they
+are! Look there!"</p>
+
+<p>Over the city a cluster of meteors<span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173">[173]</a></span>
+was falling. Dark underneath, their
+tops shone like pure silver in the sun's
+slanting glare. They fell toward the
+city, then buried themselves in a dense
+cloud of steam, rebounding at once to
+the upper air, vapor trailing behind
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The cloud billowed slowly. It
+struck the hills of the city, then lifted
+and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"Land at once," requested the Secretary.
+A flash of silver countermanded
+the order.</p>
+
+<p>It hung there before them, a great
+gleaming globe, keeping always its distance
+ahead. It was elongated at the
+base, Thurston observed. From that
+base shot the familiar blast that turned
+steamy a hundred feet below as it
+chilled the warm air. There were round
+orifices, like ports, ranged around the
+top, where an occasional jet of vapor
+showed this to be a method of control.
+Other spots shone dark and glassy.
+Were they windows? He hardly realized
+their peril, so interested was he
+in the strange machine ahead.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Then:</span> "Dodge that vapor," ordered
+General Lozier. The plane
+wavered in signal to the others and
+swung sharply to the left. Each man
+knew the flaming death that was theirs
+if the fire of their exhaust touched that
+explosive mixture of hydrogen and air.
+The great bubble turned with them and
+paralleled their course.</p>
+
+<p>"He's watching us," said Riley, "giving
+us the once over, the slimy devil.
+Ain't there a gun on this ship?"</p>
+
+<p>The General addressed his superior.
+Even above the roar of the motors his
+voice seemed quiet, assured. "We must
+not land now," he said. "We can't land
+at North Island. It would focus their
+attention upon our defenses. That
+thing&mdash;whatever it is&mdash;is looking for a
+vulnerable spot. We must.... Hold
+on&mdash;there he goes!"</p>
+
+<p>The big bulb shot upward. It slanted
+above them, and hovered there.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he is about to attack," said
+the General quietly. And, to the commander
+of their squadron: "It's in your
+hands now, Captain. It's your fight."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain nodded and squinted
+above. "He's got to throw heavier stuff
+than that," he remarked. A small object
+was falling from the cloud. It
+passed close to their ship.</p>
+
+<p>"Half-pint size," said Cyrus Thurston,
+and laughed in derision. There
+was something ludicrous in the futility
+of the attack. He stuck his head from
+a window into the gale they created.
+He sheltered his eyes to try to follow
+the missile in its fall.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> were over the city. The
+criss-cross of streets made a grill-work
+of lines; tall buildings were
+dwarfed from this three thousand foot
+altitude. The sun slanted across a
+projecting promontory to make golden
+ripples on a blue sea and the city
+sparkled back in the clear air. Tiny
+white faces were massed in the streets,
+huddled in clusters where the futile
+black missile had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>And then&mdash;then the city was
+gone....</p>
+
+<p>A white cloud-bank billowed and
+mushroomed. Slowly, it seemed to the
+watcher&mdash;so slowly.</p>
+
+<p>It was done in the fraction of a second.
+Yet in that brief time his eyes
+registered the chaotic sweep in advance
+of the cloud. There came a
+crashing of buildings in some monster
+whirlwind, a white cloud engulfing it
+all.... It was rising&mdash;was on them.</p>
+
+<p>"God," thought Thurston, "why can't
+I move!" The plane lifted and lurched.
+A thunder of sound crashed against
+them, an intolerable force. They were
+crushed to the floor as the plane was
+hurled over and upward.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the mad whirling tangle of
+flying bodies, Thurston glimpsed one
+clear picture. The face of the pilot
+hung battered and blood-covered before
+him, and over the limp body the hand
+of Slim Riley clutched at the switch.</p>
+
+<p>"Bully boy," he said dazedly, "he's
+cutting the motors...." The thought
+ended in blackness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174">[174]</a></span>
+There was no sound of engines or
+beating propellers when he came to
+his senses. Something lay heavy upon
+him. He pushed it to one side. It was
+the body of General Lozier.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> drew himself to his knees to
+look slowly about, rubbed stupidly
+at his eyes to quiet the whirl, then
+stared at the blood on his hand. It
+was so quiet&mdash;the motors&mdash;what was it
+that happened? Slim had reached for
+the switch....</p>
+
+<p>The whirling subsided. Before him
+he saw Slim Riley at the controls. He
+got to his feet and went unsteadily forward.
+It was a battered face that was
+lifted to his.</p>
+
+<p>"She was spinning," the puffed lips
+were muttering slowly. "I brought her
+out ... there's the field...." His voice
+was thick; he formed the words slowly,
+painfully. "Got to land ... can
+you take it? I'm&mdash;I'm&mdash;" He slumped
+limply in his seat.</p>
+
+<p>Thurston's arms were uninjured. He
+dragged the pilot to the floor and got
+back of the wheel. The field was below
+them. There were planes taxiing
+out; he heard the roar of their motors.
+He tried the controls. The plane answered
+stiffly, but he managed to level
+off as the brown field approached.</p>
+
+<p>Thurston never remembered that
+landing. He was trying to drag Riley
+from the battered plane when the first
+man got to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Secretary of War?" he gasped. "In
+there.... Take Riley; I can walk."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get them," an officer assured
+him. "Knew you were coming. They
+sure gave you hell! But look at the
+city!"</p>
+
+<p>Arms carried him stumbling from the
+field. Above the low hangars he saw
+smoke clouds over the bay. These and
+red rolling flames marked what had
+been an American city. Far in the
+heavens moved five glinting specks.</p>
+
+<p>His head reeled with the thunder of
+engines. There were planes standing
+in lines and more erupting from
+hangars, where khaki-clad men, faces
+tense under leather helmets, rushed
+swiftly about.</p>
+
+<p>"General Lozier is dead," said a
+voice. Thurston turned to the man.
+They were bringing the others. "The
+rest are smashed up some," the officer
+told him, "but I think they'll pull
+through."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> Secretary of War for the
+United States lay beside him. Men
+with red on their sleeves were slitting
+his coat. Through one good eye he
+squinted at Thurston. He even managed
+a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wanted to see them up
+close," he said. "They say you saved
+us, old man."</p>
+
+<p>Thurston waved that aside. "Thank
+Riley&mdash;" he began, but the words ended
+in the roar of an exhaust. A plane
+darted swiftly away to shoot vertically
+a hundred feet in the air. Another followed
+and another. In a cloud of brown
+dust they streamed endlessly out,
+zooming up like angry hornets, eager
+to get into the fight.</p>
+
+<p>"Fast little devils!" the ambulance
+man observed. "Here come the big
+boys."</p>
+
+<p>A leviathan went deafeningly past.
+And again others came on in quick succession.
+Farther up the field, silvery
+gray planes with rudders flaunting
+their red, white and blue rose circling
+to the heights.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the Navy," was the explanation.
+The surgeon straightened the
+Secretary's arm. "See them come off
+the big airplane carriers!"</p>
+
+<p>If his remarks were part of his professional
+training in removing a patient's
+thoughts from his pain, they
+were effective. The Secretary stared
+out to sea, where two great flat-decked
+craft were shooting planes with the
+regularity of a rapid fire gun. They
+stood out sharply against a bank of
+gray fog. Cyrus Thurston forgot his
+bruised body, forgot his own peril&mdash;even
+the inferno that raged back across
+the bay: he was lost in the sheer thrill
+of the spectacle.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Above</span> them the sky was alive
+with winged shapes. And from
+all the disorder there was order appearing.
+Squadron after squadron swept
+to battle formation. Like flights of
+wild ducks the true sharp-pointed Vs
+soared off into the sky. Far above and
+beyond, rows of dots marked the race
+of swift scouts for the upper levels.
+And high in the clear air shone the
+glittering menace trailing their five
+plumes of gas.</p>
+
+<p>A deeper detonation was merging
+into the uproar. It came from the
+ships, Thurston knew, where anti-aircraft
+guns poured a rain of shells into
+the sky. About the invaders they
+bloomed into clusters of smoke balls.
+The globes shot a thousand feet into
+the air. Again the shells found them,
+and again they retreated.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" said Thurston. "They got
+one!"</p>
+
+<p>He groaned as a long curving arc of
+speed showed that the big bulb was under
+control. Over the ships it paused,
+to balance and swing, then shot to the
+zenith as one of the great boats exploded
+in a cloud of vapor.</p>
+
+<p>The following blast swept the airdrome.
+Planes yet on the ground went
+like dry autumn leaves. The hangars
+were flattened.</p>
+
+<p>Thurston cowered in awe. They were
+sheltered, he saw, by a slope of the
+ground. No ridicule now for the
+bombs!</p>
+
+<p>A second blast marked when the gas-cloud
+ignited. The billowing flames
+were blue. They writhed in tortured
+convulsions through the air. Endless
+explosions merged into one rumbling
+roar.</p>
+
+<p>MacGregor had roused from his stupor;
+he raised to a sitting position.</p>
+
+<p>"Hydrogen," he stated positively,
+and pointed where great volumes of
+flame were sent whirling aloft. "It
+burns as it mixes with air." The scientist
+was studying intently the mammoth
+reaction. "But the volume," he
+marveled, "the volume! From that
+small container! Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible," the Secretary agreed,
+"but...." He pointed with his one good
+arm toward the Pacific. Two great
+ships of steel, blackened and battered
+in that fiery breath, tossed helplessly
+upon the pitching, heaving sea. They
+furnished to the scientist's exclamation
+the only adequate reply.</p>
+
+<p>Each man stared aghast into the pallid
+faces of his companions. "I think
+we have underestimated the opposition,"
+said the Secretary of War quietly.
+"Look&mdash;the fog is coming in, but
+it's too late to save them."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> big ships were vanishing in the
+oncoming fog. Whirls of vapor
+were eddying toward them in the flame-blaster
+air. Above them the watchers
+saw dimly the five gleaming bulbs.
+There were airplanes attacking: the
+tapping of machine-gun fire came to
+them faintly.</p>
+
+<p>Fast planes circled and swooped toward
+the enemy. An armada of big
+planes drove in from beyond. Formations
+were blocking space above....
+Every branch of the service was there,
+Thurston exulted, the army, Marine
+Corps, the Navy. He gripped hard at
+the dry ground in a paralysis of taut
+nerves. The battle was on, and in the
+balance hung the fate of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The fog drove in fast. Through
+straining eyes he tried in vain to
+glimpse the drama spread above. The
+world grew dark and gray. He buried
+his face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>And again came the thunder. The
+men on the ground forced their gaze
+to the clouds, though they knew some
+fresh horror awaited.</p>
+
+<p>The fog-clouds reflected the blue terror
+above. They were riven and torn.
+And through them black objects were
+falling. Some blazed as they fell.
+They slipped into unthought maneuvers&mdash;they
+darted to earth trailing yellow
+and black of gasoline fires. The
+air was filled with the dread rain of
+death that was spewed from the gray
+clouds. Gone was the roaring of motors.
+The air-force of the San Diego<span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176">[176]</a></span>
+area swept in silence to the earth,
+whose impact alone could give kindly
+concealment to their flame-stricken
+burden.</p>
+
+<p>Thurston's last control snapped. He
+flung himself flat to bury his face in
+the sheltering earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Only</span> the driving necessity of work
+to be done saved the sanity of the
+survivors. The commercial broadcasting
+stations were demolished, a part of
+the fuel for the terrible furnace across
+the bay. But the Naval radio station
+was beyond on an outlying hill. The
+Secretary of War was in charge. An
+hour's work and this was again in commission
+to flash to the world the story
+of disaster. It told the world also of
+what lay ahead. The writing was
+plain. No prophet was needed to forecast
+the doom and destruction that
+awaited the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Civilization was helpless. What of
+armies and cannon, of navies, of aircraft,
+when from some unreachable
+height these monsters within their
+bulbous machines could drop coldly&mdash;methodically&mdash;their
+diminutive bombs.
+And when each bomb meant shattering
+destruction; each explosion blasting all
+within a radius of miles; each followed
+by the blue blast of fire that melted the
+twisted framework of buildings and
+powdered the stones to make of a proud
+city a desolation of wreckage, black
+and silent beneath the cold stars.
+There was no crumb of comfort for the
+world in the terror the radio told.</p>
+
+<p>Slim Riley was lying on an improvised
+cot when Thurston and the representative
+of the Bureau of Standards
+joined him. Four walls of a room still
+gave shelter in a half-wrecked building.
+There were candles burning: the
+dark was unbearable.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," said MacGregor quietly;
+"we must think...."</p>
+
+<p>"Think!" Thurston's voice had an
+hysterical note. "I can't think! I
+mustn't think! I'll go raving crazy...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, think," said the scientist. "Had
+it occurred to you that that is our only
+weapon left?</p>
+
+<p>"We must think, we must analyze.
+Have these devils a vulnerable spot?
+Is there any known means of attack?
+We do not know. We must learn.
+Here in this room we have all the direct
+information the world possesses of
+this menace. I have seen their machines
+in operation. You have seen
+more&mdash;you have looked at the monsters
+themselves. At one of them, anyway."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> man's voice was quiet, methodical.
+Mr. MacGregor was attacking
+a problem. Problems called for
+concentration; not hysterics. He could
+have poured the contents from a beaker
+without spilling a drop. His poise was
+needed: they were soon to make a laboratory
+experiment.</p>
+
+<p>The door burst open to admit a wild-eyed
+figure that snatched up their candles
+and dashed them to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Lights out!" he screamed at them.
+"There's one of 'em coming back." He
+was gone from the room.</p>
+
+<p>The men sprang for the door, then
+turned to where Riley was clumsily
+crawling from his couch. An arm under
+each of his, and the three men
+stumbled from the room.</p>
+
+<p>They looked about them in the night.
+The fog-banks were high, drifting in
+from the ocean. Beneath them the air
+was clear; from somewhere above a hidden
+moon forced a pale light through
+the clouds. And over the ocean, close
+to the water, drifted a familiar shape.
+Familiar in its huge sleek roundness,
+in its funnel-shaped base where a soft
+roar made vaporous clouds upon the
+water. Familiar, too, in the wild dread
+it inspired.</p>
+
+<p>The watchers were spellbound. To
+Thurston there came a fury of impotent
+frenzy. It was so near! His
+hands trembled to tear at that door,
+to rip at that foul mass he knew was
+within.... The great bulb drifted
+past. It was nearing the shore. But
+its action! Its motion!</p>
+
+<p>Gone was the swift certainty of con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177">[177]</a></span>trol.
+The thing settled and sank, to
+rise weakly with a fresh blast of gas
+from its exhaust. It settled again, and
+passed waveringly on in the night.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Thurston</span> was throbbingly alive
+with hope that was certainty. "It's
+been hit," he exulted; "it's been hit.
+Quick! After it, follow it!" He
+dashed for a car. There were some
+that had been salvaged from the less
+ruined buildings. He swung it quickly
+around where the others were waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"Get a gun," he commanded. "Hey,
+you,"&mdash;to an officer who appeared&mdash;"your
+pistol, man, quick! We're going
+after it!" He caught the tossed
+gun and hurried the others into the
+car.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," MacGregor commanded.
+"Would you hunt elephants with a pop-gun?
+Or these things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the other told him, "or my
+bare hands! Are you coming, or aren't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>The physicist was unmoved. "The
+creature you saw&mdash;you said that it
+writhed in a bright light&mdash;you said it
+seemed almost in agony. There's an
+idea there! Yes, I'm going with you,
+but keep your shirt on, and think."</p>
+
+<p>He turned again to the officer. "We
+need lights," he explained, "bright
+lights. What is there? Magnesium?
+Lights of any kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait." The man rushed off into
+the dark.</p>
+
+<p>He was back in a moment to thrust
+a pistol into the car. "Flares," he explained.
+"Here's a flashlight, if you
+need it." The car tore at the ground
+as Thurston opened it wide. He drove
+recklessly toward the highway that followed
+the shore.</p>
+
+<p>The high fog had thinned to a mist.
+A full moon was breaking through to
+touch with silver the white breakers
+hissing on the sand. It spread its full
+glory on dunes and sea: one more of
+the countless soft nights where peace
+and calm beauty told of an ageless existence
+that made naught of the red
+havoc of men or of monsters. It shone
+on the ceaseless surf that had beaten
+these shores before there were men,
+that would thunder there still when
+men were no more. But to the tense
+crouching men in the car it shone only
+ahead on a distant, glittering speck. A
+wavering reflection marked the uncertain
+flight of the stricken enemy.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Thurston</span> drove like a maniac;
+the road carried them straight toward
+their quarry. What could he do
+when he overtook it? He neither knew
+nor cared. There was only the blind
+fury forcing him on within reach of
+the thing. He cursed as the lights of
+the car showed a bend in the road. It
+was leaving the shore.</p>
+
+<p>He slackened their speed to drive
+cautiously into the sand. It dragged
+at the car, but he fought through to
+the beach, where he hoped for firm
+footing. The tide was out. They tore
+madly along the smooth sand, breakers
+clutching at the flying wheels.</p>
+
+<p>The strange aircraft was nearer; it
+was plainly over the shore, they saw.
+Thurston groaned as it shot high in the
+air in an effort to clear the cliffs ahead.
+But the heights were no longer a refuge.
+Again it settled. It struck on
+the cliff to rebound in a last futile leap.
+The great pear shape tilted, then shot
+end over end to crash hard on the firm
+sand. The lights of the car struck the
+wreck, and they saw the shell roll over
+once. A ragged break was opening&mdash;the
+spherical top fell slowly to one
+side. It was still rocking as they
+brought the car to a stop. Filling the
+lower shell, they saw dimly, was a
+mucouslike mass that seethed and
+struggled in the brilliance of their
+lights.</p>
+
+<p>MacGregor was persisting in his theory.
+"Keep the lights on it!" he
+shouted. "It can't stand the light."</p>
+
+<p>While they watched, the hideous,
+bubbling beast oozed over the side of
+the broken shell to shelter itself in
+the shadow beneath. And again Thurston
+sensed the pulse and throb of life
+in the monstrous mass.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> saw again in his rage the
+streaming rain of black airplanes;
+saw, too, the bodies, blackened
+and charred as they saw them when
+first they tried rescue from the crashed
+ships; the smoke clouds and flames
+from the blasted city, where people&mdash;his
+people, men and women and little
+children&mdash;had met terrible death. He
+sprang from the car. Yet he faltered
+with a revulsion that was almost a
+nausea. His gun was gripped in his
+hand as he ran toward the monster.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back!" shouted MacGregor.
+"Come back! Have you gone mad?"
+He was jerking at the door of the car.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the white funnel of their
+lights a yellow thing was moving. It
+twisted and flowed with incredible
+speed a hundred feet back to the base
+of the cliff. It drew itself together in
+a quivering heap.</p>
+
+<p>An out-thrusting rock threw a sheltering
+shadow; the moon was low in
+the west. In the blackness a phosphorescence
+was apparent. It rippled and
+rose in the dark with the pulsing beat
+of the jellylike mass. And through it
+were showing two discs. Gray at first,
+they formed to black, staring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Thurston had followed. His gun was
+raised as he neared it. Then out of
+the mass shot a serpentine arm. It
+whipped about him, soft, sticky, viscid&mdash;utterly
+loathsome. He screamed once
+when it clung to his face, then tore
+savagely and in silence at the encircling
+folds.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> gun! He ripped a blinding
+mass from his face and emptied
+the automatic in a stream of shots
+straight toward the eyes. And he
+knew as he fired that the effort was
+useless; to have shot at the milky surf
+would have been as vain.</p>
+
+<p>The thing was pulling him irresistibly;
+he sank to his knees; it dragged
+him over the sand. He clutched at a
+rock. A vision was before him: the
+carcass of a steer, half absorbed and
+still bleeding on the sand of an Arizona
+desert....</p>
+
+<p>To be drawn to the smothering embrace
+of that glutinous mass ... for
+that monstrous appetite.... He tore
+afresh at the unyielding folds, then
+knew MacGregor was beside him.</p>
+
+<p>In the man's hand was a flashlight.
+The scientist risked his life on a guess.
+He thrust the powerful light into the
+clinging serpent. It was like the touch
+of hot iron to human flesh. The arm
+struggled and flailed in a paroxysm of
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>Thurston was free. He lay gasping
+on the sand. But MacGregor!...
+He looked up to see him vanish in the
+clinging ooze. Another thick tentacle
+had been projected from the main mass
+to sweep like a whip about the man.
+It hissed as it whirled about him in
+the still air.</p>
+
+<p>The flashlight was gone; Thurston's
+hand touched it in the sand. He sprang
+to his feet and pressed the switch. No
+light responded; the flashlight was out&mdash;broken.</p>
+
+<p>A thick arm slashed and wrapped
+about him.... It beat him to the
+ground. The sand was moving beneath
+him; he was being dragged swiftly,
+helplessly, toward what waited in the
+shadow. He was smothering.... A
+blinding glare filled his eyes....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> flares were still burning when
+he dared look about. MacGregor
+was pulling frantically at his arm.
+"Quick&mdash;quick!" he was shouting.
+Thurston scrambled to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>One glimpse he caught of a heaving
+yellow mass in the white light; it
+twisted in horrible convulsions. They
+ran stumblingly&mdash;drunkenly&mdash;toward
+the car.</p>
+
+<p>Riley was half out of the machine.
+He had tried to drag himself to their
+assistance. "I couldn't make it," he
+said: "then I thought of the flares."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven," said MacGregor
+with emphasis, "it was your legs that
+were paralyzed, Riley, not your brain."</p>
+
+<p>Thurston found his voice. "Let me
+have that Very pistol. If light hurts
+that damn thing, I am going to put a<span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179">[179]</a></span>
+blaze of magnesium into the middle
+of it if I die for it."</p>
+
+<p>"They're all gone," said Riley.</p>
+
+<p>"Then let's get out of here. I've had
+enough. We can come back later on."</p>
+
+<p>He got back of the wheel and
+slammed the door of the sedan. The
+moonlight was gone. The darkness
+was velvet just tinged with the gray
+that precedes the dawn. Back in the
+deeper blackness at the cliff-base a
+phosphorescent something wavered and
+glowed. The light rippled and flowed
+in all directions over the mass.
+Thurston felt, vaguely, its mystery&mdash;the
+bulk was a vast, naked brain; its
+quiverings were like visible thought
+waves....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> phosphorescence grew brighter.
+The thing was approaching.
+Thurston let in his clutch, but the scientist
+checked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," he implored, "wait! I
+wouldn't miss this for the world." He
+waved toward the east, where far distant
+ranges were etched in palest rose.</p>
+
+<p>"We know less than nothing of these
+creatures, in what part of the universe
+they are spawned, how they live, where
+they live&mdash;Saturn!&mdash;Mars!&mdash;the Moon!
+But&mdash;we shall soon know how one
+dies!"</p>
+
+<p>The thing was coming from the cliff.
+In the dim grayness it seemed less
+yellow, less fluid. A membrane enclosed
+it. It was close to the car. Was
+it hunger that drove it, or cold rage
+for these puny opponents? The hollow
+eyes were glaring; a thick arm formed
+quickly to dart out toward the car. A
+cloud, high above, caught the color of
+approaching day....</p>
+
+<p>Before their eyes the vile mass
+pulsed visibly; it quivered and beat.
+Then, sensing its danger, it darted like
+some headless serpent for its machine.</p>
+
+<p>It massed itself about the shattered
+top to heave convulsively. The top was
+lifted, carried toward the rest of the
+great metal egg. The sun's first rays
+made golden arrows through the distant
+peaks.</p>
+
+<p>The struggling mass released its burden
+to stretch its vile length toward
+the dark caves under the cliffs. The
+last sheltering fog-veil parted. The
+thing was <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from half-way">halfway</ins> to the high bank
+when the first bright shaft of direct
+sunlight shot through.</p>
+
+<p>Incredible in the concealment of
+night, the vast protoplasmic pod was
+doubly so in the glare of day. But it
+was there before them, not a hundred
+feet distant. And it boiled in vast tortured
+convulsions. The clean sunshine
+struck it, and the mass heaved itself
+into the air in a nauseous eruption,
+then fell limply to the earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> yellow membrane turned
+paler. Once more the staring
+black eyes formed to turn hopelessly
+toward the sheltering globe. Then the
+bulk flattened out on the sand. It was
+a jellylike mound, through which trembled
+endless quivering palpitations.</p>
+
+<p>The sun struck hot, and before the
+eyes of the watching, speechless men
+was a sickening, horrible sight&mdash;a
+festering mass of corruption.</p>
+
+<p>The sickening yellow was liquid. It
+seethed and bubbled with liberated
+gases; it decomposed to purplish fluid
+streams. A breath of wind blew in
+their direction. The stench from the
+hideous pool was overpowering, unbearable.
+Their heads swam in the evil
+breath.... Thurston ripped the gears
+into reverse, nor stopped until they
+were far away on the clean sand.</p>
+
+<p>The tide was coming in when they
+returned. Gone was the vile putrescence.
+The waves were lapping at the
+base of the gleaming machine.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to work fast," said MacGregor.
+"I must know, I must learn."
+He drew himself up and into the shattered
+shell.</p>
+
+<p>It was of metal, some forty feet
+across, its framework a maze of latticed
+struts. The central part was
+clear. Here in a wide, shallow pan the
+monster had rested. Below this was
+tubing, intricate coils, massive, heavy
+and strong. MacGregor lowered him<span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180">[180]</a></span>self
+upon it, Thurston was beside him.
+They went down into the dim bowels
+of the deadly instrument.</p>
+
+<p>"Hydrogen," the physicist was stating.
+"Hydrogen&mdash;there's our starting
+point. A generator, obviously, forming
+the gas&mdash;from what? They couldn't
+compress it! They couldn't carry it
+or make it, not the volume that they
+evolved. But they did it, they did it!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Close</span> to the coils a dim light was
+glowing. It was a pin-point of
+radiance in the half-darkness about
+them. The two men bent closer.</p>
+
+<p>"See," directed MacGregor, "it
+strikes on this mirror&mdash;bright metal
+and parabolic. It disperses the light,
+doesn't concentrate it! Ah! Here is
+another, and another. This one is bent&mdash;broken.
+They are adjustable. Hm!
+Micrometer accuracy for reducing the
+light. The last one could reflect
+through this slot. It's light that does
+it, Thurston, it's light that does it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Does what?" Thurston had followed
+the other's analysis of the diffusion
+process. "The light that would
+finally reach that slot would be hardly
+perceptible."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the agent," said MacGregor,
+"the activator&mdash;the catalyst! What
+does it strike upon? I must know&mdash;I
+must!"</p>
+
+<p>The waves were splashing outside
+the shell. Thurston turned in a feverish
+search of the unexplored depths.
+There was a surprising simplicity, an
+absence of complicated mechanism.
+The generator, with its tremendous
+braces to carry its thrust to the framework
+itself, filled most of the space.
+Some of the ribs were thicker, he noticed.
+Solid metal, as if they might
+carry great weights. Resting upon
+them were ranged numbers of objects.
+They were like eggs, slender, and
+inches in length. On some were <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'propellors'">propellers</ins>.
+They worked through the
+shells on long slender rods. Each was
+threaded finely&mdash;an adjustable arm engaged
+the thread. Thurston called excitedly
+to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Here they are," he said. "Look!
+Here are the shells. Here's what blew
+us up!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> pointed to the slim shafts with
+their little <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'propellorlike'">propellerlike</ins> fans.
+"Adjustable, see? Unwind in their
+fall ... set 'em for any length of travel
+... fires the charge in the air. That's
+how they wiped out our air fleet."</p>
+
+<p>There were others without the <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'propellors'">propellers</ins>;
+they had fins to hold them nose
+downward. On each nose was a small
+rounded cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Detonators of some sort," said MacGregor.
+"We've got to have one. We
+must get it out quick; the tide's coming
+in." He laid his hands upon one of
+the slim, egg-shaped things. He lifted,
+then strained mightily. But the object
+did not rise; it only rolled sluggishly.</p>
+
+<p>The scientist stared at it amazed.
+"Specific gravity," he exclaimed, "beyond
+anything known! There's nothing
+on earth ... there is no such substance
+... no form of matter...." His
+eyes were incredulous.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots to learn," Thurston answered
+grimly. "We've yet to learn how to
+fight off the other four."</p>
+
+<p>The other nodded. "Here's the
+secret," he said. "These shells liberate
+the same gas that drives the machine.
+Solve one and we solve both&mdash;then we
+learn how to combat it. But how to remove
+it&mdash;that is the problem. You and
+I can never lift this out of here."</p>
+
+<p>His glance darted about. There was
+a small door in the metal beam. The
+groove in which the shells were placed
+led to it; it was a port for launching
+the projectiles. He moved it, opened
+it. A dash of spray struck him in the
+face. He glanced inquiringly at his
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Dare we do it?" he asked. "Slide
+one of them out?"</p>
+
+<p>Each man looked long into the eyes
+of the other. Was this, then, the end
+of their terrible night? One shell to
+be dropped&mdash;then a bursting volcano
+to blast them to eternity....</p>
+
+<p>"The boys in the planes risked it,"<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181">[181]</a></span>
+said Thurston quietly. "They got
+theirs." He stopped for a broken fragment
+of steel. "Try one with a fan on;
+it hasn't a detonator."</p>
+
+<p>The men pried at the slim thing. It
+slid slowly toward the open port. One
+heave and it balanced on the edge, then
+vanished abruptly. The spray was cold
+on their faces. They breathed heavily
+with the realization that they still
+lived.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">There</span> were days of horror that
+followed, horror tempered by a
+numbing paralysis of all emotions.
+There were bodies by thousands to be
+heaped in the pit where San Diego had
+stood, to be buried beneath countless
+tons of debris and dirt. Trains brought
+an army of helpers; airplanes came
+with doctors and nurses and the beginning
+of a mountain of supplies. The
+need was there; it must be met. Yet
+the whole world was waiting while it
+helped, waiting for the next blow to
+fall.</p>
+
+<p>Telegraph service was improvised,
+and radio receivers rushed in. The
+news of the world was theirs once
+more. And it told of a terrified, waiting
+world. There would be no temporizing
+now on the part of the invaders.
+They had seen the airplanes
+swarming from the ground&mdash;they
+would know an airdrome next time
+from the air. Thurston had noted the
+windows in the great shell, windows
+of dull-colored glass which would protect
+the darkness of the interior, essential
+to life for the horrible occupant,
+but through which it could see.
+It could watch all directions at once.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> great shell had vanished from
+the shore. Pounding waves and
+the shifting sands of high tide had obliterated
+all trace. More than once had
+Thurston uttered devout thanks for the
+chance shell from an anti-aircraft gun
+that had entered the funnel beneath the
+machine, had bent and twisted the arrangement
+of mirrors that he and MacGregor
+had seen, and, exploding, had
+cracked and broken the domed roof of
+the bulb. They had learned little, but
+MacGregor was up north within reach
+of Los Angeles laboratories. And he
+had with him the slim cylinder of
+death. He was studying, thinking.</p>
+
+<p>Telephone service had been established
+for official business. The whole
+nation-wide system, for that matter,
+was under military control. The Secretary
+of War had flown back to Washington.
+The whole world was on a war
+basis. War! And none knew where
+they should defend themselves, nor
+how.</p>
+
+<p>An orderly rushed Thurston to the
+telephone. "You are wanted at once;
+Los Angeles calling."</p>
+
+<p>The voice of MacGregor was cool
+and unhurried as Thurston listened.
+"Grab a plane, old man," he was saying,
+"and come up here on the jump."</p>
+
+<p>The phrase brought a grim smile to
+Thurston's tired lips. "Hell's popping!"
+the Secretary of War had added
+on that evening those long ages before.
+Did MacGregor have something? Was
+a different kind of hell preparing to
+pop? The thoughts flashed through the
+listener's mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I need a good deputy," MacGregor
+said. "You may be the whole works&mdash;may
+have to carry on&mdash;but I'll tell you
+it all later. Meet me at the Biltmore."</p>
+
+<p>"In less than two hours," Thurston
+assured him.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A plane</span> was at his disposal.
+Riley's legs were functioning
+again, after a fashion. They kept the
+appointment with minutes to spare.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," said MacGregor, "I'll
+talk to you in the car." The automobile
+whirled them out of the city to
+race off upon a winding highway that
+climbed into far hills. There was
+twenty miles of this; MacGregor had
+time for his talk.</p>
+
+<p>"They've struck," he told the two
+men. "They were over Germany yesterday.
+The news was kept quiet: I
+got the last report a half-hour ago.
+They pretty well wiped out Berlin. No<span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182">[182]</a></span>
+air-force there. France and England
+sent a swarm of planes, from the reports.
+Poor devils! No need to tell
+you what they got. We've seen it first
+hand. They headed west over the Atlantic,
+the four machines. Gave England
+a burst or two from high up,
+paused over New York, then went on.
+But they're here somewhere, we think.
+Now listen:</p>
+
+<p>"How long was it from the time when
+you saw the first monster until we
+heard from them again?"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Thurston</span> forced his mind back
+to those days that seemed so far
+in the past. He tried to remember.</p>
+
+<p>"Four days," broke in Riley. "It was
+the fourth day after we found the devil
+feeding."</p>
+
+<p>"Feeding!" interrupted the scientist.
+"That's the point I am making. Four
+days. Remember that!</p>
+
+<p>"And we knew they were down in
+the Argentine five days ago&mdash;that's another
+item kept from an hysterical
+public. They slaughtered some thousands
+of cattle; there were scores of
+them found where the devils&mdash;I'll borrow
+Riley's word&mdash;where the devils
+had fed. Nothing left but hide and
+bones.</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;mark this&mdash;that was four days
+before they appeared over Berlin.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Don't ask me. Do they have
+to lie quiet for that period miles up
+there in space? God knows. Perhaps!
+These things seem outside the knowledge
+of a deity. But enough of that!
+Remember: four days! Let us assume
+that there is this four days waiting
+period. It will help us to time them.
+I'll come back to that later.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is what I have been doing.
+We know that light is a means of attack.
+I believe that the detonators we
+saw on those bombs merely opened a
+seal in the shell and forced in a flash
+of some sort. I believe that radiant
+energy is what fires the blast.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it that explodes? Nobody
+knows. We have opened the shell,
+working in the absolute blackness of a
+room a hundred feet underground. We
+found in it a powder&mdash;two powders, to
+be exact.</p>
+
+<p>"They are mixed. One is finely divided,
+the other rather granular. Their
+specific gravity is enormous, beyond
+anything known to physical science
+unless it would be the hypothetical
+neutron masses we think are in certain
+stars. But this is not matter as we
+know matter; it is something new.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">O</span><span class="dcap">ur</span> theory is this: the hydrogen
+atom has been split, resolved
+into components, not of electrons and
+the proton centers, but held at some
+halfway point of decomposition. Matter
+composed only of neutrons would
+be heavy beyond belief. This fits the
+theory in that respect. But the point is
+this: When these solids are formed&mdash;they
+are dense&mdash;they represent in a
+cubic centimeter possibly a cubic mile
+of hydrogen gas under normal pressure.
+That's a guess, but it will give
+you the idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Not compressed, you understand,
+but all the elements present in other
+than elemental form for the reconstruction
+of the atom ... for a million billions
+of atoms.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the light strikes it. These
+dense solids become instantly a gas&mdash;miles
+of it held in that small space.</p>
+
+<p>"There you have it: the gas, the explosion,
+the entire absence of heat&mdash;which
+is to say, its terrific cold&mdash;when
+it expands."</p>
+
+<p>Slim Riley was looking bewildered
+but game. "Sure, I saw it snow," he
+affirmed, "so I guess the rest must be
+O.K. But what are we going to do
+about it? You say light kills 'em, and
+fires their bombs. But how can we let
+light into those big steel shells, or the
+little ones either?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not through those thick walls," said
+MacGregor. "Not light. One of our
+anti-aircraft shells made a direct hit.
+That might not happen again in a million
+shots. But there are other forms
+of radiant energy that do penetrate
+steel...."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> car had stopped beside a
+grove of eucalyptus. A barren,
+sun-baked hillside stretched beyond.
+MacGregor motioned them to alight.</p>
+
+<p>Riley was afire with optimism. "And
+do you believe it?" he asked eagerly.
+"Do you believe that we've got 'em
+licked?"</p>
+
+<p>Thurston, too, looked into MacGregor's
+face: Riley was not the only
+one who needed encouragement. But
+the gray eyes were suddenly tired and
+hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask what I believe," said the
+scientist slowly. "I believe we are witnessing
+the end of the world, our
+world of humans, their struggles, their
+grave hopes and happiness and aspirations...."</p>
+
+<p>He was not looking at them. His
+gaze was far off in space.</p>
+
+<p>"Men will struggle and fight with
+their puny weapons, but these monsters
+will win, and they will have their
+way with us. Then more of them will
+come. The world, I believe, is
+doomed...."</p>
+
+<p>He straightened his shoulders. "But
+we can die fighting," he added, and
+pointed over the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Over there," he said, "in the valley
+beyond, is a charge of their explosive
+and a little apparatus of mine. I intend
+to fire the charge from a distance
+of three hundred yards. I expect to be
+safe, perfectly safe. But accidents
+happen.</p>
+
+<p>"In Washington a plane is being prepared.
+I have given instructions
+through hours of phoning. They are
+working night and day. It will contain
+a huge generator for producing
+my ray. Nothing new! Just the product
+of our knowledge of radiant energy
+up to date. But the man who flies that
+plane will die&mdash;horribly. No time to
+experiment with protection. The rays
+will destroy him, though he may live a
+month.</p>
+
+<p>"I am asking you," he told Cyrus
+Thurston, "to handle that plane. You
+may be of service to the world&mdash;you
+may find you are utterly powerless.
+You surely will die. But you know
+the machines and the monsters; your
+knowledge may be of value in an attack."
+He waited. The silence lasted
+for only a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sure," said Cyrus Thurston.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> looked at the eucalyptus grove
+with earnest appraisal. The sun
+made lovely shadows among their
+stripped trunks: the world was a beautiful
+place. A lingering death, MacGregor
+had intimated&mdash;and horrible....
+"Why, sure," he repeated steadily.</p>
+
+<p>Slim Riley shoved him firmly aside
+to stand facing MacGregor.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, hell!" he said. "I'm your man,
+Mr. MacGregor.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about flying?"
+he asked Cyrus Thurston. "You're
+good&mdash;for a beginner. But men like
+you two have got brains, and I'm thinkin'
+the world will be needin' them.
+Now me, all I'm good for is holdin' a
+shtick"&mdash;his brogue had returned to
+his speech, and was evidence of his
+earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>"And, besides"&mdash;the smile faded
+from his lips, and his voice was suddenly
+soft&mdash;"them boys we saw take
+their last flip was just pilots to you,
+just a bunch of good fighters. Well,
+they're buddies of mine. I fought beside
+some of them in France.... I belong!"</p>
+
+<p>He grinned happily at Thurston.
+"Besides," he said, "what do you know
+about dog-fights?"</p>
+
+<p>MacGregor gripped him by the hand.
+"You win," he said. "Report to Washington.
+The Secretary of War has all
+the dope."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> turned to Thurston. "Now for
+you! Get this! The enemy
+machines almost attacked New York.
+One of them came low, then went back,
+and the four flashed out of sight toward
+the west. It is my belief that
+New York is next, but the devils are
+hungry. The beast that attacked us
+was ravenous, remember. They need
+food and lots of it. You will hear of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184">[184]</a></span>
+their feeding, and you can count on
+four days. Keep Riley informed&mdash;that's
+your job.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'm going over the hill. If
+this experiment works, there's a chance
+we can repeat it on a larger scale. No
+certainty, but a chance! I'll be back.
+Full instructions at the hotel in
+case...." He vanished into the scrub
+growth.</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly encouraging," Thurston
+pondered, "but he's a good man, Mac,
+a good egg! Not as big a brain as the
+one we saw, but perhaps it's a better
+one&mdash;cleaner&mdash;and it's working!"</p>
+
+<p>They were sheltered under the brow
+of the hill, but the blast from the valley
+beyond rocked them like an earthquake.
+They rushed to the top of the
+knoll. MacGregor was standing in the
+valley; he waved them a greeting and
+shouted something unintelligible.</p>
+
+<p>The gas had mushroomed into a
+cloud of steamy vapor. From above
+came snowflakes to whirl in the churning
+mass, then fall to the ground. A
+wind came howling about them to beat
+upon the cloud. It swirled slowly back
+and down the valley. The figure of
+MacGregor vanished in its smothering
+embrace.</p>
+
+<p>"Exit, MacGregor!" said Cyrus
+Thurston softly. He held tight to the
+struggling figure of Slim Riley.</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't live a minute in that
+atmosphere of hydrogen," he explained.
+"They can&mdash;the devils!&mdash;but
+not a good egg like Mac. It's our job
+now&mdash;yours and mine."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the gas retreated, lifted to
+permit their passage down the slope.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">MacGregor</span> was a good
+prophet. Thurston admitted that
+when, four days later, he stood on the
+roof of the Equitable Building in
+lower New York.</p>
+
+<p>The monsters had fed as predicted.
+Out in Wyoming a desolate area
+marked the place of their meal, where
+a great herd of cattle lay smothered
+and frozen. There were ranch houses,
+too, in the circle of destruction, their
+occupants frozen stiff as the carcasses
+that dotted the plains. The country
+had stood tense for the following blow.
+Only Thurston had lived in certainty
+of a few days reprieve. And now had
+come the fourth day.</p>
+
+<p>In Washington was Riley. Thurston
+had been in touch with him frequently.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, it's a crazy machine," the pilot
+had told him, "and 'tis not much I
+think of it at all. Neither bullets nor
+guns, just this big glass contraption
+and speed. She's fast, man, she's fast
+... but it's little hope I have." And
+Thurston, remembering the scientist's
+words, was heartless and sick with
+dreadful certainty.</p>
+
+<p>There were aircraft ready near New
+York; it was generally felt that here
+was the next objective. The enemy
+had looked it over carefully. And
+Washington, too, was guarded. The
+nation's capital must receive what little
+help the aircraft could afford.</p>
+
+<p>There were other cities waiting for
+destruction. If not this time&mdash;later!
+The horror hung over them all.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> fourth day! And Thurston
+was suddenly certain of the fate
+of New York. He hurried to a telephone.
+Of the Secretary of War he
+implored assistance.</p>
+
+<p>"Send your planes," he begged.
+"Here's where we will get it next.
+Send Riley. Let's make a last stand&mdash;win
+or lose."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you a squadron," was the
+concession. "What difference whether
+they die there or here...?" The voice
+was that of a weary man, weary and
+sleepless and hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by Cy, old man!" The click
+of the receiver sounded in Thurston's
+ear. He returned to the roof for his
+vigil.</p>
+
+<p>To wait, to stride nervously back
+and forth in impotent expectancy. He
+could leave, go out into open country,
+but what were a few days or months&mdash;or
+a year&mdash;with this horror upon them?
+It was the end. MacGregor was right.
+"Good old Mac!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185">[185]</a></span>
+There were airplanes roaring overhead.
+It meant.... Thurston abruptly
+was cold; a chill gripped at his heart.</p>
+
+<p>The paroxysm passed. He was
+doubled with laughter&mdash;or was it he
+who was laughing? He was suddenly
+buoyantly carefree. Who was he that
+it mattered? Cyrus Thurston&mdash;an ant!
+And their ant-hill was about to be
+snuffed out....</p>
+
+<p>He walked over to a waiting group
+and clapped one man on the shoulder.
+"Well, how does it feel to be an ant?"
+he inquired and laughed loudly at the
+jest. "You and your millions of dollars,
+your acres of factories, your
+steamships, railroads!"</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at him strangely and
+edged cautiously away. His eyes, like
+those of the others, had a dazed,
+stricken look. A woman was sobbing
+softly as she clung to her husband.
+From the streets far below came a quavering
+shrillness of sound.</p>
+
+<p>The planes gathered in climbing
+circles. Far on the horizon were four
+tiny glinting specks....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Thurston</span> stared until his eyes
+were stinging. He was walking in
+a waking sleep as he made his way to
+the stone coping beyond which was
+the street far below. He was dead&mdash;dead!&mdash;right
+this minute. What were
+a few minutes more or less? He could
+climb over the coping; none of the
+huddled, fear-gripped group would
+stop him. He could step out into space
+and fool them, the devils. They could
+never kill him....</p>
+
+<p>What was it MacGregor had said?
+Good egg, MacGregor! "But we can
+die fighting...." Yes, that was it&mdash;die
+fighting. But he couldn't fight; he
+could only wait. Well, what were the
+others doing, down there in the streets&mdash;in
+their homes? He could wait with
+them, die with them....</p>
+
+<p>He straightened slowly and drew one
+long breath. He looked steadily and
+unafraid at the advancing specks.
+They were larger now. He could see
+their round forms. The planes were
+less noisy: they were far up in the
+heights&mdash;climbing&mdash;climbing.</p>
+
+<p>The bulbs came slantingly down.
+They were separating. Thurston wondered
+vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>What had they done in Berlin? Yes,
+he remembered. Placed themselves at
+the four corners of a great square and
+wiped out the whole city in one explosion.
+Four bombs dropped at the same
+instant while they shot up to safety in
+the thin air. How did they communicate?
+Thought transference, most
+likely. Telepathy between those great
+brains, one to another. A plane was
+falling. It curved and swooped in a
+trail of flame, then fell straight toward
+the earth. They were fighting....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Thurston</span> stared above. There
+were clusters of planes diving
+down from on high. Machine-guns
+stuttered faintly. "Machine-guns&mdash;toys!
+Brave, that was it! 'We can die
+fighting.'" His thoughts were far off;
+it was like listening to another's mind.</p>
+
+<p>The air was filled with swelling
+clouds. He saw them before the blast
+struck where he stood. The great
+building shuddered at the impact.
+There were things falling from the
+clouds, wrecks of planes, blazing and
+shattered. Still came others; he saw
+them faintly through the clouds. They
+came in from the West; they had gone
+far to gain altitude. They drove down
+from the heights&mdash;the enemy had drifted&mdash;they
+were over the bay.</p>
+
+<p>More clouds, and another blast thundering
+at the city. There were specks,
+Thurston saw, falling into the water.</p>
+
+<p>Again the invaders came down from
+the heights where they had escaped
+their own shattering attack. There was
+the faint roar of motors behind, from
+the south. The squadron from Washington
+passed overhead.</p>
+
+<p>They surely had seen the fate that
+awaited. And they drove on to the attack,
+to strike at an enemy that shot
+instantly into the sky leaving crashing
+destruction about the torn dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" said Cyrus Thurston aloud.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186">[186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> big bulbs were back. They
+floated easily in the air, a plume of
+vapor billowing beneath. They were
+ranging to the four corners of a great
+square.</p>
+
+<p>One plane only was left, coming in
+from the south, a lone straggler, late
+for the fray. One plane! Thurston's
+shoulders sagged heavily. All they had
+left! It went swiftly overhead....
+It was fast&mdash;fast. Thurston suddenly
+knew. It was Riley in that plane.</p>
+
+<p>"Go back, you fool!"&mdash;he was screaming
+at the top of his voice&mdash;"Back&mdash;back&mdash;you
+poor, damned, decent Irishman!"</p>
+
+<p>Tears were streaming down his face.
+"His buddies," Riley had said. And
+this was Riley, driving swiftly in,
+alone, to avenge them....</p>
+
+<p>He saw dimly as the swift plane sped
+over the first bulb, on and over the second.
+The soft roar of gas from the
+machines drowned the sound of his engine.
+The plane passed them in silence
+to bank sharply toward the third
+corner of the forming square.</p>
+
+<p>He was looking them over, Thurston
+thought. And the damn beasts disregarded
+so contemptible an opponent.
+He could still leave. "For God's sake,
+Riley, beat it&mdash;escape!"</p>
+
+<p>Thurston's mind was solely on the
+fate of the lone voyager&mdash;until the impossible
+was borne in upon him.</p>
+
+<p>The square was disrupted. Three
+great bulbs were now drifting. The
+wind was carrying them out toward the
+bay. They were coming down in a
+long, smooth descent. The plane shot
+like a winged rocket at the fourth
+great, shining ball. To the watcher,
+aghast with sudden hope, it seemed
+barely to crawl.</p>
+
+<p>"The ray! The ray...." Thurston
+saw as if straining eyes had pierced
+through the distance to see the invisible.
+He saw from below the swift <ins class="correction" title="Added comma">plane,</ins>
+the streaming, intangible ray. That
+was why Riley had flown closely past
+and above them&mdash;the ray poured from
+below. His throat was choking him,
+strangling....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> last enemy took alarm. Had it
+seen the slow sinking of its companions,
+failed to hear them in reply
+to his mental call? The shining pear
+shape shot violently upward; the attacking
+plane rolled to a vertical bank
+as it missed the threatening clouds of
+exhaust. "What do you know about
+dog-fights?" And Riley had grinned
+... Riley belonged!</p>
+
+<p>The bulb swelled before Thurston's
+eyes in its swift descent. It canted to
+one side to head off the struggling
+plane that could never escape, did not
+try to escape. The steady wings held
+true upon their straight course. From
+above came the silver meteor; it seemed
+striking at the very plane itself. It was
+almost upon it before it belched forth
+the cushioning blast of gas.</p>
+
+<p>Through the forming clouds a plane
+bored in swiftly. It rolled slowly, was
+flying upside down. It was under the
+enemy! Its ray.... Thurston was
+thrown a score of feet away to crash
+helpless into the stone coping by the
+thunderous crash of the explosion.</p>
+
+<p>There were fragments falling from a
+dense cloud&mdash;fragments of curved and
+silvery metal ... the wing of a plane
+danced and fluttered in the air....</p>
+
+<p>"He fired its bombs," whispered
+Thurston in a shaking voice. "He
+killed the other devils where they lay&mdash;he
+destroyed this with its own explosive.
+He flew upside down to shoot up
+with the ray, to set off its shells...."</p>
+
+<p>His mind was fumbling with the miracle
+of it. "Clever pilot, Riley, in a
+dog-fight...." And then he realized.</p>
+
+<p>Cyrus Thurston, millionaire sportsman,
+sank slowly, numbly to the roof
+of the Equitable Building that still
+stood. And New York was still there
+... and the whole world....</p>
+
+<p>He sobbed weakly, brokenly.
+Through his dazed brain flashed a sudden,
+mind-saving thought. He laughed
+foolishly through his sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"And you said he'd die horribly, Mac,
+a horrible death." His head dropped
+upon his arms, unconscious&mdash;and safe&mdash;with
+the rest of humanity.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187">[187]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="The_Corpse_on_the_Grating" id="The_Corpse_on_the_Grating"></a>The Corpse on the Grating</h2>
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Hugh B. Cave</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/187.png" width="400" height="310" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">It was a corpse, standing before me like some propped-up thing
+from the grave.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was ten o'clock on the morning
+of December 5 when M. S. and I
+left the study of Professor
+Daimler. You are perhaps acquainted
+with M. S. His name appears
+constantly in the pages of the Illustrated
+News, in conjunction with some
+very technical article
+on psycho-analysis
+or with
+some extensive
+study of the human
+brain and its
+functions. He is
+a psycho-fanatic, more or less, and
+has spent an entire lifetime of some
+seventy-odd years in pulling apart
+human skulls for the purpose of investigation.
+Lovely pursuit!</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">In the gloomy depths of the old warehouse
+Dale saw a thing that drew a
+scream of horror to his dry lips. It was
+a corpse&mdash;the mold of decay on its long-dead
+features&mdash;and yet it was alive!</p>
+
+<p>For some twenty years I have
+mocked him, in a friendly, half-hearted
+fashion. I am a medical man, and my
+own profession is one that does not
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'symphathize'">sympathize</ins> with radicals.</p>
+
+<p>As for Professor Daimler, the third
+member of our triangle&mdash;perhaps, if I
+take a moment to outline the events of
+that evening, the Professor's part in
+what follows will
+be less obscure.
+We had called on
+him, M. S. and I,
+at his urgent request.
+His rooms
+were in a narrow,
+unlighted street just off the square,
+and Daimler himself opened the door
+to us. A tall, loosely built chap he
+was, standing in the doorway like a
+motionless ape, arms half extended.</p>
+
+<p>"I've summoned you, gentlemen," he
+said quietly, "because you two, of all<span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188">[188]</a></span>
+London, are the only persons who
+know the nature of my recent experiments.
+I should like to acquaint you
+with the results!"</p>
+
+<p>He led the way to his study, then
+kicked the door shut with his foot,
+seizing my arm as he did so. Quietly
+he dragged me to the table that stood
+against the farther wall. In the same
+even, unemotional tone of a man completely
+sure of himself, he commanded
+me to inspect it.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, in the semi-gloom of
+the room, I saw nothing. At length,
+however, the contents of the table revealed
+themselves, and I distinguished
+a motley collection of test tubes, each
+filled with some fluid. The tubes were
+attached to each other by some ingenious
+arrangement of thistles, and
+at the end of the table, where a chance
+blow could not brush it aside, lay a
+tiny phial of the resulting serum.
+From the appearance of the table,
+Daimler had evidently drawn a certain
+amount of gas from each of the
+smaller tubes, distilling them through
+acid into the minute phial at the end.
+Yet even now, as I stared down at the
+fantastic paraphernalia before me, I
+could sense no conclusive reason for
+its existence.</p>
+
+<p>I turned to the Professor with a
+quiet stare of bewilderment. He
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"The experiment is over," he said.
+"As to its conclusion, you, Dale, as a
+medical man, will be sceptical. And
+you"&mdash;turning to M. S.&mdash;"as a scientist
+you will be amazed. I, being neither
+physician nor scientist, am merely
+filled with wonder!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> stepped to a long, square table-like
+structure in the center of
+the room. Standing over it, he glanced
+quizzically at M. S., then at me.</p>
+
+<p>"For a period of two weeks," he
+went on, "I have kept, on the table
+here, the body of a man who has been
+dead more than a month. I have tried,
+gentlemen, with acid combinations of
+my own origination, to bring that body
+back to life. And ... I have&mdash;failed!</p>
+
+<p>"But," he added quickly, noting the
+smile that crept across my face, "that
+failure was in itself worth more than
+the average scientist's greatest achievement!
+You know, Dale, that heat, if
+a man is not truly dead, will sometimes
+resurrect him. In a case of epilepsy,
+for instance, victims have been
+pronounced dead only to return to life&mdash;sometimes
+in the grave.</p>
+
+<p>"I say 'if a man be not truly dead.'
+But what if that man <i>is</i> truly dead?
+Does the cure alter itself in any manner?
+The motor of your car dies&mdash;do
+you bury it? You do not; you locate
+the faulty part, correct it, and infuse
+new life. And so, gentlemen,
+after remedying the ruptured heart of
+this dead man, by operation, I proceeded
+to bring him back to life.</p>
+
+<p>"I used heat. Terrific heat will
+sometimes originate a spark of new life
+in something long dead. Gentlemen,
+on the fourth day of my tests, following
+a continued application of electric
+and acid heat, the patient&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Daimler leaned over the table and
+took up a cigarette. <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'Lightning'">Lighting</ins> it, he
+dropped the match and resumed his
+monologue.</p>
+
+<p>"The patient turned suddenly over
+and drew his arm weakly across his
+eyes. I rushed to his side. When I
+reached him, the body was once again
+stiff and lifeless. And&mdash;it has remained
+so."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor stared at us quietly,
+waiting for comment. I answered
+him, as carelessly as I could, with a
+shrug of my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Professor, have you ever played
+with the dead body of a frog?" I said
+softly.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> shook his head silently.</p>
+
+<p>"You would find it interesting
+sport," I told him. "Take a common
+dry cell battery with enough voltage
+to render a sharp shock. Then apply
+your wires to various parts of the
+frog's anatomy. If you are lucky, and
+strike the right set of muscles, you<span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189">[189]</a></span>
+will have the pleasure of seeing a dead
+frog leap suddenly forward. Understand,
+he will not regain life. You
+have merely released his dead muscles
+by shock, and sent him bolting."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor did not reply. I could
+feel his eyes on me, and had I turned,
+I should probably had found M. S.
+glaring at me in honest hate. These
+men were students of mesmerism, of
+spiritualism, and my commonplace contradiction
+was not over welcome.</p>
+
+<p>"You are cynical, Dale," said M. S.
+coldly, "because you do not understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Understand? I am a doctor&mdash;not a
+ghost!"</p>
+
+<p>But M. S. had turned eagerly to the
+Professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is this body&mdash;this experiment?"
+he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Daimler shook his head. Evidently
+he had acknowledged failure and did
+not intend to drag his dead man before
+our eyes, unless he could bring
+that man forth alive, upright, and ready
+to join our conversation!</p>
+
+<p>"I've put it away," he said distantly.
+"There is nothing more to be done,
+now that our reverend doctor has insisted
+in making a matter of fact thing
+out of our experiment. You understand,
+I had not intended to go in for
+wholesale resurrection, even if I had
+met with success. It was my belief
+that a dead body, like a dead piece of
+mechanism, can be brought to life
+again, provided we are intelligent
+enough to discover the secret. And by
+God, it is <i>still</i> my belief!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">That</span> was the situation, then,
+when M. S. and I paced slowly
+back along the narrow street that contained
+the Professor's dwelling-place.
+My companion was strangely silent.
+More than once I felt his eyes upon
+me in an uncomfortable stare, yet he
+said nothing. Nothing, that is, until
+I had opened the conversation with
+some casual remark about the lunacy
+of the man we had just left.</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong in mocking him,
+Dale," M. S. replied bitterly. "Daimler
+is a man of science. He is no child,
+experimenting with a toy; he is a
+grown man who has the courage to
+believe in his powers. One of these
+days...."</p>
+
+<p>He had intended to say that some
+day I should respect the Professor's
+efforts. One of these days! The interval
+of time was far shorter than
+anything so indefinite. The first event,
+with its succeeding series of horrors,
+came within the next three minutes.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">We</span> had reached a more deserted
+section of the square, a black,
+uninhabited street extending like a
+shadowed band of darkness between
+gaunt, high walls. I had noticed for
+some time that the stone structure beside
+us seemed to be unbroken by door
+or window&mdash;that it appeared to be a
+single gigantic building, black and forbidding.
+I mentioned the fact to M. S.</p>
+
+<p>"The warehouse," he said simply. "A
+lonely, God-forsaken place. We shall
+probably see the flicker of the watchman's
+light in one of the upper chinks."</p>
+
+<p>At his words, I glanced up. True
+enough, the higher part of the grim
+structure was punctured by narrow,
+barred openings. Safety vaults, probably.
+But the light, unless its tiny
+gleam was somewhere in the inner recesses
+of the warehouse, was dead.
+The great building was like an immense
+burial vault, a tomb&mdash;silent and
+lifeless.</p>
+
+<p>We had reached the most forbidding
+section of the narrow street, where a
+single arch-lamp overhead cast a halo
+of ghastly yellow light over the pavement.
+At the very rim of the circle
+of illumination, where the shadows
+were deeper and more silent, I could
+make out the black mouldings of a
+heavy iron grating. The bars of metal
+were designed, I believe, to seal the
+side entrance of the great warehouse
+from night marauders. It was bolted
+in place and secured with a set of immense
+chains, immovable.</p>
+
+<p>This much I saw as my intent gaze<span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190">[190]</a></span>
+swept the wall before me. This huge
+tomb of silence held for me a peculiar
+fascination, and as I paced along beside
+my gloomy companion, I stared
+directly ahead of me into the darkness
+of the street. I wish to God my eyes
+had been closed or blinded!</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> was hanging on the grating.
+Hanging there, with white,
+twisted hands clutching the rigid bars
+of iron, straining to force them apart.
+His whole distorted body was forced
+against the barrier, like the form of
+a madman struggling to escape from
+his cage. His face&mdash;the image of it
+still haunts me whenever I see iron
+bars in the darkness of a passage&mdash;was
+the face of a man who has died from
+utter, stark horror. It was frozen in
+a silent shriek of agony, staring out
+at me with fiendish maliciousness. Lips
+twisted apart. White teeth gleaming
+in the light. Bloody eyes, with a horrible
+glare of colorless pigment. And&mdash;<i>dead</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I believe M. S. saw him at the very
+instant I recoiled. I felt a sudden grip
+on my arm; and then, as an exclamation
+came harshly from my companion's
+lips, I was pulled forward roughly.
+I found myself staring straight
+into the dead eyes of that fearful thing
+before me, found myself standing rigid,
+motionless, before the corpse that hung
+within reach of my arm.</p>
+
+<p>And then, through that overwhelming
+sense of the horrible, came the
+quiet voice of my comrade&mdash;the voice
+of a man who looks upon death as
+nothing more than an opportunity for
+research.</p>
+
+<p>"The fellow has been frightened to
+death, Dale. Frightened most horribly.
+Note the expression of his
+mouth, the evident struggle to force
+these bars apart and escape. Something
+has driven fear to his soul, killed him."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">I remember</span> the words vaguely.
+When M. S. had finished speaking,
+I did not reply. Not until he had
+stepped forward and bent over the distorted
+face of the thing before me, did
+I attempt to speak. When I did, my
+thoughts were a jargon.</p>
+
+<p>"What, in God's name," I cried,
+"could have brought such horror to a
+strong man? What&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Loneliness, perhaps," suggested M.
+S. with a smile. "The fellow is evidently
+the watchman. He is alone, in
+a huge, deserted pit of darkness, for
+hours at a time. His light is merely
+a ghostly ray of illumination, hardly
+enough to do more than increase the
+darkness. I have heard of such cases
+before."</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders. Even as
+he spoke, I sensed the evasion in his
+words. When I replied, he hardly
+heard my answer, for he had suddenly
+stepped forward, where he could look
+directly into those fear twisted eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Dale," he said at length, turning
+slowly to face me, "you ask for an
+explanation of this horror? There <i>is</i>
+an explanation. It is written with an
+almost fearful clearness on this fellow's
+mind. Yet if I tell you, you will
+return to your old skepticism&mdash;your
+damnable habit of disbelief!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him quietly. I had heard
+M. S. claim, at other times, that he
+could read the thoughts of a dead man
+by the mental image that lay on that
+man's brain. I had laughed at him.
+Evidently, in the present moment, he
+recalled those laughs. Nevertheless, he
+faced me seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see two things, Dale," he said
+deliberately. "One of them is a dark,
+narrow room&mdash;a room piled with indistinct
+boxes and crates, and with an
+open door bearing the black number
+4167. And in that open doorway, coming
+forward with slow steps&mdash;alive,
+with arms extended and a frightful
+face of passion&mdash;is a decayed human
+form. A corpse, Dale. A man who
+has been dead for many days, and is
+now&mdash;<i>alive</i>!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">M. S.</span> turned slowly and pointed
+with upraised hand to the
+corpse on the grating.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191">[191]</a></span>
+"That is why," he said simply, "this
+fellow died from horror."</p>
+
+<p>His words died into emptiness. For
+a moment I stared at him. Then, in
+spite of our surroundings, in spite of
+the late hour, the loneliness of the
+street, the awful thing beside us, I
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>He turned upon me with a snarl. For
+the first time in my life I saw M. S.
+convulsed with rage. His old, lined
+face had suddenly become savage with
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>"You laugh at me, Dale," he thundered.
+"By God, you make a mockery
+out of a science that I have spent more
+than my life in studying! You call
+yourself a medical man&mdash;and you are
+not fit to carry the name! I will wager
+you, man, that your laughter is not
+backed by courage!"</p>
+
+<p>I fell away from him. Had I stood
+within reach, I am sure he would have
+struck me. Struck me! And I have
+been nearer to M. S. for the past ten
+years than any man in London. And
+as I retreated from his temper, he
+reached forward to seize my arm. I
+could not help but feel impressed at
+his grim intentness.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Dale," he said bitterly,
+"I will wager you a hundred pounds
+that you will not spend the remainder
+of this night in the warehouse above
+you! I will wager a hundred pounds
+against your own courage that you will
+not back your laughter by going
+through what this fellow has gone
+through. That you will not prowl
+through the corridors of this great
+structure until you have found room
+4167&mdash;<i>and remain in that room until
+dawn</i>!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">There</span> was no choice. I glanced
+at the dead man, at the face of
+fear and the clutching, twisted hands,
+and a cold dread filled me. But to refuse
+my friend's wager would have
+been to brand myself an empty coward.
+I had mocked him. Now, whatever the
+cost, I must stand ready to pay for that
+mockery.</p>
+
+<p>"Room 4167?" I replied quietly, in a
+voice which I made every effort to control,
+lest he should discover the tremor
+in it. "Very well, I will do it!"</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly midnight when I found
+myself alone, climbing a musty, winding
+ramp between the first and second
+floors of the deserted building. Not a
+sound, except the sharp intake of my
+breath and the dismal creak of the
+wooden stairs, echoed through that
+tomb of death. There was no light,
+not even the usual dim glow that is left
+to illuminate an unused corridor.
+Moreover, I had brought no means of
+light with me&mdash;nothing but a half
+empty box of safety matches which, by
+some unholy premonition, I had forced
+myself to save for some future moment.
+The stairs were black and difficult,
+and I mounted them slowly, groping
+with both hands along the rough
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>I had left M. S. some few moments
+before. In his usual decisive manner
+he had helped me to climb the iron
+grating and lower myself to the sealed
+alley-way on the farther side. Then,
+leaving him without a word, for I was
+bitter against the triumphant tone of
+his parting words, I proceeded into the
+darkness, fumbling forward until I had
+discovered the open door in the lower
+part of the warehouse.</p>
+
+<p>And then the ramp, winding crazily
+upward&mdash;upward&mdash;upward, seemingly
+without end. I was seeking blindly
+for that particular room which was to
+be my destination. Room 4167, with
+its high number, could hardly be on
+the lower floors, and so I had stumbled
+upward....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was at the entrance of the second
+floor corridor that I struck the first
+of my desultory supply of matches,
+and by its light discovered a placard
+nailed to the wall. The thing was yellow
+with age and hardly legible. In
+the drab light of the match I had difficulty
+in reading it&mdash;but, as far as I can
+remember, the notice went something
+like this:<span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>WAREHOUSE RULES</p>
+
+<ol>
+<li>No light shall be permitted in
+any room or corridor, as a prevention
+against fire.</li>
+
+<li>No person shall be admitted to
+rooms or corridors unless accompanied
+by an employee.</li>
+
+<li>A watchman shall be on the
+premises from 7 P.M. until
+6 A.M. He shall make the
+round of the corridors every
+hour during that interval, at a
+quarter past the hour.</li>
+
+<li>Rooms are located by their
+numbers: the first figure in the
+room number indicating its
+floor location.</li>
+</ol></blockquote>
+
+<p>I could read no further. The match
+in my fingers burned to a black thread
+and dropped. Then, with the burnt
+stump still in my hand, I groped
+through the darkness to the bottom of
+the second ramp.</p>
+
+<p>Room 4167, then, was on the fourth
+floor&mdash;the topmost floor of the structure.
+I must confess that the knowledge
+did not bring any renewed burst
+of courage! The top floor! Three
+black stair-pits would lie between me
+and the safety of escape. There would
+be no escape! No human being in the
+throes of fear could hope to discover
+that tortured outlet, could hope to
+grope his way through Stygian gloom
+down a triple ramp of black stairs.
+And even though he succeeded in
+reaching the lower corridors, there was
+still a blind alley-way, sealed at the
+outer end by a high grating of iron
+bars....</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Escape</span>! The mockery of it
+caused me to stop suddenly in my
+ascent and stand rigid, my whole body
+trembling violently.</p>
+
+<p>But outside, in the gloom of the
+street, M. S. was waiting, waiting with
+that fiendish glare of triumph that
+would brand me a man without courage.
+I could not return to face him,
+not though all the horrors of hell inhabited
+this gruesome place of mystery.
+And horrors must surely inhabit
+it, else how could one account for that
+fearful thing on the grating below?
+But I had been through horror before.
+I had seen a man, supposedly dead on
+the operating table, jerk suddenly to
+his feet and scream. I had seen a
+young girl, not long before, awake in
+the midst of an operation, with the
+knife already in her frail body. Surely,
+after those definite horrors, no <i>unknown</i>
+danger would send me cringing
+back to the man who was waiting so
+bitterly for me to return.</p>
+
+<p>Those were the thoughts pregnant
+in my mind as I groped slowly, cautiously
+along the corridor of the upper
+floor, searching each closed door for
+the indistinct number 4167. The place
+was like the center of a huge labyrinth,
+a spider-web of black, repelling passages,
+leading into some central chamber
+of utter silence and blackness. I
+went forward with dragging steps,
+fighting back the dread that gripped
+me as I went farther and farther from
+the outlet of escape. And then, after
+losing myself completely in the gloom,
+I threw aside all thoughts of return
+and pushed on with a careless, surface
+bravado, and laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">So</span>, at length, I reached that room
+of horror, secreted high in the
+deeper recesses of the deserted warehouse.
+The number&mdash;God grant I
+never see it again!&mdash;was scrawled in
+black chalk on the door&mdash;4167. I
+pushed the half-open barrier wide, and
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>It was a small room, even as M. S.
+had forewarned me&mdash;or as the dead
+mind of that thing on the grate had
+forewarned M. S. The glow of my
+out-thrust match revealed a great stack
+of dusty boxes and crates, piled against
+the farther wall. Revealed, too, the
+black corridor beyond the entrance, and
+a small, upright table before me.</p>
+
+<p>It was the table, and the stool beside
+it, that drew my attention and brought
+a muffled exclamation from my lips.
+The thing had been thrust out of its<span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193">[193]</a></span>
+usual place, pushed aside as if some
+frenzied shape had lunged against it.
+I could make out its former position
+by the marks on the dusty floor at my
+feet. Now it was nearer to the center
+of the room, and had been wrenched
+sidewise from its holdings. A shudder
+took hold of me as I looked at it.
+A living person, sitting on the stool
+before me, staring at the door, would
+have wrenched the table in just this
+manner in his frenzy to escape from
+the room!</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> light of the match died,
+plunging me into a pit of <ins class="correction" title="Changed comma to period">gloom.</ins>
+I struck another and stepped closer to
+the table. And there, on the floor,
+I found two more things that brought
+fear to my soul. One of them was a
+heavy flash-lamp&mdash;a watchman's lamp&mdash;where
+it had evidently been dropped.
+Been dropped in flight! But what awful
+terror must have gripped the fellow
+to make him forsake his only
+means of escape through those black
+passages? And the second thing&mdash;a
+worn copy of a leather-bound book,
+flung open on the boards below the
+stool!</p>
+
+<p>The flash-lamp, thank God! had not
+been shattered. I switched it on, directing
+its white circle of light over
+the room. This time, in the vivid glare,
+the room became even more unreal.
+Black walls, clumsy, distorted shadows
+on the wall, thrown by those huge piles
+of wooden boxes. Shadows that were
+like crouching men, groping toward
+me. And beyond, where the single
+door opened into a passage of Stygian
+darkness, that yawning entrance was
+thrown into hideous detail. Had any
+upright figure been standing there, the
+light would have made an unholy phosphorescent
+specter out of it.</p>
+
+<p>I summoned enough courage to cross
+the room and pull the door shut. There
+was no way of locking it. Had I been
+able to fasten it, I should surely have
+done so; but the room was evidently
+an unused chamber, filled with empty
+refuse. This was the reason, probably,
+why the watchman had made use of it
+as a retreat during the intervals between
+his rounds.</p>
+
+<p>But I had no desire to ponder over
+the sordidness of my surroundings. I
+returned to my stool in silence, and
+stooping, picked up the fallen book
+from the floor. Carefully I placed the
+lamp on the table, where its light would
+shine on the open page. Then, turning
+the cover, I began to glance
+through the thing which the man before
+me had evidently been studying.</p>
+
+<p>And before I had read two lines, the
+explanation of the whole horrible thing
+struck me. I stared dumbly down at
+the little book and laughed. Laughed
+harshly, so that the sound of my mad
+cackle echoed in a thousand ghastly reverberations
+through the dead corridors
+of the building.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was a book of horror, of fantasy.
+A collection of weird, terrifying,
+supernatural tales with grotesque illustrations
+in funereal black and white.
+And the very line I had turned to, the
+line which had probably struck terror
+to that unlucky devil's soul, explained
+M. S.'s "decayed human form, standing
+in the doorway with arms extended
+and a frightful face of passion!" The
+description&mdash;the same description&mdash;lay
+before me, almost in my friend's words.
+Little wonder that the fellow on the
+grating below, after reading this orgy
+of horror, had suddenly gone mad with
+fright. Little wonder that the picture
+engraved on his dead mind was a picture
+of a corpse standing in the doorway
+of room 4167!</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at that doorway and
+laughed. No doubt of it, it was that
+awful description in M. S.'s untempered
+language that had made me dread
+my surroundings, not the loneliness
+and silence of the corridors about me.
+Now, as I stared at the room, the closed
+door, the shadows on the wall, I could
+not repress a grin.</p>
+
+<p>But the grin was not long in duration.
+A six-hour siege awaited me before
+I could hear the sound of human<span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194">[194]</a></span>
+voice again&mdash;six hours of silence and
+gloom. I did not relish it. Thank God
+the fellow before me had had foresight
+enough to leave his book of fantasy
+for my amusement!</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">I turned</span> to the beginning of the
+story. A lovely beginning it was,
+outlining in some detail how a certain
+Jack Fulton, English adventurer, had
+suddenly found himself imprisoned (by
+a mysterious black gang of monks, or
+something of the sort) in a forgotten
+cell at the monastery of El Toro. The
+cell, according to the pages before me,
+was located in the "empty, haunted pits
+below the stone floors of the structure...."
+Lovely setting! And the brave
+Fulton had been secured firmly to a
+huge metal ring set in the farther wall,
+opposite the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>I read the description twice. At the
+end of it I could not help but lift my
+head to stare at my own surroundings.
+Except for the location of the cell, I
+might have been in they same setting.
+The same darkness, same silence, same
+loneliness. Peculiar similarity!</p>
+
+<p>And then: "Fulton lay quietly,
+without attempt to struggle. In the
+dark, the stillness of the vaults became
+unbearable, terrifying. Not a suggestion
+of sound, except the scraping of
+unseen rats&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I dropped the book with a start.
+From the opposite end of the room in
+which I sat came a half inaudible scuffling
+noise&mdash;the sound of hidden rodents
+scrambling through the great pile
+of boxes. Imagination? I am not sure.
+At the moment, I would have sworn
+that the sound was a definite one, that
+I had heard it distinctly. Now, as I
+recount this tale of horror, I am not
+sure.</p>
+
+<p>But I am sure of this: There was
+no smile on my lips as I picked up
+the book again with trembling fingers
+and continued.</p>
+
+<p>"The sound died into silence. For
+an eternity, the prisoner lay rigid, staring
+at the open door of his cell. The
+opening was black, deserted, like the
+mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to
+hell. And then, suddenly, from the
+gloom beyond that opening, came an
+almost noiseless, padded footfall!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">This</span> time there was no doubt of
+it. The book fell from my fingers,
+dropped to the floor with a clatter.
+Yet even through the sound of its falling,
+I heard that fearful sound&mdash;the
+shuffle of a living foot! I sat motionless,
+staring with bloodless face at the
+door of room 4167. And as I stared,
+the sound came again, and again&mdash;<i>the
+slow tread of dragging footsteps, approaching
+along the black corridor
+without</i>!</p>
+
+<p>I got to my feet like an automaton,
+swaying heavily. Every drop of courage
+ebbed from my soul as I stood
+there, one hand clutching the table,
+waiting....</p>
+
+<p>And then, with an effort, I moved
+forward. My hand was outstretched
+to grasp the wooden handle of the
+door. And&mdash;I did not have the courage.
+Like a cowed beast I crept back
+to my place and slumped down on the
+stool, my eyes still transfixed in a mute
+stare of terror.</p>
+
+<p>I waited. For more than half an
+hour I waited, motionless. Not a sound
+stirred in the passage beyond that
+closed barrier. Not a suggestion of
+any living presence came to me. Then,
+leaning back against the wall with a
+harsh laugh, I wiped away the cold
+moisture that had trickled over my
+forehead into my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was another five minutes before I
+picked up the book again. You call me
+a fool for continuing it? A fool? I
+tell you, even a story of horror is more
+comfort <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'that'">than</ins> a room of grotesque
+shadows and silence. Even a printed
+page is better than grim reality!</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">And</span> so I read on. The story was
+one of suspense, madness. For
+the next two pages I read a cunning
+description of the prisoner's mental
+reaction. Strangely enough, it conformed
+precisely with my own.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195">[195]</a></span>
+"Fulton's head had fallen to his
+chest," the script read. "For an endless
+while he did not stir, did not dare
+to lift his eyes. And then, after more
+than an hour of silent agony and
+suspense, the boy's head came up
+mechanically. Came up&mdash;and suddenly
+jerked rigid. A horrible scream burst
+from his dry lips as he stared&mdash;stared
+like a dead man&mdash;at the black entrance
+to his cell. There, standing without
+motion in the opening, stood a
+shrouded figure of death. Empty eyes,
+glaring with awful hate, bored into his
+own. Great arms, bony and rotten, extended
+toward him. Decayed flesh&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I read no more. Even as I lunged to
+my feet, with that mad book still
+gripped in my hand, I heard the door
+of my room grind open. I screamed,
+screamed in utter horror at the thing
+I saw there. Dead? Good God, I do
+not know. It was a corpse, a dead
+human body, standing before me like
+some propped-up thing from the grave.
+A face half eaten away, terrible in its
+leering grin. Twisted mouth, with
+only a suggestion of lips, curled back
+over broken teeth. Hair&mdash;writhing,
+distorted&mdash;like a mass of moving,
+bloody coils. And its arms, ghastly
+white, bloodless, were extended toward
+me, with open, clutching hands.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was alive! Alive! Even while I
+stood there, crouching against the
+wall, it stepped forward toward me.
+I saw a heavy shudder pass over it,
+and the sound of its scraping feet
+burned its way into my soul. And
+then, with its second step, the fearful
+thing stumbled to its knees. The white,
+gleaming arms, thrown into streaks of
+living fire by the light of my lamp,
+flung violently upwards, twisting toward
+the ceiling. I saw the grin change
+to an expression of agony, of torment.
+And then the thing crashed upon me&mdash;dead.</p>
+
+<p>With a great cry of fear I stumbled
+to the door. I groped out of that room
+of horror, stumbled along the corridor.
+No light. I left it behind, on the table,
+to throw a circle of white glare over
+the decayed, living-dead intruder who
+had driven me mad.</p>
+
+<p>My return down those winding
+ramps to the lower floor was a nightmare
+of fear. I remember that I stumbled,
+that I plunged through the
+darkness like a man gone mad. I had
+no thought of caution, no thought of
+anything except escape.</p>
+
+<p>And then the lower door, and the
+alley of gloom. I reached the grating,
+flung myself upon it and pressed my
+face against the bars in a futile effort
+to escape. The same&mdash;as the fear-tortured
+man&mdash;who had&mdash;come before&mdash;me.</p>
+
+<p>I felt strong hands lifting me up. A
+dash of cool air, and then the refreshing
+patter of falling rain.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was the afternoon of the following
+day, December 6, when M. S.
+sat across the table from me in my own
+study. I had made a rather hesitant
+attempt to tell him, without dramatics
+and without dwelling on my own lack
+of courage, of the events of the previous
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"You deserved it, Dale," he said
+quietly. "You are a medical man, nothing
+more, and yet you mock the beliefs
+of a scientist as great as Daimler.
+I wonder&mdash;do you still mock the
+Professor's beliefs?"</p>
+
+<p>"That he can bring a dead man to
+life?" I smiled, a bit doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you something, Dale,"
+said M. S. deliberately. He was leaning
+across the table, staring at me. "The
+Professor made only one mistake in
+his great experiment. He did not wait
+long enough for the effect of his
+strange acids to work. He acknowledged
+failure too soon, and got rid of
+the body." He paused.</p>
+
+<p>"When the Professor stored his patient
+away, Dale," he said quietly, "he
+stored it in room 4170, at the great
+warehouse. If you are acquainted
+with the place, you will know that
+room 4170 is directly across the corridor
+from 4167."</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196">[196]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Creatures" id="Creatures"></a>Creatures
+of the Light</h2>
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Sophie Wenzel Ellis</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/196.png" width="400" height="485" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">In</span> a night club of many lights
+and much high-pitched laughter,
+where he had come for an hour
+of forgetfulness and an execrable
+dinner, John Northwood was suddenly
+conscious that Fate had begun shuffling
+the cards of his
+destiny for a dramatic
+game.</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">He had striven to perfect the faultless
+man of the future, and had succeeded&mdash;too
+well. For in the pitilessly cold eyes
+of Adam, his super-human creation, Dr.
+Mundson saw only contempt&mdash;and annihilation&mdash;for
+the human race.</p>
+
+<p>First, he was
+aware that the
+singularly ugly
+and deformed
+man at the next table was gazing at
+him with an intense, almost excited
+scrutiny. But, more disturbing than
+this, was the scowl of hate on the face
+of another man, as handsome as this
+other was hideous, who sat in a far
+corner hidden behind
+a broad column,
+with rude
+elbows on the
+table, gawking
+first at Northwood
+and then<span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197">[197]</a></span>
+at the deformed, almost hideous man.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/197.png" width="400" height="458" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">The projector, belching forth
+its stinking breath of corruption,
+swung in a mad arc
+over the ceiling, over the
+walls.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Northwood's blood chilled over the
+expression on the handsome, fair-haired
+stranger's perfectly carved face. If a
+figure in marble could display a fierce,
+unnatural passion, it would seem no
+more eldritch than the hate in the icy
+blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a new experience for
+Northwood to be stared at: he was not
+merely a good-looking young fellow
+of twenty-five, he was scenery, magnificent
+and compelling. Furthermore,
+he had been in the public eye for years,
+first as a precocious child and, later,
+as a brilliant young scientist. Yet, for
+all his experience with hero worshippers
+to put an adamantine crust on his
+sensibilities, he grew warm-eared under
+the gaze of these two strangers&mdash;this
+hunchback with a face like a
+grotesque mask in a Greek play, this
+other who, even handsomer than himself,
+chilled the blood queerly with the
+cold perfection of his godlike masculine
+beauty.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198">[198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> sensed something
+familiar about the hunchback.
+Somewhere he had seen that huge,
+round, intelligent face splattered with
+startling features. The very breadth
+of the man's massive brow was not altogether
+unknown to him, nor could
+Northwood look into the mournful,
+near-sighted black eyes without trying
+to recall when and where he had last
+seen them.</p>
+
+<p>But this other of the marble-perfect
+nose and jaw, the blond, thick-waved
+hair, was totally a stranger, whom
+Northwood fervently hoped he would
+never know too well.</p>
+
+<p>Trying to analyze the queer repugnance
+that he felt for this handsome,
+boldly staring fellow, Northwood decided:
+"He's like a newly-made wax
+figure endowed with life."</p>
+
+<p>Shivering over his own fantastic
+thought, he again glanced swiftly at
+the hunchback, who he noticed was
+playing with his coffee, evidently to
+prolong the meal.</p>
+
+<p>One year of calm-headed scientific
+teaching in a famous old eastern university
+had not made him callous to
+mysteries. Thus, with a feeling of high
+adventure, he finished his supper and
+prepared to go. From the corner of his
+eye, he saw the hunchback leave his
+seat, while the handsome man behind
+the column rose furtively, as though
+he, too, intended to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood was out in the dusky
+street about thirty seconds, when the
+hunchback came from the foyer. Without
+apparently noticing Northwood,
+he hailed a taxi. For a moment, he
+stood still, waiting for the taxi to pull
+up at the curb. Standing thus, with the
+street light limning every unnatural
+angle of his twisted body and every
+queer abnormality of his huge features,
+he looked almost repulsive.</p>
+
+<p>On his way to the taxi, his thick
+shoulder jostled the younger man.
+Northwood felt something strike his
+foot, and, stooping in the crowded
+street, picked up a black leather wallet.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait!" he shouted as the hunchback
+stepped into the waiting taxi.</p>
+
+<p>But the man did not falter. In a
+moment, Northwood lost sight of him
+as the taxi moved away.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> debated with himself whether
+or not he should attempt to
+follow. And while he stood thus in
+indecision, the handsome stranger approached
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening to you," he said curtly.
+His rich, musical voice, for all its
+deepness, held a faint hint of the
+tremulous, birdlike notes heard in the
+voice of a young child who has not
+used his vocal chords long enough for
+them to have lost their exquisite newness.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening," echoed Northwood,
+somewhat uncertainly. A sudden aura
+of repulsion swept coldly over him.
+Seen close, with the brilliant light of
+the street directly on his too perfect
+face, the man was more sinister than in
+the caf&eacute;. Yet Northwood, struggling
+desperately for a reason to explain his
+violent dislike, could not discover why
+he shrank from this splendid creature,
+whose eyes and flesh had a new, fresh
+appearance rarely seen except in very
+young boys.</p>
+
+<p>"I want what you picked up," went
+on the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't yours!" Northwood flashed
+back. Ah! that effluvium of hatred
+which seemed to weave a tangible net
+around him!</p>
+
+<p>"Nor is it yours. Give it to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're insolent, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't give it to me, you will
+be sorry." The man did not raise his
+voice in anger, yet the words whipped
+Northwood with almost physical violence.
+"If he knew that I saw everything
+that happened in there&mdash;that I
+am talking to you at this moment&mdash;he
+would tremble with fear."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't intimidate me."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" For a long moment, the cold
+blue eyes held his contemptuously.
+"No? I can't frighten you&mdash;you worm
+of the Black Age?"</p>
+
+<p>Before Northwood's horrified sight,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199">[199]</a></span>
+he vanished; vanished as though he
+had turned suddenly to air and floated
+away.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> street was not crowded at that
+time, and there was no pressing
+group of bodies to hide the splendid
+creature. Northwood gawked stupidly,
+mouth half open, eyes searching wildly
+everywhere. The man was gone. He
+had simply disappeared, in this sane,
+electric-lighted street.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, close to Northwood's ear,
+grated a derisive laugh. "I can't
+frighten you?" From nowhere came
+that singularly young-old voice.</p>
+
+<p>As Northwood jerked his head
+around to meet blank space, a blow
+struck the corner of his mouth. He felt
+the warm blood run over his chin.</p>
+
+<p>"I could take that wallet from you,
+worm, but you may keep it, and see
+me later. But remember this&mdash;the thing
+inside never will be yours."</p>
+
+<p>The words fell from empty air.</p>
+
+<p>For several minutes, Northwood
+waited at the spot, expecting another
+demonstration of the abnormal, but
+nothing else occurred. At last, trembling
+violently, he wiped the thick
+moisture from his forehead and dabbed
+at the blood which he still felt on his
+chin.</p>
+
+<p>But when he looked at his handkerchief,
+he muttered:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be jiggered!"</p>
+
+<p>The handkerchief bore not the
+slightest trace of blood.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Under</span> the light in his bedroom,
+Northwood examined the wallet.
+It was made of alligator skin, clasped
+with a gold signet that bore the initial
+M. The first pocket was empty; the
+second yielded an object that sent a
+warm flush to his face.</p>
+
+<p>It was the photograph of a gloriously
+beautiful girl, so seductively lovely
+that the picture seemed almost to be
+alive. The short, curved upper lip, the
+full, delicately voluptuous lower,
+parted slightly in a smile that seemed
+to linger in every exquisite line of her
+face. She looked as though she had
+just spoken passionately, and the
+spirit of her words had inspired her
+sweet flesh and eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood turned his head abruptly
+and groaned, "Good Heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>He had no right to palpitate over
+the picture of an unknown beauty.
+Only a month ago, he had become engaged
+to a young woman whose mind
+was as brilliant as her face was plain.
+Always he had vowed that he would
+never marry a pretty girl, for he detested
+his own masculine beauty sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>He tried to grasp a mental picture of
+Mary Burns, who had never stirred in
+him the emotion that this smiling picture
+invoked. But, gazing at the picture,
+he could not remember how his
+fianc&eacute;e looked.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the picture fell from his
+fingers and dropped to the floor on its
+face, revealing an inscription on the
+back. In a bold, masculine hand, he
+read: "Your future wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Some lucky fellow is headed for a
+life of bliss," was his jealous thought.</p>
+
+<p>He frowned at the beautiful face.
+What was this girl to that hideous
+hunchback? Why did the handsome
+stranger warn him, "<i>The thing inside
+never will be yours</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Again he turned eagerly to the
+wallet.</p>
+
+<p>In the last flap he found something
+that gave him another surprise: a plain
+white card on which a name and address
+were written by the same hand
+that had penned the inscription on the
+picture.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Emil Mundson, Ph. D.,<br />
+44-1/2 Indian Court<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Emil Mundson, the electrical wizard
+and distinguished scientific writer,
+friend of the professor of science at
+the university where Northwood was
+an assistant professor; Emil Mundson,
+whom, a week ago, Northwood had
+yearned mightily to meet.</p>
+
+<p>Now Northwood knew why the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200">[200]</a></span>
+hunchback's intelligent, ugly face was
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'familar'">familiar</ins> to him. He had seen it pictured
+as often as enterprising news
+photographers could steal a likeness
+from the over-sensitive scientist, who
+would never sit for a formal portrait.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Even</span> before Northwood had graduated
+from the university where
+he now taught, he had been avidly interested
+in Emil Mundson's fantastic
+articles in scientific journals. Only a
+week ago, Professor Michael had come
+to him with the current issue of New
+Science, shouting excitedly:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you read this, John, this article
+by Emil Mundson?" His shaking,
+gnarled old fingers tapped the open
+magazine.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood seized the magazine and
+looked avidly at the title of the article,
+"Creatures of the Light."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't read it," he admitted.
+"My magazine hasn't come yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Run through it now briefly, will
+you? And note with especial care the
+passages I have marked. In fact, you
+needn't bother with anything else just
+now. Read this&mdash;and this&mdash;and this."
+He pointed out penciled paragraphs.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood read:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Man always has been, always will
+be a creature of the light. He is
+forever reaching for some future
+point of perfected evolution which,
+even when his most remote ancestor
+was a fish creature composed
+of a few cells, was the guiding
+power that brought him up
+from the first stinking sea and
+caused him to create gods in his
+own image.</p>
+
+<p>It is this yearning for perfection
+which sets man apart from all
+other life, which made him <i>man</i>
+even in the rudimentary stages of
+his development. He was man when
+he wallowed in the slime of the
+new world and yearned for the air
+above. He will still be man when
+he has evolved into that glorious
+creature of the future whose body
+is deathless and whose mind rules
+the universe.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Professor Michael, looking over
+Northwood's shoulder, interrupted the
+reading:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Man always has been man</i>," he
+droned emphatically. "That's not original
+with friend Mundson, of course;
+yet it is a theory that has not received
+sufficient investigation." He indicated
+another marked paragraph. "Read this
+thoughtfully, John. It's the crux of
+Mundson's thought."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood continued:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Since the human body is chemical
+and electrical, increased
+knowledge of its powers and limitations
+will enable us to work with
+Nature in her sublime but infinitely
+slow processes of human evolution.
+We need not wait another
+fifty thousand years to be godlike
+creatures. Perhaps even now
+we may be standing at the beginning
+of the splendid bridge that
+will take us to that state of perfected
+evolution when we shall be
+Creatures who have reached the
+Light.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Northwood looked questioningly at
+the professor. "Queer, fantastic
+thing, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Professor Michael</span> smoothed
+his thin, gray hair with his
+dried-out hand. "Fantastic?" His
+intellectual eyes behind the thick
+glasses sought the ceiling. "Who can
+say? Haven't you ever wondered why
+all parents expect their children to be
+nearer perfection than themselves, and
+why is it a natural impulse for them
+to be willing to sacrifice themselves to
+better their offspring?" He paused and
+moistened his pale, wrinkled lips. "Instinct,
+Northwood. We Creatures of
+the Light know that our race shall
+reach that point in evolution when, as
+perfect creatures, we shall rule all matter
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201">[201]</a></span>and live forever." He punctuated
+the last words with blows on the table.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood laughed dryly. "How
+many thousands of years are you looking
+forward, Professor?"</p>
+
+<p>The professor made an obscure noise
+that sounded like a smothered sniff.
+"You and I shall never agree on the
+point that mental advancement may
+wipe out physical limitations in the
+human race, perhaps in a few hundred
+years. It seems as though your profound
+admiration for Dr. Mundson
+would win you over to this pet theory."</p>
+
+<p>"But what sane man can believe that
+even perfectly developed beings,
+through mental control, could overcome
+Nature's fixed laws?"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know! We don't know!"
+The professor slapped the magazine
+with an emphatic hand. "Emil Mundson
+hasn't written this article for nothing.
+He's paving the way for some announcement
+that will startle the scientific
+world. I know him. In the same
+manner he gave out veiled hints of his
+various brilliant discoveries and inventions
+long before he offered them to
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>"But Dr. Mundson is an electrical
+wizard. He would not be delving seriously
+into the mysteries of evolution,
+would he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" The professor's wizened
+face screwed up wisely. "A year
+ago, when he was back from one of
+those mysterious long excursions he
+takes in that weirdly different aircraft
+of his, about which he is so secretive,
+he told me that he was conducting experiments
+to prove his belief that the
+human brain generates electric current,
+and that the electrical impulses in the
+brain set up radioactive waves that
+some day, among other miracles, will
+make thought communication possible.
+Perfect man, he says, will perform
+mental feats which will give him complete
+mental domination over the physical."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> finished reading
+and turned thoughtfully to the
+window. His profile in repose had the
+straight-nosed, full-lipped perfection
+of a Greek coin. Old, wizened Professor
+Michael, gazing at him covertly,
+smothered a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you knew Dr. Mundson," he
+said. "He, the ugliest man in the
+world, delights in physical perfection.
+He would revel in your splendid body
+and brilliant mind."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood blushed hotly. "You'll
+have to arrange a meeting between us."</p>
+
+<p>"I have." The professor's thin, dry
+lips pursed comically. "He'll drop in
+to see you within a few days."</p>
+
+<p>And now John Northwood sat holding
+Dr. Mundson's card and the wallet
+which the scientist had so mysteriously
+dropped at his feet.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Here</span> was high adventure, perhaps,
+for which he had been singled
+out by the famous electrical
+wizard. While excitement mounted in
+his blood, Northwood again examined
+the photograph. The girl's strange
+eyes, odd in expression rather than in
+size or shape, seemed to hold him. The
+young man's breath came quicker.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a challenge," he said softly. "It
+won't hurt to see what it's all about."</p>
+
+<p>His watch showed eleven o'clock. He
+would return the wallet that night.
+Into his coat pocket he slipped a revolver.
+One sometimes needed weapons
+in Indian Court.</p>
+
+<p>He took a taxi, which soon turned
+from the well-lighted streets into a section
+where squalid houses crowded
+against each other, and dirty children
+swarmed in the streets in their last
+games of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Indian Court was little more than an
+alley, dark and evil smelling.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur stopped at the entrance
+and said:</p>
+
+<p>"If I drive in, I'll have to back out,
+sir. Number forty-four and a half is
+the end house, facing the entrance."</p>
+
+<p>"You've been here before?" asked
+Northwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Last week I drove the queerest bird
+here&mdash;a fellow as good-looking as you,
+who had me follow the taxi occupied<span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202">[202]</a></span>
+by a hunchback with a face like Old
+Nick." The man hesitated and went on
+haltingly: "It might sound goofy,
+mister, but there was something funny
+about my fare. He jumped out, asked
+me the charge, and, in the moment I
+glanced at my taxi-meter, he disappeared.
+Yes, sir. Vanished, owing me
+four dollars, six bits. It was almost
+ghostlike, mister."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood laughed nervously and
+dismissed him. He found his number
+and knocked at the dilapidated door.
+He heard a sudden movement in the
+lighted room beyond, and the door
+opened quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you'd come!" he said with
+a slight Teutonic accent. "Often I'm
+not wrong in sizing up my man. Come
+in."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood cleared his throat awkwardly.
+"You dropped your wallet at
+my feet, Dr. Mundson. I tried to stop
+you before you got away, but I guess
+you did not hear me."</p>
+
+<p>He offered the wallet, but the hunchback
+waved it aside.</p>
+
+<p>"A ruse, of course," he confessed. "It
+just was my way of testing what your
+Professor Michael told about you&mdash;that
+you are extraordinarily intelligent,
+virile, and imaginative. Had you sent
+the wallet to me, I should have sought
+elsewhere for my man. Come in."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> followed him into
+a living room evidently recently
+furnished in a somewhat hurried manner.
+The furniture, although rich, was
+not placed to best advantage. The new
+rug was a trifle crooked on the floor,
+and the lamp shades clashed in color
+with the other furnishings.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson's intense eyes swept
+over Northwood's tall, slim body.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you're a man!" he said softly.
+"You are what all men would be if we
+followed Nature's plan that only the fit
+shall survive. But modern science is
+permitting the unfit to live and to mix
+their defective beings with the developing
+race!" His huge fist gesticulated
+madly. "Fools! Fools! They
+need me and perfect men like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you can help me in my plan
+to populate the earth with a new race
+of godlike people. But don't question
+me too closely now. Even if I should
+explain, you would call me insane. But
+watch; gradually I shall unfold the
+mystery before you, so that you will
+believe."</p>
+
+<p>He reached for the wallet that
+Northwood still held, opened it with a
+monstrous hand, and reached for the
+photograph. "She shall bring you love.
+She's more beautiful than a poet's
+dream."</p>
+
+<p>A warm flush crept over the young
+man's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I can easily understand," he said,
+"how a man could love her, but for me
+she comes too late."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! Fiddlesticks!" The scientist
+snapped his fingers. "This girl was
+created for you. That other&mdash;you will
+forget her the moment you set eyes on
+the sweet flesh of this Athalia. She is
+an houri from Paradise&mdash;a maiden of
+musk and incense." He held the girl's
+photograph toward the young man.
+"Keep it. She is yours, if you are
+strong enough to hold her."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood opened his card case and
+placed the picture inside, facing
+Mary's photograph. Again the warning
+words of the mysterious stranger
+rang in his memory: "<i>The thing inside
+never will be yours.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Where to," he said eagerly; "and
+when do we start?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the new Garden of Eden," said
+the scientist, with such a beatific
+smile that his face was less hideous.
+"We start immediately. I have arranged
+with Professor Michael for you
+to go."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> followed Dr.
+Mundson to the street and walked
+with him a few blocks to a garage
+where the scientist's motor car
+waited.</p>
+
+<p>"The apartment in Indian Court is<span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203">[203]</a></span>
+just a little eccentricity of mine," explained
+Dr. Mundson. "I need people
+in my work, people whom I must select
+through swift, sure tests. The apartment
+comes in handy, as to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood scarcely noted where
+they were going, or how long they had
+been on the way. He was vaguely aware
+that they had left the city behind, and
+were now passing through farms
+bathed in moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>At last they entered a path that led
+through a bit of woodland. For half a
+mile the path continued, and then
+ended at a small, enclosed field. In the
+middle of this rested a queer aircraft.
+Northwood knew it was a flying machine
+only by the propellers mounted
+on the top of the huge ball-shaped
+body. There were no wings, no birdlike
+hull, no tail.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks almost like a little world
+ready to fly off into space," he commented.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just about that." The scientist's
+squat, bunched-out body, settled
+squarely on long, thin, straddled legs,
+looked gnomelike in the moonlight.
+"One cannot copy flesh with steel and
+wood, but one can make metal perform
+magic of which flesh is not capable. My
+sun-ship is not a mechanical reproduction
+of a bird. It is&mdash;but, climb in,
+young friend."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> followed Dr.
+Mundson into the aircraft. The
+moment the scientist closed the metal
+door behind them, Northwood was instantly
+aware of some concealed horror
+that vibrated through his nerves. For
+one dreadful moment, he expected
+some terrific agent of the shadows that
+escaped the electric lights to leap upon
+him. And this was odd, for nothing
+could be saner than the globular interior
+of the aircraft, divided into four
+wedge-shaped apartments.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson also paused at the door,
+puzzled, hesitant.</p>
+
+<p>"Someone has been here!" he exclaimed.
+"Look, Northwood! The
+bunk has been occupied&mdash;the one in
+this cabin I had set aside for you."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to the disarranged bunk,
+where the impression of a head could
+still be seen on a pillow.</p>
+
+<p>"A tramp, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"No! The door was locked, and, as
+you saw, the fence around this field was
+protected with barbed wire. There's
+something wrong. I felt it on my trip
+here all the way, like someone watching
+me in the dark. And don't laugh! I
+have stopped laughing at all things
+that seem unnatural. You don't know
+what is natural."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood shivered. "Maybe someone
+is concealed about the ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible. Me, I thought so, too.
+But I looked and looked, and there was
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>All evening Northwood had burned
+to tell the scientist about the handsome
+stranger in the Mad Hatter Club. But
+even now he shrank from saying that a
+man had vanished before his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson was working with a
+succession of buttons and levers. There
+was a slight jerk, and then the strange
+craft shot up, straight as a bullet from
+a gun, with scarcely a sound other than
+a continuous whistle.</p>
+
+<p>"The vertical rising aircraft perfected,"
+explained Dr. Mundson. "But
+what would you think if I told you that
+there is not an ounce of gasoline in my
+heavier-than-air craft?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't be surprised. An electrical
+genius would seek for a less obsolete
+source of power."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">In</span> the bright flare of the electric
+lights, the scientist's ugly face
+flushed. "The man who harnesses the
+sun rules the world. He can make the
+desert places bloom, the frozen poles
+balmy and verdant. You, John Northwood,
+are one of the very few to fly
+in a machine operated solely by electrical
+energy from the sun's rays."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you telling me that this airship
+is operated with power from the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And I cannot take the credit
+for its invention." He sighed. "The
+dream was mine, but a greater brain<span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204">[204]</a></span>
+developed it&mdash;a brain that may be
+greater than I suspect." His face grew
+suddenly graver.</p>
+
+<p>A little later Northwood said: "It
+seems that we must be making fabulous
+speed."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps!" Dr. Mundson worked
+with the controls. "Here, I've cut her
+down to the average speed of the ordinary
+airplane. Now you can see a
+bit of the night scenery."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood peeped out the thick
+glass porthole. Far below, he saw two
+tiny streaks of light, one smooth and
+stationery, the other wavering as
+though it were a reflection in water.</p>
+
+<p>"That can't be a lighthouse!" he
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>The scientist glanced out. "It is.
+We're approaching the Florida Keys."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible! We've been traveling
+less than an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my young friend, do you realize
+that my sun-ship has a speed of
+over one thousand miles an hour, how
+much over I dare not tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the night, Northwood
+sat beside Dr. Mundson, watching his
+deft fingers control the simple-looking
+buttons and levers. So fast was their
+flight now that, through the portholes,
+sky and earth looked the same: dark
+gray films of emptiness. The continuous
+weird whistle from the hidden
+mechanism of the sun-ship was like the
+drone of a monster insect, monotonous
+and soporific during the long intervals
+when the scientist was too busy with
+his controls to engage in conversation.</p>
+
+<p>For some reason that he could not
+explain, Northwood had an aversion to
+going into the sleeping apartment behind
+the control room. Then, towards
+morning, when the suddenly falling
+temperature struck a biting chill
+throughout the <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'sun ship'">sun-ship</ins>, Northwood,
+going into the cabin for fur coats, discovered
+why his mind and body shrank
+in horror from the cabin.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">After</span> he had procured the fur
+coats from a closet, he paused a
+moment, in the privacy of the cabin, to
+look at Athalia's picture. Every nerve
+in his body leaped to meet the magnetism
+of her beautiful eyes. Never
+had Mary Burns stirred emotion like
+this in him. He hung over Mary's picture,
+wistfully, hoping almost prayerfully
+that he could react to her as he
+did to Athalia; but her pale, over-intellectual
+face left him cold.</p>
+
+<p>"Cad!" he ground out between his
+teeth. "Forgetting her so soon!"</p>
+
+<p>The two pictures were lying side by
+side on a little table. Suddenly an obscure
+noise in the room caught his attention.
+It was more vibration than
+noise, for small sounds could scarcely
+be heard above the whistle of the sun-ship.
+A slight compression of the air
+against his neck gave him the eery
+feeling that someone was standing
+close behind him. He wheeled and
+looked over his shoulder. Half
+ashamed of his startled gesture, he
+again turned to his pictures. Then a
+sharp cry broke from him.</p>
+
+<p><ins class="correction" title="Original was 'Athania's'">Athalia's</ins> picture was gone.</p>
+
+<p>He searched for it everywhere in the
+room, in his own pockets, under the
+furniture. It was nowhere to be found.</p>
+
+<p>In sudden, overpowering horror, he
+seized the fur coats and returned to the
+control room.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dr. Mundson</span> was changing the
+speed.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out the window!" he called to
+Northwood.</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked and started
+violently. Day had come, and now that
+the sun-ship was flying at a moderate
+speed, the ocean beneath was plainly
+visible; and its entire surface was covered
+with broken floes of ice and small,
+ragged icebergs. He seized a telescope
+and <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'focusd'">focused</ins> it below. A typical polar
+scene met his eyes: penguins strutted
+about on cakes of ice, a whale blowing
+in the icy water.</p>
+
+<p>"A part of the Antarctic that has
+never been explored," said Dr. Mundson;
+"and there, just showing on the
+horizon, is the Great Ice Barrier." His
+characteristic smile lighted the morose<span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205">[205]</a></span>
+black eyes. "I am enough of the
+dramatist to wish you to be impressed
+with what I shall show you within less
+than an hour. Accordingly, I shall
+make a landing and let you feel polar
+ice under your feet."</p>
+
+<p>After less than a minute's search, Dr.
+Mundson found a suitable place on the
+ice for a landing, and, with a few deft
+manipulations of the controls, brought
+the sun-ship swooping down like an
+eagle on its prey.</p>
+
+<p>For a long moment after the scientist
+had stepped out on the ice, Northwood
+paused at the door. His feet were
+chained by a strange reluctance to enter
+this white, dead wilderness of ice.
+But Dr. Mundson's impatient,
+"Ready?" drew from him one last
+glance at the cozy interior of the sun-ship
+before he, too, went out into the
+frozen stillness.</p>
+
+<p>They left the sun-ship resting on the
+ice like a fallen silver moon, while they
+wandered to the edge of the Barrier
+and looked at the gray, narrow stretch
+of sea between the ice pack and the
+high cliffs of the Barrier. The sun of
+the commencing six-months' Antarctic
+day was a low, cold ball whose slanted
+rays struck the ice with blinding
+whiteness. There were constant falls
+of ice from the Barrier, which thundered
+into the ocean amid great clouds
+of ice smoke that lingered like wraiths
+around the edge. It was a scene of
+loneliness and waiting death.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" exclaimed the scientist
+suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the white silence shrilled a
+low whistle, a familiar whistle. Both
+men wheeled toward the sun-ship.</p>
+
+<p>Before their horrified eyes, the great
+sphere jerked and glided up, and
+swerved into the heavens.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Up</span> it soared; then, gaining speed,
+it swung into the blue distance
+until, in a moment, it was a tiny star
+that flickered out even as they watched.</p>
+
+<p>Both men screamed and cursed and
+flung up their arms despairingly. A
+penguin, attracted by their cries, waddled
+solemnly over to them and regarded
+them with manlike curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Stranded in the coldest spot on
+earth!" groaned the scientist.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did it start itself, Dr. Mundson!"
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'Norwood'">Northwood</ins> narrowed his eyes as
+he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't!" The scientist's huge
+face, red from cold, quivered with helpless
+rage. "Human hands started it."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Whose hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ach!</i> Do I know?" His Teutonic
+accent grew more pronounced, as it always
+did when he was under emotional
+stress. "Somebody whose brain is better
+than mine. Somebody who found a
+way to hide away from our eyes. <i>Ach,
+Gott!</i> Don't let me think!"</p>
+
+<p>His great head sank between his
+shoulders, giving him, in his fur suit,
+the grotesque appearance of a friendly
+brown bear.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor Mundson," said Northwood
+suddenly, "did you have an enemy, a
+man with the face and body of a pagan
+god&mdash;a great, blond creature with eyes
+as cold and cruel as the ice under our
+feet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait!" The huge round head
+jerked up. "How do you know about
+Adam? You have not seen him, won't
+see him until we arrive at our destination."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have seen him. He was sitting
+not thirty feet from you in the
+Mad Hatter's Club last night. Didn't
+you know? He followed me to the
+street, spoke to me, and then&mdash;"
+Northwood stopped. How could he let
+the insane words pass his lips?</p>
+
+<p>"Then, what? Speak up!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> laughed nervously.
+"It sounds foolish, but I saw
+him vanish like that." He snapped his
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ach, Gott!</i>" All the ruddy color
+drained from the scientist's face. As
+though talking to himself, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is true, as he said. He has
+crossed the bridge. He has reached
+the Light. And now he comes to see<span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206">[206]</a></span>
+the world he will conquer&mdash;came unseen
+when I refused my permission."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a long time, pondering.
+Then he turned passionately
+to Northwood.</p>
+
+<p>"John Northwood, kill me! I have
+brought a new horror into the world.
+From the unborn future, I have
+snatched a creature who has reached
+the Light too soon. Kill me!" He
+bowed his great, shaggy head.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Dr. Mundson:
+that this Adam has arrived at a point
+in evolution beyond this age?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Think of it! I visioned godlike
+creatures with the souls of gods.
+But, Heaven help us, man always will
+be man: always will lust for conquest.
+You and I, Northwood, and all others
+are barbarians to Adam. He and his
+kind will do what men always do to
+barbarians&mdash;conquer and kill."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there more like him?" Northwood
+struggled with a smile of unbelief.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I did not know that
+Adam had reached a point so near the
+ultimate. But you have seen. Already
+he is able to set aside what we call
+natural laws."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood looked at the scientist
+closely. The man was surely mad&mdash;mad
+in this desert of white death.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" he said cheerfully. "Let's
+build an Eskimo snow house. We can
+live on penguins for days. And who
+knows what may rescue us?"</p>
+
+<p>For three hours the two worked at
+cutting ice blocks. With snow for
+mortar, they built a crude shelter which
+enabled them to rest out of the cold
+breath of the spiral polar winds that
+blew from the south.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dr. Mundson</span> was sitting at the
+door of their hut, moodily pulling
+at his strong, black pipe. As though
+a fit had seized him, he leaped up and
+let his pipe fall to the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" he shouted. "The sun-ship!"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed but a moment before the
+tiny speck on the horizon had swept
+overhead, a silver comet on the grayish-blue
+polar sky. In another moment
+it had swooped down, eaglewise,
+scarcely fifty feet from the ice hut.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson and Northwood ran
+forward. From the metal sphere
+stepped the stranger of the Mad Hatter
+Club. His tall, straight form, erect and
+slim, swung toward them over the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"Adam!" shouted Dr. Mundson.
+"What does this mean? How dare
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>Adam's laugh was like the happy
+demonstration of a boy. "So? You
+think you still are master? You think
+I returned because I reverenced you
+yet?" Hate shot viciously through the
+freezing blue eyes. "You worm of the
+Black Age!"</p>
+
+<p>Northwood shuddered. He had heard
+those strange words addressed to himself
+scarcely more than twelve hours
+ago.</p>
+
+<p>Adam was still speaking: "With a
+thought I could annihilate you where
+you are standing. But I have use for
+you. Get in." He swept his hand to
+the sun-ship.</p>
+
+<p>Both men hesitated. Then Northwood
+strode forward until he was within
+three feet of Adam. They stood thus,
+eyeing each other, two splendid beings,
+one blond as a Viking, the other dark
+and vital.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what is your game?" demanded
+Northwood.</p>
+
+<p>The icy eyes shot forth a gleam like
+lightning. "I needn't tell you, of
+course, but I may as well let you suffer
+over the knowledge." He curled his
+lips with superb scorn. "I have one
+human weakness. I want Athalia." The
+icy eyes warmed for a fleeting second.
+"She is anticipating her meeting with
+you&mdash;bah! The taste of these women
+of the Black Age! I could kill you, of
+course; but that would only inflame
+her. And so I take you to her, thrust
+you down her throat. When she sees
+you, she will fly to me." He spread his
+magnificent chest.</p>
+
+<p>"Adam!" Dr. Mundson's face was
+dark with anger. "What of Eve?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you to question my ac<span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207">[207]</a></span>tions?
+What a fool you were to let me,
+whom you forced into life thousands of
+years too soon, grow more powerful
+than you! Before I am through with
+all of you petty creatures of the Black
+Age, you will call me more terrible
+than your Jehovah! For see what you
+have called forth from unborn time."</p>
+
+<p>He vanished.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Before</span> the startled men could
+recover from the shock of it, the
+vibrant, too-new voice went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for you, Mundson, because,
+like you, I need specimens for
+my experiments. What a splendid
+specimen you will be!" His laugh was
+ugly with significance. "Get in,
+worms!"</p>
+
+<p>Unseen hands cuffed and pushed
+them into the sun-ship.</p>
+
+<p>Inside, Dr. Mundson stumbled to the
+control room, white and drawn of face,
+his great brain seemingly paralyzed by
+the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't attempt tricks," went
+on the voice. "I am watching you both.
+You cannot even hide your thoughts
+from me."</p>
+
+<p>And thus began the strange continuation
+of the journey. Not once, in
+that wild half-hour's rush over the
+polar ice clouds, did they see Adam.
+They saw and heard only the weird
+signs of his presence: a puffing cigar
+hanging in midair, a glass of water
+swinging to unseen lips, a ghostly
+voice hurling threats and insults at
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Once the scientist whispered: "Don't
+cross him; it is useless. John Northwood,
+you'll have to fight a demigod
+for your woman!"</p>
+
+<p>Because of the terrific speed of the
+sun-ship, Northwood could distinguish
+nothing of the topographical details below.
+At the end of half-an-hour, the
+scientist slowed enough to point out a
+tall range of snow-covered mountains,
+over which hovered a play of colored
+lights like the <i>aurora australis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Behind those mountains," he said,
+"is our destination."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Almost</span> in a moment, the sun-ship
+had soared over the peaks.
+Dr. Mundson kept the speed low
+enough for Northwood to see the
+splendid view below.</p>
+
+<p>In the giant cup formed by the encircling
+mountain range was a green
+valley of tropical luxuriance. Stretches
+of dense forest swept half up the mountains
+and filled the valley cup with tangled
+verdure. In the center, surrounded
+by a broad field and a narrow
+ring of woods, towered a group of
+buildings. From the largest, which was
+circular, came the auroralike radiance
+that formed an umbrella of light over
+the entire valley.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I guess right," said <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'Northwood:'">Northwood,</ins>
+"that the light is responsible for this
+oasis in the ice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Dr. <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'Munson'">Mundson</ins>. "In your
+American slang, it is canned sunshine
+containing an overabundance of certain
+rays, especially the Life Ray, which I
+have isolated." He smiled proudly.
+"You needn't look startled, my friend.
+Some of the most common things store
+sunlight. On very dark nights, if you
+have sharp eyes, you can see the radiance
+given off by certain flowers, which
+many naturalists say is trapped sunshine.
+The familiar nasturtium and the
+marigold opened for me the way to
+hold sunshine against the long polar
+night, for they taught me how to apply
+the Einstein theory of bent light.
+Stated simply, during the polar night,
+when the sun is hidden over the rim of
+the world, we steal some of his rays;
+during the polar day we concentrate
+the light."</p>
+
+<p>"But could stored sunshine alone
+give enough warmth for the luxuriant
+growth of those jungles?"</p>
+
+<p>"An overabundance of the Life Ray
+is responsible for the miraculous
+growth of all life in New Eden. The
+Life Ray is Nature's most powerful
+force. Yet Nature is often niggardly
+and paradoxical in her use of her
+powers. In New Eden, we have forced
+the powers of creation to take ascendency
+over the powers of destruction."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208">[208]</a></span>
+At Northwood's sudden start, the
+scientist laughed and continued: "Is it
+not a pity that Nature, left alone, requires
+twenty years to make a man who
+begins to die in another ten years?
+Such waste is not tolerated in New
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'Elden'">Eden</ins>, where supermen are younger
+than babes and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, worms; let's land."</p>
+
+<p>It was Adam's voice. Suddenly he
+materialized, a blond god, whose eyes
+and flesh were too new.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> were in a world of golden
+skylight, warmth and tropical
+vegetation. The field on which they
+had landed was covered with a velvety
+green growth of very soft, fine-bladed
+grass, sprinkled with tiny, star-shaped
+blue flowers. A balmy, sweet-scented
+wind, downy as the breeze of a dream,
+blew gently along the grass and tingled
+against Northwood's skin refreshingly.
+Almost instantly he had the
+sensation of perfect well being, and
+this feeling of physical perfection was
+part of the ecstasy that seemed to pervade
+the entire valley. Grass and
+breeze and golden skylight were saturated
+with a strange ether of joyousness.</p>
+
+<p>At one end of the field was a dense
+jungle, cut through by a road that led
+to the towering building from which,
+while above in the sun-ship, they had
+seen the golden light issue.</p>
+
+<p>From the jungle road came a man
+and a woman, large, handsome people,
+whose flesh and eyes had the sinister
+newness of Adam's. Even before they
+came close enough to speak, Northwood
+was aware that while they seemed
+of Adam's breed, they were yet unlike
+him. The difference was psychical
+rather than physical; they lacked the
+aura of hate and horror that surrounded
+Adam. The woman drew
+Adam's head down and kissed him affectionately
+on both cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Adam, from his towering height,
+patted her shoulder impatiently and
+said: "Run on back to the laboratory,
+grandmother. We're following soon.
+You have some new human embryos, I
+believe you told me this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Four fine specimens, two of them
+being your sister's twins."</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid! I was sure that creation
+had stopped with my generation. I
+must see them." He turned to the
+scientist and Northwood. "You needn't
+try to leave this spot. Of course I
+shall know instantly and deal with you
+in my own way. Wait here."</p>
+
+<p>He strode over the emerald grass on
+the heels of the woman.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood asked: "Why does he call
+that girl grandmother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because she is his ancestress." He
+stirred uneasily. "She is of the first
+generation brought forth in the laboratory,
+and is no different from you
+or I, except that, at the age of five
+years, she is the ancestress of twenty
+generations."</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" muttered Northwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't start being horrified, my
+friend. Forget about so-called natural
+laws while you are in New Eden. Remember,
+here we have isolated the Life
+Ray. But look! Here comes your
+Athalia!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> gazed covertly at
+the beautiful girl approaching
+them with a rarely graceful walk. She
+was tall, slender, round-bosomed, narrow-hipped,
+and she held her lovely
+body in the erect poise of splendid
+health. Northwood had a confused
+realization of uncovered bronzy hair,
+drawn to the back of a white neck in
+a bunch of short curls; of immense
+soft black eyes; lips the color of
+blood, and delicate, plump flesh on
+which the golden skylight lingered
+graciously. He was instantly glad to
+see that while she possessed the freshness
+of young <ins class="correction" title="Changed from semi-colon to comma">girlhood,</ins> her skin and
+eyes did not have the horrible newness
+of Adam's.</p>
+
+<p>When she was still twenty feet distant,
+Northwood met her eyes and she
+smiled shyly. The rich, red blood ran
+through her face; and he, too, flushed.</p>
+
+<p>She went to Dr. Mundson and, plac<span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209">[209]</a></span>ing
+her hands on his thick shoulders,
+kissed him affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been worried about you, Daddy
+Mundson." Her rich contralto voice
+matched her exotic beauty. "Since you
+and Adam had that quarrel the day you
+left, I did not see him until this morning,
+when he landed the sun-ship
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>"And you pleaded with him to return
+for us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." Her eyes drooped and a hot
+flush swept over her face.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson smiled. "But I'm back
+now, Athalia, and I've brought some
+one whom I hope you will be glad to
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Reaching for her hand, he placed it
+simply in Northwood's.</p>
+
+<p>"This is John, Athalia. Isn't he
+handsomer than the pictures of him
+which I televisioned to you? God
+bless both of you."</p>
+
+<p>He walked ahead and turned his
+back.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A magical</span> half hour followed
+for Northwood and Athalia. The
+girl told him of her past life, how Dr.
+Mundson had discovered her one year
+ago working in a New York sweat
+shop, half dead from consumption.
+Without friends, she was eager to follow
+the scientist to New Eden, where
+he promised she would recover her
+health immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"And he was right, John," she said
+shyly. "The Life Ray, that marvelous
+energy ray which penetrates to the utmost
+depths of earth and ocean, giving
+to the cells of all living bodies the
+power to grow and remain animate, has
+been concentrated by Dr. Mundson in
+his stored sunshine. The Life Ray
+healed me almost immediately."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood looked down at the
+glorious girl beside him, whose eyes
+already fluttered away from his like
+shy black butterflies. Suddenly he
+squeezed the soft hand in his and said
+passionately:</p>
+
+<p>"Athalia! Because Adam wants you
+and will get you if he can, let us set
+aside all the artificialities of civilization.
+I have loved you madly ever since
+I saw your picture. If you can say the
+same to me, it will give me courage to
+face what I know lies before me."</p>
+
+<p>Athalia, her face suddenly tender,
+came closer to him.</p>
+
+<p>"John Northwood, I love you."</p>
+
+<p>Her red lips came temptingly close;
+but before he could touch them, Adam
+suddenly pushed his body between him
+and Athalia. Adam was pale, and all
+the <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'icyness'">iciness</ins> was gone from his blue
+eyes, which were deep and dark and
+very human. He looked down at
+Athalia, and she looked up at him, two
+handsome specimens of perfect manhood
+and womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>"Fast work, Athalia!" The new vibrant
+voice was strained. "I was hoping
+you would be disappointed in <ins class="correction" title="Added comma">him,</ins>
+especially after having been wooed by
+me this morning. I could take you if
+I wished, of course; but I prefer to
+win you in the ancient manner. Dismiss
+him!" He jerked his thumb over
+his shoulder in Northwood's direction.</p>
+
+<p>Athalia flushed vividly and looked at
+him almost compassionately. "I am not
+great enough for you, Adam. I dare
+not love you."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Adam</span> laughed, and still oblivious
+of Northwood and Dr. Mundson,
+folded his arms over his breast. With
+the golden skylight on his burnished
+hair, he was a valiant, magnificent
+spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>"Since the beginning of time, gods
+and archangels have looked upon the
+daughters of men and found them fair.
+Mate with me, Athalia, and I, fifty
+thousand years beyond the creature
+Mundson has selected for you, will
+make you as I am, the deathless overlord
+of life and all nature."</p>
+
+<p>He drew her hand to his bosom.</p>
+
+<p>For one dark moment, Northwood
+felt himself seared by jealousy, for,
+through the plump, sweet flesh of
+Athalia's face, he saw the red blood
+leap again. How could she withhold
+herself from this splendid superman?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210">[210]</a></span>
+But her answer, given with faltering
+voice, was the old, simple one: "I have
+promised him, Adam. I love him."
+Tears trembled on her thick lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"So! I cannot get you in the ancient
+manner. Now I'll use my own."</p>
+
+<p>He seized her in his arms crushed
+her against him, and, laughing over her
+head at Northwood, bent his glistening
+head and kissed her on the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>There was a blinding flash of blue
+electric sparks&mdash;and nothing else. Both
+Adam and Athalia had vanished.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Adam's</span> voice came in a last mocking
+challenge: "I shall be what
+no other gods before me have been&mdash;a
+good sport. I'll leave you both to your
+own devices, until I want you again."</p>
+
+<p>White-lipped and trembling, Northwood
+groaned: "What has he done
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson's great head drooped.
+"I don't know. Our bodies are electric
+and chemical machines; and a super intelligence
+has discovered new laws of
+which you and I are ignorant."</p>
+
+<p>"But Athalia...."</p>
+
+<p>"She is safe; he loves her."</p>
+
+<p>"Loves her!" Northwood shivered.
+"I cannot believe that those freezing
+eyes could ever look with love on a
+woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Adam is a man. At heart he is as
+human as the first man-creature that
+wallowed in the new earth's slime."
+His voice dropped as though he were
+musing aloud. "It might be well to let
+him have Athalia. She will help to
+keep vigor in the new race, which
+would stop reproducing in another few
+generations without the injection of
+Black Age blood."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to bring more creatures
+like Adam into the world?"
+Northwood flung at him. "You have
+tampered with life enough, Dr. Mundson.
+But, although Adam has my sympathy,
+I'm not willing to turn Athalia
+over to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well said! Now come to the laboratory
+for chemical nourishment and rest
+under the Life Ray."</p>
+
+<p>They went to the great circular
+building from whose highest tower issued
+the golden radiance that shamed
+the light of the sun, hanging low in the
+northeast.</p>
+
+<p>"John Northwood," said Dr. Mundson,
+"with that laboratory, which is the
+center of all life in New Eden, we'll
+have to whip Adam. He gave us what
+he called a 'sporting chance' because he
+knew that he is able to send us and all
+mankind to a doom more terrible than
+hell. Even now we might be entering
+some hideous trap that he has set for
+us."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> entered by a side entrance
+and went immediately to what Dr.
+Mundson called the Rest Ward. Here,
+in a large room, were ranged rows of
+cots, on many of which lay men basking
+in the deep orange flood of light
+which poured from individual lamps
+set above each cot.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Life Ray!" said Dr. Mundson
+reverently. "The source of all
+growth and restoration in Nature. It
+is the power that bursts open the seed
+and brings forth the shoot, that increases
+the shoot into a giant tree. It
+is the same power that enables the fertilized
+ovum to develop into an animal.
+It creates and recreates cells almost instantly;
+accordingly, it is the perfect
+substitute for sleep. Stretch out, enjoy
+its power; and while you rest, eat these
+nourishing tablets."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood lay on a cot, and Dr.
+Mundson turned the Life Ray on him.
+For a few minutes a delicious drowsiness
+fell upon him, producing a spell of
+perfect peace which the cells of his being
+seemed to drink in. For another
+delirious, fleeting space, every inch of
+him vibrated with a thrilling sensation
+of freshness. He took a deep, ecstatic
+breath and opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough," said Dr. Mundson, switching
+off the Ray. "After three minutes
+of rejuvenation, you are commencing
+again with perfect cells. All ravages
+from disease and wear have been corrected."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211">[211]</a></span>
+Northwood leaped up joyously. His
+handsome eyes sparkled, his skin
+glowed. "I feel great! Never felt so
+good since I was a kid."</p>
+
+<p>A pleased grin spread over the
+scientist's homely face. "See what my
+discovery will mean to the world! In
+the future we shall all go to the laboratory
+for recuperation and nourishment.
+We'll have almost twenty-four hours a
+day for work and play."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> stretched out on the bed contentedly.
+"Some day, when my
+work is nearly done, I shall permit the
+Life Ray to cure my hump."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not now?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson sighed. "If I were perfect,
+I should cease to be so overwhelmingly
+conscious of the importance
+of perfection." He settled back
+to enjoyment of the Life Ray.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, he jumped up,
+alert as a boy. "<i>Ach!</i> That's fine.
+Now I'll show you how the Life Ray
+speeds up development and produces
+four generations of humans a year."</p>
+
+<p>With restored energy, Northwood
+began thinking of Athalia. As he followed
+Dr. Mundson down a long corridor,
+he yearned to see her again, to be
+certain that she was safe. Once he
+imagined he felt a gentle, soft-fleshed
+touch against his hand, and was disappointed
+not to see her walking by his
+side. Was she with him, unseen? The
+thought was sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Before Dr. Mundson opened the massive
+bronze door at the end of the corridor,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be surprised or shocked over
+anything you see here, John Northwood.
+This is the Baby Laboratory."</p>
+
+<p>They entered a room which seemed
+no different from a hospital ward. On
+little white beds lay naked children of
+various sizes, perfect, solemn-eyed
+youngsters and older children as
+beautiful as animated statues. Above
+each bed was a small Life Ray projector.
+A white-capped nurse went
+from bed to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"They are recuperating from the
+daily educational period," said the
+scientist. "After a few minutes of this
+they will go into the growing room,
+which I shall have to show you through
+a window. Should you and I enter, we
+might be changed in a most extraordinary
+manner." He laughed mischievously.
+"But, look, Northwood!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> slid back a panel in the wall,
+and Northwood peered in
+through a thick pane of clear glass.
+The room was really an immense outdoor
+arena, its only carpet the fine-bladed
+grass, its roof the blue sky cut
+in the middle by an enormous disc
+from which shot the aurora of trapped
+sunshine which made a golden umbrella
+over the valley. Through openings
+in the bottom of the disc poured
+a fine rain of rays which fell constantly
+upon groups of children, youths and
+young girls, all clad in the merest
+scraps of clothing. Some were dancing,
+others were playing games, but all
+seemed as supremely happy as the
+birds and butterflies which fluttered
+about the shrubs and flowers edging
+the arena.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't expect you to believe," said
+Dr. Mundson, "that the oldest young
+man in there is three months old. You
+cannot see visible changes in a body
+which grows as slowly as the human
+being, whose normal period of development
+is twenty years or more. But I
+can give you visible proof of how fast
+growth takes place under the full
+power of the Life Ray. Plant life,
+which, even when left to nature, often
+develops from seed to flower within a
+few weeks or months, can be seen making
+its miraculous changes under the
+Life Ray. Watch those gorgeous purple
+flowers over which the butterflies
+are hovering."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood followed his pointing
+finger. Near the glass window through
+which they looked grew an enormous
+bank of resplendent violet colored
+flowers, which literally enshrouded the
+entire bush with their royal glory. At
+first glance it seemed as though a vio<span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212">[212]</a></span>lent
+wind were snatching at flower and
+bush, but closer inspection proved that
+the agitation was part of the plant itself.
+And then he saw that the movements
+were the result of perpetual
+composition and growth.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> fastened his eyes on one huge
+bud. He saw it swell, burst,
+spread out its passionate purple velvet,
+lift the broad flower face to the light
+for a joyous minute. A few seconds
+later a butterfly lighted airily to
+sample its nectar and to brush the
+pollen from its yellow dusted wings.
+Scarcely had the winged visitor flown
+away than the purple petals began to
+wither and fall away, leaving the seed
+pod on the stem. The visible change
+went on in this seed pod. It turned
+rapidly brown, dried out, and then sent
+the released seeds in a shower to the
+rich black earth below. Scarcely had
+the seeds touched the ground than they
+sent up tiny green shoots that grew
+larger each moment. Within ten minutes
+there was a new plant a foot high.
+Within half an hour, the plant budded,
+blossomed, and cast forth its own seed.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand?" asked the scientist.
+"Development is going on as rapidly
+among the children. Before the first
+year has passed, the youngest baby will
+have grandchildren; that is, if the baby
+tests out fit to pass its seed down to
+the new generation. I know it sounds
+absurd. Yet you saw the plant."</p>
+
+<p>"But Doctor," Northwood rubbed his
+jaw thoughtfully, "Nature's forces of
+destruction, of tearing down, are as
+powerful as her creative powers. You
+have discovered the ultimate in creation
+and upbuilding. But perhaps&mdash;oh,
+Lord, it is too awful to think!"</p>
+
+<p>"Speak, Northwood!" The scientist's
+voice was impatient.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing!" The pale young man
+attempted a smile. "I was only imagining
+some of the horror that could be
+thrust on the world if a supermind like
+Adam's should discover Nature's secret
+of death and destruction and speed it
+up as you have sped the life force."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ach Gott!</i>" Dr. Mundson's face was
+white. "He has his own laboratory,
+where he works every day. Don't talk
+so loud. He might be listening. And I
+believe he can do anything he sets out
+to accomplish."</p>
+
+<p>Close to Northwood's ear fell a faint,
+triumphant whisper: "Yes, he can do
+anything. How did you guess, worm?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Adam's voice.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">N</span><span class="dcap">ow</span> come and see the Leyden
+jar mothers," said Dr. Mundson.
+"We do not wait for the child to be
+born to start our work."</p>
+
+<p>He took Northwood to a laboratory
+crowded with strange apparatus, where
+young men and women worked. Northwood
+knew instantly that these people,
+although unusually handsome and
+strong, were not of Adam's generation.
+None of them had the look of newness
+which marked those who had grown up
+under the Life Ray.</p>
+
+<p>"They are the perfect couples whom
+I combed the world to find," said the
+scientist. "From their eugenic marriages
+sprang the first children that
+passed through the laboratory. I had
+hoped," he hesitated and looked sideways
+at Northwood, "I had dreamed of
+having the children of you and Athalia
+to help strengthen the New Race."</p>
+
+<p>A wave of sudden disgust passed
+over Northwood.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," he said tartly. "When I
+marry Athalia, I intend to have an old-fashioned
+home and a Black Age family.
+I don't relish having my children
+turned into&mdash;experiments."</p>
+
+<p>"But wait until you see all the wonders
+of the laboratory! That is why
+I am showing you all this."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood drew his handkerchief
+and mopped his brow. "It sickens me,
+Doctor! The more I see, the more pity
+I have for Adam&mdash;and the less I blame
+him for his rebellion and his desire to
+kill and to rule. Heavens! What a
+terrible thing you have done, experimenting
+with human life."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Can you say that all life&mdash;all
+matter&mdash;is not the result of scien<span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213">[213]</a></span>tific
+experiment? Can you?" His black
+gaze made Northwood uncomfortable.
+"Buck up, young friend, for now I am
+going to show you a marvelous improvement
+on Nature's bungling ways&mdash;the
+Leyden jar mother." He raised
+his voice and called, "Lilith!"</p>
+
+<p>The woman whom they had met on
+the field came forward.</p>
+
+<p>"May we take a peep at Lona's
+twins?" asked the scientist. "They are
+about ready to go to the growing dome,
+are they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"In five more minutes," said the
+woman. "Come see."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">She</span> lifted one of the black velvet
+curtains that lined an entire side
+of the laboratory and thereby disclosed
+a globular jar of glass and metal, connected
+by wires to a dynamo. Above
+the jar was a Life Ray projector.
+Lilith slid aside a metal portion of the
+jar, disclosing through the glass underneath
+the squirming, kicking body of a
+baby, resting on a bed of soft, spongy
+substance, to which it was connected
+by the navel cord.</p>
+
+<p>"The Leyden jar mother," said Dr.
+Mundson. "It is the dream of us scientists
+realized. The human mother's
+body does nothing but nourish and protect
+her unborn child, a job which
+science can do better. And so, in New
+Eden, we take the young embryo and
+place it in the Leyden jar mother,
+where the Life Ray, electricity, and
+chemical food shortens the period of
+gestation to a few days."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a bell under the
+Leyden jar began to ring. Dr. Mundson
+uncovered the jar and lifted out the
+child, a beautiful, perfectly formed
+boy, who began to cry lustily.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is one baby who'll never be
+kissed," he said. "He'll be nourished
+chemically, and, at the end of the week,
+will no longer be a baby. If you are
+patient, you can actually see the processes
+of development taking place under
+the Life Ray, for babies develop
+very fast."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood buried his face in his
+hands. "Lord! This is awful. No childhood;
+no mother to mould his mind!
+No parents to watch over him, to give
+him their tender care!"</p>
+
+<p>"Awful, fiddlesticks! Come see how
+children get their education, how they
+learn to use their hands and feet so
+they need not pass through the awkwardness
+of childhood."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> led Northwood to a magnificent
+building whose fa&ccedil;ade of white
+marble was as simply beautiful as a
+Greek temple. The side walls, built almost
+entirely of glass, permitted the
+synthetic sunshine to sweep from end
+to end. They first entered a library,
+where youths and young girls poured
+over books of all kinds. Their manner
+of reading mystified Northwood. With
+a single sweep of the eye, they seemed
+to devour a page, and then turned to
+the next. He stepped closer to peer over
+the shoulder of a beautiful girl. She
+was reading "Euclid's Elements of
+Geometry," in Latin, and she turned
+the pages as swiftly as the other girl
+occupying her table, who was devouring
+"Paradise Lost."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson whispered to him: "If
+you do not believe that Ruth here is
+getting her Euclid, which she probably
+never saw before <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from today">to-day</ins>, examine her
+from the book; that is, if you are a
+good enough Latin scholar."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth stopped her reading to talk to
+him, and, in a few minutes, had completely
+dumbfounded him with her pedantic
+replies, which fell from lips as
+luscious and unformed as an infant's.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Dr. Mundson, "test
+Rachael on her Milton. As far as she
+has read, she should not misquote a
+line, and her comments will probably
+prove her scholarly appreciation of
+Milton."</p>
+
+<p>Word for word, Rachael was able to
+give him "Paradise Lost" from memory,
+except the last four pages, which she
+had not read. Then, taking the book
+from him, she swept her eyes over
+these pages, returned the book to him,
+and quoted copiously and correctly.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214">[214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dr. Mundson</span> gloated triumphantly
+over his astonishment.
+"There, my friend. Could you now be
+satisfied with old-fashioned children
+who spend long, expensive years in
+getting an education? Of course, your
+children will not have the perfect
+brains of these, yet, developed under
+the Life Ray, they should have splendid
+mentality.</p>
+
+<p>"These children, through selective
+breeding, have brains that make everlasting
+records instantly. A page in a
+book, once seen, is indelibly retained
+by them, and understood. The same is
+true of a lecture, of an explanation
+given by a teacher, of even idle conversation.
+Any man or woman in this
+room should be able to repeat the most
+trivial conversation days old."</p>
+
+<p>"But what of the arts, Dr. Mundson?
+Surely even your supermen and women
+cannot instantly learn to paint a masterpiece
+or to guide their fingers and
+their brains through the intricacies of
+a difficult musical composition."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" His dark eyes glowed. "Come
+see!"</p>
+
+<p>Before they entered another wing of
+the building, they heard a violin being
+played masterfully.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson paused at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"So that you may understand what
+you shall see, let me remind you that
+the nerve impulses and the coordinating
+means in the human body are purely
+electrical. The world has not yet
+accepted my theory, but it will. Under
+superman's system of education, the
+instantaneous records made on the
+brain give immediate skill to the acting
+parts of the body. Accordingly, musicians
+are made over night."</p>
+
+<p>He threw open the door. Under a
+Life Ray projector, a beautiful, Juno-esque
+woman was playing a violin.
+Facing her, and with eyes fastened to
+hers, stood a young man, whose arms
+and slender fingers mimicked every
+motion she made. Presently she stopped
+playing and handed the violin to him.
+In her own masterly manner, he repeated
+the score she had played.</p>
+
+<p>"That is Eve," whispered Dr. Mundson.
+"I had selected her as Adam's
+wife. But he does not want her, the
+most brilliant woman of the New Race."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood gave the woman an appraising
+look. "Who wants a perfect
+woman? I don't blame Adam for <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'prefering'">preferring</ins>
+Athalia. But how is she teaching
+her pupil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Through thought vibration, which
+these perfect people have developed
+until they can record permanently the
+radioactive waves of the brains of
+others."</p>
+
+<p>Eve turned, caught Northwood's eyes
+in her magnetic blue gaze, and smiled
+as only a goddess can smile upon a
+mortal she has marked as her own. She
+came toward him with outflung hands.</p>
+
+<p>"So you have come!" Her vibrant
+contralto voice, like Adam's, held the
+birdlike, broken tremulo of a young
+child's. "I have been waiting for you,
+John Northwood."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Her</span> eyes, as blue and icy as
+Adam's, lingered long on him,
+until he flinched from their steely
+magnetism. She slipped her arm
+through his and drew him gently but
+firmly from the room, while Dr. Mundson
+stood gaping after them.</p>
+
+<p>They were on a flagged terrace
+arched with roses of gigantic size,
+which sent forth billows of sensuous
+fragrance. Eve led him to a white
+marble seat piled with silk cushions,
+on which she reclined her superb body,
+while she regarded him from narrowed
+lids.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw your picture that he televisioned
+to Athalia," she said. "What a
+botch Dr. Mundson has made of his
+mating." Her laugh rippled like falling
+water. "I want you, John Northwood!"</p>
+
+<p>Northwood started and blushed furiously.
+Smile dimples broke around her
+red, humid lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you're old-fashioned!"</p>
+
+<p>Her large, beautiful hand, fleshed
+more tenderly than any woman's hand
+he had ever seen, went out to him appealingly.
+"I can bring you amorous<span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215">[215]</a></span>
+delight that your Athalia never could
+offer in her few years of youth. And
+I'll never grow old, John Northwood."</p>
+
+<p>She came closer until he could feel
+the fragrant warmth of her tawny,
+ribbon bound hair pulse against his
+face. In sudden panic he drew back.</p>
+
+<p>"But I am pledged to Athalia!"
+tumbled from him. "It is all a dreadful
+mistake, Eve. You and Adam were
+created for each other."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" The lightning that flashed
+from her blue eyes changed her from
+seductress to angry goddess. "Created
+for each other! Who wants a made-to-measure
+lover?"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> luscious lips trembled slightly,
+and into the vivid eyes crept
+a suspicion of moisture. Eternal Eve's
+weapons! Northwood's handsome face
+relaxed with pity.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you, John Northwood," she
+continued shamelessly. "Our love will
+be sublime." She leaned heavily against
+him, and her lips were like a blood red
+flower pressed against white satin.
+"Come, beloved, kiss me!"</p>
+
+<p>Northwood gasped and turned his
+head. "Don't, Eve!"</p>
+
+<p>"But a kiss from me will set you
+apart from all your generation, John
+Northwood, and you shall understand
+what no man of the Black Age could
+possibly fathom."</p>
+
+<p>Her hair had partly fallen from its
+ribbon bandage and poured its fragrant
+gold against his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, don't tempt me!" he
+groaned. "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"That mental and physical and spiritual
+contact with me will temporarily
+give you, a three-dimension creature,
+the power of the new sense, which
+your race will not have for fifty thousand
+years."</p>
+
+<p>White-lipped and trembling, he demanded:
+"Explain!"</p>
+
+<p>Eve smiled. "Have you not guessed
+that Adam has developed an additional
+sense? You've seen him vanish. He and
+I have the sixth sense of Time Perception&mdash;the
+new sense which enables us
+to penetrate what you of the Black Age
+call the Fourth Dimension. Even you
+whose mentalities are framed by three
+dimensions have this sixth sense instinct.
+Your very religion is based on
+it, for you believe that in another life
+you shall step into Time, or, as you
+call it, eternity." She leaned closer so
+that her hair brushed his cheek. "What
+is eternity, John Northwood? Is it not
+keeping forever ahead of the Destroyer?
+The future is eternal, for it is
+never reached. Adam and I, through
+our new sense which comprehends
+Time and Space, can vanish by stepping
+a few seconds into the future, the
+Fourth Dimension of Space. Death can
+never reach us, not even accidental
+death, unless that which causes death
+could also slip into the future, which
+is not yet possible."</p>
+
+<p>"But if the Fourth Dimension is
+future Time, why can one in the third
+dimension feel the touch of an unseen
+presence in the Fourth Dimension&mdash;hear
+his voice, even?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thought vibration. The touch is not
+really felt nor the voice heard: they
+are only imagined. The radioactive
+waves of the brain of even you Black
+Age people are swift enough to bridge
+Space and Time. And it is the mind
+that carries us beyond the third dimension."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Her</span> red mouth reached closer to
+him, her blue eyes touched hidden
+forces that slept in remote cells
+of his being. "You are going into
+Eternal Time, John Northwood, Eternity
+without beginning or end. You
+understand? You feel it? Comprehend
+it? Now for the contact&mdash;kiss me!"</p>
+
+<p>Northwood had seen Athalia vanish
+under Adam's kiss. Suddenly, in one
+mad burst of understanding, he leaned
+over to his magnificent temptress.</p>
+
+<p>For a split second he felt the sweet
+pressure of baby-soft lips, and then
+the atoms of his body seemed to fly
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'assunder'">asunder</ins>. Black chaos held him for
+a frightful moment before he felt
+sanity return.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216">[216]</a></span>
+He was back on the terrace again,
+with Eve by his side. They were standing
+now. The world about him looked
+the same, yet there was a subtle change
+in everything.</p>
+
+<p>Eve laughed softly. "It is puzzling,
+isn't it? You're seeing everything as
+in a mirror. What was left before is
+now right. Only you and I are real.
+All else is but a vision, a dream. For
+now you and I are existing one minute
+in future time, or, more simply, we are
+in the Fourth Dimension. To everything
+in the third dimension, we are
+invisible. Let me show you that Dr.
+Mundson cannot see you."</p>
+
+<p>They went back to the room beyond
+the terrace. Dr. Mundson was not
+present.</p>
+
+<p>"There he goes down the jungle
+path," said Eve, looking out a window.
+She laughed. "Poor old fellow. The
+children of his genius are worrying
+him."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> were standing in the recess
+formed by a bay window. Eve
+picked up his hand and laid it against
+her face, giving him the full, blasting
+glory of her smiling blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood, looking away miserably,
+uttered a low cry. Coming over the
+field beyond were Adam and Athalia.
+By the trimming on the blue dress she
+wore, he could see that she was still
+in the Fourth Dimension, for he did
+not see her as a mirror image.</p>
+
+<p>A look of fear leaped to Eve's face.
+She clutched Northwood's arm, trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want Adam to see that I have
+passed you beyond," she gasped. "We
+are existing but one minute in the
+future. Always Adam and I have feared
+to pass too far beyond the sweetness of
+reality. But now, so that Adam may
+not see us, we shall step five minutes
+into what-is-yet-to-be. And even he,
+with all his power, cannot see into a
+future that is more distant than that
+in which he exists."</p>
+
+<p>She raised her humid lips to his.
+"Come, beloved."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood kissed her. Again came
+the moment of confusion, of the awful
+vacancy that was like death, and then
+he found himself and Eve in the laboratory,
+following Adam and Athalia
+down a long corridor. Athalia was crying
+and pleading frantically with
+Adam. Once she stopped and threw
+herself at his feet in a gesture of
+dramatic supplication, arms outflung,
+streaming eyes wide open with fear.</p>
+
+<p>Adam stooped and lifted her gently
+and continued on his way, supporting
+her against his side.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Eve</span> dug her fingers into Northwood's
+arm. Horror contorted
+her face, horror mixed with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"My mind hears what he is saying,
+understands the vile plan he has made,
+John Northwood. He is on his way to
+his laboratory to destroy not only you
+and most of these in New Eden, but
+me as well. He wants only Athalia."</p>
+
+<p>Striding forward like an avenging
+goddess, she pulled Northwood after
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry!" she whispered. "Remember,
+you and I are five minutes in the future,
+and Adam is only one. We are witnessing
+what will occur four minutes from
+now. We yet have time to reach the
+laboratory before him and be ready for
+him when he enters. And because he
+will have to go back to Present Time
+to do his work of destruction, I will
+be able to destroy him. Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>Fierce joy burned in her flashing
+blue eyes, and her slender nostrils
+quivered delicately. Northwood, peeping
+at her in horror, knew that no
+mercy could be expected of her. And
+when she stopped at a certain door and
+inserted a key, he remembered Athalia.
+What if she should enter with Adam
+in Present Time?</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> were inside Adam's laboratory,
+a huge apartment filled with
+queer apparatus and cages of live animals.
+The room was a strange paradox.
+Part of the equipment, the walls, and
+the floor was glistening with newness,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217">[217]</a></span>
+and part was moulding with extreme
+age. The powers of disintegration that
+haunt a tropical forest seemed to be
+devouring certain spots of the room.
+Here, in the midst of bright marble,
+was a section of wall that seemed as
+old as the pyramids. The surface of the
+stone had an appalling mouldiness, as
+though it had been lifted from an ancient
+graveyard where it had lain in the
+festering ground for unwholesome centuries.</p>
+
+<p>Between cracks in this stained and
+decayed section of stone grew fetid
+moss that quivered with the microscopic
+organisms that infest age-rotten
+places. Sections of the flooring and
+woodwork also reeked with mustiness.
+In one dark, webby corner of the room
+lay a pile of bleached bones, still tinted
+with the ghastly grays and pinks of
+putrefaction. Northwood, overwhelmingly
+nauseated, withdrew his eyes
+from the bones, only to see, in another
+corner, a pile of worm-eaten clothing
+that lay on the floor in the outline of
+a man.</p>
+
+<p>Faint with the reek of ancient mustiness,
+Northwood retreated to the door,
+dizzy and staggering.</p>
+
+<p>"It sickens you," said Eve, "and it
+sickens me also, for death and decay
+are not pleasant. Yet Nature, left to
+herself, reduces all to this. Every grave
+that has yawned to receive its <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'pray'">prey</ins>
+hides corruption no less shocking.
+Nature's forces of creation and destruction
+forever work in partnership.
+Never satisfied with her composition,
+she destroys and starts again, building,
+building towards the ultimate of perfection.
+Thus, it is natural that if Dr.
+Mundson isolated the Life Ray, Nature's
+supreme force of compensation,
+isolation of the Death Ray should
+closely follow. Adam, thirsting for
+power, has succeeded. A few sweeps
+of his unholy ray of decomposition
+will undo all Dr. Mundson's work in
+this valley and reduce it to a stinking
+holocaust of destruction. And the time
+for his striking has come!"</p>
+
+<p>She seized his face and drew it toward
+her. "Quick!" she said. "We'll
+have to go back to the third dimension.
+I could leave you safe in the fourth,
+but if anything should happen to me,
+you would be stranded forever in future
+time."</p>
+
+<p>She kissed his lips. In a moment, he
+was back in the old familiar world,
+where right is right and left is left.
+Again the subtle change wrought by
+Eve's magic lips had taken place.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Eve</span> went to a machine standing in
+a corner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here and get behind me, John
+Northwood. I want to test it before he
+enters."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood stood behind her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Now watch!" she ordered. "I shall
+turn it on one of those cages of guinea
+pigs over there."</p>
+
+<p>She swung the projector around,
+pointed it at the cage of small, squealing
+animals, and threw a lever. Instantly
+a cone of black mephitis shot forth,
+a loathsome, bituminous stream of
+putrefaction that reeked of the grave
+and the cesspool, of the utmost reaches
+of decay before the dust accepts the
+disintegrated atoms. The first touch of
+seething, pitchy destruction brought
+screams of sudden agony from the
+guinea pigs, but the screams were cut
+short as the little animals fell in shocking,
+instant decay. The very cage which
+imprisoned them shriveled and retreated
+from the hellish, devouring
+breath that struck its noisome rot into
+the heart of the wood and the metal,
+reducing both to revolting ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Eve cut off the frightful power, and
+the black cone disappeared, leaving the
+room putrid with its defilement.</p>
+
+<p>"And Adam would do that to the
+world," she said, her blue eyes like
+electric-shot icicles. "He would do it
+to you, John Northwood&mdash;and to me!"
+Her full bosom strained under the
+passion beneath.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" She raised her hand warningly.
+"He comes! The destroyer
+comes!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218">[218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A hand</span> was at the door. Eve
+reached for the lever, and, the
+same moment, Northwood leaned over
+her imploringly.</p>
+
+<p>"If Athalia is with him!" he gasped.
+"You will not harm her?"</p>
+
+<p>A wild shriek at the door, a slight
+scuffle, and then the doorknob was
+wrenched as though two were fighting
+over it.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, Eve!" implored
+Northwood. "Wait! Wait!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! She shall die, too. You love
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>Icy, cruel eyes cut into him, and a
+new-fleshed hand tried to push him
+aside. The door was straining open. A
+beloved voice shrieked. "John!"</p>
+
+<p>Eve and Northwood both leaped for
+the lever. Under her tender white flesh
+she was as strong as a man. In the
+midst of the struggle, her red, humid
+lips approached his&mdash;closer. Closer.
+Their merest pressure would thrust
+him into Future Time, where the <ins class="correction" title="Original split across lines with r repeated, as labor-ratory">laboratory</ins>
+and all it contained would be
+but a shadow, and where he would be
+helpless to interfere with her terrible
+will.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the door open and Adam
+stride into the room. Behind him, lying
+prone in the hall where she had
+probably fainted, was Athalia. In a
+mad burst of strength he touched the
+lever together with Eve.</p>
+
+<p>The projector, belching forth its
+stinking breath of corruption swung in
+a mad arc over the ceiling, over the
+walls&mdash;and then straight at Adam.</p>
+
+<p>Then, quicker than thought, came the
+accident. Eve, attempting to throw
+Northwood off, tripped, fell half over
+the machine, and, with a short scream
+of despair, dropped into the black
+path of destruction.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Northwood</span> paused, horrified.
+The Death Ray was pointed at
+an inner wall of the room, which, even
+as he looked, crumbled and disappeared,
+bringing down upon him dust
+more foul than any obscenity the
+bowels of the earth might yield. In an
+instant the black cone ate through the
+outer parts of the building, where
+crashing stone and screams that were
+more horrible because of their shortness
+followed the ruin that swept far
+into the fair reaches of the valley.</p>
+
+<p>The paralyzing odor of decay took
+his breath, numbed his muscles, until,
+of all that huge building, the wall behind
+him and one small section of the
+room by the doorway alone remained
+whole. He was trying to nerve himself
+to reach for the lever close to that
+quiet formless thing still partly draped
+over the machine, when a faint sound
+in the door electrified him. At first, he
+dared not look, but his own name,
+spoken almost in a gasp, gave him
+courage.</p>
+
+<p>Athalia lay on the floor, apparently
+untouched.</p>
+
+<p>He jerked the lever violently before
+running to her, exultant with the
+knowledge that his own efforts to keep
+the ray from the door had saved her.</p>
+
+<p>"And you're not hurt!" He gathered
+her close.</p>
+
+<p>"John! I saw it get Adam." She
+pointed to a new mound of mouldy
+clothes on the floor. "Oh, it is hideous
+for me to be so glad, but he was going
+to destroy everything and everyone except
+me. He made the ray projector
+for that one purpose."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood looked over the pile of
+putrid ruins which a few minutes ago
+had been a building. There was not a
+wall left intact.</p>
+
+<p>"His intention is accomplished, Athalia,"
+he said sadly. "Let's get out before
+more stones fall."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">In</span> a moment they were in the open.
+An ominous stillness seemed to
+grip the very air&mdash;the awful silence of
+the polar wastes which lay not far
+beyond the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"How dark it is, John!" cried Athalia.
+"Dark and cold!"</p>
+
+<p>"The sunshine projector!" gasped
+Northwood. "It must have been destroyed.
+Look, dearest! The golden
+light has disappeared."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219">[219]</a></span>
+"And the warm air of the valley will
+lift immediately. That means a polar
+blizzard." She shuddered and clung
+closer to him. "I've seen Antarctic
+storms, John. They're death."</p>
+
+<p>Northwood avoided her eyes. "There's
+the sun-ship. We'll give the ruins the
+once over in case there are any survivors;
+then we'll save ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Even a cursory examination of the
+mouldy piles of stone and dust convinced
+them that there could be no
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'survivers'">survivors</ins>. The ruins looked as though
+they had lain in those crumbling piles
+for centuries. Northwood, smothering
+his repugnance, stepped among them&mdash;among
+the green, slimy stones and the
+unspeakable revolting d&eacute;bris, staggering
+back and faint and shocked when
+he came upon dust that was once
+human.</p>
+
+<p>"God!" he groaned, hands over eyes.
+"We're alone, Athalia! Alone in a
+charnal house. The laboratory housed
+the entire population, didn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Needing no sleep nor food,
+we did not need houses. We all worked
+here, under Dr. Mundson's generalship,
+and, lately under Adam's, like a
+little band of soldiers fighting for a
+great cause."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go to the sun-ship, dearest."</p>
+
+<p>"But Daddy Mundson was in the
+library," sobbed Athalia. "Let's look
+for him a little longer."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Sudden</span> remembrance came to
+Northwood. "No, Athalia! He left
+the library. I saw him go down the
+jungle path several minutes before I
+and Eve went to Adam's laboratory."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he might be safe!" Her eyes
+danced. "He might have gone to the
+sun-ship."</p>
+
+<p>Shivering, she slumped against him.
+"Oh, John! I'm cold."</p>
+
+<p>Her face was blue. Northwood jerked
+off his coat and wrapped it around her,
+taking the intense cold against his unprotected
+shoulders. The low, gray sky
+was rapidly darkening, and the feeble
+light of the sun could scarcely pierce
+the clouds. It was disturbing to know
+that even the summer temperature in
+the Antarctic was far below zero.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, girl," said Northwood gravely.
+"Hurry! It's snowing."</p>
+
+<p>They started to run down the road
+through the narrow strip of jungle.
+The Death Ray had cut huge swathes
+in the tangle of trees and vines, and
+now areas of heaped d&eacute;bris, livid with
+the colors of recent decay, exhaled a
+mephitic humidity altogether alien to
+the snow that fell in soft, slow flakes.
+Each hesitated to voice the new fear:
+had the sun-ship been destroyed?</p>
+
+<p>By the time they reached the open
+field, the snow stung their flesh like
+sharp needles, but it was not yet thick
+enough to hide from them a hideous
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>The sun-ship was gone.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> might have occupied one of several
+black, foul areas on the green
+grass, where the searching Death Ray
+had made the very soil putrefy, and
+the rocks crumble into shocking dust.</p>
+
+<p>Northwood snatched Athalia to him,
+too full of despair to speak. A sudden
+terrific flurry of snow whirled around
+them, and they were almost blown from
+their feet by the icy wind that tore
+over the unprotected field.</p>
+
+<p>"It won't be long," said Athalia
+faintly. "Freezing doesn't hurt, John,
+dear."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't fair, Athalia! There never
+would have been such a marriage as
+ours. Dr. Mundson searched the world
+to bring us together."</p>
+
+<p>"For scientific experiment!" she
+sobbed. "I'd rather die, John. I want
+an old-fashioned home, a Black Age
+family. I want to grow old with you
+and leave the earth to my children.
+Or else I want to die here now under
+the kind, white blanket the snow is
+already spreading over us." She
+drooped in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Clinging together, they stood in the
+howling wind, looking at each other
+hungrily, as though they would snatch
+from death this one last picture of the
+other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220">[220]</a></span>
+Northwood's freezing lips translated
+some of the futile words that crowded
+against them. "I love you because you
+are not perfect. I hate perfection!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Perfection is the only hopeless
+state, John. That is why Adam
+wanted to destroy, so that he might
+build again."</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting in the snow now,
+for they were very tired. The storm
+began whistling louder, as though it
+were only a few feet above their heads.</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds almost like the sun-ship,"
+said Athalia drowsily.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only the wind. Hold your face
+down so it won't strike your flesh so
+cruelly."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not suffering. I'm getting warm
+again." She smiled at him sleepily.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Little</span> icicles began to form on
+their clothing, and the powdery
+snow frosted their uncovered hair.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly came a familiar voice:
+"<i>Ach Gott!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson stood before them,
+covered with snow until he looked like
+a polar bear.</p>
+
+<p>"Get up!" he shouted. "Quick! To
+the sun-ship!"</p>
+
+<p>He seized Athalia and jerked her to
+her feet. She looked at him sleepily
+for a moment, and then threw herself
+at him and hugged him frantically.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not dead?"</p>
+
+<p>Taking each by the arm, he half
+dragged them to the sun-ship, which
+had landed only a few feet away. In
+a few minutes he had hot brandy for
+them.</p>
+
+<p>While they sipped greedily, he
+talked, between working the sun-ship's
+controls.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I wouldn't say it was a lucky
+moment that drew me to the sun-ship.
+When I saw Eve trying to charm John,
+I had what you American slangists
+call a hunch, which sent me to the
+sun-ship to get it off the ground so
+that Adam couldn't commandeer it.
+And what is a hunch but a mental
+penetration into the Fourth Dimension?"
+For a long moment, he brooded,
+absent-minded. "I was in the air when
+the black ray, which I suppose is
+Adam's deviltry, began to destroy
+everything it touched. From a safe
+elevation I saw it wreck all my work."
+A sudden spasm crossed his face. "I've
+flown over the entire valley. We're the
+only survivors&mdash;thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>"And so at last you confess that it is
+not well to tamper with human life?"
+Northwood, warmed with hot brandy,
+was his old self again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have not altogether wasted
+my efforts. I went to elaborate pains
+to bring together a perfect man and a
+perfect woman of what Adam called
+our Black Age." He smiled at them
+whimsically.</p>
+
+<p>"And who can say to what extent
+you have thus furthered natural evolution?"
+Northwood slipped his arm
+around Athalia. "Our children might
+be more than geniuses, Doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mundson nodded his huge,
+shaggy head gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"The true instinct of a Creature of
+the Light," he declared.</p>
+
+<p class="adbox">
+<i>Remember</i><br />
+ASTOUNDING STORIES<br />
+<i>Appears on Newsstands</i><br />
+THE FIRST THURSDAY IN EACH MONTH<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221">[221]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Into_Space" id="Into_Space"></a>Into Space</h2>
+
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Sterner St. Paul</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/221.png" width="400" height="425" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">A loud hum filled the
+air, and suddenly the
+projectile rose, gaining
+speed rapidly.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Many</span> of my readers will remember
+the mysterious radio
+messages which were
+heard by both amateur and
+professional short wave operators during
+the nights of
+the twenty-third
+and twenty-fourth
+of last
+September, and
+even more will remember
+the astounding
+discovery made by Professor
+Montescue of the Lick Observatory on
+the night of September twenty-fifth.
+At the time, some inspired writers tried
+to connect the two events, maintaining
+that the discovery of the fact that the
+earth had a new satellite coincident
+with the receipt
+of the mysterious
+messages was evidence
+that the
+new planetoid
+was inhabited and
+that the messages
+were attempts on the part of the inhabitants
+to communicate with us.</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">What was the extraordinary connection
+between Dr. Livermore's sudden disappearance
+and the coming of a new
+satellite to the Earth?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222">[222]</a></span>
+The fact that the messages were on a
+lower wave length than any receiver
+then in existence could receive with
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'and'">any</ins> degree of clarity, and the additional
+fact that they appeared to come from
+an immense distance lent a certain air
+of plausibility to these <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'ebulitions'">ebullitions</ins> in
+the Sunday magazine sections. For
+some weeks the feature writers harped
+on the subject, but the hurried construction
+of new receivers which would
+work on a lower wave length yielded no
+results, and the solemn pronouncements
+of astronomers to the effect that
+the new celestial body could by no possibility
+have an atmosphere on account
+of its small size finally put an end to
+the talk. So the matter lapsed into
+oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>While quite a few people will remember
+the two events I have noted, I
+doubt whether there are five hundred
+people alive who will remember anything
+at all about the disappearance of
+Dr. Livermore of the University of
+Calvada on September twenty-third.
+He was a man of some local prominence,
+but he had no more than a local
+fame, and few papers outside of California
+even noted the event in their
+columns. I do not think that anyone
+ever tried to connect up his disappearance
+with the radio messages or the discovery
+of the new earthly satellite; yet
+the three events were closely bound up
+together, and but for the Doctor's disappearance,
+the other two would never
+have happened.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dr. Livermore</span> taught physics
+at Calvada, or at least he taught
+the subject when he remembered that
+he had a class and felt like teaching.
+His students never knew whether he
+would appear at class or not; but he
+always passed <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from 'every one'">everyone</ins> who took his
+courses and so, of course, they were always
+crowded. The University authorities
+used to remonstrate with him, but
+his ability as a research worker was so
+well known and recognized that he was
+allowed to <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'do about'">go about</ins> as he pleased. He
+was a bachelor who lived alone and who
+had no interests in life, so far as anyone
+knew, other than his work.</p>
+
+<p>I first made contact with him when
+I was a freshman at Calvada, and for
+some unknown reason he took a liking
+to me. My father had insisted that I
+follow in his footsteps as an electrical
+engineer; as he was paying my bills, I
+had to make a show at studying engineering
+while I clandestinely pursued
+my hobby, literature. Dr. Livermore's
+courses were the easiest in the
+school and they counted as science, so
+I regularly registered for them, cut
+them, and attended a class in literature
+as an auditor. The Doctor used to meet
+me on the campus and laughingly scold
+me for my absence, but he was really
+in sympathy with my ambition and he
+regularly gave me a passing mark and
+my units of credit without regard to
+my attendance, or, rather, lack of it.</p>
+
+<p>When I graduated from Calvada I
+was theoretically an electrical engineer.
+Practically I had a pretty good
+knowledge of contemporary literature
+and knew almost nothing about my so-called
+profession. I stalled around
+Dad's office for a few months until I
+landed a job as a cub reporter on the
+San Francisco <i>Graphic</i> and then I quit
+him cold. When the storm blew over,
+Dad admitted that you couldn't make
+a silk purse out of a sow's ear and
+agreed with a grunt to my new line of
+work. He said that I would probably
+be a better reporter than an engineer
+because I couldn't by any possibility be
+a worse one, and let it go at that. However,
+all this has nothing to do with
+the story. It just explains how I came
+to be acquainted with Dr. Livermore,
+in the first place, and why he sent for
+me on September twenty-second, in the
+second place.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> morning of the twenty-second
+the City Editor called me in and
+asked me if I knew "Old Liverpills."</p>
+
+<p>"He says that he has a good story
+ready to break but he won't talk to anyone
+but you," went on Barnes. "I of<span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223">[223]</a></span>fered
+to send out a good man, for when
+Old Liverpills starts a story it ought
+to be good, but all I got was a high
+powered bawling out. He said that he
+would talk to you or no one and would
+just as soon talk to no one as to me any
+longer. Then he hung up. You'd better
+take a run out to Calvada and see
+what he has to say. I can have a good
+man <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from re-write">rewrite</ins> your drivel when you get
+back."</p>
+
+<p>I was more or less used to that sort
+of talk from Barnes so I paid no attention
+to it. I drove my flivver down to
+Calvada and asked for the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Livermore?" said the bursar.
+"Why, he hasn't been around here for
+the last ten months. This is his sabbatical
+year and he is spending it on
+a ranch he owns up at Hat Creek, near
+Mount Lassen. You'll have to go there
+if you want to see him."</p>
+
+<p>I knew better than to report back to
+Barnes without the story, so there was
+nothing to it but to drive up to Hat
+Creek, and a long, hard drive it was.
+I made Redding late that night; the
+next day I drove on to Burney and
+asked for directions to the Doctor's
+ranch.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're going up to Doc Livermore's,
+are you?" asked the Postmaster,
+my informant. "Have you got an
+invitation?"</p>
+
+<p>I assured him that I had.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good thing," he replied, "because
+he don't allow anyone on his
+place without one. I'd like to go up
+there myself and see what's going on,
+but I don't want to get shot at like
+old Pete Johnson did when he tried
+to drop in on the Doc and pay him a
+little call. There's something mighty
+funny going on up there."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Naturally</span> I tried to find out
+what was going on but evidently
+the Postmaster, who was also the express
+agent, didn't know. All he could
+tell me was that a "lot of junk" had
+come for the Doctor by express and
+that a lot more had been hauled in by
+truck from Redding.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of junk?" I asked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Almost everything, Bub: sheet
+steel, machinery, batteries, cases of
+glass, and Lord knows what all. It's
+been going on ever since he landed
+there. He has a bunch of Indians working
+for him and he don't let a white
+man on the place."</p>
+
+<p>Forced to be satisfied with this
+meager information, I started old Lizzie
+and lit out for the ranch. After I
+had turned off the main trail I met
+no one until the ranch house was in
+sight. As I rounded a bend in the road
+which brought me in sight of the building,
+I was forced to put on my brakes
+at top speed to avoid running into a
+chain which was stretched across the
+road. An Indian armed with a Winchester
+rifle stood behind it, and when
+I stopped he came up and asked my
+business.</p>
+
+<p>"My business is with Dr. Livermore,"
+I said tartly.</p>
+
+<p>"You got letter?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor,"
+he replied, and walked stolidly
+back to his post.</p>
+
+<p>"This is absurd," I shouted, and
+drove Lizzie up to the chain. I saw
+that it was merely hooked to a ring
+at the end, and I climbed out and
+started to take it down. A thirty-thirty
+bullet embedded itself in the post an
+inch or two from my head, and I
+changed my mind about taking down
+that chain.</p>
+
+<p>"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor,"
+said the Indian laconically as he
+pumped another shell into his gun.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">I was</span> balked, until I noticed a pair
+of telephone wires running from
+the house to the tree to which one end
+of the chain was fastened.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a telephone to the house?"
+I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian grunted an assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Livermore telephoned me to
+come and see him," I said. "Can't I
+call him up and see if he still wants to
+see me?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224">[224]</a></span>
+The Indian debated the question
+with himself for a minute and then
+nodded a doubtful assent. I cranked
+the old coffee mill type of telephone
+which I found, and presently heard the
+voice of Dr. Livermore.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Tom Faber, Doctor," I said.
+"The <i>Graphic</i> sent me up to get a story
+from you, but there's an Indian here
+who started to murder me when I tried
+to get past your barricade."</p>
+
+<p>"Good for him," chuckled the Doctor.
+"I heard the shot, but didn't know
+that he was shooting at you. Tell him
+to talk to me."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian took the telephone at
+my bidding and listened for a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"You go in," he agreed when he hung
+up the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>He took down the chain and I drove
+on up to the house, to find the Doctor
+waiting for me on the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Tom," he greeted me heartily.
+"So you had trouble with my
+guard, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I nearly got murdered," I said ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect that Joe would have drilled
+you if you had tried to force your way
+in," he remarked cheerfully. "I forgot
+to tell him that you were coming <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from today">to-day</ins>.
+I told him you would be here
+yesterday, but yesterday isn't to-day to
+that Indian. I wasn't sure you would
+get here at all, in point of fact, for I
+didn't know whether that old fool I
+talked to in your office would send you
+or some one else. If anyone else had
+been sent, he would have never got by
+Joe, I can tell you. Come in. Where's
+your bag?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't one," I replied. "I went
+to Calvada yesterday to see you, and
+didn't know until I got there that you
+were up here."</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I forgot to tell where I
+was," he said. "That man I talked to
+got me so mad that I hung up on him
+before I told him. It doesn't matter,
+though. I can dig you up a new toothbrush,
+and I guess you can make out
+with that. Come in."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">I followed</span> him into the house,
+and he showed me a room fitted
+with a crude bunk, a washstand, a bowl
+and a pitcher.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't have many luxuries
+here, Tom," he said, "but you won't
+need to stay here for more than a few
+days. My work is done: I am ready
+to start. In fact, I would have started
+yesterday instead of to-day, had you
+arrived. Now don't ask any questions;
+it's nearly lunch time."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the story, Doctor?" I asked
+after lunch as I puffed one of his excellent
+cigars. "And why did you pick
+me to tell it to?"</p>
+
+<p>"For several reasons," he replied, ignoring
+my first question. "In the first
+place, I like you and I think that you
+can keep your mouth shut until you
+are told to open it. In the second place,
+I have always found that you had the
+gift of vision or imagination and have
+the ability to believe. In the third
+place, you are the only man I know
+who had the literary ability to write up
+a good story and at the same time has
+the scientific background to grasp what
+it is all about. Understand that unless
+I have your promise not to write this
+story until I tell you that you can, not
+a word will I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>I reflected for a moment. The
+<i>Graphic</i> would expect the story when
+I got back, but on the other hand I
+knew that unless I gave the desired
+promise, the Doctor wouldn't talk.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I assented, "I'll promise."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" he replied. "In that case,
+I'll tell you all about it. No doubt you,
+like the rest of the world, think that
+I'm crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, not at all," I stammered. In
+point of fact, I had often harbored
+such a suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right," he went on
+cheerfully. "I <i>am</i> crazy, crazy as a
+loon, which, by the way, is a highly
+sensible bird with a well balanced
+mentality. There is no doubt that I
+am crazy, but my craziness is not of
+the usual type. Mine is the insanity of
+genius."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225">[225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> looked at me sharply as he
+spoke, but long sessions at poker
+in the San Francisco Press Club had
+taught me how to control my facial
+muscles, and I never batted an eye. He
+seemed satisfied, and went on.</p>
+
+<p>"From your college work you are familiar
+with the laws of magnetism," he
+said. "Perhaps, considering just what
+your college career really was, I might
+better say that you are supposed to be
+familiar with them."</p>
+
+<p>I joined with him in his laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"It won't require a very deep knowledge
+to follow the thread of my argument,"
+he went on. "You know, of
+course, that the force of magnetic attraction
+is inversely proportional to the
+square of the distances separating the
+magnet and the attracted particles, and
+also that each magnetized particle had
+two poles, a positive and a negative
+pole, or a north pole and a south pole,
+as they are usually called?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Consider for a moment that the laws
+of magnetism, insofar as concerns the
+relation between distance and power of
+attraction, are exactly matched by the
+laws of gravitation."</p>
+
+<p>"But there the similarity between the
+two forces ends," I interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"But there the similarity does <i>not</i>
+end," he said sharply. "That is the
+crux of the discovery which I have
+made: that magnetism and gravity are
+one and the same, or, rather, that the
+two are separate, but similar manifestations
+of one force. The parallel between
+the two grows closer with each
+succeeding experiment. You know,
+for example, that each magnetized particle
+has two poles. Similarly each
+gravitized particle, to coin a new word,
+had two poles, one positive and one
+negative. Every particle on the earth
+is so oriented that the negative poles
+point toward the positive center of the
+earth. This is what causes the commonly
+known phenomena of gravity or
+weight."</p>
+
+<p>"I can prove the fallacy of that in a
+moment," I retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"There are none so blind as those
+who will not see," he quoted with an
+icy smile. "I can probably predict
+your puerile argument, but go ahead
+and present it."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">I</span><span class="dcap">f</span> two magnets are placed so that
+the north pole of one is in juxtaposition
+to the south pole of the other,
+they attract one another," I said. "If
+the position of the magnets be reversed
+so that the two similar poles are opposite,
+they will repel. If your theory
+were correct, a man standing on his
+head would fall off the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly what I expected," he replied.
+"Now let me ask you a question.
+Have you ever seen a small bar magnet
+placed within the field of attraction of
+a large electromagnet? Of course you
+have, and you have noticed that, when
+the north pole of the bar magnet was
+pointed toward the electromagnet, the
+bar was attracted. However, when the
+bar was reversed and the south pole
+pointed toward the electromagnet, the
+bar was still attracted. You doubtless
+remember that experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"But in that case the magnetism of
+the electromagnet was so large that the
+polarity of the small magnet was reversed!"
+I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, and the field of gravity of
+the earth is so great compared to the
+gravity of a man that when he stands
+on his head, his polarity is instantly
+reversed."</p>
+
+<p>I nodded. His explanation was too
+logical for me to pick a flaw in it.</p>
+
+<p>"If that same bar magnet were held
+in the field of the electromagnet with
+its north pole pointed toward the magnet
+and then, by the action of some
+outside force of sufficient power, its
+polarity were reversed, the bar would
+be repelled. If the magnetism were
+neutralized and held exactly neutral,
+it would be neither repelled nor attracted,
+but would act only as the force
+of gravity impelled it. Is that clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly," I assented.</p>
+
+<p>"That, then, paves the way for what
+I have to tell you. I have developed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226">[226]</a></span>
+an electrical method of neutralizing the
+gravity of a body while it is within
+the field of the earth, and also, by a
+slight extension, a method of entirely
+reversing its polarity."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">I nodded</span> calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you realize what this
+means?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied, puzzled by his great
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Man alive," he cried, "it means that
+the problem of aerial flight is entirely
+revolutionized, and that the era of interplanetary
+travel is at hand! Suppose
+that I construct an airship and
+then render it neutral to gravity. It
+would weigh nothing, <i>absolutely nothing</i>!
+The tiniest propeller would drive
+it at almost incalculable speed with a
+minimum consumption of power, for
+the only resistance to its motion would
+be the resistance of the air. If I were
+to reverse the polarity, it would be repelled
+from the earth with the same
+force with which it is now attracted,
+and it would rise with the same acceleration
+as a body falls toward the
+earth. It would travel to the moon in
+two hours and forty minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"Air resistance would&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no air a few miles from the
+earth. Of course, I do not mean that
+such a craft would take off from the
+earth and land on the moon three hours
+later. There are two things which
+would interfere with that. One is the
+fact that the propelling force, the gravity
+of the earth, would diminish as the
+square of the distance from the center
+of the earth, and the other is that when
+the band of neutral attraction, or rather
+repulsion, between the earth and the
+moon had been reached, it would be
+necessary to <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'decellerate'">decelerate</ins> so as to avoid
+a smash on landing. I have been over
+the whole thing and I find that it would
+take twenty-nine hours and fifty-two
+minutes to make the whole trip. The
+entire thing is perfectly possible. In
+fact, I have asked you here to witness
+and report the first interplanetary trip
+to be made."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you constructed such a device?"
+I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"My space ship is finished and ready
+for your inspection," he replied. "If
+you will come with me, I will show it
+to you."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Hardly</span> knowing what to believe,
+I followed him from the house
+and to a huge barnlike structure, over
+a hundred feet high, which stood
+nearby. He opened the door and
+switched on a light, and there before
+me stood what looked at <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'fist'">first</ins> glance to
+be a huge artillery shell, but of a size
+larger than any ever made. It was constructed
+of sheet steel, and while the
+lower part was solid, the upper sections
+had huge glass windows set in them.
+On the point was a mushroom shaped
+protuberance. It measured perhaps
+fifty feet in diameter and was one hundred
+and forty feet high, the Doctor
+informed me. A ladder led from the
+floor to a door about fifty feet from the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>I followed the Doctor up the ladder
+and into the space flier. The door led
+us into a comfortable living room
+through a double door arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole hull beneath us," explained
+the Doctor, "is filled with batteries
+and machinery except for a space
+in the center, where a shaft leads to a
+glass window in the bottom so that I
+can see behind me, so to speak. The
+space above is filled with storerooms
+and the air purifying apparatus. On
+this level is my bedroom, kitchen, and
+other living rooms, together with a
+laboratory and an observatory. There
+is a central control room located on
+an upper level, but it need seldom be
+entered, for the craft can be controlled
+by a system of relays from this room or
+from any other room in the ship. I
+suppose that you are more or less
+familiar with imaginative stories of
+interplanetary travel?"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">I nodded</span> an assent.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case there is no use in
+going over the details of the air puri<span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227">[227]</a></span>fying
+and such matters," he said. "The
+story writers have worked out all that
+sort of thing in great detail, and there
+is nothing novel in my arrangements.
+I carry food and water for six months
+and air enough for two months by constant
+renovating. Have you any question
+you wish to ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"One objection I have seen frequently
+raised to the idea of interplanetary
+travel is that the human body could not
+stand the rapid acceleration which
+would be necessary to attain speed
+enough to ever get anywhere. How do
+you overcome this?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy, who knows what the
+human body can stand? When the
+locomotive was first invented learned
+scientists predicted that the limit of
+speed was thirty miles an hour, as the
+human body could not stand a higher
+speed. <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from Today">To-day</ins> the human body stands
+a speed of three hundred and sixty
+miles an hour without ill effects. At
+any rate, on my first trip I intend to
+take no chances. We know that the
+body can stand an acceleration of
+thirty-two feet per second without
+trouble. That is the rate of acceleration
+due to gravity and is the rate at
+which a body increases speed when it
+falls. This is the acceleration which I
+will use.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember that the space traveled
+by a falling body in a vacuum is equal
+to one half the acceleration multiplied
+by the square of the elapsed time. The
+moon, to which I intend to make my
+first trip, is only 280,000 miles, or
+1,478,400,000 feet, from us. With an
+acceleration of thirty-two feet per second,
+I would pass the moon two hours
+and forty minutes after leaving the
+earth. If I later take another trip, say
+to Mars, I will have to find a means of
+increasing my acceleration, possibly
+by the use of the rocket principle.
+Then will be time enough to worry
+about what my body will stand."</p>
+
+<p>A short calculation verified the
+figures the Doctor had given me, and I
+stood convinced.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you really going?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Most decidedly. To repeat, I would
+have started yesterday, had you arrived.
+As it is, I am ready to start
+at once. We will go back to the house
+for a few minutes while I show you the
+location of an excellent telescope
+through which you may watch my
+progress, and instruct you in the use
+of an ultra-short-wave receiver which
+I am confident will pierce the Heaviside
+layer. With this I will keep in communication
+with you, although I have
+made no arrangements for you to send
+messages to me on this trip. I intend
+to go to the moon and land. I will
+take atmosphere samples through an
+air port and, if there is an atmosphere
+which will support life, I will step out
+on the surface. If there is not, I will
+return to the earth."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A few</span> minutes was enough
+<ins class="correction" title="Duplicate 'for' removed">for</ins> me to grasp the simple
+manipulations which I would have to
+perform, and I followed him again to
+the space flier.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you going to get it out?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Watch," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He worked some levers and the roof
+of the barn folded back, leaving the
+way clear for the departure of the
+huge projectile. I followed him inside
+and he climbed the ladder.</p>
+
+<p>"When I shut the door, go back to
+the house and test the radio," he directed.</p>
+
+<p>The door clanged shut and I hastened
+into the house. His voice came
+plainly enough. I went back to the
+flier and waved him a final farewell,
+which he acknowledged through a
+window; then I returned to the receiver.
+A loud hum filled the air, and
+suddenly the projectile rose and flew
+out through the open roof, gaining
+speed rapidly until it was a mere speck
+in the sky. It vanished. I had no
+trouble in picking him up with the
+telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor
+through one of the windows.</p>
+
+<p>"I have passed beyond the range of
+the atmosphere, Tom," came his voice<span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228">[228]</a></span>
+over the receiver, "and I find that
+everything is going exactly as it
+should. I feel no discomfort, and my
+only regret is that I did not install a
+transmitter in the house so that you
+could talk to me; but there is no real
+necessity for it. I am going to make
+some observations now, but I will call
+you again with a report of progress in
+half-an-hour."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">For</span> the rest of the afternoon and
+all of that night I received his messages
+regularly, but with the coming
+of daylight they began to fade. By
+nine o'clock I could get only a word
+here and there. By noon I could hear
+nothing. I went to sleep hoping that
+the night would bring better reception,
+nor was I disappointed. About eight
+o'clock I received a message, rather
+faintly, but none the less distinctly.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret more than ever that I did
+not install a transmitter so that I could
+learn from you whether you are receiving
+my messages," his voice said faintly.
+"I have no idea of whether you can
+hear me or not, but I will keep on repeating
+this message every hour while
+my battery holds out. It is now thirty
+hours since I left the earth and I
+should be on the moon, according to
+my calculations. But I am not, and
+never will be. I am caught at the neutral
+point where the gravity of the
+earth and the moon are exactly equal.</p>
+
+<p>"I had relied on my momentum to
+carry me over this point. Once over
+it, I expected to reverse my polarity
+and fall on the moon. My momentum
+did not do so. If I keep my polarity
+as it was when left the earth, both the
+earth and the moon repel me. If I reverse
+it, they both attract me, and
+again I cannot move. If I had
+equipped my space flier with a rocket
+so that I could move a few miles, or
+even a few feet, from the dead line,
+I could proceed, but I did not do so,
+and I cannot move forward or back.
+Apparently I am doomed to stay here
+until my air gives out. Then my body,
+entombed in my space ship, will endlessly
+circle the earth as a satellite
+until the end of time. There is no
+hope for me, for long before a duplicate
+of my device equipped with
+rockets could be constructed and come
+to my rescue, my air would be exhausted.
+Good-by, Tom. You may
+write your story as soon as you wish.
+I will repeat my message in one hour.
+Good-by!"</p>
+
+<p>At nine and at ten o'clock the message
+was repeated. At eleven it started
+again but after a few sentences the
+sound suddenly ceased and the receiver
+went dead. I thought that the fault
+was with the receiver and I toiled
+feverishly the rest of the night, but
+without result. I learned later that
+the messages heard all over the world
+ceased at the same hour.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Professor Montescue
+announced his discovery of the
+world's new satellite.</p>
+
+<p class="adbox">
+<i>Coming</i>&mdash;<br />
+MURDER MADNESS<br />
+<i>An Extraordinary Four-Part Novel</i><br />
+<br />
+<i>By</i> MURRAY LEINSTER<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229">[229]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="The_Beetle_Horde" id="The_Beetle_Horde"></a>The Beetle Horde</h2>
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Victor Rousseau</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/229.png" width="400" height="366" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">The hideous monsters leaped
+into the cockpits and began their
+abominable meal.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Tommy Travers</span> and James
+Dodd, of the Travers Antarctic
+Expedition, crash in their plane somewhere
+near the South Pole, and are
+seized by a swarm of man-sized beetles.
+They are carried
+down to Submundia,
+a world under
+the earth's
+crust, where the
+beetles have developed
+their civilization to an amazing
+point, using a wretched race of degenerated
+humans, whom they breed
+as cattle, for food.</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">Bullets, shrapnel, shell&mdash;nothing can stop
+the trillions of famished, man-sized beetles
+which, led by a madman, sweep down
+over the human race.</p>
+
+<p>The insect horde is ruled by a human
+from the outside world&mdash;a drug-doped
+madman. Dodd recognizes this
+man as Bram, the archaeologist who
+had been lost years before at the Pole
+and given up for dead by a world he
+had hated because
+it refused to accept
+his radical
+scientific theories.
+His fiendish
+mind now plans
+the horrible revenge of leading his unconquerable
+horde of monster insects
+forth to ravage the world, destroy the
+human race and establish a new era&mdash;the
+era of the insect.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230">[230]</a></span>
+The world has to be warned of the
+impending doom. The two, with
+Haidia, a girl of Submundia, escape,
+and pass through menacing dangers to
+within two miles of the exit. There,
+suddenly, Tommy sees towering over
+him a creature that turns his blood
+cold&mdash;a gigantic praying mantis. Before
+he has time to act, the monster
+springs at them!</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII<br />
+<br />
+<i>Through the Inferno</i></h3>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Fortunately</span>, the monster
+miscalculated its leap. The
+huge legs, whirling through the
+air, came within a few inches
+of Tommy's head, but passed over him,
+and the mantis plunged into the
+stream. Instantly the water was alive
+with leaping things with faces of such
+grotesque horror that Tommy sat paralyzed
+in his rocking shell, unable to
+avert his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Things no more than a foot or two
+in length, to judge from the slender,
+eel-like bodies that leaped into the air,
+but things with catfish heads and tentacles,
+and eyes waving on stalks;
+things with clawlike appendages to
+their ventral fins, and mouths that
+widened to fearful size, so that the
+whole head seemed to disappear above
+them, disclosing fangs like wolves'.
+Instantly the water was churned into
+phosphorescent fire as they precipitated
+themselves upon the struggling
+mantis, whose enormous form, extending
+halfway from shore to shore, was
+covered with the river monsters, gnawing,
+rending, tearing.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily the struggles of the dying
+monster carried it downstream instead
+of up. In a few moments the immediate
+danger was past. And suddenly
+Haidia awoke, sat up.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are we?" she cried. "Oh, I
+can see! I can see! Something has
+burned away from my eyes! I know
+this place. A wise man of my people
+once came here, and returned to tell of
+it. We must go on. Soon we shall be
+safe on the wide river. But there is
+another way that leads to here. We
+must go on! We must go on!"</p>
+
+<p>Even as she spoke they heard the
+distant rasping of the beetle-legs. And
+before the shells were well in mid-current
+they saw the beetle horde coming
+round the bend; in the front of
+them Bram, reclining on his shell
+couch, and drawn by the eight trained
+beetles.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Bram</span> saw the fugitives, and a
+roar of ironic mirth broke from
+his lips, resounding high above the
+strident rasping of the beetle-legs, and
+roaring over the marshes.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got you, Dodd and Travers," he
+bellowed, as the trained beetles hovered
+above the shell canoes. "You
+thought you were clever, but you're at
+my mercy. Now's your last chance,
+Dodd. I'll save you still if you'll submit
+to me, if you'll admit that there
+were fossil monotremes before the
+pleistocene epoch. Come, it's so
+simple! Say it after me: 'The marsupial
+lion&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"You go to hell!" yelled Dodd,
+nearly upsetting his shell as he shook
+his fist at his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>High above the rasping sound came
+Bram's shrill whistle. Just audible to
+human ears, though probably sounding
+like the roar of thunder to those of the
+beetles, there was no need to wonder
+what it was.</p>
+
+<p>It was the call to slaughter.</p>
+
+<p>Like a black cloud the beetles shot
+forward. A serried phalanx covered
+the two men and the girl, hovering a
+few feet overhead, the long legs dangling
+to within arm's reach. And a
+terrible cry of fear broke from Haidia's
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Tommy remembered
+Bram's cigarette-lighter. He pulled it
+from his pocket and ignited it.</p>
+
+<p>Small as the flame was, it was actinically
+much more powerful than the
+brighter phosphorescence of the fungi
+behind them. The beetle-cloud overhead
+parted. The strident sound was<span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231">[231]</a></span>
+broken into a confused buzzing as the
+terrified, blinded beetles plopped into
+the stream.</p>
+
+<p>None of them, fortunately, fell into
+either of the three shells, but the mass
+of struggling monsters in the water
+was hardly less formidable to the
+safety of the occupants than that menacing
+cloud overhead.</p>
+
+<p>"Get clear!" Tommy yelled to Dodd,
+trying to help the shell along with his
+hands.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> heard Bram's cry of baffled
+rage, and, looking backward,
+could not refrain from a laugh of
+triumph. Bram's trained steeds had
+taken fright and overset him. Bram
+had fallen into the red mud beside the
+stream, from which he was struggling
+up, plastered from head to feet, and
+shaking his fists and evidently cursing,
+though his words could not be heard.</p>
+
+<p>"How about your marsupial lion
+now, Bram?" yelled Dodd. "No monotremes
+before the pleistocene! D'you
+get that? That's my slogan now and
+for ever more!"</p>
+
+<p>Bram shrieked and raved, and
+seemed to be inciting the beetles to a
+renewed assault. The air was still
+thick with them, but Tommy was waving
+the cigarette-lighter in a flaming
+arc, which cleared the way for them.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly came disaster. The
+flame went out! Tommy closed the
+lighter with a snap and opened it. In
+vain. In his excitement he must have
+spilled all the contents, for it would
+not catch.</p>
+
+<p>Bram saw and yelled derision. The
+beetle-cloud was thickening. Tommy,
+now abreast of his companions on the
+widening stream, saw the imminent
+end.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">And</span> then once more fate intervened.
+For, leaping through the
+air out of the places where they had
+lain concealed, six mantises launched
+themselves at their beetle prey.</p>
+
+<p>Those awful bounds of the long-legged
+monsters, the scourges of the
+insect world, carried them clear from
+one bank to the other&mdash;fortunately for
+the occupants of the shells. In an instant
+the beetle-cloud dissolved. And
+it had all happened in a few seconds.
+Before Dodd or Tommy had quite
+taken in the situation, the mantises,
+each carrying a victim in its grooved
+legs, had vanished like the beetles.
+There was no sign of Bram. The
+three were alone upon the face of the
+stream, which went swirling upward
+into renewed darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy saw Dodd bend toward
+Haidia as she lay on her shell couch.
+He heard the sound of a noisy kiss.
+And he lay back in the hollow of his
+shell, with the feeling that nothing
+that could happen in the future could
+be worse than what they had passed
+through.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Days</span> went by, days when the
+sense of dawning freedom filled
+their hearts with hope. Haidia told
+Dodd and Tommy that, according to
+the legends of her people, the river
+ran into the world from which they
+had been driven by the floods, ages
+before.</p>
+
+<p>There had been no further signs of
+Bram or the beetle horde, and Dodd
+and Tommy surmised that it had been
+disorganized by the attack of the mantises,
+and that Bram was engaged in
+regaining his control over it. But
+neither of them believed that the
+respite would be a long one, and for
+that reason they rested ashore only for
+the briefest intervals, just long enough
+to snatch a little sleep, and to eat some
+of the shrimps that Haidia was adept
+at finding&mdash;or to pull some juicy fruit
+surreptitiously from a tree.</p>
+
+<p>Incidents there were, nevertheless,
+during those days. For hours their
+shells were followed by a school of the
+luminous river monsters, which, nevertheless,
+made no attempt to attack
+them. And once, hearing a cry from
+Haidia, as she was gathering shrimps,
+Dodd ran forward to see her battling
+furiously with a luminous scorpion,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232">[232]</a></span>
+eight feet in length, that had sprung
+at her from its lurking place behind a
+pear shrub.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dodd</span> succeeded in stunning and
+dispatching the monster without
+suffering any injury from it, but the
+strain of the period was beginning to
+tell on all of them. Worst of all, they
+seemed to have left all the luminous
+vegetation behind them, and were entering
+a region of almost total darkness,
+in which Haidia had to be their
+eyes.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Something</span> had happened to the
+girl's sight in the journey over
+the petrol spring. As a matter of fact,
+the third, or nictitating membrane,
+which the humans of Submundia possessed,
+in common with birds, had been
+burned away. Haidia could see as well
+as ever in the dark, but she could bear
+more light than formerly as well. Unobtrusively
+she assumed command of
+the party. She anticipated their wants,
+dug shrimps in the darkness, and fed
+Tommy and Dodd with her own hands.</p>
+
+<p>"God, what a girl!" breathed Dodd
+to his friend. "I've always had the
+reputation of being a woman-hater,
+Tommy, but once I get that girl to
+civilization I'm going to take her to
+the nearest Little Church Around the
+Corner in record time."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you luck, old man, I'm
+sure," answered Tommy. Dodd's words
+did not seem strange to him. Civilization
+was growing very remote to him,
+and Broadway seemed like a memory
+of some previous incarnation.</p>
+
+<p>The river was growing narrower
+again, and swifter, too. On the last
+day, or night, of their journey&mdash;though
+they did not know that it was to be
+their last&mdash;it swirled so fiercely that
+it threatened every moment to overset
+their beetle-shells. Suddenly Tommy
+began to feel giddy. He gripped the
+side of his shell with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy, we're going round!"
+shouted Dodd in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>There was no longer any doubt of
+it. The shells were revolving in a
+vortex of rushing, foaming water.</p>
+
+<p>"Haidia!" they shouted.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's voice came back thickly
+across the roaring torrent. The circles
+grew smaller. Tommy knew that he
+was being sucked nearer and nearer to
+the edge of some terrific whirlpool in
+that inky blackness. Now he could no
+longer hear Dodd's shouts, and the
+shell was tipping so that he could feel
+the water rushing along the edge of
+it. But for the exercise of centrifugal
+force he would have been flung from
+his perilous seat, for he was leaning
+inward at an angle of forty-five degrees.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Then</span> suddenly his progress was
+arrested. He felt the shell being
+drawn to the shore. He leaped out,
+and Haidia's strong hands dragged the
+shell out of the torrent, while Tommy
+sank down, gasping.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" he heard Dodd
+demanding.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no more river," said Haidia
+calmly. "It goes into a hole in the
+ground. So much I have heard from
+the wise men of my people. They say
+that it is near such a place that they
+fled from the flood in years gone by."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we're near safety," shouted
+Tommy. "That river must emerge as
+a stream somewhere in the upper
+world, Dodd. I wonder where the road
+lies."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a road here," came Haidia's
+calm voice. "Let us put on our shells
+again, since who knows whether there
+may not be beetles here."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see such a girl as
+that?" demanded Dodd ecstatically.
+"First she saves our lives, and then she
+thinks of everything. Good lord, she'll
+remember my meals, and to wind my
+watch for me, and&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Haidia's voice, some distance
+ahead, interrupted Dodd's soliloquy,
+and, hoisting the beetle-shells upon
+their backs, they started along the
+rough trail that they could feel with
+their feet over the stony ground. It<span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233">[233]</a></span>
+was still as dark as pitch, but soon
+they found themselves traveling up a
+sunken way that was evidently a dry
+watercourse. And now and again
+Haidia's reassuring voice would come
+from in front of them.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> road grew steeper. There
+could no longer be any doubt
+that they were ascending toward the
+surface of the earth. But even the
+weight of the beetle-shells and the
+steepness could not account for the
+feeling of intense weakness that took
+possession of them. Time and again
+they stopped, panting.</p>
+
+<p>"We must be very near the surface,
+Dodd," said Tommy. "We've surely
+passed the center of gravity. That's
+what makes it so difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," Haidia said in her quiet
+voice, stretching out her hand through
+the darkness. And for very shame
+they had to follow her.</p>
+
+<p>On and on, hour after hour, up the
+steep ascent, resting only long enough
+to make them realize their utter
+fatigue. On because Haidia was leading
+them, and because in the belief
+that they were about to leave that
+awful land behind them their desires
+lent new strength to their limbs continuously.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Haidia uttered a fearful
+cry. Her ears had caught what became
+apparent to Dodd and Jimmy several
+seconds later.</p>
+
+<p>Far down in the hollow of the earth,
+increased by the echoes that came
+rumbling up, they heard the distant,
+strident rasp of the beetle swarm.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was Dodd's turn to support
+Haidia and whisper consolation in her
+ears. No thought of resting now. If
+they were to be overwhelmed at last
+by the monsters, they meant to be
+overwhelmed in the upper air.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was growing insufferably hot.
+Blasts of air, as if from a furnace,
+began to rush up and down past them.
+And the trail was growing steeper
+still, and slippery as glass.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Jim?" Tommy panted,
+as Dodd, leaving Haidia for a moment,
+came back to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd say lava," Dodd answered. "If
+only one could see something! I don't
+know how she finds her way. My impression
+is that we are coming out
+through the interior of an extinct
+volcano."</p>
+
+<p>"But where are there volcanoes in
+the south polar regions?" inquired
+Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>"There are Mount Erebus and Mount
+Terror, in South Victoria Land, active
+volcanoes discovered by Sir James
+Ross in 1841, and again by Borchgrevink,
+in 1899. If that's where
+we're coming out&mdash;well, Tommy, we're
+doomed, because it's the heart of the
+polar continent. We might as well
+turn back."</p>
+
+<p>"But we won't turn back," said
+Tommy. "I'm damned if we do."</p>
+
+<p>"We're damned if we don't," said
+Dodd.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along please!" sang Haidia's
+voice high up the slope.</p>
+
+<p>They struggled on. And now a
+faint luminosity was beginning to
+penetrate that infernal darkness. The
+rasping of the beetle-legs, too, was no
+longer audible. Perhaps they had
+thrown Bram off their track! Perhaps
+in the darkness he had not known
+which way they had gone after leaving
+the whirlpool!</p>
+
+<p>That thought encouraged them to a
+last effort. They pushed their flagging
+limbs up, upward through an inferno
+of heated air. Suddenly Dodd
+uttered a yell and pointed upward.</p>
+
+<p>"God!" ejaculated Tommy. Then he
+seized Dodd in his arms and nearly
+crushed him. For high above them,
+a pin-point in the black void, they saw&mdash;a
+star!</p>
+
+<p>They were almost at the earth's
+surface!</p>
+
+<p>One more effort, and suddenly the
+ground seemed to give beneath them.
+They breathed the outer air, and went
+sliding down a chute of sand, and
+stopped, half buried, at the bottom.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234">[234]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII<br />
+<br />
+<i>Recaptured</i></h3>
+
+<p>"Where are we?" each demanded
+of the other, as they
+staggered out.</p>
+
+<p>It was a moonless night, and the
+air was chill, but they were certainly
+nowhere near the polar regions, for
+there was no trace of snow to be seen
+anywhere. All about them was sand,
+with here and there a spiny shrub
+standing up stiff and erect and solitary.</p>
+
+<p>When they had disengaged themselves
+from the clinging sand they
+could see that they were apparently in
+the hollow of a vast crater, that must
+have been half a mile in circumference.
+It was low and worn down to an elevation
+of not more than two or three
+hundred feet, and evidently the volcano
+that had thrown it up had been extinct
+for millennia.</p>
+
+<p>"Water!" gasped Dodd.</p>
+
+<p>They looked all about them. They
+could see no signs of a spring anywhere,
+and both were parched with
+thirst after their terrific climb.</p>
+
+<p>"We must find water, Haidia," said
+Tommy. "Why, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Haidia was pointing upward at the
+starry heaven, and shivering with fear.
+"Eyes!" she cried. "Big beetles waiting
+for us up there!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Haidia," Dodd explained.
+"Those are stars. They are worlds&mdash;places
+where people live."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take me up there?" asked
+Haidia.</p>
+
+<p>"No, this is our world," said Dodd.
+"And by and by the sun will rise, that's
+a big ball of fire up there. He watches
+over the world and gives us light and
+warmth. Don't be afraid. I'll take
+care of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Haidia is not afraid with Jimmydodd
+to take care of her," replied the
+girl with dignity. "Haidia smells water&mdash;over
+there." She pointed across one
+side of the crater.</p>
+
+<p>"There we'd better hurry," said
+Tommy, "because I can't hold out much
+longer."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> three scrambled over the soft
+sand, which sucked in their feet to
+the ankle at every step. It was with
+the greatest difficulty that they succeeded
+in reaching the crater's summit,
+low though it was. Then Dodd uttered
+a cry, and pointed. In front of them
+extended a long pool of water, with a
+scrubby growth around the edges.</p>
+
+<p>The ground was firmer here, and
+they hurried toward it. Tommy was
+the first to reach it. He lay down on
+his face and drank eagerly. He had
+taken in a quart before he discovered
+that the water was saline.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time Dodd uttered an
+exclamation of disgust. Haidia, too,
+after sipping a little of the fluid, had
+stood up, chattering excitedly in her
+own language.</p>
+
+<p>But she was not chattering about the
+water. She was pointing toward the
+scrub. "Men there!" she cried. "Men
+like you and Tommy, Jimmydodd."</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and Dodd looked at each
+other, the water already forgotten in
+their excitement at Haidia's information,
+which neither of them doubted.</p>
+
+<p>Brave as she was, the girl now hung
+back behind Dodd, letting the two men
+take precedence of her. The water,
+saline as it was, had partly quenched
+their thirst. They felt their strength
+reviving.</p>
+
+<p>And it was growing light. In the
+east the sky was already flecked with
+yellow pink. They felt a thrill of intense
+excitement at the prospect of
+meeting others of their kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you think we are?" asked
+Tommy.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dodd</span> stopped to look at a shrub
+that was growing near the edge
+of the pool. "I don't think, I know,
+Tommy," he answered. "This is wattle."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're somewhere in the interior
+regions of the Australian continent&mdash;and
+that's not going to help us much."</p>
+
+<p>"Over there&mdash;over there," panted
+Haidia. "Hold me, Jimmydodd. I
+can't see. Ah, this terrible light!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235">[235]</a></span>
+She screwed her eyelids tightly together
+to shut out the pale light of
+dawn. The men had already discovered
+that the third membrane had been
+burned away.</p>
+
+<p>"We must get her out of here," whispered
+Dodd to Tommy. "Somewhere
+where it's dark, before the sun rises.
+Let's go back to the entrance of the
+crater."</p>
+
+<p>But Haidia, her arm extended, persisted,
+"Over there! Over there!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a spear came whirling out
+of a growth of wattle beside the pool.
+It whizzed past Tommy's face and
+dropped into the sand behind. Between
+the trunks of the wattles they
+could see the forms of a party of
+blackfellows, watching them intently.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy held up his arms and moved
+forward with a show of confidence that
+he was far from feeling. After what he
+had escaped in the underworld he was
+in no mood to be massacred now.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">But</span> the blacks were evidently not
+hostile. It was probable that the
+spear had not been aimed to kill. At
+the sight of the two white men, and the
+white woman, they came forward
+doubtfully, then more fearlessly, shouting
+in their language. In another minute
+Tommy and Dodd were the center
+of a group of wondering savages.</p>
+
+<p>Especially Haidia. Three or four
+gins, or black women, had crept out of
+the scrub, and were already examining
+her with guttural cries, and fingering
+the hair garment that she wore.</p>
+
+<p>"Water!" said Tommy, pointing to
+his throat, and then to the pool, with a
+frown of disgust.</p>
+
+<p>The blackfellows grinned, and led
+the three a short distance to a place
+where a large hollow had been scooped
+in the sandy floor of the desert. It
+was full of water, perfectly sweet to
+the taste. The three drank gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the edge of the sun appeared
+above the horizon, gilding the
+sand with gold. The sunlight fell upon
+the three, and Haidia uttered a terrible
+cry of distress. She dropped upon the
+sand, her hands pressed to her eyes convulsively.
+Tommy and Dodd dragged
+her into the thickest part of the scrub,
+where she lay moaning.</p>
+
+<p>They contrived bandages from the
+remnants of their clothing, and these,
+damped with cold water, and bound
+over the girl's eyes, alleviated her suffering
+somewhat. Meanwhile the blackfellows
+had prepared a meal of roast
+opossum. After their long diet of
+shrimps, it tasted like ambrosia to the
+two men.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Much</span> to their surprise, Haidia
+seemed to enjoy it too. The
+three squatted in the scrub among the
+friendly blacks, discussing their situation.</p>
+
+<p>"These fellows will save us," said
+Dodd. "It may be that we're quite
+near the coast, but, any way, they'll
+stick to us, even if only out of curiosity.
+They'll take us somewhere. But
+as soon as we get Haidia to safety we'll
+have to go back along our trail. We
+mustn't lose our direction. Suppose
+I was <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'to laughed'">laughed</ins> at when I get back,
+called a liar! I tell you, we've got to
+have something to show, to prove my
+statements, before I can persuade anybody
+to fit out an expedition into Submundia.
+Even those three beetle-shells
+that we dropped in the crater won't be
+conclusive evidence for the type of
+mind that sits in the chairs of science
+<ins class="correction" title="Standardized from today">to-day</ins>. And, speaking of that, we must
+get those blacks to carry those shells
+for us. I tell you, nobody will believe&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" cried Tommy sharply,
+as a rasping sound rose above the cries
+of the frightened blacks.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no need to ask. Out
+of the crater two enormous beetles were
+winging their way toward them, two
+beetles larger than any that they had
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>Fully seven feet in length, they were
+circling about each other, apparently
+engaged in a vicious battle.</p>
+
+<p>The fearful beaks stabbed at the flesh
+beneath the shells, and they alternately<span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236">[236]</a></span>
+stabbed and drew back, all the while
+approaching the party, which watched
+them, petrified with terror.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that the monsters had
+no conception of the presence of humans.
+Blinded by the sun, only one
+thing could have induced them to leave
+the dark depths of Submundia. That
+was the mating instinct. The beetles
+were evidently rival leaders of some
+swarm, engaged in a duel to the death.</p>
+
+<p>Round and round they went in a
+dizzy maze, stabbing and thrusting,
+jaws closing on flesh, until they
+dropped, close-locked in battle, not
+more than twenty feet from the little
+party of blacks and whites, both
+squirming in the agonies of death.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">I</span><span class="dcap"> don't</span> think that necessarily
+means that the swarm is on our
+trail," said Tommy, a little later, as the
+three stood beside the shells that they
+had discarded. "Those two were strays,
+lost from the swarm and maddened by
+the mating instinct. Still, it might be
+as well to wear these things for a
+while, in case they do follow us."</p>
+
+<p>"You're right," answered Dodd, as
+he placed one of the shells around
+Haidia. "We've got to get this little
+lady to civilization, and we've got to
+protect our lives in order to give this
+great new knowledge to the world. If
+we are attacked, you must sacrifice
+your life for me, Tommy, so that I can
+carry back the news."</p>
+
+<p>"Righto!" answered Tommy with
+alacrity. "You bet I will, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>The glaring sun of mid-afternoon
+was shining down upon the desert, but
+Haidia was no longer in pain. It was
+evident that she was fast becoming accustomed
+to the sunlight, though she
+still kept her eyes screwed up tightly,
+and had to be helped along by Dodd
+and Jimmy. In high good humor the
+three reached the encampment, to find
+that the blacks were feasting on the
+dead beetles, while the two eldest
+members of the party had proudly
+donned the shells.</p>
+
+<p>It was near sunset before they finally
+started. Dodd and Tommy had managed
+to make it clear to them that they
+wished to reach civilization, but how
+near this was there was, of course, no
+means of determining. They noted,
+however, that the party started in a
+southerly direction.</p>
+
+<p>"I should say," said Dodd, "that we
+are in South Australia, probably three
+or four hundred miles from the coast.
+We've got a long journey before us,
+but these blackfellows will know how
+to procure food for us."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> certainly knew how to get
+water, for, just as it began to grow
+dark, when the three were already tormented
+by thirst, they stopped at what
+seemed a mere hollow among the stones
+and boulders that strewed the face of
+the desert, and scooped away the sand,
+leaving a hole which quickly filled
+with clear, cold water of excellent
+taste.</p>
+
+<p>After which they made signs that
+they were to camp there for the night.
+The moon was riding high in the sky.
+As it grew dark, Haidia opened her
+eyes, saw the luminary, and uttered an
+exclamation, this time not of fear, but
+of wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Moon," said Dodd. "That's all
+right, girl. She watches over the night,
+as the sun does over the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Haidia likes the moon better than
+the sun," said the girl wistfully. "But
+the moon not strong enough to keep
+away the beetles."</p>
+
+<p>"If I was you, I'd forget about the
+beetles, Haidia," said Dodd. "They
+won't come out of that hole in the
+ground. You'll never see them again."</p>
+
+<p>And, as he spoke, they heard a familiar
+rasping sound far in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"How the wind blows," said Tommy,
+desperately resolved not to believe his
+ears. "I think a storm's coming up."</p>
+
+<p>But Haidia, with a scream of fear,
+was clinging to Dodd, and the blacks
+were on their feet, spears and boomerangs
+in their hands, looking northward.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237">[237]</a></span>
+Out of that north a little black cloud
+was gathering. A cloud that spread
+gradually, as a thunder-cloud, until it
+covered a good part of the sky. And
+still more of the sky, and still more.
+All the while that faint, distant rasping
+was audible, but it did not increase
+in volume. It was as if the
+beetles had halted until the full number
+of the swarm had come up out of the
+crater.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Then</span> the cloud, which by now
+covered half the sky, began to
+take geometric form. It grew square,
+the ragged edges seemed to trim themselves
+away, streaks of light shot
+through it at right angles, as if it was
+marshaling itself into companies.</p>
+
+<p>The doomed men and the girl stood
+perfectly still, staring at that phenomenon.
+They knew that only a
+miracle could save them. They did
+not even speak, but Haidia clung more
+tightly to Dodd's arm.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly the cloud spread upward
+and covered the face of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this is good-by, Tommy," said
+Dodd, gripping his friend's hand. "God,
+I wish I had a revolver, or a knife!"
+He looked at Haidia.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the rasping became a whining shriek.
+A score of enormous
+beetles, the advance guards of the
+army, zoomed out of the darkness into
+a ray of straggling moonlight. Shrieking,
+the blacks, who had watched the
+approaching swarm perfectly immobile,
+threw away the two shells and bolted.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord," Dodd shouted, "did
+you see the color of their shells,
+Tommy?" Even in that moment the
+scientific observer came uppermost in
+him. "Those red edges? They must
+be young ones, Tommy. It's the new
+brood! No wonder Bram stayed behind!
+He was waiting for them to
+hatch! The new brood! We're doomed&mdash;doomed!
+All my work wasted!"</p>
+
+<p>The blackfellows did not get very
+far. A hundred yards from the place
+where they started to run they dropped,
+their bodies hidden beneath the clustering
+monsters, their screams cut
+short as those frightful beaks sought
+their throats, and those jaws crunched
+through flesh and bone.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Circling</span> around Dodd, Tommy,
+and Haidia, as if puzzled by their
+appearance, the beetles kept up a continuous,
+furious droning that sounded
+like the roar of Niagara mixed with the
+shrieking of a thousand sirens. The
+moon was completely hidden, and only
+a dim, nebulous light showed the repulsive
+monsters as they flew within a
+few feet of the heads of the fugitives.
+The stench was overpowering.</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly a ray of white light
+shot through the darkness, and, with
+a changed note, just perceptible to the
+ears of the two men, but doubtless of
+the greatest significance to the beetles,
+the swarm fled apart to right and left,
+leaving a clear lane, through which appeared&mdash;Bram,
+reclining on his shell-couch
+above his eight trained beetle
+steeds!</p>
+
+<p>Hovering overhead, the eight huge
+monsters dropped lightly to the ground
+beside the three. Bram sat up, a vicious
+grin upon his twisted face. In his
+hand he held a large electric bulb, its
+sides sheathed in a roughly carved
+wooden frame; the wire was attached
+to a battery behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well met, my friends!" he shouted
+exultantly. "I owe you more thanks
+than I can express for having so
+providentially left the electrical equipment
+of your plane undamaged after
+you crashed at the entrance to Submundia.
+I had a hunch about it&mdash;and
+the hunch worked!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> grinned more malevolently as
+he looked from one man to the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"You've run your race," he said. "But
+I'm going to have a little fun with you
+before you die. I'm going to use you
+as an object lesson. You'll find it out
+in a little while."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead, go ahead, Bram," Dodd
+grinned back at him. "Just a few mil<span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238">[238]</a></span>lion
+years ago, and you were a speck of
+protoplasm&mdash;in that <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'pre-pleistocence'">pre-pleistocene</ins>
+age&mdash;swimming among the invertebrate
+crustaceans that characterized that
+epoch."</p>
+
+<p>"Invertebrates and monotremes,
+Dodd," said Bram, almost wistfully.
+"The mammals were already existent
+on the earth, as you know&mdash;" Suddenly
+he broke off, as he realized that
+Dodd was spoofing him. A yell of execration
+broke from his lips. He uttered
+a high whistle, and instantly the
+whiplike lashes of a hundred beetles
+whizzed through the darkness and remained
+poised over Dodd's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not even the marsupial lion, Bram,"
+grinned Dodd, undismayed. "Go ahead,
+go ahead, but I'll not die with a lie
+upon my lips!"</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Trail of Death</i></h3>
+
+<p>"There's sure some sort of hoodoo
+on these Antarctic expeditions,
+Wilson," said the city editor of
+<i>The Daily Record</i> to the star rewrite
+man. He glanced through the hastily
+typed report that had come through on
+the wireless set erected on the thirty-sixth
+story of the Record Building.
+"Tommy Travers gone, eh? And James
+Dodd, too! There'll be woe and wailing
+along the Great White Way to-night
+when this news gets out. They
+say that half the chorus girls in town
+considered themselves engaged to
+Tommy. Nice fellow, too! Always
+did like him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Queer, that curtain of fog that
+seems to lie on the actual site of the
+south pole," he continued, glancing
+over the report again. "So Storm thinks
+that Tommy crashed in it, and that
+it's a million to one against their ever
+finding his remains. What's this about
+beetles? Shells of enormous prehistoric
+beetles found by Tommy and
+Dodd! That'll make good copy, Wilson.
+Let's play that up. Hand it to
+Jones, and tell him to scare up a catching
+headline or two."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> beckoned to the boy who was
+hurrying toward his desk, a
+flimsy in his hand, glanced through it,
+and tossed it toward Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"What do they think this is, April
+Fool's Day?" he asked. "I'm surprised
+that the International Press should fall
+for such stuff as that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, to-morrow is the first of
+April!" exclaimed Wilson, tossing
+back the cable dispatch with a contemptuous
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it won't do the I. P. much
+good to play those tricks on their subscribers,"
+said the city editor testily.
+"I'm surprised, to say the least. I
+guess their Adelaide correspondent
+has gone off his head or something.
+Using poor Travers's name, too! Of
+course that fellow didn't know he was
+dead, but still...."</p>
+
+<p>That was how <i>The Daily Record</i>
+missed being the first to give out certain
+information that was to stagger
+the world. The dispatch, which had
+evidently outrun an earlier one, was as
+follows:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>ADELAIDE, South Australia,
+March 31.&mdash;Further telegraphic
+communications arriving almost
+continuously from Settler's Station,
+signed by Thomas Travers,
+member of Travers Antarctic Expedition,
+who claims to have penetrated
+earth's interior at south
+pole and to have come out near
+Victoria Desert. Travers states
+that swarm of prehistoric beetles,
+estimated at two trillion, and as
+large as men, with shells impenetrable
+by rifle bullets, now besieging
+Settler's Station, where he
+and Dodd and Haidia, woman of
+subterranean race whom they
+brought away, are shut up in telegraph
+office. Bram, former member
+of Greystoke Expedition, said
+to be in charge of swarm, with intention
+of obliterating human race.
+Every living thing at Settler's
+Station destroyed, and swarm moving
+south.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239">[239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a small-town paper a hundred
+miles from New York that took a
+chance on publishing this report from
+the International Press, in spite of
+frantic efforts on the parts of the head
+office to recall it after it had been
+transmitted. This paper published the
+account as an April Fool's Day joke,
+though later it took to itself the credit
+for having believed it. But by the time
+April Fool's Day dawned all the world
+knew that the account was, if anything,
+an under-estimate of the fearful
+things that were happening "down under."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was known now that the swarm
+of monsters had originated in the
+Great Victoria Desert, one of the worst
+stretches of desolation in the world,
+situated in the south-east corner of
+Western Australia. Their numbers
+were incalculable. Wimbush, the aviator,
+who was attempting to cross the
+continent from east to west, reported
+afterward that he had flown for four
+days, skirting the edge of the swarm,
+and that the whole of that time they
+were moving in the same direction, a
+thick cloud that left a trail of dense
+darkness on earth beneath them, like
+the path of an eclipse. Wimbush
+escaped them only because he had a
+ceiling of twenty thousand feet, to
+which apparently the beetles could not
+soar.</p>
+
+<p>And this swarm was only about one-fourth
+of the whole number of the
+monsters. This was the swarm that was
+moving westward, and subsequently totally
+destroyed all living things in
+Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Perth, and all
+the coastal cities of Western Australia.</p>
+
+<p>Ships were found drifting in the
+Indian Ocean, totally destitute of
+crews and passengers; not even their
+skeletons were found, and it was estimated
+that the voracious monsters had
+carried them away bodily, devoured
+them in the air, and dropped the remains
+into the water.</p>
+
+<p>All the world knows now how the
+sea elephant herd on Kerguelen Island
+was totally destroyed, and of the giant
+shells that were found lying everywhere
+on the deserted beaches, in positions
+that showed the monsters had
+in the end devoured one another.</p>
+
+<p>Mauritius was the most westerly
+point reached by a fraction of the
+swarm. A little over twenty thousand
+of the beetles reached that lovely
+island, by count of the shells afterward,
+and all the world knows now of the
+desperate and successful fight that the
+inhabitants waged against them. Men
+and women, boys and girls, blacks and
+whites, finding that the devils were invulnerable
+against rifle fire, sallied
+forth boldly with knives and choppers,
+and laid down a life for a life.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">On</span> the second day after their appearance,
+the main swarm, a trillion
+and a half strong, reached the line
+of the transcontinental railway, and
+moved eastward into South Australia,
+traveling, it was estimated, at the rate
+of two hundred miles an hour. By the
+next morning they were in Adelaide,
+a city of nearly a quarter of a million
+people. By nightfall every living thing
+in Adelaide and the suburbs had been
+eaten, except for a few who succeeded
+in hiding in walled-up cellars, or in the
+surrounding marshes.</p>
+
+<p>That night the swarm was on the borders
+of New South Wales and Victoria,
+and moving in two divisions toward
+Melbourne and Sydney.</p>
+
+<p>The northern half, it was quickly
+seen, was flying "wild," with no particular
+objective, moving in a solid cohort
+two hundred miles in length, and
+devouring game, stock, and humans indiscriminately.
+It was the southern
+division, numbering perhaps a trillion,
+that was under command of Bram, and
+aimed at destroying Melbourne as Adelaide
+had been destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Bram, with his eight beetle steeds,
+was by this time known and execrated
+throughout the world. He was pictured
+as Anti-Christ, and the fulfilment of
+the prophecies of the Rock of Revelations.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240">[240]</a></span>
+And all this while&mdash;or, rather, until
+the telegraph wires were cut&mdash;broken,
+it was discovered later, by perching
+beetles&mdash;Thomas Travers was sending
+out messages from his post at Settler's
+Station.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Soon</span> it was known that prodigious
+creatures were following in the
+wake of the devastating horde. Mantises,
+fifteen feet in height, winged
+things like pterodactyls, longer than
+bombing airplanes, followed, preying
+on the stragglers. But the main bodies
+never halted, and the inroads that the
+destroyers made on their numbers were
+insignificant.</p>
+
+<p>Before the swarm reached Adelaide
+the Commonwealth Government had
+taken action. Troops had been called
+out, and all the available airplanes in
+the country had been ordered to assemble
+at Broken Hill, New South
+Wales, a strategic point commanding
+the approaches to Sydney and Melbourne.
+Something like four hundred
+airplanes were assembled, with several
+batteries of anti-aircraft guns that had
+been used in the Great War. Every
+amateur aviator in Australia was on
+the spot, with machines ranging from
+tiny Moths to Handley-Pages&mdash;anything
+that could fly.</p>
+
+<p>Nocturnal though the beetles had
+been, they no longer feared the light of
+the sun. In fact, it was ascertained
+later that they were blind. An opacity
+had formed over the crystalline lens of
+the eye. Blind, they were no less formidable
+than with their sight. They
+existed only to devour, and their numbers
+made them irresistible, no matter
+which way they turned.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the vanguard of the dark
+cloud was sighted from Broken Hill,
+the airplanes went aloft. Four hundred
+planes, each armed with machine
+guns, dashed into the serried hosts,
+drumming out volleys of lead. In a
+long line, extending nearly to the limits
+of the beetle formation, thus giving
+each aviator all the room he needed,
+the planes gave battle.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> first terror that fell upon the
+airmen was the discovery that,
+even at close range, the machine gun
+bullets failed to penetrate the shells.
+The force of the impact whirled the
+beetles around, drove them together in
+bunches, sent them groping with weaving
+tentacles through the air&mdash;but that
+was all. On the main body of the invaders
+no impression was made whatever.</p>
+
+<p>The second terror was the realization
+that the swarm, driven down here and
+there from an altitude of several hundred
+feet, merely resumed their progress
+on the ground, in a succession of
+gigantic leaps. Within a few minutes,
+instead of presenting an inflexible barrier,
+the line of airplanes was badly
+broken, each plane surrounded by
+swarms of the monsters.</p>
+
+<p>Then Bram was seen. And that was
+the third terror, the sight of the famous
+beetle steeds, four pairs abreast, with
+Bram reclining like a Roman emperor
+upon the surface of the shells. It is
+true, Bram had no inclination to risk
+his own life in battle. At the first
+sight of the aviators he dodged into the
+thick of the swarm, where no bullet
+could reach him. Bram managed to
+transmit an order, and the beetles drew
+together.</p>
+
+<p>Some thought afterward that it was
+by thought transference he effected
+this maneuver, for instantly the beetles,
+which had hitherto flown in loose order,
+became a solid wall, a thousand feet in
+height, closing in on the planes. The
+propellers struck them and snapped
+short, and as the planes went weaving
+down, the hideous monsters leaped into
+the cockpits and began their abominable
+meal.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Not</span> a single plane came back.
+Planes and skeletons, and here
+and there a shell of a dead beetle, itself
+completely devoured, were all that was
+found afterward.</p>
+
+<p>The gunners stayed at their posts till
+the last moment, firing round after
+round of shell and shrapnel, with in<span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241">[241]</a></span>significant
+results. Their skeletons
+were found not twenty paces from
+their guns&mdash;where the Gunners' Monument
+now stands.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour after the flight had first
+been sighted the news was being radioed
+to Sydney, Melbourne, and all
+other Australian cities, advising instant
+flight to sea as the only chance
+of safety. That radio message was cut
+short&mdash;and men listened and shuddered.
+After that came the crowding
+aboard all craft in the harbors, the
+tragedies of the <i>Eustis</i>, the <i>All Australia</i>,
+the <i>Sepphoris</i>, sunk at their
+moorings. The innumerable sea tragedies.
+The horde of fugitives that
+landed in New Zealand. The reign of
+terror when the mob got out of hand,
+the burning of Melbourne, the sack of
+Sydney.</p>
+
+<p>And south and eastward, like a resistless
+flood, the beetle swarm came
+pouring. Well had Bram boasted that
+he would make the earth a desert!</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A hundred</span> miles of poisoned
+carcasses of sheep, extended outside
+Sydney's suburbs, gave the first
+promise of success. Long mounds of
+beetle shells testified to the results;
+moreover, the beetles that fed on the
+carcasses of their fellows, were in turn
+poisoned and died. But this was only
+a drop in the bucket. What counted
+was that the swift advance was slowing
+down. As if exhausted by their efforts,
+or else satiated with food, the beetles
+were doing what the soldiers did.</p>
+
+<p>They were digging in!</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-four miles from Sydney,
+eighteen outside Melbourne, the advance
+was stayed.</p>
+
+<p>Volunteers who went out from those
+cities reported that the beetles seemed
+to be resting in long trenches that they
+had excavated, so that only their shells
+appeared above ground. Trees were
+covered with clinging beetles, every
+wall, every house was invisible beneath
+the beetle armor.</p>
+
+<p>Australia had a respite. Perhaps
+only for a night or day, but still time
+to draw breath, time to consider, time
+for the shiploads of fugitives to get
+farther from the continent that had become
+a shambles.</p>
+
+<p>And then the cry went up, not only
+from Australia, but from all the world,
+"Get Travers!"</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X<br />
+<br />
+<i>At Bay</i></h3>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Bram</span> put his fingers to his mouth
+and whistled, a shrill whistle, yet
+audible to Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia.
+Instantly three pairs of beetles appeared
+out of the throng. Their tentacles
+went out, and the two men and
+the girl found themselves hoisted separately
+upon the backs of the pairs. Next
+moment they were flying side by side,
+high in the air above the surrounding
+swarm.</p>
+
+<p>They could see one another, but it
+was impossible for them to make their
+voices heard above the rasping of the
+beetles' legs. Hours went by, while the
+moon crossed the sky and dipped toward
+the horizon. Tommy knew that
+the moon would set about the hour of
+dawn. And the stars were already beginning
+to pale when he saw a line of
+telegraph poles, then two lines of shining
+metals, then a small settlement of
+stone and brick houses.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy was not familiar with the geography
+of Australia, but he knew this
+must be the transcontinental line.</p>
+
+<p>Whirling onward, the cloud of beetles
+suddenly swooped downward. For
+a moment Tommy could see the frightened
+occupants of the settlement
+crowding into the single street, then
+he shuddered with sick horror as he
+saw them obliterated by the swarm.</p>
+
+<p>There was no struggle, no attempt at
+flight or resistance. One moment those
+forty-odd men were there&mdash;the next
+minute they existed no longer. There
+was nothing but a swarm of beetles,
+walking about like men with shells
+upon their backs.</p>
+
+<p>And now Tommy saw evidences of
+Bram's devilish control of the swarm.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242">[242]</a></span>
+For out of the cloud dropped what
+seemed to be a phalanx of beetle
+guards, the military police of beetledom,
+and, lashing fiercely with their
+tentacles, they drove back all the
+swarm that sought to join their companions
+in their ghoulish feast. There
+was just so much food and no more;
+the rest must seek theirs further.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">But</span> even beetles, it may be presumed,
+are not entirely under
+discipline at all times. The pair of
+beetles that bore Tommy, suddenly
+swooped apart, ten or a dozen feet from
+the ground, and dashed into the thick
+of the struggling, frenzied mass, flinging
+their rider to earth.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy struck the soft sand, sat up,
+half dazed, saw his shell lying a few
+feet away from him, and retrieved it
+just as a couple of the monsters came
+swooping down at him.</p>
+
+<p>He looked about him. Not far away
+stood Dodd and Haidia, with their
+shells on their backs. They recognized
+Tommy and ran toward him.</p>
+
+<p>Not more than twenty yards away
+stood the railroad station, with several
+crates of goods on the platform. Next
+to it was a substantial house of stone,
+with the front door open.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy pointed to it, and Dodd understood
+and shouted something that
+was lost in the furious buzz of the beetles'
+wings as they devoured their prey.
+The three raced for the entrance,
+gained it unmolested, and closed the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>There was a key in the door, and it
+was light enough for them to see a
+chain, which Dodd pulled into position.
+There was only one story, and there
+were three rooms, apparently, with the
+kitchen. Tommy rushed to the kitchen
+door, locked it, too, and, with almost
+<ins class="correction" title="Standardized from superhuman">super-human</ins> efforts, dragged the large
+iron stove against it. He rushed to the
+window, but it was a mere loophole,
+not large enough to admit a child.
+Nevertheless, he stood the heavy table
+on end so that it covered it. Then he
+ran back.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dodd</span> had already barricaded the
+window of the larger room, which
+was a bed-sitting room, with a heavy
+wardrobe, and the wooden bedstead,
+jamming the two pieces sidewise
+against the wall, so that they could not
+be forced apart without being demolished.
+He was now busy in the smaller
+room, which seemed to be the station-master's
+office, dragging an iron safe
+across the floor. But the window was
+criss-crossed with iron bars, and it was
+evident that the safe, which was
+locked, contained at times considerable
+money, for the window could hardly
+have been forced save by a charge of
+nitro-glycerine or dynamite. However,
+it was against the door that Dodd
+placed the safe, and he stood back,
+panting.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Haidia. "That will hold
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at her doubtfully.
+Did Haidia know what she was
+talking about?</p>
+
+<p>The sun had risen. A long shaft shot
+into the room. Outside the beetles were
+still buzzing as they turned over the
+vestiges of their prey. There were as
+yet no signs of attack. Suddenly Tommy
+grasped Dodd's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" he shouted, pointing to a
+corner which had been in gloom a moment
+before.</p>
+
+<p>There was a table there, and on it a
+telegraphic instrument. Telegraphy
+had been one of Tommy's hobbies in
+boyhood. In a moment he was busy at
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>Dot-dash-dot-dash! Then suddenly
+outside a furious hum, and the
+impact of beetle bodies against the
+front door.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Tommy</span> got up, grinning. That
+was the first, interrupted message
+from Tommy that was received.</p>
+
+<p>Through the barred window the three
+could see the furious efforts of the beetles
+to force an entrance. But the very
+tensile strength of the beetle-shells,
+which rendered them impervious to
+bullets, required a laminate construc<span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243">[243]</a></span>tion
+which rendered them powerless
+against brick or stone.</p>
+
+<p>Desperately the swarm dashed itself
+against the walls, until the ground outside
+was piled high with stunned beetles.
+Not the faintest impression was
+made on the defenses.</p>
+
+<p>"Watch them, Jim," said Tom. "I'll
+go see if the rear's secure."</p>
+
+<p>That thought of his seemed to have
+been anticipated by the beetles, for as
+Tommy reached the kitchen the swarm
+came dashing against door and window,
+always recoiling. Tommy came back,
+grinning all over his face.</p>
+
+<p>"You were right, Haidia," he said.
+"We've held them all right, and the
+tables are turned on Bram. Also I got
+a message through, I think," he added
+to Dodd.</p>
+
+<p>Dash&mdash;dot&mdash;dash&mdash;dot from the instrument.
+Tommy ran to the table
+again. Dash&mdash;dot went back. For five
+minutes Tommy labored, while the beetles
+hammered now on one door, now
+on another, now on the windows. Then
+Tommy got up.</p>
+
+<p>"It was some station down the line,"
+he said. "I've told them, and they're
+sending a man up here to replace the
+telegraphist, also a couple of cops.
+They think I'm crazy. I told them
+again. That's the best I could do."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">D</span><span class="dcap">odd!</span> Travers! For the last
+time&mdash;let's talk!"</p>
+
+<p>The cloud of beetles seemed to have
+thinned, for the sun was shining into
+the room. Bram's voice was perfectly
+audible, though he himself was invisible;
+probably he thought it likely
+that the defenders had obtained firearms.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to say to you, Bram," called
+Dodd. "We've finished our discussion
+on the monotremes."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you fellows to stand in with
+me," came Bram's plaintive tones. "It's
+so lonesome all by one's self, Dodd."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you're beginning to find that
+out, are you?" Dodd could not resist
+answering. "You'll be lonelier yet before
+you're through."</p>
+
+<p>"Dodd, I didn't bring that swarm up
+here. I swear it. I've been trying to
+control them from the beginning. I
+saw what was coming. I believe I can
+avert this horror, drive them into the
+sea or something like that. Don't make
+me desperate, Dodd.</p>
+
+<p>"And listen, old man. About those
+monotremes&mdash;sensible men don't quarrel
+over things like that. Why can't
+we agree to differ?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, now you're talking, Bram,"
+Dodd answered. "Only you're too late.
+After what's happened here to-day,
+we'll have no truck with you. That's
+final."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn you," shrieked Bram. "I'll
+batter down this house. I'll&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do nothing, Bram, because
+you can't," Dodd answered. "Travers
+has wired full information about your
+devil-horde, and likewise about you,
+and all Australia will be prepared to
+give you a warm reception when you
+arrive."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I'm invincible," Bram
+screamed. "In three days Australia
+will be a ruin, a depopulated desert.
+In a week, all southern Asia, in three
+weeks Europe, in two months America."</p>
+
+<p>"You've been taking too many of
+those pellets, Bram," Dodd answered.
+"Stand back now! Stand back, wherever
+you are, or I'll open the door and
+throw the slops over you."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Bram</span>'s screech rose high above
+the droning of the wings. In another
+moment the interior of the room
+had grown as black as night. The rattle
+of the beetle shells against the four
+walls of the house was like the clattering
+of stage thunder.</p>
+
+<p>All through the darkness Dodd could
+hear the unhurried clicking of the key.</p>
+
+<p>At last the rattling ceased. The sun
+shone in again. The ground all around
+the house was packed with fallen beetles,
+six feet high, a writhing mass that
+creaked and clattered as it strove to disengage
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>Bram's voice once more: "I'm leav<span class="pagenum"><a id="page244" name="page244">[244]</a></span>ing
+a guard, Dodd. They'll get you if
+you try to leave. But they won't eat
+you. I'm going to have you three
+sliced into little pieces, the Thousand
+Deaths of the Chinese. The beetles
+will eat the parts that are sliced away&mdash;and
+you'll live to watch them. I'll be
+back with a stick or two of dynamite
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, but listen, Bram," Dodd sang
+out. "Listen, you old marsupial tiger.
+When those pipe dreams clear away,
+I'm going to build a gallows of beetle-shells
+reaching to the moon, to hang
+you on!"</p>
+
+<p>Bram's screech of madness died
+away. The strident rasping of the beetles'
+legs began again. For hours the
+three heard it; it was not until nightfall
+that it died away.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Bram</span> had made good his threat,
+for all around the house, extending
+as far as they could see, was the
+host of beetle-guards. To venture out,
+even with their shells about them, was
+clearly a hazardous undertaking. There
+was neither food nor water in the place.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll just have to hold out," said
+Dodd, breaking one of the long periods
+of silence.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy did not answer; he did not
+hear him, for he was busy at the key.
+Suddenly he leaped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"God, Jimmy," he cried, "that devil's
+making good his threat! The swarm's
+in South Australia, destroying every
+living thing, wiping out whole towns
+and villages! And they&mdash;they believe
+me now!"</p>
+
+<p>He sank into a chair. For the first
+time the strain of the awful past
+seemed to grip him. Haidia came to
+his side.</p>
+
+<p>"The beetles are finish," she said in
+her soft voice.</p>
+
+<p>"How d'you know, Haidia?" demanded Dodd.</p>
+
+<p>"The beetles are finish," Haidia repeated
+quietly, and that was all that
+Dodd could get out of her. But again
+the key began to click, and Tommy
+staggered to the table. Dot&mdash;dash&mdash;dash&mdash;dot.
+Presently he looked up once more.</p>
+
+<p>"The swarm's <ins class="correction" title="Standardized from half-way">halfway</ins> to Adelaide,"
+he said. "They want to know if I can
+help them. Help them!" He burst
+into hysterical laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening he came back after
+an hour at the key. "Line must be
+broken," he said. "I'm getting nothing."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">In</span> the moonlight they could see the
+huge compound eyes of the beetle
+guards glittering like enormous diamonds
+outside. They had not been
+conscious of thirst during the day, but
+now, with the coming of the cool night
+their desire for water became paramount.</p>
+
+<p>"Tommy, there must be water in the
+station," <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'and'">said</ins> Dodd. "I'm going to get
+a pitcher from the kitchen and risk it,
+Tommy. Take care of Haidia if&mdash;" he
+added.</p>
+
+<p>But Haidia laid her hand upon his
+arm. "Do not go, Jimmydodd," she
+said. "We can be thirsty to-night, and
+to-morrow the beetles will be finish."</p>
+
+<p>"How d'you know?" asked Dodd
+again. But now he realized that
+Haidia had never learned the significance
+of an interrogation. She only repeated
+her statement, and again the
+two men had to remain content.</p>
+
+<p>The long night passed. Outside the
+many facets of the beetle eyes. Inside
+the two men, desperate with anxiety,
+not for themselves, but for the fate of
+the world, snatching a few moments'
+sleep from time to time, then looking
+up to see those glaring eyes from the
+silent watchers.</p>
+
+<p>Then dawn came stealing over the
+desert, and the two shook themselves
+free from sleep. And now the eyes
+were gone.</p>
+
+<p>But there was immense activity
+among the beetles. They were scurrying
+to and fro, and, as they watched,
+Dodd and Tommy began to see some
+significance in their movements.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they're digging trenches!"
+Tommy shouted. "That's horrible,
+Jimmy! Are they intending to con<span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245">[245]</a></span>duct
+sapping operations against us
+like engineers, or what?"</p>
+
+<p>Dodd did not reply, and Tommy
+hardly expected any answer. As the
+two men, now joined by Haidia,
+watched, they saw that the beetles
+were actually digging themselves into
+the sand.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Within</span> the space of an hour,
+by the time the first shafts of
+sunlight began to stream into the
+room, there was to be seen only the
+massive, rounded shells of the monsters
+as they squatted in the sand.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you may fetch water," said
+Haidia, smiling at her lover. "No, you
+do not need the shells," she added.
+"The beetles are finish. It is as the wise
+men of my people told me."</p>
+
+<p>Wondering, hesitating, Tommy and
+Dodd unlocked the front door. They
+stood upon the threshold ready to bolt
+back again. But there was no stirring
+among the beetle hosts.</p>
+
+<p>Growing bolder, they advanced a few
+steps; then, shamed by Haidia's courage,
+they followed her, still cautiously
+to the station.</p>
+
+<p>Dodd shouted as he saw a water-tank,
+and a receptacle above it with a
+water-cock. They let Haidia drink,
+then followed suit, and for a few moments,
+as they appeased their thirst,
+the beetles were forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Then they turned back. There had
+been no movement in that line of shells
+that glinted in the morning sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, I shall show you," said
+Haidia confidently, advancing toward
+the trench.</p>
+
+<p>Dodd would have stopped her, but
+the girl moved forward quickly, eluded
+him with a graceful, mirthful gesture,
+and stooped down over the trench.</p>
+
+<p>She rose up, raising in her arms an
+empty beetle-shell!</p>
+
+<p>Dodd, who had reached the trench
+before Tommy, turned round and
+yelled to him excitedly. Tommy ran
+forward&mdash;and then he understood.</p>
+
+<p>The shells were empty. The swarm,
+whose life cycle Bram had admitted he
+did not understand, had just moulted!</p>
+
+<p>It had moulted because the bodies,
+gorged with food, had grown too large
+for the shells. In time, if left alone,
+the monsters would grow larger shells,
+become invincible again. But just now
+they were defenseless as new-born
+babes&mdash;and knew it.</p>
+
+<p>Deep underneath the empty shells
+they had burrowed into the ground.
+Everywhere at the bottom of the deep
+trenches were the naked, bestial creatures,
+waving helpless tentacles and
+squirming over one another as they
+strove to find shelter and security.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden madness came over Tommy
+and Dodd. "Dynamite&mdash;there must
+be dynamite!" Dodd shouted, as he ran
+back to the station.</p>
+
+<p>"Something better than dynamite,"
+shouted Tommy, holding up one of a
+score of drums of petrol!</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI<br />
+<br />
+<i>The World Set Free</i></h3>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">They</span> waited two days at Settler's
+Station. To push along the line
+into the desert would have been useless,
+and both men were convinced that
+an airplane would arrive for them. But
+it was not until the second afternoon
+that the aviator arrived, half-dead with
+thirst and fatigue, and almost incoherent.</p>
+
+<p>His was the last plane on the Australian
+continent. He brought the news
+of the destruction of Adelaide, and of
+the siege of Melbourne and Sydney,
+as he termed it. He told Dodd and
+Tommy that the two cities had been
+surrounded with trenches and barbed
+wire. Machine guns and artillery were
+bombarding the trenches in which the
+beetles had taken shelter.</p>
+
+<p>"Has any one been out on reconnaissance?"
+asked Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody had been permitted to pass
+through the barbed wire, though there
+had been volunteers. It meant certain
+death. But, unless the beetles were
+sapping deep in the ground, what their
+purpose was, nobody knew.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" name="page246">[246]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Tommy</span> and Dodd led him to the
+piles of smoking, stinking d&eacute;bris
+and told him.</p>
+
+<p>That was where the aviator fainted
+from sheer relief.</p>
+
+<p>"The Commonwealth wants you to
+take supreme command against the
+beetles," he told Tommy, when he had
+recovered. "I'm to bring you back.
+Not that they expect me back. But&mdash;God,
+what a piece of news! Forgive
+my swearing&mdash;I used to be a parson.
+Still am, for the matter of that."</p>
+
+<p>"How are you going to bring us
+three back in your plane?" asked
+Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay here with Jimmydodd,"
+said Haidia suavely. "There is not the
+least danger any more. You must destroy
+the beetles before their shells
+have grown again, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Used to be a parson, you say? Still
+are?" shouted Dodd excitedly. "Thank
+God! I mean, I'm glad to hear it.
+Come inside, and come quick. I want
+you too, Tommy!"</p>
+
+<p>Then Tommy understood. And it
+seemed as if Haidia understood, by
+some instinct that belongs exclusively
+to women, for her cheeks were flushed
+as she turned and smiled into Dodd's
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later Tommy hopped
+into the biplane, leaving the happy
+married couple at Settler's Station.
+His eyes grew misty as the plane took
+the air, and he saw them waving to
+him from the ground. Dodd and
+Haidia and he had been through so
+many adventures, and had reached
+safety. He must not fail.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">He</span> did not fail. He found himself
+at Sydney in command of thirty
+thousand men, all enthusiastic for the
+fight for the human race, soldiers and
+volunteers ready to fight until they
+dropped. When the news of the situation
+was made public, an immense
+wave of hope ran through the world.</p>
+
+<p>National differences were forgotten,
+color and creed and race grew more
+tolerant of one another. A new day
+had dawned&mdash;the day of humanity's
+true liberation.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy's first act was to call out the
+fire companies and have the beetles'
+trenches saturated with petrol from
+the fire hoses. Then incendiary bullets,
+shot from guns from a safe distance,
+quickly converted them into blazing
+infernos.</p>
+
+<p>But even so only a tithe of the beetle
+army had been destroyed. Two hundred
+planes had already been rushed
+from New Zealand, and their aviators
+went up and scoured the country far
+and wide. Everywhere they found
+trenches, and, where the soil was
+stony, millions of the beetles clustered
+helplessly beneath great mounds of
+discarded shells.</p>
+
+<p>An army of black trackers had been
+brought in planes from all parts of the
+country, and they searched out the
+beetle masses everywhere along the
+course that the invaders had taken.
+Then incendiary bombs were dropped
+from above.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Day</span> after day the beetle massacre
+went on. By the end of a week
+the survivors of the invasion began to
+take heart again. It was certain that
+the greater portion of the horde had
+been destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>There was only one thing lacking.
+No trace of Bram had been seen since
+his appearance at the head of his
+beetle army in front of Broken Hill.
+And louder and more insistent grew
+the world clamor that he should be
+found, and put to death in some way
+more horrible than any yet devised.</p>
+
+<p>The ingenuity of a million minds
+worked upon this problem. Newspapers
+all over the world offered prizes
+for the most suitable form of death.
+Ingenious Oriental tortures were rediscovered.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing lacking was Bram.</p>
+
+<p>A spy craze ran through Australia.
+Five hundred Brams were found, and
+all of them were in imminent danger
+of death before they were able to prove
+an alias.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247">[247]</a></span>
+And, oddly enough, it was Tommy
+and Dodd who found Bram. For Dodd
+had been brought back east, together
+with his bride, and given an important
+command in the Army of Extermination.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dodd</span> had joined Tommy not far
+from Broken Hill, where a swarm
+of a hundred thousand beetles had
+been found in a little known valley.
+The monsters had begun to grow new
+shells, and the news had excited a
+fresh wave of apprehension. The airplanes
+had concentrated for an attack
+upon them, and Tommy and Dodd were
+riding together, Tommy at the controls,
+and Dodd observing.</p>
+
+<p>Dodd called through the tube to
+Tommy, and indicated a mass that was
+moving through the scrub&mdash;some fifty
+thousand beetles, executing short hops
+and evidently regaining some vitality.
+Tommy nodded.</p>
+
+<p>He signalled, and the fleet of planes
+circled around and began to drop their
+incendiary bombs. Within a few minutes
+the beetles were ringed with a
+wall of fire. Presently the whole terrain
+was a blazing furnace.</p>
+
+<p>Hours later, when the fires had died
+away, Tommy and Dodd went down to
+look at the destruction that had been
+wrought. The scene was horrible.
+Great masses of charred flesh and shell
+were piled up everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess that's been a pretty thorough
+job," said Tommy. "Let's get
+back, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" cried Dodd, pointing.
+Then, "My God, Tommy, it's one of
+our men!"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">It</span> was a man, but it was not one of
+their men, that creeping, maimed,
+half-cinder and half-human thing that
+was trying to crawl into the hollow of
+a rock. It was Bram, and recognition
+was mutual.</p>
+
+<p>Bram dropping, moaning; he was
+only the shell of a man, and it was incredible
+how he had managed to survive
+that ordeal of fire. The remainder
+of his life, which only his indomitable
+will had held in that shattered body,
+was evidently a matter of minutes, but
+he looked up at Dodd and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"So&mdash;you're&mdash;here, damn you!" he
+snarled. "And&mdash;you think&mdash;you've
+won. I've&mdash;another card&mdash;another invasion
+of the world&mdash;beside which this
+is child's play. It's an invasion&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bram was going, but he pulled himself
+together with a supreme effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Invasion by&mdash;new species of&mdash;monotremes,"
+he croaked. "Deep down in&mdash;earth.
+Was saving to&mdash;prove you the
+liar you are. Monotremes&mdash;egg-laying
+platypus big as an elephant&mdash;existent
+long before pleistocene epoch&mdash;make
+you recant, you lying fool!"</p>
+
+<p>Bram died, an outburst of bitter
+laughter on his lips. Dodd stood silent
+for a while; then reverently he removed
+his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a madman and a devil, but
+he had the potentialities of a god,
+Tommy," he said.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adbox"><b>SUCH WELL-KNOW WRITERS AS</b><br />
+<br />
+Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings,<br />
+Victor Rousseau, R. F. Starzl, A. T. Locke,<br />
+Capt. S. P. Meek and Arthur J. Burks<br />
+<br />
+Write for<br />
+<br />
+<span class="muchlarger"><b>ASTOUNDING STORIES</b></span>
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248">[248]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="Mad_Music" id="Mad_Music"></a>Mad Music</h2>
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Anthony Pelcher</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/248.png" width="400" height="456" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">In an inner room they found
+a diabolical machine.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">To</span> the accompaniment of a
+crashing roar, not unlike rumbling
+thunder, the proud Colossus
+Building, which a few minutes
+before had reared its sixty stories
+of artistic architecture
+towards
+the blue dome of
+the sky, crashed
+in a rugged, dusty
+heap of stone,
+brick, cement and mortar. The steel
+framework, like the skeleton of some
+prehistoric monster, still reared to
+dizzy heights but in a bent and twisted
+shape of grotesque outline.</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">The sixty stories of the perfectly constructed
+Colossus building had mysteriously
+crashed! What was the connection
+between this catastrophe and the weird
+strains of the Mad Musician's violin?</p>
+
+<p>No one knew
+how many lives
+were snuffed out
+in the avalanche.</p>
+
+<p>As the collapse
+occurred in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249">[249]</a></span>
+early dawn it was not believed the
+death list would be large. It was admitted,
+however, that autos, cabs and
+surface cars may have been caught under
+the falling rock. One train was
+known to have been wrecked in the
+subway due to a cave-in from the surface
+under the ragged mountain of
+debris.</p>
+
+<p>The litter fairly filled a part of
+Times Square, the most congested
+cross-roads on God's footstool. Straggling
+brick and rock had rolled across
+the street to the west and had crashed
+into windows and doors of innocent
+small tradesmen's shops.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after the crash a mad
+crowd of people had piled from subway
+exits as far away as Penn Station and
+Columbus Circle and from cross streets.
+These milled about, gesticulating and
+shouting hysterically. All neighboring
+police stations were hard put to handle
+the growing mob.</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of dead and maimed were
+being carried to the surface from the
+wrecked train in the subway. Trucks
+and cabs joined the ambulance crews
+in the work of transporting these to
+morgues and hospitals. As the morning
+grew older and the news of the
+disaster spread, more milling thousands
+tried to crowd into the square. Many
+were craning necks hopelessly on the
+outskirts of the throng, blocks away,
+trying vainly to get a view of what
+lay beyond.</p>
+
+<p>The fire department and finally several
+companies of militia joined the police
+in handling the crowd. Newsies,
+never asleep, yowled their "Wuxtras"
+and made much small money.</p>
+
+<p>The newspapers devoted solid pages
+in attempting to describe what had happened.
+Nervously, efficient reporters
+had written and written, using all their
+best adjectives and inventing new ones
+in attempts to picture the crash and the
+hysterics which followed.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">When</span> the excitement was at its
+height a middle-aged man,
+bleeding at the head, clothes torn and
+dusty, staggered into the West 47th
+street police station. He found a lone
+sergeant at the desk.</p>
+
+<p>The police sergeant jumped to his
+feet as the bedraggled man entered and
+stumbled to a bench.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Pat Brennan, street floor watchman
+of the Colossus," he said. "I ran
+for it. I got caught in the edge of the
+wreck and a brick clipped me. I musta
+been out for some time. When I came
+around I looked back just once at the
+wreck and then I beat it over here.
+Phone my boss."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll let you phone your boss," said
+the sergeant, "but first tell me just what
+happened."</p>
+
+<p>"Earthquake, I guess. I saw the floor
+heaving in waves. Glass was crashing
+and falling into the street. All windows
+in the arcade buckled, either in
+or out. I ran into the street and looked
+up. God, what a sight! The building
+from sidewalk to towers was rocking
+and waving and twisting and buckling
+and I saw it was bound to crumple, so
+I lit out and ran. I heard a roar like
+all Hell broke loose and then something
+nicked me and my light went out."</p>
+
+<p>"How many got caught in the building?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody got out but me, I guess.
+There weren't many tenants. The
+building is all rented, but not everybody
+had moved in yet and those as had
+didn't spend their nights there. There
+was a watchman for every five stories.
+An engineer and his crew. Three elevator
+operators had come in. There
+was no names of tenants in or out on
+my book after 4 A.M. The crash musta
+come about 6. That's all."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Throughout</span> the country the
+news of the crash was received
+with great interest and wonderment,
+but in one small circle it caused absolute
+consternation. That was in the
+offices of the Muller Construction Company,
+the builders of the Colossus.
+Jason V. Linane, chief engineer of the
+company, was in conference with its
+president, James J. Muller.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250">[250]</a></span>
+Muller sat with his head in his hands,
+and his face wore an expression of a
+man in absolute anguish. Linane was
+pacing the floor, a wild expression in
+his eyes, and at times he muttered and
+mumbled under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>In the other offices the entire force
+from manager to office boys was hushed
+and awed, for they had seen the expressions
+on the faces of the heads of
+the concern when they stalked into the
+inner office that morning.</p>
+
+<p>Muller finally looked up, rather hopelessly,
+at Linane.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless we can prove that the crash
+was due to some circumstance over
+which we had no control, we are
+ruined," he said, and there actually
+were tears in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt about that," agreed Linane,
+"but I can swear that the Colossus
+went up according to specifications and
+that every ounce and splinter of material
+was of the best. The workmanship
+was faultless. We have built scores of
+the biggest blocks in the world and of
+them all this Colossus was the most
+perfect. I had prided myself on it.
+Muller, it was perfection. I simply
+cannot account for it. I cannot. It
+should have stood up for thousands
+of years. The foundation was solid
+rock. It positively was not an earthquake.
+No other building in the section
+was even jarred. No other earthquake
+was ever localized to one half
+block of the earth's crust, and we can
+positively eliminate an earthquake or
+an explosion as the possible cause. I
+am sure we are not to blame, but we
+will have to find the exact cause."</p>
+
+<p>"If there was some flaw?" questioned
+Muller, although he knew the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"If there was some flaw, then we're
+sunk. The newspapers are already
+clamoring for probes, of us, of the
+building, of the owners and everybody
+and everything. We have got to have
+something damned plausible when we
+go to bat on this proposition or every
+dollar we have in the world will have
+to be paid out."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not all," said Muller: "not
+only will we be penniless, but we may
+have to go to jail and we will never
+be able to show our faces in reputable
+business circles again. Who was the
+last to go over that building?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sent Teddy Jenks. He is a cub
+and is swell headed and too big for his
+pants, but I would bank my life on
+his judgment. He has the judgment of
+a much older man and I would also
+bank my life and reputation on his engineering
+skill and knowledge. He
+pronounced the building positively
+O.K.&mdash;100 per cent."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Jenks?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will be here as soon as his car
+can drive down from Tarrytown. He
+should be here now."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">As</span> they talked Jenks, the youngest
+member of the engineering force,
+entered. He entered like a whirlwind.
+He threw his hat on the floor and drew
+out a drawer of a cabinet. He pulled
+out the plans for the Colossus, big
+blue prints, some of them yards in extent,
+and threw them on the floor. Then
+he dropped to his knees and began poring
+over them.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a hell of a time for you to
+begin getting around," exploded Muller.
+"What were you doing, cabareting
+all night?"</p>
+
+<p>"It sure is terrible&mdash;awful," said
+Jenks, half to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer me," thundered Muller.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," said Jenks, looking up.
+He saw the look of anguish on his
+boss's face and forgot his own excitement
+in sympathy. He jumped to his
+feet, placed his arm about the shoulders
+of the older man and led him to a chair.
+Linane only scowled at the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"I was delayed because I stopped by
+to see the wreck. My God, Mr. Muller,
+it is awful." Jenks drew his hand
+across his eye as if to erase the scene
+of the wrecked building. Then patting
+the older man affectionately on the
+back he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Buck up. I'm on the job, as usual.
+I'll find out about it. It could not have
+been our fault. Why man, that build<span class="pagenum"><a id="page251" name="page251">[251]</a></span>ing
+was as strong as Gibraltar itself!"</p>
+
+<p>"You were the last to inspect it,"
+accused Muller, with a break in his
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows that better than I,
+and I can swear by all that's square
+and honest that it was no fault of the
+material or the construction. It must
+have been&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be damned if I know."</p>
+
+<p>"That's like him," said Linane, who,
+while really kindly intentioned, had always
+rather enjoyed prodding the
+young engineer.</p>
+
+<p>"Like me, like the devil," shouted
+Jenks, glaring at Linane. "I suppose
+you know all about it, you're so blamed
+wise."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't know," admitted Linane.
+"But I do know that you don't like me
+to tell you anything. Nevertheless, I
+am going to tell you that you had better
+get busy and find out what caused
+it, or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I'm doing," said
+Jenks, and he dived for his plans on
+the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Newspaper reporters, many of them,
+were fighting outside to get in. Muller
+looked at Linane when a stenographer
+had announced the reporters for the
+tenth time.</p>
+
+<p>"We had better let them in," he said,
+"it looks bad to crawl for cover."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to tell them?"
+asked Linane.</p>
+
+<p>"God only knows," said Muller.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me handle them," said Jenks,
+looking up confidently.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> newspapermen had rushed the
+office. They came in like a wild
+wave. Questions flew like feathers at
+a cock-fight.</p>
+
+<p>Muller held up his hand and there
+was something in his grief-stricken
+eyes that held the gentlemen of the
+press in silence. They had time to
+look around. They saw the handsome,
+dark-haired, brown-eyed Jenks poring
+over the plans. Dust from the carpet
+smudged his knees, and he had rubbed
+some of it over a sweating forehead,
+but he still looked the picture of self-confident
+efficiency.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said Muller slowly, "I
+can answer all your questions at once.
+Our firm is one of the oldest and
+staunchest in the trade. Our buildings
+stand as monuments to our integrity&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All but one," said a young Irishman.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right. All but one," confessed
+Muller. "But that one, believe
+me, has been visited by an act of God.
+Some form of earthquake or some unlooked
+for, uncontrolled, almost unbelievable
+catastrophe has happened.
+The Muller company stands back of
+its work to its last dollar. Gentlemen,
+you know as much as we do. Mr. Jenks
+there, whose reputation as an engineer
+is quite sturdy, I assure you, was the
+last to inspect the building. He passed
+upon it when it was finished. He is at
+your service."</p>
+
+<p>Jenks arose, brushed some dust from
+his knees.</p>
+
+<p>"You look like you'd been praying,"
+bandied the Irishman.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe I have. Now let me talk.
+Don't broadside me with questions. I
+know what you want to know. Let me
+talk."</p>
+
+<p>The newspapermen were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"There has been talk of probing this
+disaster, naturally," began Jenks. "You
+all know, gentlemen, that we will aid
+any inquiry to our utmost. You want
+to know what we have to say about it&mdash;who
+is responsible. In a reasonable
+time I will have a statement to make
+that will be startling in the extreme.
+I am not sure of my ground now."</p>
+
+<p>"How about the ground under the
+Colossus?" said the Irishman.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let's kid each other," pleaded
+Jenks. "Look at Mr. Muller: it is as
+if he had lost his whole family. We
+are good people. I am doing all I can.
+Mr. Linane, who had charge of the construction,
+is doing all he can. We believe
+we are blameless. If it is proven
+otherwise we will acknowledge our
+fault, assume financial responsibility,
+and take our medicine. Believe me,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name="page252">[252]</a></span>
+that building was perfection plus, like
+all our buildings. That covers the entire
+situation."</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of questions were parried
+and answered by the three engineers,
+and the reporters left convinced that
+if the Muller Construction Company
+was responsible, it was not through
+any fault of its own.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> fact that Jenks and Linane
+were not strong for each other,
+except to recognize each other's ability
+as engineers, was due to an incident
+of the past. This incident had caused
+a ripple of mirth in engineering circles
+when it happened, and the laugh was
+on the older man, Linane.</p>
+
+<p>It was when radio was new. Linane,
+a structural engineer, had paid little
+attention to radio. Jenks was the kind
+of an engineer who dabbled in all sciences.
+He knew his radio.</p>
+
+<p>When Jenks first came to work with
+a technical sheepskin and a few tons
+of brass, Linane accorded him only
+passing notice. Jenks craved the plaudits
+of the older man and his palship.
+Linane treated him as a son, but did
+not warm to his social advances.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm as good an engineer as he is,"
+mused Jenks, "and if he is going to
+high-hat me, I'll just put a swift one
+over on him and compel his notice."</p>
+
+<p>The next day Jenks approached
+Linane in conference and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a curious bet on, Mr.
+Linane. I am betting sound can travel
+a mile quicker than it travels a quarter
+of a mile."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said Linane.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm betting fifty that sound can
+travel a mile quicker than it can travel
+a quarter of a mile."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no&mdash;it can't," insisted Linane.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes&mdash;it can!" decided Jenks.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take some of that fool money
+myself," said Linane.</p>
+
+<p>"How much?" asked Jenks.</p>
+
+<p>"As much as you want."</p>
+
+<p>"All right&mdash;five hundred dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"How you going to prove your contention?"</p>
+
+<p>"By stop watches, and your men can
+hold the watches. We'll bet that a
+pistol shot can be heard two miles away
+quicker than it can be heard a quarter
+of a mile away."</p>
+
+<p>"Sound travels about a fifth of a mile
+a second. The rate varies slightly according
+to temperature," explained
+Linane. "At the freezing point the
+rate is 1,090 feet per second and increases
+a little over one foot for every
+degree Fahrenheit."</p>
+
+<p>"Hot or cold," breezed Jenks, "I am
+betting you five hundred dollars that
+sound can travel two miles quicker than
+a quarter-mile."</p>
+
+<p>"You're on, you damned idiot!"
+shouted the completely exasperated
+Linane.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Jenks</span> let Linane's friends hold the
+watches and his friend held the
+money. Jenks was to fire the shot.</p>
+
+<p>Jenks fired the shot in front of a
+microphone on a football field. One of
+Linane's friends picked the sound up
+instantaneously on a three-tube radio
+set two miles away. The other watch
+holder was standing in the open a quarter
+of a mile away and his watch
+showed a second and a fraction.</p>
+
+<p>All hands agreed that Jenks had won
+the bet fairly. Linane never exactly
+liked Jenks after that.</p>
+
+<p>Then Jenks rather aggravated matters
+by a habit. Whenever Linane
+would make a very positive statement
+Jenks would look owl-eyed and say:
+"Mr. Linane, I'll have to sound you out
+about that." The heavy accent on the
+word "sound" nettled Linane somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>Linane never completely forgave
+Jenks for putting over this "fast one."
+Socially they were always more or less
+at loggerheads, but neither let this feeling
+interfere with their work. They
+worked together faithfully enough and
+each recognized the ability of the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was that Linane and Jenks,
+their heads together, worked all night
+in an attempt to find some cause that<span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" name="page253">[253]</a></span>
+would tie responsibility for the disaster
+on mother nature.</p>
+
+<p>They failed to find it and, sleepy-eyed,
+they were forced to admit failure,
+so far.</p>
+
+<p>The newspapers, to whom Muller had
+said that he would not shirk any responsibility,
+began a hue and cry for
+the arrest of all parties in any way concerned
+with the direction of the building
+of the Colossus.</p>
+
+<p>When the death list from the crash
+and subway wreck reached 97, the
+press waxed nasty and demanded the
+arrest of Muller, Linane and Jenks in
+no uncertain tones.</p>
+
+<p>Half dead from lack of sleep, the
+three men were taken by the police to
+the district attorney's offices and, after
+a strenuous grilling, were formally
+placed under arrest on charges of criminal
+negligence. They put up a $50,000
+bond in each case and were permitted
+to go and seek further to find the cause
+of what the newspapers now began calling
+the "Colossal Failure."</p>
+
+<p>Several days were spent by Linane
+and Jenks in examining the wreckage
+which was being removed from Times
+Square, truckload after truckload, to a
+point outside the city. Here it was
+again sorted and examined and piled
+for future disposal.</p>
+
+<p>So far as could be found every brick,
+stone and ounce of material used in the
+building was perfect. Attorneys, however,
+assured Linane, Jenks and Muller
+that they would have to find the real
+cause of the disaster if they were to
+escape possible long prison sentences.</p>
+
+<p>Night after night Jenks courted
+sleep, but it would not come. He began
+to grow wan and haggard.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Jenks</span> took to walking the streets
+at night, mile after mile, thinking,
+always thinking, and searching his
+mind for a solution of the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>It was evening. He had walked past
+the scene of the Colossus crash several
+times. He found himself on a side
+street. He looked up and saw in electric
+lights:</p>
+
+<p>
+TOWN HALL<br />
+<br />
+<i>Munsterbergen, the Mad Musician</i><br />
+Concert Here To-night.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He took five dollars from his pocket
+and bought a ticket. He entered with
+the crowd and was ushered to a seat.
+He looked neither to the right or left.
+His eyes were sunken, his face lined
+with worry.</p>
+
+<p>Something within Jenks caused him
+to turn slightly. He was curiously
+aware of a beautiful girl who sat beside
+him. She had a mass of golden hair
+which seemed to defy control. It was
+wild, positively tempestuous. Her eyes
+were deep blue and her skin as white
+as fleecy clouds in spring. He was
+dimly conscious that those glorious
+eyes were troubled.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at him. She was aware
+that he was suffering. A great surge
+of sympathy welled in her heart. She
+could not explain the feeling.</p>
+
+<p>A great red plush curtain parted in
+the center and drew in graceful folds
+to the edges of the proscenium. A
+small stage was revealed.</p>
+
+<p>A tousle-headed man with glaring,
+beady black eyes, dressed in black evening
+clothes stepped forward and bowed.
+Under his arm was a violin. He brought
+the violin forward. His nose, like the
+beak of some great bird, bobbed up and
+down in acknowledgment of the plaudits
+which greeted him. His long nervous
+fingers began to caress the instrument
+and his lips began to move.</p>
+
+<p>Jenks was aware that he was saying
+something, but was not at all interested.
+What he said was this:</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe, yes, I couldn't talk so good
+English, but you could understood it,
+yes? Und now I tell you dot I never
+play the compositions of any man. I
+axtemporize exgloosively. I chust
+blay und blay, und maybe you should
+listen, yes? If I bleeze you I am chust
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>Jenks' attention was drawn to him.
+He noted his wild appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"He sure looks mad enough," mused
+Jenks.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name="page254">[254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> violinist flipped the fiddle up
+under his chin. He drew the bow
+over the strings and began a gentle
+melody that reminded one of rain
+drops falling on calm waters.</p>
+
+<p>Jenks forgot his troubles. He forgot
+everything. He slumped in his seat
+and his eyes closed. The rain continued
+falling from the strings of the
+violin.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the melody changed to a
+glad little lilting measure, as sweet as
+love itself. The sun was coming out
+again and the birds began to sing.
+There was the trill of a canary with
+the sun on its cage. There was the
+song of the thrush, the mocking-bird
+and the meadow lark. These blended
+finally into a melodious burst of chirping
+melody which seemed a chorus of
+the wild birds of the forest and glen.
+Then the lilting love measure again.
+It tore at the heart strings, and brought
+tears to one's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Unconsciously the girl next to Jenks
+leaned towards him. Involuntarily he
+leaned to meet her. Their shoulders
+touched. The cloud of her golden hair
+came to rest against his dark locks.
+Their hands found each other with
+gentle pressure. Both were lost to the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly the music changed. There
+was a succession of broken treble notes
+that sounded like the crackling of
+flames. Moans deep and melancholy
+followed. These grew more strident
+and prolonged, giving place to abject
+howls, suggesting the lamentations of
+the damned.</p>
+
+<p>The hands of the boy and girl
+gripped tensely. They could not help
+shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>The violin began to produce notes of
+a leering, jeering character, growing
+more horrible with each measure until
+they burst in a loud guffaw of maniacal
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>The whole performance was as if
+someone had taken a heaven and
+plunged it into a hell.</p>
+
+<p>The musician bowed jerkily, and was
+gone.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">There</span> was no applause, only wild
+exclamations. Half the house was
+on its feet. The other half sat as if
+glued to chairs.</p>
+
+<p>The boy and the girl were standing,
+their hands still gripping tensely.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let's get out of here," said
+Jenks. The girl took her wrap and
+Jenks helped her into it. Hand in
+hand they fled the place.</p>
+
+<p>In the lobby their eyes met, and for
+the first time they realized they were
+strangers. Yet deep in their hearts
+was a feeling that their fates had been
+sealed.</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness!" burst from the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be helped now," said Jenks
+decisively.</p>
+
+<p>"What can't be helped?" asked the
+girl, although she knew in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing can be helped," said Jenks.
+Then he added: "We should know each
+other by this time. We have been
+holding hands for an hour."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's eyes flared. "You have no
+right to presume on that situation,"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>Jenks could have kicked himself.
+"Forgive me," he said. "It was only
+that I just wanted so to know you.
+Won't you let me see you home?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may," said the girl simply, and
+she led the way to her own car.</p>
+
+<p>They drove north.</p>
+
+<p>Their bodies seemed like magnets.
+They were again shoulder to shoulder,
+holding hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you tell me your name?"
+pleaded Jenks.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," replied the girl. "I am
+Elaine Linane."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" exploded Jenks. "Why, I
+work with a Linane, an engineer with
+the Muller Construction Company."</p>
+
+<p>"He is my father," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we are great friends," said
+the boy. "I am Jenks, his assistant&mdash;at
+least we work together."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have heard of you," said the
+girl. "It is strange, the way we met.
+My father admires your work, but I
+am afraid you are not great friends."
+The girl had forgotten her troubles.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255">[255]</a></span>
+She chuckled. She had heard the way
+Jenks had "sounded" her father out.</p>
+
+<p>Jenks was speechless. The girl continued:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether to like you or
+to hate you. My father is an old dear.
+You were cruel to him."</p>
+
+<p>Jenks was abject. "I did not mean
+to be," he said. "He rather belittled
+me without realizing it. I had to make
+my stand. The difference in our years
+made him take me rather too lightly.
+I had to compel his notice, if I was to
+advance."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry&mdash;so sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"You might not have been altogether
+at fault," said the girl. "Father forgets
+at times that I have grown up. I resent
+being treated like a child, but he
+is the soul of goodness and fatherly
+care."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," said Jenks.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Every</span> engineer knows his mathematics.
+It was this fact, coupled
+with what the world calls a "lucky
+break," that solved the Colossus mystery.
+Nobody can get around the fact
+that two and two make four.</p>
+
+<p>Jenks had happened on accomplishment
+to advance in the engineering profession,
+and it was well for him that he
+had reached a crisis. He had never believed
+in luck or in hunches, so it was
+good for him to be brought face to face
+with the fact that sometimes the footsteps
+of man are guided. It made him
+begin to look into the engineering of
+the universe, to think more deeply, and
+to acknowledge a Higher Power.</p>
+
+<p>With Linane he had butted into a
+stone wall. They were coming to
+know what real trouble meant. The
+fact that they were innocent did not
+make the steel bars of a cage any more
+attractive. Their troubles began to
+wrap about them with the clammy intimacy
+of a shroud. Then came the
+lucky break.</p>
+
+<p>Next to his troubles, Jenks' favorite
+topic was the Mad Musician. He tried
+to learn all he could about this uncanny
+character at whose concert he
+had met the girl of his life. He learned
+two facts that made him perk up and
+think.</p>
+
+<p>One was that the Mad Musician had
+had offices and a studio in the Colossus
+and was one of the first to move in.
+The other was that the Mad Musician
+took great delight in shattering glassware
+with notes of or vibrations from
+a violin. Nearly everyone knows that
+a glass tumbler can be shattered by the
+proper note sounded on a violin. The
+Mad Musician took delight in this
+trick. Jenks courted his acquaintance,
+and saw him shatter a row of glasses
+of different sizes by sounding different
+notes on his fiddle. The glasses
+crashed one after another like gelatine
+balls hit by the bullets of an expert
+rifleman.</p>
+
+<p>Then Jenks, the engineer who knew
+his mathematics, put two and two together.
+It made four, of course.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Linane," he said to his co-worker:
+"this fiddler is crazier than a
+flock of cuckoos. If he can crack
+crockery with violin sound vibrations,
+is it not possible, by carrying the vibrations
+to a much higher power, that
+he could crack a pile of stone, steel,
+brick and cement, like the Colossus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possible, but hardly probable. Still,"
+Linane mused, "when you think about
+it, and put two and two together....
+Let's go after him and see what he is
+doing now."</p>
+
+<p>Both jumped for their coats and hats.
+As they fared forth, Jenks cinched his
+argument:</p>
+
+<p>"If a madman takes delight in breaking
+glassware with a vibratory wave or
+vibration, how much more of a thrill
+would he get by crashing a mountain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wild, but unanswerable," said Linane.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Jenks</span> had been calling on the Mad
+Musician at his country place. "He
+had a studio in the Colossus," he reminded
+Linane. "He must have re-opened
+somewhere else in town. I
+wonder where."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name="page256">[256]</a></span>
+"Musicians are great union men,"
+said Linane. "Phone the union."</p>
+
+<p>Teddy Jenks did, but the union gave
+the last known town address as the
+Colossus.</p>
+
+<p>"He would remain in the same district
+around Times Square," reasoned
+Jenks. "Let's page out the big buildings
+and see if he is not preparing to
+crash another one."</p>
+
+<p>"Fair enough," said Linane, who was
+too busy with the problem at hand to
+choose his words.</p>
+
+<p>Together the engineers started a canvass
+of the big buildings in the theatrical
+district. After four or five had been
+searched without result they entered
+the 30-story Acme Theater building.</p>
+
+<p>Here they learned that the Mad
+Musician had leased a four-room suite
+just a few days before. This suite was
+on the fifteenth floor, just half way up
+in the big structure.</p>
+
+<p>They went to the manager of the
+building and frankly stated their suspicions.
+"We want to enter that suite
+when the tenant is not there," they explained,
+"and we want him forestalled
+from entering while we are examining
+the premises."</p>
+
+<p>"Hadn't we better notify the police?"
+asked the building manager, who had
+broken out in a sweat when he heard
+the dire disaster which might be in
+store for the stately Acme building.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," said Linane. "You see,
+we are not sure: we have just been
+putting two and two together."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get the building detective,
+anyway," insisted the manager.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him come along, but do not let
+him know until we are sure. If we are
+right we will find a most unusual infernal
+machine," said Linane.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> three men entered the suite
+with a pass-key. The detective
+was left outside in the hall to halt
+anyone who might disturb the searchers.
+It was as Jenks had thought. In
+an inner room they found a diabolical
+machine&mdash;a single string stretched
+across two bridges, one of brass and
+one of wood. A big horsehair bow attached
+to a shaft operated by a motor
+was automatically sawing across the
+string. The note resulting was evidently
+higher than the range of the human
+ear, because no audible sound resulted.
+It was later estimated that the destructive
+note was several octaves
+higher than the highest note on a
+piano.</p>
+
+<p>The entire machine was <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'inclosed'">enclosed</ins> in a
+heavy wire-net cage, securely bolted to
+the floor. Neither the string or bow
+could be reached. It was evidently the
+Mad Musician's idea that the devilish
+contrivance should not be reached by
+hands other than his own.</p>
+
+<p>How long the infernal machine had
+been operating no one knew, but the
+visitors were startled when the building
+suddenly began to sway perceptibly.
+Jenks jumped forward to stop
+the machine but could not find a switch.</p>
+
+<p>"See if the machine plugs in anywhere
+in a wall socket!" he shouted to
+Linane, who promptly began examining
+the walls. Jenks shouted to the
+building manager to phone the police
+to clear the streets around the big
+building.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell the police that the Acme Theater
+building may crash at any moment,"
+he instructed.</p>
+
+<p>The engineers were perfectly cool in
+face of the great peril, but the building
+manager lost his head completely and
+began to run around in circles muttering:
+"Oh, my God, save me!" and other
+words of supplication that blended into
+an incoherent babel.</p>
+
+<p>Jenks rushed to the man, trying to
+still his wild hysteria.</p>
+
+<p>The building continued to sway dangerously.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Jenks</span> looked from a window. An
+enormous crowd was collecting,
+watching the big building swinging a
+foot out of plumb like a giant pendulum.
+The crowd was growing. Should
+the building fall the loss of life would
+be appalling. It was mid-morning.
+The interior of the building teemed<span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name="page257">[257]</a></span>
+with thousands of workers, for all
+floors above the third were offices.</p>
+
+<p>Teddy Jenks turned suddenly. He
+heard the watchman in the hall scream
+in terror. Then he heard a body fall.
+He rushed to the door to see the Mad
+Musician standing over the prostrate
+form of the detective, a devilish grin
+on his distorted countenance.</p>
+
+<p>The madman turned, saw Jenks, and
+started to run. Jenks took after him.
+Up the staircase the madman rushed toward
+the roof. Teddy followed him
+two floors and then rushed out to take
+the elevators. The building in its mad
+swaying had made it impossible for the
+lifts to be operated. Teddy realized
+this with a distraught gulp in his
+throat. He returned to the stairway
+and took up the pursuit of the madman.</p>
+
+<p>The corridors were beginning to fill
+with screaming men and wailing girls.
+It was a sight never to be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Laboriously Jenks climbed story after
+story without getting sight of the
+madman. Finally he reached the roof.
+It was waving like swells on a lake before
+a breeze. He caught sight of the
+Mad Musician standing on the street
+wall, thirty stories from the street, a
+leer on his devilish visage. He jumped
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>The madman grasped him and lifted
+him up to the top of the wall as a cat
+might have lifted a mouse. Both men
+were breathing heavily as a result of
+their 15-story climb.</p>
+
+<p>The madman tried to throw Teddy
+Jenks to the street below. Teddy clung
+to him. The two battled desperately
+as the building swayed.</p>
+
+<p>The dense crowd in the street had
+caught sight of the two men fighting on
+the narrow coping, and the shout which
+rent the air reached the ears of Jenks.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> mind of the engineer was still
+working clearly, but a wild fear
+gripped his heart. His strength seemed
+to be leaving him. The madman pushed
+him back, bending his spine with brute
+strength. Teddy was forced to the narrow
+ledge that had given the two men
+footing. The fingers of the madman
+gripped his throat.</p>
+
+<p>He was dimly conscious that the
+swaying of the building was slowing
+down. His reason told him that Linane
+had found the wall socket and had
+stopped the sawing of the devil's bow
+on the engine of hell.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the madman draw a big knife.
+With his last remaining strength he
+reached out and grasped the wrist
+above the hand which held the weapon.
+In spite of all he could do he saw the
+madman inching the knife nearer and
+nearer his throat.</p>
+
+<p>Grim death was peering into the
+bulging eyes of Teddy Jenks, when his
+engineering knowledge came to his rescue.
+He remembered the top stories of
+the Acme building were constructed
+with a step of ten feet in from the
+street line, for every story of construction
+above the 24th floor.</p>
+
+<p>"If we fall," he reasoned, "we can
+only fall one story." Then he deliberately
+rolled his own body and the
+weight of the madman, who held him,
+over the edge of the coping. At the
+same time he twisted the madman's
+wrist so the point of the knife pointed
+to the madman's body.</p>
+
+<p>There was a dim consciousness of a
+painful impact. Teddy had fallen underneath,
+but the force of the two
+bodies coming together had thrust the
+knife deep into the entrails of the Mad
+Musician.</p>
+
+<p>Clouds which had been collecting in
+the sky began a splattering downpour.
+The storm grew in fury and lightning
+tore the heavens, while thunder boomed
+and crackled. The rain began falling
+in sheets.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">This</span> served to revive the unconscious
+Teddy. He painfully withdrew
+his body from under that of the
+madman. The falling rain, stained
+with the blood of the Mad Musician,
+trickled over the edge of the building.</p>
+
+<p>Teddy dragged himself through a
+window and passed his hand over his
+forehead, which was aching miserably.<span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name="page258">[258]</a></span>
+He tried to get to his feet and fell back,
+only to try again. Several times he
+tried and then, his strength returning,
+he was able to walk.</p>
+
+<p>He made his way to the studio where
+he had left Linane and found him there
+surrounded by police, reporters and
+others. The infernal machine had been
+rendered harmless, but was kept intact
+as evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Catching sight of Teddy, Linane
+shouted with joy. "I stopped the
+damned thing," he chuckled, like a
+pleased schoolboy. Then, observing
+Teddy's exhausted condition he added:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you look like you have been
+to a funeral!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have," said Teddy. "You'll find
+that crazy fiddler dead on the twenty-ninth
+story. Look out the window of
+the thirtieth story," he instructed the
+police, who had started to recover the
+body. "He stabbed himself. He is
+either dead or dying."</p>
+
+<p>It proved that he was dead.</p>
+
+<p>No engineering firm is responsible
+for the actions of a madman. So the
+Muller Construction Company was given
+a clean bill of health.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Jenks</span> and Elaine Linane were with
+the girl's father in his study. They
+were asking for the paternal blessing.</p>
+
+<p>Linane was pretending to be hard to
+convince.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my daughter," he said, "this
+young man takes $500 of my good
+money by sounding me out, as he calls
+it. Then he comes along and tries to
+take my daughter away from me. It is
+positively high-handed. It dates back
+to the football game&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Daddy, dear, don't be like that!"
+said Elaine, who was on the arm of his
+chair with her own arms around him.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Elaine, this dates back
+to the fall of 1927."</p>
+
+<p>"It dates back to the fall of Eve,"
+said Elaine. "When a girl finds her
+man, no power can keep him from her.
+If you won't give me to Teddy Jenks,
+I'll elope with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all right then. Kiss me," said
+Linane as he turned towards his radio
+set.</p>
+
+<p>"One and one makes one," said Teddy
+Jenks.</p>
+
+<p>Every engineer knows his mathematics.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adbox"><i>Have you written in to</i><br />
+<br />
+<span class="muchlarger">ASTOUNDING STORIES</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>Yet, to Tell the Editors<br />
+Just What Kind of<br />
+Stories You Would Like<br />
+Them to Secure for You?</i></p>
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name="page259">[259]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="The_Thief_of_Time" id="The_Thief_of_Time"></a>The Thief of Time</h2>
+<p class="authorhdr"><i>By Captain S. P. Meek</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/259.png" width="400" height="406" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">&quot;That man never entered and stole that money as the picture shows,
+unless he managed to make himself invisible.&quot;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Harvey Winston,</span> paying
+teller of the First National
+Bank of Chicago, stripped the
+band from a bundle of twenty
+dollar bills, counted out seventeen of
+them and added
+them to the pile
+on the counter
+before him.</p>
+
+<p class="sidebarright width50">The teller turned to the stacked pile of
+bills. They were gone! And no one had
+been near!</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve hundred
+and thirty-one
+tens," he read from the payroll
+change slip before him. The paymaster
+of the Cramer Packing Company nodded
+an assent and Winston turned to
+the stacked bills in his rear currency
+rack. He picked up a handful of bundles
+and turned back to the grill. His
+gaze swept the
+counter where, a
+moment before,
+he had stacked
+the twenties, and
+his jaw dropped.</p>
+
+<p>"You got those twenties, Mr. Trier?"
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page260" name="page260">[260]</a></span>
+"Got them? Of course not, how
+could I?" replied the paymaster.
+"There they are...."</p>
+
+<p>His voice trailed off into nothingness
+as he looked at the empty counter.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have dropped them," said
+Winston as he turned. He glanced
+back at the rear rack where his main
+stock of currency was piled. He stood
+paralyzed for a moment and then
+reached under the counter and pushed
+a button.</p>
+
+<p>The bank resounded instantly to the
+clangor of gongs and huge steel grills
+shot into place with a clang, sealing all
+doors and preventing anyone from entering
+or leaving the bank. The guards
+sprang to their stations with drawn
+weapons and from the inner offices the
+bank officials came swarming out. The
+cashier, followed by two men, hurried
+to the paying teller's cage.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mr. Winston?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been robbed!" gasped the
+teller.</p>
+
+<p>"Who by? How?" demanded the
+cashier.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know, sir," stammered
+the teller. "I was counting out Mr.
+Trier's payroll, and after I had stacked
+the twenties I turned to get the tens.
+When I turned back the twenties were
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Where had they gone?" asked the
+cashier.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, sir. Mr. Trier was as
+surprised as I was, and then I turned
+back, thinking that I had knocked them
+off the counter, and I saw at a glance
+that there was a big hole in my back
+racks. You can see yourself, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The cashier turned to the paymaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this a practical joke, Mr. Trier?"
+he demanded sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," replied the paymaster.
+"Winston's grill was closed. It
+still is. Granted that I might have
+reached the twenties he had piled up,
+how could I have gone through a grill
+and taken the rest of the missing
+money without his seeing me? The
+money disappeared almost instantly.
+It was there a moment before, for I
+noticed when Winston took the twenties
+from his rack that it was full."</p>
+
+<p>"But someone must have taken it,"
+said the bewildered cashier. "Money
+doesn't walk off of its own accord or
+vanish into thin air&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A bell interrupted his speech.</p>
+
+<p>"There are the police," he said with
+an air of relief. "I'll let them in."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> smaller of the two men who
+had followed the cashier from his
+office when the alarm had sounded
+stepped forward and spoke quietly.
+His voice was low and well pitched
+yet it carried a note of authority and
+power that held his auditors' attention
+while he spoke. The voice harmonized
+with the man. The most noticeable
+point about him was the <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'inconspicuous'">inconspicuousness</ins>
+of his voice and manner, yet there was
+a glint of steel in his gray eyes that
+told of enormous force in him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe that I would let
+them in for a few moments, Mr.
+Rogers," he said. "I think that we are
+up against something a little different
+from the usual bank robbery."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Carnes," protested the
+cashier, "we must call in the police in
+a case like this, and the sooner they
+take charge the better chance there
+will be of apprehending the thief."</p>
+
+<p>"Suit yourself," replied the little
+man with a shrug of his shoulders. "I
+merely offered my advice."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take charge, Mr. Carnes?"
+asked the cashier.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't supersede the local authorities
+in a case like this," replied Carnes.
+"The secret service is primarily interested
+in the suppression of counterfeiting
+and the enforcement of certain
+federal statutes, but I will be glad to
+assist the local authorities to the best
+of my ability, provided they desire my
+help. My advice to you would be to
+keep out the patrolmen who are demanding
+admittance and get in touch
+with the chief of police. I would ask
+that his best detective together with an
+expert finger-print photographer be
+sent here before anyone else is ad<span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name="page261">[261]</a></span>mitted.
+If the patrolmen are allowed
+to wipe their hands over Mr. Winston's
+counter they may destroy valuable evidence."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Mr. Carnes," exclaimed
+the cashier. "Mr. Jervis, will
+you tell the police that there is no
+violence threatening and ask them to
+wait for a few minutes? I'll telephone
+the chief of police at once."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">As</span> the cashier hurried away to his
+telephone Carnes turned to his
+companion who had stood an interested,
+although silent spectator of the
+scene. His companion was a marked
+contrast to the secret service operator.
+He stood well over six feet in height,
+and his protruding jaw and shock of
+unruly black hair combined with his
+massive shoulders and chest to give
+him the appearance of a man who
+labored with his hands&mdash;until one
+looked at them. His hands were in
+strange contrast to the rest of him.
+Long, slim, mobile hands they were,
+with tapering nervous fingers&mdash;the
+hands of a thinker or of a musician.
+Telltale splotches of acid told of hours
+spent in a laboratory, a tale that was
+confirmed by the almost imperceptible
+stoop of his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you agree with my advice, Dr.
+Bird?" asked Carnes deferentially.</p>
+
+<p>The noted scientist, who from his
+laboratory in the Bureau of Standards
+had sent forth many new things in the
+realms of chemistry and physics, and
+who, incidentally, had been instrumental
+in solving some of the most
+baffling mysteries which the secret
+service had been called upon to face,
+grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't do any harm," he said, "but
+it is rather a waste of time. The thief
+wore gloves."</p>
+
+<p>"How in thunder do you know that?"
+demanded Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's merely common sense. A man
+who can do what he did had at least
+some rudiments of intelligence, and
+even the feeblest-minded crooks know
+enough to wear gloves nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>Carnes stepped a little closer to the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Another reason why I didn't want
+patrolmen tramping around," he said
+in an undertone, "is this. If Winston
+gave the alarm quickly enough, the
+thief is probably still in the building."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a good many miles away by
+now," replied Dr. Bird with a shrug of
+his shoulders.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Carnes</span>' eyes opened widely.
+"Why?&mdash;how?&mdash;who?" he stammered.
+"Have you any idea of who
+did it, or how it was done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly I have an idea," replied
+Dr. Bird with a cryptic smile. "My
+advice to you, Carnes, is to keep away
+from the local authorities as much as
+possible. I want to be present when
+Winston and Trier are questioned and
+I may possibly wish to ask a few questions
+myself. Use your authority that
+far, but no farther. Don't volunteer
+any information and especially don't
+let my name get out. We'll drop the
+counterfeiting case we were summoned
+here on for the present and look into
+this a little on our own hook. I will
+want your aid, so don't get tied up
+with the police."</p>
+
+<p>"At that, we don't want the police
+crossing our trail at every turn," protested
+Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't," promised the doctor.
+"They will never get any evidence on
+this case, if I am right, and neither
+will we&mdash;for the present. Our stunt is
+to lie low and wait for the next attempt
+of this nature and thus accumulate
+some evidence and some idea of
+where to look."</p>
+
+<p>"Will there be another attempt?"
+asked Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely. You don't expect a man
+who got away with a crime like this
+to quit operations just because a few
+flatfeet run around and make a hullabaloo
+about it, do you? I may be
+wrong in my assumption, but if I am
+right, the most important thing is to
+keep all reference to my name or position
+out of the press reports."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name="page262">[262]</a></span>
+The cashier hastened up to them.</p>
+
+<p>"Detective-Captain Sturtevant will
+be here in a few minutes with a photographer
+and some other men," he
+said. "Is there anything that we can
+do in the meantime, Mr. Carnes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would suggest that Mr. Trier and
+his guard and Mr. Winston go into
+your office," replied Carnes. "My assistant
+and I would like to be present
+during the questioning, if there are no
+objections."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know that you had an
+assistant with you," answered the
+cashier.</p>
+
+<p>Carnes indicated Dr. Bird.</p>
+
+<p>"This gentleman is Mr. Berger, my
+assistant," he said. "Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. I am sure there will be
+no objection to your presence, Mr.
+Carnes," replied the cashier as he led
+the way to his office.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A few</span> minutes later Detective-Captain
+Sturtevant of the Chicago
+police was announced. He acknowledged
+the introductions gruffly and
+got down to business at once.</p>
+
+<p>"What were the circumstances of
+the robbery?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Winston told his story, Trier and
+the guard confirming it.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty thin!" snorted the detective
+when they had finished. He whirled
+suddenly on Winston.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you hide the loot?" he
+thundered.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;uh&mdash;er&mdash;what do you mean?"
+gulped the teller.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I said," replied the detective.
+"Where did you hide the <ins class="correction" title="Changed comma to question mark">loot?</ins>"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't hide it anywhere," said the
+teller. "It was stolen."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better think up a better
+one," sneered Sturtevant. "If you think
+that you can make me believe that that
+money was stolen from you in broad
+daylight with two men in plain sight
+of you who didn't see it, you might
+just as well get over it. I know that
+you have some hiding place where you
+have slipped the stuff and the quicker
+you come clean and spill it, the better
+it will be for you. Where did you hide
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't hide it!" cried the teller,
+his voice trembling. "Mr. Trier can
+tell you that I didn't touch it from the
+time I laid it down until I turned
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," replied the paymaster.
+"He turned his back on me for
+a moment, and when he turned back,
+it was gone."</p>
+
+<p>"So you're in on it too, are you?"
+said Sturtevant.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" demanded
+the paymaster hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh nothing, nothing at all," replied
+the detective. "Of course Winston
+didn't touch it and it disappeared and
+you never saw it go, although you
+were within three feet of it all the
+time. Did <i>you</i> see anything?" he demanded
+of the guard.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing that I am sure of," answered
+the guard. "I thought that a
+shadow passed in front of me for an
+instant, but when I looked again, it
+was gone."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dr. Bird</span> sat forward suddenly.
+"What did this shadow look
+like?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't exactly a shadow," said
+the guard. "It was as if a person had
+passed suddenly before me so quickly
+that I couldn't see him. I seemed to
+feel that there was someone there, but
+I didn't rightly <i>see</i> anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you notice anything of the
+sort?" demanded the doctor of Trier.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Trier
+thoughtfully. "Now that Williams has
+mentioned it, I did seem to feel a
+breath of air or a motion as though
+something had passed in front of me.
+I didn't think of it at the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Was this shadow opaque enough to
+even momentarily obscure your vision?"
+went on the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I am conscious of. It was
+just a breath of air such as a person
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'mighty'">might</ins> cause by passing very rapidly."</p>
+
+<p>"What made you ask Trier if he had<span class="pagenum"><a id="page263" name="page263">[263]</a></span>
+the money when you turned around?"
+asked the doctor of Winston.</p>
+
+<p>"Say-y-y," broke in the detective.
+"Who the devil are you, and what do
+you mean by breaking into my examination
+and stopping it?"</p>
+
+<p>Carnes tossed a leather wallet on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"There are my credentials," he said
+in his quiet voice. "I am chief of one
+section of the United States Secret
+Service as you will see, and this is Mr.
+Berger, my assistant. We were in the
+bank, engaged on a counterfeiting case,
+when the robbery took place. We have
+had a good deal of experience along
+these lines and we are merely anxious
+to aid you."</p>
+
+<p>Sturtevant examined Carnes' credentials
+carefully and returned them.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a Chicago robbery," he said,
+"and we have had a little experience in
+robberies and in apprehending robbers
+ourselves. I think that we can get
+along without your help."</p>
+
+<p>"You have had more experience with
+robberies <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'that'">than</ins> with apprehending robbers
+if the papers tell the truth," said
+Dr. Bird with a chuckle.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> detective's face flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"That will be enough from you,
+Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said. "If
+you open your mouth again, I'll arrest
+you as a material witness and as a possible
+accomplice."</p>
+
+<p>"That sounds like Chicago methods,"
+said Carnes quietly. "Now listen to
+me, Captain. My assistant and I are
+merely trying to assist you in this
+case. If you don't desire our assistance
+we'll proceed along our own lines without
+interfering, but in the meantime
+remember that this is a National Bank,
+and that our questions will be answered.
+The United States is higher
+than even the Chicago police force, and
+I am here under orders to investigate
+a counterfeiting case. If I desire, I
+can seal the doors of this bank and allow
+no one in or out until I have the
+evidence I desire. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Sturtevant sprang to his feet with an
+oath, but the sight of the gold badge
+which Carnes displayed stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well," he said ungraciously. "I
+suppose that no harm will come of
+letting Winston answer your fool
+questions, but I'll warn you that I'll report
+to Washington that you are interfering
+with the course of justice and
+using your authority to aid the getaway
+of a criminal."</p>
+
+<p>"That is your privilege," replied
+Carnes quietly. "Mr. Winston, will
+you answer Mr. Berger's question?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I asked him because he was
+right close to the money and I thought
+that he might have reached through the
+wicket and picked it up. Then, too&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated for a moment and Dr.
+Bird smiled encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>"What else?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I can't exactly tell. It just
+seemed to me that I had heard the
+rustle that bills make when they are
+pulled across a counter. When I saw
+them gone, I thought that he might
+have taken them. Then when I turned
+toward him, I seemed to hear the rustle
+of bills behind me, although I knew
+that I was alone in the cage. When I
+looked back the money was gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see or hear anything like a
+shadow or a person moving?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;yes&mdash;I don't know. Just as I
+turned around it seemed to me that the
+rear door to my cage had moved and
+there may have been a shadow for an
+instant. I don't know. I hadn't
+thought of it before."</p>
+
+<p>"How long after that did you ring
+the alarm gongs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not over a second or two."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," said Dr. Bird.</p>
+
+<p>"If your high and mightiness has no
+further questions to ask, perhaps you
+will let me ask a few," said Sturtevant.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">G</span><span class="dcap">o</span> ahead, ask all you wish," replied
+Dr. Bird with a laugh. "I
+have all the information I desire here
+for the present. I may want to ask
+other questions later, but just now I
+think we'll be going."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name="page264">[264]</a></span>
+"If you find any strange finger-prints
+on Winston's counter, I'll be glad to
+have them compared with our files,"
+said Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not bothering with finger-prints,"
+snorted the detective. "This
+is an open and shut case. There would
+be lots of Winston's finger-prints there
+and no others. There isn't the slightest
+doubt that this is an inside case
+and I have the men I want right here.
+Mr. Rogers, your bank is closed for
+<ins class="correction" title="Standardized from today">to-day</ins>. Everyone in it will be searched
+and then all those not needed to close
+up will be sent away. I will get a
+squad of men here to go over your
+building and locate the hiding place.
+Your money is still on the premises
+unless these men slipped it to a confederate
+who got out before the alarm
+was given. I'll question the guards
+about that. If that happened, a little
+sweating will get it out of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to arrest me?" demanded
+Trier in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dearie," answered the detective.
+"I am going to arrest you and
+your two little playmates if these
+Washington experts will allow me to.
+You will save a lot of time and quite
+a few painful experiences if you will
+come clean now instead of later."</p>
+
+<p>"I demand to see my lawyer and to
+communicate with my firm," said the
+paymaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Time enough for that when I am
+through with you," replied the detective.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I your gracious permission to
+arrest these three criminals?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes indeed, Captain," replied
+Carnes sweetly. "You have my gracious
+permission to make just as big
+an ass of yourself as you wish. We're
+going now."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">B</span><span class="dcap">y</span> the way, Captain," said Dr.
+Bird as he followed Carnes out.
+"When you get through playing with
+your prisoners and start to look for
+the thief, here is a tip. Look for a
+left-handed man who has a thorough
+knowledge of chemistry and especially
+toxicology."</p>
+
+<p>"It's easy enough to see that he was
+left-handed if he pulled that money
+out through the grill from the positions
+occupied by Trier and his guard,
+but what the dickens led you to suspect
+that he is a chemist and a toxicologist?"
+asked Carnes as he and the
+doctor left the bank.</p>
+
+<p>"Merely a shrewd guess, my dear
+Watson," replied the doctor with a
+chuckle. "I am likely to be wrong, but
+there is a good chance that I am right.
+I am judging solely from the method
+used."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you solved the method?" demanded
+Carnes in amazement. "What
+on earth was it? The more I have
+thought about it, the more inclined I
+am to believe that Sturtevant is right
+and that it is an inside job. It seems
+to me impossible that a man could have
+entered in broad daylight and lifted
+that money in front of three men and
+within sight of a hundred more without
+some one getting a glimpse of him.
+He must have taken the money out in
+a grip or a sack or something like that,
+yet the bank record shows that no one
+but Trier entered with a grip and no
+one left with a package for ten minutes
+before Trier entered."</p>
+
+<p>"There may be something in what
+you say, Carnes, but I am inclined to
+have a different idea. I don't think it
+is the usual run of bank robbery, and
+I would rather not hazard a guess just
+now. I am going back to Washington
+to-night. Before I go any further into
+the matter, I need some rather specialized
+knowledge that I don't possess
+and I want to consult with Dr. Knolles.
+I'll be back in a week or so and then
+we can look into that counterfeiting
+case after we get this disposed of."</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to do?" asked Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit around the lobby of your hotel,
+eat three meals a day, and read the papers.
+If you get bored, I would recommend
+that you pay a visit to the Art
+Institute and admire the graceful lions<span class="pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265">[265]</a></span>
+which adorn the steps. Artistic contemplations
+may well improve your
+culture."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," replied Carnes. "I'll assume
+a pensive air and moon at the
+lions, but I might do better if you told
+me what I was looking for."</p>
+
+<p>"You are looking for knowledge, my
+dear Carnes," said the doctor with a
+laugh. "Remember the saying of the
+sages: To the wise man, no knowledge
+is useless."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A huge</span> Martin bomber roared
+down to a landing at the Maywood
+airdrome, and a burly figure
+descended from the rear cockpit and
+waved his hand jovially to the waiting
+Carnes. The secret service man
+hastened over to greet his colleague.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got that truck I wired
+you to have ready?" demanded the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Waiting at the entrance; but say,
+I've got some news for you."</p>
+
+<p>"It can wait. Get a detail of men
+and help us to unload this ship. Some
+of the cases are pretty heavy."</p>
+
+<p>Carnes hurried off and returned with
+a gang of laborers, who took from the
+bomber a dozen heavy packing cases
+of various sizes, several of them
+labelled either "Fragile" or "Inflammable"
+in large type.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do they go, Doctor?" he
+asked when the last of them had been
+loaded onto the waiting truck.</p>
+
+<p>"To the First National Bank," replied
+Dr. Bird, "and Casey here goes
+with them. You know Casey, don't
+you, Carnes? He is the best photographer
+in the Bureau."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I go along too?" asked
+Carnes as he acknowledged the introduction.</p>
+
+<p>"No need for it. I wired Rogers and
+he knows the stuff is coming and what
+to do with it. Unpack as soon as you
+get there, Casey, and start setting up
+as soon as the bank closes."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Doctor," replied Casey as
+he mounted the truck beside the
+driver.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do we go, Doctor?" asked
+Carnes as the truck rolled off.</p>
+
+<p>"To the Blackstone Hotel for a bath
+and some clean clothes," replied the
+doctor. "And now, what is the news
+you have for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"The news is this, Doctor. I carried
+out your instructions diligently and,
+during the daylight hours, the lions
+have not moved."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Dr. Bird</span> looked contrite.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Carnes," he
+said. "I really didn't think when I
+left you so mystified how you must
+have felt. Believe me, I had my own
+reasons, excellent ones, for secrecy."</p>
+
+<p>"I have usually been able to maintain
+silence when asked to," replied
+Carnes stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I didn't mean to
+question your discretion. I know that
+whatever I tell you is safe, but there
+are angles to this affair that are so
+weird and improbable that I don't dare
+to trust my own conclusions, let alone
+share them. I'll tell you all about it
+soon. Did you get those tickets I
+wired for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I got them, but what have
+two tickets to the A. A. U. track meet
+this afternoon got to do with a bank
+robbery?"</p>
+
+<p>"One trouble with you, Carnes," replied
+the doctor with a <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'judical'">judicial</ins> air, "is
+that you have no idea of the importance
+of proper relaxation. Is it
+possible that you have no desire to see
+Ladd, this new marvel who is smashing
+records right and left, run? He performs
+for the Illinois Athletic Club
+this afternoon, and it would not surprise
+me to see him lower the world's
+record again. He has already lowered
+the record for the hundred yard dash
+from nine and three-fifths to eight and
+four-fifths. There is no telling what
+he will do."</p>
+
+<p>"Are we going to waste the whole
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'afternon'">afternoon</ins> just to watch a man run?"
+demanded Carnes in disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"We will see many men run, my dear
+fellow, but there is only one in whom<span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name="page266">[266]</a></span>
+I have a deep abiding interest, and
+that is Mr. Ladd. Have you your
+binoculars with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then by all means beg, borrow or
+steal two pairs before this afternoon.
+We might easily miss half the fun
+without them. Are our seats near the
+starting line for the sprints?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The big demand was for seats
+near the finish line."</p>
+
+<p>"The start will be much more interesting,
+Carnes. I was somewhat of a
+minor star in track myself in my college
+days and it will be of the greatest
+interest to me to observe the starting
+form of this new speed artist. Now
+Carnes, don't ask any more questions.
+I may be barking up the wrong tree
+and I don't want to give you a chance
+to laugh at me. I'll tell you what to
+watch for at the track."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> sprinters lined up on the
+hundred yard mark and Dr. Bird
+and Carnes sat with their glasses
+glued to their eyes watching the slim
+figure in the colors of the Illinois
+Athletic Club, whose large "62" on his
+back identified him as the new star.</p>
+
+<p>"On your mark!" cried the starter.
+"Get set!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried Dr. Bird. "Did you see
+that Carnes?"</p>
+
+<p>The starting gun cracked and the
+runners were off on their short grind.
+Ladd leaped into the lead and rapidly
+distanced the field, his legs twinkling
+under him almost faster than the eye
+could follow. He was fully twenty
+yards in the lead when his speed suddenly
+lessened and the balance of the
+runners closed up the gap he had
+opened. His lead was too great for
+them, and he was still a good ten yards
+in the lead when he crossed the tape.
+The official time was posted as eight
+and nine-tenths seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"Another thirty yards and he would
+have been beaten," said Carnes as he
+lowered his glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the way he has won all of
+his races," replied the doctor. "He
+piles up a huge lead at first and then
+loses a good deal at the finish. His
+speed doesn't hold up. Never mind
+that, though, it is only an additional
+point in my favor. Did you notice his
+jaws just before the gun went?"</p>
+
+<p>"They seemed to clench and then he
+swallowed, but most of them did some
+thing like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Watch him carefully for the next
+heat and see if he puts anything into
+his mouth. That is the important
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bird sank into a brown study
+and paid no attention to the next few
+events, but he came to attention
+promptly when the final heat of the
+hundred yard dash was called. With
+his glasses he watched Ladd closely as
+the runner trotted up to the starting
+line.</p>
+
+<p>"There, Carnes!" he cried suddenly.
+"Did you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him wipe his mouth," said
+Carnes doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, now watch his jaws just
+before the gun goes."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> final heat was a duplicate of
+the first preliminary. Ladd took
+an early lead which he held for three-fourths
+of the distance to the tape,
+then his pace slackened and he finished
+only a bare ten yards ahead of the next
+runner. The time tied his previous
+world's record of eight and four-fifths
+seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"He crunched and swallowed all
+right, Doctor," said Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"That is all I wanted to be sure of.
+Now Carnes, here is something for you
+to do. Get hold of the United States
+Commissioner and get a John Doe
+warrant and go back to the hotel with
+it and wait for me. I may phone you
+at any minute and I may not. If I
+don't, wait in your room until you hear
+from me. Don't leave it for a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going down and congratulate
+Mr. Ladd. An old track man like me
+can't let such an opportunity pass."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what this is all about,<span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name="page267">[267]</a></span>
+Doctor," replied Carnes, "but I know
+you well enough to obey orders and to
+keep my mouth shut until it is my
+turn to speak."</p>
+
+<p>Few men could resist Dr. Bird when
+he set out to make a favorable impression,
+and even a world's champion is
+apt to be flattered by the attention of
+one of the greatest scientists of his
+day, especially when that scientist has
+made an enviable reputation as an athlete
+in his college days and can talk
+the jargon of the champion's particular
+sport. Henry Ladd promptly capitulated
+to the charm of the doctor and
+allowed himself to be led away to supper
+at Bird's club. The supper passed
+off pleasantly, and when the doctor requested
+an interview with the young
+athlete in a private room, he gladly
+consented. They entered the room together,
+remained for an hour and a
+half, and then came out. The smile
+had left Ladd's face and he appeared
+nervous and distracted. The doctor
+talked cheerfully with him but kept a
+firm grip on his arm as they descended
+the stairs together. They entered a
+telephone booth where the doctor made
+several calls, and then descended to the
+street, where they entered a taxi.</p>
+
+<p>"Maywood airdrome," the doctor told
+the driver.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Two</span> hours later the big Martin
+bomber which had carried the
+doctor to Chicago roared away into the
+night, and Bird turned back, reentered
+the taxi, and headed for the city alone.</p>
+
+<p>When Carnes received the telephone
+call, which was one of those the doctor
+made from the booth in his club,
+he hurried over to the First National
+Bank. His badge secured him an entrance
+and he found Casey busily engaged
+in rigging up an elaborate piece
+of apparatus on one of the balconies
+where guards were normally stationed
+during banking hours.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Bird said to tell you to keep on
+the job all night if necessary," he told
+Casey. "He thinks he will need your
+machine to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have it ready to turn on the
+power at four A.M.," replied Casey.</p>
+
+<p>Carnes watched him curiously for a
+while as he soldered together the electrical
+connections and assembled an apparatus
+which looked like a motion picture
+projector.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you setting up?" he asked
+at length.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a high speed motion picture
+camera," replied Casey, "with a telescopic
+lens. It is a piece of apparatus
+which Dr. Bird designed while he was
+in Washington last week and which I
+made from his sketches, using some
+apparatus we had on hand. It's a
+dandy, all right."</p>
+
+<p>"What is special about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"The speed. You know how fast an
+ordinary movie is taken, don't you?
+No? Well, it's sixteen exposures per
+second. The slow pictures are taken
+sometimes at a hundred and twenty-eight
+or two hundred and fifty-six exposures
+per second, and then shown at
+sixteen. This affair will take half a
+million pictures per second."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know that a film would register
+with that short an exposure."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">T</span><span class="dcap">hat's</span> slow," replied Casey
+with a laugh. "It all depends on
+the light. The best flash-light powder
+gives a flash about one ten-thousandth
+of a second in duration, but that is by
+no means the speed limit of the film.
+The only trouble is enough light and
+sufficient shutter speed. Pictures have
+been taken by means of spark photography
+with an exposure of less than
+one three-millionth of a second. The
+whole secret of this machine lies in
+the shutter. This big disc with the
+slots in the edge is set up before the
+lens and run at such a speed that half
+a million slots per second pass before
+the lens. The film, which is sixteen
+millimeter X-ray film, travels behind
+the lens at a speed of nearly five miles
+per second. It has to be gradually
+worked up to this speed, and after the
+whole thing is set up, it takes it nearly
+four hours to get to full speed."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name="page268">[268]</a></span>
+"At that speed, it must take a million
+miles of film before you get up
+steam."</p>
+
+<p>"It would, if the film were being exposed.
+There is only about a hundred
+yards of film all told, which will run
+over these huge drums in an endless
+belt. There is a regular camera shutter
+working on an electric principle
+which remains closed. When the
+switch is tripped, the shutter opens in
+about two thirty-thousandths of a second,
+stays open just one one-hundredth
+of a second, and then closes. This time
+is enough to expose nearly all of our
+film. When we have our picture, I
+shut the current down, start applying
+a magnetic brake, and let it slow down.
+It takes over an hour to stop it without
+breaking the film. It sounds complicated,
+but it works all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your switch?"</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">T</span><span class="dcap">hat</span> is the trick part of it. It
+is a remote control affair. The
+shutter opens and starts the machine
+taking pictures when the back door
+of the paying teller's cage is opened
+half an inch. There is also a hand
+switch in the line that can be opened
+so that you can open the door without
+setting off the camera, if you wish.
+When the hand switch is closed and
+the door opened, this is what happens.
+The shutter on the camera opens, the
+machine takes five thousand pictures
+during the next hundredth of a second,
+and then the shutter closes. Those
+five thousand exposures will take about
+five minutes to show at the usual rate
+of sixteen per second."</p>
+
+<p>"You said that you had to get plenty
+of light. How are you managing that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The camera is equipped with a special
+lens ground out of rock crystal.
+This lens lets in ultra-violet light
+which the ordinary lens shuts out, and
+X-ray film is especially sensitive to
+ultra-violet light. In order to be sure
+that we get enough illumination, I will
+set up these two ultra-violet floodlights
+to illumine the cage. The teller will
+have to wear glasses to protect his eyes
+and he'll get well sunburned, but something
+has to be sacrificed to science,
+as Dr. Bird is always telling me."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too deep for me," said Carnes
+with a sigh. "Can I do anything to
+help? The doctor told me to stand by
+and do anything I could."</p>
+
+<p>"I might be able to use you a little
+if you can use tools," said Casey with
+a grin. "You can start bolting together
+that light proof shield if you want to."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">W</span><span class="dcap">ell,</span> Carnes, did you have an
+instructive night?" asked Dr.
+Bird cheerfully as he entered the First
+National Bank at eight-thirty the next
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that I did much good,
+Doctor. Casey would have had the machine
+ready on time anyway, and I'm
+no machinist."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, frankly, Carnes, I didn't expect
+you to be of much help to him,
+but I did want you to see what Casey
+was doing, and a little of it was pretty
+heavy for him to handle alone. I suppose
+that everything is ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"The motor reached full speed about
+fifteen minutes ago and Casey went
+out to get a cup of coffee. Would you
+mind telling me the object of the
+whole thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I plan to make a permanent
+record of the work of the most
+ingenious bank robber in the world. I
+hope he keeps his word."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three days ago when Sturtevant
+sweated a 'confession' out of poor Winston,
+the bank got a message that the
+robbery would be repeated this morning
+and dared them to prevent it. Rogers
+thought it was a hoax, but he telephoned
+me and I worked the Bureau
+men night and day to get my camera
+ready in time for him. I am afraid
+that I can't do much to prevent the
+robbery, but I may be able to take a
+picture of it and thus prevent other
+cases of a like nature."</p>
+
+<p>"Was the warning written?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. It was telephoned from a pay
+station in the loop district, and by the<span class="pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269">[269]</a></span>
+time it was traced and men got there,
+the telephoner was probably a mile
+away. He said that he would rob the
+same cage in the same manner as he
+did before."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you taking any special precautions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, the bank is putting on extra
+guards and making a lot of fuss of that
+sort, probably to the great amusement
+of the robber."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not close the cage for the
+day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then he would rob a different one
+and we would have no way of photographing
+his actions. To be sure, we
+will put dummy money there, bundles
+with bills on the outside and paper on
+the inside, so if I don't get a picture
+of him, he won't get much. Every bill
+in the cage will be marked as well."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he say at what time he would
+operate?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, he didn't, so we'll have to stand
+by all day. Oh, hello, Casey, is everything
+all right?"</p>
+
+<p>"As sweet as chocolate candy, Doctor.
+I have tested it out thoroughly,
+and unless we have to run it so long
+that the film wears out and breaks, we
+are sitting pretty. If we don't get the
+pictures you are looking for, I'm a
+dodo, and I haven't been called that
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Good work, Casey. Keep the bearings
+oiled and pray that the film doesn't
+break."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> bank had been opened only
+ten minutes when the clangor of
+gongs announced a robbery. It was
+practically a duplicate of the first. The
+paying teller had turned from his window
+to take some bills from his rack
+and had found several dozens of bundles
+missing. As the gongs sounded,
+Dr. Bird and Casey leaped to the camera.</p>
+
+<p>"She snapped, Doctor!" cried Casey
+as he threw two switches. "It'll take
+an hour to stop and half a day to develop
+the film, but I ought to be able
+to show you what we got by to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good enough!" cried Dr. Bird. "Go
+ahead while I try to calm down the
+bank officials. Will you have everything
+ready by eight o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easy, Doctor," replied Casey as he
+turned to the magnetic brake.</p>
+
+<p>By eight o'clock quite a crowd had
+assembled in a private room at the
+Blackstone Hotel. Besides Dr. Bird
+and Carnes, Rogers and several other
+officials of the First National Bank
+were present, together with Detective-Captain
+Sturtevant and a group of the
+most prominent scientists and physicians
+gathered from the schools of the
+city.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said Dr. Bird when all
+had taken seats facing a miniature
+moving picture screen on one wall, "to-night
+I expect to show you some pictures
+which will, I am sure, astonish
+you. It marks the advent of a new departure
+in transcendental medicine. I
+will be glad to answer any questions
+you may wish to ask and to explain
+the pictures after they are shown, but
+before we start a discussion, I will ask
+that you examine what I have to show
+you. Lights out, please!"</p>
+
+<p>He stepped to the rear of the room
+as the lights went out. As his eyes
+grew used to the dimness of the room
+he moved forward and took a vacant
+seat. His hand fumbled in his pocket
+for a second.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" he cried suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>In the momentary silence which followed
+his cry, two dull metallic clicks
+could be heard, and a quick cry that
+was suddenly strangled as Dr. Bird
+clamped his hand over the mouth of
+the man who sat between him and
+Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Casey," called the doctor.</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">The</span> whir of a projection machine
+could be heard and on the screen
+before them leaped a picture of the paying
+teller's cage of the First National
+Bank. Winston's successor was standing
+motionless at the wicket, his lips
+parted in a smile, but the attention of
+all was riveted on a figure who moved<span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name="page270">[270]</a></span>
+at the back of the cage. As the picture
+started, the figure was bent over an
+opened suitcase, stuffing into it bundles
+of bills. He straightened up and
+reached to the rack for more bills, and
+as he did so he faced the camera full
+for a moment. He picked up other
+bundles of bills, filled the suitcase, fastened
+it in a leisurely manner, opened
+the rear door of the cage and walked
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"Again, please!" called Dr. Bird.
+"And stop when he faces us full."</p>
+
+<p>The picture was repeated and
+stopped at the point indicated.</p>
+
+<p>"Lights, please!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>The lights flashed on and Dr. Bird
+rose to his feet, pulling up after him
+the wilted figure of a middle-aged man.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said the doctor in ringing
+tones, "allow me to present to you
+Professor James Kirkwood of the faculty
+of the Richton University, formerly
+known as James Collier of the
+Bureau of Standards, and robber of
+the First National Bank."</p>
+
+<p>Detective-Captain Sturtevant jumped
+to his feet and cast a searching glance
+at the captive.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the man all right," he cried.
+"Hang on to him until I get a wagon
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up!" said Carnes. "He's
+under federal arrest just now, charged
+with the possession of narcotics. When
+we are through with him, you can have
+him if you want him."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get that picture, Doctor?"
+cried the cashier. "I watched
+that cage every minute during the
+morning and I'll swear that man never
+entered and stole that money as the
+picture shows, unless he managed to
+make himself invisible."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">Y</span><span class="dcap">ou're</span> closer to the truth than
+you suspect, Mr. Rogers," said
+Dr. Bird. "It is not quite a matter of
+invisibility, but something pretty close
+to it. It is a matter of catalysts."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of cats?" asked the cashier.</p>
+
+<p>"Not cats, Mr. Rogers, catalysts.
+Catalysts is the name of a chemical reaction
+consisting essentially of a decomposition
+and a new combination
+effected by means of a catalyst which
+acts on the compound bodies in question,
+but which goes through the reaction
+itself unchanged. There are a
+great many of them which are used in
+the arts and in manufacturing, and
+while their action is not always clearly
+understood, the results are well known
+and can be banked on.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the commonest instances of
+the use of a catalyst is the use of
+sponge platinum in the manufacture of
+sulphuric acid. I will not burden you
+with the details of the 'contact' process,
+as it is known, but the combination
+is effected by means of finely divided
+platinum which is neither
+changed, consumed or wasted during
+the process. While there are a number
+of other catalysts known, for instance
+iron in reactions in which metallic magnesium
+is concerned, the commonest
+are the metals of the platinum group.</p>
+
+<p>"Less is known of the action of catalysts
+in the organic reactions, but it
+has been the subject of intensive study
+by Dr. Knolles of the Bureau of Standards
+for several years. His studies of
+the effects of different colored lights,
+that is, rays of different wave-lengths,
+on the reactions which constitute
+growth in plants have had a great effect
+on hothouse forcing of plants and
+promise to revolutionize the truck gardening
+industry. He has speeded up
+the rate of growth to as high as ten
+times the normal rate in some cases.</p>
+
+<p>"A few years ago, he and his assistant,
+James Collier, turned their attention
+toward discovering a catalyst
+which would do for the metabolic reactions
+in animal life what his light
+rays did for plants. What his method
+was, I will not disclose for obvious
+reasons, but suffice it to say that he met
+with great success. He took a puppy
+and by treating it with his catalytic
+drugs, made it grow to maturity, pass
+through its entire normal life span,
+and die of old age in six months."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" name="page271">[271]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">T</span><span class="dcap">hat</span> is very interesting, Doctor,
+but I fail to see what bearing it
+has on the robbery."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rogers, how, on a dark day and
+in the absence of a timepiece, would
+you judge the passage of time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, by my stomach, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. By your metabolic rate.
+You eat a meal, it digests, you expend
+the energy which you have taken into
+your system, your stomach becomes
+empty and your system demands more
+energy. You are hungry and you judge
+that some five or six hours must have
+passed since you last ate. Do you follow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us suppose that by means of
+some tonic, some catalytic drug, your
+rate of metabolism and also your rate
+of expenditure of energy has been increased
+six fold. You would eat a meal
+and in one hour you would be hungry
+again. Having no timepiece, and assuming
+that you were in a light-proof
+room, you would judge that some five
+hours had passed, would you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I expect so."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Now suppose that this
+accelerated rate of digestion and expenditure
+of energy continued. You
+would be sleepy in perhaps three hours,
+would sleep about an hour and a quarter,
+and would then wake, ready for
+your breakfast. In other words, you
+would have lived through a day in four
+hours."</p>
+
+<p>"What advantage would there be in
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, from your standpoint. It
+would, however, increase the rate of
+reproduction of cattle greatly and
+might be a great boom to agriculture,
+but we will not discuss this phase now.
+Suppose it were possible to increase
+your rate of metabolism and expenditure
+of energy, in other words, your
+rate of living, not six times, but thirty
+thousand times. In such a case you
+would live five minutes in one one-hundredth
+of a second."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally, and you would live a
+year in about seventeen and one-half
+minutes, and a normal lifespan of seventy
+years in about twenty hours. You
+would be as badly off as any common
+may-fly."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">A</span><span class="dcap">greed,</span> but suppose that you
+could so regulate the dose of
+your catalyst that its effect would last
+for only one one-hundredth of a second.
+During that short period of time,
+you would be able to do the work that
+would ordinarily take you five minutes.
+In other words, you could enter a bank,
+pack a satchel with currency and walk
+out. You would be working in a leisurely
+manner, yet your actions would
+have been so quick that no human eye
+could have detected them. This is my
+theory of what actually took place.
+For verification, I will turn to Dr.
+Kirkwood, as he prefers to be known
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how you got that picture,
+but what you have said is about
+right," replied the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"I got that picture by using a speed
+of thirty thousand times the normal
+sixteen exposures per second," replied
+Dr. Bird. "That figure I got from Dr.
+Knolles, the man who perfected the
+secret you stole when you left the Bureau
+three years ago. You secured only
+part of it and I suppose it took all your
+time since to perfect and complete it.
+You gave yourself away when you experimented
+on young Ladd. I was a
+track man myself in my college days
+and when I saw an account of his running,
+I smelt a rat, so I came back and
+watched him. As soon as I saw him
+crush and swallow a capsule just as the
+gun was fired, I was sure, and got hold
+of him. He was pretty stubborn, but
+he finally told me what name you were
+running under now, and the rest was
+easy. I would have got you in time
+anyway, but your bravado in telling us
+when you would next operate gave me
+the idea of letting you do it and photographing
+you at work. That is all I
+have to say. Captain Sturtevant, you
+can take your prisoner whenever you
+want him."</p>
+
+<hr class="invis" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name="page272">[272]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="dropcapq"><small>"</small><span class="drop">I</span><span class="dcap"> reckoned</span> without you, Dr.
+Bird, but the end hasn't come yet.
+You may send me up for a few years,
+but you'll never find that money. I'm
+sure of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut, Professor," laughed
+Carnes. "Your safety deposit box in
+the Commercial National is already
+sealed until a court orders it opened.
+The bills you took this morning were
+all marked, so that is merely additional
+proof, if we needed it. You surely
+didn't think that such a transparent
+device as changing your name from
+'James Collier' to 'John Collyer' and
+signing with your left hand instead
+of your right would fool the secret
+service, did you? Remember, your old
+Bureau records showed you to be <ins class="correction" title="Original was 'ambidexterous'">ambidextrous</ins>."</p>
+
+<p>"What about Winston's confession?"
+asked Rogers suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Detective-Captain Sturtevant can
+explain that to a court when Mr. Winston
+brings suit against him for false
+arrest and brutal treatment," replied
+Carnes.</p>
+
+<p>"A very interesting case, Carnes," remarked
+the doctor a few hours later.
+"It was an enjoyable interlude in the
+routine of most of the cases on which
+you consult me, but our play time is
+over. We'll have to get after that
+counterfeiting case to-morrow."</p>
+
+<div class="adbox">
+<p class="ad1" style="text-decoration: underline">IN THE NEXT ISSUE</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">BRIGANDS OF THE MOON</p>
+<p><i>Beginning an Amazing Four-part Interplanetary Novel</i><br />
+By RAY CUMMINGS<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="veryshort" />
+
+<p class="ad2">THE SOUL MASTER</p>
+<p><i>A Thrilling Novelette of the Substitution of Personality</i><br />
+By WILL SMITH and R. J. ROBBINS<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="veryshort" />
+
+<p class="ad2">COLD LIGHT</p>
+<p><i>An Extraordinary Scientific Mystery</i><br />
+By CAPT. S. P. MEEK<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="veryshort" />
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>AND MANY OTHER STORIES, OF COURSE</i></p>
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+
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+
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+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>[&nbsp;] Check here if interested only in one for your home.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3" style="clear: left">Generous Free Test Offer</p>
+
+<p>Frankly, men, I realize that the profit possibilities of this
+proposition as outlined briefly here may seem almost incredible
+to you. So I've worked out a plan by-which you
+can examine the invention and test its profits without
+risking one penny.</p>
+
+<p>Get my free test offer while the territory you want is
+still open&mdash;I'll hold it for you while you make the test.
+I'll send you all the facts about others making $25 to $150
+in a week. I'll also tell you about another fast-selling
+item that brings you two profits on every call. All you
+risk is a 2&cent; stamp&mdash;so grab your pencil and shoot me
+the coupon right now.</p>
+
+<p>
+CENTRAL STATES MFG. CO., Dept. B-2403<br />
+4500 Mary Ave. (Est. over 20 years) St. Louis, Mo.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="center">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">Half a Million People</p>
+
+<p class="ad1"><i>have learned music this easy way</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/147.png" width="400" height="196" alt="You, too, Can Learn to Play Your Favorite Instrument Without a Teacher Easy as A-B-C" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Yes, half a million delighted men and women
+all over the world have learned music this
+quick, easy way.</p>
+
+<p>Half a million&mdash;500,000&mdash;what a gigantic orchestra
+they would make! Some are playing on
+the stage, others in orchestras, and many thousands
+are daily enjoying the pleasure and popularity
+of being able to play some instrument.</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto">
+<p class="ad3">WHAT INSTRUMENT
+FOR YOU?</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Piano</li>
+<li>Organ</li>
+<li>Violin</li>
+<li>Clarinet</li>
+<li>Flute</li>
+<li>Harp</li>
+<li>Coronet</li>
+<li>'Cello</li>
+<li>Guitar</li>
+<li>Ukulele</li>
+<li>Saxophone</li>
+<li>Banjo, (Plectrum 5-String or Tenor)</li>
+<li>Piccolo</li>
+<li>Hawaiian Steel Guitar</li>
+<li>Drums and Traps</li>
+<li>Mandolin</li>
+<li>Sight Singing</li>
+<li>Trombone</li>
+<li>Piano</li>
+<li>Accordion</li>
+<li>Voice and Speech Culture</li>
+<li>Harmony and Composition</li>
+<li>Automatic Finger Control</li>
+<li>Italian and German Accordion</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p>Surely this is convincing proof of the success
+of the <i>new, modern method</i> perfected by the
+U.S. School of Music! And what these people
+have done, YOU, too, can do!</p>
+
+<p>Many of this half million didn't know one note
+from another&mdash;others had never touched an instrument&mdash;yet
+in half the usual time they learned
+to play their favorite instrument. Best of all, they
+found learning music <i>amazingly</i> easy. No monotonous
+hours of exercises&mdash;no tedious scales&mdash;no
+expensive teachers. This simplified method made
+learning music as easy as A-B-C!</p>
+
+<p>It is like a fascinating game. From the very start
+you are playing <i>real</i> tunes, perfectly, by <i>note</i>. You simply
+can't go wrong, for every step, from beginning to end,
+is right before your eyes in
+print and picture. First you
+are <i>told</i> how to do a thing,
+then a picture <i>shows</i> you
+how, then you do it yourself
+and <i>hear</i> it. And almost before
+you know it, you are
+playing your favorite pieces&mdash;jazz,
+ballads, classics. No
+private teacher could make
+it clearer. Little theory&mdash;plenty
+of accomplishment.
+That's why students of the
+U.S. School of Music get
+ahead twice as fast&mdash;<i>three
+times as fast</i> as those who
+study old-fashioned, plodding
+methods.</p>
+
+<p>You don't need any special "talent." Many of the
+half-million who have already become accomplished
+players never dreamed they possessed musical ability.
+They only wanted to play some instrument&mdash;just like
+you&mdash;and they found they could quickly learn how
+this easy way. Just a little of your spare time each
+day is needed&mdash;and you enjoy every minute of it. The
+cost is surprisingly low&mdash;averaging only a few cents a
+day&mdash;and the price is the same for whatever instrument
+you choose. And remember, you are studying right in
+your own home&mdash;without paying big fees to private
+teachers.</p>
+
+<p>Don't miss any more good times! Learn now to
+play your favorite instrument and surprise all your
+friends. Change from a wallflower to the center of
+attraction. Music is the best thing to offer at a party&mdash;musicians
+are invited everywhere. Enjoy the popularity
+you have been missing. Get your share of the musician's
+pleasure and profit! Start now!</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+<p>
+U.S. SCHOOL OF MUSIC,<br />
+3692 Brunswick Bldg., New York City.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Please send me your free book, "Music Lessons in Your Own
+Home," with introduction by Dr. Frank Crane, Free Demonstration
+Lesson, and particulars of your easy payment plan. I am
+interested in the following course:</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li class="in4"><span class="dotsleft">Have you an instrument:</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3" style="clear:left">Free Booklet and Demonstration Lesson</p>
+
+<p>If you are in earnest about wanting to join the
+crowd of entertainers and be a "big hit" at any party&mdash;if
+you really <i>do</i> want to play your favorite instrument,
+to become a performer whose services will be in demand&mdash;fill
+out and mail the convenient coupon asking
+for our Free Booklet and Free Demonstration Lesson.
+These explain our wonderful method fully and show you
+how easily and quickly you can learn to play at little
+expense. This booklet will also tell you all about the
+amazing new <i>Automatic Finger Control</i>. Instruments are
+supplied when needed&mdash;cash or credit, U.S. School of
+Music 3692 Brunswick Bldg., New York City.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Only 28 years old and<br />
+earning $15,000 a year</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="advert" border="1px" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0">
+<colgroup span="3" width="150px" valign="top" />
+  <tr valign="top">
+    <td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/148a.png" width="150" height="131" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>Works in Shoe Factory</i></p></div>
+
+<p>W. T. Carson was forced to leave
+school at an early age. His help
+was needed at home. He took a
+&quot;job&quot; in a shoe factory in Huntington,
+W. Va., at $12 a week.</p>
+</td>
+    <td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/148b.png" width="150" height="132" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>Starts Studying at Home</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Carson determined to make something
+of himself before it was too
+late, so he took up a course with
+the International Correspondence
+Schools and studied in spare time.</p>
+</td>
+    <td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/148c.png" width="150" height="131" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>Now Owns Big Business</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Today W. T. Carson is the owner
+of one of the largest battery service
+stations in West Virginia, with
+an income of $15,000 a year. And
+he is only 28 years old!</p>
+</td>
+  </tr>
+<tr valign="top">
+<td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/148d.png" width="150" height="132" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>Lectures at College</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Just a few months ago a large
+college asked Carson to lecture before
+a class in electricity. That
+shows the practical value of his
+I. C. S. course.</p>
+  </td>
+  <td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/148e.png" width="150" height="132" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>How to Earn More Money</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>If the I. C. S. can smooth the path
+to success for men like W. T.
+Carson it can help you. If it can
+help other men to earn more money
+it can help you too.</p>
+  </td>
+  <td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/148f.png" width="150" height="133" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>The Boss is Watching You</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Show him you are ambitious and
+are really trying to get ahead. Decide
+today that you are at least
+going to find out all about the
+I. C. S. and what it can do for you.</p>
+  </td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="coupon" style="margin-top:1em">
+<p><b>INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS. Box 2124-E, Scranton, Penns.</b></p>
+
+<p>Without cost or obligation, please send me a copy of your booklet, "<b>Who Wins and Why</b>," and full particulars
+about the course <i>before</i> which I have marked <b>X</b> in the list below:</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">BUSINESS TRAINING COURSES
+</p>
+
+<ul class="multicolumn">
+<li>[&nbsp;] Business Management</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Industrial Management</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Personnel Management</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Traffic Management</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Accounting and C.P.A. Coaching</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Cost Accounting</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Bookkeeping</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Secretarial Work</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Spanish</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] French</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Salesmanship</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Advertising</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Business Correspondence</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Show Card and Sign Lettering</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Stenography and Typing</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] English</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Civil Service</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Railway Mail Clerk</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Mail Carrier</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Grade School Subjects</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] High School Subjects</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Cartooning</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Illustrating</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Lumber Dealer</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="ad3 clearit"><br />TECHNICAL AND INDUSTRIAL COURSES</p>
+
+<ul class="multicolumn">
+<li>[&nbsp;] Architect</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Architectural Draftsman</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Building Foreman</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Concrete Builder</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Contractor and Builder</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Structural Draftsman</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Structural Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Electrical Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Electrical Contractor</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Electric Wiring</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Electric Lighting</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Electric Car Running</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Telegraph Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Telephone Work</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Mechanical Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Mechanical Draftsman</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Machine Shop Practice</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Toolmaker</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Patternmaker</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Civil Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Surveying and Mapping</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Bridge Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Gas Engine Operating</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Automobile Work</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Aviation Engines</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Plumber and Steam Fitter</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Plumbing Inspector</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Foreman Plumber</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Heating and Ventilation</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Sheet-Metal Worker</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Steam Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Marine Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Refrigeration Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] R.R. Positions</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Highway Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Chemistry</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Pharmacy</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Mining Engineer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Navigation</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Assayer</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Iron and Steel Worker</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Textile Overseer or Supt.</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Cotton Manufacturing</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Woolen Manufacturing</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Agriculture</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Fruit Growing</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Poultry Farming</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Mathematics</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Radio</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="dots clearit">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">LET RCA INSTITUTES START<br />
+YOU ON THE ROAD TO ...<br />
+SUCCESS IN RADIO</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft" style="width: 198px; border: none">
+<table summary="advert" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
+<colgroup span="2" width="94px" />
+  <tr>
+<td>
+<img src="images/149a.png" width="94" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+</td>
+    <td>
+<p class="center smaller"><i>Radio-Mechanic<br />
+and Inspector<br />
+$1800 to $4000<br />
+a Year.</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="center smaller">
+<i>Broadcast<br />
+Station<br />
+Mechanic<br />
+$1800 to<br />
+$3600<br />
+a Year.</i>
+</td>
+    <td>
+<img src="images/149b.png" width="94" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<img src="images/149c.png" width="94" height="90" alt="" title="" />
+</td>
+<td class="center smaller">
+<i>Land Station<br />
+Operator $1800<br />
+to $4000 a Year.</i>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="center smaller"><i>Broadcast<br />
+Operators<br />
+$1800 to<br />
+$4800<br />
+a Year.</i>
+</td>
+    <td>
+<img src="images/149d.png" width="94" height="111" alt="" title="" />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Radio needs you</i>.... That's why the entire
+Radio industry is calling for trained men.
+Radio is thrilling work ... easy hours,
+vacations with pay and a chance to see the
+world. Manufacturers and broadcasting
+stations are now eagerly seeking
+trained RCA Institutes men.
+Millions of sets need servicing ...
+thousands of ships require experienced
+operators.... Never before
+was there an opportunity like this!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>This is the Only Course Sponsored
+by Radio Corporation of
+America</i></p>
+
+<p>RCA sets the standards for the
+entire Radio industry.... The
+RCA Institutes' Home Laboratory
+Training Course enables you to
+quickly learn all the secrets of
+Radio.... In your spare time you
+can obtain a thorough, practical
+education in Radio.</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright width40">
+<p>For the added convenience of students
+who prefer a Resident Study
+Course, RCA Institutes, Inc., has
+established Resident Schools in the
+following cities:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<col width="50%" />
+<col width="45%" />
+<tr><td align='left'>New York</td><td align='center'>326 Broadway</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Boston, Mass.</td><td align='center'>899 Boylston St.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Philadelphia, Pa.</td><td align='center'>1211 Chestnut St.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Baltimore, Md.</td><td align='center'>1215 N. Charles St.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Newark, N.J.</td><td align='center'>560 Broad St.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><br />You learn Radio by actual experience
+with the remarkable outlay
+of apparatus given to every student.
+That's why every graduate of
+RCA Institutes has the experience,
+the ability and the confidence to
+hold a big-money Radio job.</p>
+
+<p>Home Study graduates may also attend
+any one of our resident schools
+for post-graduate instruction at no
+extra charge.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>Graduates of RCA Institutes Find
+It Easier to Get Good Jobs</i></p>
+
+<p>Students of RCA Institutes get
+first-hand knowledge, get it quickly
+and get it complete. Success in
+Radio depends upon training and
+that's the training you get with
+RCA Institutes. That's why every
+graduate of RCA Institutes who
+desired a position has been able
+to get one.... That's why
+graduates are always in big
+demand!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>Study Radio at the Oldest and
+Largest Commercial Training
+Organization in the World</i></p>
+
+<p>Send for this Free Book ...
+or step in at any of our resident
+schools and see for yourself how
+thousands of men are already on
+the road to success in Radio.
+Remember that you, too, can
+speed up your earning capacity
+... can earn more money in Radio
+than you ever earned before. The
+man who trains today will hold
+down the big-money Radio job
+of the future. Come in and get
+this free book or send for it by
+mail. Everything you want to
+know about Radio. 40 fascinating
+pages, packed with pictures and
+descriptions of the brilliant opportunities
+in this gigantic, world-wide
+money-making profession.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+<p>
+RCA INSTITUTES, Inc.<br />
+Dept. NS-2, 326 Broadway,<br />
+New York, N.Y.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen: Please send me your FREE 40-page book which
+illustrates the brilliant opportunities in Radio and describes
+your laboratory-method of instruction at home!</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3" style="clear: left">SEND FOR IT TODAY!</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">Clip this Coupon <i>NOW</i>!</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft width20" style="border: hidden">
+<p class="center">SPONSORED BY</p>
+<p class="ad2">RCA INSTITUTES, INC.</p>
+<div class="figright" style="width:72px;">
+<img src="images/149e.png" width="72" height="50" alt="RCA" title="" />
+</div>
+<span class="center smaller"><br />Formerly<br />
+Radio Institute of America<br />
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">"INTO THE
+AFRICAN BLUE"</p>
+
+<p class="ad4"><i>High Spots in the Life of a Big Game Photographer</i></p>
+
+<p class="ad4"><i>By</i> MARTIN JOHNSON</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/150a.png" width="400" height="370" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="lalign"><span class="nowrap">"Into the African Blue"</span>
+is Africa&mdash;the land of romance&mdash;of
+adventure.</p>
+
+<p>African big game is rapidly
+being shot off; the
+end is in sight, and it is
+for the purpose of recording
+in pictures and in story
+the remarkable wild life
+which soon must vanish,
+that Martin and Osa Johnson
+undertake their safaris
+into the remotest corners
+of the "Blue."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson's photographs
+are magnificent! They portray
+the primitive drama
+of the wilderness. We see
+close-ups of elephants and
+giraffes suckling their
+young; lions lolling in the
+broiling sun or disputing
+possession of a zebra kill.
+We are introduced into
+the inner family circle of
+rhinos, leopards, eland,
+oryx, gazelle and others&mdash;all
+unconscious of the
+nearby presence of man. And there are, of course, thrilling moments when a cantankerous
+rhino, elephant or lion resents the intrusion and charges the camera with deadly intent.</p>
+
+<p class="clearit"><b>This thrilling serial, profusely illustrated with photographs by the author, began in the December
+issue of FOREST and STREAM. Follow Martin and Osa Johnson through the Soudan, the
+Congo, Kenya and Tanganyika; share their <span class="nowrap">adventures&mdash;</span></b></p>
+
+<div class="couponleft" style="width:305px">
+<p class="smaller">Department C</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="padding:0">
+<img src="images/150b.png" width="298" height="86" alt="Forest and Stream" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">80 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>Here's my $1.00. I want the 6 issues beginning
+with the December number, and Vols. 1 and 2 of
+the Sportsmen's Encyclopedia.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">&nbsp;</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">&nbsp;</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">&nbsp;</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">SPECIAL OFFER</p>
+
+<p>In addition to this thrilling serial, which in book form
+would cost not less than $3.00, the next six issues of
+FOREST and STREAM will contain much of interest
+to the outdoorsman&mdash;angler, hunter, camper and nature
+lover.</p>
+
+<p>FOREST and STREAM brings to you the best outdoor
+literature written by the foremost authorities in
+their respective fields. By making use of the coupon
+to the left you can secure six issues of FOREST and
+STREAM containing the complete story "Into the African
+Blue" for the special price of $1.00, and you will receive
+in addition to the magazine and without extra cost
+volumes 1 and 2 of the Sportsmen's Encyclopedia, an
+invaluable reference book which presents in handy form
+accurate and comprehensive information on every branch
+of outdoor sport.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Send in the coupon&mdash;"<i>DO IT NOW!</i>"</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/151b.png" width="250" height="808" alt="You can build 100 circuits with the six big outfits of Radio parts I give you. Find out quick about this practical way to big pay." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="adtop">I Will Train You<br />
+at Home to Fill<br />
+a Big-Pay
+Radio Job</p>
+
+<p>If you are earning a penny less than $50
+a week, send for my book of information on
+the opportunities in Radio. It's FREE. Clip
+the coupon NOW. A flood of gold is pouring
+into Radio, creating hundreds of big-pay jobs.
+Why go along at $25, $30 or $45 a week when
+the good jobs in Radio pay $50, $75 and up to
+$250 a week? "Rich Rewards in Radio" gives
+full information on these big jobs and explains
+how you can quickly learn Radio through my
+easy, practical home-study training.</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft lalign" style="width:110px;">
+<p class="ad2"><i>Here's the</i> PROOF</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/151d.png" width="50" height="68" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">$375 One Month
+In Spare Time</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Recently I made
+$375 in one month
+in my spare time
+installing, servicing,
+selling Radio
+Sets."</p>
+
+<p class="in1">
+Earle Cummings,<br />
+18 Webster St.,<br />
+Haverhill, Mass.<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/151c.png" width="50" height="69" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">$450 a Month</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I work in what
+I believe to be the
+largest and best-equipped
+Radio
+shop in the Southwest
+and also operate
+KGFI. I
+am averaging $450
+a month."</p>
+
+<p class="in1">
+Frank M. Jones,<br />
+922 Guadalupe St.,<br />
+San Angelo, Tex.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="couponright width40">
+<p class="ad3"><i>Mail This FREE COUPON Today</i></p>
+<p class="lalign">
+J. E. Smith, President,<br />
+Dept. OBM, National Radio Institute,<br />
+Washington, D.C.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Dear Mr. Smith: Send me your Free book
+"Rich Rewards in Radio," giving information
+on the big-money opportunities in Radio and
+your practical method of teaching with six
+Radio Outfits. I understand this places me
+under no obligation.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">Age</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">Salaries of $50 to $250 a Week
+Not Unusual</p>
+
+<p>The amazing growth of Radio has astounded
+the world. In a few short years three hundred
+thousand jobs have been created. And
+the biggest growth is still to come. That's
+why salaries of $50 to $250 a week are not
+unusual. Radio simply hasn't got nearly the
+number of thoroughly trained men it needs.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">You Can Learn Quickly and Easily
+in Spare Time</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of N. R. I. trained men are today making
+big money&mdash;holding down big jobs&mdash;in the Radio
+field. You, too, should get into Radio. You can stay
+home, hold your job and learn in your spare time.
+Lack of high school education or Radio experience
+are no drawbacks.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Many Earn $15, $20, $30 Weekly
+On the Side While Learning</p>
+
+<p>I teach you to begin making money shortly after
+you enroll. My new practical method makes this
+possible. I give you SIX BIG OUTFITS of Radio
+parts and teach you to build practically every type of
+receiving set known. M. E. Sullivan, 412 73rd St.,
+Brooklyn, N.Y., writes: "I made $720 while studying."
+G. W. Page, 1807 21st Ave. S., Nashville,
+Tenn., "I picked up $935 in my spare time while
+studying."</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Your Money Back If Not Satisfied</p>
+
+<p>My course fits you for all lines&mdash;manufacturing,
+selling, servicing sets, in business for yourself, operating
+on board ship, or in a broadcasting station&mdash;and
+many others. I back up my training with a signed
+agreement to refund every penny of your money if,
+after completion, you are not satisfied with the lessons
+and instructions I give you.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Act NOW&mdash;NEW 64-Page Book is FREE</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/151e.png" width="82" height="100" alt="RADIO NEEDS TRAINED MEN!" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Send for this big book of
+Radio information. It has
+put hundreds of fellows on
+the road to bigger pay and
+success. Get it. See what
+Radio offers you, and how
+my Employment Department
+helps you get into Radio
+after you graduate. Clip or
+tear out the coupon and mail
+it RIGHT NOW.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="clear:left">
+J. E. Smith, President, Dept. OBM<br />
+National Radio Institute<br />
+Washington, D.C.</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">Employment Service to all Graduates</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">Originators of Radio Home Study Training</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<table summary="masthead2" width="100%">
+  <col width="30%" />
+  <col width="40%" />
+  <col width="30%" />
+  <tr>
+    <td align="left"><i>A Year's Protection Against</i>
+<b>SICKNESS</b></td>
+    <td class="ad1">Less than 3&cent; a Day!</td>
+    <td class="ralign"><i>A Year's Protection Against</i>
+<b>ACCIDENT</b></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/152.png" width="400" height="91" alt="Cash or sympathy?" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="center">
+<p class="ad4"><i>Which do you want?</i></p>
+
+<p>Suppose you met with an accident or sickness
+to-night&mdash;salary stopped&mdash;which would you
+prefer,</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">$25 Weekly ... or Sympathy?</p>
+
+<p><i>Which will your family want?</i></p>
+
+<p>In case of your accidental death, which would
+you rather give your family</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">$10,000 Cash ... or Sympathy?</p>
+
+<p><i>Which would you Pay?</i></p>
+
+<p>Would you rather pay bills and household expenses
+out of a slim savings account or a</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">$10 bill</p>
+
+<p class="ad2"><i>For a Whole Year's Protection Against</i></p>
+
+<p class="adtop">SICKNESS<br />
+AND<br />
+ACCIDENT</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright width40">
+<p class="ad3">NO MEDICAL EXAMINATION</p>
+<p class="ad4">
+$10 A Year Entire Costs.<br />
+No Dues. No Assessments.</p>
+<p class="ad3">MEN AND WOMEN</p>
+<p class="ad4">16 to 70 Years Accepted.</p>
+<p class="ad3">$10,000</p>
+<p class="ad4">Principal Sum.</p>
+<p class="ad3">$10,000</p>
+<p class="ad4">Loss of hands, feet or eyesight.</p>
+<p class="ad3">$25 Weekly Benefits</p>
+<p class="ad4">for stated accidents<br />
+or sicknesses.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor's Bills, Hospital Benefit,
+Emergency Benefit and other liberal
+features to help in time of need&mdash;all
+clearly shown in policy.</p>
+
+<p>This is a simple and understandable
+policy&mdash;without complicated or misleading
+clauses. You know exactly
+what every word means&mdash;and every
+word means exactly what it says.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>Get Cash instead of Sympathy</i></p>
+
+<p>If you met with an accident
+in your home, on the
+street, or road, in the field, or on your job&mdash;will your income continue?
+Remember, few escape without accident&mdash;and none of us can
+tell what to-morrow holds for us. While you are reading this warning,
+somewhere some ghastly tragedy is taking its toll of human life or
+limb, some flood or fire, some automobile or train disaster. Protect
+yourself now.</p>
+
+<p><i>Get Cash instead of Sympathy</i></p>
+
+<p>If you suddenly became ill&mdash;would your income stop? What if you
+contracted lobar pneumonia, appendicitis operation, or any of the
+many common ills which are covered in this strong policy, wouldn't
+you rest easier and convalesce more quickly if you knew that this
+old line company stood ready to help lift from your shoulders
+distressing financial burdens in case of a personal tragedy. Protect
+yourself now.</p>
+
+<p><i>Get Cash instead of Sympathy</i></p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Don't Wait for Misfortune to Overtake You</p>
+
+<div class="couponleft width40">
+<p>
+North American Accident Insurance Co., [of Chicago]<br />
+388 Wallach Building, Newark, New Jersey.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen: At no cost to me send details of<br />
+New $10,000 Premier $10 Policy.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center" style="clear: right"><i>Mail the Coupon
+today!</i></p>
+
+<p>Mail the Coupon
+before it's too late
+to protect yourself
+against the
+chances of fate
+picking you out
+as its next victim.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<p class="ad3">Largest and Oldest Exclusive Health and Accident
+Insurance Company in America.</p>
+
+<p><i>Under Supervision of All State Insurance Departments</i></p>
+
+<p>ESTABLISHED OVER 40 YEARS</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="advert" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
+  <col width="136px" />
+  <col width="auto" />
+  <col width="153px" />
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/273a1.png" width="136" height="163" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+</td>
+<td valign="top">
+<div class="smaller lalign">
+<p class="ad2"><span class="nowrap">Pledge to the Public</span>
+on Used Car Sales</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">1 Every used car is conspicuously marked
+with its lowest price in plain figures,
+and that price, just as the price of our
+new cars, is rigidly maintained.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">2 All Studebaker automobiles which are
+marked as CERTIFIED CARS have been
+properly reconditioned, and carry a
+30-day guarantee for replacement of
+defective parts and free service on adjustments.</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap">3 Every purchaser of a used car may
+drive it for five days, and then, if not
+satisfied for any reason, bring it back
+and apply the money paid as a credit
+on the purchase of any other car in
+stock&mdash;new or used. (It is assumed
+that the car has not been damaged in
+the meantime.)</p>
+<p class="smaller">&copy; 1929 The Studebaker Corporation of America.</p>
+</div>
+</td>
+<td valign="top">
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/273a2.png" width="153" height="337" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">You can save money
+and get a better motor car</p>
+
+<p class="ad2"><i>if you buy
+according to the Studebaker Pledge plan</i></p>
+
+<p class="ad3">OVER 150,000 THRIFTY AMERICAN
+CITIZENS DID LAST YEAR!</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">A well</span> constructed car, sold at 40 or 50 per cent of
+its original price, offers maximum transportation
+value. Studebaker dealers offer many fine used cars&mdash;Studebakers,
+Erskines and other makes&mdash;which have
+been driven only a few thousand miles.</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright width40" style="border: none">
+<p class="ad3"><i>Invest 2&cent;&mdash;you may save $200</i></p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="border: 1px solid black; width: 61px; padding: 0; margin: 1em">
+<img src="images/273b.png" width="61" height="75" alt="How to judge a used car" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Mail the coupon
+below for the free
+booklet.&mdash;The 2&cent;
+stamp is an investment
+which may save
+you as much as $200
+in buying a motorcar!</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="couponright width40">
+<p>
+The Studebaker Corporation of America<br />
+Dept. 232, South Bend, Indiana</p>
+
+<p>Please send me copy of "How to Judge a Used Car"</p>
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Reconditioning
+of mechanical parts, refinishing of bodies give
+new car life to these cars at prices no greater than
+you must pay for a cheap <b>new</b> car. And as a final
+measure of protection, these cars are sold according to
+the Studebaker Pledge&mdash;which offers 5 days' driving trial
+on all cars and a 30-day guarantee on all certified cars.</p>
+
+<p>Prices being plainly marked provides the same price
+for everyone. Millions of people buy "used" houses.
+Every car on the road is a used car the
+week after it is purchased.</p>
+
+<p class="adtop">STUDEBAKER</p>
+
+<p class="ad2"><i>Builder of Champions</i></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width:250px;">
+<img src="images/274a.png" width="250" height="190" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<p class="ad1">Amazingly Easy<br />
+Way to Get Into<br />
+ELECTRICITY</p>
+
+<p>Don't spend your life waiting for $5 raises in a dull, hopeless job.
+Now ... and forever ... say good-bye to 25 and 35 dollars a week.
+Let me teach you how to prepare for positions that lead to $50,
+$64, and on up to $200 a week in Electricity&mdash;NOT by correspondence,
+but by an amazing way to teach <b>right here in the
+great Coyne Shops</b> that makes you a practical expert in 90
+days! Getting into electricity is far easier than you imagine!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">LEARN WITHOUT BOOKS&mdash;In 90 Days<br />
+<i>By Actual Work&mdash;in the Great Coyne Shops</i></p>
+
+<p>Lack of experience&mdash;age, or advanced education bars no one.
+I don't care if you don't know an armature from an air brake&mdash;I
+don't expect you to! It makes no difference! Don't let lack
+of money stop you. Most of the men at Coyne have no more
+money than you have. That's why I have worked out my astonishing
+offers.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>Earn While Learning</i></p>
+
+<p>If you need part-time work to help pay your living expenses I'll
+help you get it and when you graduate I'll give you lifetime
+employment service. And, in 12 brief weeks, <b>in the great
+roaring shops of Coyne</b>, I train you as you never dreamed you
+could be trained ... on one of the greatest outlays of electrical
+apparatus ever assembled ... real dynamos, engines, power
+plants, autos, switchboards, transmitting stations ... everything
+from door bells to farm power and lighting ... full sized
+... in full operation every day!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>No Books&mdash;No Lessons</i></p>
+
+<p>No dull books, no baffling charts, no classes, you get individual training ...
+all real actual work ... building real batteries ... winding real armatures,
+operating real motors, dynamos and generators, wiring houses, etc.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width40">
+<p>
+COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL, H. C. Lewis, Pres.<br />
+500 S. Paulina Street,<br />
+Dept. 20-66,<br />
+Chicago, Illinois
+</p>
+
+<p>Dear Mr. Lewis: Without obligation send me your big, free
+catalog and all details of Free Employment Service, Radio,
+Airplane, and Automotive Electrical Courses, and how I
+may "earn while learning."</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Name</i></span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Address</i></span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>City</i></span> <span class="dotsmiddle"><i>State</i></span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="larger"><b>GET THE FACTS</b></span> Coyne is your one great chance to get
+into electricity. Every obstacle is removed.
+This school is 30 years old&mdash;Coyne training is tested&mdash;proven
+beyond all doubt&mdash;endorsed by many large electrical concerns. You can
+find out everything absolutely free. Simply mail the coupon and let me
+send you the big, free Coyne book of 150 photographs ... facts ... jobs
+... salaries ... opportunities. Tells you how many earn expenses while
+training and how we assist our graduates in the field. This does not
+obligate you. So act at once. Just mail coupon.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">BIG BOOK <i>FREE</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Send for my big book containing 150 photographs telling complete
+story&mdash;absolutely FREE</p>
+
+<p>
+COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL<br />
+500 S. Paulina St., Dept. 20-66, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width:283px;">
+<img src="images/274b.png" width="283" height="500" alt="Buy a Watch the Modern Way. This 21 Jewel&mdash;Santa Fe Special Sent You On-Approval Wear 30 Days Free!" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Thank
+you for
+making it
+possible for
+me to own a
+21-jewel Santa
+Fe Special, write
+thousands of our
+customers.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Buy Direct</p>
+
+<p>Our catalogue is
+our showroom.
+Any watch will be
+sent for you to see
+without one penny
+down. No obligation
+to buy.</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">Save
+1/3 to 1/2</p>
+
+<p>on the price you pay for a similar watch made by
+other Manufacturers. Most liberal offer. Our "Direct
+to You" offer and Extra Special Distribution
+Plan is fully explained in the New Santa Fe Special
+Booklet just off the press. The "Santa Fe Special"
+Plan means a big saving of money to you and you
+get the best watch value on the market today.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Railroad Accuracy<br />
+Beauty Unsurpassed<br />
+Life-long Dependability</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;all are combined
+in the highest degree
+in the famous "Santa
+Fe Special" Watch.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width40">
+<p>SANTA FE WATCH CO., Dept. 255, Thomas Bldg.,
+Topeka, Kansas.</p>
+
+<p>Please send me absolutely Free your New Watch Book [&nbsp;]
+Diamond Book [&nbsp;].</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p>These watches are now in service on practically every railroad
+in the United States and in every branch of the Army
+and Naval service. Thousands of them are distributed
+around the world. You will never miss the few cents a day
+that will make you own one of these watches.</p>
+
+<p><span class="larger"><b>Just Out!</b></span>Send coupon for our New Watch Book&mdash;just
+off the press. All the newest watch
+case designs in white or green gold, fancy shapes and thin
+models are shown. Read our easy payment offer. Wear
+the watch 30 days FREE.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3 clearit"><span class="larger">SANTA FE WATCH CO.</span><br />
+Dept. 255<br />
+Thomas Bldg.<br />
+Topeka, Kans.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/275.png" width="400" height="270" alt="" title="COOLS while you shave and the coolness lingers! Listerine Shaving Cream" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">"Pardon me, gentlemen!"</p>
+
+<p class="ad2"><i>Business men gargle daily to check colds and sore throat</i></p>
+
+<p>Why is Listerine to be found in the offices of
+a majority of American business men? Why do
+they use it at the noon hour? Why do they
+sometimes halt important meetings, to gargle
+with it?</p>
+
+<p>Simply because, like you, they recognize in
+this safe antiseptic a swift, effective enemy of
+sore throat and the common cold. Used at the
+first sign of trouble, it has prevented thousands
+of cases from becoming serious.</p>
+
+<p>Its effectiveness is due to its amazing power to
+destroy disease germs, millions of which lodge
+in the oral cavity. Though safe to use and
+pleasant to taste, full strength Listerine kills
+even such resistant organisms as the Staphylococcus
+Aureus (pus) and Bacillus Typhosus
+(typhoid) in counts ranging to 200,000,000 in
+15 seconds. We could not make this statement
+unless prepared to prove it to the entire satisfaction
+of the medical profession and the U.S.
+Government.</p>
+
+<p>As a preventive of sore throat and colds use
+Listerine systematically every day. And at the
+first definite sign that either is developing, increase
+the frequency of the gargle. You will be
+amazed to see how quickly the condition disappears.
+Lambert Pharmacal Co., St. Louis, Mo.</p>
+
+<p class="adtop">LISTERINE <i>for</i> SORE THROAT</p>
+
+<p class="ad2"><i>Kills 200,000,000 germs in 15 seconds</i></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Go to School at Home!</p>
+
+<p class="adtop">High School
+Course in
+Two Years!</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">You Want to Earn Big Money!</p>
+
+<p><b>And you will not be satisfied unless you earn steady promotion.</b>
+But are you prepared for the job ahead of you?
+Do you measure up to the standard that insures success?
+For a more responsible position a fairly good education is
+necessary. To write a sensible business letter, to prepare
+estimates, to figure cost and to compute interest, you
+must have a certain amount of preparation. All this you
+must be able to do before you will earn promotion.</p>
+
+<p>Many business houses hire no men whose general knowledge
+is not equal to a high school course. Why? Because
+big business refuses to burden itself with men who are
+barred from promotion by the lack of elementary education.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Can You Qualify for a Better Position</p>
+
+<p>We have a plan whereby you can. We can give you a complete
+but simplified high school course in two years, giving
+you all the essentials that form the foundation of practical
+business. It will prepare you to hold your own where
+competition is keen and exacting. Do not doubt your ability,
+but make up your mind to it and you will soon have
+the requirements that will bring you success and big
+money. YOU CAN DO IT.</p>
+
+<p>Let us show you how to get on the road to success.
+It will not cost you a single working hour. Write today.
+It costs you nothing but a stamp.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<p class="larger">American School</p>
+
+<p>
+Dept. H-237<br />
+Drexel Ave. and 58th St., Chicago<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="coupon">
+<p>
+<b>American School</b><br />
+Dept. H-237<br />
+Drexel Ave. and 58th St., Chicago
+</p>
+
+<p>Send me full information on the subject checked and how
+you will help me win success.</p>
+
+<ul class="multicolumn">
+<li>___ Architect</li>
+<li>___ Building Contractor</li>
+<li>___ Automobile Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Automobile Repairman</li>
+<li>___ Civil Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Structural Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Business Manager</li>
+<li>___ Cert. Public Accountant</li>
+<li>___ Accountant and Auditor</li>
+<li>___ Bookkeeper</li>
+<li>___ Draftsman and Designer</li>
+<li>___ Electrical Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Electric Light &amp; Power</li>
+<li>___ General Education</li>
+<li>___ Vocational Guidance</li>
+<li>___ Business Law</li>
+<li>___ Lawyer</li>
+<li>___ Machine Shop Practice</li>
+<li>___ Mechanical Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Shop Superintendent</li>
+<li>___ Employment Manager</li>
+<li>___ Steam Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Foremanship</li>
+<li>___ Sanitary Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Surveyor (&amp; Mapping)</li>
+<li>___ Telephone Engineer</li>
+<li>___ Telegraph Engineer</li>
+<li>___ High School Graduate</li>
+<li>___ Wireless Radio</li>
+<li>___ Undecided</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto">
+<p class="ad2">EXTRA
+STRONG<br />
+IMPROVED MODEL<br />
+COPPER<br />
+BOILER</p>
+
+<p class="center">Catalog
+Free</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width:236px">
+<img src="images/276b.png" width="236" height="400" alt="SOLID CAST NO SCREW TOP" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">SAVE<br />
+20% <i>NOW</i>!</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Most Practical
+Boiler &amp; Cooker</p>
+
+<p>Made with large 5-inch Improved
+Cap and Spout. Safe,
+practical and simple. Nothing
+to get out of order, most substantial
+and durable on the
+market. Will last a lifetime,
+gives real service and satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Easily Cleaned</p>
+
+<p>Cap removed in a second;
+no burning of
+hands. An ideal low
+pressure-boiler and pasteurizer
+for home and
+farm.</p>
+
+<p><b>Save 20%</b> by ordering
+direct from factory. No
+article of such high quality
+and utility ever sold
+at such amazingly low
+prices. Prices quoted are
+each with order or one-fourth
+cash, balance
+C.O.D. Send check or
+money order: prompt
+shipment made in plain
+strong box. The only boiler
+worth having. Large
+Catalog Free.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<b>HOME MANUFACTURING CO.</b><br />
+Dept. 5850<br />
+18 E. Kinzie St.<br />
+Chicago, Illinois<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">Agents!
+Sell
+Shirts</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/276c.png" width="66" height="100" alt="" title="Bostonian" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Start <b>without investment</b> in a
+profitable shirt business of your
+own. Take orders in your district
+for nationally known Bostonian
+Shirts. <b>$1.50 commission</b> for you
+on sale of 3 shirts for $6.95&mdash;<b>Postage
+Paid</b>. $9 value, guaranteed fast colors.
+No experience needed. Complete selling equipment <b>FREE</b>!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Good Pay for Honest Workers</p>
+
+<p>Big earnings for ambitious workers. Genuine Broadcloth in four fast
+colors. Write for money-making plan, free outfit, with actual cloth
+samples and everything need to start. Name and address on postal
+will do. <b>Write TODAY! SURE!</b></p>
+
+<p class="ad3">BOSTONIAN MFG. CO., <span class="smcap">b-300</span>, 89 Bickford St., Boston, Mass.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">DEAFNESS IS MISERY</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/276d.png" width="47" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/276e.png" width="65" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Multitudes of persons with defective hearing
+and Head Noises enjoy conversation,
+go to Theatre and Church because they
+Use Leonard Invisible Ear Drums which
+resemble Tiny Megaphones fitting
+in the Ear entirely out of sight.
+No wires, batteries or head piece.
+They are inexpensive. Write for
+booklet and sworn statement of
+the inventor who was himself deaf.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">A. O. LEONARD, Inc., Suite 683, 70 5th Ave., New York</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto">
+
+<div class="larger">
+<ul>
+<li>Songs</li>
+<li>Minstrels</li>
+<li>Musical Comedies</li>
+<li>Revues</li>
+<li>Vaudeville Acts</li>
+<li>Blackface Skits</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3" style="margin-top:2em"><i>Catalogue
+Free</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="adtop">Denison's
+Plays</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>54 Years of Hits</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">We supply all entertainment
+needs for dramatic clubs,
+schools, lodges, etc., and for
+every occasion.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">T. S. Denison &amp; Co. 623 S. Wabash, Dept. 130 Chicago</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">Don't Stop Tobacco</p>
+
+<p>Without precautions against injurious effects.
+Baco-Cure gives the necessary assistance. Use tobacco
+while you take it. Has aided hundreds. Complete
+$5.00 treatment guaranteed to get results or
+money refunded. Write for booklet.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Eureka Chemical Co., B-26 Columbus, Ohio</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">Easy, Quick Way
+To Get Into</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/277a.png" width="300" height="210" alt="" title="Aviation" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1"><i>Let</i> Major Rockwell
+Train You
+<span class="larger">AT HOME</span></p>
+
+<p>My new, practical, amazing, Home Study Course prepares
+you quickly to fill any of the fascinating Aviation
+jobs, either on the ground or as a skilled flyer, paying
+$50 to $150 a week. I train you to succeed quickly, to
+fill one of the thousands of air and ground jobs now
+open, and I help you find your right place in Aviation.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">I'll Help You Get Your Job</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto">
+<p class="ad3">FREE
+BOOK<br />
+WRITE!</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Learn at home in your spare hours. In 12 short weeks you can
+be ready to take your flying instructions at greatly reduced
+rates at any airport near your home, or right here in Dayton.
+Or you can step into any aviation ground job with my help. Experience
+or advanced education not necessary. Aviation&mdash;the
+fastest growing industry is calling you! You risk nothing. If
+you are not satisfied after completing my course, I'll refund
+your tuition. Take the first step by writing NOW for my big
+FREE Book and Tuition offer. State age.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2 clearit">MAJOR R. L. ROCKWELL</p>
+<p class="center"><i>The Dayton School of Aviation</i><br />
+<b>Desk B-6</b><br />
+<b>Dayton, Ohio</b>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/277b.png" width="160" height="250" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">SAXOPHONE
+Easy to Play
+Easy To Pay</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">Simplified Key Arrangement</p>
+
+<p>Fingers fall naturally
+into playing position.
+Makes it extremely
+easy to play rapidly
+on the Buescher.</p>
+
+<p>The Buescher True-Tone Saxophone is the
+easiest of all wind instruments to play and
+one of the most beautiful. You can learn the
+scale in an hour, and in a few weeks be playing
+popular music. First 3 lessons free, with
+each new Saxophone. For home entertainment&mdash;church&mdash;lodge&mdash;school
+or for Orchestra Dance
+Music, the Saxophone is the ideal instrument.</p>
+
+<p><b>FREE TRIAL</b>&mdash;We allow 6 days' free trial on any
+Buescher Saxophone in your own home and arrange easy
+payments so you can pay while you play. Write for Saxophone Catalog.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+BUESCHER BAND INSTRUMENT CO.<br />
+2980 Buescher Block (553)<br />
+ELKHART, INDIANA
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px">
+<img src="images/277c.png" width="200" height="60" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="ad1">MEN WANTED FOR RAILROADS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nearest their homes&mdash;everywhere&mdash;to train for Firemen, Brakemen;
+average wages $150-$200 monthly. Promoted to Conductor or
+Engineer&mdash;highest wages on railroads. Also clerks. Railway
+Educational Association, Dept. D-30, Brooklyn, New York.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/277d.png" width="158" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">How to RAISE POULTRY for PROFIT</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="adtop">BIG MONEY <i>IN<br />POULTRY</i>!</p>
+
+<p>If you want a real job&mdash;at real pay or if you
+want to start profitable business of your own&mdash;become
+a trained Poultryman. It's interesting,
+healthful, profitable. Our famous home study
+Course gives short cuts to success. Write for
+Free Book, "How to Raise Poultry for Profit."</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">National Poultry Institute, Dept. 415-F, Washington, D.C.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">SPORT OF A
+THOUSAND THRILLS</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/277e.png" width="376" height="400" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption"><i>Model shown
+is the popular
+&quot;45&quot; Twin</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto">
+<p class="ad1 smcap">RIDE A<br />
+Harley-Davidson</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Eager</span>
+power under
+instant
+control&mdash;speed
+that leaves the car-parades
+behind&mdash;lightning
+response to throttle
+and brakes&mdash;these
+are just a few of the thousand
+thrills of motorcycling. Ask
+any Harley-Davidson rider&mdash;he'll
+tell you of dozens more. And they
+are all yours at low cost, in a
+Harley-Davidson "45"&mdash;the wonderful
+Twin at a popular price.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright lalign width50">
+<p>
+HARLEY-DAVIDSON MOTOR COMPANY<br />
+Dept. N. S. G., Milwaukee, Wis.</p>
+<p class="center">Interested in your motorcycles. Send literature.</p>
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+<p>
+My age is [&nbsp;] 16-19 years, [&nbsp;] 20-30 years, [&nbsp;] 31 years and
+up, [&nbsp;] under 16 years. Check your age group.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p>Let your dealer show you the 1930 features
+of this motorcycle&mdash;try the comfortable,
+low-swung saddle&mdash;get the
+"feel" of this wonder Twin. Ask about
+his Pay-As-You-Ride Plan.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="ad3 nowrap"><i>Mail the Coupon!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>for literature showing our full
+line of Singles, Twins, and Sidecars.
+Motorcycle prices range
+from $235 f. o. b. factory</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">"How I Licked
+Wretched Old
+Age at 63"</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>I Quit Getting up Nights&mdash;Banished Foot and
+Leg Pains ... Got Rid of Rheumatic Pains
+and Constipation ... Improved My Health
+Generally ... Found Renewed Strength.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"At 61, I thought I was through. I blamed old age, but it
+never occurred to me to actually fight back. I was only half-living,
+getting up nights ... constipated ... constantly tormented
+by aches and pains. At 62 my condition became almost intolerable.
+I had about given up hope when a doctor recommended
+your treatment. Then at 63, it seemed that I shook off 20 years
+almost overnight."</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>Forty</i>&mdash;The Danger Age</p>
+
+<p>These are the facts, just as I learned them. In 65% of all
+men, the vital prostate gland shows up soon after all. No pain
+is experienced, but as this distressing condition continues, sciatica,
+backache, severe bladder weakness, constipation, etc., often develop.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">PROSTATE TROUBLE</p>
+
+<p>These are frequently the signs of prostate
+trouble. Now thousands suffer these handicaps
+needlessly! For a prominent American
+Scientist after seven years of research, discovered
+a new, safe way to stimulate the prostate
+gland to normal health and activity in many
+cases. This new hygiene is worthy to be
+called a notable achievement of the age.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">A National Institution for Men Past 40</p>
+
+<p>Its success has been startling, its growth
+rapid. This new hygiene is rapidly gaining in
+national prominence. The institution in Steubenville
+has now reached large proportions.
+Scores and even hundreds of letters pour in
+every day, and in many cases reported results
+have been little short of amazing. In case after
+case, men have reported that they have felt
+ten years younger in six days. Now physicians
+in every part of the country are using and recommending this
+treatment.</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft width30"><p>If you live West of the Rockies, address The Electro
+Thermal Co., 303 Van Nuys Building, Dept. 48-C, Los
+Angeles, Calif. In Canada, address The Electro Thermal
+Co., Desk 48-C, 53 Yonge St., Toronto, Can.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="nowrap">Quick as is the</span> response to this new hygiene, it is actually a
+pleasant, natural relaxation, involving no drugs, medicine or electric
+rays whatever. The scientist explains this discovery and tells
+why many men are old at forty in a new book now sent free, in
+24-page, illustrated form. Send for it. Every man past forty
+should know the true meaning of three frank facts. No cost or
+obligation is incurred. But act at once before this free edition
+is exhausted. Simply fill in your name below, tear off and mail.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width40">
+<p class="lalign">THE ELECTRO THERMAL CO.,<br />
+4826 Morris Ave., Steubenville, Ohio.</p>
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+<b>THE ELECTRO THERMAL COMPANY</b><br />
+4826 Morris Avenue<br />
+Steubenville, Ohio
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">How To Secure A
+Government Position</p>
+
+<p>Why worry about strikes, layoffs, hard
+times? Get a Government job! Increased
+salaries, steady work, travel,
+good pay. Examinations coming. I'll
+help you become a Custom House Clerk,
+Railway Postal Clerk, Post Office Clerk,
+City Mail Carrier, Rural Carrier&mdash;or get
+into any other Government job you
+want. I was a Secretary-Examiner of
+Civil Service Commission for 8 years.
+Have helped thousands.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">NOW FREE</p>
+
+<p>My 32-page book tells about the jobs
+open&mdash;and how I can help you get one.
+Write TODAY. ARTHUR R. PATTERSON.
+Civil Service Expert. PATTERSON
+SCHOOL, 1082 Wisner Building,
+Rochester. N.Y.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Photos
+ENLARGED</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/278c.png" width="134" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">Size 16x20 inches</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto" style="border: none"><p class="ad1">98&cent;</p></div>
+
+<p>Same price for full length or best
+form groups, landscapes, or pet animals,
+etc., enlargements of any part
+of group picture. Safe return of
+your own original photo guaranteed.</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto" style="border: none"><p class="ad3">SPECIAL<br />
+FREE OFFER</p></div>
+
+<p><b>SEND NO MONEY</b> Just mail photo or snapshot
+(any size) and within
+a week you will receive your beautiful life-like
+enlargement size 16x20 in. guaranteed fadeless.
+Pay postman 98&cent; plus postage or send $1.00
+with order and we pay postage.
+With each enlargement we will
+send FREE a hand-tinted miniature
+reproduction of photo sent. Take advantage now
+of this amazing offer&mdash;send your photo today.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<b>UNITED PORTRAIT COMPANY</b><br />
+1652 Ogden Ave. Dept. B-590, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">BLANK CARTRIDGE PISTOL</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/278d.png" width="250" height="153" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft width25 lalign"><p><b>Special Offer</b></p>
+
+<p>1 Blank
+Cartridge
+Pistol, 100 Blank
+Cartridges, 1 550-page
+Novelty Catalog<br />
+<b>ONLY
+$1.50</b></p>
+
+<p>The
+Lot
+Shipped by
+Express
+Only
+Cash
+with
+Order
+Only</p></div>
+
+<p>This well
+made and
+effective
+pistol is
+modelled on
+the pattern
+of the latest
+type of Revolver,
+the
+appearance
+of which
+alone is
+enough to scare a burglar, whilst, when
+loaded, it will probably prove just as
+effective as a revolver with real bullets
+without the danger to life. It
+takes the standard .22 Calibre Blank
+Cartridges, that are obtainable most
+everywhere. Special cash with order offer: 1 superior quality
+Blank Cartridge Pistol. 100 Blank Cartridges, and our
+new 550-page DeLuxe Catalog of latest novelties all for <b>ONLY
+$1.50</b>. Shipped by express only. Cannot go by parcel post.
+Extra Blank Cartridges <b>50&cent; per 100</b>. Remember it is quite
+harmless, as it will not accommodate loaded cartridges. Special
+Holster (Cowboy Type) for pistol 50&cent;. No C.O.D. Shipments.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>JOHNSON SMITH &amp; COMPANY.</b> Dept 212, Racine, Wisconsin</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">BE
+A RAILWAY
+TRAFFIC INSPECTOR</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">EARN UP TO $250
+Per Month
+Expenses Paid</p>
+
+<p class="center">No Hunting
+For a Position</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/278e.png" width="250" height="179" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Unusual opportunities for men 19 to 55 in this uncrowded
+profession. Travel or remain near home.
+Pleasant, fascinating work. Advancement rapid.
+Prepare in 3 months' spare time, home instruction.
+We assist you to a position upon completion, paying
+$120 to $135 per month, plus expenses or refund your
+tuition. Learn about Traffic Inspection now. Our
+free booklet shows how it can make your future a
+certainty. Write for it today.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+Standard Business Training Institute<br />
+DIV. 13<br />
+Buffalo, N.Y.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Sleep Disturbed?</p>
+
+<p>If irritating kidney excretions frequently disturb your
+sleep or cause backache, leg pains and make you feel
+tired, achy, depressed and discouraged, why not try
+the Cystex 48 Hour Test? No dopes or habit-forming
+drugs. List of pure ingredients in each package.
+Get Cystex (pronounced Siss-tex) at your drug
+store for only 60&cent;. Use all of it. See how it works.
+Money back if it doesn't satisfy you completely.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">NEW WAY TO MAKE MONEY</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Easy Cash&mdash;Sure
+and Quick</p>
+
+<p>An opportunity
+to earn $15 a day
+or more taking orders from your friends
+and neighbors for our fine tailoring.
+Orders come easy when you show our
+swell samples and smart styles. <b>We
+Show You How</b>&mdash;you don't need to
+know anything about tailoring&mdash;simply
+follow our directions&mdash;we make it easy.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">FREE SUIT OFFER</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto"><b>FREE<br />
+New, Big<br />
+Sample<br />
+OUTFIT</b></div>
+
+<p>Make a few sales to your friends and get it
+finely tailored to your order suit, in any style,
+absolutely FREE, in addition to your cash profits.</p>
+
+<p>New style convenient
+carrying outfit,
+large all-wool samples&mdash;all
+supplies necessary to start at once&mdash;furnished
+<b>FREE</b>. <b>Write at once.</b></p>
+
+<p class="ad3">PROGRESS TAILORING CO., Dept. P-204, Chicago</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto">
+<p class="ad3">FREE</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>SHIRTS</li>
+<li>TIES</li>
+<li>CASH</li>
+<li>BONUS</li>
+<li>GIVEN</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">MORE PAY with<br />
+QUAKER FREE OUTFIT</p>
+
+<p><i>Earn big money right from the
+start. Let Quaker help you. Wonderful
+free Sample outfit gets
+orders everywhere. Men's Shirts,
+Ties, Underwear, Hosiery. Unmatchable
+values. Unique Selling
+features. Ironclad guarantee. You
+can't fail with Quaker. Write for
+your Free outfit NOW.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center clearit">
+QUAKER SHIRT CORPORATION<br />
+Dept. K-2<br />
+1107 Broadway, N.Y.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/279a.png" width="193" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">FRENCH
+LOVE DROPS</p>
+
+<p>An enchanting exotic perfume of irresistible
+charm, clinging for hours like
+lovers loath to part. Just a few
+drops are enough. Full size bottle
+98&cent; prepaid or $1.39 C.O.D. plus
+postage. Directions with every order.
+FREE: 1 full size bottle if you
+order 2 vials.</p>
+
+<p class="clearit ad3">
+D'ORO CO.<br />
+Box 90, Varick Station, New York<br />
+Dept NSG 2
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">
+NO JOKE TO BE DEAF<br />
+&mdash;EVERY DEAF PERSON KNOWS THAT
+</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/279c.png" width="100" height="59" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">Medicated Ear Drum</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>I make myself hear, after being deaf for 25 years, with
+these Artificial Ear Drums. I wear
+them day and night. They stop
+head noises and ringing ears. They
+are perfectly comfortable. No one
+sees them. Write me and I will tell
+you a true story, how I got deaf and
+how I make you hear. Address</p>
+
+<p>
+GEO. P. WAY, Artificial Ear Drum Co. (Inc.)<br />
+300 Hoffman Bldg.<br />
+Detroit, Mich.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">Be A Detective</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>Make Secret Investigations</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Earn Big Money. Work home or travel.
+Fascinating work. Experience unnecessary.<br />
+<b>DETECTIVE</b> Particulars FREE, Write NOW to<br />
+<b>GEO. N. WAGNER, 2190 Broadway, New York</b></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">TOBACCO</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">Habit Overcome Or No Pay</p>
+
+<p>Over 500,000 men and women used Superba Remedy to help stop
+Cigarettes, Cigars, Pipe, Chewing or Snuff. Write for full treatment
+on trial. Contains no dope or habit forming drugs. Costs $2.00 if
+successful, nothing if not. SUPERBA CO., A-11, Baltimore, Md.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Get Strong<br />
+WITH</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">These Improved
+Muscle Builders</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>All for $5.00</i></p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/279d.png" width="300" height="217" alt="Save $20.00 with this OFFER" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/279e.png" width="127" height="500" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Why pay an extravagant price for
+strength&mdash;here's an opportunity to get
+all the equipment you require along
+with an excellent course of instructions
+for only $5.00. Realize your ambition
+and develop muscles of a super-man.
+Get strong and amaze your friends. We
+show you how to easily master feats
+which now seem difficult&mdash;or if you
+just want physical culture for your
+health's sake, this equipment is just
+what you need. With this special offer
+you save at least $20.00. We furnish a
+ten cable chest expander which is adjustable
+to give resistance up to 200
+lbs. It is made of new live extra
+strength, springy rubber so as to ensure
+long wear and give the resistance you
+need for real muscle development. You
+also get a pair of patented hand grips
+for developing powerful grip and forearms.</p>
+
+<p>We include wall exercising parts
+which permit you to develop your back,
+arms and legs&mdash;a real muscle necessity. You
+know that business men and athletes, too, first
+show their age in their legs. Develop your leg
+muscles with the foot strap which we furnish.
+This will give you speed and endurance&mdash;but
+that isn't all that you get. In addition we include
+a specially written course which contains pictures
+and diagrams showing you how to develop
+any part of your body so that you will quickly
+get on with these exercises and gain the greatest
+advantage from their use. Act now while
+you can get in on this special offer. It might be
+withdrawn, so rush the coupon.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+<p>
+CRUSADER APPARATUS CO.,<br />
+Dept. 2002, 44 Parker Ave., Maplewood, N.J.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I accept your offer. Send me everything described in your
+advertisement by return mail. I will pay postman $5.00 plus
+postage on arrival. It is understood if I am not entirely
+satisfied after examination I can return the goods and you
+will refund my money.</p>
+
+<p>Note:&mdash;No C.O.D. Orders to Foreign Countries or Canada.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">SEND NO MONEY</p>
+
+<p>All of the items pictured on this page are included
+in this big special reduction offer. Sign
+your name and address to the coupon below and
+rush it to us. We will send your ten cable chest
+developer, the wall parts, a pair of hand grips,
+foot strap and the course by return mail. Pay
+the postman only $5.00, plus the few cents
+postage on arrival. (If you desire to send
+check or money order in advance, we pay
+postage.)</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">GUARANTEE</p>
+
+<p>All Crusader products are guaranteed to
+give entire satisfaction or money back.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="advert" width="100%">
+  <col width="58px" />
+  <col width="385px" />
+  <col width="57px" />
+  <tr>
+    <td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/280a1.png" width="58" height="197" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p class="adtop">Win $3,500.00</p>
+
+<p>Prizes from $1800.00 to $4245.00 each have been won through our unique advertising plan. In our
+last, an old man of 69, out of work, won over $5000.00. A boy, only 15, won $900.00. In next 3 or 4
+months thousands of dollars will be awarded to fortunate persons who solve our puzzles and win our prizes.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/280a2.png" width="57" height="197" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3">
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/280a3.png" width="500" height="103" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">FIND THE TWIN FLYERS</p>
+
+<p>Watch out! These twelve pictures of a famous woman flyer all look alike&mdash;BUT&mdash;two, and only
+two, are exactly alike. Find these twin flyers! Some pictures are different in the collar, helmet,
+goggles, or tie. Remember, only two of the twelve are exactly alike. Find them, and send the numbers of
+the twin flyers on a post card or letter today. If correct, your answer will qualify you for this opportunity.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">$7160.00 IN PRIZES GIVEN THIS TIME</p>
+
+<p>Over 25 prizes, and duplicate prizes in case of ties. It's up to the winner whether he or she
+chooses $2875.00 in cash or a new Waco airplane, a big automobile, or a new home. A gorgeous prize
+list! ANYONE WHO ANSWERS THIS PUZZLE CORRECTLY MAY RECEIVE PRIZES OR CASH.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">$625.00 ADDITIONAL FOR PROMPTNESS</p>
+
+<p>Be prompt! It pays. Find the real twin flyers, and I will send Certificate which will be good
+for $625.00 if you are prompt and win first prize. Imagine, a first prize of $3500.00!</p>
+
+<p>NO MORE PUZZLES TO SOLVE. Any man, woman, boy, or girl in the U.S.A.&mdash;anyone at all, except residents of
+Chicago, Illinois, and former major prize winners. 25 of the people who take up this offer are going to win these wonderful
+prizes. Be one of them. Send the numbers of
+the twin flyers. Send no money, but be prompt.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">J. D. SNYDER, Dept. 36, 54 W. Illinois St., Chicago, Ill.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/280b.png" width="500" height="88" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">TRAIN FOR AVIATION AT HOME</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+<p class="ad3">
+SEND FOR FREE BOOK<br />
+MAIL NOW!</p>
+
+<p>WALTER HINTON, President, 316-D<br />
+Aviation Institute of U.S.A.<br />
+1115 Conn. Ave., Washington, D.C.</p>
+<p class="center">(must be 18)</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">Age</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p>Hundreds of men are already training for big-pay Aviation
+jobs through Lt. Hinton's practical home-study course.
+This thorough training is just the foundation you need
+to enter Aviation in any of its many branches, for the
+course covers Terms and Definitions, Principles of Flight,
+Rigging, Repairing, Construction, Instruments, Aerology,
+Engines, Ignition, Carburetion, Airports; <i>Aviation from
+A to Z</i>. After graduation Hinton's Employment Department
+puts you in touch with real jobs, or, if you want
+to be a pilot, Hinton arranges special flying rates at an
+accredited Air College near your home. Hinton-trained
+men are in demand and they are making
+good. His Big Free Book explains
+everything. Send for your copy at
+once!</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">$8 often made in one day
+by many of our sales Agents</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/280c.png" width="154" height="300" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Sell finest line new
+guaranteed hosiery
+you ever saw, for men, women, children.
+Written guarantee to wear and
+satisfy or replaced. 126 styles, colors.
+Finest silks. All at lowest prices.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">NEW FORD CAR</p>
+
+<p>We offer our agents a <b>new Ford Car</b>
+when earned under our plan. Your
+commission daily. Credit given. Extra
+bonus. We deliver or you deliver&mdash;suit
+yourself.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">FINE SILK HOSE</p>
+
+<p>Our new plan gives you <b>fine silk
+hosiery</b> for your own use. I want
+men and women to act as Local Sales
+Agents. Spare time is satisfactory.
+Write quick. A post card will do.</p>
+
+<p>
+<b>WILKNIT HOSIERY CO.<br />
+No. 2807 Greenfield, Ohio</b><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">NEW SCIENTIFIC WONDER</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">"X-RAY" CURIO</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">BIG FUN</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/280d.png" width="200" height="82" alt="Reg. U.S. Pat. Off." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto">
+<p class="center"><b>PRICE<br />
+10&cent;<br />
+3-25&cent;<br /></b>
+no stamps</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="lalign"><b>BOYS</b> You apparently see thru Clothes, Wood,
+Stone, any object. See Bones in Flesh.
+FREE Pkg. radio picture films, takes pictures without
+camera. You'll like 'em. (1 pkg. with each 25&cent; order.)</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">MARVEL MFG. CO. Dept. 86, NEW HAVEN, CONN.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">TRAVEL&mdash;for 'UNCLE SAM'</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+<p class="ad1">COUPON</p>
+
+<p class="center">FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, Dept. E267, Rochester, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>Rush to me, free of charge. (1) A full description of the positions checked
+below. (2) 32-page book with list of positions obtainable. (3) Tell me
+how to get the positions checked.</p>
+
+<ul><li>[&nbsp;] Railway Postal Clerk ($1900 to $2700)</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Postoffice Clerk ($1700 to $2300)</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] City Mail Carrier ($1700 to $2100)</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] General Clerk ($1200 to $2100)</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Customs Inspector ($2100 up)</li>
+<li>[&nbsp;] Rural Mail Carrier ($2100 to $3300)</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">RAILWAY POSTAL CLERKS</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">MAIL CARRIERS&mdash;POSTOFFICE CLERKS<br />
+GENERAL CLERKS&mdash;CUSTOMS INSPECTORS</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">$1700 to $3400 a Year for Life</p>
+
+<p>No "layoffs" because of strikes, poor business, etc.&mdash;sure pay&mdash;rapid
+advancement. Many other U.S. Government Jobs. City
+and country residents stand same chance. Common sense education
+usually sufficient.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">STEADY WORK</p>
+
+<p class="center">Cut coupon and mail it before turning the page</p>
+
+<p class="adtop">MEN&mdash;BOYS<br />
+18 to 45</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Use Coupon Before You Lose It</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">Get
+Strong
+QUICKLY</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Giant Chest Expander</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto"><p class="ad3">ONLY $2.00</p></div>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/281a.png" width="300" height="144" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="lalign">Here's an opportunity
+for everyone
+to develop
+big muscles and
+obtain great strength by
+using this heavy-tensioned
+PROGRESSIVE EXERCISER,
+adjustable from 20
+to 200 lbs. resistance. Complete
+instructions with each exerciser.</p>
+
+<p>Get rid of those aches and pains, indigestion,
+constipation, headaches, etc. Build up your body
+and look like a real He-man.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">SEND NO MONEY!</p>
+
+<p>Simply pay the postman $2.00,
+plus a few cents postage, for
+five-cabled exerciser or $4.00
+plus a few cents postage, for ten-cabled
+exerciser. <i>Money back in
+five days if dissatisfied.</i></p>
+
+<p>
+Progressive Exerciser Co.<br />
+Dept. 5002, Langdon Building<br />
+Duane Street and Broadway<br />
+New York City</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">LAW</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">STUDY AT HOME</p>
+
+<p>Become a lawyer. Legally trained
+men win high positions and big success
+in business and public life. Be
+independent. Greater opportunities
+now than ever before. Big corporations
+are headed by men with legal
+training. Earn</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">$5,000 to $10,000 Annually</p>
+
+<p>We guide you step by step. You can train at home
+during spare time. Degree of LL. B. conferred.
+LaSalle students found among practicing attorneys of every
+state. We furnish all text material, including fourteen-volume
+Law Library. Low cost, easy terms. Get our valuable 64-page "Law
+Guide" and "Evidence" books FREE. Send for them NOW.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+LaSalle Extension University, Dept. 275-L, Chicago<br />
+The World's Largest Business Training Institution
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad2">HOW SHARP IS YOUR RAZOR?</p>
+
+<p>Did you have trouble shaving this morning? If your
+razor blade scraped and pulled you will appreciate this remarkable
+new discovery.... Gold Nugget Strop Dressing
+... can be used satisfactorily on all stropping devices
+... puts keen cutting edge on any razor blade....
+Easy to apply ... results assured. Makes you feel like
+singing when you shave. $1 postpaid.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+NO-HONE COMPANY<br />
+3124 California St.<br />
+Omaha, Nebraska</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">PATENTS</p>
+
+<p>Time counts in applying for patents. Don't risk delay in
+protecting your ideas. Send sketch or model for instructions
+or write for FREE book. "How to Obtain a Patent"
+and "Record of Invention" form. No charge for information
+on how to proceed. Communications strictly confidential.
+Prompt, careful, efficient service. Clarence A.
+O'Brien, Registered Patent Attorney, 1876 Security Savings
+and Comm'l Bank Building (directly across street
+from Patent Office) Washington, D.C.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">STOP Tobacco</p>
+
+<p>No human being can escape the harmful effects of tobacco.
+Don't try to quit without assistance. Let our simple inexpensive
+remedy help you. A complete treatment costs but $2.00. Every
+penny promptly refunded if you do not get desired results.</p>
+
+<p>Ours is a harmless preparation, carefully compounded to overcome
+the condition, that will make quitting of tobacco pleasant,
+and easy. It comes with a money back guarantee.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Anti-Tobacco League</p>
+<p class="center">
+P.O. Box H-2<br />
+OMAHA, NEBR.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">SONG WRITERS!</p>
+
+<p>SUBSTANTIAL ADVANCE ROYALTIES
+are paid on work found acceptable for publication.
+Anyone wishing to write <i>either the words</i> or
+music for songs may submit work for free examination
+and advice. <i>Past experience unnecessary</i>.
+New demand created by "Talking Pictures"
+fully described in our free book. Write for it
+Today.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+NEWCOMER ASSOCIATES<br />
+723 Earle Building, New York</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Learn to PAINT
+SIGNS and SHOW CARDS</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/281c.png" width="75" height="100" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>We quickly
+teach you by mail, or at
+school. In spare time. Enormous
+demand. Big future. Interesting
+work. Oldest and foremost school.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">EARN $50 TO $200 WEEKLY</p>
+
+<p>Otto Wiegand, Md., home-study graduate, made
+$12,000 from his business in one year. John
+Vassoe, N.Y., gets $25 for a show card. Crawford,
+B.C., writes: "Earned $200 while taking
+course." Write for complete information.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+DETROIT SCHOOL OF LETTERING<br />
+Est. 1889<br />
+180 Stimson Ave.<br />
+DETROIT, MICH.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">STOP WORRYING
+about Money</p>
+
+<p class="ad1"><i>Here's a New, Easy
+Way to Make</i><br />
+$15 a Day</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Yes</span>&mdash;here's a wonderful opportunity to start right
+in making $15 in a day. You can have plenty of
+money to pay your bills, to spend for new clothes,
+furniture, radio, pleasure trips, or whatever you want.
+No more pinching pennies or counting the nickels and
+dimes. No more saying "We can't afford it." That's
+the biggest mistake any man or woman ever made. <b>And
+I'll prove it.</b></p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft width30">
+<p class="ad2">FREE!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">New Ford
+Tudor Sedan</p>
+
+<p>NOT a contest. I offer
+a brand-new car free to
+producers as an extra reward
+or bonus&mdash;in addition
+to their large cash
+profits. Mail coupon for
+particulars.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figleft clearit">
+<img src="images/281e.png" width="350" height="186" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">Van Allen Makes $100 a Week</p>
+
+<p>Just send me your name and address and I'll give you some facts
+that will open your eyes. I'll show you how L. C. Van Allen, of
+Illinois, quit a $23-a-week job, took hold of my proposition, and
+made better than $100 a week! Then there's Gustav Karnath, of
+Minnesota, who cleared $20.35 the first five hours, and Mrs. B. L.
+Hodges, of New York, who says she never fails to make a profit
+of $18 to $20 a day. I have letters from men and women everywhere
+that tell about profits of $10, $15, $20 and as high as $25
+and $30 in a single day.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Start Right In</p>
+
+<p>You don't need any experience or capital to make big money my
+way. No course of training is necessary. You simply act as
+my Representative in your locality and look after my business
+there. All you have to do is call on your friends and my established
+customers and take care of their orders for my fast selling
+line of Groceries, Toilet Articles and other Household Necessities.
+I have thousands of customers in every section of every State. They
+must order from you because I never sell through stores. Last
+year my Representatives made nearly two million dollars. When
+I get the coupon from you I send full details by return mail.
+You can quickly be making money just like I said. I will also
+supply you with Groceries and
+other Household Necessities at lowest,
+wholesale prices.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width40">
+<p class="ad1">MAIL THIS NOW!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+ALBERT MILLS, Pres., American Products Co.,<br />
+5441 Monmouth Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio.
+</p>
+
+<p>Send me, without cost or obligation, all the facts about your
+new proposition that offers a wonderful opportunity to make
+quick profits of $15 or more a day and Groceries at wholesale.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">&nbsp;</span></li>
+</ul>
+<p>&copy; A. P. Co. (Print or Write Plainly)
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3" style="clear:left">SEND NO MONEY</p>
+
+<p>If you want ready cash&mdash;a chance
+to make $15 or more a day starting
+at once&mdash;and Groceries at wholesale&mdash;just
+send me your name and
+address on the coupon. It costs
+you nothing to investigate. Keep
+your present job and start in spare
+time if you want to. Oscar Stuart,
+of W. Virginia, reports $18 profit
+in 2-1/2 hours' spare time. So you
+see there's everything to gain. Simply
+mail the coupon. <i>I</i> will give
+you full details of my plan without
+cost or obligation to you.
+I'll give you the big
+opportunity you've been
+waiting for. So don't
+lose a moment. Mail
+the coupon NOW.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">What's Wrong With This Picture?</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/282a.png" width="500" height="425" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad2"><span class="nowrap">See If You Can</span> Find the Mistakes
+in This Picture</p>
+
+<p>We will spend over $167,000.00 this year for the purpose of conducting
+free prize offers to advertise and expand our business. Thousands of
+persons are going to receive valuable prizes or cash awards and compensations
+this year through our offers. The sky is the limit! Anyone living
+in the United States outside of Chicago, except employees of this company,
+members of their families, or our previous auto or first prize winners, or
+members of their families, may enter an answer to this puzzle.</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">$7,346 In Prizes Given in
+This One Offer</p>
+
+<p class="center">Seven Big New 6-Cylinder Sedans and Other Valuable Prizes</p>
+
+<p>Try your skill&mdash;it costs you nothing. Study the picture shown here,
+but look carefully. The artist has purposely made many mistakes. Can
+you find four or more of them? These mistakes can be found in various
+objects is the picture&mdash;that's all the hint we can give you. If you think
+you can find four or more mistakes, answer at once. Just mark the mistakes
+in pencil on the picture, or tell me what they are in a letter or on a post
+card. Only four mistakes are required for a perfect answer.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Anyone Who Answers This Puzzle Correctly May Receive Prizes or Cash!</p>
+
+<p>Man, woman, boy, or girl&mdash;it doesn't matter who or what you are. Seven of the people who take up this offer are going to win
+wonderful automobiles. You can be among them. Answer today! Duplicate prizes awarded in case of ties.</p>
+
+<p><b>Additional $500.00 for Promptness</b> $500.00 extra will be awarded in addition to first prize if you
+are prompt. If your answer is judged to be perfect, I will tell
+you without delay about winning the prizes. Hurry now! Address your answer to G. W. ALDERTON, Advertising Manager,
+Dept. 143, 510 North Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">AGENTS&mdash;Represent <span class="smcap">the</span> Carlton <span class="smcap">line</span>&mdash;<i>America's
+Best Paying Proposition</i>!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">SAMPLES FREE</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">SELL FROM A
+MILLION DOLLAR STOCK</p>
+<p class="ad3">Shirts, Neckwear and Underwear.</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width30">
+<p class="center">
+CARLTON MILLS, 114 FIFTH AVE., N.Y.C.<br />
+<i>Send me your Famous Sample Outfit</i></p>
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+<p class="ralign">100-G</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>No substitutions. 4 Hour Shipping
+Service. Highest Commissions
+Bonuses. Profit Sharing.
+Biggest Company.
+Mail Coupon.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+CARLTON MILLS INC.<br />
+114 FIFTH AVE.<br />
+NEW YORK<br />
+<b>Dept. 186-6</b>
+</p>
+
+<p class="ad3 clearit">MAIL
+COUPON</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">$1000 LIFE Insurance Policy Free</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">BE A JAZZ MUSIC MASTER</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Play Piano By Ear</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto">
+<p>Niagara<br />
+School<br />
+Free<br />
+Book</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Play popular song hits perfectly. Name
+the tune, play it by ear. No teacher&mdash;self-instruction.
+No tedious ding-dong
+daily practice&mdash;just 20 brief, entertaining
+lessons, easily mastered.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">At Home in Your Spare Time</p>
+
+<p>Send for FREE BOOK. Learn many styles
+of bass and syncopation&mdash;trick endings.
+If 10&cent; (coin or stamps)
+is enclosed, you also receive
+wonderful booklet "<i>How to
+Entertain at Piano</i>"&mdash;and
+many new tricks, stunts, etc.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Niagara School of Music</i><br />
+Dept. 350 Niagara Falls, N.Y.
+</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Send for this Free Book</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Learn How to BOX</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/282c.png" width="150" height="189" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><b>$2.98</b> brings you the famous boxing course by mail
+of Jimmy DeForest, <b>World's Greatest
+Trainer</b>, the system that trained Dempsey and great
+champions. Covers everything in scientific boxing from
+fundamentals to ring generalship. Twenty weeks makes
+you a finished DeForest trained boxer. Hundreds of DeForest
+trained men are making good in the ring today.
+Complete course sent in one mailing. Send $2.98 or
+C.O.D order paying postman $2.98 plus actual postage.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+Jimmy DeForest Boxing Course<br />
+347 Madison Ave., Box 42, New York City
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Radium Is Restoring
+Health to Thousands</p>
+
+<p>No medicine, drugs or dieting. Just a light, small,
+comfortable inexpensive Radio-Active Pad, worn on the
+back by day and over the stomach at night. Sold on
+trial. You can be sure it is helping you before you
+buy it. Over 150,000 sold on this plan. Thousands have
+written us that it healed them of Neuritis, Rheumatism,
+High Blood Pressure, Constipation, Nervous Prostration,
+Heart, Lungs, Liver, Kidney and Bladder trouble, etc.
+No matter what you have tried, or what your trouble
+may be, try Degnen's Radio-Active Solar Pad at our
+risk. Write today for Trial offer and descriptive literature.
+Radium Appliance Co., 2833 Bradbury Bldg., Los
+Angeles, Cal.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">HYPNOTIZE</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/282d.png" width="100" height="112" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>25 Lessons in Hypnotism, Mind Reading and
+Magnetic Healing. Tells how experts hypnotize
+at a glance, make others obey their commands.
+How to overcome bad habits, how to give a home
+performance, get on the stage, etc. Helpful to every
+man and woman, executives, salesmen, doctors, mothers,
+etc. Simple, easy. Learn at home. Only $1.10, including
+the "Hypnotic Eye," a new aid for amateurs. Send
+stamps or M.O. (or pay C.O.D. plus postage). Guaranteed.
+<b>Educator Press, 19 Park Row, New York. Dept. H-41</b></p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">AVIATION
+Information FREE</p>
+
+<p>Send us your name and address for full information regarding the
+Aviation and Airplane business. Find out about the many great
+opportunities now open and how we prepare you at home, during
+spare time, to qualify. Our new book, <i>Opportunities in the
+Airplane industry</i> also sent free if you answer at once.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+AMERICAN SCHOOL OF AVIATION<br />
+Dept. 1182<br />
+3601 Michigan Ave.<br />
+CHICAGO
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad3">Charming&mdash;Captivating&mdash;Irresistible</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">
+DESIR D'AMOUR</p>
+<p class="ad3">
+[Love's Desire]</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/282e.png" width="100" height="103" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>This exotic perfume goes straight to the
+heart like Cupid's arrows. Its strength and
+mystic aroma thrills and delights young and
+old. Triple strength full size vial 98 cents
+prepaid or $1.32 C.O.D. plus shipping
+charges. Directions free. One bottle GRATIS
+if you order three vials. MAGNUS WORKS,
+Box 12, Varick Sta., New York, N.Y.,
+Dept. NSG-2.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">On your feet&mdash;<br />
+<i>In a good Paying Business</i></p>
+
+<p>We start you in the shoe and
+hosiery business. Inexperienced
+workers earn Big Money yearly.
+Direct-to-Wearer plan. Just show
+Tanners Famous Line of Footwear.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>We tell how and where to sell. Perfect
+fit through Patented System. Collect your
+pay daily. We furnish $40.00 Sample Outfit
+of actual shoes and hosiery. 83 styles.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="center"><b>Send for free book "Getting Ahead"
+and full particulars.</b> No obligation.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+TANNERS SHOE CO.<br />
+892 C Street, Boston, Mass.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Play the Hawaiian Guitar
+like the Hawaiians!</p>
+
+<p><b>Only 4 Motions</b> used in playing this fascinating instrument
+Our native Hawaiian instructors teach you to
+master them quickly. Pictures show how. Everything
+explained clearly.</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/283b.png" width="120" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">Play in Half Hour</p>
+
+<p>After you get the four
+easy motions you play
+harmonious chords with
+very little practice. No
+previous musical knowledge
+needed.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Easy Lessons</p>
+
+<p>Even if you don't know
+one note from another,
+the 52 printed lessons
+and clear pictures make
+it easy to learn quickly.
+Pay as you play.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">GIVEN <i>when you enroll</i></p>
+<p class="ad3">&mdash;a sweet toned<br />
+HAWAIIAN GUITAR, Carrying Case and
+Playing Outfit&mdash;Value $18 to $20</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>No extras&mdash;everything included</i></p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft width25"><b>WRITE AT ONCE</b> for attractive offer
+and easy terms. You have everything
+to gain. A postcard will do. <b>ACT!</b></div>
+
+<div class="center">
+<p class="ad3">OTHER COURSES</p>
+
+<p>Tenor Banjo, Violin, Tiple, Tenor Guitar, Ukulele,
+Banjo Ukulele. Under well known instructors.</p>
+
+<p>
+FIRST HAWAIIAN CONSERVATORY of MUSIC, Inc.<br />
+9th Floor, Woolworth Bldg, Dept. 269 New York, N.Y.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Approved as a Correspondence School Under the Laws of the State of
+New York&mdash;Member National Home Study Council</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad2">SELL ROSECLIFF SHIRTS</p>
+
+<p class="ad1"><i>Make Steady Money</i></p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto"><p>YOUR<br />
+OWN<br />
+SHIRTS<br />
+and<br />
+TIES</p></div>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto"><p class="ad1"><i>Outfit Free</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">Showing Samples Men's Shirts</p>
+
+<p>Ties, Underwear brings you big cash
+commissions. One Year Guarantee.
+No substitutions. Free silk initials.
+More exclusive Rosecliff features establish
+leadership. Write for your
+FREE Outfit NOW!</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+ROSECLIFF SHIRT CORP.<br />
+Dept. J-2<br />
+1237 Broadway, N.Y.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">GOV'T. POSITIONS</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">
+$35 TO $75 WEEKLY<br />
+MEN&mdash;WOMEN<br />
+AGE 18 to 55<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="coupon">
+<ul class="multicolumn">
+<li>(&nbsp;) By. Mail Clerk</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) P. O. Laborer</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) R. F. D. Carrier</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Special Agent (investigator)</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) City Mail Carrier</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Meat Inspector</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) P. O. Clerk</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) File Clerk</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) General Clerk</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Matron</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Steno-Typist</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Immigrant Inspector</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Seamstress</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Auditor</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Steno-Secretary</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) U.S. Border Patrol</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Chauffeur-Carrier</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Watchman</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Skilled Laborer</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Postmaster</li>
+<li>(&nbsp;) Typist</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="center">INSTRUCTION BUREAU, 112-B, St. Louis, Mo.</p>
+
+<p>Send me FREE particulars How To Qualify for positions
+marked "X." Salaries, locations, opportunities,
+etc. ALL SENT FREE.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">FREE!<br />
+Body Chart</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/283c.png" width="98" height="300" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>If you will mail the coupon below, this
+Anatomical and Physiological Chart will
+be mailed to you without one cent of expense.
+It shows the location of the Organs,
+Bones of the Body, Muscles of the
+Body, Head and Vertebra Column and
+tells you how the nerves radiate from
+your spinal cord to all organs of the body.
+This chart should be in every home.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Where Is That
+PAIN?</p>
+
+<p>It may be in the neck, back, hips, stomach,
+liver, legs or arms. Wherever it is, the chart
+will help to show you the location and cause
+of your ailment. For instance, this chart will
+help you locate vermiform appendix pains.
+Hundreds of lives might have been saved if
+people had known the location and character
+of the pain and had received proper attention.</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">Stop that Pain</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+<i>By Relieving the Cause with</i><br />
+Violet Ray&mdash;Vibration<br />
+Ozone&mdash;Medical Electricity<br />
+<i>The Four Greatest Curative Powers Generated by This</i></p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Great New Invention!</p>
+
+<p>Elco Health Generators at last
+are ready for you! If you want
+more health&mdash;greater power to enjoy
+the pleasures and delights
+about you, or if more beauty is your
+desire&mdash;<i>write</i>! Ask for the book
+on these inventions which has just
+been prepared. It will be sent to
+you without cost. It tells you
+how Elco Health Generators aid
+you in leaving the lethargy and
+hopelessness of bad health and
+weakness behind forever. Re-vitalize yourself.
+Bring back energy. Be wholly alive.
+Write today!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Here's What Elco Users Say&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto">
+<p class="ad2"><i>Elco</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Electric Health<br />
+Generators</p>
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Wouldn't
+Take $1000
+for my
+Elco."
+"Has done
+me more
+good in 2
+weeks than
+doctors did
+in three
+years." "Cured my Rheumatism." "My Eczema gone." "Cured my stomach
+trouble." "Cured my weakness." "Now I sleep soundly all night." "Thanks to
+Elco my strength and vigor are back." "No more pain." "Colds never bother me
+now." "Chronic Constipation banished."</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto" style="border:none">
+<p class="ad2">Free Trial</p></div>
+
+<p>These great new inventions generate Violet Ray, Vibration, Electricity
+and Ozone&mdash;combined or separate. They operate on the
+electric light in your home or on their own motive power at less than 50 cents per year.
+Elco Health Generators are positively the only instruments
+which can give you in one outfit Electricity, Violet Ray&mdash;Vibration
+and Ozone&mdash;the four greatest curative agents.
+Send the coupon below. Get the Free Book NOW!</p>
+
+<div class="couponleft width50">
+<p class="ad3">
+Lindstrom &amp; Co.<br />
+<i>Makers of Therapeutic Apparatus since 1892</i>.<br />
+2322 Indiana Avenue<br />
+Dept. 15-62<br />
+Chicago
+</p>
+
+<p>Please send me your free book, "Heal&mdash;Power&mdash;Beauty" and
+full information of your 10-day Free Trial Offer.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Name</i></span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Address</i></span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad2">MAIL COUPON
+for FREE BOOK</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto">
+<p class="ad3">Health<br />
+Power<br />
+Beauty</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Do not put this paper down without sending
+the coupon. Don't go on as you are with pains
+and with almost no life and energy. You owe
+it to yourself to be a better man or woman. You were put
+here to enjoy life&mdash;not just to drag through it. So do not
+rest another day until you have put your name on the
+coupon here. That will bring the whole story of these great
+new inventions. Do it today&mdash;now.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Who Wants an Auto FREE?</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">STUDEBAKER&mdash;BUICK&mdash;NASH! Your choice!
+OR $2000.00 CASH</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/284a.png" width="291" height="300" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="ad3">MARK
+YOUR STAR</p>
+<p class="ad3">MAIL
+THE
+CIRCLE</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thousands of dollars in new autos and grand prizes will positively be given
+free to advertise and make new friends for my firm. Choice of Studebaker or
+Buick or Nash new 4-door sedan delivered free, or $2000.00 cash. Also Oldsmobile,
+Pontiac, Chevrolet, Fords, diamonds, other fine prizes and cash will be
+given free. No problems to do. No fine writing required. No words to
+make. No figures to add. Bank guarantees all prizes.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Pick Your Lucky Star!</p>
+
+<p>All the stars in the circle are exactly alike except one. That star is different to all the
+others and it may be a lucky star for you. Can you pick it out? If you can, mark the
+different star and send the circle to me at once along with your name and address. A
+prompt answer can start you on the way to win the great $2000.00 free prize.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">BE PROMPT&mdash;WIN $650.00 EXTRA</p>
+
+<p>Someone like you who will write me at once can get $650.00 cash fast for being prompt,
+so you may thank your lucky stars if you send your answer right off. No risk. Nothing
+to buy. Nothing hard to do. Over $7000.00 in valuable prizes will be given free of cost.
+Send today and I will show you just how you can get your free choice of these splendid
+new sedans or $2000.00 cash, without cost or obligation of any kind. All win plan! A
+reward for everybody! SEND NO MONEY. Answer AT ONCE.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Address GEO. WILSON, DEPT. 27, AUGUSTA, MAINE</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">RUPTURE IS
+NOT A TEAR</p>
+
+<p>Your physician will tell you that hernia (rupture) is a muscular
+weakness in the abdominal wall.&mdash;Do not be satisfied with merely
+bracing these weakened muscles, with your condition probably
+growing worse every day!&mdash;Strike at the real cause of the trouble,
+and</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><b>WHEN</b>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The weakened muscles recover their strength and elasticity,
+<span class="nowrap">and&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>The unsightly, unnatural protrusion disappears, <span class="nowrap">and&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p>You recover your vim, vigor and vitality,&mdash;your strength and
+energy,&mdash;and you look and feel better in every way,&mdash;and your
+friends notice the <span class="nowrap">difference,&mdash;</span></p>
+
+<p><b>THEN</b>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>You'll know your rupture is gone, and</p>
+
+<p>You'll know why for almost a quarter of a century numerous
+sworn statements report complete recovery and freedom
+from uncomfortable mechanical supports, without delay from
+work.</p></blockquote>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+<p class="ad2">FREE TEST COUPON</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Plapao Laboratories, 692 Stuart Bldg., St. Louis, Mo.</p>
+
+<p>Send me a Free 10-day test supply of the remedial factor
+Plapao and 48 page illustrated book on Rupture; no charge
+for this now or later.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">SEND NO MONEY</p>
+
+<p>A Test of the scientific self-treatment mentioned in coupon
+below is now available to you, whether you are young or old,
+man or woman. It costs you nothing to make this test.&mdash;For
+your own good mail the coupon NOW&mdash;TODAY.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad2">NEW AND SIMPLE DISCOVERY</p>
+
+<p class="adtop">CLEARS-THE-SKIN</p>
+
+<p>We prove it to you, <b>FREE</b>. <b>SEND NO MONEY.</b>
+Write today for <b>PROOF</b> and full details of our liberal
+prepaid FULL SIZE TRIAL PACKAGE.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">GUARANTEED FOR ALL SKIN TROUBLES</p>
+
+<p>Quickly ends Pimples, Blackheads, Whiteheads, Coarse
+Pores, Wrinkles, Oily Shiny Skin, Freckles, Chronic
+Eczema, Stubborn Psoriasis, Scales, Crusts, Pustules,
+Barbers Itch, Itching Skin, Scabbies, softens and whitens
+the skin. <b>Just send us your name and address.</b></p>
+
+<p class="ad3">ANDRE &amp; CO., 751 E. 42nd St., Suite 77, Chicago</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">HAVE YOU READ?</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"ONE WOMAN'S WAR"<br />
+<i>By</i> Helene Reynolds Moffatt<br />
+<br />
+"BROADWAY'S CHILDREN"<br />
+<i>By</i> Achmed Abdullah and Faith Baldwin<br />
+<br />
+"THE LOST DREAM"<br />
+<i>By</i> Hector Hawton<br />
+<br />
+"THE LIFE HE STOLE"<br />
+<i>By</i> Roy Vickers<br />
+<br />
+"FOOLISH FIRE"<br />
+<i>By</i> Virginia Swain<br />
+<br />
+"LIFE'S COMEBACKS"<br />
+<i>By</i> Jan Cruze<br />
+<br />
+"THE WHIRL OF YOUTH"<br />
+<i>By</i> Evelyn Campbell<br />
+<br />
+"FLAME OF FIRE WEED"<br />
+<i>By</i> James French Dorrance<br />
+<br />
+"A PRAIRIE PRINCESS"<br />
+<i>By</i> Frank C. Robertson
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">These complete novels, each one a story of unusual
+significance, are now being offered to you at the special
+price of</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+25 cents each<br />
+or five for $1.00, postpaid<br />
+<br />
+THE READERS' GUILD,<br />
+80 LAFAYETTE STREET, 12th FLOOR,<br />
+NEW YORK CITY<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">TYPEWRITER 1/2 Price</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/284b.png" width="191" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">Free Trial</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="lalign">World's
+best makes&mdash;Underwood,
+Remington,
+Royal&mdash;also portables&mdash;prices
+smashed to below half. (<i>Easy terms.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">SEND NO MONEY!</p>
+
+<p>All late models completely rebuilt
+and refinished brand new. <i>Guaranteed
+for ten years.</i> Send no money&mdash;big
+<i>Free</i> catalog shows actual machines
+in full colors. Get our direct-to-you
+easy payment plan and 10 day free trial
+offer. Amazing values&mdash;send at once.</p>
+
+<p class="center clearit">
+International Typewriter Exch.,<br />
+231 W. Monroe St.<br />
+Dept. 272, Chicago<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">PANTS MATCHED</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">TO ANY SUIT&mdash;FREE SAMPLE</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/284c.png" width="112" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><b>DON'T DISCARD YOUR
+OLD SUIT.</b> Wear the coat and
+vest another year by getting new trousers
+to match. Tailored to your measure. With
+over 100,000 patterns to select from we can
+match almost any pattern. Send vest or sample
+of cloth today, and we will submit <i>FREE</i>
+best match obtainable.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+AMERICAN MATCH PANTS CO.<br />
+Dept D. N. 6 W. Randolph St., Chicago, Ill.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">QUIT
+TOBACCO</p>
+
+<p>No man or woman can escape
+the harmful effects of tobacco.
+Don't try to banish unaided
+the hold tobacco has upon you.
+Join the thousands of inveterate
+tobacco users that have
+found it easy to quit with the aid of the Keeley Treatment.</p>
+
+<p class="adtop">KEELEY</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Treatment For<br />
+<i>Tobacco Habit</i><br />
+Successful For
+Over 50 Years
+</p>
+
+<p>Quickly banishes all craving for tobacco. Write today
+for Free Book telling how to quickly Free yourself from
+the tobacco habit and our Money Back Guarantee.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+THE KEELEY INSTITUTE<br />
+Dept. E-211<br />
+Dwight, Illinois<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>Styled On Fifth Avenue.</i></p>
+
+<p class="ad1">TIES &amp; SHIRTS PAY BIG</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">MAKE STEADY MONEY</p>
+
+<p>weekly selling this combined line. Public Service offers
+the best money-maker in the country for full time or
+spare time workers.</p>
+
+<p>Splendid Fifth Ave. Styled shirts. Beautiful fabrics to
+satisfy every taste. Sell on sight to men and women at
+factory prices. Biggest assortment in the business. Collect
+your commissions in advance. Finest new Spring Outfit
+FREE. Start earning more money at once. Write TODAY.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+PUBLIC SERVICE MILLS, Inc.<br />
+517-J Thirtieth Street, North Bergen, N.J.<br />
+Canadian Office, 110 Dundas St., London, Ontario, Canada
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">MONEY FOR YOU</p>
+
+<p>Men or women can earn $15 to $25 weekly
+in spare time at home making display cards.
+Light, pleasant work. No canvassing. We
+instruct you and supply you with work.
+Write today for full particulars.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+The MENHENITT COMPANY Limited<br />
+245 Dominion Bldg., Toronto, Can.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad3">
+DIRECT FROM MOVIELAND<br />
+THRILLING LOVE LETTERS<br />
+LOVE'S PSYCHOLOGY<br />
+BEAUTY PSYCHOLOGY<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/285c.png" width="147" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">LOVE DROPS</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+PERFUME<br />
+SECRET EXTRACT
+</p>
+
+<p>A New Creation, an Enchanting, powerful
+aroma, with that alluring blend that stirs the
+soul of rich and poor, old and young to surrender
+to its charms. $2.50 value, $1.00 post
+paid or $1.27 C.O.D. with instructions for
+use. Also Free our 2 new books totaling 120
+pages including</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">THRILLING LOVE LETTERS</p>
+
+<p>burning love epistles of many of history's famous
+characters, also secrets of Love's Psychology and Art of winning
+the One You Love with the original 7 Psychological and Successful
+plans for winning and holding the love of the one you love.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Wons Co., Dept. N-15<br />
+Box 1250, Hollywood, Calif.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad2">BECOME AN EXPERT</p>
+<p class="adtop">ACCOUNTANT</p>
+
+<p>Executive Accountants and C.P.A.'s earn $8,000 to $10,000 a year.
+Thousands of firms need them. Only 9,000 Certified Public Accountants
+in the Unites States. We train you thoroughly at home in spare time
+for C.P.A. examinations or executive accounting positions. Previous
+experience unnecessary. Training under the personal supervision of
+William B. Castenholz, A.M., C.P.A., and a large staff of C.P.A.'s
+including members of the American Institute of Accountants.
+Write for free book, "Accountancy, the Profession that Pays."</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+La Salle Extension University, Dept. 275-H Chicago<br />
+The World's Largest Business Training Institution
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">LEARN TO Mount Birds</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/285d.png" width="75" height="150" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>We teach you <b>At Home by Mail</b> to mount <i>Birds</i>, <i>Animals</i>,
+<i>Heads</i>, <i>Tan Furs and Make Rugs</i>. Be a taxidermy
+artist. Easily, quickly learned by men, women and
+boys. Tremendously interesting and fascinating. Decorate
+home and den with beautiful art. <i>Make Big Profits from
+Spare Time Selling Specimens and Mounting for Others.</i></p>
+
+<p><b>Free Book</b>&mdash;Yes absolutely Free&mdash;beautiful book
+telling all about how to learn taxidermy.
+Send <b>Today</b>. You will be delighted. Don't Delay!</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Northwestern School of Taxidermy<br />
+1032 Elwood Bldg.<br />
+OMAHA, NEB.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">FREE</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">My
+Pay-Raising
+Plan</p>
+
+<p class="center">send
+you these Genuine
+high quality, Imported
+Drawing Instruments, 14 Other
+Tools and a Drafting Table&mdash;All included
+in my Home Training Course.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">"My Pay-Raising Plan"<br />
+It Shows You
+How I Prepare
+You at Home For</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">EMPLOYMENT</p>
+
+<p class="ad3"><i>In These and Other Great Industries</i></p>
+
+<p class="lalign">Automobile&mdash;Electricity&mdash;Motor Bus&mdash;Aviation&mdash;Building
+Construction.</p>
+
+<p>There are jobs for Draftsmen in all of these industries
+and in hundreds of others.</p>
+
+<p>Aviation is expanding to enormous proportions.</p>
+
+<p>Electricity is getting bigger every day. Motor Bus
+building is becoming a leading world industry.</p>
+
+<p>Building of stores, homes, factories and office buildings
+is going on all the time. No structure can be erected
+without plans drawn by a draftsman. No machinery
+can be built without plans drawn by a draftsman.
+I train you at home, in Drafting. Keep the job you have
+now while learning.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Earn As You Learn</p>
+
+<p>I tell you how to start earning extra money a few weeks
+after beginning my training.</p>
+
+<p>I will train you in drafting right where you are in your
+spare time. I have trained men who are making $3,500.00
+to $9,000.00 a year. Get started now toward a better position,
+paying a good, straight salary, the year around.
+Comfortable surroundings. Inside work.</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Employment Service</p>
+
+<p>After training you I help you to get a job without charging
+you a cent for this service. Employers of Draftsmen
+come to me for men. Employers know they are not
+taking chances on men trained by me.</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto">
+<p><i>I train you<br />
+at home!</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad2">No Experience Necessary</p>
+
+<p>You do not need to be a college man nor high school
+graduate to learn by this method. No previous experience
+necessary. I make a positive money back guarantee
+with you before I begin to train you.</p>
+
+<p class="center">If you are now earning less than</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">$70.00 a WEEK</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+<p class="center">
+<b>Engineer Dobe<br />
+1951 Lawrence Ave., Div. 15-62<br />
+Chicago</b><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Send me Free of all cost, "My Pay-Raising Plan". Also plan
+to earn money while learning to be a draftsman and proof of
+big money paying positions in great industries.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Name</i></span> <span class="dotsmiddle"><i>Age</i></span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Address</i></span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Post Office</i></span> <span class="dotsmiddle"><i>State</i></span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad2"><i>Write For My FREE
+"Pay-Raising Plan"</i></p>
+
+<p>Mail this coupon at once. Get "My Pay-Raising
+Plan". It certainly points the way to success. You
+owe it to yourself to send for this book. Find out
+how I help you find big opportunities in practically
+all big industries. The book will come to you post
+paid and FREE. Mail the coupon for it today.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Clear-Tone<br />
+Clears the Skin</p>
+
+<p>Clear-Tone is a penetrating, purifying lotion,
+used at night with astounding success to clear the
+skin of pimples, blotches, black-heads and other
+annoying, unsightly skin irritations due to external
+causes. More than one-half million persons
+have cleared their skins with Clear-Tone in
+the last 12 years. "Complexion Tragedies with
+Happy Endings", filled with facts supplied by
+Clear-Tone users sent Free on request. Clear-Tone
+can be had at your druggist&mdash;or direct
+from us. GIVENS CHEMICAL CO., 2557
+Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto">
+<p>$4.50 to $7.00<br />
+(WITH BONUS)<br />
+PROFIT<br />
+Per
+SUIT</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidebarleft widthauto"><p>Cash<br />
+Paid<br />
+Daily</p></div>
+
+<p class="ad1">SELL PIONEER<br />
+All Wool
+Tailoring</p>
+
+<p class="ad2"><i>Full or Part Time</i></p>
+
+<p>An opportunity to make $12 a day
+from the start, selling famous
+Pioneer tailored-to-measure,
+all-wool suits at $25. Commissions
+paid in advance. <b>Chance
+for own clothes at no cost.</b>
+Striking Big Outfit of over
+100 large swatches furnished
+free&mdash;other equally remarkable values
+at $30 and $35. We train the inexperienced.
+Men willing to work for success
+will write for this big money-making
+opportunity, today.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+PIONEER TAILORING CO.<br />
+Congress and Throop Sts., Dept. P-1184, Chicago
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Ruptured?</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Be Comfortable&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto">
+<p>Trade Mark</p>
+
+<p>C. K. Brooks,<br />
+Inventor</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Three million of these comfortable
+sanitary appliances sold. No obnoxious
+springs or pads. Automatic
+Air Cushion gently assists nature in
+drawing together the broken parts.
+Durable. Cheap. Sent on 10-day trial
+to prove its worth. Beware of imitations. Every appliance
+made to individual measurements and sent direct
+from Marshall. Full information and Rupture booklet
+sent free in plain, sealed envelope. Write for all the
+facts today.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">BROOKS APPLIANCE CO., 173-B State Street, Marshall, Mich.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/286c.png" width="140" height="200" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad1">CORRECT
+Your NOSE!</p>
+
+<p>Thousands have used the Anita Nose Adjuster
+to improve their appearance. Shapes flesh and
+cartilage of the nose&mdash;safely, painlessly, while
+you sleep. Results are lasting. Doctors approve
+it. Money back guarantee. Gold Medal
+winner. Write for 30-Day TRIAL OFFER and
+FREE BOOKLET.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">ANITA INSTITUTE, 242 Anita Building, Newark, N.J.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">WHAT EVERY<br />
+ELECTRICIAN<br />
+WANTS TO <i>KNOW</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Is easily found in AUDELS NEW ELECTRIC LIBRARY. Electricity
+made simple as ABC. Up-to-date, trade dope for the expert
+and ALL electrical workers.</p>
+
+<p>Questions, answers, diagrams, calculations, underwriter's
+code; design, construction, operation and maintenance of
+modern electrical machines and appliances FULLY COVERED.</p>
+
+<p>All available at small cost, easy terms. BOOK-A-MONTH
+service puts this NEW information in your hands for 6&cent; a day.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Write TODAY for Electrical Folder and FREE TRIAL offer.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Theo. Audel &amp; Co. 65 W. 23rd St. New York, Dept. 20</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">Ever Get Nervous<br />
+When You're<br />
+Reading?</p>
+
+<div class="larger">
+<p>&mdash;<i>You might see a doctor</i>,</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>But if you are a girl, and wise</i>,</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;<i>You'll try reading</i></p>
+
+<p class="ad2">MISS 1930</p>
+
+<p class="ralign"><i>instead</i></p>
+
+<p>&mdash;IT'S A TONIC</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;A Chance To See your picture in a magazine.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Real laughs.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Choosing a Career</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;The Fate of Your Name</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;Youthful Styles</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And the Best Fiction in any</p>
+
+<p class="center">MAGAZINE FOR<br />
+THE MODERN GIRL</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad2">
+MISS 1930</p>
+
+<p class="center">80 Lafayette Street, New York City<br />
+<br />
+25&cent;. AT YOUR NEWSDEALER<br />
+<ins class="correction" title="Original was 'SUBSCSRIPTION'">SUBSCRIPTION</ins> $3.00 PER YEAR
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/287a.png" width="400" height="258" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad2">FOR THOUSANDS OF MEN</p>
+
+<p class="ad1">Tobacco Habit
+Banished</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Let Us Help You</p>
+
+<p>Stop craving tobacco in any form. Tobacco
+Redeemer in most cases relieves
+all craving for it in a few days' time. Don't
+try to quit the tobacco habit unaided. It's
+often a losing fight against heavy odds, and
+may mean a distressing shock to the nervous
+system. Let Tobacco Redeemer help the
+habit to quit <i>you</i>. Tobacco users usually can
+depend upon this help by simply using
+Tobacco Redeemer according to simple directions.
+It is pleasant to use, acts quickly,
+and is thoroughly reliable.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Not a Substitute</p>
+
+<p>Tobacco Redeemer contains no habit-forming
+drugs of any kind. It is in no sense a
+substitute for tobacco. After finishing the
+treatment, there should be no desire to use
+tobacco again or to continue the use of the
+remedy. In case the treatment is not perfectly
+satisfactory, we will gladly refund
+any money paid. It makes not a particle of
+difference how long tobacco has been used,
+or in what form&mdash;whether it is cigars, cigarettes,
+pipe, plug, fine cut or snuff. In most
+cases Tobacco Redeemer removes all craving
+for tobacco in any form in a very few days.
+And remember, it is offered with a positive
+money-back guarantee. Write today for our free
+booklet showing the injurious effect of tobacco
+upon the human system and convincing evidence
+that TOBACCO REDEEMER does quickly relieve
+the craving for tobacco in most cases.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+NEWELL PHARMACAL COMPANY<br />
+Dept. 793<br />
+Clayton Station<br />
+St. Louis, Mo.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">10 Inches Off<br />
+Waistline In<br />
+35 Days</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/287b.png" width="141" height="350" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I reduced from 48 inches to 38
+inches in 35 days," says R. E.
+Johnson, of Akron, O., "just by
+wearing a Director Belt. Stomach
+now firm, doesn't sag and I
+feel fine."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Director Belt gets at the
+<i>cause</i> of fat and quickly removes
+it by its gentle, kneading,
+massaging action on the abdomen,
+which causes the fat to be
+dissolved and absorbed. Thousands
+have proved it and doctors
+recommend it as the natural way
+to reduce. Stop drugs, exercises
+and dieting. Try this easy way.</p>
+
+<div class="couponleft width40">
+<p class="center">Landon &amp; Warner, Dept. C-71, 332 S. LaSalle, Chicago</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen: Without cost or obligation on my part
+please send me details of your trial offer.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Address</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad2 nowrap">Sent on Trial</p>
+
+<p>Let us prove our claims.
+We'll send a Director for trial.
+If you don't get results you owe
+nothing. You don't risk a penny.
+Write for trial offer, doctors' endorsements
+and letters from
+users. Mail the coupon NOW!</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+LANDON &amp; WARNER<br />
+332 S. La Salle St., Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/287c.png" width="300" height="223" alt="WANTED&mdash;for murder!" title="" />
+<p class="adtop">$1,000
+Reward!</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In a dirty, forelorn shack by the river's edge they
+found the mutilated body of Genevieve Martin. Her
+pretty face was swollen and distorted. Marks on the
+slender throat showed that she had been brutally choked
+to death. Who had committed this ghastly crime?</p>
+
+<p>Crimes like this are being solved every day by Finger Print
+Experts. We read in the papers of their exploits, hear of the
+mysteries they solve, the rewards they win. Finger Print
+Experts are the heroes of the hour.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">More Trained Men Needed</p>
+
+<p>The demand for trained men by governments, states,
+cities, detective agencies, corporations, and private
+bureaus is becoming greater every day. Here is a real
+opportunity for YOU. Can you imagine a more fascinating
+line of work than this? Often life and death depend
+on finger print evidence&mdash;and big rewards go to
+the expert. Many experts earn regularly from $3,000
+to $10,000 per year.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Learn At Home in Spare Time</p>
+
+<p>Now, through this amazing new, simple course, you
+can learn the secrets of this science easily and quickly
+at home in your spare time. Any man with common
+school education and average ability can become a Finger
+Print Detective in surprisingly short time.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">FREE&mdash;The Confidential Reports
+No. 38 Made to His Chief!</p>
+
+<div class="couponright width50">
+
+<p>
+<b>INSTITUTE OF APPLIED SCIENCE,<br />
+Dept. 15-62 1920 Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago, Ill.</b><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen: Without any obligation whatever, send me your
+new, fully illustrated FREE book on Finger Prints and the
+free copy of the Confidential Reports of Operator No. 38 made
+to His Chief.</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Name</i></span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft"><i>Address</i></span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsmiddle"><i>Age</i></span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p>IF YOU ACT QUICK&mdash;We will send you free and with no
+obligation whatsoever, a copy of the gripping, fascinating,
+confidential report Secret Service Operator No. 38 made to
+His Chief. Mail coupon NOW!</p>
+
+<p>Write quickly for fully illustrated free book on Finger Prints
+which explains this wonderful training in detail. Don't wait.
+You may never see this announcement again! You assume no
+obligation. Mail coupon NOW&mdash;while this offer lasts!</p>
+
+<p class="ad2">Institute of Applied Science</p>
+<p class="ad3">
+Dept. 15-62<br />
+1920 Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="adtop">Muscles 5&cent; apiece!</p>
+
+<p class="dropcap"><span class="dcap">Wouldn't</span> it be great if we could buy muscles by the bag&mdash;take them home and paste them on our
+shoulders? Then our rich friends with money to buy them, sure would be socking us all over the
+lots. But they don't come that easy, fellows. If you want muscle you have to work for it. That's
+the reason why the lazy fellow never can
+hope to be strong. So if you're lazy and
+don't want to work&mdash;you had better quit
+right here. This talk was never meant for
+you.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 279px">
+<img src="images/288.png" width="279" height="400" alt="" title="" />
+<p class="caption">EARLE LIEDERMAN, The Muscle Builder
+
+Author of &quot;Muscle Building,&quot; &quot;Science of Wrestling and Jiu
+Jitsu,&quot; &quot;Secrets of Strength,&quot; &quot;Here&#39;s Health,&quot; &quot;Endurance,&quot; Etc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ad3">I WANT LIVE ONES</p>
+
+<p>I've been making big men out of little ones
+for over fifteen years. I've made pretty near
+as many strong men as Heinz has made
+pickles. My system never fails. That's
+why I guarantee my works to do the trick.
+That's why they gave me the name of "The
+Muscle Builder."</p>
+
+<p>I have the surest bet that you ever heard
+of. Eugen Sandow himself said that my
+system is the shortest and surest that America
+ever had to offer.</p>
+
+<p>Follow me closely now and I'll tell you a
+few things I'm going to do for you.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">HERE'S WHAT I GUARANTEE</p>
+
+<p>In just 30 days I'm going to increase your arm
+one full inch. Yes, and add two inches to your
+chest in the same length of time. But that's nothing.
+I've only started; get this&mdash;I'm going to put
+knobs of muscles on your shoulders like baseballs.
+I'm going to deepen your chest so that you will
+double your lung capacity. Each breath you take
+will flood every crevice of your pulmonary cavity
+with oxygen. This will load your blood with red
+corpuscles, shooting life and vitality throughout
+your entire system. I'm going to give you arms
+and legs like pillars. I'm going to work on every
+inner muscle as well, toning up your liver, your
+heart, etc. You'll have a snap to your step and a
+flash to your eye. You'll feel the real pep shooting
+up and down your old backbone. You'll
+stretch out your big brawny arms and crave for a
+chance to crush everything before you. You'll
+just bubble over with vim and animation.</p>
+
+<p>Sounds pretty good, what? You can bet your
+old ukulele it's good. It's wonderful. And don't
+forget, fellow&mdash;I'm not just promising all this&mdash;I
+guarantee it. Well, let's get busy, I want action&mdash;So
+do you.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Send for my
+new 64-page
+book</p>
+<p class="ad1">"<i>Muscular Development</i>"</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">IT IS
+FREE</p>
+
+<div class="couponleft width50">
+<p class="ad3">
+EARLE LIEDERMAN<br />
+Dept. 1702, 305 Broadway, New York City
+</p>
+
+<p class="lalign">Dear Sir:&mdash;Please send me without any obligation
+on my part whatever, a copy of your
+latest book "Muscular Development." (Please
+write or print plainly.)</p>
+
+<ul class="dots">
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Name</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">Age</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">Street</span></li>
+    <li><span class="dotsleft">City</span> <span class="dotsmiddle">State</span></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<p style="clear:right">It contains forty-eight full-page photographs of myself and
+some of the many prize-winning pupils I have trained. Some
+of these came to me as pitiful weaklings, imploring me to
+help them. Look them over now, and you will marvel at
+their present physiques. This book will prove an impetus and
+a real inspiration to you. It will thrill you through and
+through. This will not obligate you at all, but for the sake
+of your future health and happiness, do not put it off. Send
+today&mdash;right now, before you turn this page.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">
+EARLE LIEDERMAN<br />
+DEPT. 1702<br />
+305 BROADWAY, N.Y. CITY
+</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad4">Please mention <span class="smcap">Newsstand Group&mdash;Men's List</span>, when answering advertisements</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">change to</p>
+<p class="adtop">OLD GOLD</p>
+<p class="ad1">in kindness to your</p>
+<p class="adtop">THROAT</p>
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/289.png" width="292" height="350" alt="Old Gold Cigarettes" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidebarright widthauto"><p class="lalign">THE SMOKE SCREEN THAT<br />
+KEEPS OUT THROAT-SCRATCH</p></div>
+
+<p class="ad3">"COLD" WEATHER IS<br />
+OLD GOLD WEATHER</p>
+
+<p>In raw, damp, or cold weather, change
+to OLD GOLD. Its naturally good tobaccos
+are smooth and kind to your throat.</p>
+
+<p>Just clean, ripe tobacco, blended to
+honey-smoothness. And a flavor that has
+won more than 100,000 taste tests. No
+artificial treatment ... just better tobacco,
+that's all. And it has put OLD GOLD
+among the leaders in THREE years!
+Take a carton home. Do it today. For
+this is the weather for mild OLD
+GOLD.</p>
+
+<p class="ad3">Better tobaccos make them smoother and better ... with "not a cough in a carload"</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="ad1">WHEN CRITICAL SMOKERS<br />
+GET TOGETHER</p>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/290.png" width="384" height="500" alt="Camel" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="nowrap">Their experience</span> recognizes that
+Camel is indeed "a better
+cigarette":</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Better in its quality of mellow,
+fragrant tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>Better in the mildness and
+satisfying taste of the Camel
+blend.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When they learn the difference
+they flock to Camels.</p>
+
+<p class="adtop">CAMEL</p>
+<p class="ad2"><i>CIGARETTES</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science
+February 1930, by Various
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,12903 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science
+February 1930, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 26, 2009 [EBook #28617]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES--SUPER SCIENCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Katherine Ward and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Transcriber's Note: Initial ads moved below main text.
+   The Beetle Horde concludes a story begun in the Jan, 1930 edition.
+   Minor spelling and typographical errors corrected.
+   Variable Spelling and Hyphenations standardized.
+   Full list of changes at end of text.
+   Passages in italics indicated by underscore _italics_.
+   Passages in bold indicated by equals =bold=.]
+
+
+
+
+  ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE
+
+  _On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month_
+
+  W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher
+  HARRY BATES, Editor
+  DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor
+
+
+The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees:
+
+_That_ the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid; by leading
+writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the
+Authors' League of America;
+
+_That_ such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American
+workmen;
+
+_That_ each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit;
+
+_That_ an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages.
+
+_The other Clayton magazines are_:
+
+ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS
+MONTHLY, WIDE WORLD ADVENTURES, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, FLYERS,
+RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, SKY-HIGH LIBRARY MAGAZINE, MISS 1930,
+_and_ FOREST AND STREAM
+
+_More Than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for
+Clayton Magazines._
+
+
+  VOL. I, No. 2               CONTENTS                    FEBRUARY, 1930
+
+  COVER DESIGN                          H. W. WESSOLOWSKI
+  _Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in "Spawn of the Stars."_
+
+  OLD CROMPTON'S SECRET                 HARL VINCENT                 153
+  _Tom's Extraordinary Machine Glowed--and the Years Were Banished
+  from Old Crompton's Body. But There Still Remained, Deep-seated in
+  His Century-old Mind, the Memory of His Crime._
+
+  SPAWN OF THE STARS                    CHARLES WILLARD DIFFIN       166
+  _The Earth Lay Powerless Beneath Those Loathsome, Yellowish
+  Monsters That, Sheathed in Cometlike Globes, Sprang from the Skies
+  to Annihilate Man and Reduce His Cities to Ashes._
+
+  THE CORPSE ON THE GRATING             HUGH B. CAVE                 187
+  _In the Gloomy Depths of the Old Warehouse Dale Saw a Thing That
+  Drew a Scream of Horror to His Dry Lips. It Was a Corpse--the Mold
+  of Decay on Its Long-dead Features--and Yet It Was Alive!_
+
+  CREATURES OF THE LIGHT                SOPHIE WENZEL ELLIS          196
+  _He Had Striven to Perfect the Faultless Man of the Future, and
+  Had Succeeded--Too Well. For in the Pitilessly Cold Eyes of Adam,
+  His Super-human Creation, Dr. Mundson Saw Only Contempt--and
+  Annihilation--for the Human Race._
+
+  INTO SPACE                            STERNER ST. PAUL             221
+  _What Was the Extraordinary Connection Between Dr. Livermore's
+  Sudden Disappearance and the Coming of a New Satellite to the
+  Earth?_
+
+  THE BEETLE HORDE                      VICTOR ROUSSEAU              229
+  _Bullets, Shrapnel, Shell--Nothing Can Stop the Trillions of
+  Famished, Man-sized Beetles Which, Led by a Madman, Sweep Down
+  Over the Human Race._
+
+  MAD MUSIC                             ANTHONY PELCHER              248
+  _The Sixty Stories of the Perfectly Constructed Colossus Building
+  Had Mysteriously Crashed! What Was the Connection Between This
+  Catastrophe and the Weird Strains of the Mad Musician's Violin?_
+
+  THE THIEF OF TIME                     CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK           259
+  _The Teller Turned to the Stacked Pile of Bills. They Were Gone!
+  And No One Had Been Near!_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents)
+  Yearly Subscription, $2.00
+
+Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St., New
+York, N.Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Nathan Goldmann, Secretary.
+Application for entry as second-class mail pending at the Post Office at
+New York, under Act of March 3, 1879. Application for registration of
+title as Trade Mark pending in the U.S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand
+Group--Men's List. For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe & Co.,
+Inc., 25 Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave.,
+Chicago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Old Crompton's Secret
+
+_By Harl Vincent_
+
+
+    Tom's extraordinary machine glowed--and the years were banished
+    from Old Crompton's body. But there still remained, deep-seated
+    in his century-old mind, the memory of his crime.
+
+[Illustration: _Tom tripped on a wire and fell, with his ferocious
+adversary on top._]
+
+
+Two miles west of the village of Laketon there lived an aged recluse who
+was known only as Old Crompton. As far back as the villagers could
+remember he had visited the town regularly twice a month, each time
+tottering his lonely way homeward with a load of provisions. He appeared
+to be well supplied with funds, but purchased sparingly as became a
+miserly hermit. And so vicious was his tongue that few cared to converse
+with him, even the young hoodlums of the town hesitating to harass him
+with the banter usually accorded the other bizarre characters of the
+streets.
+
+The oldest inhabitants knew nothing of his past history, and they had
+long since lost their curiosity in the matter. He was a fixture, as was
+the old town hall with its surrounding park. His lonely cabin was
+shunned by all who chanced to pass along the old dirt road that led
+through the woods to nowhere and was rarely used.
+
+His only extravagance was in the matter of books, and the village book
+store profited considerably by his purchases. But, at the instigation of
+Cass Harmon, the bookseller, it was whispered about that Old Crompton
+was a believer in the black art--that he had made a pact with the devil
+himself and was leagued with him and his imps. For the books he bought
+were strange ones; ancient volumes that Cass must needs order from New
+York or Chicago and that cost as much as ten and even fifteen dollars a
+copy; translations of the writings of the alchemists and astrologers and
+philosophers of the dark ages.
+
+It was no wonder Old Crompton was looked at askance by the simple-living
+and deeply religious natives of the small Pennsylvania town.
+
+But there came a day when the hermit was to have a neighbor, and the
+town buzzed with excited speculation as to what would happen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The property across the road from Old Crompton's hut belonged to Alton
+Forsythe, Laketon's wealthiest resident--hundreds of acres of scrubby
+woodland that he considered well nigh worthless. But Tom Forsythe, the
+only son, had returned from college and his ambitions were of a nature
+strange to his townspeople and utterly incomprehensible to his father.
+Something vague about biology and chemical experiments and the like is
+what he spoke of, and, when his parents objected on the grounds of
+possible explosions and other weird accidents, he prevailed upon his
+father to have a secluded laboratory built for him in the woods.
+
+When the workmen started the small frame structure not a quarter of a
+mile from his own hut, Old Crompton was furious. He raged and stormed,
+but to no avail. Tom Forsythe had his heart set on the project and he
+was somewhat of a successful debater himself. The fire that flashed from
+his cold gray eyes matched that from the pale blue ones of the elderly
+anchorite. And the law was on his side.
+
+So the building was completed and Tom Forsythe moved in, bag and
+baggage.
+
+For more than a year the hermit studiously avoided his neighbor, though,
+truth to tell, this required very little effort. For Tom Forsythe became
+almost as much of a recluse as his predecessor, remaining indoors for
+days at a time and visiting the home of his people scarcely oftener than
+Old Crompton visited the village. He too became the target of village
+gossip and his name was ere long linked with that of the old man in
+similar animadversion. But he cared naught for the opinions of his
+townspeople nor for the dark looks of suspicion that greeted him on his
+rare appearances in the public places. His chosen work engrossed him so
+deeply that all else counted for nothing. His parents remonstrated with
+him in vain. Tom laughed away their recriminations and fears, continuing
+with his labors more strenuously than ever. He never troubled his mind
+over the nearness of Old Crompton's hut, the existence of which he
+hardly noticed or considered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It so happened one day that the old man's curiosity got the better of
+him and Tom caught him prowling about on his property, peering
+wonderingly at the many rabbit hutches, chicken coops, dove cotes and
+the like which cluttered the space to the rear of the laboratory.
+
+Seeing that he was discovered, the old man wrinkled his face into a
+toothless grin of conciliation.
+
+"Just looking over your place, Forsythe," he said. "Sorry about the fuss
+I made when you built the house. But I'm an old man, you know, and
+changes are unwelcome. Now I have forgotten my objections and would like
+to be friends. Can we?"
+
+Tom peered searchingly into the flinty eyes that were set so deeply in
+the wrinkled, leathery countenance. He suspected an ulterior motive, but
+could not find it within him to turn the old fellow down.
+
+"Why--I guess so, Crompton," he hesitated: "I have nothing against you,
+but I came here for seclusion and I'll not have anyone bothering me in
+my work."
+
+"I'll not bother you, young man. But I'm fond of pets and I see you have
+many of them here; guinea pigs, chickens, pigeons, and rabbits. Would
+you mind if I make friends with some of them?"
+
+"They're not pets," answered Tom dryly, "they are material for use in my
+experiments. But you may amuse yourself with them if you wish."
+
+"You mean that you cut them up--kill them, perhaps?"
+
+"Not that. But I sometimes change them in physical form, sometimes cause
+them to become of huge size, sometimes produce pigmy offspring of normal
+animals."
+
+"Don't they suffer?"
+
+"Very seldom, though occasionally a subject dies. But the benefit that
+will accrue to mankind is well worth the slight inconvenience to the
+dumb creatures and the infrequent loss of their lives."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Old Crompton regarded him dubiously. "You are trying to find?" he
+interrogated.
+
+"The secret of life!" Tom Forsythe's eyes took on the stare of
+fanaticism. "Before I have finished I shall know the nature of the vital
+force--how to produce it. I shall prolong human life indefinitely;
+create artificial life. And the solution is more closely approached with
+each passing day."
+
+The hermit blinked in pretended mystification. But he understood
+perfectly, and he bitterly envied the younger man's knowledge and
+ability that enabled him to delve into the mysteries of nature which had
+always been so attractive to his own mind. And somehow, he acquired a
+sudden deep hatred of the coolly confident young man who spoke so
+positively of accomplishing the impossible.
+
+During the winter months that followed, the strange acquaintance
+progressed but little. Tom did not invite his neighbor to visit him,
+nor did Old Crompton go out of his way to impose his presence on the
+younger man, though each spoke pleasantly enough to the other on the few
+occasions when they happened to meet.
+
+With the coming of spring they encountered one another more frequently,
+and Tom found considerable of interest in the quaint, borrowed
+philosophy of the gloomy old man. Old Crompton, of course, was
+desperately interested in the things that were hidden in Tom's
+laboratory, but he never requested permission to see them. He hid his
+real feelings extremely well and was apparently content to spend as much
+time as possible with the feathered and furred subjects for experiment,
+being very careful not to incur Tom's displeasure by displaying too
+great interest in the laboratory itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then there came a day in early summer when an accident served to draw
+the two men closer together, and Old Crompton's long-sought opportunity
+followed.
+
+He was starting for the village when, from down the road, there came a
+series of tremendous squawkings, then a bellow of dismay in the voice of
+his young neighbor. He turned quickly and was astonished at the sight of
+a monstrous rooster which had escaped and was headed straight for him
+with head down and wings fluttering wildly. Tom followed close behind,
+but was unable to catch the darting monster. And monster it was, for
+this rooster stood no less than three feet in height and appeared more
+ferocious than a large turkey. Old Crompton had his shopping bag, a
+large one of burlap which he always carried to town, and he summoned
+enough courage to throw it over the head of the screeching, over-sized
+fowl. So tangled did the panic-stricken bird become that it was a
+comparatively simple matter to effect his capture, and the old man rose
+to his feet triumphant with the bag securely closed over the struggling
+captive.
+
+"Thanks," panted Tom, when he drew alongside. "I should never have
+caught him, and his appearance at large might have caused me a great
+deal of trouble--now of all times."
+
+"It's all right, Forsythe," smirked the old man. "Glad I was able to do
+it."
+
+Secretly he gloated, for he knew this occurrence would be an open sesame
+to that laboratory of Tom's. And it proved to be just that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few nights later he was awakened by a vigorous thumping at his door,
+something that had never before occurred during his nearly sixty years
+occupancy of the tumbledown hut. The moon was high and he cautiously
+peeped from the window and saw that his late visitor was none other than
+young Forsythe.
+
+"With you in a minute!" he shouted, hastily thrusting his rheumatic old
+limbs into his shabby trousers. "Now to see the inside of that
+laboratory," he chuckled to himself.
+
+It required but a moment to attire himself in the scanty raiment he wore
+during the warm months, but he could hear Tom muttering and impatiently
+pacing the flagstones before his door.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, as he drew the bolt and emerged into the
+brilliant light of the moon.
+
+"Success!" breathed Tom excitedly. "I have produced growing, living
+matter synthetically. More than this, I have learned the secret of the
+vital force--the spark of life. Immortality is within easy reach. Come
+and see for yourself."
+
+They quickly traversed the short distance to the two-story building
+which comprised Tom's workshop and living quarters. The entire ground
+floor was taken up by the laboratory, and Old Crompton stared aghast at
+the wealth of equipment it contained. Furnaces there were, and retorts
+that reminded him of those pictured in the wood cuts in some of his
+musty books. Then there were complicated machines with many levers and
+dials mounted on their faces, and with huge glass bulbs of peculiar
+shape with coils of wire connecting to knoblike protuberances of their
+transparent walls. In the exact center of the great single room there
+was what appeared to be a dissecting table, with a brilliant light
+overhead and with two of the odd glass bulbs at either end. It was to
+this table that Tom led the excited old man.
+
+"This is my perfected apparatus," said Tom proudly, "and by its use I
+intend to create a new race of supermen, men and women who will always
+retain the vigor and strength of their youth and who can not die
+excepting by actual destruction of their bodies. Under the influence of
+the rays all bodily ailments vanish as if by magic, and organic defects
+are quickly corrected. Watch this now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stepped to one of the many cages at the side of the room and returned
+with a wriggling cottontail in his hands. Old Compton watched anxiously
+as he picked a nickeled instrument from a tray of surgical appliances
+and requested his visitor to hold the protesting animal while he covered
+its head with a handkerchief.
+
+"Ethyl chloride," explained Tom, noting with amusement the look of
+distaste on the old man's face. "We'll just put him to sleep for a
+minute while I amputate a leg."
+
+The struggles of the rabbit quickly ceased when the spray soaked the
+handkerchief and the anaesthetic took effect. With a shining scalpel and
+a surgical saw, Tom speedily removed one of the forelegs of the animal
+and then he placed the limp body in the center of the table, removing
+the handkerchief from its head as he did so. At the end of the table
+there was a panel with its glittering array of switches and electrical
+instruments, and Old Crompton observed very closely the manipulations of
+the controls as Tom started the mechanism. With the ensuing hum of a
+motor-generator from a corner of the room, the four bulbs adjacent to
+the table sprang into life, each glowing with a different color and each
+emitting a different vibratory note as it responded to the energy
+within.
+
+"Keep an eye on Mr. Rabbit now," admonished Tom.
+
+From the body of the small animal there emanated an intangible though
+hazily visible aura as the combined effects of the rays grew in
+intensity. Old Crompton bent over the table and peered amazedly at the
+stump of the foreleg, from which blood no longer dripped. The stump was
+healing over! Yes--it seemed to elongate as one watched. A new limb was
+growing on to replace the old! Then the animal struggled once more, this
+time to regain consciousness. In a moment it was fully awake and, with a
+frightened hop, was off the table and hobbling about in search of a
+hiding place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tom Forsythe laughed. "Never knew what happened," he exulted, "and
+excepting for the temporary limp is not inconvenienced at all. Even that
+will be gone in a couple of hours, for the new limb will be completely
+grown by that time."
+
+"But--but, Tom," stammered the old man, "this is wonderful. How do you
+accomplish it?"
+
+"Ha! Don't think I'll reveal my secret. But this much I will tell you:
+the life force generated by my apparatus stimulates a certain gland
+that's normally inactive in warm blooded animals. This gland, when
+active, possesses the function of growing new members to the body to
+replace lost ones in much the same manner as this is done in case of the
+lobster and certain other crustaceans. Of course, the process is
+extremely rapid when the gland is stimulated by the vital rays from my
+tubes. But this is only one of the many wonders of the process. Here is
+something far more remarkable."
+
+He took from a large glass jar the body of a guinea pig, a body that was
+rigid in death.
+
+"This guinea pig," he explained, "was suffocated twenty-four hours ago
+and is stone dead."
+
+"Suffocated?"
+
+"Yes. But quite painlessly, I assure you. I merely removed the air from
+the jar with a vacuum pump and the little creature passed out of the
+picture very quickly. Now we'll revive it."
+
+Old Crompton stretched forth a skinny hand to touch the dead animal, but
+withdrew it hastily when he felt the clammy rigidity of the body. There
+was no doubt as to the lifelessness of this specimen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tom placed the dead guinea pig on the spot where the rabbit had been
+subjected to the action of the rays. Again his visitor watched carefully
+as he manipulated the controls of the apparatus.
+
+With the glow of the tubes and the ensuing haze of eery light that
+surrounded the little body, a marked change was apparent. The inanimate
+form relaxed suddenly and it seemed that the muscles pulsated with an
+accession of energy. Then one leg was stretched forth spasmodically.
+There was a convulsive heave as the lungs drew in a first long breath,
+and, with that, an astonished and very much alive rodent scrambled to
+its feet, blinking wondering eyes in the dazzling light.
+
+"See? See?" shouted Tom, grasping Old Crompton by the arm in a viselike
+grip. "It is the secret of life and death! Aristocrats, plutocrats and
+beggars will beat a path to my door. But, never fear, I shall choose my
+subjects well. The name of Thomas Forsythe will yet be emblazoned in the
+Hall of Fame. I shall be master of the world!"
+
+Old Crompton began to fear the glitter in the eyes of the gaunt young
+man who seemed suddenly to have become demented. And his envy and hatred
+of his talented host blazed anew as Forsythe gloried in the success of
+his efforts. Then he was struck with an idea and he affected his most
+ingratiating manner.
+
+"It is a marvelous thing, Tom," he said, "and is entirely beyond my poor
+comprehension. But I can see that it is all you say and more. Tell
+me--can you restore the youth of an aged person by these means?"
+
+"Positively!" Tom did not catch the eager note in the old man's voice.
+Rather he took the question as an inquiry into the further marvels of
+his process. "Here," he continued, enthusiastically, "I'll prove that to
+you also. My dog Spot is around the place somewhere. And he is a
+decrepit old hound, blind, lame and toothless. You've probably seen him
+with me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He rushed to the stairs and whistled. There was an answering yelp from
+above and the pad of uncertain paws on the bare wooden steps. A dejected
+old beagle blundered into the room, dragging a crippled hind leg as he
+fawned upon his master, who stretched forth a hand to pat the unsteady
+head.
+
+"Guess Spot is old enough for the test," laughed Tom, "and I have been
+meaning to restore him to his youthful vigor, anyway. No time like the
+present."
+
+He led his trembling pet to the table of the remarkable tubes and lifted
+him to its surface. The poor old beast lay trustingly where he was
+placed, quiet, save for his husky asthmatic breathing.
+
+"Hold him, Crompton," directed Tom as he pulled the starting lever of
+his apparatus.
+
+And Old Crompton watched in fascinated anticipation as the ethereal
+luminosity bathed the dog's body in response to the action of the four
+rays. Somewhat vaguely it came to him that the baggy flesh of his own
+wrinkled hands took on a new firmness and color where they reposed on
+the animal's back. Young Forsythe grinned triumphantly as Spot's
+breathing became more regular and the rasp gradually left it. Then the
+dog whined in pleasure and wagged his tail with increasing vigor.
+Suddenly he raised his head, perked his ears in astonishment and looked
+his master straight in the face with eyes that saw once more. The low
+throat cry rose to a full and joyous bark. He sprang to his feet from
+under the restraining hands and jumped to the floor in a lithe-muscled
+leap that carried him half way across the room. He capered about with
+the abandon of a puppy, making extremely active use of four sound limbs.
+
+"Why--why, Forsythe," stammered the hermit, "it's absolutely incredible.
+Tell me--tell me--what is this remarkable force?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His host laughed gleefully. "You probably wouldn't understand it anyway,
+but I'll tell you. It is as simple as the nose on your face. The spark
+of life, the vital force, is merely an extremely complicated electrical
+manifestation which I have been able to duplicate artificially. This
+spark or force is all that distinguishes living from inanimate matter,
+and in living beings the force gradually decreases in power as the years
+pass, causing loss of health and strength. The chemical composition of
+bones and tissue alters, joints become stiff, muscles atrophied, and
+bones brittle. By recharging, as it were, with the vital force, the
+gland action is intensified, youth and strength is renewed. By repeating
+the process every ten or fifteen years the same degree of vigor can be
+maintained indefinitely. Mankind will become immortal. That is why I say
+I am to be master of the world."
+
+For the moment Old Crompton forgot his jealous hatred in the enthusiasm
+with which he was imbued. "Tom--Tom," he pleaded in his excitement, "use
+me as a subject. Renew my youth. My life has been a sad one and a lonely
+one, but I would that I might live it over. I should make of it a far
+different one--something worth while. See, I am ready."
+
+He sat on the edge of the gleaming table and made as if to lie down on
+its gleaming surface. But his young host only stared at him in open
+amusement.
+
+"What? You?" he sneered, unfeelingly. "Why, you old fossil! I told you I
+would choose my subjects carefully. They are to be people of standing
+and wealth, who can contribute to the fame and fortune of one Thomas
+Forsythe."
+
+"But Tom, I have money," Old Crompton begged. But when he saw the hard
+mirth in the younger man's eyes, his old animosity flamed anew and he
+sprang from his position and shook a skinny forefinger in Tom's face.
+
+"Don't do that to me, you old fool!" shouted Tom, "and get out of here.
+Think I'd waste current on an old cadger like you? I guess not! Now get
+out. Get out, I say!"
+
+Then the old anchorite saw red. Something seemed to snap in his soured
+old brain. He found himself kicking and biting and punching at his host,
+who backed away from the furious onslaught in surprise. Then Tom tripped
+over a wire and fell to the floor with a force that rattled the windows,
+his ferocious little adversary on top. The younger man lay still where
+he had fallen, a trickle of blood showing at his temple.
+
+"My God! I've killed him!" gasped the old man.
+
+With trembling fingers he opened Tom's shirt and listened for his
+heartbeats. Panic-stricken, he rubbed the young man's wrists, slapped
+his cheeks, and ran for water to dash in his face. But all efforts to
+revive him proved futile, and then, in awful fear, Old Crompton dashed
+into the night, the dog Spot snapping at his heels as he ran.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hours later the stooped figure of a shabby old man might have been seen
+stealthily re-entering the lonely workshop where the lights still burned
+brightly. Tom Forsythe lay rigid in the position in which Old Crompton
+had left him, and the dog growled menacingly.
+
+Averting his gaze and circling wide of the body, Old Crompton made for
+the table of the marvelous rays. In minute detail he recalled every move
+made by Tom in starting and adjusting the apparatus to produce the
+incredible results he had witnessed. Not a moment was to be wasted now.
+Already he had hesitated too long, for soon would come the dawn and
+possible discovery of his crime. But the invention of his victim would
+save him from the long arm of the law, for, with youth restored, Old
+Crompton would cease to exist and a new life would open its doors to the
+starved soul of the hermit. Hermit, indeed! He would begin life anew, an
+active man with youthful vigor and ambition. Under an assumed name he
+would travel abroad, would enjoy life, and would later become a
+successful man of affairs. He had enough money, he told himself. And the
+police would never find Old Crompton, the murderer of Tom Forsythe! He
+deposited his small traveling bag on the floor and fingered the controls
+of Tom's apparatus.
+
+He threw the starting switch confidently and grinned in satisfaction as
+the answering whine of the motor-generator came to his ears. One by one
+he carefully made the adjustments in exactly the manner followed by the
+now silenced discoverer of the process. Everything operated precisely as
+it had during the preceding experiments. Odd that he should have
+anticipated some such necessity! But something had told him to observe
+Tom's movements carefully, and now he rejoiced in the fact that his
+intuition had led him aright. Painfully he climbed to the table top and
+stretched his aching body in the warm light of the four huge tubes. His
+exertions during the struggle with Tom were beginning to tell on him.
+But the soreness and stiffness of feeble muscles and stubborn joints
+would soon be but a memory. His pulses quickened at the thought and he
+breathed deep in a sudden feeling of unaccustomed well-being.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dog growled continuously from his position at the head of his
+master, but did not move to interfere with the intruder. And Old
+Crompton, in the excitement of the momentous experience, paid him not
+the slightest attention.
+
+His body tingled from head to foot with a not unpleasant sensation that
+conveyed the assurance of radical changes taking place under the
+influence of the vital rays. The tingling sensation increased in
+intensity until it seemed that every corpuscle in his veins danced to
+the tune of the vibration from those glowing tubes that bathed him in an
+ever-spreading radiance. Aches and pains vanished from his body, but he
+soon experienced a sharp stab of new pain in his lower jaw. With an
+experimental forefinger he rubbed the gum. He laughed aloud as the
+realization came to him that in those gums where there had been no teeth
+for more than twenty years there was now growing a complete new set. And
+the rapidity of the process amazed him beyond measure. The aching area
+spread quickly and was becoming really uncomfortable. But then--and he
+consoled himself with the thought--nothing is brought into being without
+a certain amount of pain. Besides, he was confident that his discomfort
+would soon be over.
+
+He examined his hand, and found that the joints of two fingers long
+crippled with rheumatism now moved freely and painlessly. The misty
+brilliance surrounding his body was paling and he saw that the flesh was
+taking on a faint green fluorescence instead. The rays had completed
+their work and soon the transformation would be fully effected. He
+turned on his side and slipped to the floor with the agility of a
+youngster. The dog snarled anew, but kept steadfastly to his position.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a small mirror over the wash stand at the far end of the room
+and Old Crompton made haste to obtain the first view of his reflected
+image. His step was firm and springy, his bearing confident, and he
+found that his long-stooped shoulders straightened naturally and easily.
+He felt that he had taken on at least two inches in stature, which was
+indeed the case. When he reached the mirror he peered anxiously into its
+dingy surface and what he saw there so startled him that he stepped
+backward in amazement. This was not Larry Crompton, but an entirely new
+man. The straggly white hair had given way to soft, healthy waves of
+chestnut hue. Gone were the seams from the leathery countenance and the
+eyes looked out clearly and steadily from under brows as thick and dark
+as they had been in his youth. The reflected features were those of an
+entire stranger. They were not even reminiscent of the Larry Crompton of
+fifty years ago, but were the features of a far more vigorous and
+prepossessing individual than he had ever seemed, even in the best years
+of his life. The jaw was firm, the once sunken cheeks so well filled out
+that his high cheek bones were no longer in evidence. It was the face of
+a man of not more than thirty-eight years of age, reflecting exceptional
+intelligence and strength of character.
+
+"What a disguise!" he exclaimed in delight. And his voice, echoing in
+the stillness that followed the switching off of the apparatus, was
+deep-throated and mellow--the voice of a new man.
+
+Now, serenely confident that discovery was impossible, he picked up his
+small but heavy bag and started for the door. Dawn was breaking and he
+wished to put as many miles between himself and Tom's laboratory as
+could be covered in the next few hours. But at the door he hesitated.
+Then, despite the furious yapping of Spot, he returned to the table of
+the rays and, with deliberate thoroughness smashed the costly tubes
+which had brought about his rehabilitation. With a pinch bar from a
+nearby tool rack, he wrecked the controls and generating mechanisms
+beyond recognition. Now he was absolutely secure! No meddling experts
+could possibly discover the secret of Tom's invention. All evidence
+would show that the young experimenter had met his death at the hands of
+Old Crompton, the despised hermit of West Laketon. But none would dream
+that the handsome man of means who was henceforth to be known as George
+Voight was that same despised hermit.
+
+He recovered his satchel and left the scene. With long, rapid strides he
+proceeded down the old dirt road toward the main highway where, instead
+of turning east into the village, he would turn west and walk to
+Kernsburg, the neighboring town. There, in not more than two hours time,
+his new life would really begin!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Had you, a visitor, departed from Laketon when Old Crompton did and
+returned twelve years later, you would have noticed very little
+difference in the appearance of the village. The old town hall and the
+little park were the same, the dingy brick building among the trees
+being just a little dingier and its wooden steps more worn and sagged.
+The main street showed evidence of recent repaving, and, in consequence
+of the resulting increase in through automobile traffic; there were two
+new gasoline filling stations in the heart of the town. Down the road
+about a half mile there was a new building, which, upon inquiring from
+one of the natives, would be proudly designated as the new high school
+building. Otherwise there were no changes to be observed.
+
+In his dilapidated chair in the untidy office he had occupied for nearly
+thirty years, sat Asa Culkin, popularly known as "Judge" Culkin. Justice
+of the peace, sheriff, attorney-at-law, and three times Mayor of
+Laketon, he was still a controlling factor in local politics and
+government. And many a knotty legal problem was settled in that gloomy
+little office. Many a dispute in the town council was dependent for
+arbitration upon the keen mind and understanding wit of the old judge.
+
+The four o'clock train had just puffed its labored way from the station
+when a stranger entered his office, a stranger of uncommonly prosperous
+air. The keen blue eyes of the old attorney appraised him instantly and
+classified him as a successful man of business, not yet forty years of
+age, and with a weighty problem on his mind.
+
+"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked, removing his feet from the
+battered desk top.
+
+"You may be able to help me a great deal, Judge," was the unexpected
+reply. "I came to Laketon to give myself up."
+
+"Give yourself up?" Culkin rose to his feet in surprise and
+unconsciously straightened his shoulders in the effort to seem less
+dwarfed before the tall stranger. "Why, what do you mean?" he inquired.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I wish to give myself up for murder," answered the amazing visitor,
+slowly and with decision, "for a murder committed twelve years ago. I
+should like you to listen to my story first, though. It has been kept
+too long."
+
+"But I still do not understand." There was puzzlement in the honest old
+face of the attorney. He shook his gray locks in uncertainty. "Why
+should you come here? Why come to me? What possible interest can I have
+in the matter?"
+
+"Just this, Judge. You do not recognize me now, and you will probably
+consider my story incredible when you hear it. But, when I have given
+you all the evidence, you will know who I am and will be compelled to
+believe. The murder was committed in Laketon. That is why I came to
+you."
+
+"A murder in Laketon? Twelve years ago?" Again the aged attorney shook
+his head. "But--proceed."
+
+"Yes. I killed Thomas Forsythe."
+
+The stranger looked for an expression of horror in the features of his
+listener, but there was none. Instead the benign countenance took on a
+look of deepening amazement, but the smile wrinkles had somehow vanished
+and the old face was grave in its surprised interest.
+
+"You seem astonished," continued the stranger. "Undoubtedly you were
+convinced that the murderer was Larry Crompton--Old Crompton, the
+hermit. He disappeared the night of the crime and has never been heard
+from since. Am I correct?"
+
+"Yes. He disappeared all right. But continue."
+
+Not by a lift of his eyebrow did Culkin betray his disbelief, but the
+stranger sensed that his story was somehow not as startling as it should
+have been.
+
+"You will think me crazy, I presume. But I am Old Crompton. It was my
+hand that felled the unfortunate young man in his laboratory out there
+in West Laketon twelve years ago to-night. It was his marvelous
+invention that transformed the old hermit into the apparently young man
+you see before you. But I swear that I am none other than Larry Crompton
+and that I killed young Forsythe. I am ready to pay the penalty. I can
+bear the flagellation of my own conscience no longer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The visitor's voice had risen to the point of hysteria. But his listener
+remained calm and unmoved.
+
+"Now just let me get this straight," he said quietly. "Do I understand
+that you claim to be Old Crompton, rejuvenated in some mysterious
+manner, and that you killed Tom Forsythe on that night twelve years ago?
+Do I understand that you wish now to go to trial for that crime and to
+pay the penalty?"
+
+"Yes! Yes! And the sooner the better. I can stand it no longer. I am the
+most miserable man in the world!"
+
+"Hm-m--hm-m," muttered the judge, "this is strange." He spoke soothingly
+to his visitor. "Do not upset yourself, I beg of you. I will take care
+of this thing for you, never fear. Just take a seat, Mister--er--"
+
+"You may call me Voight for the present," said the stranger, in a more
+composed tone of voice, "George Voight. That is the name I have been
+using since the mur--since that fatal night."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Voight," replied the counsellor with an air of the
+greatest solicitude, "please have a seat now, while I make a telephone
+call."
+
+And George Voight slipped into a stiff-backed chair with a sigh of
+relief. For he knew the judge from the old days and he was now certain
+that his case would be disposed of very quickly.
+
+With the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, Culkin repeated a
+number. The stranger listened intently during the ensuing silence. Then
+there came a muffled "hello" sounding in impatient response to the call.
+
+"Hello, Alton," spoke the attorney, "this is Asa speaking. A stranger
+has just stepped into my office and he claims to be Old Crompton.
+Remember the hermit across the road from your son's old laboratory?
+Well, this man, who bears no resemblance whatever to the old man he
+claims to be and who seems to be less than half the age of Tom's old
+neighbor, says that he killed Tom on that night we remember so well."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were some surprised remarks from the other end of the wire, but
+Voight was unable to catch them. He was in a cold perspiration at the
+thought of meeting his victim's father.
+
+"Why, yes, Alton," continued Culkin, "I think there is something in this
+story, although I cannot believe it all. But I wish you would accompany
+us and visit the laboratory. Will you?"
+
+"Lord, man, not that!" interrupted the judge's visitor. "I can hardly
+bear to visit the scene of my crime--and in the company of Alton
+Forsythe. Please, not that!"
+
+"Now you just let me take care of this, young man," replied the judge,
+testily. Then, once more speaking into the mouthpiece of the telephone,
+"All right, Alton. We'll pick you up at your office in five minutes."
+
+He replaced the receiver on its hook and turned again to his visitor.
+"Please be so kind as to do exactly as I request," he said. "I want to
+help you, but there is more to this thing than you know and I want you
+to follow unquestioningly where I lead and ask no questions at all for
+the present. Things may turn out differently than you expect."
+
+"All right, Judge." The visitor resigned himself to whatever might
+transpire under the guidance of the man he had called upon to turn him
+over to the officers of the law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seated in the judge's ancient motor car, they stopped at the office of
+Alton Forsythe a few minutes later and were joined by that red-faced and
+pompous old man. Few words were spoken during the short run to the
+well-remembered location of Tom's laboratory, and the man who was known
+as George Voight caught at his own throat with nervous fingers when they
+passed the tumbledown remains of the hut in which Old Crompton had spent
+so many years. With a screeching of well-worn brakes the car stopped
+before the laboratory, which was now almost hidden behind a mass of
+shrubs and flowers.
+
+"Easy now, young man," cautioned the judge, noting the look of fear
+which had clouded his new client's features. The three men advanced to
+the door through which Old Crompton had fled on that night of horror,
+twelve years before. The elder Forsythe spoke not a word as he turned
+the knob and stepped within. Voight shrank from entering, but soon
+mastered his feelings and followed the other two. The sight that met his
+eyes caused him to cry aloud in awe.
+
+At the dissecting table, which seemed to be exactly as he had seen it
+last but with replicas of the tubes he had destroyed once more in place,
+stood Tom Forsythe! Considerably older and with hair prematurely gray,
+he was still the young man Old Crompton thought he had killed. Tom
+Forsythe was not dead after all! And all of his years of misery had gone
+for nothing. He advanced slowly to the side of the wondering young man,
+Alton Forsythe and Asa Culkin watching silently from just inside the
+door.
+
+"Tom--Tom," spoke the stranger, "you are alive? You were not dead when I
+left you on that terrible night when I smashed your precious tubes?
+Oh--it is too good to be true! I can scarcely believe my eyes!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stretched forth trembling fingers to touch the body of the young man
+to assure himself that it was not all a dream.
+
+"Why," said Tom Forsythe, in astonishment. "I do not know you, sir.
+Never saw you in my life. What do you mean by your talk of smashing my
+tubes, of leaving me for dead?"
+
+"Mean?" The stranger's voice rose now; he was growing excited. "Why,
+Tom, I am Old Crompton. Remember the struggle, here in this very room?
+You refused to rejuvenate an unhappy old man with your marvelous
+apparatus, a temporarily insane old man--Crompton. I was that old man
+and I fought with you. You fell, striking your head. There was blood.
+You were unconscious. Yes, for many hours I was sure you were dead and
+that I had murdered you. But I had watched your manipulations of the
+apparatus and I subjected myself to the action of the rays. My youth was
+miraculously restored. I became as you see me now. Detection was
+impossible, for I looked no more like Old Crompton than you do. I
+smashed your machinery to avoid suspicion. Then I escaped. And, for
+twelve years, I have thought myself a murderer. I have suffered the
+tortures of the damned!"
+
+Tom Forsythe advanced on this remarkable visitor with clenched fists.
+Staring him in the eyes with cold appraisal, his wrath was all too
+apparent. The dog Spot, young as ever, entered the room and, upon
+observing the stranger, set up an ominous growling and snarling. At
+least the dog recognized him!
+
+"What are you trying to do, catechise me? Are you another of these
+alienists my father has been bringing around?" The young inventor was
+furious. "If you are," he continued, "you can get out of here--now! I'll
+have no more of this meddling with my affairs. I'm as sane as any of you
+and I refuse to submit to this continual persecution."
+
+The elder Forsythe grunted, and Culkin laid a restraining hand on his
+arm. "Just a minute now, Tom," he said soothingly. "This stranger is no
+alienist. He has a story to tell. Please permit him to finish."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Somewhat mollified, Tom Forsythe shrugged his assent.
+
+"Tom," continued the stranger, more calmly now, "what I have said is the
+truth. I shall prove it to you. I'll tell you things no mortals on earth
+could know but we two. Remember the day I captured the big rooster for
+you--the monster you had created? Remember the night you awakened me and
+brought me here in the moonlight? Remember the rabbit whose leg you
+amputated and re-grew? The poor guinea pig you had suffocated and whose
+life you restored? Spot here? Don't you remember rejuvenating him? I was
+here. And you refused to use your process on me, old man that I was.
+Then is when I went mad and attacked you. Do you believe me, Tom?"
+
+Then a strange thing happened. While Tom Forsythe gazed in growing
+belief, the stranger's shoulders sagged and he trembled as with the
+ague. The two older men who had kept in the background gasped their
+astonishment as his hair faded to a sickly gray, then became as white as
+the driven snow. Old Crompton was reverting to his previous state!
+Within five minutes, instead of the handsome young stranger, there
+stood before them a bent, withered old man--Old Crompton beyond a doubt.
+The effects of Tom's process were spent.
+
+"Well I'm damned!" ejaculated Alton Forsythe. "You have been right all
+along, Asa. And I am mighty glad I did not commit Tom as I intended. He
+has told us the truth all these years and we were not wise enough to see
+it."
+
+"We!" exclaimed the judge. "You, Alton Forsythe! I have always upheld
+him. You have done your son a grave injustice and you owe him your
+apologies if ever a father owed his son anything."
+
+"You are right, Asa." And, his aristocratic pride forgotten, Alton
+Forsythe rushed to the side of his son and embraced him.
+
+The judge turned to Old Crompton pityingly. "Rather a bad ending for
+you, Crompton," he said. "Still, it is better by far than being branded
+as a murderer."
+
+"Better? Better?" croaked Old Crompton. "It is wonderful, Judge. I have
+never been so happy in my life!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The face of the old man beamed, though scalding tears coursed down the
+withered and seamed cheeks. The two Forsythes looked up from their
+demonstrations of peacemaking to listen to the amazing words of the old
+hermit.
+
+"Yes, happy for the first time in my life," he continued. "I am one
+hundred years of age, gentlemen, and I now look it and feel it. That is
+as it should be. And my experience has taught me a final lasting lesson.
+None of you know it, but, when I was but a very young man I was bitterly
+disappointed in love. Ha! ha! Never think it to look at me now, would
+you? But I was, and it ruined my entire life. I had a little
+money--inherited--and I traveled about in the world for a few years,
+then settled in that old hut across the road where I buried myself for
+sixty years, becoming crabbed and sour and despicable. Young Tom here
+was the first bright spot and, though I admired him, I hated him for
+his opportunities, hated him for that which he had that I had not. With
+the promise of his invention I thought I saw happiness, a new life for
+myself. I got what I wanted, though not in the way I had expected. And I
+want to tell you gentlemen that there is nothing in it. With
+developments of modern science you may be able to restore a man's
+youthful vigor of body, but you can't cure his mind with electricity.
+Though I had a youthful body, my brain was the brain of an old
+man--memories were there which could not be suppressed. Even had I not
+had the fancied death of young Tom on my conscience I should still have
+been miserable. I worked. God, how I worked--to forget! But I could not
+forget. I was successful in business and made a lot of money. I am more
+independent--probably wealthier than you, Alton Forsythe, but that did
+not bring happiness. I longed to be myself once more, to have the aches
+and pains which had been taken from me. It is natural to age and to die.
+Immortality would make of us a people of restless misery. We would
+quarrel and bicker and long for death, which would not come to relieve
+us. Now it is over for me and I am glad--glad--glad!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He paused for breath, looking beseechingly at Tom Forsythe. "Tom," he
+said, "I suppose you have nothing for me in your heart but hatred. And I
+don't blame you. But I wish--I wish you would try and forgive me. Can
+you?"
+
+The years had brought increased understanding and tolerance to young
+Tom. He stared at Old Crompton and the long-nursed anger over the
+destruction of his equipment melted into a strange mixture of pity and
+admiration for the courageous old fellow.
+
+"Why, I guess I can, Crompton," he replied. "There was many a day when I
+struggled hopelessly to reconstruct my apparatus, cursing you with every
+bit of energy in my make-up. I could cheerfully have throttled you, had
+you been within reach. For twelve years I have labored incessantly to
+reproduce the results we obtained on the night of which you speak.
+People called me insane--even my father wished to have me committed to
+an asylum. And, until now, I have been unsuccessful. Only to-day has it
+seemed for the first time that the experiments will again succeed. But
+my ideas have changed with regard to the uses of the process. I was a
+cocksure young pup in the old days, with foolish dreams of fame and
+influence. But I have seen the error of my ways. Your experience, too,
+convinces me that immortality may not be as desirable as I thought. But
+there are great possibilities in the way of relieving the sufferings of
+mankind and in making this a better world in which to live. With your
+advice and help I believe I can do great things. I now forgive you
+freely and I ask you to remain here with me to assist in the work that
+is to come. What do you say to the idea?"
+
+At the reverent thankfulness in the pale eyes of the broken old man who
+had so recently been a perfect specimen of vigorous youth, Alton
+Forsythe blew his nose noisily. The little judge smiled benevolently and
+shook his head as if to say, "I told you so." Tom and Old Crompton
+gripped hands--mightily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _COMING, NEXT MONTH_
+  BRIGANDS OF THE MOON
+  By RAY CUMMINGS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Spawn of the Stars
+
+_By Charles Willard Diffin_
+
+
+    The Earth lay powerless beneath those loathsome, yellowish
+    monsters that, sheathed in cometlike globes, sprang from the
+    skies to annihilate man and reduce his cities to ashes.
+
+[Illustration: _The sky was alive with winged shapes, and high in the
+air shone the glittering menace, trailing five plumes of gas._]
+
+
+When Cyrus R. Thurston bought himself a single-motored Stoughton job he
+was looking for new thrills. Flying around the east coast had lost its
+zest: he wanted to join that jaunty group who spoke so easily of hopping
+off for Los Angeles.
+
+And what Cyrus Thurston wanted he usually obtained. But if that young
+millionaire-sportsman had been told that on his first flight this
+blocky, bulletlike ship was to pitch him headlong into the exact center
+of the wildest, strangest war this earth had ever seen--well, it is
+still probable that the Stoughton company would not have lost the sale.
+
+They were roaring through the starlit, calm night, three thousand feet
+above a sage sprinkled desert, when the trip ended. Slim Riley had the
+stick when the first blast of hot oil ripped slashingly across the
+pilot's window. "There goes your old trip!" he yelled. "Why don't they
+try putting engines in these ships?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+He jammed over the throttle and, with motor idling, swept down toward
+the endless miles of moonlit waste. Wind? They had been boring into it.
+Through the opened window he spotted a likely stretch of ground. Setting
+down the ship on a nice piece of Arizona desert was a mere detail for
+Slim.
+
+"Let off a flare," he ordered, "when I give the word."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The white glare of it faded the stars as he sideslipped, then
+straightened out on his hand-picked field. The plane rolled down a clear
+space and stopped. The bright glare persisted while he stared curiously
+from the quiet cabin. Cutting the motor he opened both windows, then
+grabbed Thurston by the shoulder.
+
+"'Tis a curious thing, that," he said unsteadily. His hand pointed
+straight ahead. The flare died, but the bright stars of the desert
+country still shone on a glistening, shining bulb.
+
+It was some two hundred feet away. The lower part was lost in shadow,
+but its upper surfaces shone rounded and silvery like a giant bubble. It
+towered in the air, scores of feet above the chaparral beside it. There
+was a round spot of black on its side, which looked absurdly like a
+door....
+
+"I saw something moving," said Thurston slowly. "On the ground I saw....
+Oh, good Lord, Slim, it isn't real!"
+
+Slim Riley made no reply. His eyes were riveted to an undulating,
+ghastly something that oozed and crawled in the pale light not far from
+the bulb. His hand was reaching, reaching.... It found what he sought;
+he leaned toward the window. In his hand was the Very pistol for
+discharging the flares. He aimed forward and up.
+
+The second flare hung close before it settled on the sandy floor. Its
+blinding whiteness made the more loathsome the sickening yellow of the
+flabby flowing thing that writhed frantically in the glare. It was
+formless, shapeless, a heaving mound of nauseous matter. Yet even in its
+agonized writhing distortions they sensed the beating pulsations that
+marked it a living thing.
+
+There were unending ripplings crossing and recrossing through the
+convolutions. To Thurston there was suddenly a sickening likeness: the
+thing was a brain from a gigantic skull--it was naked--was
+suffering....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The thing poured itself across the sand. Before the staring gaze of the
+speechless men an excrescence appeared--a thick bulb on the mass--that
+protruded itself into a tentacle. At the end there grew instantly a
+hooked hand. It reached for the black opening in the great shell, found
+it, and the whole loathsome shapelessness poured itself up and through
+the hole.
+
+Only at the last was it still. In the dark opening the last slippery
+mass held quiet for endless seconds. It formed, as they watched, to a
+head--frightful--menacing. Eyes appeared in the head; eyes flat and
+round and black save for a cross slit in each; eyes that stared horribly
+and unchangingly into theirs. Below them a gaping mouth opened and
+closed.... The head melted--was gone....
+
+And with its going came a rushing roar of sound.
+
+From under the metallic mass shrieked a vaporous cloud. It drove at
+them, a swirling blast of snow and sand. Some buried memory of gas
+attacks woke Riley from his stupor. He slammed shut the windows
+an instant before the cloud struck, but not before they had seen,
+in the moonlight, a gleaming, gigantic, elongated bulb rise
+swiftly--screamingly--into the upper air.
+
+The blast tore at their plane. And the cold in their tight compartment
+was like the cold of outer space. The men stared, speechless, panting.
+Their breath froze in that frigid room into steam clouds.
+
+"It--it...." Thurston gasped--and slumped helpless upon the floor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an hour before they dared open the door of their cabin. An hour
+of biting, numbing cold. Zero--on a warm summer night on the desert!
+Snow in the hurricane that had struck them!
+
+"'Twas the blast from the thing," guessed the pilot; "though never did
+I see an engine with an exhaust like that." He was pounding himself with
+his arms to force up the chilled circulation.
+
+"But the beast--the--the _thing_!" exclaimed Thurston. "It's monstrous;
+indecent! It thought--no question of that--but no body! Horrible! Just a
+raw, naked, thinking protoplasm!"
+
+It was here that he flung open the door. They sniffed cautiously of the
+air. It was warm again--clean--save for a hint of some nauseous odor.
+They walked forward; Riley carried a flash.
+
+The odor grew to a stench as they came where the great mass had lain. On
+the ground was a fleshy mound. There were bones showing, and horns on a
+skull. Riley held the light close to show the body of a steer. A body of
+raw bleeding meat. Half of it had been absorbed....
+
+"The damned thing," said Riley, and paused vainly for adequate words.
+"The damned thing was eating.... Like a jelly-fish, it was!"
+
+"Exactly," Thurston agreed. He pointed about. There were other heaps
+scattered among the low sage.
+
+"Smothered," guessed Thurston, "with that frozen exhaust. Then the
+filthy thing landed and came out to eat."
+
+"Hold the light for me," the pilot commanded. "I'm goin' to fix that
+busted oil line. And I'm goin' to do it right now. Maybe the creature's
+still hungry."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They sat in their room. About them was the luxury of a modern hotel.
+Cyrus Thurston stared vacantly at the breakfast he was forgetting to
+eat. He wiped his hands mechanically on a snowy napkin. He looked from
+the window. There were palm trees in the park, and autos in a ceaseless
+stream. And people! Sane, sober people, living in a sane world. Newsboys
+were shouting; the life of the city was flowing.
+
+"Riley!" Thurston turned to the man across the table. His voice was
+curiously toneless, and his face haggard. "Riley, I haven't slept for
+three nights. Neither have you. We've got to get this thing straight. We
+didn't both become absolute maniacs at the same instant, but--it was
+_not_ there, it was _never_ there--not _that_...." He was lost in
+unpleasant recollections. "There are other records of hallucinations."
+
+"Hallucinations--hell!" said Slim Riley. He was looking at a Los Angeles
+newspaper. He passed one hand wearily across his eyes, but his face was
+happier than it had been in days.
+
+"We didn't imagine it, we aren't crazy--it's real! Would you read that
+now!" He passed the paper across to Thurston. The headlines were
+startling.
+
+"Pilot Killed by Mysterious Airship. Silvery Bubble Hangs Over New York.
+Downs Army Plane in Burst of Flame. Vanishes at Terrific Speed."
+
+"It's our little friend," said Thurston. And on his face, too, the lines
+were vanishing; to find this horror a reality was positive relief.
+"Here's the same cloud of vapor--drifted slowly across the city,
+the accounts says, blowing this stuff like steam from underneath.
+Airplanes investigated--an army plane drove into the vapor--terrific
+explosion--plane down in flames--others wrecked. The machine ascended
+with meteor speed, trailing blue flame. Come on, boy, where's that old
+bus? Thought I never wanted to fly a plane again. Now I don't want to do
+anything but."
+
+"Where to?" Slim inquired.
+
+"Headquarters," Thurston told him. "Washington--let's go!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From Los Angeles to Washington is not far, as the plane flies. There was
+a stop or two for gasoline, but it was only a day later that they were
+seated in the War Office. Thurston's card had gained immediate
+admittance. "Got the low-down," he had written on the back of his card,
+"on the mystery airship."
+
+"What you have told me is incredible," the Secretary was saying,
+"or would be if General Lozier here had not reported personally on
+the occurrence at New York. But the monster, the thing you have
+described.... Cy, if I didn't know you as I do I would have you locked
+up."
+
+"It's true," said Thurston, simply. "It's damnable, but it's true. Now
+what does it mean?"
+
+"Heaven knows," was the response. "That's where it came from--out of the
+heavens."
+
+"Not what we saw," Slim Riley broke in. "That thing came straight out of
+Hell." And in his voice was no suggestion of levity.
+
+"You left Los Angeles early yesterday; have you seen the papers?"
+
+Thurston shook his head.
+
+"They are back," said the Secretary. "Reported over London--Paris--the
+West Coast. Even China has seen them. Shanghai cabled an hour ago."
+
+"Them? How many are there?"
+
+"Nobody knows. There were five seen at one time. There are more--unless
+the same ones go around the world in a matter of minutes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston remembered that whirlwind of vapor and a vanishing speck in the
+Arizona sky. "They could," he asserted. "They're faster than anything on
+earth. Though what drives them ... that gas--steam--whatever it is...."
+
+"Hydrogen," stated General Lozier. "I saw the New York show when poor
+Davis got his. He flew into the exhaust; it went off like a million
+bombs. Characteristic hydrogen flame trailed the damn thing up out of
+sight--a tail of blue fire."
+
+"And cold," stated Thurston.
+
+"Hot as a Bunsen burner," the General contradicted. "Davis' plane almost
+melted."
+
+"Before it ignited," said the other. He told of the cold in their plane.
+
+"Ha!" The General spoke explosively. "That's expansion. That's a tip on
+their motive power. Expansion of gas. That accounts for the cold and
+the vapor. Suddenly expanded it would be intensely cold. The moisture of
+the air would condense, freeze. But how could they carry it? Or"--he
+frowned for a moment, brows drawn over deep-set gray eyes--"or generate
+it? But that's crazy--that's impossible!"
+
+"So is the whole matter," the Secretary reminded him. "With the
+information Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have given us, the whole affair
+is beyond any gage our past experience might supply. We start from the
+impossible, and we go--where? What is to be done?"
+
+"With your permission, sir, a number of things shall be done. It would
+be interesting to see what a squadron of planes might accomplish, diving
+on them from above. Or anti-aircraft fire."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No," said the Secretary of War, "not yet. They have looked us over,
+but they have not attacked. For the present we do not know what they
+are. All of us have our suspicions--thoughts of interplanetary
+travel--thoughts too wild for serious utterance--but we know nothing.
+
+"Say nothing to the papers of what you have told me," he directed
+Thurston. "Lord knows their surmises are wild enough now. And for you,
+General, in the event of any hostile move, you will resist."
+
+"Your order was anticipated, sir." The General permitted himself a
+slight smile. "The air force is ready."
+
+"Of course," the Secretary of War nodded. "Meet me here to-night--nine
+o'clock." He included Thurston and Riley in the command. "We need to
+think ... to think ... and perhaps their mission is friendly."
+
+"Friendly!" The two flyers exchanged glances as they went to the door.
+And each knew what the other was seeing--a viscous ocherous mass that
+formed into a head where eyes devilish in their hate stared coldly into
+theirs....
+
+"Think, we need to think," repeated Thurston later. "A creature that is
+just one big hideous brain, that can think an arm into existence--think
+a head where it wishes! What does a thing like that think of? What
+beastly thoughts could that--that _thing_ conceive?"
+
+"If I got the sights of a Lewis gun on it," said Riley vindictively,
+"I'd make it think."
+
+"And my guess is that is all you would accomplish," Thurston told him.
+"I am forming a few theories about our visitors. One is that it would be
+quite impossible to find a vital spot in that big homogeneous mass."
+
+The pilot dispensed with theories: his was a more literal mind. "Where
+on earth did they come from, do you suppose, Mr. Thurston?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were walking to their hotel. Thurston raised his eyes to the summer
+heavens. Faint stars were beginning to twinkle; there was one that
+glowed steadily.
+
+"Nowhere on earth," Thurston stated softly, "nowhere on earth."
+
+"Maybe so," said the pilot, "maybe so. We've thought about it and talked
+about it ... and they've gone ahead and done it." He called to a
+newsboy; they took the latest editions to their room.
+
+The papers were ablaze with speculation. There were dispatches from all
+corners of the earth, interviews with scientists and near scientists.
+The machines were a Soviet invention--they were beyond anything
+human--they were harmless--they would wipe out civilization--poison
+gas--blasts of fire like that which had enveloped the army flyer....
+
+And through it all Thurston read an ill-concealed fear, a reflection of
+panic that was gripping the nation--the whole world. These great
+machines were sinister. Wherever they appeared came the sense of being
+watched, of a menace being calmly withheld. And at thought of the
+obscene monsters inside those spheres, Thurston's lips were compressed
+and his eyes hardened. He threw the papers aside.
+
+"They are here," he said, "and that's all that we know. I hope the
+Secretary of War gets some good men together. And I hope someone is
+inspired with an answer."
+
+"An answer is it?" said Riley. "I'm thinkin' that the answer will come,
+but not from these swivel-chair fighters. 'Tis the boys in the cockpits
+with one hand on the stick and one on the guns that will have the
+answer."
+
+But Thurston shook his head. "Their speed," he said, "and the gas!
+Remember that cold. How much of it can they lay over a city?"
+
+The question was unanswered, unless the quick ringing of the phone was a
+reply.
+
+"War Department," said a voice. "Hold the wire." The voice of the
+Secretary of War came on immediately.
+
+"Thurston?" he asked. "Come over at once on the jump, old man. Hell's
+popping."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The windows of the War Department Building were all alight as they
+approached. Cars were coming and going; men in uniform, as the Secretary
+had said, "on the jump." Soldiers with bayonets stopped them, then
+passed Thurston and his companion on. Bells were ringing from all sides.
+But in the Secretary's office was perfect quiet.
+
+General Lozier was there, Thurston saw, and an imposing array of
+gold-braided men with a sprinkling of those in civilian clothes. One he
+recognized: MacGregor from the Bureau of Standards. The Secretary handed
+Thurston some papers.
+
+"Radio," he explained. "They are over the Pacific coast. Hit near
+Vancouver; Associated Press says city destroyed. They are working down
+the coast. Same story--blast of hydrogen from their funnel shaped base.
+Colder than Greenland below them; snow fell in Seattle. No real attack
+since Vancouver and little damage done--" A message was laid before
+him.
+
+"Portland," he said. "Five mystery ships over city. Dart repeatedly
+toward earth, deliver blast of gas and then retreat. Doing no damage.
+Apparently inviting attack. All commercial planes ordered grounded.
+Awaiting instructions.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Secretary, "I believe I speak for all present when
+I say that, in the absence of first hand information, we are utterly
+unable to arrive at any definite conclusion or make a definite plan.
+There is a menace in this, undeniably. Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley have
+been good enough to report to me. They have seen one machine at close
+range. It was occupied by a monster so incredible that the report would
+receive no attention from me did I not know Mr. Thurston personally.
+
+"Where have they come from? What does it mean--what is their mission?
+Only God knows.
+
+"Gentlemen, I feel that I must see them. I want General Lozier to
+accompany me, also Doctor MacGregor, to advise me from the scientific
+angle. I am going to the Pacific Coast. They may not wait--that is
+true--but they appear to be going slowly south. I will leave to-night
+for San Diego. I hope to intercept them. We have strong air-forces
+there; the Navy Department is cooperating."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He waited for no comment. "General," he ordered, "will you kindly
+arrange for a plane? Take an escort or not as you think best.
+
+"Mr. Thurston and Mr. Riley will also accompany us. We want all the
+authoritative data we can get. This on my return will be placed before
+you, gentlemen, for your consideration." He rose from his chair. "I hope
+they wait for us," he said.
+
+Time was when a commander called loudly for a horse, but in this day a
+Secretary of War is not kept waiting for transportation. Sirening
+motorcycles preceded them from the city. Within an hour, motors roaring
+wide open, propellers ripping into the summer night, lights slipping
+eastward three thousand feet below, the Secretary of War for the United
+States was on his way. And on either side from their plane stretched the
+arms of a V. Like a flight of gigantic wild geese, fast fighting planes
+of the Army air service bored steadily into the night, guarantors of
+safe convoy.
+
+"The Air Service is ready," General Lozier had said. And Thurston and
+his pilot knew that from East coast to West, swift scout planes, whose
+idling engines could roar into action at a moment's notice, stood
+waiting; battle planes hidden in hangars would roll forth at the
+word--the Navy was cooperating--and at San Diego there were strong naval
+units, Army units, and Marine Corps.
+
+"They don't know what we can do, what we have up our sleeve: they are
+feeling us out," said the Secretary. They had stopped more than once for
+gas and for wireless reports. He held a sheaf of typewritten briefs.
+
+"Going slowly south. They have taken their time. Hours over San
+Francisco and the bay district. Repeating same tactics; fall with
+terrific speed to cushion against their blast of gas. Trying to draw us
+out, provoke an attack, make us show our strength. Well, we shall beat
+them to San Diego at this rate. We'll be there in a few hours."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The afternoon sun was dropping ahead of them when they sighted the
+water. "Eckener Pass," the pilot told them, "where the Graf Zeppelin
+came through. Wonder what these birds would think of a Zepp!
+
+"There's the ocean," he added after a time. San Diego glistened against
+the bare hills. "There's North Island--the Army field." He stared
+intently ahead, then shouted: "And there they are! Look there!"
+
+Over the city a cluster of meteors was falling. Dark underneath, their
+tops shone like pure silver in the sun's slanting glare. They fell
+toward the city, then buried themselves in a dense cloud of steam,
+rebounding at once to the upper air, vapor trailing behind them.
+
+The cloud billowed slowly. It struck the hills of the city, then lifted
+and vanished.
+
+"Land at once," requested the Secretary. A flash of silver countermanded
+the order.
+
+It hung there before them, a great gleaming globe, keeping always its
+distance ahead. It was elongated at the base, Thurston observed. From
+that base shot the familiar blast that turned steamy a hundred feet
+below as it chilled the warm air. There were round orifices, like ports,
+ranged around the top, where an occasional jet of vapor showed this to
+be a method of control. Other spots shone dark and glassy. Were they
+windows? He hardly realized their peril, so interested was he in the
+strange machine ahead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then: "Dodge that vapor," ordered General Lozier. The plane wavered in
+signal to the others and swung sharply to the left. Each man knew the
+flaming death that was theirs if the fire of their exhaust touched that
+explosive mixture of hydrogen and air. The great bubble turned with them
+and paralleled their course.
+
+"He's watching us," said Riley, "giving us the once over, the slimy
+devil. Ain't there a gun on this ship?"
+
+The General addressed his superior. Even above the roar of the motors
+his voice seemed quiet, assured. "We must not land now," he said. "We
+can't land at North Island. It would focus their attention upon our
+defenses. That thing--whatever it is--is looking for a vulnerable spot.
+We must.... Hold on--there he goes!"
+
+The big bulb shot upward. It slanted above them, and hovered there.
+
+"I think he is about to attack," said the General quietly. And, to the
+commander of their squadron: "It's in your hands now, Captain. It's
+your fight."
+
+The Captain nodded and squinted above. "He's got to throw heavier stuff
+than that," he remarked. A small object was falling from the cloud. It
+passed close to their ship.
+
+"Half-pint size," said Cyrus Thurston, and laughed in derision. There
+was something ludicrous in the futility of the attack. He stuck his head
+from a window into the gale they created. He sheltered his eyes to try
+to follow the missile in its fall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were over the city. The criss-cross of streets made a grill-work of
+lines; tall buildings were dwarfed from this three thousand foot
+altitude. The sun slanted across a projecting promontory to make golden
+ripples on a blue sea and the city sparkled back in the clear air. Tiny
+white faces were massed in the streets, huddled in clusters where the
+futile black missile had vanished.
+
+And then--then the city was gone....
+
+A white cloud-bank billowed and mushroomed. Slowly, it seemed to the
+watcher--so slowly.
+
+It was done in the fraction of a second. Yet in that brief time his eyes
+registered the chaotic sweep in advance of the cloud. There came a
+crashing of buildings in some monster whirlwind, a white cloud engulfing
+it all.... It was rising--was on them.
+
+"God," thought Thurston, "why can't I move!" The plane lifted and
+lurched. A thunder of sound crashed against them, an intolerable force.
+They were crushed to the floor as the plane was hurled over and upward.
+
+Out of the mad whirling tangle of flying bodies, Thurston glimpsed one
+clear picture. The face of the pilot hung battered and blood-covered
+before him, and over the limp body the hand of Slim Riley clutched at
+the switch.
+
+"Bully boy," he said dazedly, "he's cutting the motors...." The thought
+ended in blackness.
+
+There was no sound of engines or beating propellers when he came to his
+senses. Something lay heavy upon him. He pushed it to one side. It was
+the body of General Lozier.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He drew himself to his knees to look slowly about, rubbed stupidly at
+his eyes to quiet the whirl, then stared at the blood on his hand. It
+was so quiet--the motors--what was it that happened? Slim had reached
+for the switch....
+
+The whirling subsided. Before him he saw Slim Riley at the controls. He
+got to his feet and went unsteadily forward. It was a battered face that
+was lifted to his.
+
+"She was spinning," the puffed lips were muttering slowly. "I brought
+her out ... there's the field...." His voice was thick; he formed the
+words slowly, painfully. "Got to land ... can you take it? I'm--I'm--"
+He slumped limply in his seat.
+
+Thurston's arms were uninjured. He dragged the pilot to the floor and
+got back of the wheel. The field was below them. There were planes
+taxiing out; he heard the roar of their motors. He tried the controls.
+The plane answered stiffly, but he managed to level off as the brown
+field approached.
+
+Thurston never remembered that landing. He was trying to drag Riley from
+the battered plane when the first man got to him.
+
+"Secretary of War?" he gasped. "In there.... Take Riley; I can walk."
+
+"We'll get them," an officer assured him. "Knew you were coming. They
+sure gave you hell! But look at the city!"
+
+Arms carried him stumbling from the field. Above the low hangars he saw
+smoke clouds over the bay. These and red rolling flames marked what had
+been an American city. Far in the heavens moved five glinting specks.
+
+His head reeled with the thunder of engines. There were planes standing
+in lines and more erupting from hangars, where khaki-clad men, faces
+tense under leather helmets, rushed swiftly about.
+
+"General Lozier is dead," said a voice. Thurston turned to the man. They
+were bringing the others. "The rest are smashed up some," the officer
+told him, "but I think they'll pull through."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Secretary of War for the United States lay beside him. Men with red
+on their sleeves were slitting his coat. Through one good eye he
+squinted at Thurston. He even managed a smile.
+
+"Well, I wanted to see them up close," he said. "They say you saved us,
+old man."
+
+Thurston waved that aside. "Thank Riley--" he began, but the words ended
+in the roar of an exhaust. A plane darted swiftly away to shoot
+vertically a hundred feet in the air. Another followed and another. In a
+cloud of brown dust they streamed endlessly out, zooming up like angry
+hornets, eager to get into the fight.
+
+"Fast little devils!" the ambulance man observed. "Here come the big
+boys."
+
+A leviathan went deafeningly past. And again others came on in quick
+succession. Farther up the field, silvery gray planes with rudders
+flaunting their red, white and blue rose circling to the heights.
+
+"That's the Navy," was the explanation. The surgeon straightened the
+Secretary's arm. "See them come off the big airplane carriers!"
+
+If his remarks were part of his professional training in removing a
+patient's thoughts from his pain, they were effective. The Secretary
+stared out to sea, where two great flat-decked craft were shooting
+planes with the regularity of a rapid fire gun. They stood out sharply
+against a bank of gray fog. Cyrus Thurston forgot his bruised body,
+forgot his own peril--even the inferno that raged back across the bay:
+he was lost in the sheer thrill of the spectacle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Above them the sky was alive with winged shapes. And from all the
+disorder there was order appearing. Squadron after squadron swept to
+battle formation. Like flights of wild ducks the true sharp-pointed Vs
+soared off into the sky. Far above and beyond, rows of dots marked the
+race of swift scouts for the upper levels. And high in the clear air
+shone the glittering menace trailing their five plumes of gas.
+
+A deeper detonation was merging into the uproar. It came from the ships,
+Thurston knew, where anti-aircraft guns poured a rain of shells into the
+sky. About the invaders they bloomed into clusters of smoke balls. The
+globes shot a thousand feet into the air. Again the shells found them,
+and again they retreated.
+
+"Look!" said Thurston. "They got one!"
+
+He groaned as a long curving arc of speed showed that the big bulb was
+under control. Over the ships it paused, to balance and swing, then shot
+to the zenith as one of the great boats exploded in a cloud of vapor.
+
+The following blast swept the airdrome. Planes yet on the ground went
+like dry autumn leaves. The hangars were flattened.
+
+Thurston cowered in awe. They were sheltered, he saw, by a slope of the
+ground. No ridicule now for the bombs!
+
+A second blast marked when the gas-cloud ignited. The billowing flames
+were blue. They writhed in tortured convulsions through the air. Endless
+explosions merged into one rumbling roar.
+
+MacGregor had roused from his stupor; he raised to a sitting position.
+
+"Hydrogen," he stated positively, and pointed where great volumes of
+flame were sent whirling aloft. "It burns as it mixes with air." The
+scientist was studying intently the mammoth reaction. "But the volume,"
+he marveled, "the volume! From that small container! Impossible!"
+
+"Impossible," the Secretary agreed, "but...." He pointed with his one
+good arm toward the Pacific. Two great ships of steel, blackened and
+battered in that fiery breath, tossed helplessly upon the pitching,
+heaving sea. They furnished to the scientist's exclamation the only
+adequate reply.
+
+Each man stared aghast into the pallid faces of his companions. "I think
+we have underestimated the opposition," said the Secretary of War
+quietly. "Look--the fog is coming in, but it's too late to save them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The big ships were vanishing in the oncoming fog. Whirls of vapor were
+eddying toward them in the flame-blaster air. Above them the watchers
+saw dimly the five gleaming bulbs. There were airplanes attacking: the
+tapping of machine-gun fire came to them faintly.
+
+Fast planes circled and swooped toward the enemy. An armada of big
+planes drove in from beyond. Formations were blocking space above....
+Every branch of the service was there, Thurston exulted, the army,
+Marine Corps, the Navy. He gripped hard at the dry ground in a paralysis
+of taut nerves. The battle was on, and in the balance hung the fate of
+the world.
+
+The fog drove in fast. Through straining eyes he tried in vain to
+glimpse the drama spread above. The world grew dark and gray. He buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+And again came the thunder. The men on the ground forced their gaze to
+the clouds, though they knew some fresh horror awaited.
+
+The fog-clouds reflected the blue terror above. They were riven and
+torn. And through them black objects were falling. Some blazed as they
+fell. They slipped into unthought maneuvers--they darted to earth
+trailing yellow and black of gasoline fires. The air was filled with the
+dread rain of death that was spewed from the gray clouds. Gone was the
+roaring of motors. The air-force of the San Diego area swept in silence
+to the earth, whose impact alone could give kindly concealment to their
+flame-stricken burden.
+
+Thurston's last control snapped. He flung himself flat to bury his face
+in the sheltering earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Only the driving necessity of work to be done saved the sanity of the
+survivors. The commercial broadcasting stations were demolished, a part
+of the fuel for the terrible furnace across the bay. But the Naval radio
+station was beyond on an outlying hill. The Secretary of War was in
+charge. An hour's work and this was again in commission to flash to the
+world the story of disaster. It told the world also of what lay ahead.
+The writing was plain. No prophet was needed to forecast the doom and
+destruction that awaited the earth.
+
+Civilization was helpless. What of armies and cannon, of navies, of
+aircraft, when from some unreachable height these monsters within their
+bulbous machines could drop coldly--methodically--their diminutive
+bombs. And when each bomb meant shattering destruction; each explosion
+blasting all within a radius of miles; each followed by the blue blast
+of fire that melted the twisted framework of buildings and powdered the
+stones to make of a proud city a desolation of wreckage, black and
+silent beneath the cold stars. There was no crumb of comfort for the
+world in the terror the radio told.
+
+Slim Riley was lying on an improvised cot when Thurston and the
+representative of the Bureau of Standards joined him. Four walls of a
+room still gave shelter in a half-wrecked building. There were candles
+burning: the dark was unbearable.
+
+"Sit down," said MacGregor quietly; "we must think...."
+
+"Think!" Thurston's voice had an hysterical note. "I can't think! I
+mustn't think! I'll go raving crazy...."
+
+"Yes, think," said the scientist. "Had it occurred to you that that is
+our only weapon left?
+
+"We must think, we must analyze. Have these devils a vulnerable spot? Is
+there any known means of attack? We do not know. We must learn. Here in
+this room we have all the direct information the world possesses of this
+menace. I have seen their machines in operation. You have seen more--you
+have looked at the monsters themselves. At one of them, anyway."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The man's voice was quiet, methodical. Mr. MacGregor was attacking a
+problem. Problems called for concentration; not hysterics. He could have
+poured the contents from a beaker without spilling a drop. His poise was
+needed: they were soon to make a laboratory experiment.
+
+The door burst open to admit a wild-eyed figure that snatched up their
+candles and dashed them to the floor.
+
+"Lights out!" he screamed at them. "There's one of 'em coming back." He
+was gone from the room.
+
+The men sprang for the door, then turned to where Riley was clumsily
+crawling from his couch. An arm under each of his, and the three men
+stumbled from the room.
+
+They looked about them in the night. The fog-banks were high, drifting
+in from the ocean. Beneath them the air was clear; from somewhere above
+a hidden moon forced a pale light through the clouds. And over the
+ocean, close to the water, drifted a familiar shape. Familiar in its
+huge sleek roundness, in its funnel-shaped base where a soft roar made
+vaporous clouds upon the water. Familiar, too, in the wild dread it
+inspired.
+
+The watchers were spellbound. To Thurston there came a fury of impotent
+frenzy. It was so near! His hands trembled to tear at that door, to rip
+at that foul mass he knew was within.... The great bulb drifted past. It
+was nearing the shore. But its action! Its motion!
+
+Gone was the swift certainty of control. The thing settled and sank, to
+rise weakly with a fresh blast of gas from its exhaust. It settled
+again, and passed waveringly on in the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston was throbbingly alive with hope that was certainty. "It's been
+hit," he exulted; "it's been hit. Quick! After it, follow it!" He dashed
+for a car. There were some that had been salvaged from the less ruined
+buildings. He swung it quickly around where the others were waiting.
+
+"Get a gun," he commanded. "Hey, you,"--to an officer who
+appeared--"your pistol, man, quick! We're going after it!" He caught the
+tossed gun and hurried the others into the car.
+
+"Wait," MacGregor commanded. "Would you hunt elephants with a pop-gun?
+Or these things?"
+
+"Yes," the other told him, "or my bare hands! Are you coming, or aren't
+you?"
+
+The physicist was unmoved. "The creature you saw--you said that it
+writhed in a bright light--you said it seemed almost in agony. There's
+an idea there! Yes, I'm going with you, but keep your shirt on, and
+think."
+
+He turned again to the officer. "We need lights," he explained, "bright
+lights. What is there? Magnesium? Lights of any kind?"
+
+"Wait." The man rushed off into the dark.
+
+He was back in a moment to thrust a pistol into the car. "Flares," he
+explained. "Here's a flashlight, if you need it." The car tore at the
+ground as Thurston opened it wide. He drove recklessly toward the
+highway that followed the shore.
+
+The high fog had thinned to a mist. A full moon was breaking through to
+touch with silver the white breakers hissing on the sand. It spread its
+full glory on dunes and sea: one more of the countless soft nights where
+peace and calm beauty told of an ageless existence that made naught of
+the red havoc of men or of monsters. It shone on the ceaseless surf
+that had beaten these shores before there were men, that would thunder
+there still when men were no more. But to the tense crouching men in the
+car it shone only ahead on a distant, glittering speck. A wavering
+reflection marked the uncertain flight of the stricken enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston drove like a maniac; the road carried them straight toward
+their quarry. What could he do when he overtook it? He neither knew nor
+cared. There was only the blind fury forcing him on within reach of the
+thing. He cursed as the lights of the car showed a bend in the road. It
+was leaving the shore.
+
+He slackened their speed to drive cautiously into the sand. It dragged
+at the car, but he fought through to the beach, where he hoped for firm
+footing. The tide was out. They tore madly along the smooth sand,
+breakers clutching at the flying wheels.
+
+The strange aircraft was nearer; it was plainly over the shore, they
+saw. Thurston groaned as it shot high in the air in an effort to clear
+the cliffs ahead. But the heights were no longer a refuge. Again it
+settled. It struck on the cliff to rebound in a last futile leap. The
+great pear shape tilted, then shot end over end to crash hard on the
+firm sand. The lights of the car struck the wreck, and they saw the
+shell roll over once. A ragged break was opening--the spherical top fell
+slowly to one side. It was still rocking as they brought the car to a
+stop. Filling the lower shell, they saw dimly, was a mucouslike mass
+that seethed and struggled in the brilliance of their lights.
+
+MacGregor was persisting in his theory. "Keep the lights on it!" he
+shouted. "It can't stand the light."
+
+While they watched, the hideous, bubbling beast oozed over the side of
+the broken shell to shelter itself in the shadow beneath. And again
+Thurston sensed the pulse and throb of life in the monstrous mass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He saw again in his rage the streaming rain of black airplanes; saw,
+too, the bodies, blackened and charred as they saw them when first they
+tried rescue from the crashed ships; the smoke clouds and flames from
+the blasted city, where people--his people, men and women and little
+children--had met terrible death. He sprang from the car. Yet he
+faltered with a revulsion that was almost a nausea. His gun was gripped
+in his hand as he ran toward the monster.
+
+"Come back!" shouted MacGregor. "Come back! Have you gone mad?" He was
+jerking at the door of the car.
+
+Beyond the white funnel of their lights a yellow thing was moving. It
+twisted and flowed with incredible speed a hundred feet back to the base
+of the cliff. It drew itself together in a quivering heap.
+
+An out-thrusting rock threw a sheltering shadow; the moon was low in the
+west. In the blackness a phosphorescence was apparent. It rippled and
+rose in the dark with the pulsing beat of the jellylike mass. And
+through it were showing two discs. Gray at first, they formed to black,
+staring eyes.
+
+Thurston had followed. His gun was raised as he neared it. Then out of
+the mass shot a serpentine arm. It whipped about him, soft, sticky,
+viscid--utterly loathsome. He screamed once when it clung to his face,
+then tore savagely and in silence at the encircling folds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The gun! He ripped a blinding mass from his face and emptied the
+automatic in a stream of shots straight toward the eyes. And he knew as
+he fired that the effort was useless; to have shot at the milky surf
+would have been as vain.
+
+The thing was pulling him irresistibly; he sank to his knees; it dragged
+him over the sand. He clutched at a rock. A vision was before him: the
+carcass of a steer, half absorbed and still bleeding on the sand of an
+Arizona desert....
+
+To be drawn to the smothering embrace of that glutinous mass ... for
+that monstrous appetite.... He tore afresh at the unyielding folds, then
+knew MacGregor was beside him.
+
+In the man's hand was a flashlight. The scientist risked his life on a
+guess. He thrust the powerful light into the clinging serpent. It was
+like the touch of hot iron to human flesh. The arm struggled and flailed
+in a paroxysm of pain.
+
+Thurston was free. He lay gasping on the sand. But MacGregor!... He
+looked up to see him vanish in the clinging ooze. Another thick tentacle
+had been projected from the main mass to sweep like a whip about the
+man. It hissed as it whirled about him in the still air.
+
+The flashlight was gone; Thurston's hand touched it in the sand. He
+sprang to his feet and pressed the switch. No light responded; the
+flashlight was out--broken.
+
+A thick arm slashed and wrapped about him.... It beat him to the ground.
+The sand was moving beneath him; he was being dragged swiftly,
+helplessly, toward what waited in the shadow. He was smothering.... A
+blinding glare filled his eyes....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The flares were still burning when he dared look about. MacGregor was
+pulling frantically at his arm. "Quick--quick!" he was shouting.
+Thurston scrambled to his feet.
+
+One glimpse he caught of a heaving yellow mass in the white light; it
+twisted in horrible convulsions. They ran stumblingly--drunkenly--toward
+the car.
+
+Riley was half out of the machine. He had tried to drag himself to their
+assistance. "I couldn't make it," he said: "then I thought of the
+flares."
+
+"Thank Heaven," said MacGregor with emphasis, "it was your legs that
+were paralyzed, Riley, not your brain."
+
+Thurston found his voice. "Let me have that Very pistol. If light hurts
+that damn thing, I am going to put a blaze of magnesium into the middle
+of it if I die for it."
+
+"They're all gone," said Riley.
+
+"Then let's get out of here. I've had enough. We can come back later
+on."
+
+He got back of the wheel and slammed the door of the sedan. The
+moonlight was gone. The darkness was velvet just tinged with the gray
+that precedes the dawn. Back in the deeper blackness at the cliff-base a
+phosphorescent something wavered and glowed. The light rippled and
+flowed in all directions over the mass. Thurston felt, vaguely, its
+mystery--the bulk was a vast, naked brain; its quiverings were like
+visible thought waves....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The phosphorescence grew brighter. The thing was approaching. Thurston
+let in his clutch, but the scientist checked him.
+
+"Wait," he implored, "wait! I wouldn't miss this for the world." He
+waved toward the east, where far distant ranges were etched in palest
+rose.
+
+"We know less than nothing of these creatures, in what part
+of the universe they are spawned, how they live, where they
+live--Saturn!--Mars!--the Moon! But--we shall soon know how one dies!"
+
+The thing was coming from the cliff. In the dim grayness it seemed less
+yellow, less fluid. A membrane enclosed it. It was close to the car. Was
+it hunger that drove it, or cold rage for these puny opponents? The
+hollow eyes were glaring; a thick arm formed quickly to dart out toward
+the car. A cloud, high above, caught the color of approaching day....
+
+Before their eyes the vile mass pulsed visibly; it quivered and beat.
+Then, sensing its danger, it darted like some headless serpent for its
+machine.
+
+It massed itself about the shattered top to heave convulsively. The top
+was lifted, carried toward the rest of the great metal egg. The sun's
+first rays made golden arrows through the distant peaks.
+
+The struggling mass released its burden to stretch its vile length
+toward the dark caves under the cliffs. The last sheltering fog-veil
+parted. The thing was halfway to the high bank when the first bright
+shaft of direct sunlight shot through.
+
+Incredible in the concealment of night, the vast protoplasmic pod was
+doubly so in the glare of day. But it was there before them, not a
+hundred feet distant. And it boiled in vast tortured convulsions. The
+clean sunshine struck it, and the mass heaved itself into the air in a
+nauseous eruption, then fell limply to the earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The yellow membrane turned paler. Once more the staring black eyes
+formed to turn hopelessly toward the sheltering globe. Then the bulk
+flattened out on the sand. It was a jellylike mound, through which
+trembled endless quivering palpitations.
+
+The sun struck hot, and before the eyes of the watching, speechless men
+was a sickening, horrible sight--a festering mass of corruption.
+
+The sickening yellow was liquid. It seethed and bubbled with liberated
+gases; it decomposed to purplish fluid streams. A breath of wind blew in
+their direction. The stench from the hideous pool was overpowering,
+unbearable. Their heads swam in the evil breath.... Thurston ripped the
+gears into reverse, nor stopped until they were far away on the clean
+sand.
+
+The tide was coming in when they returned. Gone was the vile
+putrescence. The waves were lapping at the base of the gleaming machine.
+
+"We'll have to work fast," said MacGregor. "I must know, I must learn."
+He drew himself up and into the shattered shell.
+
+It was of metal, some forty feet across, its framework a maze of
+latticed struts. The central part was clear. Here in a wide, shallow pan
+the monster had rested. Below this was tubing, intricate coils, massive,
+heavy and strong. MacGregor lowered himself upon it, Thurston was
+beside him. They went down into the dim bowels of the deadly instrument.
+
+"Hydrogen," the physicist was stating. "Hydrogen--there's our starting
+point. A generator, obviously, forming the gas--from what? They couldn't
+compress it! They couldn't carry it or make it, not the volume that they
+evolved. But they did it, they did it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Close to the coils a dim light was glowing. It was a pin-point of
+radiance in the half-darkness about them. The two men bent closer.
+
+"See," directed MacGregor, "it strikes on this mirror--bright metal and
+parabolic. It disperses the light, doesn't concentrate it! Ah! Here is
+another, and another. This one is bent--broken. They are adjustable. Hm!
+Micrometer accuracy for reducing the light. The last one could reflect
+through this slot. It's light that does it, Thurston, it's light that
+does it!"
+
+"Does what?" Thurston had followed the other's analysis of the diffusion
+process. "The light that would finally reach that slot would be hardly
+perceptible."
+
+"It's the agent," said MacGregor, "the activator--the catalyst! What
+does it strike upon? I must know--I must!"
+
+The waves were splashing outside the shell. Thurston turned in a
+feverish search of the unexplored depths. There was a surprising
+simplicity, an absence of complicated mechanism. The generator, with its
+tremendous braces to carry its thrust to the framework itself, filled
+most of the space. Some of the ribs were thicker, he noticed. Solid
+metal, as if they might carry great weights. Resting upon them were
+ranged numbers of objects. They were like eggs, slender, and inches in
+length. On some were propellers. They worked through the shells on long
+slender rods. Each was threaded finely--an adjustable arm engaged the
+thread. Thurston called excitedly to the other.
+
+"Here they are," he said. "Look! Here are the shells. Here's what blew
+us up!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He pointed to the slim shafts with their little propellerlike fans.
+"Adjustable, see? Unwind in their fall ... set 'em for any length of
+travel ... fires the charge in the air. That's how they wiped out our
+air fleet."
+
+There were others without the propellers; they had fins to hold them
+nose downward. On each nose was a small rounded cap.
+
+"Detonators of some sort," said MacGregor. "We've got to have one. We
+must get it out quick; the tide's coming in." He laid his hands upon one
+of the slim, egg-shaped things. He lifted, then strained mightily. But
+the object did not rise; it only rolled sluggishly.
+
+The scientist stared at it amazed. "Specific gravity," he exclaimed,
+"beyond anything known! There's nothing on earth ... there is no such
+substance ... no form of matter...." His eyes were incredulous.
+
+"Lots to learn," Thurston answered grimly. "We've yet to learn how to
+fight off the other four."
+
+The other nodded. "Here's the secret," he said. "These shells liberate
+the same gas that drives the machine. Solve one and we solve both--then
+we learn how to combat it. But how to remove it--that is the problem.
+You and I can never lift this out of here."
+
+His glance darted about. There was a small door in the metal beam. The
+groove in which the shells were placed led to it; it was a port for
+launching the projectiles. He moved it, opened it. A dash of spray
+struck him in the face. He glanced inquiringly at his companion.
+
+"Dare we do it?" he asked. "Slide one of them out?"
+
+Each man looked long into the eyes of the other. Was this, then, the end
+of their terrible night? One shell to be dropped--then a bursting
+volcano to blast them to eternity....
+
+"The boys in the planes risked it," said Thurston quietly. "They got
+theirs." He stopped for a broken fragment of steel. "Try one with a fan
+on; it hasn't a detonator."
+
+The men pried at the slim thing. It slid slowly toward the open port.
+One heave and it balanced on the edge, then vanished abruptly. The spray
+was cold on their faces. They breathed heavily with the realization that
+they still lived.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were days of horror that followed, horror tempered by a numbing
+paralysis of all emotions. There were bodies by thousands to be heaped
+in the pit where San Diego had stood, to be buried beneath countless
+tons of debris and dirt. Trains brought an army of helpers; airplanes
+came with doctors and nurses and the beginning of a mountain of
+supplies. The need was there; it must be met. Yet the whole world was
+waiting while it helped, waiting for the next blow to fall.
+
+Telegraph service was improvised, and radio receivers rushed in. The
+news of the world was theirs once more. And it told of a terrified,
+waiting world. There would be no temporizing now on the part of the
+invaders. They had seen the airplanes swarming from the ground--they
+would know an airdrome next time from the air. Thurston had noted the
+windows in the great shell, windows of dull-colored glass which would
+protect the darkness of the interior, essential to life for the horrible
+occupant, but through which it could see. It could watch all directions
+at once.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great shell had vanished from the shore. Pounding waves and the
+shifting sands of high tide had obliterated all trace. More than once
+had Thurston uttered devout thanks for the chance shell from an
+anti-aircraft gun that had entered the funnel beneath the machine, had
+bent and twisted the arrangement of mirrors that he and MacGregor had
+seen, and, exploding, had cracked and broken the domed roof of the
+bulb. They had learned little, but MacGregor was up north within reach
+of Los Angeles laboratories. And he had with him the slim cylinder of
+death. He was studying, thinking.
+
+Telephone service had been established for official business. The whole
+nation-wide system, for that matter, was under military control. The
+Secretary of War had flown back to Washington. The whole world was on a
+war basis. War! And none knew where they should defend themselves, nor
+how.
+
+An orderly rushed Thurston to the telephone. "You are wanted at once;
+Los Angeles calling."
+
+The voice of MacGregor was cool and unhurried as Thurston listened.
+"Grab a plane, old man," he was saying, "and come up here on the jump."
+
+The phrase brought a grim smile to Thurston's tired lips. "Hell's
+popping!" the Secretary of War had added on that evening those long ages
+before. Did MacGregor have something? Was a different kind of hell
+preparing to pop? The thoughts flashed through the listener's mind.
+
+"I need a good deputy," MacGregor said. "You may be the whole works--may
+have to carry on--but I'll tell you it all later. Meet me at the
+Biltmore."
+
+"In less than two hours," Thurston assured him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A plane was at his disposal. Riley's legs were functioning again, after
+a fashion. They kept the appointment with minutes to spare.
+
+"Come on," said MacGregor, "I'll talk to you in the car." The automobile
+whirled them out of the city to race off upon a winding highway that
+climbed into far hills. There was twenty miles of this; MacGregor had
+time for his talk.
+
+"They've struck," he told the two men. "They were over Germany
+yesterday. The news was kept quiet: I got the last report a half-hour
+ago. They pretty well wiped out Berlin. No air-force there. France and
+England sent a swarm of planes, from the reports. Poor devils! No need
+to tell you what they got. We've seen it first hand. They headed west
+over the Atlantic, the four machines. Gave England a burst or two from
+high up, paused over New York, then went on. But they're here somewhere,
+we think. Now listen:
+
+"How long was it from the time when you saw the first monster until we
+heard from them again?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston forced his mind back to those days that seemed so far in the
+past. He tried to remember.
+
+"Four days," broke in Riley. "It was the fourth day after we found the
+devil feeding."
+
+"Feeding!" interrupted the scientist. "That's the point I am making.
+Four days. Remember that!
+
+"And we knew they were down in the Argentine five days ago--that's
+another item kept from an hysterical public. They slaughtered some
+thousands of cattle; there were scores of them found where the
+devils--I'll borrow Riley's word--where the devils had fed. Nothing left
+but hide and bones.
+
+"And--mark this--that was four days before they appeared over Berlin.
+
+"Why? Don't ask me. Do they have to lie quiet for that period miles up
+there in space? God knows. Perhaps! These things seem outside the
+knowledge of a deity. But enough of that! Remember: four days! Let us
+assume that there is this four days waiting period. It will help us to
+time them. I'll come back to that later.
+
+"Here is what I have been doing. We know that light is a means of
+attack. I believe that the detonators we saw on those bombs merely
+opened a seal in the shell and forced in a flash of some sort. I believe
+that radiant energy is what fires the blast.
+
+"What is it that explodes? Nobody knows. We have opened the shell,
+working in the absolute blackness of a room a hundred feet underground.
+We found in it a powder--two powders, to be exact.
+
+"They are mixed. One is finely divided, the other rather granular. Their
+specific gravity is enormous, beyond anything known to physical science
+unless it would be the hypothetical neutron masses we think are in
+certain stars. But this is not matter as we know matter; it is something
+new.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Our theory is this: the hydrogen atom has been split, resolved into
+components, not of electrons and the proton centers, but held at some
+halfway point of decomposition. Matter composed only of neutrons would
+be heavy beyond belief. This fits the theory in that respect. But the
+point is this: When these solids are formed--they are dense--they
+represent in a cubic centimeter possibly a cubic mile of hydrogen gas
+under normal pressure. That's a guess, but it will give you the idea.
+
+"Not compressed, you understand, but all the elements present in other
+than elemental form for the reconstruction of the atom ... for a million
+billions of atoms.
+
+"Then the light strikes it. These dense solids become instantly a
+gas--miles of it held in that small space.
+
+"There you have it: the gas, the explosion, the entire absence of
+heat--which is to say, its terrific cold--when it expands."
+
+Slim Riley was looking bewildered but game. "Sure, I saw it snow," he
+affirmed, "so I guess the rest must be O.K. But what are we going to do
+about it? You say light kills 'em, and fires their bombs. But how can we
+let light into those big steel shells, or the little ones either?"
+
+"Not through those thick walls," said MacGregor. "Not light. One of our
+anti-aircraft shells made a direct hit. That might not happen again in a
+million shots. But there are other forms of radiant energy that do
+penetrate steel...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car had stopped beside a grove of eucalyptus. A barren, sun-baked
+hillside stretched beyond. MacGregor motioned them to alight.
+
+Riley was afire with optimism. "And do you believe it?" he asked
+eagerly. "Do you believe that we've got 'em licked?"
+
+Thurston, too, looked into MacGregor's face: Riley was not the only one
+who needed encouragement. But the gray eyes were suddenly tired and
+hopeless.
+
+"You ask what I believe," said the scientist slowly. "I believe we are
+witnessing the end of the world, our world of humans, their struggles,
+their grave hopes and happiness and aspirations...."
+
+He was not looking at them. His gaze was far off in space.
+
+"Men will struggle and fight with their puny weapons, but these monsters
+will win, and they will have their way with us. Then more of them will
+come. The world, I believe, is doomed...."
+
+He straightened his shoulders. "But we can die fighting," he added, and
+pointed over the hill.
+
+"Over there," he said, "in the valley beyond, is a charge of their
+explosive and a little apparatus of mine. I intend to fire the charge
+from a distance of three hundred yards. I expect to be safe, perfectly
+safe. But accidents happen.
+
+"In Washington a plane is being prepared. I have given instructions
+through hours of phoning. They are working night and day. It will
+contain a huge generator for producing my ray. Nothing new! Just the
+product of our knowledge of radiant energy up to date. But the man who
+flies that plane will die--horribly. No time to experiment with
+protection. The rays will destroy him, though he may live a month.
+
+"I am asking you," he told Cyrus Thurston, "to handle that plane. You
+may be of service to the world--you may find you are utterly powerless.
+You surely will die. But you know the machines and the monsters; your
+knowledge may be of value in an attack." He waited. The silence lasted
+for only a moment.
+
+"Why, sure," said Cyrus Thurston.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He looked at the eucalyptus grove with earnest appraisal. The sun made
+lovely shadows among their stripped trunks: the world was a beautiful
+place. A lingering death, MacGregor had intimated--and horrible....
+"Why, sure," he repeated steadily.
+
+Slim Riley shoved him firmly aside to stand facing MacGregor.
+
+"Sure, hell!" he said. "I'm your man, Mr. MacGregor.
+
+"What do you know about flying?" he asked Cyrus Thurston. "You're
+good--for a beginner. But men like you two have got brains, and I'm
+thinkin' the world will be needin' them. Now me, all I'm good for is
+holdin' a shtick"--his brogue had returned to his speech, and was
+evidence of his earnestness.
+
+"And, besides"--the smile faded from his lips, and his voice was
+suddenly soft--"them boys we saw take their last flip was just pilots to
+you, just a bunch of good fighters. Well, they're buddies of mine. I
+fought beside some of them in France.... I belong!"
+
+He grinned happily at Thurston. "Besides," he said, "what do you know
+about dog-fights?"
+
+MacGregor gripped him by the hand. "You win," he said. "Report to
+Washington. The Secretary of War has all the dope."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned to Thurston. "Now for you! Get this! The enemy machines almost
+attacked New York. One of them came low, then went back, and the four
+flashed out of sight toward the west. It is my belief that New York is
+next, but the devils are hungry. The beast that attacked us was
+ravenous, remember. They need food and lots of it. You will hear of
+their feeding, and you can count on four days. Keep Riley
+informed--that's your job.
+
+"Now I'm going over the hill. If this experiment works, there's a chance
+we can repeat it on a larger scale. No certainty, but a chance! I'll be
+back. Full instructions at the hotel in case...." He vanished into the
+scrub growth.
+
+"Not exactly encouraging," Thurston pondered, "but he's a good man, Mac,
+a good egg! Not as big a brain as the one we saw, but perhaps it's a
+better one--cleaner--and it's working!"
+
+They were sheltered under the brow of the hill, but the blast from the
+valley beyond rocked them like an earthquake. They rushed to the top of
+the knoll. MacGregor was standing in the valley; he waved them a
+greeting and shouted something unintelligible.
+
+The gas had mushroomed into a cloud of steamy vapor. From above came
+snowflakes to whirl in the churning mass, then fall to the ground. A
+wind came howling about them to beat upon the cloud. It swirled slowly
+back and down the valley. The figure of MacGregor vanished in its
+smothering embrace.
+
+"Exit, MacGregor!" said Cyrus Thurston softly. He held tight to the
+struggling figure of Slim Riley.
+
+"He couldn't live a minute in that atmosphere of hydrogen," he
+explained. "They can--the devils!--but not a good egg like Mac. It's our
+job now--yours and mine."
+
+Slowly the gas retreated, lifted to permit their passage down the slope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MacGregor was a good prophet. Thurston admitted that when, four days
+later, he stood on the roof of the Equitable Building in lower New York.
+
+The monsters had fed as predicted. Out in Wyoming a desolate area marked
+the place of their meal, where a great herd of cattle lay smothered and
+frozen. There were ranch houses, too, in the circle of destruction,
+their occupants frozen stiff as the carcasses that dotted the plains.
+The country had stood tense for the following blow. Only Thurston had
+lived in certainty of a few days reprieve. And now had come the fourth
+day.
+
+In Washington was Riley. Thurston had been in touch with him frequently.
+
+"Sure, it's a crazy machine," the pilot had told him, "and 'tis not much
+I think of it at all. Neither bullets nor guns, just this big glass
+contraption and speed. She's fast, man, she's fast ... but it's little
+hope I have." And Thurston, remembering the scientist's words, was
+heartless and sick with dreadful certainty.
+
+There were aircraft ready near New York; it was generally felt that here
+was the next objective. The enemy had looked it over carefully. And
+Washington, too, was guarded. The nation's capital must receive what
+little help the aircraft could afford.
+
+There were other cities waiting for destruction. If not this
+time--later! The horror hung over them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fourth day! And Thurston was suddenly certain of the fate of New
+York. He hurried to a telephone. Of the Secretary of War he implored
+assistance.
+
+"Send your planes," he begged. "Here's where we will get it next. Send
+Riley. Let's make a last stand--win or lose."
+
+"I'll give you a squadron," was the concession. "What difference whether
+they die there or here...?" The voice was that of a weary man, weary
+and sleepless and hopeless.
+
+"Good-by Cy, old man!" The click of the receiver sounded in Thurston's
+ear. He returned to the roof for his vigil.
+
+To wait, to stride nervously back and forth in impotent expectancy. He
+could leave, go out into open country, but what were a few days or
+months--or a year--with this horror upon them? It was the end. MacGregor
+was right. "Good old Mac!"
+
+There were airplanes roaring overhead. It meant.... Thurston abruptly
+was cold; a chill gripped at his heart.
+
+The paroxysm passed. He was doubled with laughter--or was it he who was
+laughing? He was suddenly buoyantly carefree. Who was he that it
+mattered? Cyrus Thurston--an ant! And their ant-hill was about to be
+snuffed out....
+
+He walked over to a waiting group and clapped one man on the shoulder.
+"Well, how does it feel to be an ant?" he inquired and laughed loudly at
+the jest. "You and your millions of dollars, your acres of factories,
+your steamships, railroads!"
+
+The man looked at him strangely and edged cautiously away. His eyes,
+like those of the others, had a dazed, stricken look. A woman was
+sobbing softly as she clung to her husband. From the streets far below
+came a quavering shrillness of sound.
+
+The planes gathered in climbing circles. Far on the horizon were four
+tiny glinting specks....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston stared until his eyes were stinging. He was walking in a waking
+sleep as he made his way to the stone coping beyond which was the street
+far below. He was dead--dead!--right this minute. What were a few
+minutes more or less? He could climb over the coping; none of the
+huddled, fear-gripped group would stop him. He could step out into space
+and fool them, the devils. They could never kill him....
+
+What was it MacGregor had said? Good egg, MacGregor! "But we can die
+fighting...." Yes, that was it--die fighting. But he couldn't fight; he
+could only wait. Well, what were the others doing, down there in the
+streets--in their homes? He could wait with them, die with them....
+
+He straightened slowly and drew one long breath. He looked steadily and
+unafraid at the advancing specks. They were larger now. He could see
+their round forms. The planes were less noisy: they were far up in the
+heights--climbing--climbing.
+
+The bulbs came slantingly down. They were separating. Thurston wondered
+vaguely.
+
+What had they done in Berlin? Yes, he remembered. Placed themselves at
+the four corners of a great square and wiped out the whole city in one
+explosion. Four bombs dropped at the same instant while they shot up to
+safety in the thin air. How did they communicate? Thought transference,
+most likely. Telepathy between those great brains, one to another. A
+plane was falling. It curved and swooped in a trail of flame, then fell
+straight toward the earth. They were fighting....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thurston stared above. There were clusters of planes diving down from on
+high. Machine-guns stuttered faintly. "Machine-guns--toys! Brave, that
+was it! 'We can die fighting.'" His thoughts were far off; it was like
+listening to another's mind.
+
+The air was filled with swelling clouds. He saw them before the blast
+struck where he stood. The great building shuddered at the impact. There
+were things falling from the clouds, wrecks of planes, blazing and
+shattered. Still came others; he saw them faintly through the clouds.
+They came in from the West; they had gone far to gain altitude. They
+drove down from the heights--the enemy had drifted--they were over the
+bay.
+
+More clouds, and another blast thundering at the city. There were
+specks, Thurston saw, falling into the water.
+
+Again the invaders came down from the heights where they had escaped
+their own shattering attack. There was the faint roar of motors behind,
+from the south. The squadron from Washington passed overhead.
+
+They surely had seen the fate that awaited. And they drove on to the
+attack, to strike at an enemy that shot instantly into the sky leaving
+crashing destruction about the torn dead.
+
+"Now!" said Cyrus Thurston aloud.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The big bulbs were back. They floated easily in the air, a plume of
+vapor billowing beneath. They were ranging to the four corners of a
+great square.
+
+One plane only was left, coming in from the south, a lone straggler,
+late for the fray. One plane! Thurston's shoulders sagged heavily. All
+they had left! It went swiftly overhead.... It was fast--fast. Thurston
+suddenly knew. It was Riley in that plane.
+
+"Go back, you fool!"--he was screaming at the top of his
+voice--"Back--back--you poor, damned, decent Irishman!"
+
+Tears were streaming down his face. "His buddies," Riley had said. And
+this was Riley, driving swiftly in, alone, to avenge them....
+
+He saw dimly as the swift plane sped over the first bulb, on and over
+the second. The soft roar of gas from the machines drowned the sound of
+his engine. The plane passed them in silence to bank sharply toward the
+third corner of the forming square.
+
+He was looking them over, Thurston thought. And the damn beasts
+disregarded so contemptible an opponent. He could still leave. "For
+God's sake, Riley, beat it--escape!"
+
+Thurston's mind was solely on the fate of the lone voyager--until the
+impossible was borne in upon him.
+
+The square was disrupted. Three great bulbs were now drifting. The wind
+was carrying them out toward the bay. They were coming down in a long,
+smooth descent. The plane shot like a winged rocket at the fourth great,
+shining ball. To the watcher, aghast with sudden hope, it seemed barely
+to crawl.
+
+"The ray! The ray...." Thurston saw as if straining eyes had pierced
+through the distance to see the invisible. He saw from below the swift
+plane, the streaming, intangible ray. That was why Riley had flown
+closely past and above them--the ray poured from below. His throat was
+choking him, strangling....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last enemy took alarm. Had it seen the slow sinking of its
+companions, failed to hear them in reply to his mental call? The shining
+pear shape shot violently upward; the attacking plane rolled to a
+vertical bank as it missed the threatening clouds of exhaust. "What do
+you know about dog-fights?" And Riley had grinned ... Riley belonged!
+
+The bulb swelled before Thurston's eyes in its swift descent. It canted
+to one side to head off the struggling plane that could never escape,
+did not try to escape. The steady wings held true upon their straight
+course. From above came the silver meteor; it seemed striking at the
+very plane itself. It was almost upon it before it belched forth the
+cushioning blast of gas.
+
+Through the forming clouds a plane bored in swiftly. It rolled slowly,
+was flying upside down. It was under the enemy! Its ray.... Thurston was
+thrown a score of feet away to crash helpless into the stone coping by
+the thunderous crash of the explosion.
+
+There were fragments falling from a dense cloud--fragments of curved and
+silvery metal ... the wing of a plane danced and fluttered in the
+air....
+
+"He fired its bombs," whispered Thurston in a shaking voice. "He killed
+the other devils where they lay--he destroyed this with its own
+explosive. He flew upside down to shoot up with the ray, to set off its
+shells...."
+
+His mind was fumbling with the miracle of it. "Clever pilot, Riley, in a
+dog-fight...." And then he realized.
+
+Cyrus Thurston, millionaire sportsman, sank slowly, numbly to the roof
+of the Equitable Building that still stood. And New York was still there
+... and the whole world....
+
+He sobbed weakly, brokenly. Through his dazed brain flashed a sudden,
+mind-saving thought. He laughed foolishly through his sobs.
+
+"And you said he'd die horribly, Mac, a horrible death." His head
+dropped upon his arms, unconscious--and safe--with the rest of
+humanity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Corpse on the Grating
+
+_By Hugh B. Cave_
+
+
+    In the gloomy depths of the old warehouse Dale saw a thing that
+    drew a scream of horror to his dry lips. It was a corpse--the
+    mold of decay on its long-dead features--and yet it was alive!
+
+[Illustration: _It was a corpse, standing before me like some propped-up
+thing from the grave._]
+
+
+It was ten o'clock on the morning of December 5 when M. S. and I left
+the study of Professor Daimler. You are perhaps acquainted with M. S.
+His name appears constantly in the pages of the Illustrated News, in
+conjunction with some very technical article on psycho-analysis or with
+some extensive study of the human brain and its functions. He is a
+psycho-fanatic, more or less, and has spent an entire lifetime of some
+seventy-odd years in pulling apart human skulls for the purpose of
+investigation. Lovely pursuit!
+
+For some twenty years I have mocked him, in a friendly, half-hearted
+fashion. I am a medical man, and my own profession is one that does not
+sympathize with radicals.
+
+As for Professor Daimler, the third member of our triangle--perhaps, if
+I take a moment to outline the events of that evening, the Professor's
+part in what follows will be less obscure. We had called on him, M. S.
+and I, at his urgent request. His rooms were in a narrow, unlighted
+street just off the square, and Daimler himself opened the door to us. A
+tall, loosely built chap he was, standing in the doorway like a
+motionless ape, arms half extended.
+
+"I've summoned you, gentlemen," he said quietly, "because you two, of
+all London, are the only persons who know the nature of my recent
+experiments. I should like to acquaint you with the results!"
+
+He led the way to his study, then kicked the door shut with his foot,
+seizing my arm as he did so. Quietly he dragged me to the table that
+stood against the farther wall. In the same even, unemotional tone of a
+man completely sure of himself, he commanded me to inspect it.
+
+For a moment, in the semi-gloom of the room, I saw nothing. At length,
+however, the contents of the table revealed themselves, and I
+distinguished a motley collection of test tubes, each filled with some
+fluid. The tubes were attached to each other by some ingenious
+arrangement of thistles, and at the end of the table, where a chance
+blow could not brush it aside, lay a tiny phial of the resulting serum.
+From the appearance of the table, Daimler had evidently drawn a certain
+amount of gas from each of the smaller tubes, distilling them through
+acid into the minute phial at the end. Yet even now, as I stared down at
+the fantastic paraphernalia before me, I could sense no conclusive
+reason for its existence.
+
+I turned to the Professor with a quiet stare of bewilderment. He smiled.
+
+"The experiment is over," he said. "As to its conclusion, you, Dale, as
+a medical man, will be sceptical. And you"--turning to M. S.--"as a
+scientist you will be amazed. I, being neither physician nor scientist,
+am merely filled with wonder!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stepped to a long, square table-like structure in the center of the
+room. Standing over it, he glanced quizzically at M. S., then at me.
+
+"For a period of two weeks," he went on, "I have kept, on the table
+here, the body of a man who has been dead more than a month. I have
+tried, gentlemen, with acid combinations of my own origination, to bring
+that body back to life. And ... I have--failed!
+
+"But," he added quickly, noting the smile that crept across my face,
+"that failure was in itself worth more than the average scientist's
+greatest achievement! You know, Dale, that heat, if a man is not truly
+dead, will sometimes resurrect him. In a case of epilepsy, for instance,
+victims have been pronounced dead only to return to life--sometimes in
+the grave.
+
+"I say 'if a man be not truly dead.' But what if that man _is_ truly
+dead? Does the cure alter itself in any manner? The motor of your car
+dies--do you bury it? You do not; you locate the faulty part, correct
+it, and infuse new life. And so, gentlemen, after remedying the ruptured
+heart of this dead man, by operation, I proceeded to bring him back to
+life.
+
+"I used heat. Terrific heat will sometimes originate a spark of new life
+in something long dead. Gentlemen, on the fourth day of my tests,
+following a continued application of electric and acid heat, the
+patient--"
+
+Daimler leaned over the table and took up a cigarette. Lighting it, he
+dropped the match and resumed his monologue.
+
+"The patient turned suddenly over and drew his arm weakly across his
+eyes. I rushed to his side. When I reached him, the body was once again
+stiff and lifeless. And--it has remained so."
+
+The Professor stared at us quietly, waiting for comment. I answered him,
+as carelessly as I could, with a shrug of my shoulders.
+
+"Professor, have you ever played with the dead body of a frog?" I said
+softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He shook his head silently.
+
+"You would find it interesting sport," I told him. "Take a common dry
+cell battery with enough voltage to render a sharp shock. Then apply
+your wires to various parts of the frog's anatomy. If you are lucky, and
+strike the right set of muscles, you will have the pleasure of seeing a
+dead frog leap suddenly forward. Understand, he will not regain life.
+You have merely released his dead muscles by shock, and sent him
+bolting."
+
+The Professor did not reply. I could feel his eyes on me, and had I
+turned, I should probably had found M. S. glaring at me in honest hate.
+These men were students of mesmerism, of spiritualism, and my
+commonplace contradiction was not over welcome.
+
+"You are cynical, Dale," said M. S. coldly, "because you do not
+understand!"
+
+"Understand? I am a doctor--not a ghost!"
+
+But M. S. had turned eagerly to the Professor.
+
+"Where is this body--this experiment?" he demanded.
+
+Daimler shook his head. Evidently he had acknowledged failure and did
+not intend to drag his dead man before our eyes, unless he could bring
+that man forth alive, upright, and ready to join our conversation!
+
+"I've put it away," he said distantly. "There is nothing more to be
+done, now that our reverend doctor has insisted in making a matter of
+fact thing out of our experiment. You understand, I had not intended to
+go in for wholesale resurrection, even if I had met with success. It was
+my belief that a dead body, like a dead piece of mechanism, can be
+brought to life again, provided we are intelligent enough to discover
+the secret. And by God, it is _still_ my belief!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That was the situation, then, when M. S. and I paced slowly back along
+the narrow street that contained the Professor's dwelling-place. My
+companion was strangely silent. More than once I felt his eyes upon me
+in an uncomfortable stare, yet he said nothing. Nothing, that is, until
+I had opened the conversation with some casual remark about the lunacy
+of the man we had just left.
+
+"You are wrong in mocking him, Dale," M. S. replied bitterly. "Daimler
+is a man of science. He is no child, experimenting with a toy; he is a
+grown man who has the courage to believe in his powers. One of these
+days...."
+
+He had intended to say that some day I should respect the Professor's
+efforts. One of these days! The interval of time was far shorter than
+anything so indefinite. The first event, with its succeeding series of
+horrors, came within the next three minutes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had reached a more deserted section of the square, a black,
+uninhabited street extending like a shadowed band of darkness between
+gaunt, high walls. I had noticed for some time that the stone structure
+beside us seemed to be unbroken by door or window--that it appeared to
+be a single gigantic building, black and forbidding. I mentioned the
+fact to M. S.
+
+"The warehouse," he said simply. "A lonely, God-forsaken place. We shall
+probably see the flicker of the watchman's light in one of the upper
+chinks."
+
+At his words, I glanced up. True enough, the higher part of the grim
+structure was punctured by narrow, barred openings. Safety vaults,
+probably. But the light, unless its tiny gleam was somewhere in the
+inner recesses of the warehouse, was dead. The great building was like
+an immense burial vault, a tomb--silent and lifeless.
+
+We had reached the most forbidding section of the narrow street, where a
+single arch-lamp overhead cast a halo of ghastly yellow light over the
+pavement. At the very rim of the circle of illumination, where the
+shadows were deeper and more silent, I could make out the black
+mouldings of a heavy iron grating. The bars of metal were designed, I
+believe, to seal the side entrance of the great warehouse from night
+marauders. It was bolted in place and secured with a set of immense
+chains, immovable.
+
+This much I saw as my intent gaze swept the wall before me. This huge
+tomb of silence held for me a peculiar fascination, and as I paced along
+beside my gloomy companion, I stared directly ahead of me into the
+darkness of the street. I wish to God my eyes had been closed or
+blinded!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was hanging on the grating. Hanging there, with white, twisted hands
+clutching the rigid bars of iron, straining to force them apart. His
+whole distorted body was forced against the barrier, like the form of a
+madman struggling to escape from his cage. His face--the image of it
+still haunts me whenever I see iron bars in the darkness of a
+passage--was the face of a man who has died from utter, stark horror. It
+was frozen in a silent shriek of agony, staring out at me with fiendish
+maliciousness. Lips twisted apart. White teeth gleaming in the light.
+Bloody eyes, with a horrible glare of colorless pigment. And--_dead_.
+
+I believe M. S. saw him at the very instant I recoiled. I felt a sudden
+grip on my arm; and then, as an exclamation came harshly from my
+companion's lips, I was pulled forward roughly. I found myself staring
+straight into the dead eyes of that fearful thing before me, found
+myself standing rigid, motionless, before the corpse that hung within
+reach of my arm.
+
+And then, through that overwhelming sense of the horrible, came the
+quiet voice of my comrade--the voice of a man who looks upon death as
+nothing more than an opportunity for research.
+
+"The fellow has been frightened to death, Dale. Frightened most
+horribly. Note the expression of his mouth, the evident struggle to
+force these bars apart and escape. Something has driven fear to his
+soul, killed him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I remember the words vaguely. When M. S. had finished speaking, I did
+not reply. Not until he had stepped forward and bent over the distorted
+face of the thing before me, did I attempt to speak. When I did, my
+thoughts were a jargon.
+
+"What, in God's name," I cried, "could have brought such horror to a
+strong man? What--"
+
+"Loneliness, perhaps," suggested M. S. with a smile. "The fellow is
+evidently the watchman. He is alone, in a huge, deserted pit of
+darkness, for hours at a time. His light is merely a ghostly ray of
+illumination, hardly enough to do more than increase the darkness. I
+have heard of such cases before."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. Even as he spoke, I sensed the evasion in his
+words. When I replied, he hardly heard my answer, for he had suddenly
+stepped forward, where he could look directly into those fear twisted
+eyes.
+
+"Dale," he said at length, turning slowly to face me, "you ask for an
+explanation of this horror? There _is_ an explanation. It is written
+with an almost fearful clearness on this fellow's mind. Yet if I tell
+you, you will return to your old skepticism--your damnable habit of
+disbelief!"
+
+I looked at him quietly. I had heard M. S. claim, at other times, that
+he could read the thoughts of a dead man by the mental image that lay on
+that man's brain. I had laughed at him. Evidently, in the present
+moment, he recalled those laughs. Nevertheless, he faced me seriously.
+
+"I can see two things, Dale," he said deliberately. "One of them is a
+dark, narrow room--a room piled with indistinct boxes and crates, and
+with an open door bearing the black number 4167. And in that open
+doorway, coming forward with slow steps--alive, with arms extended and a
+frightful face of passion--is a decayed human form. A corpse, Dale. A
+man who has been dead for many days, and is now--_alive_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+M. S. turned slowly and pointed with upraised hand to the corpse on the
+grating.
+
+"That is why," he said simply, "this fellow died from horror."
+
+His words died into emptiness. For a moment I stared at him. Then, in
+spite of our surroundings, in spite of the late hour, the loneliness of
+the street, the awful thing beside us, I laughed.
+
+He turned upon me with a snarl. For the first time in my life I saw M.
+S. convulsed with rage. His old, lined face had suddenly become savage
+with intensity.
+
+"You laugh at me, Dale," he thundered. "By God, you make a mockery out
+of a science that I have spent more than my life in studying! You call
+yourself a medical man--and you are not fit to carry the name! I will
+wager you, man, that your laughter is not backed by courage!"
+
+I fell away from him. Had I stood within reach, I am sure he would have
+struck me. Struck me! And I have been nearer to M. S. for the past ten
+years than any man in London. And as I retreated from his temper, he
+reached forward to seize my arm. I could not help but feel impressed at
+his grim intentness.
+
+"Look here, Dale," he said bitterly, "I will wager you a hundred pounds
+that you will not spend the remainder of this night in the warehouse
+above you! I will wager a hundred pounds against your own courage that
+you will not back your laughter by going through what this fellow has
+gone through. That you will not prowl through the corridors of this
+great structure until you have found room 4167--_and remain in that room
+until dawn_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no choice. I glanced at the dead man, at the face of fear and
+the clutching, twisted hands, and a cold dread filled me. But to refuse
+my friend's wager would have been to brand myself an empty coward. I had
+mocked him. Now, whatever the cost, I must stand ready to pay for that
+mockery.
+
+"Room 4167?" I replied quietly, in a voice which I made every effort to
+control, lest he should discover the tremor in it. "Very well, I will do
+it!"
+
+It was nearly midnight when I found myself alone, climbing a musty,
+winding ramp between the first and second floors of the deserted
+building. Not a sound, except the sharp intake of my breath and the
+dismal creak of the wooden stairs, echoed through that tomb of death.
+There was no light, not even the usual dim glow that is left to
+illuminate an unused corridor. Moreover, I had brought no means of light
+with me--nothing but a half empty box of safety matches which, by some
+unholy premonition, I had forced myself to save for some future moment.
+The stairs were black and difficult, and I mounted them slowly, groping
+with both hands along the rough wall.
+
+I had left M. S. some few moments before. In his usual decisive manner
+he had helped me to climb the iron grating and lower myself to the
+sealed alley-way on the farther side. Then, leaving him without a word,
+for I was bitter against the triumphant tone of his parting words, I
+proceeded into the darkness, fumbling forward until I had discovered the
+open door in the lower part of the warehouse.
+
+And then the ramp, winding crazily upward--upward--upward, seemingly
+without end. I was seeking blindly for that particular room which was to
+be my destination. Room 4167, with its high number, could hardly be on
+the lower floors, and so I had stumbled upward....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was at the entrance of the second floor corridor that I struck the
+first of my desultory supply of matches, and by its light discovered a
+placard nailed to the wall. The thing was yellow with age and hardly
+legible. In the drab light of the match I had difficulty in reading
+it--but, as far as I can remember, the notice went something like this:
+
+    WAREHOUSE RULES
+
+    1. No light shall be permitted in any room or corridor, as a
+    prevention against fire.
+
+    2. No person shall be admitted to rooms or corridors unless
+    accompanied by an employee.
+
+    3. A watchman shall be on the premises from 7 P.M. until 6 A.M.
+    He shall make the round of the corridors every hour during that
+    interval, at a quarter past the hour.
+
+    4. Rooms are located by their numbers: the first figure in the
+    room number indicating its floor location.
+
+I could read no further. The match in my fingers burned to a black
+thread and dropped. Then, with the burnt stump still in my hand, I
+groped through the darkness to the bottom of the second ramp.
+
+Room 4167, then, was on the fourth floor--the topmost floor of the
+structure. I must confess that the knowledge did not bring any renewed
+burst of courage! The top floor! Three black stair-pits would lie
+between me and the safety of escape. There would be no escape! No human
+being in the throes of fear could hope to discover that tortured outlet,
+could hope to grope his way through Stygian gloom down a triple ramp of
+black stairs. And even though he succeeded in reaching the lower
+corridors, there was still a blind alley-way, sealed at the outer end by
+a high grating of iron bars....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Escape! The mockery of it caused me to stop suddenly in my ascent and
+stand rigid, my whole body trembling violently.
+
+But outside, in the gloom of the street, M. S. was waiting, waiting with
+that fiendish glare of triumph that would brand me a man without
+courage. I could not return to face him, not though all the horrors of
+hell inhabited this gruesome place of mystery. And horrors must surely
+inhabit it, else how could one account for that fearful thing on the
+grating below? But I had been through horror before. I had seen a man,
+supposedly dead on the operating table, jerk suddenly to his feet and
+scream. I had seen a young girl, not long before, awake in the midst of
+an operation, with the knife already in her frail body. Surely, after
+those definite horrors, no _unknown_ danger would send me cringing back
+to the man who was waiting so bitterly for me to return.
+
+Those were the thoughts pregnant in my mind as I groped slowly,
+cautiously along the corridor of the upper floor, searching each closed
+door for the indistinct number 4167. The place was like the center of a
+huge labyrinth, a spider-web of black, repelling passages, leading into
+some central chamber of utter silence and blackness. I went forward with
+dragging steps, fighting back the dread that gripped me as I went
+farther and farther from the outlet of escape. And then, after losing
+myself completely in the gloom, I threw aside all thoughts of return and
+pushed on with a careless, surface bravado, and laughed aloud.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So, at length, I reached that room of horror, secreted high in the
+deeper recesses of the deserted warehouse. The number--God grant I never
+see it again!--was scrawled in black chalk on the door--4167. I pushed
+the half-open barrier wide, and entered.
+
+It was a small room, even as M. S. had forewarned me--or as the dead
+mind of that thing on the grate had forewarned M. S. The glow of my
+out-thrust match revealed a great stack of dusty boxes and crates, piled
+against the farther wall. Revealed, too, the black corridor beyond the
+entrance, and a small, upright table before me.
+
+It was the table, and the stool beside it, that drew my attention and
+brought a muffled exclamation from my lips. The thing had been thrust
+out of its usual place, pushed aside as if some frenzied shape had
+lunged against it. I could make out its former position by the marks on
+the dusty floor at my feet. Now it was nearer to the center of the room,
+and had been wrenched sidewise from its holdings. A shudder took hold of
+me as I looked at it. A living person, sitting on the stool before me,
+staring at the door, would have wrenched the table in just this manner
+in his frenzy to escape from the room!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The light of the match died, plunging me into a pit of gloom. I struck
+another and stepped closer to the table. And there, on the floor, I
+found two more things that brought fear to my soul. One of them was a
+heavy flash-lamp--a watchman's lamp--where it had evidently been
+dropped. Been dropped in flight! But what awful terror must have gripped
+the fellow to make him forsake his only means of escape through those
+black passages? And the second thing--a worn copy of a leather-bound
+book, flung open on the boards below the stool!
+
+The flash-lamp, thank God! had not been shattered. I switched it on,
+directing its white circle of light over the room. This time, in the
+vivid glare, the room became even more unreal. Black walls, clumsy,
+distorted shadows on the wall, thrown by those huge piles of wooden
+boxes. Shadows that were like crouching men, groping toward me. And
+beyond, where the single door opened into a passage of Stygian darkness,
+that yawning entrance was thrown into hideous detail. Had any upright
+figure been standing there, the light would have made an unholy
+phosphorescent specter out of it.
+
+I summoned enough courage to cross the room and pull the door shut.
+There was no way of locking it. Had I been able to fasten it, I should
+surely have done so; but the room was evidently an unused chamber,
+filled with empty refuse. This was the reason, probably, why the
+watchman had made use of it as a retreat during the intervals between
+his rounds.
+
+But I had no desire to ponder over the sordidness of my surroundings. I
+returned to my stool in silence, and stooping, picked up the fallen book
+from the floor. Carefully I placed the lamp on the table, where its
+light would shine on the open page. Then, turning the cover, I began to
+glance through the thing which the man before me had evidently been
+studying.
+
+And before I had read two lines, the explanation of the whole horrible
+thing struck me. I stared dumbly down at the little book and laughed.
+Laughed harshly, so that the sound of my mad cackle echoed in a thousand
+ghastly reverberations through the dead corridors of the building.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a book of horror, of fantasy. A collection of weird, terrifying,
+supernatural tales with grotesque illustrations in funereal black and
+white. And the very line I had turned to, the line which had probably
+struck terror to that unlucky devil's soul, explained M. S.'s "decayed
+human form, standing in the doorway with arms extended and a frightful
+face of passion!" The description--the same description--lay before me,
+almost in my friend's words. Little wonder that the fellow on the
+grating below, after reading this orgy of horror, had suddenly gone mad
+with fright. Little wonder that the picture engraved on his dead mind
+was a picture of a corpse standing in the doorway of room 4167!
+
+I glanced at that doorway and laughed. No doubt of it, it was that awful
+description in M. S.'s untempered language that had made me dread my
+surroundings, not the loneliness and silence of the corridors about me.
+Now, as I stared at the room, the closed door, the shadows on the wall,
+I could not repress a grin.
+
+But the grin was not long in duration. A six-hour siege awaited me
+before I could hear the sound of human voice again--six hours of
+silence and gloom. I did not relish it. Thank God the fellow before me
+had had foresight enough to leave his book of fantasy for my amusement!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I turned to the beginning of the story. A lovely beginning it was,
+outlining in some detail how a certain Jack Fulton, English adventurer,
+had suddenly found himself imprisoned (by a mysterious black gang of
+monks, or something of the sort) in a forgotten cell at the monastery of
+El Toro. The cell, according to the pages before me, was located in the
+"empty, haunted pits below the stone floors of the structure...." Lovely
+setting! And the brave Fulton had been secured firmly to a huge metal
+ring set in the farther wall, opposite the entrance.
+
+I read the description twice. At the end of it I could not help but lift
+my head to stare at my own surroundings. Except for the location of the
+cell, I might have been in they same setting. The same darkness, same
+silence, same loneliness. Peculiar similarity!
+
+And then: "Fulton lay quietly, without attempt to struggle. In the dark,
+the stillness of the vaults became unbearable, terrifying. Not a
+suggestion of sound, except the scraping of unseen rats--"
+
+I dropped the book with a start. From the opposite end of the room in
+which I sat came a half inaudible scuffling noise--the sound of hidden
+rodents scrambling through the great pile of boxes. Imagination? I am
+not sure. At the moment, I would have sworn that the sound was a
+definite one, that I had heard it distinctly. Now, as I recount this
+tale of horror, I am not sure.
+
+But I am sure of this: There was no smile on my lips as I picked up the
+book again with trembling fingers and continued.
+
+"The sound died into silence. For an eternity, the prisoner lay rigid,
+staring at the open door of his cell. The opening was black, deserted,
+like the mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to hell. And then, suddenly,
+from the gloom beyond that opening, came an almost noiseless, padded
+footfall!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This time there was no doubt of it. The book fell from my fingers,
+dropped to the floor with a clatter. Yet even through the sound of its
+falling, I heard that fearful sound--the shuffle of a living foot! I sat
+motionless, staring with bloodless face at the door of room 4167. And as
+I stared, the sound came again, and again--_the slow tread of dragging
+footsteps, approaching along the black corridor without_!
+
+I got to my feet like an automaton, swaying heavily. Every drop of
+courage ebbed from my soul as I stood there, one hand clutching the
+table, waiting....
+
+And then, with an effort, I moved forward. My hand was outstretched to
+grasp the wooden handle of the door. And--I did not have the courage.
+Like a cowed beast I crept back to my place and slumped down on the
+stool, my eyes still transfixed in a mute stare of terror.
+
+I waited. For more than half an hour I waited, motionless. Not a sound
+stirred in the passage beyond that closed barrier. Not a suggestion of
+any living presence came to me. Then, leaning back against the wall with
+a harsh laugh, I wiped away the cold moisture that had trickled over my
+forehead into my eyes.
+
+It was another five minutes before I picked up the book again. You call
+me a fool for continuing it? A fool? I tell you, even a story of horror
+is more comfort than a room of grotesque shadows and silence. Even a
+printed page is better than grim reality!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so I read on. The story was one of suspense, madness. For the next
+two pages I read a cunning description of the prisoner's mental
+reaction. Strangely enough, it conformed precisely with my own.
+
+"Fulton's head had fallen to his chest," the script read. "For an
+endless while he did not stir, did not dare to lift his eyes. And then,
+after more than an hour of silent agony and suspense, the boy's head
+came up mechanically. Came up--and suddenly jerked rigid. A horrible
+scream burst from his dry lips as he stared--stared like a dead man--at
+the black entrance to his cell. There, standing without motion in the
+opening, stood a shrouded figure of death. Empty eyes, glaring with
+awful hate, bored into his own. Great arms, bony and rotten, extended
+toward him. Decayed flesh--"
+
+I read no more. Even as I lunged to my feet, with that mad book still
+gripped in my hand, I heard the door of my room grind open. I screamed,
+screamed in utter horror at the thing I saw there. Dead? Good God, I do
+not know. It was a corpse, a dead human body, standing before me like
+some propped-up thing from the grave. A face half eaten away, terrible
+in its leering grin. Twisted mouth, with only a suggestion of lips,
+curled back over broken teeth. Hair--writhing, distorted--like a mass of
+moving, bloody coils. And its arms, ghastly white, bloodless, were
+extended toward me, with open, clutching hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was alive! Alive! Even while I stood there, crouching against the
+wall, it stepped forward toward me. I saw a heavy shudder pass over it,
+and the sound of its scraping feet burned its way into my soul. And
+then, with its second step, the fearful thing stumbled to its knees. The
+white, gleaming arms, thrown into streaks of living fire by the light of
+my lamp, flung violently upwards, twisting toward the ceiling. I saw the
+grin change to an expression of agony, of torment. And then the thing
+crashed upon me--dead.
+
+With a great cry of fear I stumbled to the door. I groped out of that
+room of horror, stumbled along the corridor. No light. I left it behind,
+on the table, to throw a circle of white glare over the decayed,
+living-dead intruder who had driven me mad.
+
+My return down those winding ramps to the lower floor was a nightmare of
+fear. I remember that I stumbled, that I plunged through the darkness
+like a man gone mad. I had no thought of caution, no thought of anything
+except escape.
+
+And then the lower door, and the alley of gloom. I reached the grating,
+flung myself upon it and pressed my face against the bars in a futile
+effort to escape. The same--as the fear-tortured man--who had--come
+before--me.
+
+I felt strong hands lifting me up. A dash of cool air, and then the
+refreshing patter of falling rain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the afternoon of the following day, December 6, when M. S. sat
+across the table from me in my own study. I had made a rather hesitant
+attempt to tell him, without dramatics and without dwelling on my own
+lack of courage, of the events of the previous night.
+
+"You deserved it, Dale," he said quietly. "You are a medical man,
+nothing more, and yet you mock the beliefs of a scientist as great as
+Daimler. I wonder--do you still mock the Professor's beliefs?"
+
+"That he can bring a dead man to life?" I smiled, a bit doubtfully.
+
+"I will tell you something, Dale," said M. S. deliberately. He was
+leaning across the table, staring at me. "The Professor made only one
+mistake in his great experiment. He did not wait long enough for the
+effect of his strange acids to work. He acknowledged failure too soon,
+and got rid of the body." He paused.
+
+"When the Professor stored his patient away, Dale," he said quietly, "he
+stored it in room 4170, at the great warehouse. If you are acquainted
+with the place, you will know that room 4170 is directly across the
+corridor from 4167."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Creatures of the Light
+
+_By Sophie Wenzel Ellis_
+
+
+    He had striven to perfect the faultless man of the future, and
+    had succeeded--too well. For in the pitilessly cold eyes of
+    Adam, his super-human creation, Dr. Mundson saw only
+    contempt--and annihilation--for the human race.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+In a night club of many lights and much high-pitched laughter, where he
+had come for an hour of forgetfulness and an execrable dinner, John
+Northwood was suddenly conscious that Fate had begun shuffling the cards
+of his destiny for a dramatic game.
+
+First, he was aware that the singularly ugly and deformed man at the
+next table was gazing at him with an intense, almost excited scrutiny.
+But, more disturbing than this, was the scowl of hate on the face of
+another man, as handsome as this other was hideous, who sat in a far
+corner hidden behind a broad column, with rude elbows on the table,
+gawking first at Northwood and then at the deformed, almost hideous
+man.
+
+[Illustration: _The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of
+corruption, swung in a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls._]
+
+Northwood's blood chilled over the expression on the handsome,
+fair-haired stranger's perfectly carved face. If a figure in marble
+could display a fierce, unnatural passion, it would seem no more
+eldritch than the hate in the icy blue eyes.
+
+It was not a new experience for Northwood to be stared at: he was not
+merely a good-looking young fellow of twenty-five, he was scenery,
+magnificent and compelling. Furthermore, he had been in the public eye
+for years, first as a precocious child and, later, as a brilliant young
+scientist. Yet, for all his experience with hero worshippers to put an
+adamantine crust on his sensibilities, he grew warm-eared under the gaze
+of these two strangers--this hunchback with a face like a grotesque mask
+in a Greek play, this other who, even handsomer than himself, chilled
+the blood queerly with the cold perfection of his godlike masculine
+beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood sensed something familiar about the hunchback. Somewhere he
+had seen that huge, round, intelligent face splattered with startling
+features. The very breadth of the man's massive brow was not altogether
+unknown to him, nor could Northwood look into the mournful, near-sighted
+black eyes without trying to recall when and where he had last seen
+them.
+
+But this other of the marble-perfect nose and jaw, the blond,
+thick-waved hair, was totally a stranger, whom Northwood fervently hoped
+he would never know too well.
+
+Trying to analyze the queer repugnance that he felt for this handsome,
+boldly staring fellow, Northwood decided: "He's like a newly-made wax
+figure endowed with life."
+
+Shivering over his own fantastic thought, he again glanced swiftly at
+the hunchback, who he noticed was playing with his coffee, evidently to
+prolong the meal.
+
+One year of calm-headed scientific teaching in a famous old eastern
+university had not made him callous to mysteries. Thus, with a feeling
+of high adventure, he finished his supper and prepared to go. From the
+corner of his eye, he saw the hunchback leave his seat, while the
+handsome man behind the column rose furtively, as though he, too,
+intended to follow.
+
+Northwood was out in the dusky street about thirty seconds, when the
+hunchback came from the foyer. Without apparently noticing Northwood, he
+hailed a taxi. For a moment, he stood still, waiting for the taxi to
+pull up at the curb. Standing thus, with the street light limning every
+unnatural angle of his twisted body and every queer abnormality of his
+huge features, he looked almost repulsive.
+
+On his way to the taxi, his thick shoulder jostled the younger man.
+Northwood felt something strike his foot, and, stooping in the crowded
+street, picked up a black leather wallet.
+
+"Wait!" he shouted as the hunchback stepped into the waiting taxi.
+
+But the man did not falter. In a moment, Northwood lost sight of him as
+the taxi moved away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He debated with himself whether or not he should attempt to follow. And
+while he stood thus in indecision, the handsome stranger approached him.
+
+"Good evening to you," he said curtly. His rich, musical voice, for all
+its deepness, held a faint hint of the tremulous, birdlike notes heard
+in the voice of a young child who has not used his vocal chords long
+enough for them to have lost their exquisite newness.
+
+"Good evening," echoed Northwood, somewhat uncertainly. A sudden aura of
+repulsion swept coldly over him. Seen close, with the brilliant light of
+the street directly on his too perfect face, the man was more sinister
+than in the cafe. Yet Northwood, struggling desperately for a reason to
+explain his violent dislike, could not discover why he shrank from this
+splendid creature, whose eyes and flesh had a new, fresh appearance
+rarely seen except in very young boys.
+
+"I want what you picked up," went on the stranger.
+
+"It isn't yours!" Northwood flashed back. Ah! that effluvium of hatred
+which seemed to weave a tangible net around him!
+
+"Nor is it yours. Give it to me!"
+
+"You're insolent, aren't you?"
+
+"If you don't give it to me, you will be sorry." The man did not raise
+his voice in anger, yet the words whipped Northwood with almost physical
+violence. "If he knew that I saw everything that happened in there--that
+I am talking to you at this moment--he would tremble with fear."
+
+"But you can't intimidate me."
+
+"No?" For a long moment, the cold blue eyes held his contemptuously.
+"No? I can't frighten you--you worm of the Black Age?"
+
+Before Northwood's horrified sight, he vanished; vanished as though he
+had turned suddenly to air and floated away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The street was not crowded at that time, and there was no pressing group
+of bodies to hide the splendid creature. Northwood gawked stupidly,
+mouth half open, eyes searching wildly everywhere. The man was gone. He
+had simply disappeared, in this sane, electric-lighted street.
+
+Suddenly, close to Northwood's ear, grated a derisive laugh. "I can't
+frighten you?" From nowhere came that singularly young-old voice.
+
+As Northwood jerked his head around to meet blank space, a blow struck
+the corner of his mouth. He felt the warm blood run over his chin.
+
+"I could take that wallet from you, worm, but you may keep it, and see
+me later. But remember this--the thing inside never will be yours."
+
+The words fell from empty air.
+
+For several minutes, Northwood waited at the spot, expecting another
+demonstration of the abnormal, but nothing else occurred. At last,
+trembling violently, he wiped the thick moisture from his forehead and
+dabbed at the blood which he still felt on his chin.
+
+But when he looked at his handkerchief, he muttered:
+
+"Well, I'll be jiggered!"
+
+The handkerchief bore not the slightest trace of blood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Under the light in his bedroom, Northwood examined the wallet. It was
+made of alligator skin, clasped with a gold signet that bore the initial
+M. The first pocket was empty; the second yielded an object that sent a
+warm flush to his face.
+
+It was the photograph of a gloriously beautiful girl, so seductively
+lovely that the picture seemed almost to be alive. The short, curved
+upper lip, the full, delicately voluptuous lower, parted slightly in a
+smile that seemed to linger in every exquisite line of her face. She
+looked as though she had just spoken passionately, and the spirit of her
+words had inspired her sweet flesh and eyes.
+
+Northwood turned his head abruptly and groaned, "Good Heavens!"
+
+He had no right to palpitate over the picture of an unknown beauty. Only
+a month ago, he had become engaged to a young woman whose mind was as
+brilliant as her face was plain. Always he had vowed that he would never
+marry a pretty girl, for he detested his own masculine beauty sincerely.
+
+He tried to grasp a mental picture of Mary Burns, who had never stirred
+in him the emotion that this smiling picture invoked. But, gazing at the
+picture, he could not remember how his fiancee looked.
+
+Suddenly the picture fell from his fingers and dropped to the floor on
+its face, revealing an inscription on the back. In a bold, masculine
+hand, he read: "Your future wife."
+
+"Some lucky fellow is headed for a life of bliss," was his jealous
+thought.
+
+He frowned at the beautiful face. What was this girl to that hideous
+hunchback? Why did the handsome stranger warn him, "_The thing inside
+never will be yours_?"
+
+Again he turned eagerly to the wallet.
+
+In the last flap he found something that gave him another surprise: a
+plain white card on which a name and address were written by the same
+hand that had penned the inscription on the picture.
+
+  Emil Mundson, Ph. D.,
+  44-1/2 Indian Court
+
+Emil Mundson, the electrical wizard and distinguished scientific writer,
+friend of the professor of science at the university where Northwood was
+an assistant professor; Emil Mundson, whom, a week ago, Northwood had
+yearned mightily to meet.
+
+Now Northwood knew why the hunchback's intelligent, ugly face was
+familiar to him. He had seen it pictured as often as enterprising news
+photographers could steal a likeness from the over-sensitive scientist,
+who would never sit for a formal portrait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even before Northwood had graduated from the university where he now
+taught, he had been avidly interested in Emil Mundson's fantastic
+articles in scientific journals. Only a week ago, Professor Michael had
+come to him with the current issue of New Science, shouting excitedly:
+
+"Did you read this, John, this article by Emil Mundson?" His shaking,
+gnarled old fingers tapped the open magazine.
+
+Northwood seized the magazine and looked avidly at the title of the
+article, "Creatures of the Light."
+
+"No, I haven't read it," he admitted. "My magazine hasn't come yet."
+
+"Run through it now briefly, will you? And note with especial care the
+passages I have marked. In fact, you needn't bother with anything else
+just now. Read this--and this--and this." He pointed out penciled
+paragraphs.
+
+Northwood read:
+
+    Man always has been, always will be a creature of the light. He
+    is forever reaching for some future point of perfected evolution
+    which, even when his most remote ancestor was a fish creature
+    composed of a few cells, was the guiding power that brought him
+    up from the first stinking sea and caused him to create gods in
+    his own image.
+
+    It is this yearning for perfection which sets man apart from all
+    other life, which made him _man_ even in the rudimentary stages
+    of his development. He was man when he wallowed in the slime of
+    the new world and yearned for the air above. He will still be
+    man when he has evolved into that glorious creature of the
+    future whose body is deathless and whose mind rules the
+    universe.
+
+Professor Michael, looking over Northwood's shoulder, interrupted the
+reading:
+
+"_Man always has been man_," he droned emphatically. "That's not
+original with friend Mundson, of course; yet it is a theory that has not
+received sufficient investigation." He indicated another marked
+paragraph. "Read this thoughtfully, John. It's the crux of Mundson's
+thought."
+
+Northwood continued:
+
+    Since the human body is chemical and electrical, increased
+    knowledge of its powers and limitations will enable us to work
+    with Nature in her sublime but infinitely slow processes of
+    human evolution. We need not wait another fifty thousand years
+    to be godlike creatures. Perhaps even now we may be standing at
+    the beginning of the splendid bridge that will take us to that
+    state of perfected evolution when we shall be Creatures who have
+    reached the Light.
+
+Northwood looked questioningly at the professor. "Queer, fantastic
+thing, isn't it?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Professor Michael smoothed his thin, gray hair with his dried-out hand.
+"Fantastic?" His intellectual eyes behind the thick glasses sought the
+ceiling. "Who can say? Haven't you ever wondered why all parents expect
+their children to be nearer perfection than themselves, and why is it a
+natural impulse for them to be willing to sacrifice themselves to better
+their offspring?" He paused and moistened his pale, wrinkled lips.
+"Instinct, Northwood. We Creatures of the Light know that our race shall
+reach that point in evolution when, as perfect creatures, we shall rule
+all matter and live forever." He punctuated the last words with blows
+on the table.
+
+Northwood laughed dryly. "How many thousands of years are you looking
+forward, Professor?"
+
+The professor made an obscure noise that sounded like a smothered sniff.
+"You and I shall never agree on the point that mental advancement may
+wipe out physical limitations in the human race, perhaps in a few
+hundred years. It seems as though your profound admiration for Dr.
+Mundson would win you over to this pet theory."
+
+"But what sane man can believe that even perfectly developed beings,
+through mental control, could overcome Nature's fixed laws?"
+
+"We don't know! We don't know!" The professor slapped the magazine with
+an emphatic hand. "Emil Mundson hasn't written this article for nothing.
+He's paving the way for some announcement that will startle the
+scientific world. I know him. In the same manner he gave out veiled
+hints of his various brilliant discoveries and inventions long before he
+offered them to the world."
+
+"But Dr. Mundson is an electrical wizard. He would not be delving
+seriously into the mysteries of evolution, would he?"
+
+"Why not?" The professor's wizened face screwed up wisely. "A year ago,
+when he was back from one of those mysterious long excursions he takes
+in that weirdly different aircraft of his, about which he is so
+secretive, he told me that he was conducting experiments to prove his
+belief that the human brain generates electric current, and that the
+electrical impulses in the brain set up radioactive waves that some day,
+among other miracles, will make thought communication possible. Perfect
+man, he says, will perform mental feats which will give him complete
+mental domination over the physical."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood finished reading and turned thoughtfully to the window. His
+profile in repose had the straight-nosed, full-lipped perfection of a
+Greek coin. Old, wizened Professor Michael, gazing at him covertly,
+smothered a sigh.
+
+"I wish you knew Dr. Mundson," he said. "He, the ugliest man in the
+world, delights in physical perfection. He would revel in your splendid
+body and brilliant mind."
+
+Northwood blushed hotly. "You'll have to arrange a meeting between us."
+
+"I have." The professor's thin, dry lips pursed comically. "He'll drop
+in to see you within a few days."
+
+And now John Northwood sat holding Dr. Mundson's card and the wallet
+which the scientist had so mysteriously dropped at his feet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here was high adventure, perhaps, for which he had been singled out by
+the famous electrical wizard. While excitement mounted in his blood,
+Northwood again examined the photograph. The girl's strange eyes, odd in
+expression rather than in size or shape, seemed to hold him. The young
+man's breath came quicker.
+
+"It's a challenge," he said softly. "It won't hurt to see what it's all
+about."
+
+His watch showed eleven o'clock. He would return the wallet that night.
+Into his coat pocket he slipped a revolver. One sometimes needed weapons
+in Indian Court.
+
+He took a taxi, which soon turned from the well-lighted streets into a
+section where squalid houses crowded against each other, and dirty
+children swarmed in the streets in their last games of the day.
+
+Indian Court was little more than an alley, dark and evil smelling.
+
+The chauffeur stopped at the entrance and said:
+
+"If I drive in, I'll have to back out, sir. Number forty-four and a half
+is the end house, facing the entrance."
+
+"You've been here before?" asked Northwood.
+
+"Last week I drove the queerest bird here--a fellow as good-looking as
+you, who had me follow the taxi occupied by a hunchback with a face
+like Old Nick." The man hesitated and went on haltingly: "It might sound
+goofy, mister, but there was something funny about my fare. He jumped
+out, asked me the charge, and, in the moment I glanced at my taxi-meter,
+he disappeared. Yes, sir. Vanished, owing me four dollars, six bits. It
+was almost ghostlike, mister."
+
+Northwood laughed nervously and dismissed him. He found his number and
+knocked at the dilapidated door. He heard a sudden movement in the
+lighted room beyond, and the door opened quickly.
+
+Dr. Mundson faced him.
+
+"I knew you'd come!" he said with a slight Teutonic accent. "Often I'm
+not wrong in sizing up my man. Come in."
+
+Northwood cleared his throat awkwardly. "You dropped your wallet at my
+feet, Dr. Mundson. I tried to stop you before you got away, but I guess
+you did not hear me."
+
+He offered the wallet, but the hunchback waved it aside.
+
+"A ruse, of course," he confessed. "It just was my way of testing what
+your Professor Michael told about you--that you are extraordinarily
+intelligent, virile, and imaginative. Had you sent the wallet to me, I
+should have sought elsewhere for my man. Come in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood followed him into a living room evidently recently furnished
+in a somewhat hurried manner. The furniture, although rich, was not
+placed to best advantage. The new rug was a trifle crooked on the floor,
+and the lamp shades clashed in color with the other furnishings.
+
+Dr. Mundson's intense eyes swept over Northwood's tall, slim body.
+
+"Ah, you're a man!" he said softly. "You are what all men would be if we
+followed Nature's plan that only the fit shall survive. But modern
+science is permitting the unfit to live and to mix their defective
+beings with the developing race!" His huge fist gesticulated madly.
+"Fools! Fools! They need me and perfect men like you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you can help me in my plan to populate the earth with a new
+race of godlike people. But don't question me too closely now. Even if I
+should explain, you would call me insane. But watch; gradually I shall
+unfold the mystery before you, so that you will believe."
+
+He reached for the wallet that Northwood still held, opened it with a
+monstrous hand, and reached for the photograph. "She shall bring you
+love. She's more beautiful than a poet's dream."
+
+A warm flush crept over the young man's face.
+
+"I can easily understand," he said, "how a man could love her, but for
+me she comes too late."
+
+"Pooh! Fiddlesticks!" The scientist snapped his fingers. "This girl was
+created for you. That other--you will forget her the moment you set eyes
+on the sweet flesh of this Athalia. She is an houri from Paradise--a
+maiden of musk and incense." He held the girl's photograph toward the
+young man. "Keep it. She is yours, if you are strong enough to hold
+her."
+
+Northwood opened his card case and placed the picture inside, facing
+Mary's photograph. Again the warning words of the mysterious stranger
+rang in his memory: "_The thing inside never will be yours._"
+
+"Where to," he said eagerly; "and when do we start?"
+
+"To the new Garden of Eden," said the scientist, with such a beatific
+smile that his face was less hideous. "We start immediately. I have
+arranged with Professor Michael for you to go."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood followed Dr. Mundson to the street and walked with him a few
+blocks to a garage where the scientist's motor car waited.
+
+"The apartment in Indian Court is just a little eccentricity of mine,"
+explained Dr. Mundson. "I need people in my work, people whom I must
+select through swift, sure tests. The apartment comes in handy, as
+to-night."
+
+Northwood scarcely noted where they were going, or how long they had
+been on the way. He was vaguely aware that they had left the city
+behind, and were now passing through farms bathed in moonlight.
+
+At last they entered a path that led through a bit of woodland. For half
+a mile the path continued, and then ended at a small, enclosed field. In
+the middle of this rested a queer aircraft. Northwood knew it was a
+flying machine only by the propellers mounted on the top of the huge
+ball-shaped body. There were no wings, no birdlike hull, no tail.
+
+"It looks almost like a little world ready to fly off into space," he
+commented.
+
+"It is just about that." The scientist's squat, bunched-out body,
+settled squarely on long, thin, straddled legs, looked gnomelike in the
+moonlight. "One cannot copy flesh with steel and wood, but one can make
+metal perform magic of which flesh is not capable. My sun-ship is not a
+mechanical reproduction of a bird. It is--but, climb in, young friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood followed Dr. Mundson into the aircraft. The moment the
+scientist closed the metal door behind them, Northwood was instantly
+aware of some concealed horror that vibrated through his nerves. For one
+dreadful moment, he expected some terrific agent of the shadows that
+escaped the electric lights to leap upon him. And this was odd, for
+nothing could be saner than the globular interior of the aircraft,
+divided into four wedge-shaped apartments.
+
+Dr. Mundson also paused at the door, puzzled, hesitant.
+
+"Someone has been here!" he exclaimed. "Look, Northwood! The bunk has
+been occupied--the one in this cabin I had set aside for you."
+
+He pointed to the disarranged bunk, where the impression of a head could
+still be seen on a pillow.
+
+"A tramp, perhaps."
+
+"No! The door was locked, and, as you saw, the fence around this field
+was protected with barbed wire. There's something wrong. I felt it on my
+trip here all the way, like someone watching me in the dark. And don't
+laugh! I have stopped laughing at all things that seem unnatural. You
+don't know what is natural."
+
+Northwood shivered. "Maybe someone is concealed about the ship."
+
+"Impossible. Me, I thought so, too. But I looked and looked, and there
+was nothing."
+
+All evening Northwood had burned to tell the scientist about the
+handsome stranger in the Mad Hatter Club. But even now he shrank from
+saying that a man had vanished before his eyes.
+
+Dr. Mundson was working with a succession of buttons and levers. There
+was a slight jerk, and then the strange craft shot up, straight as a
+bullet from a gun, with scarcely a sound other than a continuous
+whistle.
+
+"The vertical rising aircraft perfected," explained Dr. Mundson. "But
+what would you think if I told you that there is not an ounce of
+gasoline in my heavier-than-air craft?"
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised. An electrical genius would seek for a less
+obsolete source of power."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the bright flare of the electric lights, the scientist's ugly face
+flushed. "The man who harnesses the sun rules the world. He can make the
+desert places bloom, the frozen poles balmy and verdant. You, John
+Northwood, are one of the very few to fly in a machine operated solely
+by electrical energy from the sun's rays."
+
+"Are you telling me that this airship is operated with power from the
+sun?"
+
+"Yes. And I cannot take the credit for its invention." He sighed. "The
+dream was mine, but a greater brain developed it--a brain that may be
+greater than I suspect." His face grew suddenly graver.
+
+A little later Northwood said: "It seems that we must be making fabulous
+speed."
+
+"Perhaps!" Dr. Mundson worked with the controls. "Here, I've cut her
+down to the average speed of the ordinary airplane. Now you can see a
+bit of the night scenery."
+
+Northwood peeped out the thick glass porthole. Far below, he saw two
+tiny streaks of light, one smooth and stationery, the other wavering as
+though it were a reflection in water.
+
+"That can't be a lighthouse!" he cried.
+
+The scientist glanced out. "It is. We're approaching the Florida Keys."
+
+"Impossible! We've been traveling less than an hour."
+
+"But, my young friend, do you realize that my sun-ship has a speed of
+over one thousand miles an hour, how much over I dare not tell you?"
+
+Throughout the night, Northwood sat beside Dr. Mundson, watching his
+deft fingers control the simple-looking buttons and levers. So fast was
+their flight now that, through the portholes, sky and earth looked the
+same: dark gray films of emptiness. The continuous weird whistle from
+the hidden mechanism of the sun-ship was like the drone of a monster
+insect, monotonous and soporific during the long intervals when the
+scientist was too busy with his controls to engage in conversation.
+
+For some reason that he could not explain, Northwood had an aversion to
+going into the sleeping apartment behind the control room. Then, towards
+morning, when the suddenly falling temperature struck a biting chill
+throughout the sun-ship, Northwood, going into the cabin for fur coats,
+discovered why his mind and body shrank in horror from the cabin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After he had procured the fur coats from a closet, he paused a moment,
+in the privacy of the cabin, to look at Athalia's picture. Every nerve
+in his body leaped to meet the magnetism of her beautiful eyes. Never
+had Mary Burns stirred emotion like this in him. He hung over Mary's
+picture, wistfully, hoping almost prayerfully that he could react to her
+as he did to Athalia; but her pale, over-intellectual face left him
+cold.
+
+"Cad!" he ground out between his teeth. "Forgetting her so soon!"
+
+The two pictures were lying side by side on a little table. Suddenly an
+obscure noise in the room caught his attention. It was more vibration
+than noise, for small sounds could scarcely be heard above the whistle
+of the sun-ship. A slight compression of the air against his neck gave
+him the eery feeling that someone was standing close behind him. He
+wheeled and looked over his shoulder. Half ashamed of his startled
+gesture, he again turned to his pictures. Then a sharp cry broke from
+him.
+
+Athalia's picture was gone.
+
+He searched for it everywhere in the room, in his own pockets, under the
+furniture. It was nowhere to be found.
+
+In sudden, overpowering horror, he seized the fur coats and returned to
+the control room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Mundson was changing the speed.
+
+"Look out the window!" he called to Northwood.
+
+The young man looked and started violently. Day had come, and now that
+the sun-ship was flying at a moderate speed, the ocean beneath was
+plainly visible; and its entire surface was covered with broken floes of
+ice and small, ragged icebergs. He seized a telescope and focused it
+below. A typical polar scene met his eyes: penguins strutted about on
+cakes of ice, a whale blowing in the icy water.
+
+"A part of the Antarctic that has never been explored," said Dr.
+Mundson; "and there, just showing on the horizon, is the Great Ice
+Barrier." His characteristic smile lighted the morose black eyes. "I am
+enough of the dramatist to wish you to be impressed with what I shall
+show you within less than an hour. Accordingly, I shall make a landing
+and let you feel polar ice under your feet."
+
+After less than a minute's search, Dr. Mundson found a suitable place on
+the ice for a landing, and, with a few deft manipulations of the
+controls, brought the sun-ship swooping down like an eagle on its prey.
+
+For a long moment after the scientist had stepped out on the ice,
+Northwood paused at the door. His feet were chained by a strange
+reluctance to enter this white, dead wilderness of ice. But Dr.
+Mundson's impatient, "Ready?" drew from him one last glance at the cozy
+interior of the sun-ship before he, too, went out into the frozen
+stillness.
+
+They left the sun-ship resting on the ice like a fallen silver moon,
+while they wandered to the edge of the Barrier and looked at the gray,
+narrow stretch of sea between the ice pack and the high cliffs of the
+Barrier. The sun of the commencing six-months' Antarctic day was a low,
+cold ball whose slanted rays struck the ice with blinding whiteness.
+There were constant falls of ice from the Barrier, which thundered into
+the ocean amid great clouds of ice smoke that lingered like wraiths
+around the edge. It was a scene of loneliness and waiting death.
+
+"What's that?" exclaimed the scientist suddenly.
+
+Out of the white silence shrilled a low whistle, a familiar whistle.
+Both men wheeled toward the sun-ship.
+
+Before their horrified eyes, the great sphere jerked and glided up, and
+swerved into the heavens.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up it soared; then, gaining speed, it swung into the blue distance
+until, in a moment, it was a tiny star that flickered out even as they
+watched.
+
+Both men screamed and cursed and flung up their arms despairingly. A
+penguin, attracted by their cries, waddled solemnly over to them and
+regarded them with manlike curiosity.
+
+"Stranded in the coldest spot on earth!" groaned the scientist.
+
+"Why did it start itself, Dr. Mundson!" Northwood narrowed his eyes as
+he spoke.
+
+"It didn't!" The scientist's huge face, red from cold, quivered with
+helpless rage. "Human hands started it."
+
+"What! Whose hands?"
+
+"_Ach!_ Do I know?" His Teutonic accent grew more pronounced, as it
+always did when he was under emotional stress. "Somebody whose brain is
+better than mine. Somebody who found a way to hide away from our eyes.
+_Ach, Gott!_ Don't let me think!"
+
+His great head sank between his shoulders, giving him, in his fur suit,
+the grotesque appearance of a friendly brown bear.
+
+"Doctor Mundson," said Northwood suddenly, "did you have an enemy, a man
+with the face and body of a pagan god--a great, blond creature with eyes
+as cold and cruel as the ice under our feet?"
+
+"Wait!" The huge round head jerked up. "How do you know about Adam? You
+have not seen him, won't see him until we arrive at our destination."
+
+"But I have seen him. He was sitting not thirty feet from you in the Mad
+Hatter's Club last night. Didn't you know? He followed me to the street,
+spoke to me, and then--" Northwood stopped. How could he let the insane
+words pass his lips?
+
+"Then, what? Speak up!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood laughed nervously. "It sounds foolish, but I saw him vanish
+like that." He snapped his fingers.
+
+"_Ach, Gott!_" All the ruddy color drained from the scientist's face. As
+though talking to himself, he continued:
+
+"Then it is true, as he said. He has crossed the bridge. He has reached
+the Light. And now he comes to see the world he will conquer--came
+unseen when I refused my permission."
+
+He was silent for a long time, pondering. Then he turned passionately to
+Northwood.
+
+"John Northwood, kill me! I have brought a new horror into the world.
+From the unborn future, I have snatched a creature who has reached the
+Light too soon. Kill me!" He bowed his great, shaggy head.
+
+"What do you mean, Dr. Mundson: that this Adam has arrived at a point in
+evolution beyond this age?"
+
+"Yes. Think of it! I visioned godlike creatures with the souls of gods.
+But, Heaven help us, man always will be man: always will lust for
+conquest. You and I, Northwood, and all others are barbarians to Adam.
+He and his kind will do what men always do to barbarians--conquer and
+kill."
+
+"Are there more like him?" Northwood struggled with a smile of unbelief.
+
+"I don't know. I did not know that Adam had reached a point so near the
+ultimate. But you have seen. Already he is able to set aside what we
+call natural laws."
+
+Northwood looked at the scientist closely. The man was surely mad--mad
+in this desert of white death.
+
+"Come!" he said cheerfully. "Let's build an Eskimo snow house. We can
+live on penguins for days. And who knows what may rescue us?"
+
+For three hours the two worked at cutting ice blocks. With snow for
+mortar, they built a crude shelter which enabled them to rest out of the
+cold breath of the spiral polar winds that blew from the south.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Mundson was sitting at the door of their hut, moodily pulling at his
+strong, black pipe. As though a fit had seized him, he leaped up and let
+his pipe fall to the ice.
+
+"Look!" he shouted. "The sun-ship!"
+
+It seemed but a moment before the tiny speck on the horizon had swept
+overhead, a silver comet on the grayish-blue polar sky. In another
+moment it had swooped down, eaglewise, scarcely fifty feet from the ice
+hut.
+
+Dr. Mundson and Northwood ran forward. From the metal sphere stepped the
+stranger of the Mad Hatter Club. His tall, straight form, erect and
+slim, swung toward them over the ice.
+
+"Adam!" shouted Dr. Mundson. "What does this mean? How dare you!"
+
+Adam's laugh was like the happy demonstration of a boy. "So? You think
+you still are master? You think I returned because I reverenced you
+yet?" Hate shot viciously through the freezing blue eyes. "You worm of
+the Black Age!"
+
+Northwood shuddered. He had heard those strange words addressed to
+himself scarcely more than twelve hours ago.
+
+Adam was still speaking: "With a thought I could annihilate you where
+you are standing. But I have use for you. Get in." He swept his hand to
+the sun-ship.
+
+Both men hesitated. Then Northwood strode forward until he was within
+three feet of Adam. They stood thus, eyeing each other, two splendid
+beings, one blond as a Viking, the other dark and vital.
+
+"Just what is your game?" demanded Northwood.
+
+The icy eyes shot forth a gleam like lightning. "I needn't tell you, of
+course, but I may as well let you suffer over the knowledge." He curled
+his lips with superb scorn. "I have one human weakness. I want Athalia."
+The icy eyes warmed for a fleeting second. "She is anticipating her
+meeting with you--bah! The taste of these women of the Black Age! I
+could kill you, of course; but that would only inflame her. And so I
+take you to her, thrust you down her throat. When she sees you, she will
+fly to me." He spread his magnificent chest.
+
+"Adam!" Dr. Mundson's face was dark with anger. "What of Eve?"
+
+"Who are you to question my actions? What a fool you were to let me,
+whom you forced into life thousands of years too soon, grow more
+powerful than you! Before I am through with all of you petty creatures
+of the Black Age, you will call me more terrible than your Jehovah! For
+see what you have called forth from unborn time."
+
+He vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the startled men could recover from the shock of it, the vibrant,
+too-new voice went on:
+
+"I am sorry for you, Mundson, because, like you, I need specimens for my
+experiments. What a splendid specimen you will be!" His laugh was ugly
+with significance. "Get in, worms!"
+
+Unseen hands cuffed and pushed them into the sun-ship.
+
+Inside, Dr. Mundson stumbled to the control room, white and drawn of
+face, his great brain seemingly paralyzed by the catastrophe.
+
+"You needn't attempt tricks," went on the voice. "I am watching you
+both. You cannot even hide your thoughts from me."
+
+And thus began the strange continuation of the journey. Not once, in
+that wild half-hour's rush over the polar ice clouds, did they see Adam.
+They saw and heard only the weird signs of his presence: a puffing cigar
+hanging in midair, a glass of water swinging to unseen lips, a ghostly
+voice hurling threats and insults at them.
+
+Once the scientist whispered: "Don't cross him; it is useless. John
+Northwood, you'll have to fight a demigod for your woman!"
+
+Because of the terrific speed of the sun-ship, Northwood could
+distinguish nothing of the topographical details below. At the end of
+half-an-hour, the scientist slowed enough to point out a tall range of
+snow-covered mountains, over which hovered a play of colored lights like
+the _aurora australis_.
+
+"Behind those mountains," he said, "is our destination."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Almost in a moment, the sun-ship had soared over the peaks. Dr. Mundson
+kept the speed low enough for Northwood to see the splendid view below.
+
+In the giant cup formed by the encircling mountain range was a green
+valley of tropical luxuriance. Stretches of dense forest swept half up
+the mountains and filled the valley cup with tangled verdure. In the
+center, surrounded by a broad field and a narrow ring of woods, towered
+a group of buildings. From the largest, which was circular, came the
+auroralike radiance that formed an umbrella of light over the entire
+valley.
+
+"Do I guess right," said Northwood, "that the light is responsible for
+this oasis in the ice?"
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Mundson. "In your American slang, it is canned sunshine
+containing an overabundance of certain rays, especially the Life Ray,
+which I have isolated." He smiled proudly. "You needn't look startled,
+my friend. Some of the most common things store sunlight. On very dark
+nights, if you have sharp eyes, you can see the radiance given off by
+certain flowers, which many naturalists say is trapped sunshine. The
+familiar nasturtium and the marigold opened for me the way to hold
+sunshine against the long polar night, for they taught me how to apply
+the Einstein theory of bent light. Stated simply, during the polar
+night, when the sun is hidden over the rim of the world, we steal some
+of his rays; during the polar day we concentrate the light."
+
+"But could stored sunshine alone give enough warmth for the luxuriant
+growth of those jungles?"
+
+"An overabundance of the Life Ray is responsible for the miraculous
+growth of all life in New Eden. The Life Ray is Nature's most powerful
+force. Yet Nature is often niggardly and paradoxical in her use of her
+powers. In New Eden, we have forced the powers of creation to take
+ascendency over the powers of destruction."
+
+At Northwood's sudden start, the scientist laughed and continued: "Is it
+not a pity that Nature, left alone, requires twenty years to make a man
+who begins to die in another ten years? Such waste is not tolerated in
+New Eden, where supermen are younger than babes and--"
+
+"Come, worms; let's land."
+
+It was Adam's voice. Suddenly he materialized, a blond god, whose eyes
+and flesh were too new.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were in a world of golden skylight, warmth and tropical vegetation.
+The field on which they had landed was covered with a velvety green
+growth of very soft, fine-bladed grass, sprinkled with tiny, star-shaped
+blue flowers. A balmy, sweet-scented wind, downy as the breeze of a
+dream, blew gently along the grass and tingled against Northwood's skin
+refreshingly. Almost instantly he had the sensation of perfect well
+being, and this feeling of physical perfection was part of the ecstasy
+that seemed to pervade the entire valley. Grass and breeze and golden
+skylight were saturated with a strange ether of joyousness.
+
+At one end of the field was a dense jungle, cut through by a road that
+led to the towering building from which, while above in the sun-ship,
+they had seen the golden light issue.
+
+From the jungle road came a man and a woman, large, handsome people,
+whose flesh and eyes had the sinister newness of Adam's. Even before
+they came close enough to speak, Northwood was aware that while they
+seemed of Adam's breed, they were yet unlike him. The difference was
+psychical rather than physical; they lacked the aura of hate and horror
+that surrounded Adam. The woman drew Adam's head down and kissed him
+affectionately on both cheeks.
+
+Adam, from his towering height, patted her shoulder impatiently and
+said: "Run on back to the laboratory, grandmother. We're following
+soon. You have some new human embryos, I believe you told me this
+morning."
+
+"Four fine specimens, two of them being your sister's twins."
+
+"Splendid! I was sure that creation had stopped with my generation. I
+must see them." He turned to the scientist and Northwood. "You needn't
+try to leave this spot. Of course I shall know instantly and deal with
+you in my own way. Wait here."
+
+He strode over the emerald grass on the heels of the woman.
+
+Northwood asked: "Why does he call that girl grandmother?"
+
+"Because she is his ancestress." He stirred uneasily. "She is of the
+first generation brought forth in the laboratory, and is no different
+from you or I, except that, at the age of five years, she is the
+ancestress of twenty generations."
+
+"My God!" muttered Northwood.
+
+"Don't start being horrified, my friend. Forget about so-called natural
+laws while you are in New Eden. Remember, here we have isolated the Life
+Ray. But look! Here comes your Athalia!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood gazed covertly at the beautiful girl approaching them with a
+rarely graceful walk. She was tall, slender, round-bosomed,
+narrow-hipped, and she held her lovely body in the erect poise of
+splendid health. Northwood had a confused realization of uncovered
+bronzy hair, drawn to the back of a white neck in a bunch of short
+curls; of immense soft black eyes; lips the color of blood, and
+delicate, plump flesh on which the golden skylight lingered graciously.
+He was instantly glad to see that while she possessed the freshness of
+young girlhood, her skin and eyes did not have the horrible newness of
+Adam's.
+
+When she was still twenty feet distant, Northwood met her eyes and she
+smiled shyly. The rich, red blood ran through her face; and he, too,
+flushed.
+
+She went to Dr. Mundson and, placing her hands on his thick shoulders,
+kissed him affectionately.
+
+"I've been worried about you, Daddy Mundson." Her rich contralto voice
+matched her exotic beauty. "Since you and Adam had that quarrel the day
+you left, I did not see him until this morning, when he landed the
+sun-ship alone."
+
+"And you pleaded with him to return for us?"
+
+"Yes." Her eyes drooped and a hot flush swept over her face.
+
+Dr. Mundson smiled. "But I'm back now, Athalia, and I've brought some
+one whom I hope you will be glad to know."
+
+Reaching for her hand, he placed it simply in Northwood's.
+
+"This is John, Athalia. Isn't he handsomer than the pictures of him
+which I televisioned to you? God bless both of you."
+
+He walked ahead and turned his back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A magical half hour followed for Northwood and Athalia. The girl told
+him of her past life, how Dr. Mundson had discovered her one year ago
+working in a New York sweat shop, half dead from consumption. Without
+friends, she was eager to follow the scientist to New Eden, where he
+promised she would recover her health immediately.
+
+"And he was right, John," she said shyly. "The Life Ray, that marvelous
+energy ray which penetrates to the utmost depths of earth and ocean,
+giving to the cells of all living bodies the power to grow and remain
+animate, has been concentrated by Dr. Mundson in his stored sunshine.
+The Life Ray healed me almost immediately."
+
+Northwood looked down at the glorious girl beside him, whose eyes
+already fluttered away from his like shy black butterflies. Suddenly he
+squeezed the soft hand in his and said passionately:
+
+"Athalia! Because Adam wants you and will get you if he can, let us set
+aside all the artificialities of civilization. I have loved you madly
+ever since I saw your picture. If you can say the same to me, it will
+give me courage to face what I know lies before me."
+
+Athalia, her face suddenly tender, came closer to him.
+
+"John Northwood, I love you."
+
+Her red lips came temptingly close; but before he could touch them, Adam
+suddenly pushed his body between him and Athalia. Adam was pale, and all
+the iciness was gone from his blue eyes, which were deep and dark and
+very human. He looked down at Athalia, and she looked up at him, two
+handsome specimens of perfect manhood and womanhood.
+
+"Fast work, Athalia!" The new vibrant voice was strained. "I was hoping
+you would be disappointed in him, especially after having been wooed by
+me this morning. I could take you if I wished, of course; but I prefer
+to win you in the ancient manner. Dismiss him!" He jerked his thumb over
+his shoulder in Northwood's direction.
+
+Athalia flushed vividly and looked at him almost compassionately. "I am
+not great enough for you, Adam. I dare not love you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adam laughed, and still oblivious of Northwood and Dr. Mundson, folded
+his arms over his breast. With the golden skylight on his burnished
+hair, he was a valiant, magnificent spectacle.
+
+"Since the beginning of time, gods and archangels have looked upon the
+daughters of men and found them fair. Mate with me, Athalia, and I,
+fifty thousand years beyond the creature Mundson has selected for you,
+will make you as I am, the deathless overlord of life and all nature."
+
+He drew her hand to his bosom.
+
+For one dark moment, Northwood felt himself seared by jealousy, for,
+through the plump, sweet flesh of Athalia's face, he saw the red blood
+leap again. How could she withhold herself from this splendid superman?
+
+But her answer, given with faltering voice, was the old, simple one: "I
+have promised him, Adam. I love him." Tears trembled on her thick
+lashes.
+
+"So! I cannot get you in the ancient manner. Now I'll use my own."
+
+He seized her in his arms crushed her against him, and, laughing over
+her head at Northwood, bent his glistening head and kissed her on the
+mouth.
+
+There was a blinding flash of blue electric sparks--and nothing else.
+Both Adam and Athalia had vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Adam's voice came in a last mocking challenge: "I shall be what no other
+gods before me have been--a good sport. I'll leave you both to your own
+devices, until I want you again."
+
+White-lipped and trembling, Northwood groaned: "What has he done now?"
+
+Dr. Mundson's great head drooped. "I don't know. Our bodies are electric
+and chemical machines; and a super intelligence has discovered new laws
+of which you and I are ignorant."
+
+"But Athalia...."
+
+"She is safe; he loves her."
+
+"Loves her!" Northwood shivered. "I cannot believe that those freezing
+eyes could ever look with love on a woman."
+
+"Adam is a man. At heart he is as human as the first man-creature that
+wallowed in the new earth's slime." His voice dropped as though he were
+musing aloud. "It might be well to let him have Athalia. She will help
+to keep vigor in the new race, which would stop reproducing in another
+few generations without the injection of Black Age blood."
+
+"Do you want to bring more creatures like Adam into the world?"
+Northwood flung at him. "You have tampered with life enough, Dr.
+Mundson. But, although Adam has my sympathy, I'm not willing to turn
+Athalia over to him."
+
+"Well said! Now come to the laboratory for chemical nourishment and rest
+under the Life Ray."
+
+They went to the great circular building from whose highest tower issued
+the golden radiance that shamed the light of the sun, hanging low in the
+northeast.
+
+"John Northwood," said Dr. Mundson, "with that laboratory, which is the
+center of all life in New Eden, we'll have to whip Adam. He gave us what
+he called a 'sporting chance' because he knew that he is able to send us
+and all mankind to a doom more terrible than hell. Even now we might be
+entering some hideous trap that he has set for us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They entered by a side entrance and went immediately to what Dr. Mundson
+called the Rest Ward. Here, in a large room, were ranged rows of cots,
+on many of which lay men basking in the deep orange flood of light which
+poured from individual lamps set above each cot.
+
+"It is the Life Ray!" said Dr. Mundson reverently. "The source of all
+growth and restoration in Nature. It is the power that bursts open the
+seed and brings forth the shoot, that increases the shoot into a giant
+tree. It is the same power that enables the fertilized ovum to develop
+into an animal. It creates and recreates cells almost instantly;
+accordingly, it is the perfect substitute for sleep. Stretch out, enjoy
+its power; and while you rest, eat these nourishing tablets."
+
+Northwood lay on a cot, and Dr. Mundson turned the Life Ray on him. For
+a few minutes a delicious drowsiness fell upon him, producing a spell of
+perfect peace which the cells of his being seemed to drink in. For
+another delirious, fleeting space, every inch of him vibrated with a
+thrilling sensation of freshness. He took a deep, ecstatic breath and
+opened his eyes.
+
+"Enough," said Dr. Mundson, switching off the Ray. "After three minutes
+of rejuvenation, you are commencing again with perfect cells. All
+ravages from disease and wear have been corrected."
+
+Northwood leaped up joyously. His handsome eyes sparkled, his skin
+glowed. "I feel great! Never felt so good since I was a kid."
+
+A pleased grin spread over the scientist's homely face. "See what my
+discovery will mean to the world! In the future we shall all go to the
+laboratory for recuperation and nourishment. We'll have almost
+twenty-four hours a day for work and play."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stretched out on the bed contentedly. "Some day, when my work is
+nearly done, I shall permit the Life Ray to cure my hump."
+
+"Why not now?"
+
+Dr. Mundson sighed. "If I were perfect, I should cease to be so
+overwhelmingly conscious of the importance of perfection." He settled
+back to enjoyment of the Life Ray.
+
+A few minutes later, he jumped up, alert as a boy. "_Ach!_ That's fine.
+Now I'll show you how the Life Ray speeds up development and produces
+four generations of humans a year."
+
+With restored energy, Northwood began thinking of Athalia. As he
+followed Dr. Mundson down a long corridor, he yearned to see her again,
+to be certain that she was safe. Once he imagined he felt a gentle,
+soft-fleshed touch against his hand, and was disappointed not to see her
+walking by his side. Was she with him, unseen? The thought was sweet.
+
+Before Dr. Mundson opened the massive bronze door at the end of the
+corridor, he said:
+
+"Don't be surprised or shocked over anything you see here, John
+Northwood. This is the Baby Laboratory."
+
+They entered a room which seemed no different from a hospital ward. On
+little white beds lay naked children of various sizes, perfect,
+solemn-eyed youngsters and older children as beautiful as animated
+statues. Above each bed was a small Life Ray projector. A white-capped
+nurse went from bed to bed.
+
+"They are recuperating from the daily educational period," said the
+scientist. "After a few minutes of this they will go into the growing
+room, which I shall have to show you through a window. Should you and I
+enter, we might be changed in a most extraordinary manner." He laughed
+mischievously. "But, look, Northwood!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He slid back a panel in the wall, and Northwood peered in through a
+thick pane of clear glass. The room was really an immense outdoor arena,
+its only carpet the fine-bladed grass, its roof the blue sky cut in the
+middle by an enormous disc from which shot the aurora of trapped
+sunshine which made a golden umbrella over the valley. Through openings
+in the bottom of the disc poured a fine rain of rays which fell
+constantly upon groups of children, youths and young girls, all clad in
+the merest scraps of clothing. Some were dancing, others were playing
+games, but all seemed as supremely happy as the birds and butterflies
+which fluttered about the shrubs and flowers edging the arena.
+
+"I don't expect you to believe," said Dr. Mundson, "that the oldest
+young man in there is three months old. You cannot see visible changes
+in a body which grows as slowly as the human being, whose normal period
+of development is twenty years or more. But I can give you visible proof
+of how fast growth takes place under the full power of the Life Ray.
+Plant life, which, even when left to nature, often develops from seed to
+flower within a few weeks or months, can be seen making its miraculous
+changes under the Life Ray. Watch those gorgeous purple flowers over
+which the butterflies are hovering."
+
+Northwood followed his pointing finger. Near the glass window through
+which they looked grew an enormous bank of resplendent violet colored
+flowers, which literally enshrouded the entire bush with their royal
+glory. At first glance it seemed as though a violent wind were
+snatching at flower and bush, but closer inspection proved that the
+agitation was part of the plant itself. And then he saw that the
+movements were the result of perpetual composition and growth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He fastened his eyes on one huge bud. He saw it swell, burst, spread out
+its passionate purple velvet, lift the broad flower face to the light
+for a joyous minute. A few seconds later a butterfly lighted airily to
+sample its nectar and to brush the pollen from its yellow dusted wings.
+Scarcely had the winged visitor flown away than the purple petals began
+to wither and fall away, leaving the seed pod on the stem. The visible
+change went on in this seed pod. It turned rapidly brown, dried out, and
+then sent the released seeds in a shower to the rich black earth below.
+Scarcely had the seeds touched the ground than they sent up tiny green
+shoots that grew larger each moment. Within ten minutes there was a new
+plant a foot high. Within half an hour, the plant budded, blossomed, and
+cast forth its own seed.
+
+"You understand?" asked the scientist. "Development is going on as
+rapidly among the children. Before the first year has passed, the
+youngest baby will have grandchildren; that is, if the baby tests out
+fit to pass its seed down to the new generation. I know it sounds
+absurd. Yet you saw the plant."
+
+"But Doctor," Northwood rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, "Nature's forces of
+destruction, of tearing down, are as powerful as her creative powers.
+You have discovered the ultimate in creation and upbuilding. But
+perhaps--oh, Lord, it is too awful to think!"
+
+"Speak, Northwood!" The scientist's voice was impatient.
+
+"It is nothing!" The pale young man attempted a smile. "I was only
+imagining some of the horror that could be thrust on the world if a
+supermind like Adam's should discover Nature's secret of death and
+destruction and speed it up as you have sped the life force."
+
+"_Ach Gott!_" Dr. Mundson's face was white. "He has his own laboratory,
+where he works every day. Don't talk so loud. He might be listening. And
+I believe he can do anything he sets out to accomplish."
+
+Close to Northwood's ear fell a faint, triumphant whisper: "Yes, he can
+do anything. How did you guess, worm?"
+
+It was Adam's voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now come and see the Leyden jar mothers," said Dr. Mundson. "We do not
+wait for the child to be born to start our work."
+
+He took Northwood to a laboratory crowded with strange apparatus, where
+young men and women worked. Northwood knew instantly that these people,
+although unusually handsome and strong, were not of Adam's generation.
+None of them had the look of newness which marked those who had grown up
+under the Life Ray.
+
+"They are the perfect couples whom I combed the world to find," said the
+scientist. "From their eugenic marriages sprang the first children that
+passed through the laboratory. I had hoped," he hesitated and looked
+sideways at Northwood, "I had dreamed of having the children of you and
+Athalia to help strengthen the New Race."
+
+A wave of sudden disgust passed over Northwood.
+
+"Thanks," he said tartly. "When I marry Athalia, I intend to have an
+old-fashioned home and a Black Age family. I don't relish having my
+children turned into--experiments."
+
+"But wait until you see all the wonders of the laboratory! That is why I
+am showing you all this."
+
+Northwood drew his handkerchief and mopped his brow. "It sickens me,
+Doctor! The more I see, the more pity I have for Adam--and the less I
+blame him for his rebellion and his desire to kill and to rule. Heavens!
+What a terrible thing you have done, experimenting with human life."
+
+"Nonsense! Can you say that all life--all matter--is not the result of
+scientific experiment? Can you?" His black gaze made Northwood
+uncomfortable. "Buck up, young friend, for now I am going to show you a
+marvelous improvement on Nature's bungling ways--the Leyden jar mother."
+He raised his voice and called, "Lilith!"
+
+The woman whom they had met on the field came forward.
+
+"May we take a peep at Lona's twins?" asked the scientist. "They are
+about ready to go to the growing dome, are they not?"
+
+"In five more minutes," said the woman. "Come see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She lifted one of the black velvet curtains that lined an entire side of
+the laboratory and thereby disclosed a globular jar of glass and metal,
+connected by wires to a dynamo. Above the jar was a Life Ray projector.
+Lilith slid aside a metal portion of the jar, disclosing through the
+glass underneath the squirming, kicking body of a baby, resting on a bed
+of soft, spongy substance, to which it was connected by the navel cord.
+
+"The Leyden jar mother," said Dr. Mundson. "It is the dream of us
+scientists realized. The human mother's body does nothing but nourish
+and protect her unborn child, a job which science can do better. And so,
+in New Eden, we take the young embryo and place it in the Leyden jar
+mother, where the Life Ray, electricity, and chemical food shortens the
+period of gestation to a few days."
+
+At that moment a bell under the Leyden jar began to ring. Dr. Mundson
+uncovered the jar and lifted out the child, a beautiful, perfectly
+formed boy, who began to cry lustily.
+
+"Here is one baby who'll never be kissed," he said. "He'll be nourished
+chemically, and, at the end of the week, will no longer be a baby. If
+you are patient, you can actually see the processes of development
+taking place under the Life Ray, for babies develop very fast."
+
+Northwood buried his face in his hands. "Lord! This is awful. No
+childhood; no mother to mould his mind! No parents to watch over him, to
+give him their tender care!"
+
+"Awful, fiddlesticks! Come see how children get their education, how
+they learn to use their hands and feet so they need not pass through the
+awkwardness of childhood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He led Northwood to a magnificent building whose facade of white marble
+was as simply beautiful as a Greek temple. The side walls, built almost
+entirely of glass, permitted the synthetic sunshine to sweep from end to
+end. They first entered a library, where youths and young girls poured
+over books of all kinds. Their manner of reading mystified Northwood.
+With a single sweep of the eye, they seemed to devour a page, and then
+turned to the next. He stepped closer to peer over the shoulder of a
+beautiful girl. She was reading "Euclid's Elements of Geometry," in
+Latin, and she turned the pages as swiftly as the other girl occupying
+her table, who was devouring "Paradise Lost."
+
+Dr. Mundson whispered to him: "If you do not believe that Ruth here is
+getting her Euclid, which she probably never saw before to-day, examine
+her from the book; that is, if you are a good enough Latin scholar."
+
+Ruth stopped her reading to talk to him, and, in a few minutes, had
+completely dumbfounded him with her pedantic replies, which fell from
+lips as luscious and unformed as an infant's.
+
+"Now," said Dr. Mundson, "test Rachael on her Milton. As far as she has
+read, she should not misquote a line, and her comments will probably
+prove her scholarly appreciation of Milton."
+
+Word for word, Rachael was able to give him "Paradise Lost" from memory,
+except the last four pages, which she had not read. Then, taking the
+book from him, she swept her eyes over these pages, returned the book to
+him, and quoted copiously and correctly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Mundson gloated triumphantly over his astonishment. "There, my
+friend. Could you now be satisfied with old-fashioned children who spend
+long, expensive years in getting an education? Of course, your children
+will not have the perfect brains of these, yet, developed under the Life
+Ray, they should have splendid mentality.
+
+"These children, through selective breeding, have brains that make
+everlasting records instantly. A page in a book, once seen, is indelibly
+retained by them, and understood. The same is true of a lecture, of an
+explanation given by a teacher, of even idle conversation. Any man or
+woman in this room should be able to repeat the most trivial
+conversation days old."
+
+"But what of the arts, Dr. Mundson? Surely even your supermen and women
+cannot instantly learn to paint a masterpiece or to guide their fingers
+and their brains through the intricacies of a difficult musical
+composition."
+
+"No?" His dark eyes glowed. "Come see!"
+
+Before they entered another wing of the building, they heard a violin
+being played masterfully.
+
+Dr. Mundson paused at the door.
+
+"So that you may understand what you shall see, let me remind you that
+the nerve impulses and the coordinating means in the human body are
+purely electrical. The world has not yet accepted my theory, but it
+will. Under superman's system of education, the instantaneous records
+made on the brain give immediate skill to the acting parts of the body.
+Accordingly, musicians are made over night."
+
+He threw open the door. Under a Life Ray projector, a beautiful,
+Juno-esque woman was playing a violin. Facing her, and with eyes
+fastened to hers, stood a young man, whose arms and slender fingers
+mimicked every motion she made. Presently she stopped playing and handed
+the violin to him. In her own masterly manner, he repeated the score she
+had played.
+
+"That is Eve," whispered Dr. Mundson. "I had selected her as Adam's
+wife. But he does not want her, the most brilliant woman of the New
+Race."
+
+Northwood gave the woman an appraising look. "Who wants a perfect woman?
+I don't blame Adam for preferring Athalia. But how is she teaching her
+pupil?"
+
+"Through thought vibration, which these perfect people have developed
+until they can record permanently the radioactive waves of the brains of
+others."
+
+Eve turned, caught Northwood's eyes in her magnetic blue gaze, and
+smiled as only a goddess can smile upon a mortal she has marked as her
+own. She came toward him with outflung hands.
+
+"So you have come!" Her vibrant contralto voice, like Adam's, held the
+birdlike, broken tremulo of a young child's. "I have been waiting for
+you, John Northwood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her eyes, as blue and icy as Adam's, lingered long on him, until he
+flinched from their steely magnetism. She slipped her arm through his
+and drew him gently but firmly from the room, while Dr. Mundson stood
+gaping after them.
+
+They were on a flagged terrace arched with roses of gigantic size, which
+sent forth billows of sensuous fragrance. Eve led him to a white marble
+seat piled with silk cushions, on which she reclined her superb body,
+while she regarded him from narrowed lids.
+
+"I saw your picture that he televisioned to Athalia," she said. "What a
+botch Dr. Mundson has made of his mating." Her laugh rippled like
+falling water. "I want you, John Northwood!"
+
+Northwood started and blushed furiously. Smile dimples broke around her
+red, humid lips.
+
+"Ah, you're old-fashioned!"
+
+Her large, beautiful hand, fleshed more tenderly than any woman's hand
+he had ever seen, went out to him appealingly. "I can bring you amorous
+delight that your Athalia never could offer in her few years of youth.
+And I'll never grow old, John Northwood."
+
+She came closer until he could feel the fragrant warmth of her tawny,
+ribbon bound hair pulse against his face. In sudden panic he drew back.
+
+"But I am pledged to Athalia!" tumbled from him. "It is all a dreadful
+mistake, Eve. You and Adam were created for each other."
+
+"Hush!" The lightning that flashed from her blue eyes changed her from
+seductress to angry goddess. "Created for each other! Who wants a
+made-to-measure lover?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The luscious lips trembled slightly, and into the vivid eyes crept a
+suspicion of moisture. Eternal Eve's weapons! Northwood's handsome face
+relaxed with pity.
+
+"I want you, John Northwood," she continued shamelessly. "Our love will
+be sublime." She leaned heavily against him, and her lips were like a
+blood red flower pressed against white satin. "Come, beloved, kiss me!"
+
+Northwood gasped and turned his head. "Don't, Eve!"
+
+"But a kiss from me will set you apart from all your generation, John
+Northwood, and you shall understand what no man of the Black Age could
+possibly fathom."
+
+Her hair had partly fallen from its ribbon bandage and poured its
+fragrant gold against his shoulder.
+
+"For God's sake, don't tempt me!" he groaned. "What do you mean?"
+
+"That mental and physical and spiritual contact with me will temporarily
+give you, a three-dimension creature, the power of the new sense, which
+your race will not have for fifty thousand years."
+
+White-lipped and trembling, he demanded: "Explain!"
+
+Eve smiled. "Have you not guessed that Adam has developed an additional
+sense? You've seen him vanish. He and I have the sixth sense of Time
+Perception--the new sense which enables us to penetrate what you of the
+Black Age call the Fourth Dimension. Even you whose mentalities are
+framed by three dimensions have this sixth sense instinct. Your very
+religion is based on it, for you believe that in another life you shall
+step into Time, or, as you call it, eternity." She leaned closer so that
+her hair brushed his cheek. "What is eternity, John Northwood? Is it not
+keeping forever ahead of the Destroyer? The future is eternal, for it is
+never reached. Adam and I, through our new sense which comprehends Time
+and Space, can vanish by stepping a few seconds into the future, the
+Fourth Dimension of Space. Death can never reach us, not even accidental
+death, unless that which causes death could also slip into the future,
+which is not yet possible."
+
+"But if the Fourth Dimension is future Time, why can one in the third
+dimension feel the touch of an unseen presence in the Fourth
+Dimension--hear his voice, even?"
+
+"Thought vibration. The touch is not really felt nor the voice heard:
+they are only imagined. The radioactive waves of the brain of even you
+Black Age people are swift enough to bridge Space and Time. And it is
+the mind that carries us beyond the third dimension."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her red mouth reached closer to him, her blue eyes touched hidden forces
+that slept in remote cells of his being. "You are going into Eternal
+Time, John Northwood, Eternity without beginning or end. You understand?
+You feel it? Comprehend it? Now for the contact--kiss me!"
+
+Northwood had seen Athalia vanish under Adam's kiss. Suddenly, in one
+mad burst of understanding, he leaned over to his magnificent temptress.
+
+For a split second he felt the sweet pressure of baby-soft lips, and
+then the atoms of his body seemed to fly asunder. Black chaos held him
+for a frightful moment before he felt sanity return.
+
+He was back on the terrace again, with Eve by his side. They were
+standing now. The world about him looked the same, yet there was a
+subtle change in everything.
+
+Eve laughed softly. "It is puzzling, isn't it? You're seeing everything
+as in a mirror. What was left before is now right. Only you and I are
+real. All else is but a vision, a dream. For now you and I are existing
+one minute in future time, or, more simply, we are in the Fourth
+Dimension. To everything in the third dimension, we are invisible. Let
+me show you that Dr. Mundson cannot see you."
+
+They went back to the room beyond the terrace. Dr. Mundson was not
+present.
+
+"There he goes down the jungle path," said Eve, looking out a window.
+She laughed. "Poor old fellow. The children of his genius are worrying
+him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were standing in the recess formed by a bay window. Eve picked up
+his hand and laid it against her face, giving him the full, blasting
+glory of her smiling blue eyes.
+
+Northwood, looking away miserably, uttered a low cry. Coming over the
+field beyond were Adam and Athalia. By the trimming on the blue dress
+she wore, he could see that she was still in the Fourth Dimension, for
+he did not see her as a mirror image.
+
+A look of fear leaped to Eve's face. She clutched Northwood's arm,
+trembling.
+
+"I don't want Adam to see that I have passed you beyond," she gasped.
+"We are existing but one minute in the future. Always Adam and I have
+feared to pass too far beyond the sweetness of reality. But now, so that
+Adam may not see us, we shall step five minutes into what-is-yet-to-be.
+And even he, with all his power, cannot see into a future that is more
+distant than that in which he exists."
+
+She raised her humid lips to his. "Come, beloved."
+
+Northwood kissed her. Again came the moment of confusion, of the awful
+vacancy that was like death, and then he found himself and Eve in the
+laboratory, following Adam and Athalia down a long corridor. Athalia was
+crying and pleading frantically with Adam. Once she stopped and threw
+herself at his feet in a gesture of dramatic supplication, arms
+outflung, streaming eyes wide open with fear.
+
+Adam stooped and lifted her gently and continued on his way, supporting
+her against his side.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eve dug her fingers into Northwood's arm. Horror contorted her face,
+horror mixed with rage.
+
+"My mind hears what he is saying, understands the vile plan he has made,
+John Northwood. He is on his way to his laboratory to destroy not only
+you and most of these in New Eden, but me as well. He wants only
+Athalia."
+
+Striding forward like an avenging goddess, she pulled Northwood after
+her.
+
+"Hurry!" she whispered. "Remember, you and I are five minutes in the
+future, and Adam is only one. We are witnessing what will occur four
+minutes from now. We yet have time to reach the laboratory before him
+and be ready for him when he enters. And because he will have to go back
+to Present Time to do his work of destruction, I will be able to destroy
+him. Ah!"
+
+Fierce joy burned in her flashing blue eyes, and her slender nostrils
+quivered delicately. Northwood, peeping at her in horror, knew that no
+mercy could be expected of her. And when she stopped at a certain door
+and inserted a key, he remembered Athalia. What if she should enter with
+Adam in Present Time?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were inside Adam's laboratory, a huge apartment filled with queer
+apparatus and cages of live animals. The room was a strange paradox.
+Part of the equipment, the walls, and the floor was glistening with
+newness, and part was moulding with extreme age. The powers of
+disintegration that haunt a tropical forest seemed to be devouring
+certain spots of the room. Here, in the midst of bright marble, was a
+section of wall that seemed as old as the pyramids. The surface of the
+stone had an appalling mouldiness, as though it had been lifted from an
+ancient graveyard where it had lain in the festering ground for
+unwholesome centuries.
+
+Between cracks in this stained and decayed section of stone grew fetid
+moss that quivered with the microscopic organisms that infest age-rotten
+places. Sections of the flooring and woodwork also reeked with
+mustiness. In one dark, webby corner of the room lay a pile of bleached
+bones, still tinted with the ghastly grays and pinks of putrefaction.
+Northwood, overwhelmingly nauseated, withdrew his eyes from the bones,
+only to see, in another corner, a pile of worm-eaten clothing that lay
+on the floor in the outline of a man.
+
+Faint with the reek of ancient mustiness, Northwood retreated to the
+door, dizzy and staggering.
+
+"It sickens you," said Eve, "and it sickens me also, for death and decay
+are not pleasant. Yet Nature, left to herself, reduces all to this.
+Every grave that has yawned to receive its prey hides corruption no less
+shocking. Nature's forces of creation and destruction forever work in
+partnership. Never satisfied with her composition, she destroys and
+starts again, building, building towards the ultimate of perfection.
+Thus, it is natural that if Dr. Mundson isolated the Life Ray, Nature's
+supreme force of compensation, isolation of the Death Ray should closely
+follow. Adam, thirsting for power, has succeeded. A few sweeps of his
+unholy ray of decomposition will undo all Dr. Mundson's work in this
+valley and reduce it to a stinking holocaust of destruction. And the
+time for his striking has come!"
+
+She seized his face and drew it toward her. "Quick!" she said. "We'll
+have to go back to the third dimension. I could leave you safe in the
+fourth, but if anything should happen to me, you would be stranded
+forever in future time."
+
+She kissed his lips. In a moment, he was back in the old familiar world,
+where right is right and left is left. Again the subtle change wrought
+by Eve's magic lips had taken place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eve went to a machine standing in a corner of the room.
+
+"Come here and get behind me, John Northwood. I want to test it before
+he enters."
+
+Northwood stood behind her shoulder.
+
+"Now watch!" she ordered. "I shall turn it on one of those cages of
+guinea pigs over there."
+
+She swung the projector around, pointed it at the cage of small,
+squealing animals, and threw a lever. Instantly a cone of black mephitis
+shot forth, a loathsome, bituminous stream of putrefaction that reeked
+of the grave and the cesspool, of the utmost reaches of decay before the
+dust accepts the disintegrated atoms. The first touch of seething,
+pitchy destruction brought screams of sudden agony from the guinea pigs,
+but the screams were cut short as the little animals fell in shocking,
+instant decay. The very cage which imprisoned them shriveled and
+retreated from the hellish, devouring breath that struck its noisome rot
+into the heart of the wood and the metal, reducing both to revolting
+ruin.
+
+Eve cut off the frightful power, and the black cone disappeared, leaving
+the room putrid with its defilement.
+
+"And Adam would do that to the world," she said, her blue eyes like
+electric-shot icicles. "He would do it to you, John Northwood--and to
+me!" Her full bosom strained under the passion beneath.
+
+"Listen!" She raised her hand warningly. "He comes! The destroyer
+comes!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hand was at the door. Eve reached for the lever, and, the same moment,
+Northwood leaned over her imploringly.
+
+"If Athalia is with him!" he gasped. "You will not harm her?"
+
+A wild shriek at the door, a slight scuffle, and then the doorknob was
+wrenched as though two were fighting over it.
+
+"For God's sake, Eve!" implored Northwood. "Wait! Wait!"
+
+"No! She shall die, too. You love her!"
+
+Icy, cruel eyes cut into him, and a new-fleshed hand tried to push him
+aside. The door was straining open. A beloved voice shrieked. "John!"
+
+Eve and Northwood both leaped for the lever. Under her tender white
+flesh she was as strong as a man. In the midst of the struggle, her red,
+humid lips approached his--closer. Closer. Their merest pressure would
+thrust him into Future Time, where the laboratory and all it contained
+would be but a shadow, and where he would be helpless to interfere with
+her terrible will.
+
+He saw the door open and Adam stride into the room. Behind him, lying
+prone in the hall where she had probably fainted, was Athalia. In a mad
+burst of strength he touched the lever together with Eve.
+
+The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of corruption swung in
+a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls--and then straight at Adam.
+
+Then, quicker than thought, came the accident. Eve, attempting to throw
+Northwood off, tripped, fell half over the machine, and, with a short
+scream of despair, dropped into the black path of destruction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Northwood paused, horrified. The Death Ray was pointed at an inner wall
+of the room, which, even as he looked, crumbled and disappeared,
+bringing down upon him dust more foul than any obscenity the bowels of
+the earth might yield. In an instant the black cone ate through the
+outer parts of the building, where crashing stone and screams that were
+more horrible because of their shortness followed the ruin that swept
+far into the fair reaches of the valley.
+
+The paralyzing odor of decay took his breath, numbed his muscles, until,
+of all that huge building, the wall behind him and one small section of
+the room by the doorway alone remained whole. He was trying to nerve
+himself to reach for the lever close to that quiet formless thing still
+partly draped over the machine, when a faint sound in the door
+electrified him. At first, he dared not look, but his own name, spoken
+almost in a gasp, gave him courage.
+
+Athalia lay on the floor, apparently untouched.
+
+He jerked the lever violently before running to her, exultant with the
+knowledge that his own efforts to keep the ray from the door had saved
+her.
+
+"And you're not hurt!" He gathered her close.
+
+"John! I saw it get Adam." She pointed to a new mound of mouldy clothes
+on the floor. "Oh, it is hideous for me to be so glad, but he was going
+to destroy everything and everyone except me. He made the ray projector
+for that one purpose."
+
+Northwood looked over the pile of putrid ruins which a few minutes ago
+had been a building. There was not a wall left intact.
+
+"His intention is accomplished, Athalia," he said sadly. "Let's get out
+before more stones fall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a moment they were in the open. An ominous stillness seemed to grip
+the very air--the awful silence of the polar wastes which lay not far
+beyond the mountains.
+
+"How dark it is, John!" cried Athalia. "Dark and cold!"
+
+"The sunshine projector!" gasped Northwood. "It must have been
+destroyed. Look, dearest! The golden light has disappeared."
+
+"And the warm air of the valley will lift immediately. That means a
+polar blizzard." She shuddered and clung closer to him. "I've seen
+Antarctic storms, John. They're death."
+
+Northwood avoided her eyes. "There's the sun-ship. We'll give the ruins
+the once over in case there are any survivors; then we'll save
+ourselves."
+
+Even a cursory examination of the mouldy piles of stone and dust
+convinced them that there could be no survivors. The ruins looked as
+though they had lain in those crumbling piles for centuries. Northwood,
+smothering his repugnance, stepped among them--among the green, slimy
+stones and the unspeakable revolting debris, staggering back and faint
+and shocked when he came upon dust that was once human.
+
+"God!" he groaned, hands over eyes. "We're alone, Athalia! Alone in a
+charnal house. The laboratory housed the entire population, didn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Needing no sleep nor food, we did not need houses. We all worked
+here, under Dr. Mundson's generalship, and, lately under Adam's, like a
+little band of soldiers fighting for a great cause."
+
+"Let's go to the sun-ship, dearest."
+
+"But Daddy Mundson was in the library," sobbed Athalia. "Let's look for
+him a little longer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sudden remembrance came to Northwood. "No, Athalia! He left the library.
+I saw him go down the jungle path several minutes before I and Eve went
+to Adam's laboratory."
+
+"Then he might be safe!" Her eyes danced. "He might have gone to the
+sun-ship."
+
+Shivering, she slumped against him. "Oh, John! I'm cold."
+
+Her face was blue. Northwood jerked off his coat and wrapped it around
+her, taking the intense cold against his unprotected shoulders. The low,
+gray sky was rapidly darkening, and the feeble light of the sun could
+scarcely pierce the clouds. It was disturbing to know that even the
+summer temperature in the Antarctic was far below zero.
+
+"Come, girl," said Northwood gravely. "Hurry! It's snowing."
+
+They started to run down the road through the narrow strip of jungle.
+The Death Ray had cut huge swathes in the tangle of trees and vines, and
+now areas of heaped debris, livid with the colors of recent decay,
+exhaled a mephitic humidity altogether alien to the snow that fell in
+soft, slow flakes. Each hesitated to voice the new fear: had the
+sun-ship been destroyed?
+
+By the time they reached the open field, the snow stung their flesh like
+sharp needles, but it was not yet thick enough to hide from them a
+hideous fact.
+
+The sun-ship was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It might have occupied one of several black, foul areas on the green
+grass, where the searching Death Ray had made the very soil putrefy, and
+the rocks crumble into shocking dust.
+
+Northwood snatched Athalia to him, too full of despair to speak. A
+sudden terrific flurry of snow whirled around them, and they were almost
+blown from their feet by the icy wind that tore over the unprotected
+field.
+
+"It won't be long," said Athalia faintly. "Freezing doesn't hurt, John,
+dear."
+
+"It isn't fair, Athalia! There never would have been such a marriage as
+ours. Dr. Mundson searched the world to bring us together."
+
+"For scientific experiment!" she sobbed. "I'd rather die, John. I want
+an old-fashioned home, a Black Age family. I want to grow old with you
+and leave the earth to my children. Or else I want to die here now under
+the kind, white blanket the snow is already spreading over us." She
+drooped in his arms.
+
+Clinging together, they stood in the howling wind, looking at each other
+hungrily, as though they would snatch from death this one last picture
+of the other.
+
+Northwood's freezing lips translated some of the futile words that
+crowded against them. "I love you because you are not perfect. I hate
+perfection!"
+
+"Yes. Perfection is the only hopeless state, John. That is why Adam
+wanted to destroy, so that he might build again."
+
+They were sitting in the snow now, for they were very tired. The storm
+began whistling louder, as though it were only a few feet above their
+heads.
+
+"That sounds almost like the sun-ship," said Athalia drowsily.
+
+"It's only the wind. Hold your face down so it won't strike your flesh
+so cruelly."
+
+"I'm not suffering. I'm getting warm again." She smiled at him sleepily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little icicles began to form on their clothing, and the powdery snow
+frosted their uncovered hair.
+
+Suddenly came a familiar voice: "_Ach Gott!_"
+
+Dr. Mundson stood before them, covered with snow until he looked like a
+polar bear.
+
+"Get up!" he shouted. "Quick! To the sun-ship!"
+
+He seized Athalia and jerked her to her feet. She looked at him sleepily
+for a moment, and then threw herself at him and hugged him frantically.
+
+"You're not dead?"
+
+Taking each by the arm, he half dragged them to the sun-ship, which had
+landed only a few feet away. In a few minutes he had hot brandy for
+them.
+
+While they sipped greedily, he talked, between working the sun-ship's
+controls.
+
+"No, I wouldn't say it was a lucky moment that drew me to the sun-ship.
+When I saw Eve trying to charm John, I had what you American slangists
+call a hunch, which sent me to the sun-ship to get it off the ground so
+that Adam couldn't commandeer it. And what is a hunch but a mental
+penetration into the Fourth Dimension?" For a long moment, he brooded,
+absent-minded. "I was in the air when the black ray, which I suppose is
+Adam's deviltry, began to destroy everything it touched. From a safe
+elevation I saw it wreck all my work." A sudden spasm crossed his face.
+"I've flown over the entire valley. We're the only survivors--thank
+God!"
+
+"And so at last you confess that it is not well to tamper with human
+life?" Northwood, warmed with hot brandy, was his old self again.
+
+"Oh, I have not altogether wasted my efforts. I went to elaborate pains
+to bring together a perfect man and a perfect woman of what Adam called
+our Black Age." He smiled at them whimsically.
+
+"And who can say to what extent you have thus furthered natural
+evolution?" Northwood slipped his arm around Athalia. "Our children
+might be more than geniuses, Doctor!"
+
+Dr. Mundson nodded his huge, shaggy head gravely.
+
+"The true instinct of a Creature of the Light," he declared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Remember_
+  ASTOUNDING STORIES
+  _Appears on Newsstands_
+  THE FIRST THURSDAY IN EACH MONTH
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Into Space
+
+_By Sterner St. Paul_
+
+
+    What was the extraordinary connection between Dr. Livermore's
+    sudden disappearance and the coming of a new satellite to the
+    Earth?
+
+[Illustration: _A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile
+rose, gaining speed rapidly._]
+
+
+Many of my readers will remember the mysterious radio messages which
+were heard by both amateur and professional short wave operators during
+the nights of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of last September, and
+even more will remember the astounding discovery made by Professor
+Montescue of the Lick Observatory on the night of September
+twenty-fifth. At the time, some inspired writers tried to connect the
+two events, maintaining that the discovery of the fact that the earth
+had a new satellite coincident with the receipt of the mysterious
+messages was evidence that the new planetoid was inhabited and that the
+messages were attempts on the part of the inhabitants to communicate
+with us.
+
+The fact that the messages were on a lower wave length than any receiver
+then in existence could receive with any degree of clarity, and the
+additional fact that they appeared to come from an immense distance lent
+a certain air of plausibility to these ebullitions in the Sunday
+magazine sections. For some weeks the feature writers harped on the
+subject, but the hurried construction of new receivers which would work
+on a lower wave length yielded no results, and the solemn pronouncements
+of astronomers to the effect that the new celestial body could by no
+possibility have an atmosphere on account of its small size finally put
+an end to the talk. So the matter lapsed into oblivion.
+
+While quite a few people will remember the two events I have noted, I
+doubt whether there are five hundred people alive who will remember
+anything at all about the disappearance of Dr. Livermore of the
+University of Calvada on September twenty-third. He was a man of some
+local prominence, but he had no more than a local fame, and few papers
+outside of California even noted the event in their columns. I do not
+think that anyone ever tried to connect up his disappearance with the
+radio messages or the discovery of the new earthly satellite; yet the
+three events were closely bound up together, and but for the Doctor's
+disappearance, the other two would never have happened.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Livermore taught physics at Calvada, or at least he taught the
+subject when he remembered that he had a class and felt like teaching.
+His students never knew whether he would appear at class or not; but he
+always passed everyone who took his courses and so, of course, they
+were always crowded. The University authorities used to remonstrate with
+him, but his ability as a research worker was so well known and
+recognized that he was allowed to go about as he pleased. He was a
+bachelor who lived alone and who had no interests in life, so far as
+anyone knew, other than his work.
+
+I first made contact with him when I was a freshman at Calvada, and for
+some unknown reason he took a liking to me. My father had insisted that
+I follow in his footsteps as an electrical engineer; as he was paying my
+bills, I had to make a show at studying engineering while I
+clandestinely pursued my hobby, literature. Dr. Livermore's courses were
+the easiest in the school and they counted as science, so I regularly
+registered for them, cut them, and attended a class in literature as an
+auditor. The Doctor used to meet me on the campus and laughingly scold
+me for my absence, but he was really in sympathy with my ambition and he
+regularly gave me a passing mark and my units of credit without regard
+to my attendance, or, rather, lack of it.
+
+When I graduated from Calvada I was theoretically an electrical
+engineer. Practically I had a pretty good knowledge of contemporary
+literature and knew almost nothing about my so-called profession. I
+stalled around Dad's office for a few months until I landed a job as a
+cub reporter on the San Francisco _Graphic_ and then I quit him cold.
+When the storm blew over, Dad admitted that you couldn't make a silk
+purse out of a sow's ear and agreed with a grunt to my new line of work.
+He said that I would probably be a better reporter than an engineer
+because I couldn't by any possibility be a worse one, and let it go at
+that. However, all this has nothing to do with the story. It just
+explains how I came to be acquainted with Dr. Livermore, in the first
+place, and why he sent for me on September twenty-second, in the second
+place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morning of the twenty-second the City Editor called me in and asked
+me if I knew "Old Liverpills."
+
+"He says that he has a good story ready to break but he won't talk to
+anyone but you," went on Barnes. "I offered to send out a good man, for
+when Old Liverpills starts a story it ought to be good, but all I got
+was a high powered bawling out. He said that he would talk to you or no
+one and would just as soon talk to no one as to me any longer. Then he
+hung up. You'd better take a run out to Calvada and see what he has to
+say. I can have a good man rewrite your drivel when you get back."
+
+I was more or less used to that sort of talk from Barnes so I paid no
+attention to it. I drove my flivver down to Calvada and asked for the
+Doctor.
+
+"Dr. Livermore?" said the bursar. "Why, he hasn't been around here for
+the last ten months. This is his sabbatical year and he is spending it
+on a ranch he owns up at Hat Creek, near Mount Lassen. You'll have to go
+there if you want to see him."
+
+I knew better than to report back to Barnes without the story, so there
+was nothing to it but to drive up to Hat Creek, and a long, hard drive
+it was. I made Redding late that night; the next day I drove on to
+Burney and asked for directions to the Doctor's ranch.
+
+"So you're going up to Doc Livermore's, are you?" asked the Postmaster,
+my informant. "Have you got an invitation?"
+
+I assured him that I had.
+
+"It's a good thing," he replied, "because he don't allow anyone on his
+place without one. I'd like to go up there myself and see what's going
+on, but I don't want to get shot at like old Pete Johnson did when he
+tried to drop in on the Doc and pay him a little call. There's something
+mighty funny going on up there."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Naturally I tried to find out what was going on but evidently the
+Postmaster, who was also the express agent, didn't know. All he could
+tell me was that a "lot of junk" had come for the Doctor by express and
+that a lot more had been hauled in by truck from Redding.
+
+"What kind of junk?" I asked him.
+
+"Almost everything, Bub: sheet steel, machinery, batteries, cases of
+glass, and Lord knows what all. It's been going on ever since he landed
+there. He has a bunch of Indians working for him and he don't let a
+white man on the place."
+
+Forced to be satisfied with this meager information, I started old
+Lizzie and lit out for the ranch. After I had turned off the main trail
+I met no one until the ranch house was in sight. As I rounded a bend in
+the road which brought me in sight of the building, I was forced to put
+on my brakes at top speed to avoid running into a chain which was
+stretched across the road. An Indian armed with a Winchester rifle stood
+behind it, and when I stopped he came up and asked my business.
+
+"My business is with Dr. Livermore," I said tartly.
+
+"You got letter?" he inquired.
+
+"No," I answered.
+
+"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," he replied, and walked stolidly
+back to his post.
+
+"This is absurd," I shouted, and drove Lizzie up to the chain. I saw
+that it was merely hooked to a ring at the end, and I climbed out and
+started to take it down. A thirty-thirty bullet embedded itself in the
+post an inch or two from my head, and I changed my mind about taking
+down that chain.
+
+"No ketchum letter, no ketchum Doctor," said the Indian laconically as
+he pumped another shell into his gun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was balked, until I noticed a pair of telephone wires running from the
+house to the tree to which one end of the chain was fastened.
+
+"Is that a telephone to the house?" I demanded.
+
+The Indian grunted an assent.
+
+"Dr. Livermore telephoned me to come and see him," I said. "Can't I call
+him up and see if he still wants to see me?"
+
+The Indian debated the question with himself for a minute and then
+nodded a doubtful assent. I cranked the old coffee mill type of
+telephone which I found, and presently heard the voice of Dr. Livermore.
+
+"This is Tom Faber, Doctor," I said. "The _Graphic_ sent me up to get a
+story from you, but there's an Indian here who started to murder me when
+I tried to get past your barricade."
+
+"Good for him," chuckled the Doctor. "I heard the shot, but didn't know
+that he was shooting at you. Tell him to talk to me."
+
+The Indian took the telephone at my bidding and listened for a minute.
+
+"You go in," he agreed when he hung up the receiver.
+
+He took down the chain and I drove on up to the house, to find the
+Doctor waiting for me on the veranda.
+
+"Hello, Tom," he greeted me heartily. "So you had trouble with my guard,
+did you?"
+
+"I nearly got murdered," I said ruefully.
+
+"I expect that Joe would have drilled you if you had tried to force your
+way in," he remarked cheerfully. "I forgot to tell him that you were
+coming to-day. I told him you would be here yesterday, but yesterday
+isn't to-day to that Indian. I wasn't sure you would get here at all, in
+point of fact, for I didn't know whether that old fool I talked to in
+your office would send you or some one else. If anyone else had been
+sent, he would have never got by Joe, I can tell you. Come in. Where's
+your bag?"
+
+"I haven't one," I replied. "I went to Calvada yesterday to see you, and
+didn't know until I got there that you were up here."
+
+The Doctor chuckled.
+
+"I guess I forgot to tell where I was," he said. "That man I talked to
+got me so mad that I hung up on him before I told him. It doesn't
+matter, though. I can dig you up a new toothbrush, and I guess you can
+make out with that. Come in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I followed him into the house, and he showed me a room fitted with a
+crude bunk, a washstand, a bowl and a pitcher.
+
+"You won't have many luxuries here, Tom," he said, "but you won't need
+to stay here for more than a few days. My work is done: I am ready to
+start. In fact, I would have started yesterday instead of to-day, had
+you arrived. Now don't ask any questions; it's nearly lunch time."
+
+"What's the story, Doctor?" I asked after lunch as I puffed one of his
+excellent cigars. "And why did you pick me to tell it to?"
+
+"For several reasons," he replied, ignoring my first question. "In the
+first place, I like you and I think that you can keep your mouth shut
+until you are told to open it. In the second place, I have always found
+that you had the gift of vision or imagination and have the ability to
+believe. In the third place, you are the only man I know who had the
+literary ability to write up a good story and at the same time has the
+scientific background to grasp what it is all about. Understand that
+unless I have your promise not to write this story until I tell you that
+you can, not a word will I tell you."
+
+I reflected for a moment. The _Graphic_ would expect the story when I
+got back, but on the other hand I knew that unless I gave the desired
+promise, the Doctor wouldn't talk.
+
+"All right," I assented, "I'll promise."
+
+"Good!" he replied. "In that case, I'll tell you all about it. No doubt
+you, like the rest of the world, think that I'm crazy?"
+
+"Why, not at all," I stammered. In point of fact, I had often harbored
+such a suspicion.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," he went on cheerfully. "I _am_ crazy, crazy as a
+loon, which, by the way, is a highly sensible bird with a well balanced
+mentality. There is no doubt that I am crazy, but my craziness is not of
+the usual type. Mine is the insanity of genius."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He looked at me sharply as he spoke, but long sessions at poker in the
+San Francisco Press Club had taught me how to control my facial muscles,
+and I never batted an eye. He seemed satisfied, and went on.
+
+"From your college work you are familiar with the laws of magnetism," he
+said. "Perhaps, considering just what your college career really was, I
+might better say that you are supposed to be familiar with them."
+
+I joined with him in his laughter.
+
+"It won't require a very deep knowledge to follow the thread of my
+argument," he went on. "You know, of course, that the force of magnetic
+attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distances
+separating the magnet and the attracted particles, and also that each
+magnetized particle had two poles, a positive and a negative pole, or a
+north pole and a south pole, as they are usually called?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Consider for a moment that the laws of magnetism, insofar as concerns
+the relation between distance and power of attraction, are exactly
+matched by the laws of gravitation."
+
+"But there the similarity between the two forces ends," I interrupted.
+
+"But there the similarity does _not_ end," he said sharply. "That is the
+crux of the discovery which I have made: that magnetism and gravity are
+one and the same, or, rather, that the two are separate, but similar
+manifestations of one force. The parallel between the two grows closer
+with each succeeding experiment. You know, for example, that each
+magnetized particle has two poles. Similarly each gravitized particle,
+to coin a new word, had two poles, one positive and one negative. Every
+particle on the earth is so oriented that the negative poles point
+toward the positive center of the earth. This is what causes the
+commonly known phenomena of gravity or weight."
+
+"I can prove the fallacy of that in a moment," I retorted.
+
+"There are none so blind as those who will not see," he quoted with an
+icy smile. "I can probably predict your puerile argument, but go ahead
+and present it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If two magnets are placed so that the north pole of one is in
+juxtaposition to the south pole of the other, they attract one another,"
+I said. "If the position of the magnets be reversed so that the two
+similar poles are opposite, they will repel. If your theory were
+correct, a man standing on his head would fall off the earth."
+
+"Exactly what I expected," he replied. "Now let me ask you a question.
+Have you ever seen a small bar magnet placed within the field of
+attraction of a large electromagnet? Of course you have, and you have
+noticed that, when the north pole of the bar magnet was pointed toward
+the electromagnet, the bar was attracted. However, when the bar was
+reversed and the south pole pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar
+was still attracted. You doubtless remember that experiment."
+
+"But in that case the magnetism of the electromagnet was so large that
+the polarity of the small magnet was reversed!" I cried.
+
+"Exactly, and the field of gravity of the earth is so great compared to
+the gravity of a man that when he stands on his head, his polarity is
+instantly reversed."
+
+I nodded. His explanation was too logical for me to pick a flaw in it.
+
+"If that same bar magnet were held in the field of the electromagnet
+with its north pole pointed toward the magnet and then, by the action of
+some outside force of sufficient power, its polarity were reversed, the
+bar would be repelled. If the magnetism were neutralized and held
+exactly neutral, it would be neither repelled nor attracted, but would
+act only as the force of gravity impelled it. Is that clear?"
+
+"Perfectly," I assented.
+
+"That, then, paves the way for what I have to tell you. I have
+developed an electrical method of neutralizing the gravity of a body
+while it is within the field of the earth, and also, by a slight
+extension, a method of entirely reversing its polarity."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I nodded calmly.
+
+"Do you realize what this means?" he cried.
+
+"No," I replied, puzzled by his great excitement.
+
+"Man alive," he cried, "it means that the problem of aerial flight is
+entirely revolutionized, and that the era of interplanetary travel is at
+hand! Suppose that I construct an airship and then render it neutral to
+gravity. It would weigh nothing, _absolutely nothing_! The tiniest
+propeller would drive it at almost incalculable speed with a minimum
+consumption of power, for the only resistance to its motion would be the
+resistance of the air. If I were to reverse the polarity, it would be
+repelled from the earth with the same force with which it is now
+attracted, and it would rise with the same acceleration as a body falls
+toward the earth. It would travel to the moon in two hours and forty
+minutes."
+
+"Air resistance would--"
+
+"There is no air a few miles from the earth. Of course, I do not mean
+that such a craft would take off from the earth and land on the moon
+three hours later. There are two things which would interfere with that.
+One is the fact that the propelling force, the gravity of the earth,
+would diminish as the square of the distance from the center of the
+earth, and the other is that when the band of neutral attraction, or
+rather repulsion, between the earth and the moon had been reached, it
+would be necessary to decelerate so as to avoid a smash on landing. I
+have been over the whole thing and I find that it would take twenty-nine
+hours and fifty-two minutes to make the whole trip. The entire thing is
+perfectly possible. In fact, I have asked you here to witness and report
+the first interplanetary trip to be made."
+
+"Have you constructed such a device?" I cried.
+
+"My space ship is finished and ready for your inspection," he replied.
+"If you will come with me, I will show it to you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hardly knowing what to believe, I followed him from the house and to a
+huge barnlike structure, over a hundred feet high, which stood nearby.
+He opened the door and switched on a light, and there before me stood
+what looked at first glance to be a huge artillery shell, but of a size
+larger than any ever made. It was constructed of sheet steel, and while
+the lower part was solid, the upper sections had huge glass windows set
+in them. On the point was a mushroom shaped protuberance. It measured
+perhaps fifty feet in diameter and was one hundred and forty feet high,
+the Doctor informed me. A ladder led from the floor to a door about
+fifty feet from the ground.
+
+I followed the Doctor up the ladder and into the space flier. The door
+led us into a comfortable living room through a double door arrangement.
+
+"The whole hull beneath us," explained the Doctor, "is filled with
+batteries and machinery except for a space in the center, where a shaft
+leads to a glass window in the bottom so that I can see behind me, so to
+speak. The space above is filled with storerooms and the air purifying
+apparatus. On this level is my bedroom, kitchen, and other living rooms,
+together with a laboratory and an observatory. There is a central
+control room located on an upper level, but it need seldom be entered,
+for the craft can be controlled by a system of relays from this room or
+from any other room in the ship. I suppose that you are more or less
+familiar with imaginative stories of interplanetary travel?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I nodded an assent.
+
+"In that case there is no use in going over the details of the air
+purifying and such matters," he said. "The story writers have worked
+out all that sort of thing in great detail, and there is nothing novel
+in my arrangements. I carry food and water for six months and air enough
+for two months by constant renovating. Have you any question you wish to
+ask?"
+
+"One objection I have seen frequently raised to the idea of
+interplanetary travel is that the human body could not stand the rapid
+acceleration which would be necessary to attain speed enough to ever get
+anywhere. How do you overcome this?"
+
+"My dear boy, who knows what the human body can stand? When the
+locomotive was first invented learned scientists predicted that the
+limit of speed was thirty miles an hour, as the human body could not
+stand a higher speed. To-day the human body stands a speed of three
+hundred and sixty miles an hour without ill effects. At any rate, on my
+first trip I intend to take no chances. We know that the body can stand
+an acceleration of thirty-two feet per second without trouble. That is
+the rate of acceleration due to gravity and is the rate at which a body
+increases speed when it falls. This is the acceleration which I will
+use.
+
+"Remember that the space traveled by a falling body in a vacuum is equal
+to one half the acceleration multiplied by the square of the elapsed
+time. The moon, to which I intend to make my first trip, is only 280,000
+miles, or 1,478,400,000 feet, from us. With an acceleration of
+thirty-two feet per second, I would pass the moon two hours and forty
+minutes after leaving the earth. If I later take another trip, say to
+Mars, I will have to find a means of increasing my acceleration,
+possibly by the use of the rocket principle. Then will be time enough to
+worry about what my body will stand."
+
+A short calculation verified the figures the Doctor had given me, and I
+stood convinced.
+
+"Are you really going?" I asked.
+
+"Most decidedly. To repeat, I would have started yesterday, had you
+arrived. As it is, I am ready to start at once. We will go back to the
+house for a few minutes while I show you the location of an excellent
+telescope through which you may watch my progress, and instruct you in
+the use of an ultra-short-wave receiver which I am confident will pierce
+the Heaviside layer. With this I will keep in communication with you,
+although I have made no arrangements for you to send messages to me on
+this trip. I intend to go to the moon and land. I will take atmosphere
+samples through an air port and, if there is an atmosphere which will
+support life, I will step out on the surface. If there is not, I will
+return to the earth."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes was enough for me to grasp the simple manipulations which
+I would have to perform, and I followed him again to the space flier.
+
+"How are you going to get it out?" I asked.
+
+"Watch," he said.
+
+He worked some levers and the roof of the barn folded back, leaving the
+way clear for the departure of the huge projectile. I followed him
+inside and he climbed the ladder.
+
+"When I shut the door, go back to the house and test the radio," he
+directed.
+
+The door clanged shut and I hastened into the house. His voice came
+plainly enough. I went back to the flier and waved him a final farewell,
+which he acknowledged through a window; then I returned to the receiver.
+A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile rose and flew out
+through the open roof, gaining speed rapidly until it was a mere speck
+in the sky. It vanished. I had no trouble in picking him up with the
+telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor through one of the windows.
+
+"I have passed beyond the range of the atmosphere, Tom," came his voice
+over the receiver, "and I find that everything is going exactly as it
+should. I feel no discomfort, and my only regret is that I did not
+install a transmitter in the house so that you could talk to me; but
+there is no real necessity for it. I am going to make some observations
+now, but I will call you again with a report of progress in
+half-an-hour."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the rest of the afternoon and all of that night I received his
+messages regularly, but with the coming of daylight they began to fade.
+By nine o'clock I could get only a word here and there. By noon I could
+hear nothing. I went to sleep hoping that the night would bring better
+reception, nor was I disappointed. About eight o'clock I received a
+message, rather faintly, but none the less distinctly.
+
+"I regret more than ever that I did not install a transmitter so that I
+could learn from you whether you are receiving my messages," his voice
+said faintly. "I have no idea of whether you can hear me or not, but I
+will keep on repeating this message every hour while my battery holds
+out. It is now thirty hours since I left the earth and I should be on
+the moon, according to my calculations. But I am not, and never will be.
+I am caught at the neutral point where the gravity of the earth and the
+moon are exactly equal.
+
+"I had relied on my momentum to carry me over this point. Once over it,
+I expected to reverse my polarity and fall on the moon. My momentum did
+not do so. If I keep my polarity as it was when left the earth, both the
+earth and the moon repel me. If I reverse it, they both attract me, and
+again I cannot move. If I had equipped my space flier with a rocket so
+that I could move a few miles, or even a few feet, from the dead line, I
+could proceed, but I did not do so, and I cannot move forward or back.
+Apparently I am doomed to stay here until my air gives out. Then my
+body, entombed in my space ship, will endlessly circle the earth as a
+satellite until the end of time. There is no hope for me, for long
+before a duplicate of my device equipped with rockets could be
+constructed and come to my rescue, my air would be exhausted. Good-by,
+Tom. You may write your story as soon as you wish. I will repeat my
+message in one hour. Good-by!"
+
+At nine and at ten o'clock the message was repeated. At eleven it
+started again but after a few sentences the sound suddenly ceased and
+the receiver went dead. I thought that the fault was with the receiver
+and I toiled feverishly the rest of the night, but without result. I
+learned later that the messages heard all over the world ceased at the
+same hour.
+
+The next morning Professor Montescue announced his discovery of the
+world's new satellite.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Coming_--
+  MURDER MADNESS
+  _An Extraordinary Four-Part Novel_
+
+  _By_ MURRAY LEINSTER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Beetle Horde
+
+_By Victor Rousseau_
+
+
+    Bullets, shrapnel, shell--nothing can stop the trillions of
+    famished, man-sized beetles which, led by a madman, sweep down
+    over the human race.
+
+[Illustration: _The hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits and began
+their abominable meal._]
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+Tommy Travers and James Dodd, of the Travers Antarctic Expedition, crash
+in their plane somewhere near the South Pole, and are seized by a swarm
+of man-sized beetles. They are carried down to Submundia, a world under
+the earth's crust, where the beetles have developed their civilization
+to an amazing point, using a wretched race of degenerated humans, whom
+they breed as cattle, for food.
+
+The insect horde is ruled by a human from the outside world--a
+drug-doped madman. Dodd recognizes this man as Bram, the archaeologist
+who had been lost years before at the Pole and given up for dead by a
+world he had hated because it refused to accept his radical scientific
+theories. His fiendish mind now plans the horrible revenge of leading
+his unconquerable horde of monster insects forth to ravage the world,
+destroy the human race and establish a new era--the era of the insect.
+
+The world has to be warned of the impending doom. The two, with Haidia,
+a girl of Submundia, escape, and pass through menacing dangers to within
+two miles of the exit. There, suddenly, Tommy sees towering over him a
+creature that turns his blood cold--a gigantic praying mantis. Before he
+has time to act, the monster springs at them!
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_Through the Inferno_
+
+Fortunately, the monster miscalculated its leap. The huge legs, whirling
+through the air, came within a few inches of Tommy's head, but passed
+over him, and the mantis plunged into the stream. Instantly the water
+was alive with leaping things with faces of such grotesque horror that
+Tommy sat paralyzed in his rocking shell, unable to avert his eyes.
+
+Things no more than a foot or two in length, to judge from the slender,
+eel-like bodies that leaped into the air, but things with catfish heads
+and tentacles, and eyes waving on stalks; things with clawlike
+appendages to their ventral fins, and mouths that widened to fearful
+size, so that the whole head seemed to disappear above them, disclosing
+fangs like wolves'. Instantly the water was churned into phosphorescent
+fire as they precipitated themselves upon the struggling mantis, whose
+enormous form, extending halfway from shore to shore, was covered with
+the river monsters, gnawing, rending, tearing.
+
+Luckily the struggles of the dying monster carried it downstream instead
+of up. In a few moments the immediate danger was past. And suddenly
+Haidia awoke, sat up.
+
+"Where are we?" she cried. "Oh, I can see! I can see! Something has
+burned away from my eyes! I know this place. A wise man of my people
+once came here, and returned to tell of it. We must go on. Soon we shall
+be safe on the wide river. But there is another way that leads to here.
+We must go on! We must go on!"
+
+Even as she spoke they heard the distant rasping of the beetle-legs. And
+before the shells were well in mid-current they saw the beetle horde
+coming round the bend; in the front of them Bram, reclining on his shell
+couch, and drawn by the eight trained beetles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bram saw the fugitives, and a roar of ironic mirth broke from his lips,
+resounding high above the strident rasping of the beetle-legs, and
+roaring over the marshes.
+
+"I've got you, Dodd and Travers," he bellowed, as the trained beetles
+hovered above the shell canoes. "You thought you were clever, but you're
+at my mercy. Now's your last chance, Dodd. I'll save you still if you'll
+submit to me, if you'll admit that there were fossil monotremes before
+the pleistocene epoch. Come, it's so simple! Say it after me: 'The
+marsupial lion--'"
+
+"You go to hell!" yelled Dodd, nearly upsetting his shell as he shook
+his fist at his enemy.
+
+High above the rasping sound came Bram's shrill whistle. Just audible to
+human ears, though probably sounding like the roar of thunder to those
+of the beetles, there was no need to wonder what it was.
+
+It was the call to slaughter.
+
+Like a black cloud the beetles shot forward. A serried phalanx covered
+the two men and the girl, hovering a few feet overhead, the long legs
+dangling to within arm's reach. And a terrible cry of fear broke from
+Haidia's lips.
+
+Suddenly Tommy remembered Bram's cigarette-lighter. He pulled it from
+his pocket and ignited it.
+
+Small as the flame was, it was actinically much more powerful than the
+brighter phosphorescence of the fungi behind them. The beetle-cloud
+overhead parted. The strident sound was broken into a confused buzzing
+as the terrified, blinded beetles plopped into the stream.
+
+None of them, fortunately, fell into either of the three shells, but the
+mass of struggling monsters in the water was hardly less formidable to
+the safety of the occupants than that menacing cloud overhead.
+
+"Get clear!" Tommy yelled to Dodd, trying to help the shell along with
+his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He heard Bram's cry of baffled rage, and, looking backward, could not
+refrain from a laugh of triumph. Bram's trained steeds had taken fright
+and overset him. Bram had fallen into the red mud beside the stream,
+from which he was struggling up, plastered from head to feet, and
+shaking his fists and evidently cursing, though his words could not be
+heard.
+
+"How about your marsupial lion now, Bram?" yelled Dodd. "No monotremes
+before the pleistocene! D'you get that? That's my slogan now and for
+ever more!"
+
+Bram shrieked and raved, and seemed to be inciting the beetles to a
+renewed assault. The air was still thick with them, but Tommy was waving
+the cigarette-lighter in a flaming arc, which cleared the way for them.
+
+Then suddenly came disaster. The flame went out! Tommy closed the
+lighter with a snap and opened it. In vain. In his excitement he must
+have spilled all the contents, for it would not catch.
+
+Bram saw and yelled derision. The beetle-cloud was thickening. Tommy,
+now abreast of his companions on the widening stream, saw the imminent
+end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And then once more fate intervened. For, leaping through the air out of
+the places where they had lain concealed, six mantises launched
+themselves at their beetle prey.
+
+Those awful bounds of the long-legged monsters, the scourges of the
+insect world, carried them clear from one bank to the other--fortunately
+for the occupants of the shells. In an instant the beetle-cloud
+dissolved. And it had all happened in a few seconds. Before Dodd or
+Tommy had quite taken in the situation, the mantises, each carrying a
+victim in its grooved legs, had vanished like the beetles. There was no
+sign of Bram. The three were alone upon the face of the stream, which
+went swirling upward into renewed darkness.
+
+Tommy saw Dodd bend toward Haidia as she lay on her shell couch. He
+heard the sound of a noisy kiss. And he lay back in the hollow of his
+shell, with the feeling that nothing that could happen in the future
+could be worse than what they had passed through.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Days went by, days when the sense of dawning freedom filled their hearts
+with hope. Haidia told Dodd and Tommy that, according to the legends of
+her people, the river ran into the world from which they had been driven
+by the floods, ages before.
+
+There had been no further signs of Bram or the beetle horde, and Dodd
+and Tommy surmised that it had been disorganized by the attack of the
+mantises, and that Bram was engaged in regaining his control over it.
+But neither of them believed that the respite would be a long one, and
+for that reason they rested ashore only for the briefest intervals, just
+long enough to snatch a little sleep, and to eat some of the shrimps
+that Haidia was adept at finding--or to pull some juicy fruit
+surreptitiously from a tree.
+
+Incidents there were, nevertheless, during those days. For hours their
+shells were followed by a school of the luminous river monsters, which,
+nevertheless, made no attempt to attack them. And once, hearing a cry
+from Haidia, as she was gathering shrimps, Dodd ran forward to see her
+battling furiously with a luminous scorpion, eight feet in length, that
+had sprung at her from its lurking place behind a pear shrub.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd succeeded in stunning and dispatching the monster without suffering
+any injury from it, but the strain of the period was beginning to tell
+on all of them. Worst of all, they seemed to have left all the luminous
+vegetation behind them, and were entering a region of almost total
+darkness, in which Haidia had to be their eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Something had happened to the girl's sight in the journey over the
+petrol spring. As a matter of fact, the third, or nictitating membrane,
+which the humans of Submundia possessed, in common with birds, had been
+burned away. Haidia could see as well as ever in the dark, but she could
+bear more light than formerly as well. Unobtrusively she assumed command
+of the party. She anticipated their wants, dug shrimps in the darkness,
+and fed Tommy and Dodd with her own hands.
+
+"God, what a girl!" breathed Dodd to his friend. "I've always had the
+reputation of being a woman-hater, Tommy, but once I get that girl to
+civilization I'm going to take her to the nearest Little Church Around
+the Corner in record time."
+
+"I wish you luck, old man, I'm sure," answered Tommy. Dodd's words did
+not seem strange to him. Civilization was growing very remote to him,
+and Broadway seemed like a memory of some previous incarnation.
+
+The river was growing narrower again, and swifter, too. On the last day,
+or night, of their journey--though they did not know that it was to be
+their last--it swirled so fiercely that it threatened every moment to
+overset their beetle-shells. Suddenly Tommy began to feel giddy. He
+gripped the side of his shell with his hand.
+
+"Tommy, we're going round!" shouted Dodd in front of him.
+
+There was no longer any doubt of it. The shells were revolving in a
+vortex of rushing, foaming water.
+
+"Haidia!" they shouted.
+
+The girl's voice came back thickly across the roaring torrent. The
+circles grew smaller. Tommy knew that he was being sucked nearer and
+nearer to the edge of some terrific whirlpool in that inky blackness.
+Now he could no longer hear Dodd's shouts, and the shell was tipping so
+that he could feel the water rushing along the edge of it. But for the
+exercise of centrifugal force he would have been flung from his perilous
+seat, for he was leaning inward at an angle of forty-five degrees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then suddenly his progress was arrested. He felt the shell being drawn
+to the shore. He leaped out, and Haidia's strong hands dragged the shell
+out of the torrent, while Tommy sank down, gasping.
+
+"What's the matter?" he heard Dodd demanding.
+
+"There is no more river," said Haidia calmly. "It goes into a hole in
+the ground. So much I have heard from the wise men of my people. They
+say that it is near such a place that they fled from the flood in years
+gone by."
+
+"Then we're near safety," shouted Tommy. "That river must emerge as a
+stream somewhere in the upper world, Dodd. I wonder where the road
+lies."
+
+"There is a road here," came Haidia's calm voice. "Let us put on our
+shells again, since who knows whether there may not be beetles here."
+
+"Did you ever see such a girl as that?" demanded Dodd ecstatically.
+"First she saves our lives, and then she thinks of everything. Good
+lord, she'll remember my meals, and to wind my watch for me, and--and--"
+
+But Haidia's voice, some distance ahead, interrupted Dodd's soliloquy,
+and, hoisting the beetle-shells upon their backs, they started along the
+rough trail that they could feel with their feet over the stony ground.
+It was still as dark as pitch, but soon they found themselves traveling
+up a sunken way that was evidently a dry watercourse. And now and again
+Haidia's reassuring voice would come from in front of them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The road grew steeper. There could no longer be any doubt that they were
+ascending toward the surface of the earth. But even the weight of the
+beetle-shells and the steepness could not account for the feeling of
+intense weakness that took possession of them. Time and again they
+stopped, panting.
+
+"We must be very near the surface, Dodd," said Tommy. "We've surely
+passed the center of gravity. That's what makes it so difficult."
+
+"Come on," Haidia said in her quiet voice, stretching out her hand
+through the darkness. And for very shame they had to follow her.
+
+On and on, hour after hour, up the steep ascent, resting only long
+enough to make them realize their utter fatigue. On because Haidia was
+leading them, and because in the belief that they were about to leave
+that awful land behind them their desires lent new strength to their
+limbs continuously.
+
+Suddenly Haidia uttered a fearful cry. Her ears had caught what became
+apparent to Dodd and Jimmy several seconds later.
+
+Far down in the hollow of the earth, increased by the echoes that came
+rumbling up, they heard the distant, strident rasp of the beetle swarm.
+
+Then it was Dodd's turn to support Haidia and whisper consolation in her
+ears. No thought of resting now. If they were to be overwhelmed at last
+by the monsters, they meant to be overwhelmed in the upper air.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was growing insufferably hot. Blasts of air, as if from a furnace,
+began to rush up and down past them. And the trail was growing steeper
+still, and slippery as glass.
+
+"What is it, Jim?" Tommy panted, as Dodd, leaving Haidia for a moment,
+came back to him.
+
+"I'd say lava," Dodd answered. "If only one could see something! I don't
+know how she finds her way. My impression is that we are coming out
+through the interior of an extinct volcano."
+
+"But where are there volcanoes in the south polar regions?" inquired
+Tommy.
+
+"There are Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, in South Victoria Land, active
+volcanoes discovered by Sir James Ross in 1841, and again by
+Borchgrevink, in 1899. If that's where we're coming out--well, Tommy,
+we're doomed, because it's the heart of the polar continent. We might as
+well turn back."
+
+"But we won't turn back," said Tommy. "I'm damned if we do."
+
+"We're damned if we don't," said Dodd.
+
+"Come along please!" sang Haidia's voice high up the slope.
+
+They struggled on. And now a faint luminosity was beginning to penetrate
+that infernal darkness. The rasping of the beetle-legs, too, was no
+longer audible. Perhaps they had thrown Bram off their track! Perhaps in
+the darkness he had not known which way they had gone after leaving the
+whirlpool!
+
+That thought encouraged them to a last effort. They pushed their
+flagging limbs up, upward through an inferno of heated air. Suddenly
+Dodd uttered a yell and pointed upward.
+
+"God!" ejaculated Tommy. Then he seized Dodd in his arms and nearly
+crushed him. For high above them, a pin-point in the black void, they
+saw--a star!
+
+They were almost at the earth's surface!
+
+One more effort, and suddenly the ground seemed to give beneath them.
+They breathed the outer air, and went sliding down a chute of sand, and
+stopped, half buried, at the bottom.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Recaptured_
+
+"Where are we?" each demanded of the other, as they staggered out.
+
+It was a moonless night, and the air was chill, but they were certainly
+nowhere near the polar regions, for there was no trace of snow to be
+seen anywhere. All about them was sand, with here and there a spiny
+shrub standing up stiff and erect and solitary.
+
+When they had disengaged themselves from the clinging sand they could
+see that they were apparently in the hollow of a vast crater, that must
+have been half a mile in circumference. It was low and worn down to an
+elevation of not more than two or three hundred feet, and evidently the
+volcano that had thrown it up had been extinct for millennia.
+
+"Water!" gasped Dodd.
+
+They looked all about them. They could see no signs of a spring
+anywhere, and both were parched with thirst after their terrific climb.
+
+"We must find water, Haidia," said Tommy. "Why, what's the matter?"
+
+Haidia was pointing upward at the starry heaven, and shivering with
+fear. "Eyes!" she cried. "Big beetles waiting for us up there!"
+
+"No, no, Haidia," Dodd explained. "Those are stars. They are
+worlds--places where people live."
+
+"Will you take me up there?" asked Haidia.
+
+"No, this is our world," said Dodd. "And by and by the sun will rise,
+that's a big ball of fire up there. He watches over the world and gives
+us light and warmth. Don't be afraid. I'll take care of you."
+
+"Haidia is not afraid with Jimmydodd to take care of her," replied the
+girl with dignity. "Haidia smells water--over there." She pointed across
+one side of the crater.
+
+"There we'd better hurry," said Tommy, "because I can't hold out much
+longer."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The three scrambled over the soft sand, which sucked in their feet to
+the ankle at every step. It was with the greatest difficulty that they
+succeeded in reaching the crater's summit, low though it was. Then Dodd
+uttered a cry, and pointed. In front of them extended a long pool of
+water, with a scrubby growth around the edges.
+
+The ground was firmer here, and they hurried toward it. Tommy was the
+first to reach it. He lay down on his face and drank eagerly. He had
+taken in a quart before he discovered that the water was saline.
+
+At the same time Dodd uttered an exclamation of disgust. Haidia, too,
+after sipping a little of the fluid, had stood up, chattering excitedly
+in her own language.
+
+But she was not chattering about the water. She was pointing toward the
+scrub. "Men there!" she cried. "Men like you and Tommy, Jimmydodd."
+
+Tommy and Dodd looked at each other, the water already forgotten in
+their excitement at Haidia's information, which neither of them doubted.
+
+Brave as she was, the girl now hung back behind Dodd, letting the two
+men take precedence of her. The water, saline as it was, had partly
+quenched their thirst. They felt their strength reviving.
+
+And it was growing light. In the east the sky was already flecked with
+yellow pink. They felt a thrill of intense excitement at the prospect of
+meeting others of their kind.
+
+"Where do you think we are?" asked Tommy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd stopped to look at a shrub that was growing near the edge of the
+pool. "I don't think, I know, Tommy," he answered. "This is wattle."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"We're somewhere in the interior regions of the Australian
+continent--and that's not going to help us much."
+
+"Over there--over there," panted Haidia. "Hold me, Jimmydodd. I can't
+see. Ah, this terrible light!"
+
+She screwed her eyelids tightly together to shut out the pale light of
+dawn. The men had already discovered that the third membrane had been
+burned away.
+
+"We must get her out of here," whispered Dodd to Tommy. "Somewhere where
+it's dark, before the sun rises. Let's go back to the entrance of the
+crater."
+
+But Haidia, her arm extended, persisted, "Over there! Over there!"
+
+Suddenly a spear came whirling out of a growth of wattle beside the
+pool. It whizzed past Tommy's face and dropped into the sand behind.
+Between the trunks of the wattles they could see the forms of a party of
+blackfellows, watching them intently.
+
+Tommy held up his arms and moved forward with a show of confidence that
+he was far from feeling. After what he had escaped in the underworld he
+was in no mood to be massacred now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the blacks were evidently not hostile. It was probable that the
+spear had not been aimed to kill. At the sight of the two white men, and
+the white woman, they came forward doubtfully, then more fearlessly,
+shouting in their language. In another minute Tommy and Dodd were the
+center of a group of wondering savages.
+
+Especially Haidia. Three or four gins, or black women, had crept out of
+the scrub, and were already examining her with guttural cries, and
+fingering the hair garment that she wore.
+
+"Water!" said Tommy, pointing to his throat, and then to the pool, with
+a frown of disgust.
+
+The blackfellows grinned, and led the three a short distance to a place
+where a large hollow had been scooped in the sandy floor of the desert.
+It was full of water, perfectly sweet to the taste. The three drank
+gratefully.
+
+Suddenly the edge of the sun appeared above the horizon, gilding the
+sand with gold. The sunlight fell upon the three, and Haidia uttered a
+terrible cry of distress. She dropped upon the sand, her hands pressed
+to her eyes convulsively. Tommy and Dodd dragged her into the thickest
+part of the scrub, where she lay moaning.
+
+They contrived bandages from the remnants of their clothing, and these,
+damped with cold water, and bound over the girl's eyes, alleviated her
+suffering somewhat. Meanwhile the blackfellows had prepared a meal of
+roast opossum. After their long diet of shrimps, it tasted like ambrosia
+to the two men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Much to their surprise, Haidia seemed to enjoy it too. The three
+squatted in the scrub among the friendly blacks, discussing their
+situation.
+
+"These fellows will save us," said Dodd. "It may be that we're quite
+near the coast, but, any way, they'll stick to us, even if only out of
+curiosity. They'll take us somewhere. But as soon as we get Haidia to
+safety we'll have to go back along our trail. We mustn't lose our
+direction. Suppose I was laughed at when I get back, called a liar! I
+tell you, we've got to have something to show, to prove my statements,
+before I can persuade anybody to fit out an expedition into Submundia.
+Even those three beetle-shells that we dropped in the crater won't be
+conclusive evidence for the type of mind that sits in the chairs of
+science to-day. And, speaking of that, we must get those blacks to carry
+those shells for us. I tell you, nobody will believe--"
+
+"What's that?" cried Tommy sharply, as a rasping sound rose above the
+cries of the frightened blacks.
+
+But there was no need to ask. Out of the crater two enormous beetles
+were winging their way toward them, two beetles larger than any that
+they had seen.
+
+Fully seven feet in length, they were circling about each other,
+apparently engaged in a vicious battle.
+
+The fearful beaks stabbed at the flesh beneath the shells, and they
+alternately stabbed and drew back, all the while approaching the party,
+which watched them, petrified with terror.
+
+It was evident that the monsters had no conception of the presence of
+humans. Blinded by the sun, only one thing could have induced them to
+leave the dark depths of Submundia. That was the mating instinct. The
+beetles were evidently rival leaders of some swarm, engaged in a duel to
+the death.
+
+Round and round they went in a dizzy maze, stabbing and thrusting, jaws
+closing on flesh, until they dropped, close-locked in battle, not more
+than twenty feet from the little party of blacks and whites, both
+squirming in the agonies of death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I don't think that necessarily means that the swarm is on our trail,"
+said Tommy, a little later, as the three stood beside the shells that
+they had discarded. "Those two were strays, lost from the swarm and
+maddened by the mating instinct. Still, it might be as well to wear
+these things for a while, in case they do follow us."
+
+"You're right," answered Dodd, as he placed one of the shells around
+Haidia. "We've got to get this little lady to civilization, and we've
+got to protect our lives in order to give this great new knowledge to
+the world. If we are attacked, you must sacrifice your life for me,
+Tommy, so that I can carry back the news."
+
+"Righto!" answered Tommy with alacrity. "You bet I will, Jim."
+
+The glaring sun of mid-afternoon was shining down upon the desert, but
+Haidia was no longer in pain. It was evident that she was fast becoming
+accustomed to the sunlight, though she still kept her eyes screwed up
+tightly, and had to be helped along by Dodd and Jimmy. In high good
+humor the three reached the encampment, to find that the blacks were
+feasting on the dead beetles, while the two eldest members of the party
+had proudly donned the shells.
+
+It was near sunset before they finally started. Dodd and Tommy had
+managed to make it clear to them that they wished to reach civilization,
+but how near this was there was, of course, no means of determining.
+They noted, however, that the party started in a southerly direction.
+
+"I should say," said Dodd, "that we are in South Australia, probably
+three or four hundred miles from the coast. We've got a long journey
+before us, but these blackfellows will know how to procure food for us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They certainly knew how to get water, for, just as it began to grow
+dark, when the three were already tormented by thirst, they stopped at
+what seemed a mere hollow among the stones and boulders that strewed the
+face of the desert, and scooped away the sand, leaving a hole which
+quickly filled with clear, cold water of excellent taste.
+
+After which they made signs that they were to camp there for the night.
+The moon was riding high in the sky. As it grew dark, Haidia opened her
+eyes, saw the luminary, and uttered an exclamation, this time not of
+fear, but of wonder.
+
+"Moon," said Dodd. "That's all right, girl. She watches over the night,
+as the sun does over the day."
+
+"Haidia likes the moon better than the sun," said the girl wistfully.
+"But the moon not strong enough to keep away the beetles."
+
+"If I was you, I'd forget about the beetles, Haidia," said Dodd. "They
+won't come out of that hole in the ground. You'll never see them again."
+
+And, as he spoke, they heard a familiar rasping sound far in the
+distance.
+
+"How the wind blows," said Tommy, desperately resolved not to believe
+his ears. "I think a storm's coming up."
+
+But Haidia, with a scream of fear, was clinging to Dodd, and the blacks
+were on their feet, spears and boomerangs in their hands, looking
+northward.
+
+Out of that north a little black cloud was gathering. A cloud that
+spread gradually, as a thunder-cloud, until it covered a good part of
+the sky. And still more of the sky, and still more. All the while that
+faint, distant rasping was audible, but it did not increase in volume.
+It was as if the beetles had halted until the full number of the swarm
+had come up out of the crater.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the cloud, which by now covered half the sky, began to take
+geometric form. It grew square, the ragged edges seemed to trim
+themselves away, streaks of light shot through it at right angles, as if
+it was marshaling itself into companies.
+
+The doomed men and the girl stood perfectly still, staring at that
+phenomenon. They knew that only a miracle could save them. They did not
+even speak, but Haidia clung more tightly to Dodd's arm.
+
+Then suddenly the cloud spread upward and covered the face of the moon.
+
+"Well, this is good-by, Tommy," said Dodd, gripping his friend's hand.
+"God, I wish I had a revolver, or a knife!" He looked at Haidia.
+
+Suddenly the rasping became a whining shriek. A score of enormous
+beetles, the advance guards of the army, zoomed out of the darkness into
+a ray of straggling moonlight. Shrieking, the blacks, who had watched
+the approaching swarm perfectly immobile, threw away the two shells and
+bolted.
+
+"Good Lord," Dodd shouted, "did you see the color of their shells,
+Tommy?" Even in that moment the scientific observer came uppermost in
+him. "Those red edges? They must be young ones, Tommy. It's the new
+brood! No wonder Bram stayed behind! He was waiting for them to hatch!
+The new brood! We're doomed--doomed! All my work wasted!"
+
+The blackfellows did not get very far. A hundred yards from the place
+where they started to run they dropped, their bodies hidden beneath the
+clustering monsters, their screams cut short as those frightful beaks
+sought their throats, and those jaws crunched through flesh and bone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Circling around Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia, as if puzzled by their
+appearance, the beetles kept up a continuous, furious droning that
+sounded like the roar of Niagara mixed with the shrieking of a thousand
+sirens. The moon was completely hidden, and only a dim, nebulous light
+showed the repulsive monsters as they flew within a few feet of the
+heads of the fugitives. The stench was overpowering.
+
+But suddenly a ray of white light shot through the darkness, and, with a
+changed note, just perceptible to the ears of the two men, but doubtless
+of the greatest significance to the beetles, the swarm fled apart to
+right and left, leaving a clear lane, through which appeared--Bram,
+reclining on his shell-couch above his eight trained beetle steeds!
+
+Hovering overhead, the eight huge monsters dropped lightly to the ground
+beside the three. Bram sat up, a vicious grin upon his twisted face. In
+his hand he held a large electric bulb, its sides sheathed in a roughly
+carved wooden frame; the wire was attached to a battery behind him.
+
+"Well met, my friends!" he shouted exultantly. "I owe you more thanks
+than I can express for having so providentially left the electrical
+equipment of your plane undamaged after you crashed at the entrance to
+Submundia. I had a hunch about it--and the hunch worked!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He grinned more malevolently as he looked from one man to the other.
+
+"You've run your race," he said. "But I'm going to have a little fun
+with you before you die. I'm going to use you as an object lesson.
+You'll find it out in a little while."
+
+"Go ahead, go ahead, Bram," Dodd grinned back at him. "Just a few
+million years ago, and you were a speck of protoplasm--in that
+pre-pleistocene age--swimming among the invertebrate crustaceans that
+characterized that epoch."
+
+"Invertebrates and monotremes, Dodd," said Bram, almost wistfully. "The
+mammals were already existent on the earth, as you know--" Suddenly he
+broke off, as he realized that Dodd was spoofing him. A yell of
+execration broke from his lips. He uttered a high whistle, and instantly
+the whiplike lashes of a hundred beetles whizzed through the darkness
+and remained poised over Dodd's head.
+
+"Not even the marsupial lion, Bram," grinned Dodd, undismayed. "Go
+ahead, go ahead, but I'll not die with a lie upon my lips!"
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_The Trail of Death_
+
+"There's sure some sort of hoodoo on these Antarctic expeditions,
+Wilson," said the city editor of _The Daily Record_ to the star rewrite
+man. He glanced through the hastily typed report that had come through
+on the wireless set erected on the thirty-sixth story of the Record
+Building. "Tommy Travers gone, eh? And James Dodd, too! There'll be woe
+and wailing along the Great White Way to-night when this news gets out.
+They say that half the chorus girls in town considered themselves
+engaged to Tommy. Nice fellow, too! Always did like him!"
+
+"Queer, that curtain of fog that seems to lie on the actual site of the
+south pole," he continued, glancing over the report again. "So Storm
+thinks that Tommy crashed in it, and that it's a million to one against
+their ever finding his remains. What's this about beetles? Shells of
+enormous prehistoric beetles found by Tommy and Dodd! That'll make good
+copy, Wilson. Let's play that up. Hand it to Jones, and tell him to
+scare up a catching headline or two."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He beckoned to the boy who was hurrying toward his desk, a flimsy in his
+hand, glanced through it, and tossed it toward Wilson.
+
+"What do they think this is, April Fool's Day?" he asked. "I'm surprised
+that the International Press should fall for such stuff as that!"
+
+"Why, to-morrow is the first of April!" exclaimed Wilson, tossing back
+the cable dispatch with a contemptuous laugh.
+
+"Well, it won't do the I. P. much good to play those tricks on their
+subscribers," said the city editor testily. "I'm surprised, to say the
+least. I guess their Adelaide correspondent has gone off his head or
+something. Using poor Travers's name, too! Of course that fellow didn't
+know he was dead, but still...."
+
+That was how _The Daily Record_ missed being the first to give out
+certain information that was to stagger the world. The dispatch, which
+had evidently outrun an earlier one, was as follows:
+
+    ADELAIDE, South Australia, March 31.--Further telegraphic
+    communications arriving almost continuously from Settler's
+    Station, signed by Thomas Travers, member of Travers Antarctic
+    Expedition, who claims to have penetrated earth's interior at
+    south pole and to have come out near Victoria Desert. Travers
+    states that swarm of prehistoric beetles, estimated at two
+    trillion, and as large as men, with shells impenetrable by rifle
+    bullets, now besieging Settler's Station, where he and Dodd and
+    Haidia, woman of subterranean race whom they brought away, are
+    shut up in telegraph office. Bram, former member of Greystoke
+    Expedition, said to be in charge of swarm, with intention of
+    obliterating human race. Every living thing at Settler's Station
+    destroyed, and swarm moving south.
+
+It was a small-town paper a hundred miles from New York that took a
+chance on publishing this report from the International Press, in spite
+of frantic efforts on the parts of the head office to recall it after it
+had been transmitted. This paper published the account as an April
+Fool's Day joke, though later it took to itself the credit for having
+believed it. But by the time April Fool's Day dawned all the world knew
+that the account was, if anything, an under-estimate of the fearful
+things that were happening "down under."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was known now that the swarm of monsters had originated in the Great
+Victoria Desert, one of the worst stretches of desolation in the world,
+situated in the south-east corner of Western Australia. Their numbers
+were incalculable. Wimbush, the aviator, who was attempting to cross the
+continent from east to west, reported afterward that he had flown for
+four days, skirting the edge of the swarm, and that the whole of that
+time they were moving in the same direction, a thick cloud that left a
+trail of dense darkness on earth beneath them, like the path of an
+eclipse. Wimbush escaped them only because he had a ceiling of twenty
+thousand feet, to which apparently the beetles could not soar.
+
+And this swarm was only about one-fourth of the whole number of the
+monsters. This was the swarm that was moving westward, and subsequently
+totally destroyed all living things in Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Perth,
+and all the coastal cities of Western Australia.
+
+Ships were found drifting in the Indian Ocean, totally destitute of
+crews and passengers; not even their skeletons were found, and it was
+estimated that the voracious monsters had carried them away bodily,
+devoured them in the air, and dropped the remains into the water.
+
+All the world knows now how the sea elephant herd on Kerguelen Island
+was totally destroyed, and of the giant shells that were found lying
+everywhere on the deserted beaches, in positions that showed the
+monsters had in the end devoured one another.
+
+Mauritius was the most westerly point reached by a fraction of the
+swarm. A little over twenty thousand of the beetles reached that lovely
+island, by count of the shells afterward, and all the world knows now of
+the desperate and successful fight that the inhabitants waged against
+them. Men and women, boys and girls, blacks and whites, finding that the
+devils were invulnerable against rifle fire, sallied forth boldly with
+knives and choppers, and laid down a life for a life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the second day after their appearance, the main swarm, a trillion and
+a half strong, reached the line of the transcontinental railway, and
+moved eastward into South Australia, traveling, it was estimated, at the
+rate of two hundred miles an hour. By the next morning they were in
+Adelaide, a city of nearly a quarter of a million people. By nightfall
+every living thing in Adelaide and the suburbs had been eaten, except
+for a few who succeeded in hiding in walled-up cellars, or in the
+surrounding marshes.
+
+That night the swarm was on the borders of New South Wales and Victoria,
+and moving in two divisions toward Melbourne and Sydney.
+
+The northern half, it was quickly seen, was flying "wild," with no
+particular objective, moving in a solid cohort two hundred miles in
+length, and devouring game, stock, and humans indiscriminately. It was
+the southern division, numbering perhaps a trillion, that was under
+command of Bram, and aimed at destroying Melbourne as Adelaide had been
+destroyed.
+
+Bram, with his eight beetle steeds, was by this time known and execrated
+throughout the world. He was pictured as Anti-Christ, and the fulfilment
+of the prophecies of the Rock of Revelations.
+
+And all this while--or, rather, until the telegraph wires were
+cut--broken, it was discovered later, by perching beetles--Thomas
+Travers was sending out messages from his post at Settler's Station.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Soon it was known that prodigious creatures were following in the wake
+of the devastating horde. Mantises, fifteen feet in height, winged
+things like pterodactyls, longer than bombing airplanes, followed,
+preying on the stragglers. But the main bodies never halted, and the
+inroads that the destroyers made on their numbers were insignificant.
+
+Before the swarm reached Adelaide the Commonwealth Government had taken
+action. Troops had been called out, and all the available airplanes in
+the country had been ordered to assemble at Broken Hill, New South
+Wales, a strategic point commanding the approaches to Sydney and
+Melbourne. Something like four hundred airplanes were assembled, with
+several batteries of anti-aircraft guns that had been used in the Great
+War. Every amateur aviator in Australia was on the spot, with machines
+ranging from tiny Moths to Handley-Pages--anything that could fly.
+
+Nocturnal though the beetles had been, they no longer feared the light
+of the sun. In fact, it was ascertained later that they were blind. An
+opacity had formed over the crystalline lens of the eye. Blind, they
+were no less formidable than with their sight. They existed only to
+devour, and their numbers made them irresistible, no matter which way
+they turned.
+
+As soon as the vanguard of the dark cloud was sighted from Broken Hill,
+the airplanes went aloft. Four hundred planes, each armed with machine
+guns, dashed into the serried hosts, drumming out volleys of lead. In a
+long line, extending nearly to the limits of the beetle formation, thus
+giving each aviator all the room he needed, the planes gave battle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first terror that fell upon the airmen was the discovery that, even
+at close range, the machine gun bullets failed to penetrate the shells.
+The force of the impact whirled the beetles around, drove them together
+in bunches, sent them groping with weaving tentacles through the
+air--but that was all. On the main body of the invaders no impression
+was made whatever.
+
+The second terror was the realization that the swarm, driven down here
+and there from an altitude of several hundred feet, merely resumed their
+progress on the ground, in a succession of gigantic leaps. Within a few
+minutes, instead of presenting an inflexible barrier, the line of
+airplanes was badly broken, each plane surrounded by swarms of the
+monsters.
+
+Then Bram was seen. And that was the third terror, the sight of the
+famous beetle steeds, four pairs abreast, with Bram reclining like a
+Roman emperor upon the surface of the shells. It is true, Bram had no
+inclination to risk his own life in battle. At the first sight of the
+aviators he dodged into the thick of the swarm, where no bullet could
+reach him. Bram managed to transmit an order, and the beetles drew
+together.
+
+Some thought afterward that it was by thought transference he effected
+this maneuver, for instantly the beetles, which had hitherto flown in
+loose order, became a solid wall, a thousand feet in height, closing in
+on the planes. The propellers struck them and snapped short, and as the
+planes went weaving down, the hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits
+and began their abominable meal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not a single plane came back. Planes and skeletons, and here and there a
+shell of a dead beetle, itself completely devoured, were all that was
+found afterward.
+
+The gunners stayed at their posts till the last moment, firing round
+after round of shell and shrapnel, with insignificant results. Their
+skeletons were found not twenty paces from their guns--where the
+Gunners' Monument now stands.
+
+Half an hour after the flight had first been sighted the news was being
+radioed to Sydney, Melbourne, and all other Australian cities, advising
+instant flight to sea as the only chance of safety. That radio message
+was cut short--and men listened and shuddered. After that came the
+crowding aboard all craft in the harbors, the tragedies of the _Eustis_,
+the _All Australia_, the _Sepphoris_, sunk at their moorings. The
+innumerable sea tragedies. The horde of fugitives that landed in New
+Zealand. The reign of terror when the mob got out of hand, the burning
+of Melbourne, the sack of Sydney.
+
+And south and eastward, like a resistless flood, the beetle swarm came
+pouring. Well had Bram boasted that he would make the earth a desert!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hundred miles of poisoned carcasses of sheep, extended outside
+Sydney's suburbs, gave the first promise of success. Long mounds of
+beetle shells testified to the results; moreover, the beetles that fed
+on the carcasses of their fellows, were in turn poisoned and died. But
+this was only a drop in the bucket. What counted was that the swift
+advance was slowing down. As if exhausted by their efforts, or else
+satiated with food, the beetles were doing what the soldiers did.
+
+They were digging in!
+
+Twenty-four miles from Sydney, eighteen outside Melbourne, the advance
+was stayed.
+
+Volunteers who went out from those cities reported that the beetles
+seemed to be resting in long trenches that they had excavated, so that
+only their shells appeared above ground. Trees were covered with
+clinging beetles, every wall, every house was invisible beneath the
+beetle armor.
+
+Australia had a respite. Perhaps only for a night or day, but still
+time to draw breath, time to consider, time for the shiploads of
+fugitives to get farther from the continent that had become a shambles.
+
+And then the cry went up, not only from Australia, but from all the
+world, "Get Travers!"
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_At Bay_
+
+Bram put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, a shrill whistle, yet
+audible to Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia. Instantly three pairs of beetles
+appeared out of the throng. Their tentacles went out, and the two men
+and the girl found themselves hoisted separately upon the backs of the
+pairs. Next moment they were flying side by side, high in the air above
+the surrounding swarm.
+
+They could see one another, but it was impossible for them to make their
+voices heard above the rasping of the beetles' legs. Hours went by,
+while the moon crossed the sky and dipped toward the horizon. Tommy knew
+that the moon would set about the hour of dawn. And the stars were
+already beginning to pale when he saw a line of telegraph poles, then
+two lines of shining metals, then a small settlement of stone and brick
+houses.
+
+Tommy was not familiar with the geography of Australia, but he knew this
+must be the transcontinental line.
+
+Whirling onward, the cloud of beetles suddenly swooped downward. For a
+moment Tommy could see the frightened occupants of the settlement
+crowding into the single street, then he shuddered with sick horror as
+he saw them obliterated by the swarm.
+
+There was no struggle, no attempt at flight or resistance. One moment
+those forty-odd men were there--the next minute they existed no longer.
+There was nothing but a swarm of beetles, walking about like men with
+shells upon their backs.
+
+And now Tommy saw evidences of Bram's devilish control of the swarm.
+For out of the cloud dropped what seemed to be a phalanx of beetle
+guards, the military police of beetledom, and, lashing fiercely with
+their tentacles, they drove back all the swarm that sought to join their
+companions in their ghoulish feast. There was just so much food and no
+more; the rest must seek theirs further.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But even beetles, it may be presumed, are not entirely under discipline
+at all times. The pair of beetles that bore Tommy, suddenly swooped
+apart, ten or a dozen feet from the ground, and dashed into the thick of
+the struggling, frenzied mass, flinging their rider to earth.
+
+Tommy struck the soft sand, sat up, half dazed, saw his shell lying a
+few feet away from him, and retrieved it just as a couple of the
+monsters came swooping down at him.
+
+He looked about him. Not far away stood Dodd and Haidia, with their
+shells on their backs. They recognized Tommy and ran toward him.
+
+Not more than twenty yards away stood the railroad station, with several
+crates of goods on the platform. Next to it was a substantial house of
+stone, with the front door open.
+
+Tommy pointed to it, and Dodd understood and shouted something that was
+lost in the furious buzz of the beetles' wings as they devoured their
+prey. The three raced for the entrance, gained it unmolested, and closed
+the door.
+
+There was a key in the door, and it was light enough for them to see a
+chain, which Dodd pulled into position. There was only one story, and
+there were three rooms, apparently, with the kitchen. Tommy rushed to
+the kitchen door, locked it, too, and, with almost super-human efforts,
+dragged the large iron stove against it. He rushed to the window, but it
+was a mere loophole, not large enough to admit a child. Nevertheless, he
+stood the heavy table on end so that it covered it. Then he ran back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd had already barricaded the window of the larger room, which was a
+bed-sitting room, with a heavy wardrobe, and the wooden bedstead,
+jamming the two pieces sidewise against the wall, so that they could not
+be forced apart without being demolished. He was now busy in the smaller
+room, which seemed to be the station-master's office, dragging an iron
+safe across the floor. But the window was criss-crossed with iron bars,
+and it was evident that the safe, which was locked, contained at times
+considerable money, for the window could hardly have been forced save by
+a charge of nitro-glycerine or dynamite. However, it was against the
+door that Dodd placed the safe, and he stood back, panting.
+
+"Good," said Haidia. "That will hold them."
+
+The two men looked at her doubtfully. Did Haidia know what she was
+talking about?
+
+The sun had risen. A long shaft shot into the room. Outside the beetles
+were still buzzing as they turned over the vestiges of their prey. There
+were as yet no signs of attack. Suddenly Tommy grasped Dodd's arm.
+
+"Look!" he shouted, pointing to a corner which had been in gloom a
+moment before.
+
+There was a table there, and on it a telegraphic instrument. Telegraphy
+had been one of Tommy's hobbies in boyhood. In a moment he was busy at
+the table.
+
+Dot-dash-dot-dash! Then suddenly outside a furious hum, and the impact
+of beetle bodies against the front door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tommy got up, grinning. That was the first, interrupted message from
+Tommy that was received.
+
+Through the barred window the three could see the furious efforts of the
+beetles to force an entrance. But the very tensile strength of the
+beetle-shells, which rendered them impervious to bullets, required a
+laminate construction which rendered them powerless against brick or
+stone.
+
+Desperately the swarm dashed itself against the walls, until the ground
+outside was piled high with stunned beetles. Not the faintest impression
+was made on the defenses.
+
+"Watch them, Jim," said Tom. "I'll go see if the rear's secure."
+
+That thought of his seemed to have been anticipated by the beetles, for
+as Tommy reached the kitchen the swarm came dashing against door and
+window, always recoiling. Tommy came back, grinning all over his face.
+
+"You were right, Haidia," he said. "We've held them all right, and the
+tables are turned on Bram. Also I got a message through, I think," he
+added to Dodd.
+
+Dash--dot--dash--dot from the instrument. Tommy ran to the table again.
+Dash--dot went back. For five minutes Tommy labored, while the beetles
+hammered now on one door, now on another, now on the windows. Then Tommy
+got up.
+
+"It was some station down the line," he said. "I've told them, and
+they're sending a man up here to replace the telegraphist, also a couple
+of cops. They think I'm crazy. I told them again. That's the best I
+could do."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Dodd! Travers! For the last time--let's talk!"
+
+The cloud of beetles seemed to have thinned, for the sun was shining
+into the room. Bram's voice was perfectly audible, though he himself was
+invisible; probably he thought it likely that the defenders had obtained
+firearms.
+
+"Nothing to say to you, Bram," called Dodd. "We've finished our
+discussion on the monotremes."
+
+"I want you fellows to stand in with me," came Bram's plaintive tones.
+"It's so lonesome all by one's self, Dodd."
+
+"Ah, you're beginning to find that out, are you?" Dodd could not resist
+answering. "You'll be lonelier yet before you're through."
+
+"Dodd, I didn't bring that swarm up here. I swear it. I've been trying
+to control them from the beginning. I saw what was coming. I believe I
+can avert this horror, drive them into the sea or something like that.
+Don't make me desperate, Dodd.
+
+"And listen, old man. About those monotremes--sensible men don't quarrel
+over things like that. Why can't we agree to differ?"
+
+"Ah, now you're talking, Bram," Dodd answered. "Only you're too late.
+After what's happened here to-day, we'll have no truck with you. That's
+final."
+
+"Damn you," shrieked Bram. "I'll batter down this house. I'll--"
+
+"You'll do nothing, Bram, because you can't," Dodd answered. "Travers
+has wired full information about your devil-horde, and likewise about
+you, and all Australia will be prepared to give you a warm reception
+when you arrive."
+
+"I tell you I'm invincible," Bram screamed. "In three days Australia
+will be a ruin, a depopulated desert. In a week, all southern Asia, in
+three weeks Europe, in two months America."
+
+"You've been taking too many of those pellets, Bram," Dodd answered.
+"Stand back now! Stand back, wherever you are, or I'll open the door and
+throw the slops over you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bram's screech rose high above the droning of the wings. In another
+moment the interior of the room had grown as black as night. The rattle
+of the beetle shells against the four walls of the house was like the
+clattering of stage thunder.
+
+All through the darkness Dodd could hear the unhurried clicking of the
+key.
+
+At last the rattling ceased. The sun shone in again. The ground all
+around the house was packed with fallen beetles, six feet high, a
+writhing mass that creaked and clattered as it strove to disengage
+itself.
+
+Bram's voice once more: "I'm leaving a guard, Dodd. They'll get you if
+you try to leave. But they won't eat you. I'm going to have you three
+sliced into little pieces, the Thousand Deaths of the Chinese. The
+beetles will eat the parts that are sliced away--and you'll live to
+watch them. I'll be back with a stick or two of dynamite to-morrow."
+
+"Yeah, but listen, Bram," Dodd sang out. "Listen, you old marsupial
+tiger. When those pipe dreams clear away, I'm going to build a gallows
+of beetle-shells reaching to the moon, to hang you on!"
+
+Bram's screech of madness died away. The strident rasping of the
+beetles' legs began again. For hours the three heard it; it was not
+until nightfall that it died away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bram had made good his threat, for all around the house, extending as
+far as they could see, was the host of beetle-guards. To venture out,
+even with their shells about them, was clearly a hazardous undertaking.
+There was neither food nor water in the place.
+
+"We'll just have to hold out," said Dodd, breaking one of the long
+periods of silence.
+
+Tommy did not answer; he did not hear him, for he was busy at the key.
+Suddenly he leaped to his feet.
+
+"God, Jimmy," he cried, "that devil's making good his threat! The
+swarm's in South Australia, destroying every living thing, wiping out
+whole towns and villages! And they--they believe me now!"
+
+He sank into a chair. For the first time the strain of the awful past
+seemed to grip him. Haidia came to his side.
+
+"The beetles are finish," she said in her soft voice.
+
+"How d'you know, Haidia?" demanded Dodd.
+
+"The beetles are finish," Haidia repeated quietly, and that was all that
+Dodd could get out of her. But again the key began to click, and Tommy
+staggered to the table. Dot--dash--dash--dot. Presently he looked up
+once more.
+
+"The swarm's halfway to Adelaide," he said. "They want to know if I can
+help them. Help them!" He burst into hysterical laughter.
+
+Toward evening he came back after an hour at the key. "Line must be
+broken," he said. "I'm getting nothing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the moonlight they could see the huge compound eyes of the beetle
+guards glittering like enormous diamonds outside. They had not been
+conscious of thirst during the day, but now, with the coming of the cool
+night their desire for water became paramount.
+
+"Tommy, there must be water in the station," said Dodd. "I'm going to
+get a pitcher from the kitchen and risk it, Tommy. Take care of Haidia
+if--" he added.
+
+But Haidia laid her hand upon his arm. "Do not go, Jimmydodd," she said.
+"We can be thirsty to-night, and to-morrow the beetles will be finish."
+
+"How d'you know?" asked Dodd again. But now he realized that Haidia had
+never learned the significance of an interrogation. She only repeated
+her statement, and again the two men had to remain content.
+
+The long night passed. Outside the many facets of the beetle eyes.
+Inside the two men, desperate with anxiety, not for themselves, but for
+the fate of the world, snatching a few moments' sleep from time to time,
+then looking up to see those glaring eyes from the silent watchers.
+
+Then dawn came stealing over the desert, and the two shook themselves
+free from sleep. And now the eyes were gone.
+
+But there was immense activity among the beetles. They were scurrying to
+and fro, and, as they watched, Dodd and Tommy began to see some
+significance in their movements.
+
+"Why, they're digging trenches!" Tommy shouted. "That's horrible, Jimmy!
+Are they intending to conduct sapping operations against us like
+engineers, or what?"
+
+Dodd did not reply, and Tommy hardly expected any answer. As the two
+men, now joined by Haidia, watched, they saw that the beetles were
+actually digging themselves into the sand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within the space of an hour, by the time the first shafts of sunlight
+began to stream into the room, there was to be seen only the massive,
+rounded shells of the monsters as they squatted in the sand.
+
+"Now you may fetch water," said Haidia, smiling at her lover. "No, you
+do not need the shells," she added. "The beetles are finish. It is as
+the wise men of my people told me."
+
+Wondering, hesitating, Tommy and Dodd unlocked the front door. They
+stood upon the threshold ready to bolt back again. But there was no
+stirring among the beetle hosts.
+
+Growing bolder, they advanced a few steps; then, shamed by Haidia's
+courage, they followed her, still cautiously to the station.
+
+Dodd shouted as he saw a water-tank, and a receptacle above it with a
+water-cock. They let Haidia drink, then followed suit, and for a few
+moments, as they appeased their thirst, the beetles were forgotten.
+
+Then they turned back. There had been no movement in that line of shells
+that glinted in the morning sunlight.
+
+"Come, I shall show you," said Haidia confidently, advancing toward the
+trench.
+
+Dodd would have stopped her, but the girl moved forward quickly, eluded
+him with a graceful, mirthful gesture, and stooped down over the trench.
+
+She rose up, raising in her arms an empty beetle-shell!
+
+Dodd, who had reached the trench before Tommy, turned round and yelled
+to him excitedly. Tommy ran forward--and then he understood.
+
+The shells were empty. The swarm, whose life cycle Bram had admitted he
+did not understand, had just moulted!
+
+It had moulted because the bodies, gorged with food, had grown too large
+for the shells. In time, if left alone, the monsters would grow larger
+shells, become invincible again. But just now they were defenseless as
+new-born babes--and knew it.
+
+Deep underneath the empty shells they had burrowed into the ground.
+Everywhere at the bottom of the deep trenches were the naked, bestial
+creatures, waving helpless tentacles and squirming over one another as
+they strove to find shelter and security.
+
+A sudden madness came over Tommy and Dodd. "Dynamite--there must be
+dynamite!" Dodd shouted, as he ran back to the station.
+
+"Something better than dynamite," shouted Tommy, holding up one of a
+score of drums of petrol!
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_The World Set Free_
+
+They waited two days at Settler's Station. To push along the line into
+the desert would have been useless, and both men were convinced that an
+airplane would arrive for them. But it was not until the second
+afternoon that the aviator arrived, half-dead with thirst and fatigue,
+and almost incoherent.
+
+His was the last plane on the Australian continent. He brought the news
+of the destruction of Adelaide, and of the siege of Melbourne and
+Sydney, as he termed it. He told Dodd and Tommy that the two cities had
+been surrounded with trenches and barbed wire. Machine guns and
+artillery were bombarding the trenches in which the beetles had taken
+shelter.
+
+"Has any one been out on reconnaissance?" asked Tommy.
+
+Nobody had been permitted to pass through the barbed wire, though there
+had been volunteers. It meant certain death. But, unless the beetles
+were sapping deep in the ground, what their purpose was, nobody knew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tommy and Dodd led him to the piles of smoking, stinking debris and told
+him.
+
+That was where the aviator fainted from sheer relief.
+
+"The Commonwealth wants you to take supreme command against the
+beetles," he told Tommy, when he had recovered. "I'm to bring you back.
+Not that they expect me back. But--God, what a piece of news! Forgive my
+swearing--I used to be a parson. Still am, for the matter of that."
+
+"How are you going to bring us three back in your plane?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I shall stay here with Jimmydodd," said Haidia suavely. "There is not
+the least danger any more. You must destroy the beetles before their
+shells have grown again, that's all."
+
+"Used to be a parson, you say? Still are?" shouted Dodd excitedly.
+"Thank God! I mean, I'm glad to hear it. Come inside, and come quick. I
+want you too, Tommy!"
+
+Then Tommy understood. And it seemed as if Haidia understood, by some
+instinct that belongs exclusively to women, for her cheeks were flushed
+as she turned and smiled into Dodd's eyes.
+
+Ten minutes later Tommy hopped into the biplane, leaving the happy
+married couple at Settler's Station. His eyes grew misty as the plane
+took the air, and he saw them waving to him from the ground. Dodd and
+Haidia and he had been through so many adventures, and had reached
+safety. He must not fail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He did not fail. He found himself at Sydney in command of thirty
+thousand men, all enthusiastic for the fight for the human race,
+soldiers and volunteers ready to fight until they dropped. When the news
+of the situation was made public, an immense wave of hope ran through
+the world.
+
+National differences were forgotten, color and creed and race grew more
+tolerant of one another. A new day had dawned--the day of humanity's
+true liberation.
+
+Tommy's first act was to call out the fire companies and have the
+beetles' trenches saturated with petrol from the fire hoses. Then
+incendiary bullets, shot from guns from a safe distance, quickly
+converted them into blazing infernos.
+
+But even so only a tithe of the beetle army had been destroyed. Two
+hundred planes had already been rushed from New Zealand, and their
+aviators went up and scoured the country far and wide. Everywhere they
+found trenches, and, where the soil was stony, millions of the beetles
+clustered helplessly beneath great mounds of discarded shells.
+
+An army of black trackers had been brought in planes from all parts of
+the country, and they searched out the beetle masses everywhere along
+the course that the invaders had taken. Then incendiary bombs were
+dropped from above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Day after day the beetle massacre went on. By the end of a week the
+survivors of the invasion began to take heart again. It was certain that
+the greater portion of the horde had been destroyed.
+
+There was only one thing lacking. No trace of Bram had been seen since
+his appearance at the head of his beetle army in front of Broken Hill.
+And louder and more insistent grew the world clamor that he should be
+found, and put to death in some way more horrible than any yet devised.
+
+The ingenuity of a million minds worked upon this problem. Newspapers
+all over the world offered prizes for the most suitable form of death.
+Ingenious Oriental tortures were rediscovered.
+
+The only thing lacking was Bram.
+
+A spy craze ran through Australia. Five hundred Brams were found, and
+all of them were in imminent danger of death before they were able to
+prove an alias.
+
+And, oddly enough, it was Tommy and Dodd who found Bram. For Dodd had
+been brought back east, together with his bride, and given an important
+command in the Army of Extermination.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dodd had joined Tommy not far from Broken Hill, where a swarm of a
+hundred thousand beetles had been found in a little known valley. The
+monsters had begun to grow new shells, and the news had excited a fresh
+wave of apprehension. The airplanes had concentrated for an attack upon
+them, and Tommy and Dodd were riding together, Tommy at the controls,
+and Dodd observing.
+
+Dodd called through the tube to Tommy, and indicated a mass that was
+moving through the scrub--some fifty thousand beetles, executing short
+hops and evidently regaining some vitality. Tommy nodded.
+
+He signalled, and the fleet of planes circled around and began to drop
+their incendiary bombs. Within a few minutes the beetles were ringed
+with a wall of fire. Presently the whole terrain was a blazing furnace.
+
+Hours later, when the fires had died away, Tommy and Dodd went down to
+look at the destruction that had been wrought. The scene was horrible.
+Great masses of charred flesh and shell were piled up everywhere.
+
+"I guess that's been a pretty thorough job," said Tommy. "Let's get
+back, Jim."
+
+"What's that?" cried Dodd, pointing. Then, "My God, Tommy, it's one of
+our men!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a man, but it was not one of their men, that creeping, maimed,
+half-cinder and half-human thing that was trying to crawl into the
+hollow of a rock. It was Bram, and recognition was mutual.
+
+Bram dropping, moaning; he was only the shell of a man, and it was
+incredible how he had managed to survive that ordeal of fire. The
+remainder of his life, which only his indomitable will had held in that
+shattered body, was evidently a matter of minutes, but he looked up at
+Dodd and laughed.
+
+"So--you're--here, damn you!" he snarled. "And--you think--you've won.
+I've--another card--another invasion of the world--beside which this is
+child's play. It's an invasion--"
+
+Bram was going, but he pulled himself together with a supreme effort.
+
+"Invasion by--new species of--monotremes," he croaked. "Deep
+down in--earth. Was saving to--prove you the liar you are.
+Monotremes--egg-laying platypus big as an elephant--existent long
+before pleistocene epoch--make you recant, you lying fool!"
+
+Bram died, an outburst of bitter laughter on his lips. Dodd stood silent
+for a while; then reverently he removed his hat.
+
+"He was a madman and a devil, but he had the potentialities of a god,
+Tommy," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  SUCH WELL-KNOW WRITERS AS
+
+  Murray Leinster, Ray Cummings, Victor Rousseau, R. F. Starzl, A.
+  T. Locke, Capt. S. P. Meek and Arthur J. Burks
+
+  Write for
+
+  =ASTOUNDING STORIES=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Mad Music
+
+_By Anthony Pelcher_
+
+
+    The sixty stories of the perfectly constructed Colossus building
+    had mysteriously crashed! What was the connection between this
+    catastrophe and the weird strains of the Mad Musician's violin?
+
+[Illustration: _In an inner room they found a diabolical machine._]
+
+
+To the accompaniment of a crashing roar, not unlike rumbling thunder,
+the proud Colossus Building, which a few minutes before had reared its
+sixty stories of artistic architecture towards the blue dome of the sky,
+crashed in a rugged, dusty heap of stone, brick, cement and mortar. The
+steel framework, like the skeleton of some prehistoric monster, still
+reared to dizzy heights but in a bent and twisted shape of grotesque
+outline.
+
+No one knew how many lives were snuffed out in the avalanche.
+
+As the collapse occurred in the early dawn it was not believed the
+death list would be large. It was admitted, however, that autos, cabs
+and surface cars may have been caught under the falling rock. One train
+was known to have been wrecked in the subway due to a cave-in from the
+surface under the ragged mountain of debris.
+
+The litter fairly filled a part of Times Square, the most congested
+cross-roads on God's footstool. Straggling brick and rock had rolled
+across the street to the west and had crashed into windows and doors of
+innocent small tradesmen's shops.
+
+A few minutes after the crash a mad crowd of people had piled from
+subway exits as far away as Penn Station and Columbus Circle and from
+cross streets. These milled about, gesticulating and shouting
+hysterically. All neighboring police stations were hard put to handle
+the growing mob.
+
+Hundreds of dead and maimed were being carried to the surface from the
+wrecked train in the subway. Trucks and cabs joined the ambulance crews
+in the work of transporting these to morgues and hospitals. As the
+morning grew older and the news of the disaster spread, more milling
+thousands tried to crowd into the square. Many were craning necks
+hopelessly on the outskirts of the throng, blocks away, trying vainly to
+get a view of what lay beyond.
+
+The fire department and finally several companies of militia joined the
+police in handling the crowd. Newsies, never asleep, yowled their
+"Wuxtras" and made much small money.
+
+The newspapers devoted solid pages in attempting to describe what had
+happened. Nervously, efficient reporters had written and written, using
+all their best adjectives and inventing new ones in attempts to picture
+the crash and the hysterics which followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the excitement was at its height a middle-aged man, bleeding at the
+head, clothes torn and dusty, staggered into the West 47th street
+police station. He found a lone sergeant at the desk.
+
+The police sergeant jumped to his feet as the bedraggled man entered and
+stumbled to a bench.
+
+"I'm Pat Brennan, street floor watchman of the Colossus," he said. "I
+ran for it. I got caught in the edge of the wreck and a brick clipped
+me. I musta been out for some time. When I came around I looked back
+just once at the wreck and then I beat it over here. Phone my boss."
+
+"I'll let you phone your boss," said the sergeant, "but first tell me
+just what happened."
+
+"Earthquake, I guess. I saw the floor heaving in waves. Glass was
+crashing and falling into the street. All windows in the arcade buckled,
+either in or out. I ran into the street and looked up. God, what a
+sight! The building from sidewalk to towers was rocking and waving and
+twisting and buckling and I saw it was bound to crumple, so I lit out
+and ran. I heard a roar like all Hell broke loose and then something
+nicked me and my light went out."
+
+"How many got caught in the building?"
+
+"Nobody got out but me, I guess. There weren't many tenants. The
+building is all rented, but not everybody had moved in yet and those as
+had didn't spend their nights there. There was a watchman for every five
+stories. An engineer and his crew. Three elevator operators had come in.
+There was no names of tenants in or out on my book after 4 A.M. The
+crash musta come about 6. That's all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Throughout the country the news of the crash was received with great
+interest and wonderment, but in one small circle it caused absolute
+consternation. That was in the offices of the Muller Construction
+Company, the builders of the Colossus. Jason V. Linane, chief engineer
+of the company, was in conference with its president, James J. Muller.
+
+Muller sat with his head in his hands, and his face wore an expression
+of a man in absolute anguish. Linane was pacing the floor, a wild
+expression in his eyes, and at times he muttered and mumbled under his
+breath.
+
+In the other offices the entire force from manager to office boys was
+hushed and awed, for they had seen the expressions on the faces of the
+heads of the concern when they stalked into the inner office that
+morning.
+
+Muller finally looked up, rather hopelessly, at Linane.
+
+"Unless we can prove that the crash was due to some circumstance over
+which we had no control, we are ruined," he said, and there actually
+were tears in his eyes.
+
+"No doubt about that," agreed Linane, "but I can swear that the Colossus
+went up according to specifications and that every ounce and splinter of
+material was of the best. The workmanship was faultless. We have built
+scores of the biggest blocks in the world and of them all this Colossus
+was the most perfect. I had prided myself on it. Muller, it was
+perfection. I simply cannot account for it. I cannot. It should have
+stood up for thousands of years. The foundation was solid rock. It
+positively was not an earthquake. No other building in the section was
+even jarred. No other earthquake was ever localized to one half block of
+the earth's crust, and we can positively eliminate an earthquake or an
+explosion as the possible cause. I am sure we are not to blame, but we
+will have to find the exact cause."
+
+"If there was some flaw?" questioned Muller, although he knew the
+answer.
+
+"If there was some flaw, then we're sunk. The newspapers are already
+clamoring for probes, of us, of the building, of the owners and
+everybody and everything. We have got to have something damned plausible
+when we go to bat on this proposition or every dollar we have in the
+world will have to be paid out."
+
+"That is not all," said Muller: "not only will we be penniless, but we
+may have to go to jail and we will never be able to show our faces in
+reputable business circles again. Who was the last to go over that
+building?"
+
+"I sent Teddy Jenks. He is a cub and is swell headed and too big for his
+pants, but I would bank my life on his judgment. He has the judgment of
+a much older man and I would also bank my life and reputation on his
+engineering skill and knowledge. He pronounced the building positively
+O.K.--100 per cent."
+
+"Where is Jenks?"
+
+"He will be here as soon as his car can drive down from Tarrytown. He
+should be here now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As they talked Jenks, the youngest member of the engineering force,
+entered. He entered like a whirlwind. He threw his hat on the floor and
+drew out a drawer of a cabinet. He pulled out the plans for the
+Colossus, big blue prints, some of them yards in extent, and threw them
+on the floor. Then he dropped to his knees and began poring over them.
+
+"This is a hell of a time for you to begin getting around," exploded
+Muller. "What were you doing, cabareting all night?"
+
+"It sure is terrible--awful," said Jenks, half to himself.
+
+"Answer me," thundered Muller.
+
+"Oh yes," said Jenks, looking up. He saw the look of anguish on his
+boss's face and forgot his own excitement in sympathy. He jumped to his
+feet, placed his arm about the shoulders of the older man and led him to
+a chair. Linane only scowled at the young man.
+
+"I was delayed because I stopped by to see the wreck. My God, Mr.
+Muller, it is awful." Jenks drew his hand across his eye as if to erase
+the scene of the wrecked building. Then patting the older man
+affectionately on the back he said:
+
+"Buck up. I'm on the job, as usual. I'll find out about it. It could not
+have been our fault. Why man, that building was as strong as Gibraltar
+itself!"
+
+"You were the last to inspect it," accused Muller, with a break in his
+voice.
+
+"Nobody knows that better than I, and I can swear by all that's square
+and honest that it was no fault of the material or the construction. It
+must have been--"
+
+"Must have been what?"
+
+"I'll be damned if I know."
+
+"That's like him," said Linane, who, while really kindly intentioned,
+had always rather enjoyed prodding the young engineer.
+
+"Like me, like the devil," shouted Jenks, glaring at Linane. "I suppose
+you know all about it, you're so blamed wise."
+
+"No, I don't know," admitted Linane. "But I do know that you don't like
+me to tell you anything. Nevertheless, I am going to tell you that you
+had better get busy and find out what caused it, or--"
+
+"That's just what I'm doing," said Jenks, and he dived for his plans on
+the floor.
+
+Newspaper reporters, many of them, were fighting outside to get in.
+Muller looked at Linane when a stenographer had announced the reporters
+for the tenth time.
+
+"We had better let them in," he said, "it looks bad to crawl for cover."
+
+"What are you going to tell them?" asked Linane.
+
+"God only knows," said Muller.
+
+"Let me handle them," said Jenks, looking up confidently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The newspapermen had rushed the office. They came in like a wild wave.
+Questions flew like feathers at a cock-fight.
+
+Muller held up his hand and there was something in his grief-stricken
+eyes that held the gentlemen of the press in silence. They had time to
+look around. They saw the handsome, dark-haired, brown-eyed Jenks poring
+over the plans. Dust from the carpet smudged his knees, and he had
+rubbed some of it over a sweating forehead, but he still looked the
+picture of self-confident efficiency.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Muller slowly, "I can answer all your questions at
+once. Our firm is one of the oldest and staunchest in the trade. Our
+buildings stand as monuments to our integrity--"
+
+"All but one," said a young Irishman.
+
+"You are right. All but one," confessed Muller. "But that one, believe
+me, has been visited by an act of God. Some form of earthquake or some
+unlooked for, uncontrolled, almost unbelievable catastrophe has
+happened. The Muller company stands back of its work to its last dollar.
+Gentlemen, you know as much as we do. Mr. Jenks there, whose reputation
+as an engineer is quite sturdy, I assure you, was the last to inspect
+the building. He passed upon it when it was finished. He is at your
+service."
+
+Jenks arose, brushed some dust from his knees.
+
+"You look like you'd been praying," bandied the Irishman.
+
+"Maybe I have. Now let me talk. Don't broadside me with questions. I
+know what you want to know. Let me talk."
+
+The newspapermen were silent.
+
+"There has been talk of probing this disaster, naturally," began Jenks.
+"You all know, gentlemen, that we will aid any inquiry to our utmost.
+You want to know what we have to say about it--who is responsible. In a
+reasonable time I will have a statement to make that will be startling
+in the extreme. I am not sure of my ground now."
+
+"How about the ground under the Colossus?" said the Irishman.
+
+"Don't let's kid each other," pleaded Jenks. "Look at Mr. Muller: it is
+as if he had lost his whole family. We are good people. I am doing all I
+can. Mr. Linane, who had charge of the construction, is doing all he
+can. We believe we are blameless. If it is proven otherwise we will
+acknowledge our fault, assume financial responsibility, and take our
+medicine. Believe me, that building was perfection plus, like all our
+buildings. That covers the entire situation."
+
+Hundreds of questions were parried and answered by the three engineers,
+and the reporters left convinced that if the Muller Construction Company
+was responsible, it was not through any fault of its own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fact that Jenks and Linane were not strong for each other, except to
+recognize each other's ability as engineers, was due to an incident of
+the past. This incident had caused a ripple of mirth in engineering
+circles when it happened, and the laugh was on the older man, Linane.
+
+It was when radio was new. Linane, a structural engineer, had paid
+little attention to radio. Jenks was the kind of an engineer who dabbled
+in all sciences. He knew his radio.
+
+When Jenks first came to work with a technical sheepskin and a few tons
+of brass, Linane accorded him only passing notice. Jenks craved the
+plaudits of the older man and his palship. Linane treated him as a son,
+but did not warm to his social advances.
+
+"I'm as good an engineer as he is," mused Jenks, "and if he is going to
+high-hat me, I'll just put a swift one over on him and compel his
+notice."
+
+The next day Jenks approached Linane in conference and said:
+
+"I've got a curious bet on, Mr. Linane. I am betting sound can travel a
+mile quicker than it travels a quarter of a mile."
+
+"What?" said Linane.
+
+"I'm betting fifty that sound can travel a mile quicker than it can
+travel a quarter of a mile."
+
+"Oh no--it can't," insisted Linane.
+
+"Oh yes--it can!" decided Jenks.
+
+"I'll take some of that fool money myself," said Linane.
+
+"How much?" asked Jenks.
+
+"As much as you want."
+
+"All right--five hundred dollars."
+
+"How you going to prove your contention?"
+
+"By stop watches, and your men can hold the watches. We'll bet that a
+pistol shot can be heard two miles away quicker than it can be heard a
+quarter of a mile away."
+
+"Sound travels about a fifth of a mile a second. The rate varies
+slightly according to temperature," explained Linane. "At the freezing
+point the rate is 1,090 feet per second and increases a little over one
+foot for every degree Fahrenheit."
+
+"Hot or cold," breezed Jenks, "I am betting you five hundred dollars
+that sound can travel two miles quicker than a quarter-mile."
+
+"You're on, you damned idiot!" shouted the completely exasperated
+Linane.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks let Linane's friends hold the watches and his friend held the
+money. Jenks was to fire the shot.
+
+Jenks fired the shot in front of a microphone on a football field. One
+of Linane's friends picked the sound up instantaneously on a three-tube
+radio set two miles away. The other watch holder was standing in the
+open a quarter of a mile away and his watch showed a second and a
+fraction.
+
+All hands agreed that Jenks had won the bet fairly. Linane never exactly
+liked Jenks after that.
+
+Then Jenks rather aggravated matters by a habit. Whenever Linane would
+make a very positive statement Jenks would look owl-eyed and say: "Mr.
+Linane, I'll have to sound you out about that." The heavy accent on the
+word "sound" nettled Linane somewhat.
+
+Linane never completely forgave Jenks for putting over this "fast one."
+Socially they were always more or less at loggerheads, but neither let
+this feeling interfere with their work. They worked together faithfully
+enough and each recognized the ability of the other.
+
+And so it was that Linane and Jenks, their heads together, worked all
+night in an attempt to find some cause that would tie responsibility
+for the disaster on mother nature.
+
+They failed to find it and, sleepy-eyed, they were forced to admit
+failure, so far.
+
+The newspapers, to whom Muller had said that he would not shirk any
+responsibility, began a hue and cry for the arrest of all parties in any
+way concerned with the direction of the building of the Colossus.
+
+When the death list from the crash and subway wreck reached 97, the
+press waxed nasty and demanded the arrest of Muller, Linane and Jenks in
+no uncertain tones.
+
+Half dead from lack of sleep, the three men were taken by the police to
+the district attorney's offices and, after a strenuous grilling, were
+formally placed under arrest on charges of criminal negligence. They put
+up a $50,000 bond in each case and were permitted to go and seek further
+to find the cause of what the newspapers now began calling the "Colossal
+Failure."
+
+Several days were spent by Linane and Jenks in examining the wreckage
+which was being removed from Times Square, truckload after truckload, to
+a point outside the city. Here it was again sorted and examined and
+piled for future disposal.
+
+So far as could be found every brick, stone and ounce of material used
+in the building was perfect. Attorneys, however, assured Linane, Jenks
+and Muller that they would have to find the real cause of the disaster
+if they were to escape possible long prison sentences.
+
+Night after night Jenks courted sleep, but it would not come. He began
+to grow wan and haggard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks took to walking the streets at night, mile after mile, thinking,
+always thinking, and searching his mind for a solution of the mystery.
+
+It was evening. He had walked past the scene of the Colossus crash
+several times. He found himself on a side street. He looked up and saw
+in electric lights:
+
+  TOWN HALL
+
+  _Munsterbergen, the Mad Musician_
+  Concert Here To-night.
+
+He took five dollars from his pocket and bought a ticket. He entered
+with the crowd and was ushered to a seat. He looked neither to the right
+or left. His eyes were sunken, his face lined with worry.
+
+Something within Jenks caused him to turn slightly. He was curiously
+aware of a beautiful girl who sat beside him. She had a mass of golden
+hair which seemed to defy control. It was wild, positively tempestuous.
+Her eyes were deep blue and her skin as white as fleecy clouds in
+spring. He was dimly conscious that those glorious eyes were troubled.
+
+She glanced at him. She was aware that he was suffering. A great surge
+of sympathy welled in her heart. She could not explain the feeling.
+
+A great red plush curtain parted in the center and drew in graceful
+folds to the edges of the proscenium. A small stage was revealed.
+
+A tousle-headed man with glaring, beady black eyes, dressed in black
+evening clothes stepped forward and bowed. Under his arm was a violin.
+He brought the violin forward. His nose, like the beak of some great
+bird, bobbed up and down in acknowledgment of the plaudits which greeted
+him. His long nervous fingers began to caress the instrument and his
+lips began to move.
+
+Jenks was aware that he was saying something, but was not at all
+interested. What he said was this:
+
+"Maybe, yes, I couldn't talk so good English, but you could understood
+it, yes? Und now I tell you dot I never play the compositions of any
+man. I axtemporize exgloosively. I chust blay und blay, und maybe you
+should listen, yes? If I bleeze you I am chust happy."
+
+Jenks' attention was drawn to him. He noted his wild appearance.
+
+"He sure looks mad enough," mused Jenks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The violinist flipped the fiddle up under his chin. He drew the bow over
+the strings and began a gentle melody that reminded one of rain drops
+falling on calm waters.
+
+Jenks forgot his troubles. He forgot everything. He slumped in his seat
+and his eyes closed. The rain continued falling from the strings of the
+violin.
+
+Suddenly the melody changed to a glad little lilting measure, as sweet
+as love itself. The sun was coming out again and the birds began to
+sing. There was the trill of a canary with the sun on its cage. There
+was the song of the thrush, the mocking-bird and the meadow lark. These
+blended finally into a melodious burst of chirping melody which seemed a
+chorus of the wild birds of the forest and glen. Then the lilting love
+measure again. It tore at the heart strings, and brought tears to one's
+eyes.
+
+Unconsciously the girl next to Jenks leaned towards him. Involuntarily
+he leaned to meet her. Their shoulders touched. The cloud of her golden
+hair came to rest against his dark locks. Their hands found each other
+with gentle pressure. Both were lost to the world.
+
+Abruptly the music changed. There was a succession of broken treble
+notes that sounded like the crackling of flames. Moans deep and
+melancholy followed. These grew more strident and prolonged, giving
+place to abject howls, suggesting the lamentations of the damned.
+
+The hands of the boy and girl gripped tensely. They could not help
+shuddering.
+
+The violin began to produce notes of a leering, jeering character,
+growing more horrible with each measure until they burst in a loud
+guffaw of maniacal laughter.
+
+The whole performance was as if someone had taken a heaven and plunged
+it into a hell.
+
+The musician bowed jerkily, and was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no applause, only wild exclamations. Half the house was on its
+feet. The other half sat as if glued to chairs.
+
+The boy and the girl were standing, their hands still gripping tensely.
+
+"Come, let's get out of here," said Jenks. The girl took her wrap and
+Jenks helped her into it. Hand in hand they fled the place.
+
+In the lobby their eyes met, and for the first time they realized they
+were strangers. Yet deep in their hearts was a feeling that their fates
+had been sealed.
+
+"My goodness!" burst from the girl.
+
+"It can't be helped now," said Jenks decisively.
+
+"What can't be helped?" asked the girl, although she knew in her heart.
+
+"Nothing can be helped," said Jenks. Then he added: "We should know each
+other by this time. We have been holding hands for an hour."
+
+The girl's eyes flared. "You have no right to presume on that
+situation," she said.
+
+Jenks could have kicked himself. "Forgive me," he said. "It was only
+that I just wanted so to know you. Won't you let me see you home?"
+
+"You may," said the girl simply, and she led the way to her own car.
+
+They drove north.
+
+Their bodies seemed like magnets. They were again shoulder to shoulder,
+holding hands.
+
+"Will you tell me your name?" pleaded Jenks.
+
+"Surely," replied the girl. "I am Elaine Linane."
+
+"What?" exploded Jenks. "Why, I work with a Linane, an engineer with the
+Muller Construction Company."
+
+"He is my father," she said.
+
+"Why, we are great friends," said the boy. "I am Jenks, his
+assistant--at least we work together."
+
+"Yes, I have heard of you," said the girl. "It is strange, the way we
+met. My father admires your work, but I am afraid you are not great
+friends." The girl had forgotten her troubles. She chuckled. She had
+heard the way Jenks had "sounded" her father out.
+
+Jenks was speechless. The girl continued:
+
+"I don't know whether to like you or to hate you. My father is an old
+dear. You were cruel to him."
+
+Jenks was abject. "I did not mean to be," he said. "He rather belittled
+me without realizing it. I had to make my stand. The difference in our
+years made him take me rather too lightly. I had to compel his notice,
+if I was to advance."
+
+"Oh!" said the girl.
+
+"I am sorry--so sorry."
+
+"You might not have been altogether at fault," said the girl. "Father
+forgets at times that I have grown up. I resent being treated like a
+child, but he is the soul of goodness and fatherly care."
+
+"I know that," said Jenks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Every engineer knows his mathematics. It was this fact, coupled with
+what the world calls a "lucky break," that solved the Colossus mystery.
+Nobody can get around the fact that two and two make four.
+
+Jenks had happened on accomplishment to advance in the engineering
+profession, and it was well for him that he had reached a crisis. He had
+never believed in luck or in hunches, so it was good for him to be
+brought face to face with the fact that sometimes the footsteps of man
+are guided. It made him begin to look into the engineering of the
+universe, to think more deeply, and to acknowledge a Higher Power.
+
+With Linane he had butted into a stone wall. They were coming to know
+what real trouble meant. The fact that they were innocent did not make
+the steel bars of a cage any more attractive. Their troubles began to
+wrap about them with the clammy intimacy of a shroud. Then came the
+lucky break.
+
+Next to his troubles, Jenks' favorite topic was the Mad Musician. He
+tried to learn all he could about this uncanny character at whose
+concert he had met the girl of his life. He learned two facts that made
+him perk up and think.
+
+One was that the Mad Musician had had offices and a studio in the
+Colossus and was one of the first to move in. The other was that the Mad
+Musician took great delight in shattering glassware with notes of or
+vibrations from a violin. Nearly everyone knows that a glass tumbler can
+be shattered by the proper note sounded on a violin. The Mad Musician
+took delight in this trick. Jenks courted his acquaintance, and saw him
+shatter a row of glasses of different sizes by sounding different notes
+on his fiddle. The glasses crashed one after another like gelatine balls
+hit by the bullets of an expert rifleman.
+
+Then Jenks, the engineer who knew his mathematics, put two and two
+together. It made four, of course.
+
+"Listen, Linane," he said to his co-worker: "this fiddler is crazier
+than a flock of cuckoos. If he can crack crockery with violin sound
+vibrations, is it not possible, by carrying the vibrations to a much
+higher power, that he could crack a pile of stone, steel, brick and
+cement, like the Colossus?"
+
+"Possible, but hardly probable. Still," Linane mused, "when you think
+about it, and put two and two together.... Let's go after him and see
+what he is doing now."
+
+Both jumped for their coats and hats. As they fared forth, Jenks cinched
+his argument:
+
+"If a madman takes delight in breaking glassware with a vibratory wave
+or vibration, how much more of a thrill would he get by crashing a
+mountain?"
+
+"Wild, but unanswerable," said Linane.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks had been calling on the Mad Musician at his country place. "He had
+a studio in the Colossus," he reminded Linane. "He must have re-opened
+somewhere else in town. I wonder where."
+
+"Musicians are great union men," said Linane. "Phone the union."
+
+Teddy Jenks did, but the union gave the last known town address as the
+Colossus.
+
+"He would remain in the same district around Times Square," reasoned
+Jenks. "Let's page out the big buildings and see if he is not preparing
+to crash another one."
+
+"Fair enough," said Linane, who was too busy with the problem at hand to
+choose his words.
+
+Together the engineers started a canvass of the big buildings in the
+theatrical district. After four or five had been searched without result
+they entered the 30-story Acme Theater building.
+
+Here they learned that the Mad Musician had leased a four-room suite
+just a few days before. This suite was on the fifteenth floor, just half
+way up in the big structure.
+
+They went to the manager of the building and frankly stated their
+suspicions. "We want to enter that suite when the tenant is not there,"
+they explained, "and we want him forestalled from entering while we are
+examining the premises."
+
+"Hadn't we better notify the police?" asked the building manager, who
+had broken out in a sweat when he heard the dire disaster which might be
+in store for the stately Acme building.
+
+"Not yet," said Linane. "You see, we are not sure: we have just been
+putting two and two together."
+
+"We'll get the building detective, anyway," insisted the manager.
+
+"Let him come along, but do not let him know until we are sure. If we
+are right we will find a most unusual infernal machine," said Linane.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The three men entered the suite with a pass-key. The detective was left
+outside in the hall to halt anyone who might disturb the searchers. It
+was as Jenks had thought. In an inner room they found a diabolical
+machine--a single string stretched across two bridges, one of brass and
+one of wood. A big horsehair bow attached to a shaft operated by a motor
+was automatically sawing across the string. The note resulting was
+evidently higher than the range of the human ear, because no audible
+sound resulted. It was later estimated that the destructive note was
+several octaves higher than the highest note on a piano.
+
+The entire machine was enclosed in a heavy wire-net cage, securely
+bolted to the floor. Neither the string or bow could be reached. It was
+evidently the Mad Musician's idea that the devilish contrivance should
+not be reached by hands other than his own.
+
+How long the infernal machine had been operating no one knew, but the
+visitors were startled when the building suddenly began to sway
+perceptibly. Jenks jumped forward to stop the machine but could not find
+a switch.
+
+"See if the machine plugs in anywhere in a wall socket!" he shouted to
+Linane, who promptly began examining the walls. Jenks shouted to the
+building manager to phone the police to clear the streets around the big
+building.
+
+"Tell the police that the Acme Theater building may crash at any
+moment," he instructed.
+
+The engineers were perfectly cool in face of the great peril, but the
+building manager lost his head completely and began to run around in
+circles muttering: "Oh, my God, save me!" and other words of
+supplication that blended into an incoherent babel.
+
+Jenks rushed to the man, trying to still his wild hysteria.
+
+The building continued to sway dangerously.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks looked from a window. An enormous crowd was collecting, watching
+the big building swinging a foot out of plumb like a giant pendulum. The
+crowd was growing. Should the building fall the loss of life would be
+appalling. It was mid-morning. The interior of the building teemed with
+thousands of workers, for all floors above the third were offices.
+
+Teddy Jenks turned suddenly. He heard the watchman in the hall scream in
+terror. Then he heard a body fall. He rushed to the door to see the Mad
+Musician standing over the prostrate form of the detective, a devilish
+grin on his distorted countenance.
+
+The madman turned, saw Jenks, and started to run. Jenks took after him.
+Up the staircase the madman rushed toward the roof. Teddy followed him
+two floors and then rushed out to take the elevators. The building in
+its mad swaying had made it impossible for the lifts to be operated.
+Teddy realized this with a distraught gulp in his throat. He returned to
+the stairway and took up the pursuit of the madman.
+
+The corridors were beginning to fill with screaming men and wailing
+girls. It was a sight never to be forgotten.
+
+Laboriously Jenks climbed story after story without getting sight of the
+madman. Finally he reached the roof. It was waving like swells on a lake
+before a breeze. He caught sight of the Mad Musician standing on the
+street wall, thirty stories from the street, a leer on his devilish
+visage. He jumped for him.
+
+The madman grasped him and lifted him up to the top of the wall as a cat
+might have lifted a mouse. Both men were breathing heavily as a result
+of their 15-story climb.
+
+The madman tried to throw Teddy Jenks to the street below. Teddy clung
+to him. The two battled desperately as the building swayed.
+
+The dense crowd in the street had caught sight of the two men fighting
+on the narrow coping, and the shout which rent the air reached the ears
+of Jenks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mind of the engineer was still working clearly, but a wild fear
+gripped his heart. His strength seemed to be leaving him. The madman
+pushed him back, bending his spine with brute strength. Teddy was forced
+to the narrow ledge that had given the two men footing. The fingers of
+the madman gripped his throat.
+
+He was dimly conscious that the swaying of the building was slowing
+down. His reason told him that Linane had found the wall socket and had
+stopped the sawing of the devil's bow on the engine of hell.
+
+He saw the madman draw a big knife. With his last remaining strength he
+reached out and grasped the wrist above the hand which held the weapon.
+In spite of all he could do he saw the madman inching the knife nearer
+and nearer his throat.
+
+Grim death was peering into the bulging eyes of Teddy Jenks, when his
+engineering knowledge came to his rescue. He remembered the top stories
+of the Acme building were constructed with a step of ten feet in from
+the street line, for every story of construction above the 24th floor.
+
+"If we fall," he reasoned, "we can only fall one story." Then he
+deliberately rolled his own body and the weight of the madman, who held
+him, over the edge of the coping. At the same time he twisted the
+madman's wrist so the point of the knife pointed to the madman's body.
+
+There was a dim consciousness of a painful impact. Teddy had fallen
+underneath, but the force of the two bodies coming together had thrust
+the knife deep into the entrails of the Mad Musician.
+
+Clouds which had been collecting in the sky began a splattering
+downpour. The storm grew in fury and lightning tore the heavens, while
+thunder boomed and crackled. The rain began falling in sheets.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This served to revive the unconscious Teddy. He painfully withdrew his
+body from under that of the madman. The falling rain, stained with the
+blood of the Mad Musician, trickled over the edge of the building.
+
+Teddy dragged himself through a window and passed his hand over his
+forehead, which was aching miserably. He tried to get to his feet and
+fell back, only to try again. Several times he tried and then, his
+strength returning, he was able to walk.
+
+He made his way to the studio where he had left Linane and found him
+there surrounded by police, reporters and others. The infernal machine
+had been rendered harmless, but was kept intact as evidence.
+
+Catching sight of Teddy, Linane shouted with joy. "I stopped the damned
+thing," he chuckled, like a pleased schoolboy. Then, observing Teddy's
+exhausted condition he added:
+
+"Why, you look like you have been to a funeral!"
+
+"I have," said Teddy. "You'll find that crazy fiddler dead on the
+twenty-ninth story. Look out the window of the thirtieth story," he
+instructed the police, who had started to recover the body. "He stabbed
+himself. He is either dead or dying."
+
+It proved that he was dead.
+
+No engineering firm is responsible for the actions of a madman. So the
+Muller Construction Company was given a clean bill of health.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jenks and Elaine Linane were with the girl's father in his study. They
+were asking for the paternal blessing.
+
+Linane was pretending to be hard to convince.
+
+"Now, my daughter," he said, "this young man takes $500 of my good money
+by sounding me out, as he calls it. Then he comes along and tries to
+take my daughter away from me. It is positively high-handed. It dates
+back to the football game--"
+
+"Daddy, dear, don't be like that!" said Elaine, who was on the arm of
+his chair with her own arms around him.
+
+"I tell you, Elaine, this dates back to the fall of 1927."
+
+"It dates back to the fall of Eve," said Elaine. "When a girl finds her
+man, no power can keep him from her. If you won't give me to Teddy
+Jenks, I'll elope with him."
+
+"Well, all right then. Kiss me," said Linane as he turned towards his
+radio set.
+
+"One and one makes one," said Teddy Jenks.
+
+Every engineer knows his mathematics.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Have you written in to_
+
+  ASTOUNDING STORIES
+
+  _Yet, to Tell the Editors Just What Kind of Stories You Would
+  Like Them to Secure for You?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+The Thief of Time
+
+_By Captain S. P. Meek_
+
+
+    The teller turned to the stacked pile of bills. They were gone!
+    And no one had been near!
+
+[Illustration: "_That man never entered and stole that money as the
+picture shows, unless he managed to make himself invisible._"]
+
+
+Harvey Winston, paying teller of the First National Bank of Chicago,
+stripped the band from a bundle of twenty dollar bills, counted out
+seventeen of them and added them to the pile on the counter before him.
+
+"Twelve hundred and thirty-one tens," he read from the payroll change
+slip before him. The paymaster of the Cramer Packing Company nodded an
+assent and Winston turned to the stacked bills in his rear currency
+rack. He picked up a handful of bundles and turned back to the grill.
+His gaze swept the counter where, a moment before, he had stacked the
+twenties, and his jaw dropped.
+
+"You got those twenties, Mr. Trier?" he asked.
+
+"Got them? Of course not, how could I?" replied the paymaster. "There
+they are...."
+
+His voice trailed off into nothingness as he looked at the empty
+counter.
+
+"I must have dropped them," said Winston as he turned. He glanced back
+at the rear rack where his main stock of currency was piled. He stood
+paralyzed for a moment and then reached under the counter and pushed a
+button.
+
+The bank resounded instantly to the clangor of gongs and huge steel
+grills shot into place with a clang, sealing all doors and preventing
+anyone from entering or leaving the bank. The guards sprang to their
+stations with drawn weapons and from the inner offices the bank
+officials came swarming out. The cashier, followed by two men, hurried
+to the paying teller's cage.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Winston?" he cried.
+
+"I've been robbed!" gasped the teller.
+
+"Who by? How?" demanded the cashier.
+
+"I--I don't know, sir," stammered the teller. "I was counting out Mr.
+Trier's payroll, and after I had stacked the twenties I turned to get
+the tens. When I turned back the twenties were gone."
+
+"Where had they gone?" asked the cashier.
+
+"I don't know, sir. Mr. Trier was as surprised as I was, and then I
+turned back, thinking that I had knocked them off the counter, and I saw
+at a glance that there was a big hole in my back racks. You can see
+yourself, sir."
+
+The cashier turned to the paymaster.
+
+"Is this a practical joke, Mr. Trier?" he demanded sharply.
+
+"Of course not," replied the paymaster. "Winston's grill was closed. It
+still is. Granted that I might have reached the twenties he had piled
+up, how could I have gone through a grill and taken the rest of the
+missing money without his seeing me? The money disappeared almost
+instantly. It was there a moment before, for I noticed when Winston
+took the twenties from his rack that it was full."
+
+"But someone must have taken it," said the bewildered cashier. "Money
+doesn't walk off of its own accord or vanish into thin air--"
+
+A bell interrupted his speech.
+
+"There are the police," he said with an air of relief. "I'll let them
+in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The smaller of the two men who had followed the cashier from his office
+when the alarm had sounded stepped forward and spoke quietly. His
+voice was low and well pitched yet it carried a note of authority and
+power that held his auditors' attention while he spoke. The voice
+harmonized with the man. The most noticeable point about him was the
+inconspicuousness of his voice and manner, yet there was a glint of
+steel in his gray eyes that told of enormous force in him.
+
+"I don't believe that I would let them in for a few moments, Mr.
+Rogers," he said. "I think that we are up against something a little
+different from the usual bank robbery."
+
+"But, Mr. Carnes," protested the cashier, "we must call in the police in
+a case like this, and the sooner they take charge the better chance
+there will be of apprehending the thief."
+
+"Suit yourself," replied the little man with a shrug of his shoulders.
+"I merely offered my advice."
+
+"Will you take charge, Mr. Carnes?" asked the cashier.
+
+"I can't supersede the local authorities in a case like this," replied
+Carnes. "The secret service is primarily interested in the suppression
+of counterfeiting and the enforcement of certain federal statutes, but I
+will be glad to assist the local authorities to the best of my ability,
+provided they desire my help. My advice to you would be to keep out the
+patrolmen who are demanding admittance and get in touch with the chief
+of police. I would ask that his best detective together with an expert
+finger-print photographer be sent here before anyone else is admitted.
+If the patrolmen are allowed to wipe their hands over Mr. Winston's
+counter they may destroy valuable evidence."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Carnes," exclaimed the cashier. "Mr. Jervis, will
+you tell the police that there is no violence threatening and ask them
+to wait for a few minutes? I'll telephone the chief of police at once."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the cashier hurried away to his telephone Carnes turned to his
+companion who had stood an interested, although silent spectator of the
+scene. His companion was a marked contrast to the secret service
+operator. He stood well over six feet in height, and his protruding jaw
+and shock of unruly black hair combined with his massive shoulders and
+chest to give him the appearance of a man who labored with his
+hands--until one looked at them. His hands were in strange contrast to
+the rest of him. Long, slim, mobile hands they were, with tapering
+nervous fingers--the hands of a thinker or of a musician. Telltale
+splotches of acid told of hours spent in a laboratory, a tale that was
+confirmed by the almost imperceptible stoop of his shoulders.
+
+"Do you agree with my advice, Dr. Bird?" asked Carnes deferentially.
+
+The noted scientist, who from his laboratory in the Bureau of Standards
+had sent forth many new things in the realms of chemistry and physics,
+and who, incidentally, had been instrumental in solving some of the most
+baffling mysteries which the secret service had been called upon to
+face, grunted.
+
+"It didn't do any harm," he said, "but it is rather a waste of time. The
+thief wore gloves."
+
+"How in thunder do you know that?" demanded Carnes.
+
+"It's merely common sense. A man who can do what he did had at least
+some rudiments of intelligence, and even the feeblest-minded crooks know
+enough to wear gloves nowadays."
+
+Carnes stepped a little closer to the doctor.
+
+"Another reason why I didn't want patrolmen tramping around," he said in
+an undertone, "is this. If Winston gave the alarm quickly enough, the
+thief is probably still in the building."
+
+"He's a good many miles away by now," replied Dr. Bird with a shrug of
+his shoulders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carnes' eyes opened widely. "Why?--how?--who?" he stammered. "Have you
+any idea of who did it, or how it was done?"
+
+"Possibly I have an idea," replied Dr. Bird with a cryptic smile. "My
+advice to you, Carnes, is to keep away from the local authorities as
+much as possible. I want to be present when Winston and Trier are
+questioned and I may possibly wish to ask a few questions myself. Use
+your authority that far, but no farther. Don't volunteer any information
+and especially don't let my name get out. We'll drop the counterfeiting
+case we were summoned here on for the present and look into this a
+little on our own hook. I will want your aid, so don't get tied up with
+the police."
+
+"At that, we don't want the police crossing our trail at every turn,"
+protested Carnes.
+
+"They won't," promised the doctor. "They will never get any evidence on
+this case, if I am right, and neither will we--for the present. Our
+stunt is to lie low and wait for the next attempt of this nature and
+thus accumulate some evidence and some idea of where to look."
+
+"Will there be another attempt?" asked Carnes.
+
+"Surely. You don't expect a man who got away with a crime like this to
+quit operations just because a few flatfeet run around and make a
+hullabaloo about it, do you? I may be wrong in my assumption, but if I
+am right, the most important thing is to keep all reference to my name
+or position out of the press reports."
+
+The cashier hastened up to them.
+
+"Detective-Captain Sturtevant will be here in a few minutes with a
+photographer and some other men," he said. "Is there anything that we
+can do in the meantime, Mr. Carnes?"
+
+"I would suggest that Mr. Trier and his guard and Mr. Winston go into
+your office," replied Carnes. "My assistant and I would like to be
+present during the questioning, if there are no objections."
+
+"I didn't know that you had an assistant with you," answered the
+cashier.
+
+Carnes indicated Dr. Bird.
+
+"This gentleman is Mr. Berger, my assistant," he said. "Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Certainly. I am sure there will be no objection to your presence, Mr.
+Carnes," replied the cashier as he led the way to his office.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes later Detective-Captain Sturtevant of the Chicago police
+was announced. He acknowledged the introductions gruffly and got down to
+business at once.
+
+"What were the circumstances of the robbery?" he asked.
+
+Winston told his story, Trier and the guard confirming it.
+
+"Pretty thin!" snorted the detective when they had finished. He whirled
+suddenly on Winston.
+
+"Where did you hide the loot?" he thundered.
+
+"Why--uh--er--what do you mean?" gulped the teller.
+
+"Just what I said," replied the detective. "Where did you hide the
+loot?"
+
+"I didn't hide it anywhere," said the teller. "It was stolen."
+
+"You had better think up a better one," sneered Sturtevant. "If you
+think that you can make me believe that that money was stolen from you
+in broad daylight with two men in plain sight of you who didn't see it,
+you might just as well get over it. I know that you have some hiding
+place where you have slipped the stuff and the quicker you come clean
+and spill it, the better it will be for you. Where did you hide it?"
+
+"I didn't hide it!" cried the teller, his voice trembling. "Mr. Trier
+can tell you that I didn't touch it from the time I laid it down until I
+turned back."
+
+"That's right," replied the paymaster. "He turned his back on me for a
+moment, and when he turned back, it was gone."
+
+"So you're in on it too, are you?" said Sturtevant.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded the paymaster hotly.
+
+"Oh nothing, nothing at all," replied the detective. "Of course Winston
+didn't touch it and it disappeared and you never saw it go, although you
+were within three feet of it all the time. Did _you_ see anything?" he
+demanded of the guard.
+
+"Nothing that I am sure of," answered the guard. "I thought that a
+shadow passed in front of me for an instant, but when I looked again, it
+was gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Bird sat forward suddenly. "What did this shadow look like?" he
+asked.
+
+"It wasn't exactly a shadow," said the guard. "It was as if a person had
+passed suddenly before me so quickly that I couldn't see him. I seemed
+to feel that there was someone there, but I didn't rightly _see_
+anything."
+
+"Did you notice anything of the sort?" demanded the doctor of Trier.
+
+"I don't know," replied Trier thoughtfully. "Now that Williams has
+mentioned it, I did seem to feel a breath of air or a motion as though
+something had passed in front of me. I didn't think of it at the time."
+
+"Was this shadow opaque enough to even momentarily obscure your vision?"
+went on the doctor.
+
+"Not that I am conscious of. It was just a breath of air such as a
+person might cause by passing very rapidly."
+
+"What made you ask Trier if he had the money when you turned around?"
+asked the doctor of Winston.
+
+"Say-y-y," broke in the detective. "Who the devil are you, and what do
+you mean by breaking into my examination and stopping it?"
+
+Carnes tossed a leather wallet on the table.
+
+"There are my credentials," he said in his quiet voice. "I am chief of
+one section of the United States Secret Service as you will see, and
+this is Mr. Berger, my assistant. We were in the bank, engaged on a
+counterfeiting case, when the robbery took place. We have had a good
+deal of experience along these lines and we are merely anxious to aid
+you."
+
+Sturtevant examined Carnes' credentials carefully and returned them.
+
+"This is a Chicago robbery," he said, "and we have had a little
+experience in robberies and in apprehending robbers ourselves. I think
+that we can get along without your help."
+
+"You have had more experience with robberies than with apprehending
+robbers if the papers tell the truth," said Dr. Bird with a chuckle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The detective's face flushed.
+
+"That will be enough from you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he said. "If you
+open your mouth again, I'll arrest you as a material witness and as a
+possible accomplice."
+
+"That sounds like Chicago methods," said Carnes quietly. "Now listen to
+me, Captain. My assistant and I are merely trying to assist you in this
+case. If you don't desire our assistance we'll proceed along our own
+lines without interfering, but in the meantime remember that this is a
+National Bank, and that our questions will be answered. The United
+States is higher than even the Chicago police force, and I am here under
+orders to investigate a counterfeiting case. If I desire, I can seal the
+doors of this bank and allow no one in or out until I have the evidence
+I desire. Do you understand?"
+
+Sturtevant sprang to his feet with an oath, but the sight of the gold
+badge which Carnes displayed stopped him.
+
+"Oh well," he said ungraciously. "I suppose that no harm will come of
+letting Winston answer your fool questions, but I'll warn you that I'll
+report to Washington that you are interfering with the course of justice
+and using your authority to aid the getaway of a criminal."
+
+"That is your privilege," replied Carnes quietly. "Mr. Winston, will you
+answer Mr. Berger's question?"
+
+"Why, I asked him because he was right close to the money and I thought
+that he might have reached through the wicket and picked it up. Then,
+too--"
+
+He hesitated for a moment and Dr. Bird smiled encouragingly.
+
+"What else?" he asked.
+
+"Why, I can't exactly tell. It just seemed to me that I had heard the
+rustle that bills make when they are pulled across a counter. When I saw
+them gone, I thought that he might have taken them. Then when I turned
+toward him, I seemed to hear the rustle of bills behind me, although I
+knew that I was alone in the cage. When I looked back the money was
+gone."
+
+"Did you see or hear anything like a shadow or a person moving?"
+
+"No--yes--I don't know. Just as I turned around it seemed to me that the
+rear door to my cage had moved and there may have been a shadow for an
+instant. I don't know. I hadn't thought of it before."
+
+"How long after that did you ring the alarm gongs?"
+
+"Not over a second or two."
+
+"That's all," said Dr. Bird.
+
+"If your high and mightiness has no further questions to ask, perhaps
+you will let me ask a few," said Sturtevant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Go ahead, ask all you wish," replied Dr. Bird with a laugh. "I have all
+the information I desire here for the present. I may want to ask other
+questions later, but just now I think we'll be going."
+
+"If you find any strange finger-prints on Winston's counter, I'll be
+glad to have them compared with our files," said Carnes.
+
+"I am not bothering with finger-prints," snorted the detective. "This is
+an open and shut case. There would be lots of Winston's finger-prints
+there and no others. There isn't the slightest doubt that this is an
+inside case and I have the men I want right here. Mr. Rogers, your bank
+is closed for to-day. Everyone in it will be searched and then all those
+not needed to close up will be sent away. I will get a squad of men here
+to go over your building and locate the hiding place. Your money is
+still on the premises unless these men slipped it to a confederate who
+got out before the alarm was given. I'll question the guards about that.
+If that happened, a little sweating will get it out of them."
+
+"Are you going to arrest me?" demanded Trier in surprise.
+
+"Yes, dearie," answered the detective. "I am going to arrest you and
+your two little playmates if these Washington experts will allow me to.
+You will save a lot of time and quite a few painful experiences if you
+will come clean now instead of later."
+
+"I demand to see my lawyer and to communicate with my firm," said the
+paymaster.
+
+"Time enough for that when I am through with you," replied the
+detective.
+
+He turned to Carnes.
+
+"Have I your gracious permission to arrest these three criminals?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes indeed, Captain," replied Carnes sweetly. "You have my gracious
+permission to make just as big an ass of yourself as you wish. We're
+going now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"By the way, Captain," said Dr. Bird as he followed Carnes out. "When
+you get through playing with your prisoners and start to look for the
+thief, here is a tip. Look for a left-handed man who has a thorough
+knowledge of chemistry and especially toxicology."
+
+"It's easy enough to see that he was left-handed if he pulled that money
+out through the grill from the positions occupied by Trier and his
+guard, but what the dickens led you to suspect that he is a chemist and
+a toxicologist?" asked Carnes as he and the doctor left the bank.
+
+"Merely a shrewd guess, my dear Watson," replied the doctor with a
+chuckle. "I am likely to be wrong, but there is a good chance that I am
+right. I am judging solely from the method used."
+
+"Have you solved the method?" demanded Carnes in amazement. "What on
+earth was it? The more I have thought about it, the more inclined I am
+to believe that Sturtevant is right and that it is an inside job. It
+seems to me impossible that a man could have entered in broad daylight
+and lifted that money in front of three men and within sight of a
+hundred more without some one getting a glimpse of him. He must have
+taken the money out in a grip or a sack or something like that, yet the
+bank record shows that no one but Trier entered with a grip and no one
+left with a package for ten minutes before Trier entered."
+
+"There may be something in what you say, Carnes, but I am inclined to
+have a different idea. I don't think it is the usual run of bank
+robbery, and I would rather not hazard a guess just now. I am going back
+to Washington to-night. Before I go any further into the matter, I need
+some rather specialized knowledge that I don't possess and I want to
+consult with Dr. Knolles. I'll be back in a week or so and then we can
+look into that counterfeiting case after we get this disposed of."
+
+"What am I to do?" asked Carnes.
+
+"Sit around the lobby of your hotel, eat three meals a day, and read the
+papers. If you get bored, I would recommend that you pay a visit to the
+Art Institute and admire the graceful lions which adorn the steps.
+Artistic contemplations may well improve your culture."
+
+"All right," replied Carnes. "I'll assume a pensive air and moon at the
+lions, but I might do better if you told me what I was looking for."
+
+"You are looking for knowledge, my dear Carnes," said the doctor with a
+laugh. "Remember the saying of the sages: To the wise man, no knowledge
+is useless."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A huge Martin bomber roared down to a landing at the Maywood airdrome,
+and a burly figure descended from the rear cockpit and waved his hand
+jovially to the waiting Carnes. The secret service man hastened over to
+greet his colleague.
+
+"Have you got that truck I wired you to have ready?" demanded the
+doctor.
+
+"Waiting at the entrance; but say, I've got some news for you."
+
+"It can wait. Get a detail of men and help us to unload this ship. Some
+of the cases are pretty heavy."
+
+Carnes hurried off and returned with a gang of laborers, who took from
+the bomber a dozen heavy packing cases of various sizes, several of them
+labelled either "Fragile" or "Inflammable" in large type.
+
+"Where do they go, Doctor?" he asked when the last of them had been
+loaded onto the waiting truck.
+
+"To the First National Bank," replied Dr. Bird, "and Casey here goes
+with them. You know Casey, don't you, Carnes? He is the best
+photographer in the Bureau."
+
+"Shall I go along too?" asked Carnes as he acknowledged the
+introduction.
+
+"No need for it. I wired Rogers and he knows the stuff is coming and
+what to do with it. Unpack as soon as you get there, Casey, and start
+setting up as soon as the bank closes."
+
+"All right, Doctor," replied Casey as he mounted the truck beside the
+driver.
+
+"Where do we go, Doctor?" asked Carnes as the truck rolled off.
+
+"To the Blackstone Hotel for a bath and some clean clothes," replied the
+doctor. "And now, what is the news you have for me?"
+
+"The news is this, Doctor. I carried out your instructions diligently
+and, during the daylight hours, the lions have not moved."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Bird looked contrite.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Carnes," he said. "I really didn't think when I left
+you so mystified how you must have felt. Believe me, I had my own
+reasons, excellent ones, for secrecy."
+
+"I have usually been able to maintain silence when asked to," replied
+Carnes stiffly.
+
+"My dear fellow, I didn't mean to question your discretion. I know that
+whatever I tell you is safe, but there are angles to this affair that
+are so weird and improbable that I don't dare to trust my own
+conclusions, let alone share them. I'll tell you all about it soon. Did
+you get those tickets I wired for?"
+
+"Of course I got them, but what have two tickets to the A. A. U. track
+meet this afternoon got to do with a bank robbery?"
+
+"One trouble with you, Carnes," replied the doctor with a judicial air,
+"is that you have no idea of the importance of proper relaxation. Is it
+possible that you have no desire to see Ladd, this new marvel who is
+smashing records right and left, run? He performs for the Illinois
+Athletic Club this afternoon, and it would not surprise me to see him
+lower the world's record again. He has already lowered the record for
+the hundred yard dash from nine and three-fifths to eight and
+four-fifths. There is no telling what he will do."
+
+"Are we going to waste the whole afternoon just to watch a man run?"
+demanded Carnes in disgust.
+
+"We will see many men run, my dear fellow, but there is only one in
+whom I have a deep abiding interest, and that is Mr. Ladd. Have you
+your binoculars with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then by all means beg, borrow or steal two pairs before this afternoon.
+We might easily miss half the fun without them. Are our seats near the
+starting line for the sprints?"
+
+"Yes. The big demand was for seats near the finish line."
+
+"The start will be much more interesting, Carnes. I was somewhat of a
+minor star in track myself in my college days and it will be of the
+greatest interest to me to observe the starting form of this new speed
+artist. Now Carnes, don't ask any more questions. I may be barking up
+the wrong tree and I don't want to give you a chance to laugh at me.
+I'll tell you what to watch for at the track."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sprinters lined up on the hundred yard mark and Dr. Bird and Carnes
+sat with their glasses glued to their eyes watching the slim figure in
+the colors of the Illinois Athletic Club, whose large "62" on his back
+identified him as the new star.
+
+"On your mark!" cried the starter. "Get set!"
+
+"Ah!" cried Dr. Bird. "Did you see that Carnes?"
+
+The starting gun cracked and the runners were off on their short grind.
+Ladd leaped into the lead and rapidly distanced the field, his legs
+twinkling under him almost faster than the eye could follow. He was
+fully twenty yards in the lead when his speed suddenly lessened and the
+balance of the runners closed up the gap he had opened. His lead was too
+great for them, and he was still a good ten yards in the lead when he
+crossed the tape. The official time was posted as eight and nine-tenths
+seconds.
+
+"Another thirty yards and he would have been beaten," said Carnes as he
+lowered his glasses.
+
+"That is the way he has won all of his races," replied the doctor. "He
+piles up a huge lead at first and then loses a good deal at the finish.
+His speed doesn't hold up. Never mind that, though, it is only an
+additional point in my favor. Did you notice his jaws just before the
+gun went?"
+
+"They seemed to clench and then he swallowed, but most of them did some
+thing like that."
+
+"Watch him carefully for the next heat and see if he puts anything into
+his mouth. That is the important thing."
+
+Dr. Bird sank into a brown study and paid no attention to the next few
+events, but he came to attention promptly when the final heat of the
+hundred yard dash was called. With his glasses he watched Ladd closely
+as the runner trotted up to the starting line.
+
+"There, Carnes!" he cried suddenly. "Did you see?"
+
+"I saw him wipe his mouth," said Carnes doubtfully.
+
+"All right, now watch his jaws just before the gun goes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The final heat was a duplicate of the first preliminary. Ladd took an
+early lead which he held for three-fourths of the distance to the tape,
+then his pace slackened and he finished only a bare ten yards ahead of
+the next runner. The time tied his previous world's record of eight and
+four-fifths seconds.
+
+"He crunched and swallowed all right, Doctor," said Carnes.
+
+"That is all I wanted to be sure of. Now Carnes, here is something for
+you to do. Get hold of the United States Commissioner and get a John Doe
+warrant and go back to the hotel with it and wait for me. I may phone
+you at any minute and I may not. If I don't, wait in your room until you
+hear from me. Don't leave it for a minute."
+
+"Where are you going, Doctor?"
+
+"I'm going down and congratulate Mr. Ladd. An old track man like me
+can't let such an opportunity pass."
+
+"I don't know what this is all about, Doctor," replied Carnes, "but I
+know you well enough to obey orders and to keep my mouth shut until it
+is my turn to speak."
+
+Few men could resist Dr. Bird when he set out to make a favorable
+impression, and even a world's champion is apt to be flattered by the
+attention of one of the greatest scientists of his day, especially when
+that scientist has made an enviable reputation as an athlete in his
+college days and can talk the jargon of the champion's particular sport.
+Henry Ladd promptly capitulated to the charm of the doctor and allowed
+himself to be led away to supper at Bird's club. The supper passed off
+pleasantly, and when the doctor requested an interview with the young
+athlete in a private room, he gladly consented. They entered the room
+together, remained for an hour and a half, and then came out. The smile
+had left Ladd's face and he appeared nervous and distracted. The doctor
+talked cheerfully with him but kept a firm grip on his arm as they
+descended the stairs together. They entered a telephone booth where the
+doctor made several calls, and then descended to the street, where they
+entered a taxi.
+
+"Maywood airdrome," the doctor told the driver.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two hours later the big Martin bomber which had carried the doctor to
+Chicago roared away into the night, and Bird turned back, reentered the
+taxi, and headed for the city alone.
+
+When Carnes received the telephone call, which was one of those the
+doctor made from the booth in his club, he hurried over to the First
+National Bank. His badge secured him an entrance and he found Casey
+busily engaged in rigging up an elaborate piece of apparatus on one of
+the balconies where guards were normally stationed during banking hours.
+
+"Dr. Bird said to tell you to keep on the job all night if necessary,"
+he told Casey. "He thinks he will need your machine to-morrow."
+
+"I'll have it ready to turn on the power at four A.M.," replied Casey.
+
+Carnes watched him curiously for a while as he soldered together the
+electrical connections and assembled an apparatus which looked like a
+motion picture projector.
+
+"What are you setting up?" he asked at length.
+
+"It is a high speed motion picture camera," replied Casey, "with a
+telescopic lens. It is a piece of apparatus which Dr. Bird designed
+while he was in Washington last week and which I made from his sketches,
+using some apparatus we had on hand. It's a dandy, all right."
+
+"What is special about it?"
+
+"The speed. You know how fast an ordinary movie is taken, don't you? No?
+Well, it's sixteen exposures per second. The slow pictures are taken
+sometimes at a hundred and twenty-eight or two hundred and fifty-six
+exposures per second, and then shown at sixteen. This affair will take
+half a million pictures per second."
+
+"I didn't know that a film would register with that short an exposure."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That's slow," replied Casey with a laugh. "It all depends on the light.
+The best flash-light powder gives a flash about one ten-thousandth of a
+second in duration, but that is by no means the speed limit of the film.
+The only trouble is enough light and sufficient shutter speed. Pictures
+have been taken by means of spark photography with an exposure of less
+than one three-millionth of a second. The whole secret of this machine
+lies in the shutter. This big disc with the slots in the edge is set up
+before the lens and run at such a speed that half a million slots per
+second pass before the lens. The film, which is sixteen millimeter
+X-ray film, travels behind the lens at a speed of nearly five miles per
+second. It has to be gradually worked up to this speed, and after the
+whole thing is set up, it takes it nearly four hours to get to full
+speed."
+
+"At that speed, it must take a million miles of film before you get up
+steam."
+
+"It would, if the film were being exposed. There is only about a hundred
+yards of film all told, which will run over these huge drums in an
+endless belt. There is a regular camera shutter working on an electric
+principle which remains closed. When the switch is tripped, the shutter
+opens in about two thirty-thousandths of a second, stays open just one
+one-hundredth of a second, and then closes. This time is enough to
+expose nearly all of our film. When we have our picture, I shut the
+current down, start applying a magnetic brake, and let it slow down. It
+takes over an hour to stop it without breaking the film. It sounds
+complicated, but it works all right."
+
+"Where is your switch?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That is the trick part of it. It is a remote control affair. The
+shutter opens and starts the machine taking pictures when the back door
+of the paying teller's cage is opened half an inch. There is also a hand
+switch in the line that can be opened so that you can open the door
+without setting off the camera, if you wish. When the hand switch is
+closed and the door opened, this is what happens. The shutter on the
+camera opens, the machine takes five thousand pictures during the next
+hundredth of a second, and then the shutter closes. Those five thousand
+exposures will take about five minutes to show at the usual rate of
+sixteen per second."
+
+"You said that you had to get plenty of light. How are you managing
+that?"
+
+"The camera is equipped with a special lens ground out of rock crystal.
+This lens lets in ultra-violet light which the ordinary lens shuts out,
+and X-ray film is especially sensitive to ultra-violet light. In order
+to be sure that we get enough illumination, I will set up these two
+ultra-violet floodlights to illumine the cage. The teller will have to
+wear glasses to protect his eyes and he'll get well sunburned, but
+something has to be sacrificed to science, as Dr. Bird is always telling
+me."
+
+"It's too deep for me," said Carnes with a sigh. "Can I do anything to
+help? The doctor told me to stand by and do anything I could."
+
+"I might be able to use you a little if you can use tools," said Casey
+with a grin. "You can start bolting together that light proof shield if
+you want to."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Carnes, did you have an instructive night?" asked Dr. Bird
+cheerfully as he entered the First National Bank at eight-thirty the
+next morning.
+
+"I don't see that I did much good, Doctor. Casey would have had the
+machine ready on time anyway, and I'm no machinist."
+
+"Well, frankly, Carnes, I didn't expect you to be of much help to him,
+but I did want you to see what Casey was doing, and a little of it was
+pretty heavy for him to handle alone. I suppose that everything is
+ready?"
+
+"The motor reached full speed about fifteen minutes ago and Casey went
+out to get a cup of coffee. Would you mind telling me the object of the
+whole thing?"
+
+"Not at all. I plan to make a permanent record of the work of the most
+ingenious bank robber in the world. I hope he keeps his word."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Three days ago when Sturtevant sweated a 'confession' out of poor
+Winston, the bank got a message that the robbery would be repeated this
+morning and dared them to prevent it. Rogers thought it was a hoax, but
+he telephoned me and I worked the Bureau men night and day to get my
+camera ready in time for him. I am afraid that I can't do much to
+prevent the robbery, but I may be able to take a picture of it and thus
+prevent other cases of a like nature."
+
+"Was the warning written?"
+
+"No. It was telephoned from a pay station in the loop district, and by
+the time it was traced and men got there, the telephoner was probably a
+mile away. He said that he would rob the same cage in the same manner as
+he did before."
+
+"Aren't you taking any special precautions?"
+
+"Oh, yes, the bank is putting on extra guards and making a lot of fuss
+of that sort, probably to the great amusement of the robber."
+
+"Why not close the cage for the day?"
+
+"Then he would rob a different one and we would have no way of
+photographing his actions. To be sure, we will put dummy money there,
+bundles with bills on the outside and paper on the inside, so if I don't
+get a picture of him, he won't get much. Every bill in the cage will be
+marked as well."
+
+"Did he say at what time he would operate?"
+
+"No, he didn't, so we'll have to stand by all day. Oh, hello, Casey, is
+everything all right?"
+
+"As sweet as chocolate candy, Doctor. I have tested it out thoroughly,
+and unless we have to run it so long that the film wears out and breaks,
+we are sitting pretty. If we don't get the pictures you are looking for,
+I'm a dodo, and I haven't been called that yet."
+
+"Good work, Casey. Keep the bearings oiled and pray that the film
+doesn't break."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bank had been opened only ten minutes when the clangor of gongs
+announced a robbery. It was practically a duplicate of the first. The
+paying teller had turned from his window to take some bills from his
+rack and had found several dozens of bundles missing. As the gongs
+sounded, Dr. Bird and Casey leaped to the camera.
+
+"She snapped, Doctor!" cried Casey as he threw two switches. "It'll take
+an hour to stop and half a day to develop the film, but I ought to be
+able to show you what we got by to-night."
+
+"Good enough!" cried Dr. Bird. "Go ahead while I try to calm down the
+bank officials. Will you have everything ready by eight o'clock?"
+
+"Easy, Doctor," replied Casey as he turned to the magnetic brake.
+
+By eight o'clock quite a crowd had assembled in a private room at the
+Blackstone Hotel. Besides Dr. Bird and Carnes, Rogers and several other
+officials of the First National Bank were present, together with
+Detective-Captain Sturtevant and a group of the most prominent
+scientists and physicians gathered from the schools of the city.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Dr. Bird when all had taken seats facing a miniature
+moving picture screen on one wall, "to-night I expect to show you some
+pictures which will, I am sure, astonish you. It marks the advent of a
+new departure in transcendental medicine. I will be glad to answer any
+questions you may wish to ask and to explain the pictures after they are
+shown, but before we start a discussion, I will ask that you examine
+what I have to show you. Lights out, please!"
+
+He stepped to the rear of the room as the lights went out. As his eyes
+grew used to the dimness of the room he moved forward and took a vacant
+seat. His hand fumbled in his pocket for a second.
+
+"Now!" he cried suddenly.
+
+In the momentary silence which followed his cry, two dull metallic
+clicks could be heard, and a quick cry that was suddenly strangled as
+Dr. Bird clamped his hand over the mouth of the man who sat between him
+and Carnes.
+
+"All right, Casey," called the doctor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The whir of a projection machine could be heard and on the screen before
+them leaped a picture of the paying teller's cage of the First National
+Bank. Winston's successor was standing motionless at the wicket, his
+lips parted in a smile, but the attention of all was riveted on a figure
+who moved at the back of the cage. As the picture started, the figure
+was bent over an opened suitcase, stuffing into it bundles of bills. He
+straightened up and reached to the rack for more bills, and as he did so
+he faced the camera full for a moment. He picked up other bundles of
+bills, filled the suitcase, fastened it in a leisurely manner, opened
+the rear door of the cage and walked out.
+
+"Again, please!" called Dr. Bird. "And stop when he faces us full."
+
+The picture was repeated and stopped at the point indicated.
+
+"Lights, please!" cried the doctor.
+
+The lights flashed on and Dr. Bird rose to his feet, pulling up after
+him the wilted figure of a middle-aged man.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the doctor in ringing tones, "allow me to present to
+you Professor James Kirkwood of the faculty of the Richton University,
+formerly known as James Collier of the Bureau of Standards, and robber
+of the First National Bank."
+
+Detective-Captain Sturtevant jumped to his feet and cast a searching
+glance at the captive.
+
+"He's the man all right," he cried. "Hang on to him until I get a wagon
+here!"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Carnes. "He's under federal arrest just now, charged
+with the possession of narcotics. When we are through with him, you can
+have him if you want him."
+
+"How did you get that picture, Doctor?" cried the cashier. "I watched
+that cage every minute during the morning and I'll swear that man never
+entered and stole that money as the picture shows, unless he managed to
+make himself invisible."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're closer to the truth than you suspect, Mr. Rogers," said Dr.
+Bird. "It is not quite a matter of invisibility, but something pretty
+close to it. It is a matter of catalysts."
+
+"What kind of cats?" asked the cashier.
+
+"Not cats, Mr. Rogers, catalysts. Catalysts is the name of a chemical
+reaction consisting essentially of a decomposition and a new combination
+effected by means of a catalyst which acts on the compound bodies in
+question, but which goes through the reaction itself unchanged. There
+are a great many of them which are used in the arts and in
+manufacturing, and while their action is not always clearly understood,
+the results are well known and can be banked on.
+
+"One of the commonest instances of the use of a catalyst is the use of
+sponge platinum in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. I will not burden
+you with the details of the 'contact' process, as it is known, but the
+combination is effected by means of finely divided platinum which is
+neither changed, consumed or wasted during the process. While there are
+a number of other catalysts known, for instance iron in reactions in
+which metallic magnesium is concerned, the commonest are the metals of
+the platinum group.
+
+"Less is known of the action of catalysts in the organic reactions, but
+it has been the subject of intensive study by Dr. Knolles of the Bureau
+of Standards for several years. His studies of the effects of different
+colored lights, that is, rays of different wave-lengths, on the
+reactions which constitute growth in plants have had a great effect on
+hothouse forcing of plants and promise to revolutionize the truck
+gardening industry. He has speeded up the rate of growth to as high as
+ten times the normal rate in some cases.
+
+"A few years ago, he and his assistant, James Collier, turned their
+attention toward discovering a catalyst which would do for the metabolic
+reactions in animal life what his light rays did for plants. What his
+method was, I will not disclose for obvious reasons, but suffice it to
+say that he met with great success. He took a puppy and by treating it
+with his catalytic drugs, made it grow to maturity, pass through its
+entire normal life span, and die of old age in six months."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"That is very interesting, Doctor, but I fail to see what bearing it has
+on the robbery."
+
+"Mr. Rogers, how, on a dark day and in the absence of a timepiece, would
+you judge the passage of time?"
+
+"Why, by my stomach, I guess."
+
+"Exactly. By your metabolic rate. You eat a meal, it digests, you expend
+the energy which you have taken into your system, your stomach becomes
+empty and your system demands more energy. You are hungry and you judge
+that some five or six hours must have passed since you last ate. Do you
+follow?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Let us suppose that by means of some tonic, some catalytic drug, your
+rate of metabolism and also your rate of expenditure of energy has been
+increased six fold. You would eat a meal and in one hour you would be
+hungry again. Having no timepiece, and assuming that you were in a
+light-proof room, you would judge that some five hours had passed, would
+you not?"
+
+"I expect so."
+
+"Very well. Now suppose that this accelerated rate of digestion and
+expenditure of energy continued. You would be sleepy in perhaps three
+hours, would sleep about an hour and a quarter, and would then wake,
+ready for your breakfast. In other words, you would have lived through a
+day in four hours."
+
+"What advantage would there be in that?"
+
+"None, from your standpoint. It would, however, increase the rate of
+reproduction of cattle greatly and might be a great boom to agriculture,
+but we will not discuss this phase now. Suppose it were possible to
+increase your rate of metabolism and expenditure of energy, in other
+words, your rate of living, not six times, but thirty thousand times. In
+such a case you would live five minutes in one one-hundredth of a
+second."
+
+"Naturally, and you would live a year in about seventeen and one-half
+minutes, and a normal lifespan of seventy years in about twenty hours.
+You would be as badly off as any common may-fly."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Agreed, but suppose that you could so regulate the dose of your
+catalyst that its effect would last for only one one-hundredth of a
+second. During that short period of time, you would be able to do the
+work that would ordinarily take you five minutes. In other words, you
+could enter a bank, pack a satchel with currency and walk out. You would
+be working in a leisurely manner, yet your actions would have been so
+quick that no human eye could have detected them. This is my theory of
+what actually took place. For verification, I will turn to Dr. Kirkwood,
+as he prefers to be known now."
+
+"I don't know how you got that picture, but what you have said is about
+right," replied the prisoner.
+
+"I got that picture by using a speed of thirty thousand times the normal
+sixteen exposures per second," replied Dr. Bird. "That figure I got from
+Dr. Knolles, the man who perfected the secret you stole when you left
+the Bureau three years ago. You secured only part of it and I suppose it
+took all your time since to perfect and complete it. You gave yourself
+away when you experimented on young Ladd. I was a track man myself in my
+college days and when I saw an account of his running, I smelt a rat, so
+I came back and watched him. As soon as I saw him crush and swallow a
+capsule just as the gun was fired, I was sure, and got hold of him. He
+was pretty stubborn, but he finally told me what name you were running
+under now, and the rest was easy. I would have got you in time anyway,
+but your bravado in telling us when you would next operate gave me the
+idea of letting you do it and photographing you at work. That is all I
+have to say. Captain Sturtevant, you can take your prisoner whenever you
+want him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I reckoned without you, Dr. Bird, but the end hasn't come yet. You may
+send me up for a few years, but you'll never find that money. I'm sure
+of that."
+
+"Tut, tut, Professor," laughed Carnes. "Your safety deposit box in the
+Commercial National is already sealed until a court orders it opened.
+The bills you took this morning were all marked, so that is merely
+additional proof, if we needed it. You surely didn't think that such a
+transparent device as changing your name from 'James Collier' to 'John
+Collyer' and signing with your left hand instead of your right would
+fool the secret service, did you? Remember, your old Bureau records
+showed you to be ambidextrous."
+
+"What about Winston's confession?" asked Rogers suddenly.
+
+"Detective-Captain Sturtevant can explain that to a court when Mr.
+Winston brings suit against him for false arrest and brutal treatment,"
+replied Carnes.
+
+"A very interesting case, Carnes," remarked the doctor a few hours
+later. "It was an enjoyable interlude in the routine of most of the
+cases on which you consult me, but our play time is over. We'll have to
+get after that counterfeiting case to-morrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+IN THE NEXT ISSUE
+
+  BRIGANDS OF THE MOON
+  _Beginning an Amazing Four-part Interplanetary Novel_
+  By RAY CUMMINGS
+
+  THE SOUL MASTER
+  _A Thrilling Novelette of the Substitution of Personality_
+  By WILL SMITH and R. J. ROBBINS
+
+  COLD LIGHT
+  _An Extraordinary Scientific Mystery_
+  By CAPT. S. P. MEEK
+
+--_AND MANY OTHER STORIES, OF COURSE_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: "_She is Yours, Master!_"]
+
+Sick at heart, the trembling girl shuddered at the words that delivered
+her to this terrible fate of the East. How could she escape from this
+Oriental monster into whose hands she had been given--this mysterious
+man of mighty power whose face none had yet seen?
+
+    Here is an _extraordinary situation_. What was to be the fate of
+    this beautiful girl? Who was this strange emissary whom no one
+    really knew?
+
+_To know the answer to this and the most exciting tales of Oriental
+adventure and mystery ever told, read on through the most thrilling,
+absorbing, entertaining and fascinating pages ever written._
+
+  Masterpieces of Oriental Mystery
+  11 Superb Volumes by SAX ROHMER
+  Written with his uncanny knowledge of things Oriental
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: _New!_ _Patented_]
+
+Just A Twist Of The Wrist
+
+Banishes Old-Style Can Openers to the Scrap Heap and BRINGS AGENTS $5 to
+$12 IN AN HOUR
+
+Women universally detest the old-style can opener. Yet in every home in
+the land cans are being opened with it, often several times a day.
+Imagine how thankfully they welcome this new method--this automatic way
+of doing their most distasteful job. With the Speedo can opening machine
+you can just put the can in the machine, turn the handle, and almost
+instantly the job is done.
+
+
+End This Waste and Danger
+
+You undoubtedly know what a nasty, dangerous job it is to open cans with
+the old-fashioned can opener. You have to hack your way along
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+the can opener slips. Good night! You've torn a hole in your finger. As
+often as not it will get infected and stay sore a long time. Perhaps
+even your life will be endangered from blood poisoning!
+
+You may be lucky enough to get the can open without cutting yourself.
+But there's still the fact to consider that the ragged edge of tin left
+around the top makes it almost impossible to pour out all of the food.
+Yet now, all this trouble, waste and danger is ended. No wonder salesmen
+everywhere are finding this invention a truly revolutionary money maker!
+
+
+New "Million Dollar" Can Opening Machine
+
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+edges to snag your fingers--all in a couple of seconds! It's so easy
+even a 10-year-old child can do it in perfect safety! No wonder
+women--and men, too--simply go wild over it! No wonder Speedo salesmen
+often sell to every house in the block and make up to $10 an hour.
+
+
+Generous Free Test Offer
+
+Frankly, men, I realize that the profit possibilities of this
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+So I've worked out a plan by-which you can examine the invention and
+test its profits without risking one penny.
+
+Get my free test offer while the territory you want is still open--I'll
+hold it for you while you make the test. I'll send you all the facts
+about others making $25 to $150 in a week. I'll also tell you about
+another fast-selling item that brings you two profits on every call. All
+you risk is a 2c stamp--so grab your pencil and shoot me the coupon
+right now.
+
+
+AGENTS!
+
+Full Time $265 in a Week
+
+"Here is my record for first 50 days with Speedo:
+
+  June 13,   60 Speedos;
+  June 20,   84 Speedos;
+  June 30,  192 Speedos;
+  July  6,  288 Speedos.
+
+Speedo sells to 9 out of 10 prospects."
+
+M. Ornoff, Va.
+
+  PART TIME
+  14 sales in 2 hours
+
+J. J. Corwin, Ariz., says: "Send more order books. I sold first 14
+orders in 2 hours."
+
+  SPARE TIME
+  Big Money Spare Time
+
+Bart, W. Va. says:
+
+"Was only out a few evenings, and got 20 orders."
+
+
+  CENTRAL STATES MFG. CO., Dept. B-2403
+  4500 Mary Ave. (Est. over 20 years) St. Louis, Mo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  SPEEDO
+
+  Central States Mfg. Co.,
+  4500 Mary Ave. Dept. B-2403
+  St. Louis, Mo.
+
+Yes, rush me the facts and details of your FREE OFFER.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+  [ ] Check here if interested only in one for your home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Half a Million People
+
+_have learned music this easy way_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+You, too, Can Learn to Play Your Favorite Instrument Without a Teacher
+
+_Easy as_ A-B-C
+
+Yes, half a million delighted men and women all over the world have
+learned music this quick, easy way.
+
+Half a million--500,000--what a gigantic orchestra they would make! Some
+are playing on the stage, others in orchestras, and many thousands are
+daily enjoying the pleasure and popularity of being able to play some
+instrument.
+
+Surely this is convincing proof of the success of the _new, modern
+method_ perfected by the U.S. School of Music! And what these people
+have done, YOU, too, can do!
+
+Many of this half million didn't know one note from another--others had
+never touched an instrument--yet in half the usual time they learned to
+play their favorite instrument. Best of all, they found learning music
+_amazingly_ easy. No monotonous hours of exercises--no tedious
+scales--no expensive teachers. This simplified method made learning
+music as easy as A-B-C!
+
+It is like a fascinating game. From the very start you are playing
+_real_ tunes, perfectly, by _note_. You simply can't go wrong, for every
+step, from beginning to end, is right before your eyes in print and
+picture. First you are _told_ how to do a thing, then a picture _shows_
+you how, then you do it yourself and _hear_ it. And almost before you
+know it, you are playing your favorite pieces--jazz, ballads, classics.
+No private teacher could make it clearer. Little theory--plenty of
+accomplishment. That's why students of the U.S. School of Music get
+ahead twice as fast--_three times as fast_ as those who study
+old-fashioned, plodding methods.
+
+You don't need any special "talent." Many of the half-million who have
+already become accomplished players never dreamed they possessed musical
+ability. They only wanted to play some instrument--just like you--and
+they found they could quickly learn how this easy way. Just a little of
+your spare time each day is needed--and you enjoy every minute of it.
+The cost is surprisingly low--averaging only a few cents a day--and the
+price is the same for whatever instrument you choose. And remember, you
+are studying right in your own home--without paying big fees to private
+teachers.
+
+Don't miss any more good times! Learn now to play your favorite
+instrument and surprise all your friends. Change from a wallflower to
+the center of attraction. Music is the best thing to offer at a
+party--musicians are invited everywhere. Enjoy the popularity you have
+been missing. Get your share of the musician's pleasure and profit!
+Start now!
+
+
+Free Booklet and Demonstration Lesson
+
+If you are in earnest about wanting to join the crowd of entertainers
+and be a "big hit" at any party--if you really _do_ want to play your
+favorite instrument, to become a performer whose services will be in
+demand--fill out and mail the convenient coupon asking for our Free
+Booklet and Free Demonstration Lesson. These explain our wonderful
+method fully and show you how easily and quickly you can learn to play
+at little expense. This booklet will also tell you all about the amazing
+new _Automatic Finger Control_. Instruments are supplied when
+needed--cash or credit, U.S. School of Music 3692 Brunswick Bldg., New
+York City.
+
+  WHAT INSTRUMENT FOR YOU?
+  Piano
+  Organ
+  Violin
+  Clarinet
+  Flute
+  Harp
+  Coronet
+  'Cello
+  Guitar
+  Ukulele
+  Saxophone
+  Banjo, (Plectrum 5-String or Tenor)
+  Piccolo
+  Hawaiian Steel Guitar
+  Drums and Traps
+  Mandolin
+  Sight Singing
+  Trombone
+  Piano
+  Accordion
+  Voice and Speech Culture
+  Harmony and Composition
+  Automatic Finger Control
+  Italian and German Accordion
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  U.S. SCHOOL OF MUSIC,
+  3692 Brunswick Bldg., New York City.
+
+Please send me your free book, "Music Lessons in Your Own Home," with
+introduction by Dr. Frank Crane, Free Demonstration Lesson, and
+particulars of your easy payment plan. I am interested in the following
+course:
+
+              Have you an instrument: .........
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Only 28 years old and earning $15,000 a year
+
+[Illustration: _Works in Shoe Factory_]
+
+W. T. Carson was forced to leave school at an early age. His help was
+needed at home. He took a "job" in a shoe factory in Huntington, W. Va.,
+at $12 a week.
+
+[Illustration: _Starts Studying at Home_]
+
+Carson determined to make something of himself before it was too late,
+so he took up a course with the International Correspondence Schools and
+studied in spare time.
+
+[Illustration: _Now Owns Big Business_]
+
+Today W. T. Carson is the owner of one of the largest battery service
+stations in West Virginia, with an income of $15,000 a year. And he is
+only 28 years old!
+
+[Illustration: _Lectures at College_]
+
+Just a few months ago a large college asked Carson to lecture before a
+class in electricity. That shows the practical value of his I. C. S.
+course.
+
+[Illustration: _How to Earn More Money_]
+
+If the I. C. S. can smooth the path to success for men like W. T. Carson
+it can help you. If it can help other men to earn more money it can help
+you too.
+
+[Illustration: _The Boss is Watching You_]
+
+Show him you are ambitious and are really trying to get ahead. Decide
+today that you are at least going to find out all about the I. C. S.
+and what it can do for you.
+
+=INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS. Box 2124-E, Scranton, Penns.=
+
+Without cost or obligation, please send me a copy of your booklet, "=Who
+Wins and Why=," and full particulars about the course _before_ which I
+have marked X in the list below:
+
+
+BUSINESS TRAINING COURSES
+
+  [ ] Business Management
+  [ ] Industrial Management
+  [ ] Personnel Management
+  [ ] Traffic Management
+  [ ] Accounting and C.P.A. Coaching
+  [ ] Cost Accounting
+  [ ] Bookkeeping
+  [ ] Secretarial Work
+  [ ] Spanish
+  [ ] French
+  [ ] Salesmanship
+  [ ] Advertising
+  [ ] Business Correspondence
+  [ ] Show Card and Sign Lettering
+  [ ] Stenography and Typing
+  [ ] English
+  [ ] Civil Service
+  [ ] Railway Mail Clerk
+  [ ] Mail Carrier
+  [ ] Grade School Subjects
+  [ ] High School Subjects
+  [ ] Cartooning
+  [ ] Illustrating
+  [ ] Lumber Dealer
+
+
+TECHNICAL AND INDUSTRIAL COURSES
+
+  [ ] Architect
+  [ ] Architectural Draftsman
+  [ ] Building Foreman
+  [ ] Concrete Builder
+  [ ] Contractor and Builder
+  [ ] Structural Draftsman
+  [ ] Structural Engineer
+  [ ] Electrical Engineer
+  [ ] Electrical Contractor
+  [ ] Electric Wiring
+  [ ] Electric Lighting
+  [ ] Electric Car Running
+  [ ] Telegraph Engineer
+  [ ] Telephone Work
+  [ ] Mechanical Engineer
+  [ ] Mechanical Draftsman
+  [ ] Machine Shop Practice
+  [ ] Toolmaker
+  [ ] Patternmaker
+  [ ] Civil Engineer
+  [ ] Surveying and Mapping
+  [ ] Bridge Engineer
+  [ ] Gas Engine Operating
+  [ ] Automobile Work
+  [ ] Aviation Engines
+  [ ] Plumber and Steam Fitter
+  [ ] Plumbing Inspector
+  [ ] Foreman Plumber
+  [ ] Heating and Ventilation
+  [ ] Sheet-Metal Worker
+  [ ] Steam Engineer
+  [ ] Marine Engineer
+  [ ] Refrigeration Engineer
+  [ ] R.R. Positions
+  [ ] Highway Engineer
+  [ ] Chemistry
+  [ ] Pharmacy
+  [ ] Mining Engineer
+  [ ] Navigation
+  [ ] Assayer
+  [ ] Iron and Steel Worker
+  [ ] Textile Overseer or Supt.
+  [ ] Cotton Manufacturing
+  [ ] Woolen Manufacturing
+  [ ] Agriculture
+  [ ] Fruit Growing
+  [ ] Poultry Farming
+  [ ] Mathematics
+  [ ] Radio
+
+  Name ................. Address ..............
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LET RCA INSTITUTES START YOU ON THE ROAD TO ... SUCCESS IN RADIO
+
+[Illustration: Radio-Mechanic and Inspector $1800 to $4000 a Year.]
+
+[Illustration: Broadcast Station Mechanic $1800 to $3600 a Year.]
+
+[Illustration: Land Station Operator $1800 to $4000 a Year.]
+
+[Illustration: Broadcast Operators $1800 to $4800 a Year.]
+
+_Radio needs you_.... That's why the entire Radio industry is calling
+for trained men. Radio is thrilling work ... easy hours, vacations with
+pay and a chance to see the world. Manufacturers and broadcasting
+stations are now eagerly seeking trained RCA Institutes men. Millions of
+sets need servicing ... thousands of ships require experienced
+operators.... Never before was there an opportunity like this!
+
+
+_This is the Only Course Sponsored by Radio Corporation of America_
+
+RCA sets the standards for the entire Radio industry.... The RCA
+Institutes' Home Laboratory Training Course enables you to quickly learn
+all the secrets of Radio.... In your spare time you can obtain a
+thorough, practical education in Radio.
+
+You learn Radio by actual experience with the remarkable outlay of
+apparatus given to every student. That's why every graduate of RCA
+Institutes has the experience, the ability and the confidence to hold a
+big-money Radio job.
+
+For the added convenience of students who prefer a Resident
+Study Course, RCA Institutes, Inc., has established Resident Schools in
+the following cities:
+
+  New York                326 Broadway
+  Boston, Mass.        899 Boylston St.
+  Philadelphia, Pa.   1211 Chestnut St.
+  Baltimore, Md.    1215 N. Charles St.
+  Newark, N.J.            560 Broad St.
+
+Home Study graduates may also attend any one of our resident schools for
+post-graduate instruction at no extra charge.
+
+
+_Graduates of RCA Institutes Find It Easier to Get Good Jobs_
+
+Students of RCA Institutes get first-hand knowledge, get it quickly and
+get it complete. Success in Radio depends upon training and that's the
+training you get with RCA Institutes. That's why every graduate of RCA
+Institutes who desired a position has been able to get one.... That's
+why graduates are always in big demand!
+
+
+_Study Radio at the Oldest and Largest Commercial Training Organization
+in the World_
+
+Send for this Free Book ... or step in at any of our resident schools
+and see for yourself how thousands of men are already on the road to
+success in Radio. Remember that you, too, can speed up your earning
+capacity ... can earn more money in Radio than you ever earned before.
+The man who trains today will hold down the big-money Radio job of the
+future. Come in and get this free book or send for it by mail.
+Everything you want to know about Radio. 40 fascinating pages, packed
+with pictures and descriptions of the brilliant opportunities in this
+gigantic, world-wide money-making profession.
+
+=SEND FOR IT TODAY!=
+
+
+Clip this Coupon _NOW_!
+
+  SPONSORED BY
+  RCA INSTITUTES, INC.
+
+  Formerly
+  Radio Institute of America
+
+[Illustration: RCA]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  RCA INSTITUTES, Inc.
+  Dept. NS-2, 326 Broadway,
+  New York, N.Y.
+
+Gentlemen: Please send me your FREE 40-page book which illustrates the
+brilliant opportunities in Radio and describes your laboratory-method of
+instruction at home!
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"INTO THE AFRICAN BLUE"
+
+_High Spots in the Life of a Big Game Photographer_
+
+_By_ MARTIN JOHNSON
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Into the African Blue" is Africa--the land of romance--of adventure.
+
+African big game is rapidly being shot off; the end is in sight, and it
+is for the purpose of recording in pictures and in story the remarkable
+wild life which soon must vanish, that Martin and Osa Johnson undertake
+their safaris into the remotest corners of the "Blue."
+
+Johnson's photographs are magnificent! They portray the primitive drama
+of the wilderness. We see close-ups of elephants and giraffes suckling
+their young; lions lolling in the broiling sun or disputing possession
+of a zebra kill. We are introduced into the inner family circle of
+rhinos, leopards, eland, oryx, gazelle and others--all unconscious of
+the nearby presence of man. And there are, of course, thrilling moments
+when a cantankerous rhino, elephant or lion resents the intrusion and
+charges the camera with deadly intent.
+
+=This thrilling serial, profusely illustrated with photographs by the
+author, began in the December issue of FOREST and STREAM. Follow Martin
+and Osa Johnson through the Soudan, the Congo, Kenya and Tanganyika;
+share their adventures=--
+
+  Forest and Stream
+  80 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y.
+
+
+SPECIAL OFFER
+
+In addition to this thrilling serial, which in book form would cost not
+less than $3.00, the next six issues of FOREST and STREAM will contain
+much of interest to the outdoorsman--angler, hunter, camper and nature
+lover.
+
+FOREST and STREAM brings to you the best outdoor literature written by
+the foremost authorities in their respective fields. By making use of
+the coupon to the left you can secure six issues of FOREST and STREAM
+containing the complete story "Into the African Blue" for the special
+price of $1.00, and you will receive in addition to the magazine and
+without extra cost volumes 1 and 2 of the Sportsmen's Encyclopedia, an
+invaluable reference book which presents in handy form accurate and
+comprehensive information on every branch of outdoor sport.
+
+Send in the coupon--"_DO IT NOW!_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Department C
+
+Here's my $1.00. I want the 6 issues beginning with the December number,
+and Vols. 1 and 2 of the Sportsmen's Encyclopedia.
+
+...............................................
+
+...............................................
+
+...............................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+I Will Train You at Home to Fill a Big-Pay Radio Job
+
+_Here's the_ PROOF
+
+=$375 One Month In Spare Time=
+
+"Recently I made $375 in one month in my spare time installing,
+servicing, selling Radio Sets."
+
+  Earle Cummings,
+  18 Webster St.,
+  Haverhill, Mass.
+
+=$450 a Month=
+
+"I work in what I believe to be the largest and best-equipped Radio shop
+in the Southwest and also operate KGFI. I am averaging $450 a month."
+
+  Frank M. Jones,
+  922 Guadalupe St.,
+  San Angelo, Tex.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+You can build 100 circuits with the six big outfits of
+Radio parts I give you
+
+_3 of the 100 you can build_
+
+_Find out quick about this practical way to big pay_
+
+If you are earning a penny less than $50 a week, send for my book of
+information on the opportunities in Radio. It's FREE. Clip the coupon
+NOW. A flood of gold is pouring into Radio, creating hundreds of big-pay
+jobs. Why go along at $25, $30 or $45 a week when the good jobs in Radio
+pay $50, $75 and up to $250 a week? "Rich Rewards in Radio" gives full
+information on these big jobs and explains how you can quickly learn
+Radio through my easy, practical home-study training.
+
+
+Salaries of $50 to $250 a Week Not Unusual
+
+The amazing growth of Radio has astounded the world. In a few short
+years three hundred thousand jobs have been created. And the biggest
+growth is still to come. That's why salaries of $50 to $250 a week are
+not unusual. Radio simply hasn't got nearly the number of thoroughly
+trained men it needs.
+
+
+You Can Learn Quickly and Easily in Spare Time
+
+Hundreds of N. R. I. trained men are today making big money--holding
+down big jobs--in the Radio field. You, too, should get into Radio. You
+can stay home, hold your job and learn in your spare time. Lack of high
+school education or Radio experience are no drawbacks.
+
+
+Many Earn $15, $20, $30 Weekly On the Side While Learning
+
+I teach you to begin making money shortly after you enroll. My new
+practical method makes this possible. I give you SIX BIG OUTFITS of
+Radio parts and teach you to build practically every type of receiving
+set known. M. E. Sullivan, 412 73rd St., Brooklyn, N.Y., writes: "I made
+$720 while studying." G. W. Page, 1807 21st Ave. S., Nashville, Tenn.,
+"I picked up $935 in my spare time while studying."
+
+
+Your Money Back If Not Satisfied
+
+My course fits you for all lines--manufacturing, selling, servicing
+sets, in business for yourself, operating on board ship, or in a
+broadcasting station--and many others. I back up my training with a
+signed agreement to refund every penny of your money if, after
+completion, you are not satisfied with the lessons and instructions I
+give you.
+
+
+Act NOW--NEW 64-Page Book is FREE
+
+[Illustration: RADIO NEEDS TRAINED MEN!]
+
+Send for this big book of Radio information. It has put hundreds of
+fellows on the road to bigger pay and success. Get it. See what Radio
+offers you, and how my Employment Department helps you get into Radio
+after you graduate. Clip or tear out the coupon and mail it RIGHT NOW.
+
+  J. E. Smith, President, Dept. OBM
+  National Radio Institute
+  Washington, D.C.
+
+
+Employment Service to all Graduates
+
+Originators of Radio Home Study Training
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mail This FREE COUPON Today
+
+  J. E. Smith, President,
+  Dept. OBM, National Radio Institute,
+  Washington, D.C.
+
+Dear Mr. Smith: Send me your Free book "Rich Rewards in Radio," giving
+information on the big-money opportunities in Radio and your practical
+method of teaching with six Radio Outfits. I understand this places me
+under no obligation.
+
+  Name ......................... Age ..........
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_A Year's Protection Against_ SICKNESS
+
+Less than 3c a Day!
+
+_A Year's Protection Against_ ACCIDENT
+
+[Illustration: CASH _or sympathy_?]
+
+
+_Which do you want?_
+
+Suppose you met with an accident or sickness to-night--salary
+stopped--which would you prefer,
+
+$25 Weekly ... or Sympathy?
+
+_Which will your family want?_
+
+In case of your accidental death, which would you rather give your
+family
+
+
+$10,000 Cash ... or Sympathy?
+
+_Which would you Pay?_
+
+Would you rather pay bills and household expenses out of a slim savings
+account or a
+
+=$10 bill=
+
+
+_For a Whole Year's Protection Against_
+
+SICKNESS AND ACCIDENT
+
+_Get Cash instead of Sympathy_
+
+If you met with an accident in your home, on the street, or road, in the
+field, or on your job--will your income continue? Remember, few escape
+without accident--and none of us can tell what to-morrow holds for us.
+While you are reading this warning, somewhere some ghastly tragedy is
+taking its toll of human life or limb, some flood or fire, some
+automobile or train disaster. Protect yourself now.
+
+_Get Cash instead of Sympathy_
+
+If you suddenly became ill--would your income stop? What if you
+contracted lobar pneumonia, appendicitis operation, or any of the many
+common ills which are covered in this strong policy, wouldn't you rest
+easier and convalesce more quickly if you knew that this old line
+company stood ready to help lift from your shoulders distressing
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+
+_Get Cash instead of Sympathy_
+
+=Don't Wait for Misfortune to Overtake You=
+
+_Mail the Coupon today!_
+
+Mail the Coupon before it's too late to protect yourself against the
+chances of fate picking you out as its next victim.
+
+  =NO MEDICAL EXAMINATION=
+
+  $10 A Year Entire Costs. No Dues. No Assessments.
+
+  =MEN AND WOMEN=
+  16 to 70 Years Accepted.
+
+  =$10,000=
+  Principal Sum.
+
+  =$10,000=
+  Loss of hands, feet or eyesight.
+
+  =$25 Weekly Benefits=
+  for stated accidents or sicknesses.
+
+Doctor's Bills, Hospital Benefit, Emergency Benefit and other liberal
+features to help in time of need--all clearly shown in policy.
+
+This is a simple and understandable policy--without complicated or
+misleading clauses. You know exactly what every word means--and every
+word means exactly what it says.
+
+=Largest and Oldest Exclusive Health and Accident Insurance Company in
+America.=
+
+_Under Supervision of All State Insurance Departments_
+
+=ESTABLISHED OVER 40 YEARS=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  North American Accident Insurance Co., [of Chicago]
+  388 Wallach Building, Newark, New Jersey.
+
+Gentlemen: At no cost to me send details of New $10,000 Premier $10
+Policy.
+
+  _Name_ ............................
+
+  _Address_ .........................
+
+  _City_ ............................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Pledge to the Public on Used Car Sales
+
+1 Every used car is conspicuously marked with its lowest price in plain
+figures, and that price, just as the price of our new cars, is rigidly
+maintained.
+
+2 All Studebaker automobiles which are marked as CERTIFIED CARS have
+been properly reconditioned, and carry a 30-day guarantee for
+replacement of defective parts and free service on adjustments.
+
+3 Every purchaser of a used car may drive it for five days, and then, if
+not satisfied for any reason, bring it back and apply the money paid as
+a credit on the purchase of any other car in stock--new or used. (It is
+assumed that the car has not been damaged in the meantime.)
+
+(C) 1929 The Studebaker Corporation of America.
+
+
+You can save money and get a better motor car
+
+_if you buy according to the Studebaker Pledge plan_
+
+OVER 150,000 THRIFTY AMERICAN CITIZENS DID LAST YEAR!
+
+A well constructed car, sold at 40 or 50 per cent of its original price,
+offers maximum transportation value. Studebaker dealers offer many fine
+used cars--Studebakers, Erskines and other makes--which have been driven
+only a few thousand miles.
+
+Reconditioning of mechanical parts, refinishing of bodies give new car
+life to these cars at prices no greater than you must pay for a cheap
+new car. And as a final measure of protection, these cars are sold
+according to the Studebaker Pledge--which offers 5 days' driving trial
+on all cars and a 30-day guarantee on all certified cars.
+
+Prices being plainly marked provides the same price for everyone.
+Millions of people buy "used" houses. Every car on the road is a used
+car the week after it is purchased.
+
+_Invest 2c--you may save $200_
+
+Mail the coupon below for the free booklet.--The 2c stamp is an
+investment which may save you as much as $200 in buying a motorcar!
+
+[Illustration: How to judge a used car]
+
+
+STUDEBAKER
+
+_Builder of Champions_
+
+  The Studebaker Corporation of America
+  Dept. 232, South Bend, Indiana
+
+  Please send me copy of "How to Judge a Used Car"
+
+  _Name_ ..........................................
+
+  _Street_ ........................................
+
+  _City_ ...................... _State_ ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: Amazingly Easy Way to Get Into ELECTRICITY]
+
+Don't spend your life waiting for $5 raises in a dull, hopeless job. Now
+... and forever ... say good-bye to 25 and 35 dollars a week. Let me
+teach you how to prepare for positions that lead to $50, $64, and on up
+to $200 a week in Electricity--NOT by correspondence, but by an amazing
+way to teach =right here in the great Coyne Shops= that makes you a
+practical expert in 90 days! Getting into electricity is far easier than
+you imagine!
+
+
+LEARN WITHOUT BOOKS--In 90 Days _By Actual Work--in the Great Coyne
+Shops_
+
+Lack of experience--age, or advanced education bars no one. I don't care
+if you don't know an armature from an air brake--I don't expect you to!
+It makes no difference! Don't let lack of money stop you. Most of the
+men at Coyne have no more money than you have. That's why I have worked
+out my astonishing offers.
+
+
+_Earn While Learning_
+
+If you need part-time work to help pay your living expenses I'll help
+you get it and when you graduate I'll give you lifetime employment
+service. And, in 12 brief weeks, =in the great roaring shops of Coyne=,
+I train you as you never dreamed you could be trained ... on one of the
+greatest outlays of electrical apparatus ever assembled ... real
+dynamos, engines, power plants, autos, switchboards, transmitting
+stations ... everything from door bells to farm power and lighting ...
+full sized ... in full operation every day!
+
+
+_No Books--No Lessons_
+
+No dull books, no baffling charts, no classes, you get individual
+training ... all real actual work ... building real batteries ...
+winding real armatures, operating real motors, dynamos and generators,
+wiring houses, etc.
+
+=GET THE FACTS= Coyne is your one great chance to get into electricity.
+Every obstacle is removed. This school is 30 years old--Coyne training
+is tested--proven beyond all doubt--endorsed by many large electrical
+concerns. You can find out everything absolutely free. Simply mail the
+coupon and let me send you the big, free Coyne book of 150 photographs
+... facts ... jobs ... salaries ... opportunities. Tells you how many
+earn expenses while training and how we assist our graduates in the
+field. This does not obligate you. So act at once. Just mail coupon.
+
+
+BIG BOOK _FREE_!
+
+Send for my big book containing 150 photographs telling complete
+story--absolutely FREE
+
+  COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL
+  500 S. Paulina St., Dept. 20-66, Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL, H. C. Lewis, Pres.
+  500 S. Paulina Street,
+  Dept. 20-66,
+  Chicago, Illinois
+
+Dear Mr. Lewis: Without obligation send me your big, free catalog and
+all details of Free Employment Service, Radio, Airplane, and Automotive
+Electrical Courses, and how I may "earn while learning."
+
+  _Name_ ..........................................
+
+  _Street_ ........................................
+
+  _City_ ...................... _State_ ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: Buy a Watch the Modern Way]
+
+This 21 Jewel--Santa Fe Special Sent You On-Approval Wear 30 Days
+=Free=!
+
+Thank you for making it possible for me to own a 21-jewel Santa Fe
+Special, write thousands of our customers.
+
+
+Buy Direct
+
+Our catalogue is our showroom. Any watch will be sent for you to see
+without one penny down. No obligation to buy.
+
+
+Save 1/3 to 1/2
+
+on the price you pay for a similar watch made by other Manufacturers.
+Most liberal offer. Our "Direct to You" offer and Extra Special
+Distribution Plan is fully explained in the New Santa Fe Special Booklet
+just off the press. The "Santa Fe Special" Plan means a big saving of
+money to you and you get the best watch value on the market today.
+
+
+Railroad Accuracy Beauty Unsurpassed Life-long Dependability
+
+--all are combined in the highest degree in the famous "Santa Fe
+Special" Watch.
+
+These watches are now in service on practically every railroad in the
+United States and in every branch of the Army and Naval service.
+Thousands of them are distributed around the world. You will never miss
+the few cents a day that will make you own one of these watches.
+
+
+Just Out!
+
+Send coupon for our New Watch Book--just off the press. All the newest
+watch case designs in white or green gold, fancy shapes and thin models
+are shown. Read our easy payment offer. Wear the watch 30 days FREE.
+
+  SANTA FE WATCH CO.
+  Dept. 255
+  Thomas Bldg.
+  Topeka, Kans.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SANTA FE WATCH CO., Dept. 255, Thomas Bldg., Topeka, Kansas.
+
+Please send me absolutely Free your New Watch Book [ ] Diamond Book [ ].
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address ...................... State ........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: COOLS while you shave and the coolness lingers! Listerine
+Shaving Cream]
+
+
+"Pardon me, gentlemen!"
+
+_Business men gargle daily to check colds and sore throat_
+
+Why is Listerine to be found in the offices of a majority of American
+business men? Why do they use it at the noon hour? Why do they sometimes
+halt important meetings, to gargle with it?
+
+Simply because, like you, they recognize in this safe antiseptic a
+swift, effective enemy of sore throat and the common cold. Used at the
+first sign of trouble, it has prevented thousands of cases from becoming
+serious.
+
+Its effectiveness is due to its amazing power to destroy disease germs,
+millions of which lodge in the oral cavity. Though safe to use and
+pleasant to taste, full strength Listerine kills even such resistant
+organisms as the Staphylococcus Aureus (pus) and Bacillus Typhosus
+(typhoid) in counts ranging to 200,000,000 in 15 seconds. We could not
+make this statement unless prepared to prove it to the entire
+satisfaction of the medical profession and the U.S. Government.
+
+As a preventive of sore throat and colds use Listerine systematically
+every day. And at the first definite sign that either is developing,
+increase the frequency of the gargle. You will be amazed to see how
+quickly the condition disappears. Lambert Pharmacal Co., St. Louis, Mo.
+
+
+LISTERINE _for_ SORE THROAT
+
+_Kills 200,000,000 germs in 15 seconds_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Go to School at Home!
+
+[Illustration: High School Course in Two Years!]
+
+
+You Want to Earn Big Money!
+
+=And you will not be satisfied unless you earn steady promotion.= But
+are you prepared for the job ahead of you? Do you measure up to the
+standard that insures success? For a more responsible position a fairly
+good education is necessary. To write a sensible business letter, to
+prepare estimates, to figure cost and to compute interest, you must have
+a certain amount of preparation. All this you must be able to do before
+you will earn promotion.
+
+Many business houses hire no men whose general knowledge is not equal to
+a high school course. Why? Because big business refuses to burden itself
+with men who are barred from promotion by the lack of elementary
+education.
+
+
+Can You Qualify for a Better Position
+
+We have a plan whereby you can. We can give you a complete but
+simplified high school course in two years, giving you all the
+essentials that form the foundation of practical business. It will
+prepare you to hold your own where competition is keen and exacting. Do
+not doubt your ability, but make up your mind to it and you will soon
+have the requirements that will bring you success and big money. YOU CAN
+DO IT.
+
+Let us show you how to get on the road to success. It will not cost you
+a single working hour. Write today. It costs you nothing but a stamp.
+
+
+American School
+
+  Dept. H-237
+  Drexel Ave. and 58th St., Chicago
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  =American School=
+  Dept. H-237
+  Drexel Ave. and 58th St., Chicago
+
+Send me full information on the subject checked and how you will help me
+win success.
+
+  ....Architect
+  ....Building Contractor
+  ....Automobile Engineer
+  ....Automobile Repairman
+  ....Civil Engineer
+  ....Structural Engineer
+  ....Business Manager
+  ....Cert. Public Accountant
+  ....Accountant and Auditor
+  ....Bookkeeper
+  ....Draftsman and Designer
+  ....Electrical Engineer
+  ....Electric Light & Power
+  ....General Education
+  ....Vocational Guidance
+  ....Business Law
+  ....Lawyer
+  ....Machine Shop Practice
+  ....Mechanical Engineer
+  ....Shop Superintendent
+  ....Employment Manager
+  ....Steam Engineer
+  ....Foremanship
+  ....Sanitary Engineer
+  ....Surveyor (& Mapping)
+  ....Telephone Engineer
+  ....Telegraph Engineer
+  ....High School Graduate
+  ....Wireless Radio
+  ....Undecided
+
+  Name .....................................
+
+  Address ..................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+EXTRA STRONG IMPROVED MODEL COPPER BOILER
+
+Catalog Free
+
+[Illustration:
+  SOLID CAST
+  NO SCREW TOP]
+
+  HEAVY COPPER
+
+  5 Gallon  $6.50
+  7          8.85
+  10        11.90
+  15        14.20
+  20        18.50
+  25        22.50
+  30        27.50
+
+
+SAVE 20% _NOW_!
+
+Most Practical Boiler & Cooker
+
+Made with large 5-inch Improved Cap and Spout. Safe, practical and
+simple. Nothing to get out of order, most substantial and durable on the
+market. Will last a lifetime, gives real service and satisfaction.
+
+
+Easily Cleaned
+
+Cap removed in a second; no burning of hands. An ideal low
+pressure-boiler and pasteurizer for home and farm.
+
+=Save 20%= by ordering direct from factory. No article of such high
+quality and utility ever sold at such amazingly low prices. Prices
+quoted are each with order or one-fourth cash, balance C.O.D. Send check
+or money order: prompt shipment made in plain strong box. The only
+boiler worth having. Large Catalog Free.
+
+  HOME MANUFACTURING CO.
+  Dept. 5850
+  18 E. Kinzie St.
+  Chicago, Illinois
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Agents! Sell Shirts
+
+[Illustration: Bostonian]
+
+Start =without investment= in a profitable shirt business of your own.
+Take orders in your district for nationally known Bostonian Shirts.
+=$1.50 commission= for you on sale of 3 shirts for $6.95--=Postage
+Paid=. $9 value, guaranteed fast colors. No experience needed. Complete
+selling equipment =FREE=!
+
+
+=Good Pay for Honest Workers=
+
+Big earnings for ambitious workers. Genuine Broadcloth in four fast
+colors. Write for money-making plan, free outfit, with actual cloth
+samples and everything need to start. Name and address on postal will
+do. =Write TODAY! SURE!=
+
+BOSTONIAN MFG. CO., B-300, 89 Bickford St., Boston, Mass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DEAFNESS IS MISERY
+
+Multitudes of persons with defective hearing and Head Noises enjoy
+conversation, go to Theatre and Church because they Use Leonard
+Invisible Ear Drums which resemble Tiny Megaphones fitting in the Ear
+entirely out of sight. No wires, batteries or head piece. They are
+inexpensive. Write for booklet and sworn statement of the inventor who
+was himself deaf.
+
+=A. O. LEONARD, Inc., Suite 683, 70 5th Ave., New York=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Denison's Plays
+
+_54 Years of Hits_
+
+We supply all entertainment needs for dramatic clubs, schools, lodges,
+etc., and for every occasion.
+
+  Songs
+  Minstrels
+  Musical Comedies
+  Revues
+  Vaudeville Acts
+  Blackface Skits
+
+_Catalogue Free_
+
+=T. S. Denison & Co. 623 S. Wabash, Dept. 130 Chicago=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Don't Stop Tobacco
+
+Without precautions against injurious effects. Baco-Cure gives the
+necessary assistance. Use tobacco while you take it. Has aided hundreds.
+Complete $5.00 treatment guaranteed to get results or money refunded.
+Write for booklet.
+
+Eureka Chemical Co., B-26 Columbus, Ohio
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Easy, Quick Way To Get Into Aviation
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_Let_ Major Rockwell Train You AT HOME
+
+My new, practical, amazing, Home Study Course prepares you quickly to
+fill any of the fascinating Aviation jobs, either on the ground or as a
+skilled flyer, paying $50 to $150 a week. I train you to succeed
+quickly, to fill one of the thousands of air and ground jobs now open,
+and I help you find your right place in Aviation.
+
+
+=I'll Help You Get Your Job=
+
+[Illustration: FREE BOOK WRITE!]
+
+Learn at home in your spare hours. In 12 short weeks you can be ready to
+take your flying instructions at greatly reduced rates at any airport
+near your home, or right here in Dayton. Or you can step into any
+aviation ground job with my help. Experience or advanced education not
+necessary. Aviation--the fastest growing industry is calling you! You
+risk nothing. If you are not satisfied after completing my course, I'll
+refund your tuition. Take the first step by writing NOW for my big FREE
+Book and Tuition offer. State age.
+
+  =MAJOR R. L. ROCKWELL=
+
+  _The Dayton School of Aviation_
+  =Desk B-6=
+  =Dayton, Ohio=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SAXOPHONE
+
+  Easy to Play
+  Easy To Pay
+
+Simplified Key Arrangement
+
+Fingers fall naturally into playing position. Makes it extremely easy to
+play rapidly on the Buescher.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Buescher True-Tone Saxophone is the easiest of all wind instruments
+to play and one of the most beautiful. You can learn the scale in an
+hour, and in a few weeks be playing popular music. First 3 lessons free,
+with each new Saxophone. For home entertainment--church--lodge--school
+or for Orchestra Dance Music, the Saxophone is the ideal instrument.
+
+=FREE TRIAL=--We allow 6 days' free trial on any Buescher Saxophone in
+your own home and arrange easy payments so you can pay while you play.
+Write for Saxophone Catalog.
+
+  BUESCHER BAND INSTRUMENT CO.
+  2980 Buescher Block (553)
+  ELKHART, INDIANA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: =MEN WANTED FOR RAILROADS=]
+
+Nearest their homes--everywhere--to train for Firemen, Brakemen; average
+wages $150-$200 monthly. Promoted to Conductor or Engineer--highest
+wages on railroads. Also clerks. Railway Educational Association, Dept.
+D-30, Brooklyn, New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BIG MONEY _IN POULTRY_!
+
+[Illustration: How to RAISE POULTRY for PROFIT]
+
+If you want a real job--at real pay or if you want to start profitable
+business of your own--become a trained Poultryman. It's interesting,
+healthful, profitable. Our famous home study Course gives short cuts to
+success. Write for Free Book, "How to Raise Poultry for Profit."
+
+=National Poultry Institute, Dept. 415-F, Washington, D.C.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SPORT OF A THOUSAND THRILLS
+
+[Illustration: _Model shown is the popular "45" Twin_]
+
+EAGER power under instant control--speed that leaves the car-parades
+behind--lightning response to throttle and brakes--these are just a few
+of the thousand thrills of motorcycling. Ask any Harley-Davidson
+rider--he'll tell you of dozens more. And they are all yours at low
+cost, in a Harley-Davidson "45"--the wonderful Twin at a popular price.
+
+    Let your dealer show you the 1930 features of this
+    motorcycle--try the comfortable, low-swung saddle--get the
+    "feel" of this wonder Twin. Ask about his Pay-As-You-Ride Plan.
+
+
+_Mail the Coupon!_
+
+_for literature showing our full line of Singles, Twins, and Sidecars.
+Motorcycle prices range from $235 f. o. b. factory_.
+
+RIDE A HARLEY-DAVIDSON
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  HARLEY-DAVIDSON MOTOR COMPANY
+  Dept. N. S. G., Milwaukee, Wis.
+
+  Interested in your motorcycles. Send literature.
+
+  Name .....................................
+
+  Address ..................................
+
+  My age is [ ] 16-19 years, [ ] 20-30 years, [ ] 31 years and
+  up, [ ] under 16 years. Check your age group.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"How I Licked Wretched Old Age at 63"
+
+    I Quit Getting up Nights--Banished Foot and Leg Pains ... Got
+    Rid of Rheumatic Pains and Constipation ... Improved My Health
+    Generally ... Found Renewed Strength.
+
+"At 61, I thought I was through. I blamed old age, but it never occurred
+to me to actually fight back. I was only half-living, getting up nights
+... constipated ... constantly tormented by aches and pains. At 62 my
+condition became almost intolerable. I had about given up hope when a
+doctor recommended your treatment. Then at 63, it seemed that I shook
+off 20 years almost overnight."
+
+
+_Forty_--The Danger Age
+
+These are the facts, just as I learned them. In 65% of all men, the
+vital prostate gland shows up soon after all. No pain is experienced,
+but as this distressing condition continues, sciatica, backache, severe
+bladder weakness, constipation, etc., often develop.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+PROSTATE TROUBLE
+
+These are frequently the signs of prostate trouble. Now thousands suffer
+these handicaps needlessly! For a prominent American Scientist after
+seven years of research, discovered a new, safe way to stimulate the
+prostate gland to normal health and activity in many cases. This new
+hygiene is worthy to be called a notable achievement of the age.
+
+
+A National Institution for Men Past 40
+
+Its success has been startling, its growth rapid. This new hygiene is
+rapidly gaining in national prominence. The institution in Steubenville
+has now reached large proportions. Scores and even hundreds of letters
+pour in every day, and in many cases reported results have been little
+short of amazing. In case after case, men have reported that they have
+felt ten years younger in six days. Now physicians in every part of the
+country are using and recommending this treatment.
+
+Quick as is the response to this new hygiene, it is actually a pleasant,
+natural relaxation, involving no drugs, medicine or electric rays
+whatever. The scientist explains this discovery and tells why many men
+are old at forty in a new book now sent free, in 24-page, illustrated
+form. Send for it. Every man past forty should know the true meaning of
+three frank facts. No cost or obligation is incurred. But act at once
+before this free edition is exhausted. Simply fill in your name below,
+tear off and mail.
+
+  =THE ELECTRO THERMAL COMPANY=
+  4826 Morris Avenue
+  Steubenville, Ohio
+
+    If you live West of the Rockies, address The Electro Thermal
+    Co., 303 Van Nuys Building, Dept. 48-C, Los Angeles, Calif. In
+    Canada, address The Electro Thermal Co., Desk 48-C, 53 Yonge
+    St., Toronto, Can.
+
+  THE ELECTRO THERMAL CO.,
+  4826 Morris Ave., Steubenville, Ohio.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+How To Secure A Government Position
+
+Why worry about strikes, layoffs, hard times? Get a Government job!
+Increased salaries, steady work, travel, good pay. Examinations coming.
+I'll help you become a Custom House Clerk, Railway Postal Clerk, Post
+Office Clerk, City Mail Carrier, Rural Carrier--or get into any other
+Government job you want. I was a Secretary-Examiner of Civil Service
+Commission for 8 years. Have helped thousands.
+
+
+NOW FREE
+
+My 32-page book tells about the jobs open--and how I can help you get
+one. Write TODAY. ARTHUR R. PATTERSON. Civil Service Expert. PATTERSON
+SCHOOL, 1082 Wisner Building, Rochester. N.Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Photos ENLARGED
+
+Size 16x20 inches
+
+98c
+
+Same price for full length or best form groups, landscapes, or pet
+animals, etc., enlargements of any part of group picture. Safe return of
+your own original photo guaranteed.
+
+   SPECIAL
+   FREE OFFER
+
+=SEND NO MONEY= Just mail photo or snapshot (any size) and within a week
+you will receive your beautiful life-like enlargement size 16x20 in.
+guaranteed fadeless. Pay postman 98c plus postage or send $1.00 with
+order and we pay postage. With each enlargement we will send FREE a
+hand-tinted miniature reproduction of photo sent. Take advantage now of
+this amazing offer--send your photo today.
+
+  =UNITED PORTRAIT COMPANY=
+  1652 Ogden Ave. Dept. B-590, Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BLANK CARTRIDGE PISTOL
+
+This well made and effective pistol is modelled on the pattern of the
+latest type of Revolver, the appearance of which alone is enough to
+scare a burglar, whilst, when loaded, it will probably prove just as
+effective as a revolver with real bullets without the danger to life. It
+takes the standard .22 Calibre Blank Cartridges, that are obtainable
+most everywhere. Special cash with order offer: 1 superior quality Blank
+Cartridge Pistol. 100 Blank Cartridges, and our new 550-page DeLuxe
+Catalog of latest novelties all for =ONLY $1.50=. Shipped by express
+only. Cannot go by parcel post. Extra Blank Cartridges =50c per 100=.
+Remember it is quite harmless, as it will not accommodate loaded
+cartridges. Special Holster (Cowboy Type) for pistol 50c. No C.O.D.
+Shipments.
+
+=Special Offer=
+
+1 Blank Cartridge Pistol, 100 Blank Cartridges, 1 550-page Novelty
+Catalog =ONLY $1.50=
+
+The Lot Shipped by Express Only Cash with Order Only
+
+=JOHNSON SMITH & COMPANY.= Dept 212, Racine, Wisconsin
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BE A RAILWAY TRAFFIC INSPECTOR
+
+EARN UP TO $250 Per Month Expenses Paid
+
+[Illustration: No Hunting For a Position]
+
+Unusual opportunities for men 19 to 55 in this uncrowded profession.
+Travel or remain near home. Pleasant, fascinating work. Advancement
+rapid. Prepare in 3 months' spare time, home instruction. We assist you
+to a position upon completion, paying $120 to $135 per month, plus
+expenses or refund your tuition. Learn about Traffic Inspection now. Our
+free booklet shows how it can make your future a certainty. Write for it
+today.
+
+  =Standard Business Training Institute=
+  =DIV. 13=
+  =Buffalo, N.Y.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Sleep Disturbed?
+
+If irritating kidney excretions frequently disturb your sleep or cause
+backache, leg pains and make you feel tired, achy, depressed and
+discouraged, why not try the Cystex 48 Hour Test? No dopes or
+habit-forming drugs. List of pure ingredients in each package. Get
+Cystex (pronounced Siss-tex) at your drug store for only 60c. Use all of
+it. See how it works. Money back if it doesn't satisfy you completely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NEW WAY TO MAKE MONEY
+
+
+Easy Cash--Sure and Quick
+
+An opportunity to earn $15 a day or more taking orders from your friends
+and neighbors for our fine tailoring. Orders come easy when you show our
+swell samples and smart styles. =We Show You How=--you don't need to
+know anything about tailoring--simply follow our directions--we make it
+easy.
+
+
+FREE SUIT OFFER
+
+Make a few sales to your friends and get it finely tailored to your
+order suit, in any style, absolutely FREE, in addition to your cash
+profits.
+
+  =FREE
+  New, Big Sample
+  OUTFIT=
+
+New style convenient carrying outfit, large all-wool samples--all
+supplies necessary to start at once--furnished =FREE=. =Write at once.=
+
+=PROGRESS TAILORING CO., Dept. P-204, Chicago=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MORE PAY with QUAKER FREE OUTFIT
+
+  FREE SHIRTS TIES
+  CASH BONUS GIVEN
+
+_Earn big money right from the start. Let Quaker help you. Wonderful
+free Sample outfit gets orders everywhere. Men's Shirts, Ties,
+Underwear, Hosiery. Unmatchable values. Unique Selling features.
+Ironclad guarantee. You can't fail with Quaker. Write for your Free
+outfit NOW._
+
+  QUAKER SHIRT CORPORATION
+  Dept. K-2
+  1107 Broadway, N.Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FRENCH LOVE DROPS
+
+An enchanting exotic perfume of irresistible charm, clinging for hours
+like lovers loath to part. Just a few drops are enough. Full size bottle
+98c prepaid or $1.39 C.O.D. plus postage. Directions with every order.
+FREE: 1 full size bottle if you order 2 vials.
+
+  =D'ORO CO.=
+  =Box 90, Varick Station, New York=
+  =Dept NSG 2=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  NO JOKE TO BE DEAF
+  --EVERY DEAF PERSON KNOWS THAT
+
+[Illustration: Medicated Ear Drum]
+
+I make myself hear, after being deaf for 25 years, with these Artificial
+Ear Drums. I wear them day and night. They stop head noises and ringing
+ears. They are perfectly comfortable. No one sees them. Write me and I
+will tell you a true story, how I got deaf and how I make you hear.
+Address
+
+  GEO. P. WAY, Artificial Ear Drum Co. (Inc.)
+  300 Hoffman Bldg.
+  Detroit, Mich.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Be A Detective
+
+_Make Secret Investigations_
+
+Earn Big Money. Work home or travel. Fascinating work. Experience
+unnecessary. =DETECTIVE= Particulars FREE, Write NOW to =GEO. N. WAGNER,
+2190 Broadway, New York=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TOBACCO
+
+Habit Overcome Or No Pay
+
+Over 500,000 men and women used Superba Remedy to help stop Cigarettes,
+Cigars, Pipe, Chewing or Snuff. Write for full treatment on trial.
+Contains no dope or habit forming drugs. Costs $2.00 if successful,
+nothing if not. SUPERBA CO., A-11, Baltimore, Md.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Get Strong WITH
+
+These Improved Muscle Builders
+
+_All for $5.00_
+
+[Illustration: Save $20.00 with this OFFER]
+
+_Send no money_
+
+GUARANTEE SATISFACTION OR MONEY BACK
+
+Why pay an extravagant price for strength--here's an opportunity to get
+all the equipment you require along with an excellent course of
+instructions for only $5.00. Realize your ambition and develop muscles
+of a super-man. Get strong and amaze your friends. We show you how to
+easily master feats which now seem difficult--or if you just want
+physical culture for your health's sake, this equipment is just what you
+need. With this special offer you save at least $20.00. We furnish a ten
+cable chest expander which is adjustable to give resistance up to 200
+lbs. It is made of new live extra strength, springy rubber so as to
+ensure long wear and give the resistance you need for real muscle
+development. You also get a pair of patented hand grips for developing
+powerful grip and forearms.
+
+We include wall exercising parts which permit you to develop your back,
+arms and legs--a real muscle necessity. You know that business men and
+athletes, too, first show their age in their legs. Develop your leg
+muscles with the foot strap which we furnish. This will give you speed
+and endurance--but that isn't all that you get. In addition we include a
+specially written course which contains pictures and diagrams showing
+you how to develop any part of your body so that you will quickly get on
+with these exercises and gain the greatest advantage from their use. Act
+now while you can get in on this special offer. It might be withdrawn,
+so rush the coupon.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY
+
+All of the items pictured on this page are included in this big special
+reduction offer. Sign your name and address to the coupon below and rush
+it to us. We will send your ten cable chest developer, the wall parts, a
+pair of hand grips, foot strap and the course by return mail. Pay the
+postman only $5.00, plus the few cents postage on arrival. (If you
+desire to send check or money order in advance, we pay postage.)
+
+
+GUARANTEE
+
+All Crusader products are guaranteed to give entire satisfaction or
+money back.
+
+
+  CRUSADER APPARATUS CO.,
+  Dept. 2002, 44 Parker Ave., Maplewood, N.J.
+
+I accept your offer. Send me everything described in your advertisement
+by return mail. I will pay postman $5.00 plus postage on arrival. It is
+understood if I am not entirely satisfied after examination I can return
+the goods and you will refund my money.
+
+Note:--No C.O.D. Orders to Foreign Countries or Canada.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Win $3,500.00
+
+Prizes from $1800.00 to $4245.00 each have been won through our unique
+advertising plan. In our last, an old man of 69, out of work, won over
+$5000.00. A boy, only 15, won $900.00. In next 3 or 4 months thousands
+of dollars will be awarded to fortunate persons who solve our puzzles
+and win our prizes.
+
+
+FIND THE TWIN FLYERS
+
+Watch out! These twelve pictures of a famous woman flyer all look
+alike--BUT--two, and only two, are exactly alike. Find these twin
+flyers! Some pictures are different in the collar, helmet, goggles, or
+tie. Remember, only two of the twelve are exactly alike. Find them, and
+send the numbers of the twin flyers on a post card or letter today. If
+correct, your answer will qualify you for this opportunity.
+
+
+=$7160.00 IN PRIZES GIVEN THIS TIME=
+
+Over 25 prizes, and duplicate prizes in case of ties. It's up to the
+winner whether he or she chooses $2875.00 in cash or a new Waco
+airplane, a big automobile, or a new home. A gorgeous prize list! ANYONE
+WHO ANSWERS THIS PUZZLE CORRECTLY MAY RECEIVE PRIZES OR CASH.
+
+
+=$625.00 ADDITIONAL FOR PROMPTNESS=
+
+Be prompt! It pays. Find the real twin flyers, and I will send
+Certificate which will be good for $625.00 if you are prompt and win
+first prize. Imagine, a first prize of $3500.00!
+
+NO MORE PUZZLES TO SOLVE. Any man, woman, boy, or girl in the
+U.S.A.--anyone at all, except residents of Chicago, Illinois, and former
+major prize winners. 25 of the people who take up this offer are going
+to win these wonderful prizes. Be one of them. Send the numbers of the
+twin flyers. Send no money, but be prompt.
+
+=J. D. SNYDER, Dept. 36, 54 W. Illinois St., Chicago, Ill.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TRAIN FOR AVIATION AT HOME
+
+Hundreds of men are already training for big-pay Aviation jobs through
+Lt. Hinton's practical home-study course. This thorough training is just
+the foundation you need to enter Aviation in any of its many branches,
+for the course covers Terms and Definitions, Principles of Flight,
+Rigging, Repairing, Construction, Instruments, Aerology, Engines,
+Ignition, Carburetion, Airports; _Aviation from A to Z_. After
+graduation Hinton's Employment Department puts you in touch with real
+jobs, or, if you want to be a pilot, Hinton arranges special flying
+rates at an accredited Air College near your home. Hinton-trained men
+are in demand and they are making good. His Big Free Book explains
+everything. Send for your copy at once!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  =SEND FOR FREE BOOK=
+  =MAIL NOW!=
+
+  WALTER HINTON, President, 316-D
+  Aviation Institute of U.S.A.
+  1115 Conn. Ave., Washington, D.C.
+
+  Name .......................... Age .........
+                                 (Must be 18)
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+$8 often made in one day by many of our sales Agents
+
+[Illustrations]
+
+Sell finest line new guaranteed hosiery you ever saw, for men, women,
+children. Written guarantee to wear and satisfy or replaced. 126 styles,
+colors. Finest silks. All at lowest prices.
+
+
+NEW FORD CAR
+
+We offer our agents a =new Ford Car= when earned under our plan. Your
+commission daily. Credit given. Extra bonus. We deliver or you
+deliver--suit yourself.
+
+
+FINE SILK HOSE
+
+Our new plan gives you =fine silk hosiery= for your own use. I want men
+and women to act as Local Sales Agents. Spare time is satisfactory.
+Write quick. A post card will do.
+
+  =WILKNIT HOSIERY CO.=
+  =No. 2807 Greenfield, Ohio=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NEW SCIENTIFIC WONDER
+
+="X-RAY" CURIO=
+
+[Illustration: Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.]
+
+=PRICE 10c 3-25c no stamps=
+
+BIG FUN
+
+=BOYS= You apparently see thru Clothes, Wood, Stone, any object. See
+Bones in Flesh. FREE Pkg. radio picture films, takes pictures without
+camera. You'll like 'em. (1 pkg. with each 25c order.)
+
+=MARVEL MFG. CO. Dept. 86, NEW HAVEN, CONN.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TRAVEL--for 'UNCLE SAM'
+
+=RAILWAY POSTAL CLERKS=
+
+=MAIL CARRIERS--POSTOFFICE CLERKS GENERAL CLERKS--CUSTOMS INSPECTORS=
+
+$1700 to $3400 a Year for Life
+
+No "layoffs" because of strikes, poor business, etc.--sure pay--rapid
+advancement. Many other U.S. Government Jobs. City and country residents
+stand same chance. Common sense education usually sufficient.
+
+
+STEADY WORK
+
+Cut coupon and mail it before turning the page
+
+=MEN--BOYS 18 to 45=
+
+=Use Coupon Before You Lose It=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COUPON
+
+FRANKLIN INSTITUTE, Dept. E267, Rochester, N.Y.
+
+Rush to me, free of charge. (1) A full description of the positions
+checked below. (2) 32-page book with list of positions obtainable. (3)
+Tell me how to get the positions checked.
+
+  [ ] Railway Postal Clerk ($1900 to $2700)
+  [ ] Postoffice Clerk ($1700 to $2300)
+  [ ] City Mail Carrier ($1700 to $2100)
+  [ ] General Clerk ($1200 to $2100)
+  [ ] Customs Inspector ($2100 up)
+  [ ] Rural Mail Carrier ($2100 to $3300)
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Get Strong QUICKLY
+
+Giant Chest Expander
+
+ONLY $2.00
+
+Here's an opportunity for everyone to develop big muscles and obtain
+great strength by using this heavy-tensioned PROGRESSIVE EXERCISER,
+adjustable from 20 to 200 lbs. resistance. Complete instructions with
+each exerciser.
+
+Get rid of those aches and pains, indigestion, constipation, headaches,
+etc. Build up your body and look like a real He-man.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY!
+
+Simply pay the postman $2.00, plus a few cents postage, for five-cabled
+exerciser or $4.00 plus a few cents postage, for ten-cabled exerciser.
+_Money back in five days if dissatisfied._
+
+  Progressive Exerciser Co.
+  Dept. 5002, Langdon Building
+  Duane Street and Broadway
+  New York City
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LAW
+
+STUDY AT HOME
+
+Become a lawyer. Legally trained men win high positions and big success
+in business and public life. Be independent. Greater opportunities now
+than ever before. Big corporations are headed by men with legal
+training. Earn
+
+=$5,000 to $10,000 Annually=
+
+We guide you step by step. You can train at home during spare time.
+Degree of LL. B. conferred. LaSalle students found among practicing
+attorneys of every state. We furnish all text material, including
+fourteen-volume Law Library. Low cost, easy terms. Get our valuable
+64-page "Law Guide" and "Evidence" books FREE. Send for them NOW.
+
+  LaSalle Extension University, Dept. 275-L, Chicago
+  The World's Largest Business Training Institution
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HOW SHARP IS YOUR RAZOR?
+
+Did you have trouble shaving this morning? If your razor blade scraped
+and pulled you will appreciate this remarkable new discovery.... Gold
+Nugget Strop Dressing ... can be used satisfactorily on all stropping
+devices ... puts keen cutting edge on any razor blade.... Easy to apply
+... results assured. Makes you feel like singing when you shave. $1
+postpaid.
+
+  NO-HONE COMPANY
+  3124 California St.
+  Omaha, Nebraska
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PATENTS
+
+Time counts in applying for patents. Don't risk delay in protecting your
+ideas. Send sketch or model for instructions or write for FREE book.
+"How to Obtain a Patent" and "Record of Invention" form. No charge for
+information on how to proceed. Communications strictly confidential.
+Prompt, careful, efficient service. Clarence A. O'Brien, Registered
+Patent Attorney, 1876 Security Savings and Comm'l Bank Building
+(directly across street from Patent Office) Washington, D.C.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STOP Tobacco
+
+No human being can escape the harmful effects of tobacco. Don't try to
+quit without assistance. Let our simple inexpensive remedy help you. A
+complete treatment costs but $2.00. Every penny promptly refunded if you
+do not get desired results.
+
+Ours is a harmless preparation, carefully compounded to overcome the
+condition, that will make quitting of tobacco pleasant, and easy. It
+comes with a money back guarantee.
+
+  =Anti-Tobacco League=
+  P.O. Box H-2
+  OMAHA, NEBR.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SONG WRITERS!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+SUBSTANTIAL ADVANCE ROYALTIES are paid on work found acceptable for
+publication. Anyone wishing to write _either the words_ or music for
+songs may submit work for free examination and advice. _Past experience
+unnecessary_. New demand created by "Talking Pictures" fully described
+in our free book. Write for it Today.
+
+  NEWCOMER ASSOCIATES
+  723 Earle Building, New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Learn to PAINT SIGNS and SHOW CARDS
+
+We quickly teach you by mail, or at school. In spare time. Enormous
+demand. Big future. Interesting work. Oldest and foremost school.
+
+
+EARN $50 TO $200 WEEKLY
+
+Otto Wiegand, Md., home-study graduate, made $12,000 from his business
+in one year. John Vassoe, N.Y., gets $25 for a show card. Crawford,
+B.C., writes: "Earned $200 while taking course." Write for complete
+information.
+
+  DETROIT SCHOOL OF LETTERING
+  Est. 1889
+  180 Stimson Ave.
+  DETROIT, MICH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STOP WORRYING about Money
+
+[Illustration: _Here's a New, Easy Way to Make_ $15 a Day]
+
+YES--here's a wonderful opportunity to start right in making $15 in a
+day. You can have plenty of money to pay your bills, to spend for new
+clothes, furniture, radio, pleasure trips, or whatever you want. No more
+pinching pennies or counting the nickels and dimes. No more saying "We
+can't afford it." That's the biggest mistake any man or woman ever made.
+=And I'll prove it.=
+
+
+Van Allen Makes $100 a Week
+
+Just send me your name and address and I'll give you some facts that
+will open your eyes. I'll show you how L. C. Van Allen, of Illinois,
+quit a $23-a-week job, took hold of my proposition, and made better than
+$100 a week! Then there's Gustav Karnath, of Minnesota, who cleared
+$20.35 the first five hours, and Mrs. B. L. Hodges, of New York, who
+says she never fails to make a profit of $18 to $20 a day. I have
+letters from men and women everywhere that tell about profits of $10,
+$15, $20 and as high as $25 and $30 in a single day.
+
+
+Start Right In
+
+You don't need any experience or capital to make big money my way. No
+course of training is necessary. You simply act as my Representative in
+your locality and look after my business there. All you have to do is
+call on your friends and my established customers and take care of their
+orders for my fast selling line of Groceries, Toilet Articles and other
+Household Necessities. I have thousands of customers in every section of
+every State. They must order from you because I never sell through
+stores. Last year my Representatives made nearly two million dollars.
+When I get the coupon from you I send full details by return mail. You
+can quickly be making money just like I said. I will also supply you
+with Groceries and other Household Necessities at lowest, wholesale
+prices.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY
+
+If you want ready cash--a chance to make $15 or more a day starting at
+once--and Groceries at wholesale--just send me your name and address on
+the coupon. It costs you nothing to investigate. Keep your present job
+and start in spare time if you want to. Oscar Stuart, of W. Virginia,
+reports $18 profit in 2-1/2 hours' spare time. So you see there's
+everything to gain. Simply mail the coupon. _I_ will give you full
+details of my plan without cost or obligation to you. I'll give you the
+big opportunity you've been waiting for. So don't lose a moment. Mail
+the coupon NOW.
+
+
+FREE!
+
+[Illustration: New Ford Tudor Sedan]
+
+NOT a contest. I offer a brand-new car free to producers as an extra
+reward or bonus--in addition to their large cash profits. Mail coupon
+for particulars.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MAIL THIS NOW!
+
+  =ALBERT MILLS, Pres., American Products Co.,=
+  =5441 Monmouth Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio.=
+
+Send me, without cost or obligation, all the facts about your new
+proposition that offers a wonderful opportunity to make quick profits of
+$15 or more a day and Groceries at wholesale.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  .............................................
+  (C) A. P. Co.        (Print or Write Plainly)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+What's Wrong With This Picture?
+
+See If You Can Find the Mistakes in This Picture
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We will spend over $167,000.00 this year for the purpose of conducting
+free prize offers to advertise and expand our business. Thousands of
+persons are going to receive valuable prizes or cash awards and
+compensations this year through our offers. The sky is the limit! Anyone
+living in the United States outside of Chicago, except employees of this
+company, members of their families, or our previous auto or first prize
+winners, or members of their families, may enter an answer to this
+puzzle.
+
+
+$7,346 In Prizes Given in This One Offer
+
+Seven Big New 6-Cylinder Sedans and Other Valuable Prizes
+
+Try your skill--it costs you nothing. Study the picture shown here, but
+look carefully. The artist has purposely made many mistakes. Can you
+find four or more of them? These mistakes can be found in various
+objects is the picture--that's all the hint we can give you. If you
+think you can find four or more mistakes, answer at once. Just mark the
+mistakes in pencil on the picture, or tell me what they are in a letter
+or on a post card. Only four mistakes are required for a perfect answer.
+
+
+Anyone Who Answers This Puzzle Correctly May Receive Prizes or Cash!
+
+Man, woman, boy, or girl--it doesn't matter who or what you are. Seven
+of the people who take up this offer are going to win wonderful
+automobiles. You can be among them. Answer today! Duplicate prizes
+awarded in case of ties.
+
+
+=Additional $500.00 for Promptness= $500.00 extra will be awarded in
+addition to first prize if you are prompt. If your answer is judged to
+be perfect, I will tell you without delay about winning the prizes.
+Hurry now! Address your answer to G. W. ALDERTON, Advertising Manager,
+Dept. 143, 510 North Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AGENTS--Represent THE Carlton LINE--_America's Best Paying Proposition_!
+
+SAMPLES FREE
+
+
+SELL FROM A MILLION DOLLAR STOCK
+
+
+Shirts, Neckwear and Underwear.
+
+No substitutions. 4 Hour Shipping Service. Highest Commissions Bonuses.
+Profit Sharing. Biggest Company. Mail Coupon.
+
+
+  CARLTON MILLS, 114 FIFTH AVE., N.Y.C.
+  _Send me your Famous Sample Outfit_
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  100-G
+
+
+  CARLTON MILLS INC.
+  114 FIFTH AVE.
+  NEW YORK
+  =Dept. 186-6=
+
+MAIL COUPON
+
+$1000 LIFE Insurance Policy Free
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BE A JAZZ MUSIC MASTER
+
+Play Piano By Ear
+
+[Illustration: Niagara School Free Book]
+
+Play popular song hits perfectly. Name the tune, play it by ear. No
+teacher--self-instruction. No tedious ding-dong daily practice--just 20
+brief, entertaining lessons, easily mastered.
+
+
+At Home in Your Spare Time
+
+Send for FREE BOOK. Learn many styles of bass and syncopation--trick
+endings. If 10c (coin or stamps) is enclosed, you also receive wonderful
+booklet "_How to Entertain at Piano_"--and many new tricks, stunts, etc.
+
+  _Niagara School of Music_
+  Dept. 350 Niagara Falls, N.Y.
+
+Send for this Free Book
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Learn How to BOX
+
+=$2.98= brings you the famous boxing course by mail of Jimmy DeForest,
+=World's Greatest Trainer=, the system that trained Dempsey and great
+champions. Covers everything in scientific boxing from fundamentals to
+ring generalship. Twenty weeks makes you a finished DeForest trained
+boxer. Hundreds of DeForest trained men are making good in the ring
+today. Complete course sent in one mailing. Send $2.98 or C.O.D order
+paying postman $2.98 plus actual postage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  =Jimmy DeForest Boxing Course=
+  =347 Madison Ave., Box 42, New York City=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Radium Is Restoring Health to Thousands
+
+No medicine, drugs or dieting. Just a light, small, comfortable
+inexpensive Radio-Active Pad, worn on the back by day and over the
+stomach at night. Sold on trial. You can be sure it is helping you
+before you buy it. Over 150,000 sold on this plan. Thousands have
+written us that it healed them of Neuritis, Rheumatism, High Blood
+Pressure, Constipation, Nervous Prostration, Heart, Lungs, Liver, Kidney
+and Bladder trouble, etc. No matter what you have tried, or what your
+trouble may be, try Degnen's Radio-Active Solar Pad at our risk. Write
+today for Trial offer and descriptive literature. Radium Appliance Co.,
+2833 Bradbury Bldg., Los Angeles, Cal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HYPNOTIZE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+25 Lessons in Hypnotism, Mind Reading and Magnetic Healing. Tells how
+experts hypnotize at a glance, make others obey their commands. How to
+overcome bad habits, how to give a home performance, get on the stage,
+etc. Helpful to every man and woman, executives, salesmen, doctors,
+mothers, etc. Simple, easy. Learn at home. Only $1.10, including the
+"Hypnotic Eye," a new aid for amateurs. Send stamps or M.O. (or pay
+C.O.D. plus postage). Guaranteed. =Educator Press, 19 Park Row, New
+York. Dept. H-41=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AVIATION Information FREE
+
+Send us your name and address for full information regarding the
+Aviation and Airplane business. Find out about the many great
+opportunities now open and how we prepare you at home, during spare
+time, to qualify. Our new book, _Opportunities in the Airplane industry_
+also sent free if you answer at once.
+
+  AMERICAN SCHOOL OF AVIATION
+  Dept. 1182 3601 Michigan Ave. CHICAGO
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Charming--Captivating--Irresistible
+
+  DESIR D'AMOUR
+  [Love's Desire]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This exotic perfume goes straight to the heart like Cupid's arrows. Its
+strength and mystic aroma thrills and delights young and old. Triple
+strength full size vial 98 cents prepaid or $1.32 C.O.D. plus shipping
+charges. Directions free. One bottle GRATIS if you order three vials.
+MAGNUS WORKS, Box 12, Varick Sta., New York, N.Y., Dept. NSG-2.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: On your feet--_In a good Paying Business_]
+
+We start you in the shoe and hosiery business. Inexperienced workers
+earn Big Money yearly. Direct-to-Wearer plan. Just show Tanners Famous
+Line of Footwear.
+
+    We tell how and where to sell. Perfect fit through Patented
+    System. Collect your pay daily. We furnish $40.00 Sample Outfit
+    of actual shoes and hosiery. 83 styles.
+
+=Send for free book "Getting Ahead" and full particulars.= No
+obligation.
+
+  TANNERS SHOE CO.
+  892 C Street, Boston, Mass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+=Play the Hawaiian Guitar like the Hawaiians!=
+
+=Only 4 Motions= used in playing this fascinating instrument Our native
+Hawaiian instructors teach you to master them quickly. Pictures show
+how. Everything explained clearly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Play in Half Hour
+
+After you get the four easy motions you play harmonious chords with very
+little practice. No previous musical knowledge needed.
+
+
+Easy Lessons
+
+Even if you don't know one note from another, the 52 printed lessons and
+clear pictures make it easy to learn quickly. Pay as you play.
+
+
+GIVEN _when you enroll_--a sweet toned HAWAIIAN GUITAR, Carrying Case
+and Playing Outfit--Value $18 to $20
+
+_No extras--everything included_
+
+=WRITE AT ONCE= for attractive offer and easy terms. You have
+everything to gain. A postcard will do. =ACT!=
+
+
+OTHER COURSES
+
+Tenor Banjo, Violin, Tiple, Tenor Guitar, Ukulele, Banjo Ukulele. Under
+well known instructors.
+
+  FIRST HAWAIIAN CONSERVATORY of MUSIC, Inc.
+  9th Floor, Woolworth Bldg, Dept. 269 New York, N.Y.
+
+_Approved as a Correspondence School Under the Laws of the State of New
+York--Member National Home Study Council_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SELL ROSECLIFF SHIRTS
+
+_Make Steady Money_
+
+
+YOUR OWN SHIRTS and TIES
+
+Showing Samples
+
+Men's Shirts Ties, Underwear brings you big cash commissions. One Year
+Guarantee. No substitutions. Free silk initials. More exclusive
+Rosecliff features establish leadership. Write for your FREE Outfit NOW!
+
+  ROSECLIFF SHIRT CORP.
+  Dept. J-2
+  1237 Broadway, N.Y.
+
+_Outfit Free_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+GOV'T. POSITIONS
+
+  $35 TO $75 WEEKLY
+  MEN--WOMEN
+  AGE 18 to 55
+
+  ( ) By. Mail Clerk
+  ( ) P. O. Laborer
+  ( ) R. F. D. Carrier
+  ( ) Special Agent (investigator)
+  ( ) City Mail Carrier
+  ( ) Meat Inspector
+  ( ) P. O. Clerk
+  ( ) File Clerk
+  ( ) General Clerk
+  ( ) Matron
+  ( ) Steno-Typist
+  ( ) Immigrant Inspector
+  ( ) Seamstress
+  ( ) Auditor
+  ( ) Steno-Secretary
+  ( ) U.S. Border Patrol
+  ( ) Chauffeur-Carrier
+  ( ) Watchman
+  ( ) Skilled Laborer
+  ( ) Postmaster
+  ( ) Typist
+
+INSTRUCTION BUREAU, 112-B, St. Louis, Mo.
+
+Send me FREE particulars How To Qualify for positions marked "X."
+Salaries, locations, opportunities, etc. ALL SENT FREE.
+
+  Name ............................................
+
+  Address .........................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: FREE! Body Chart]
+
+If you will mail the coupon below, this Anatomical and Physiological
+Chart will be mailed to you without one cent of expense. It shows the
+location of the Organs, Bones of the Body, Muscles of the Body, Head and
+Vertebra Column and tells you how the nerves radiate from your spinal
+cord to all organs of the body. This chart should be in every home.
+
+
+Where Is That PAIN?
+
+It may be in the neck, back, hips, stomach, liver, legs or arms.
+Wherever it is, the chart will help to show you the location and cause
+of your ailment. For instance, this chart will help you locate vermiform
+appendix pains. Hundreds of lives might have been saved if people had
+known the location and character of the pain and had received proper
+attention.
+
+
+Stop that Pain
+
+  _By Relieving the Cause with_
+  Violet Ray--Vibration
+  Ozone--Medical Electricity
+  _The Four Greatest Curative Powers Generated by This_
+  =Great New Invention!=
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Elco Health Generators at last are ready for you! If you want more
+health--greater power to enjoy the pleasures and delights about you, or
+if more beauty is your desire--_write_! Ask for the book on these
+inventions which has just been prepared. It will be sent to you without
+cost. It tells you how Elco Health Generators aid you in leaving the
+lethargy and hopelessness of bad health and weakness behind forever.
+Re-vitalize yourself. Bring back energy. Be wholly alive. Write today!
+
+
+   _Elco_
+   Electric Health Generators
+
+Here's What Elco Users Say--
+
+    "Wouldn't Take $1000 for my Elco."
+    "Has done me more good in 2 weeks than doctors did in three years."
+    "Cured my Rheumatism."
+    "My Eczema gone."
+    "Cured my stomach trouble."
+    "Cured my weakness."
+    "Now I sleep soundly all night."
+    "Thanks to Elco my strength and vigor are back."
+    "No more pain." "Colds never bother me now."
+    "Chronic Constipation banished."
+
+Free Trial
+
+These great new inventions generate Violet Ray, Vibration, Electricity
+and Ozone--combined or separate. They operate on the electric light in
+your home or on their own motive power at less than 50 cents per year.
+Elco Health Generators are positively the only instruments which can
+give you in one outfit Electricity, Violet Ray--Vibration and Ozone--the
+four greatest curative agents. Send the coupon below. Get the Free Book
+NOW!
+
+
+MAIL COUPON for FREE BOOK
+
+[Illustration: Health Power Beauty]
+
+Do not put this paper down without sending the coupon. Don't go on as
+you are with pains and with almost no life and energy. You owe it to
+yourself to be a better man or woman. You were put here to enjoy
+life--not just to drag through it. So do not rest another day until you
+have put your name on the coupon here. That will bring the whole story
+of these great new inventions. Do it today--now.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Lindstrom & Co.
+  _Makers of Therapeutic Apparatus since 1892_.
+  2322 Indiana Avenue
+  Dept. 15-62
+  Chicago
+
+Please send me your free book, "Heal--Power--Beauty" and full
+information of your 10-day Free Trial Offer.
+
+  _Name_ ........................................
+
+  _Address_ .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Who Wants an Auto FREE?
+
+STUDEBAKER--BUICK--NASH! Your choice! OR $2000.00 CASH
+
+[Illustration: MARK YOUR STAR
+
+MAIL THE CIRCLE]
+
+Thousands of dollars in new autos and grand prizes will positively be
+given free to advertise and make new friends for my firm. Choice of
+Studebaker or Buick or Nash new 4-door sedan delivered free, or $2000.00
+cash. Also Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Fords, diamonds, other fine
+prizes and cash will be given free. No problems to do. No fine writing
+required. No words to make. No figures to add. Bank guarantees all
+prizes.
+
+
+Pick Your Lucky Star!
+
+All the stars in the circle are exactly alike except one. That star is
+different to all the others and it may be a lucky star for you. Can you
+pick it out? If you can, mark the different star and send the circle to
+me at once along with your name and address. A prompt answer can start
+you on the way to win the great $2000.00 free prize.
+
+
+BE PROMPT--WIN $650.00 EXTRA
+
+Someone like you who will write me at once can get $650.00 cash fast for
+being prompt, so you may thank your lucky stars if you send your answer
+right off. No risk. Nothing to buy. Nothing hard to do. Over $7000.00 in
+valuable prizes will be given free of cost. Send today and I will show
+you just how you can get your free choice of these splendid new sedans
+or $2000.00 cash, without cost or obligation of any kind. All win plan!
+A reward for everybody! SEND NO MONEY. Answer AT ONCE.
+
+Address GEO. WILSON, DEPT. 27, AUGUSTA, MAINE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+RUPTURE IS NOT A TEAR
+
+Your physician will tell you that hernia (rupture) is a muscular
+weakness in the abdominal wall.--Do not be satisfied with merely bracing
+these weakened muscles, with your condition probably growing worse every
+day!--Strike at the real cause of the trouble, and
+
+    =WHEN=--
+
+    The weakened muscles recover their strength and elasticity,
+    and--
+
+    The unsightly, unnatural protrusion disappears, and--
+
+    You recover your vim, vigor and vitality,--your strength and
+    energy,--and you look and feel better in every way,--and your
+    friends notice the difference,--
+
+    =THEN=--
+
+    You'll know your rupture is gone, and
+
+    You'll know why for almost a quarter of a century numerous sworn
+    statements report complete recovery and freedom from
+    uncomfortable mechanical supports, without delay from work.
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY
+
+A Test of the scientific self-treatment mentioned in coupon below is now
+available to you, whether you are young or old, man or woman. It costs
+you nothing to make this test.--For your own good mail the coupon
+NOW--TODAY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=FREE TEST COUPON=
+
+Plapao Laboratories, 692 Stuart Bldg., St. Louis, Mo.
+
+Send me a Free 10-day test supply of the remedial factor Plapao and 48
+page illustrated book on Rupture; no charge for this now or later.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+NEW AND SIMPLE DISCOVERY
+
+CLEARS-THE-SKIN
+
+We prove it to you, =FREE=. =SEND NO MONEY.= Write today for =PROOF=
+and full details of our liberal prepaid FULL SIZE TRIAL PACKAGE.
+
+
+GUARANTEED FOR ALL SKIN TROUBLES
+
+Quickly ends Pimples, Blackheads, Whiteheads, Coarse Pores, Wrinkles,
+Oily Shiny Skin, Freckles, Chronic Eczema, Stubborn Psoriasis, Scales,
+Crusts, Pustules, Barbers Itch, Itching Skin, Scabbies, softens and
+whitens the skin. =Just send us your name and address.=
+
+ANDRE & CO., 751 E. 42nd St., Suite 77, Chicago
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+HAVE YOU READ?
+
+  "ONE WOMAN'S WAR"
+  _By_ Helene Reynolds Moffatt
+
+  "BROADWAY'S CHILDREN"
+  _By_ Achmed Abdullah and Faith Baldwin
+
+  "THE LOST DREAM"
+  _By_ Hector Hawton
+
+  "THE LIFE HE STOLE"
+  _By_ Roy Vickers
+
+  "FOOLISH FIRE"
+  _By_ Virginia Swain
+
+  "LIFE'S COMEBACKS"
+  _By_ Jan Cruze
+
+  "THE WHIRL OF YOUTH"
+  _By_ Evelyn Campbell
+
+  "FLAME OF FIRE WEED"
+  _By_ James French Dorrance
+
+  "A PRAIRIE PRINCESS"
+  _By_ Frank C. Robertson
+
+
+These complete novels, each one a story of unusual significance, are now
+being offered to you at the special price of
+
+  25 cents each
+  or five for $1.00, postpaid
+
+  THE READERS' GUILD,
+  80 LAFAYETTE STREET, 12th FLOOR,
+  NEW YORK CITY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TYPEWRITER 1/2 Price
+
+[Illustration: Free Trial]
+
+World's best makes--Underwood, Remington, Royal--also portables--prices
+smashed to below half. (_Easy terms._)
+
+
+SEND NO MONEY!
+
+All late models completely rebuilt and refinished brand new. _Guaranteed
+for ten years._ Send no money--big _Free_ catalog shows actual machines
+in full colors. Get our direct-to-you easy payment plan and 10 day free
+trial offer. Amazing values--send at once.
+
+  International Typewriter Exch.,
+  231 W. Monroe St.
+  Dept. 272, Chicago
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PANTS MATCHED
+
+TO ANY SUIT--FREE SAMPLE
+
+[Illustration]
+
+=DON'T DISCARD YOUR OLD SUIT.= Wear the coat and vest another year by
+getting new trousers to match. Tailored to your measure. With over
+100,000 patterns to select from we can match almost any pattern. Send
+vest or sample of cloth today, and we will submit _FREE_ best match
+obtainable.
+
+  AMERICAN MATCH PANTS CO.
+  Dept D. N. 6 W. Randolph St., Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+QUIT TOBACCO
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No man or woman can escape the harmful effects of tobacco. Don't try to
+banish unaided the hold tobacco has upon you. Join the thousands of
+inveterate tobacco users that have found it easy to quit with the aid of
+the Keeley Treatment.
+
+
+KEELEY
+
+  Treatment For
+  _Tobacco Habit_
+  Successful For
+  Over 50 Years
+
+Quickly banishes all craving for tobacco. Write today for Free Book
+telling how to quickly Free yourself from the tobacco habit and our
+Money Back Guarantee.
+
+  THE KEELEY INSTITUTE
+  Dept. E-211
+  Dwight, Illinois
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Styled On Fifth Avenue._
+
+TIES & SHIRTS PAY BIG
+
+MAKE STEADY MONEY
+
+weekly selling this combined line. Public Service offers the best
+money-maker in the country for full time or spare time workers.
+
+Splendid Fifth Ave. Styled shirts. Beautiful fabrics to satisfy every
+taste. Sell on sight to men and women at factory prices. Biggest
+assortment in the business. Collect your commissions in advance. Finest
+new Spring Outfit FREE. Start earning more money at once. Write TODAY.
+
+  PUBLIC SERVICE MILLS, Inc.
+  517-J Thirtieth Street, North Bergen, N.J.
+  Canadian Office, 110 Dundas St., London, Ontario, Canada
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MONEY FOR YOU
+
+Men or women can earn $15 to $25 weekly in spare time at home making
+display cards. Light, pleasant work. No canvassing. We instruct you and
+supply you with work. Write today for full particulars.
+
+  The MENHENITT COMPANY Limited
+  245 Dominion Bldg., Toronto, Can.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  DIRECT FROM MOVIELAND
+  THRILLING LOVE LETTERS
+  LOVE'S PSYCHOLOGY
+  BEAUTY PSYCHOLOGY
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  LOVE DROPS
+  PERFUME
+  SECRET EXTRACT
+
+A New Creation, an Enchanting, powerful aroma, with that alluring blend
+that stirs the soul of rich and poor, old and young to surrender to its
+charms. $2.50 value, $1.00 post paid or $1.27 C.O.D. with instructions
+for use. Also Free our 2 new books totaling 120 pages including
+
+
+THRILLING LOVE LETTERS
+
+burning love epistles of many of history's famous characters, also
+secrets of Love's Psychology and Art of winning the One You Love with
+the original 7 Psychological and Successful plans for winning and
+holding the love of the one you love.
+
+  Wons Co., Dept. N-15
+  Box 1250, Hollywood, Calif.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BECOME AN EXPERT ACCOUNTANT
+
+Executive Accountants and C.P.A.'s earn $8,000 to $10,000 a year.
+Thousands of firms need them. Only 9,000 Certified Public Accountants in
+the Unites States. We train you thoroughly at home in spare time for
+C.P.A. examinations or executive accounting positions. Previous
+experience unnecessary. Training under the personal supervision of
+William B. Castenholz, A.M., C.P.A., and a large staff of C.P.A.'s
+including members of the American Institute of Accountants. Write for
+free book, "Accountancy, the Profession that Pays."
+
+  =La Salle Extension University, Dept. 275-H Chicago=
+  =The World's Largest Business Training Institution=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+LEARN TO Mount Birds
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We teach you =At Home by Mail= to mount _Birds_, _Animals_, _Heads_,
+_Tan Furs and Make Rugs_. Be a taxidermy artist. Easily, quickly learned
+by men, women and boys. Tremendously interesting and fascinating.
+Decorate home and den with beautiful art. _Make Big Profits from Spare
+Time Selling Specimens and Mounting for Others._
+
+=Free Book=--Yes absolutely Free--beautiful book telling all about how
+to learn taxidermy. Send =Today=. You will be delighted. Don't Delay!
+
+  Northwestern School of Taxidermy
+  1032 Elwood Bldg.
+  OMAHA, NEB.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+FREE
+
+[Illustration: My Pay-Raising Plan]
+
+send you these Genuine high quality, Imported Drawing Instruments, 14
+Other Tools and a Drafting Table--All included in my Home Training
+Course.
+
+"My Pay-Raising Plan"
+
+It Shows You How I Prepare You at Home For
+
+
+EMPLOYMENT
+
+_In These and Other Great Industries_
+
+Automobile--Electricity--Motor Bus--Aviation--Building Construction.
+
+There are jobs for Draftsmen in all of these industries and in hundreds
+of others.
+
+Aviation is expanding to enormous proportions.
+
+Electricity is getting bigger every day. Motor Bus building is becoming
+a leading world industry.
+
+Building of stores, homes, factories and office buildings is going on
+all the time. No structure can be erected without plans drawn by a
+draftsman. No machinery can be built without plans drawn by a draftsman.
+I train you at home, in Drafting. Keep the job you have now while
+learning.
+
+
+Earn As You Learn
+
+I tell you how to start earning extra money a few weeks after beginning
+my training.
+
+I will train you in drafting right where you are in your spare time. I
+have trained men who are making $3,500.00 to $9,000.00 a year. Get
+started now toward a better position, paying a good, straight salary,
+the year around. Comfortable surroundings. Inside work.
+
+
+Employment Service
+
+After training you I help you to get a job without charging you a cent
+for this service. Employers of Draftsmen come to me for men. Employers
+know they are not taking chances on men trained by me.
+
+
+No Experience Necessary
+
+You do not need to be a college man nor high school graduate to learn by
+this method. No previous experience necessary. I make a positive money
+back guarantee with you before I begin to train you.
+
+If you are now earning less than
+
+
+$70.00 a WEEK
+
+[Illustration: _I train you at home!_]
+
+_Write For My FREE "Pay-Raising Plan"_
+
+Mail this coupon at once. Get "My Pay-Raising Plan". It certainly points
+the way to success. You owe it to yourself to send for this book. Find
+out how I help you find big opportunities in practically all big
+industries. The book will come to you post paid and FREE. Mail the
+coupon for it today.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  =Engineer Dobe=
+  =1951 Lawrence Ave., Div. 15-62=
+  =Chicago=
+
+Send me Free of all cost, "My Pay-Raising Plan". Also plan to earn money
+while learning to be a draftsman and proof of big money paying positions
+in great industries.
+
+  _Name_..................................  _Age_.........
+
+  _Address_...............................................
+
+  _Post Office_.........................  _State_.........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Clear-Tone Clears the Skin
+
+Clear-Tone is a penetrating, purifying lotion, used at night with
+astounding success to clear the skin of pimples, blotches, black-heads
+and other annoying, unsightly skin irritations due to external causes.
+More than one-half million persons have cleared their skins with
+Clear-Tone in the last 12 years. "Complexion Tragedies with Happy
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+request. Clear-Tone can be had at your druggist--or direct from us.
+GIVENS CHEMICAL CO., 2557 Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  SELL PIONEER All Wool Tailoring
+
+  _Full or Part Time_
+
+  $4.50 to $7.00 (WITH BONUS)
+  PROFIT Per SUIT
+
+Cash Paid Daily
+
+An opportunity to make $12 a day from the start, selling famous Pioneer
+tailored-to-measure, all-wool suits at $25. Commissions paid in advance.
+=Chance for own clothes at no cost.= Striking Big Outfit of over 100
+large swatches furnished free--other equally remarkable values at $30
+and $35. We train the inexperienced. Men willing to work for success
+will write for this big money-making opportunity, today.
+
+  =PIONEER TAILORING CO.=
+  =Congress and Throop Sts., Dept. P-1184, Chicago=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ruptured?
+
+[Illustration: Trade Mark
+
+C. K. Brooks, Inventor]
+
+Be Comfortable--
+
+Three million of these comfortable sanitary appliances sold. No
+obnoxious springs or pads. Automatic Air Cushion gently assists nature
+in drawing together the broken parts. Durable. Cheap. Sent on 10-day
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+individual measurements and sent direct from Marshall. Full information
+and Rupture booklet sent free in plain, sealed envelope. Write for all
+the facts today.
+
+=BROOKS APPLIANCE CO., 173-B State Street, Marshall, Mich.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CORRECT Your NOSE!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thousands have used the Anita Nose Adjuster to improve their appearance.
+Shapes flesh and cartilage of the nose--safely, painlessly, while you
+sleep. Results are lasting. Doctors approve it. Money back guarantee.
+Gold Medal winner. Write for 30-Day TRIAL OFFER and FREE BOOKLET.
+
+=ANITA INSTITUTE, 242 Anita Building, Newark, N.J.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHAT EVERY ELECTRICIAN WANTS TO _KNOW_!
+
+Is easily found in AUDELS NEW ELECTRIC LIBRARY. Electricity made simple
+as ABC. Up-to-date, trade dope for the expert and ALL electrical
+workers.
+
+Questions, answers, diagrams, calculations, underwriter's code; design,
+construction, operation and maintenance of modern electrical machines
+and appliances FULLY COVERED.
+
+All available at small cost, easy terms. BOOK-A-MONTH service puts this
+NEW information in your hands for 6c a day.
+
+Write TODAY for Electrical Folder and FREE TRIAL offer.
+
+Theo. Audel & Co. 65 W. 23rd St. New York, Dept. 20
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ever Get Nervous When You're Reading?
+
+--_You might see a doctor_,
+
+--_But if you are a girl, and wise_,
+
+--_You'll try reading_
+
+=MISS 1930=
+
+_instead_
+
+
+--IT'S A TONIC
+
+--A Chance To See your picture in a magazine.
+
+--Real laughs.
+
+--Choosing a Career
+
+--The Fate of Your Name
+
+--Youthful Styles
+
+--And the Best Fiction in any
+
+MAGAZINE FOR THE MODERN GIRL
+
+  MISS 1930
+  80 Lafayette Street, New York City
+
+  25c. AT YOUR NEWSDEALER
+  SUBSCRIPTION $3.00 PER YEAR
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: FOR THOUSANDS OF MEN]
+
+Tobacco Habit Banished
+
+Let Us Help You
+
+Stop craving tobacco in any form. Tobacco Redeemer in most cases
+relieves all craving for it in a few days' time. Don't try to quit the
+tobacco habit unaided. It's often a losing fight against heavy odds, and
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+help the habit to quit _you_. Tobacco users usually can depend upon this
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+
+
+Not a Substitute
+
+Tobacco Redeemer contains no habit-forming drugs of any kind. It is in
+no sense a substitute for tobacco. After finishing the treatment, there
+should be no desire to use tobacco again or to continue the use of the
+remedy. In case the treatment is not perfectly satisfactory, we will
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+long tobacco has been used, or in what form--whether it is cigars,
+cigarettes, pipe, plug, fine cut or snuff. In most cases Tobacco
+Redeemer removes all craving for tobacco in any form in a very few days.
+And remember, it is offered with a positive money-back guarantee. Write
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+quickly relieve the craving for tobacco in most cases.
+
+  =NEWELL PHARMACAL COMPANY
+  Dept. 793
+  Clayton Station
+  St. Louis, Mo.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+10 Inches Off Waistline In 35 Days
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I reduced from 48 inches to 38 inches in 35 days," says R. E. Johnson,
+of Akron, O., "just by wearing a Director Belt. Stomach now firm,
+doesn't sag and I feel fine."
+
+The Director Belt gets at the _cause_ of fat and quickly removes it by
+its gentle, kneading, massaging action on the abdomen, which causes the
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+recommend it as the natural way to reduce. Stop drugs, exercises and
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+
+
+Sent on Trial
+
+Let us prove our claims. We'll send a Director for trial. If you don't
+get results you owe nothing. You don't risk a penny. Write for trial
+offer, doctors' endorsements and letters from users. Mail the coupon
+NOW!
+
+  =LANDON & WARNER=
+  =332 S. La Salle St., Chicago, Ill.=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Landon & Warner, Dept. C-71, 332 S. LaSalle, Chicago
+
+Gentlemen: Without cost or obligation on my part please send me details
+of your trial offer.
+
+  Name ........................................
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: WANTED--for murder!]
+
+$1,000 Reward!
+
+In a dirty, forelorn shack by the river's edge they found the mutilated
+body of Genevieve Martin. Her pretty face was swollen and distorted.
+Marks on the slender throat showed that she had been brutally choked to
+death. Who had committed this ghastly crime?
+
+Crimes like this are being solved every day by Finger Print Experts. We
+read in the papers of their exploits, hear of the mysteries they solve,
+the rewards they win. Finger Print Experts are the heroes of the hour.
+
+
+More Trained Men Needed
+
+The demand for trained men by governments, states, cities, detective
+agencies, corporations, and private bureaus is becoming greater every
+day. Here is a real opportunity for YOU. Can you imagine a more
+fascinating line of work than this? Often life and death depend on
+finger print evidence--and big rewards go to the expert. Many experts
+earn regularly from $3,000 to $10,000 per year.
+
+
+Learn At Home in Spare Time
+
+Now, through this amazing new, simple course, you can learn the secrets
+of this science easily and quickly at home in your spare time. Any man
+with common school education and average ability can become a Finger
+Print Detective in surprisingly short time.
+
+
+FREE--The Confidential Reports No. 38 Made to His Chief!
+
+IF YOU ACT QUICK--We will send you free and with no obligation
+whatsoever, a copy of the gripping, fascinating, confidential report
+Secret Service Operator No. 38 made to His Chief. Mail coupon NOW!
+
+Write quickly for fully illustrated free book on Finger Prints which
+explains this wonderful training in detail. Don't wait. You may never
+see this announcement again! You assume no obligation. Mail coupon
+NOW--while this offer lasts!
+
+  =Institute of Applied Science=
+  =Dept. 15-62=
+  =1920 Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  =INSTITUTE OF APPLIED SCIENCE,=
+  =Dept. 15-62 1920 Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago, Ill.=
+
+Gentlemen: Without any obligation whatever, send me your new, fully
+illustrated FREE book on Finger Prints and the free copy of the
+Confidential Reports of Operator No. 38 made to His Chief.
+
+  _Name_ ........................................
+
+  _Address_ .....................................
+
+  ............................. _Age_ ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Muscles 5c apiece!
+
+Wouldn't it be great if we could buy muscles by the bag--take them home
+and paste them on our shoulders? Then our rich friends with money to buy
+them, sure would be socking us all over the lots. But they don't come
+that easy, fellows. If you want muscle you have to work for it. That's
+the reason why the lazy fellow never can hope to be strong. So if you're
+lazy and don't want to work--you had better quit right here. This talk
+was never meant for you.
+
+[Illustration: =EARLE LIEDERMAN, The Muscle Builder=]
+
+_Author of "Muscle Building," "Science of Wrestling and Jiu Jitsu,"
+"Secrets of Strength," "Here's Health," "Endurance," Etc._
+
+
+I WANT LIVE ONES
+
+I've been making big men out of little ones for over fifteen years. I've
+made pretty near as many strong men as Heinz has made pickles. My system
+never fails. That's why I guarantee my works to do the trick. That's why
+they gave me the name of "The Muscle Builder."
+
+I have the surest bet that you ever heard of. Eugen Sandow himself said
+that my system is the shortest and surest that America ever had to
+offer.
+
+Follow me closely now and I'll tell you a few things I'm going to do for
+you.
+
+
+HERE'S WHAT I GUARANTEE
+
+In just 30 days I'm going to increase your arm one full inch. Yes, and
+add two inches to your chest in the same length of time. But that's
+nothing. I've only started; get this--I'm going to put knobs of muscles
+on your shoulders like baseballs. I'm going to deepen your chest so that
+you will double your lung capacity. Each breath you take will flood
+every crevice of your pulmonary cavity with oxygen. This will load your
+blood with red corpuscles, shooting life and vitality throughout your
+entire system. I'm going to give you arms and legs like pillars. I'm
+going to work on every inner muscle as well, toning up your liver, your
+heart, etc. You'll have a snap to your step and a flash to your eye.
+You'll feel the real pep shooting up and down your old backbone. You'll
+stretch out your big brawny arms and crave for a chance to crush
+everything before you. You'll just bubble over with vim and animation.
+
+Sounds pretty good, what? You can bet your old ukulele it's good. It's
+wonderful. And don't forget, fellow--I'm not just promising all this--I
+guarantee it. Well, let's get busy, I want action--So do you.
+
+
+Send for my new 64-page book "_Muscular Development_"
+
+IT IS FREE
+
+It contains forty-eight full-page photographs of myself and some of the
+many prize-winning pupils I have trained. Some of these came to me as
+pitiful weaklings, imploring me to help them. Look them over now, and
+you will marvel at their present physiques. This book will prove an
+impetus and a real inspiration to you. It will thrill you through and
+through. This will not obligate you at all, but for the sake of your
+future health and happiness, do not put it off. Send today--right now,
+before you turn this page.
+
+  EARLE LIEDERMAN
+  DEPT. 1702
+  305 BROADWAY, N.Y. CITY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  =EARLE LIEDERMAN=
+  =Dept. 1702, 305 Broadway, New York City=
+
+Dear Sir:--Please send me without any obligation on my part whatever, a
+copy of your latest book "Muscular Development." (Please write or print
+plainly.)
+
+  Name ......................... Age ..........
+
+  Address .....................................
+
+  City ...................... State ...........
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Please mention NEWSSTAND GROUP--MEN'S LIST, when answering
+advertisements
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  change to
+  OLD GOLD
+  in kindness to your
+  THROAT
+
+THE SMOKE SCREEN THAT KEEPS OUT THROAT-SCRATCH
+
+
+"COLD" WEATHER IS OLD GOLD WEATHER
+
+[Illustration: Old Gold Cigarettes]
+
+In raw, damp, or cold weather, change to OLD GOLD. Its naturally good
+tobaccos are smooth and kind to your throat.
+
+Just clean, ripe tobacco, blended to honey-smoothness. And a flavor that
+has won more than 100,000 taste tests. No artificial treatment ... just
+better tobacco, that's all. And it has put OLD GOLD among the leaders in
+THREE years! Take a carton home. Do it today. For this is the weather
+for mild OLD GOLD.
+
+=Better tobaccos make them smoother and better ... with "not a cough in
+a carload"=
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHEN CRITICAL SMOKERS GET TOGETHER
+
+[Illustration: Camel]
+
+Their experience recognizes that Camel is indeed "a better cigarette":
+
+    Better in its quality of mellow, fragrant tobacco.
+
+    Better in the mildness and satisfying taste of the Camel blend.
+
+When they learn the difference they flock to Camels.
+
+CAMEL _CIGARETTES_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber Corrections:
+
+He turned quickly and was astonished at the sight of [added 'the']
+
+shook a skinny forefinger [standardized 'fore-finger'] in Tom's face.
+
+I was successful [was 'successsful'] in business
+
+His eyes were riveted [standardized 'rivetted'] to an undulating,
+
+One is that it would be [was 'would me']
+
+propellers [standardized 'propellors'] ripping into the summer night
+
+The thing was halfway [standardized 'half-way'] to the high bank
+
+On some were propellers [standardized 'propellors'].
+
+the slim shafts with their little propellerlike [standardized
+'propellorlike'] fans.
+
+There were others without the propellers; [standardized 'propellors']
+
+He saw from below the swift plane, [added comma] the streaming,
+intangible ray
+
+does not sympathize [was 'symphathize'] with radicals.
+
+and took up a cigarette. Lighting [was 'Lightning'] it
+
+The light of the match died, plunging me into a pit of gloom. [was ,]
+
+more comfort than [was 'that'] a room of grotesque shadows
+
+familiar [was 'familar'] to him. He had seen it pictured
+
+throughout the sun-ship, [standardized 'sun ship'] Northwood, going
+into the cabin for fur coats,
+
+Athalia's [was 'Athania's'] picture was gone.
+
+He seized a telescope and focused [was 'focusd'] it
+
+Northwood [was 'Norwood'] narrowed his eyes as
+
+"Do I guess right," said Northwood, [was ;] "that the light is
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Mundson. [was 'Munson'] "In your American slang,
+
+New Eden, [was 'Elden'] where supermen are younger than babes
+
+while she possessed the freshness of young girlhood, [changed from ;]
+her skin and eyes
+
+the iciness [was 'icyness'] was gone from his blue eyes
+
+you would be disappointed in him, [added ,] especially after having
+
+which she probably never saw before to-day, [standardized 'today']
+
+I don't blame Adam for preferring [was 'prefering'] Athalia.
+
+the atoms of his body seemed to fly asunder. [was 'assunder']
+
+Every grave that has yawned to receive its prey hides [was 'pray']
+
+thrust him into Future Time, where the laboratory [was hyphenated
+between lines as 'labor-ratory']
+
+there could be no survivors. [standardized 'survivers']
+
+could receive with any [was 'and'] degree of clarity,
+
+always passed everyone [standardized 'every one'] who took his
+courses
+
+that he was allowed to go [was 'do'] about as he pleased.
+
+I can have a good man rewrite [standardized 're-write'] your drivel
+
+isn't to-day [standardized 'today'] to that Indian.
+
+would be necessary to decelerate [was 'decellerate']
+
+what looked at first [was 'fist'] glance to be a huge artillery shell
+
+To-day [standardized 'Today'] the human body stands a speed
+
+A few minutes was enough for [removed duplicate 'for'] me to grasp
+
+Suppose I was laughed [was 'to laughed'] at when I get back,
+
+in the chairs of science to-day. [standardized 'today']
+
+pre-pleistocene [was 'pre-pleistocence'] age--swimming among the
+invertebrate
+
+and, with almost super-human [standardized 'superhuman'] efforts,
+
+"The swarm's halfway [standardized 'half-way'] to Adelaide," he said.
+
+"Tommy, there must be water in the station," said [was 'and'] Dodd.
+
+The entire machine was enclosed [standardized 'inclosed'] in a
+
+inconspicuousness [was 'inconspicuous'] of his voice and manner
+
+replied the detective. "Where did you hide the loot?" [was ,]
+
+a person might [was 'mighty'] cause by passing very rapidly.
+
+more experience with robberies than [was 'that'] with apprehending
+
+is closed for to-day. [standardized 'today']
+
+replied the doctor with a judicial [was 'judical'] air,
+
+"Are we going to waste the whole afternoon [was 'afternon']
+
+showed you to be ambidextrous." [was 'ambidexterous']
+
+SUBSCRIPTION [was 'SUBSCSRIPTION'] $3.00 PER YEAR
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Astounding Stories of Super-Science
+February 1930, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES--SUPER SCIENCE ***
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