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HERE is a new author who will command your attention through the pages of this magazine, we hope for a long time to come.

In his first effort, Mr. Repp has given us a wealth of everything that should be contained in a first-class science fiction story.

Radium, which forms the main vehicle for the author's story, is a substance of which very little is known as yet. It is so scarce and so expensive that only the wealthiest institutions can command even a few grams.

But radium may not always be scarce, indeed, there may be hidden, somewhere, unlimited deposits in the form of a salt held in solution.

What physical and physiological effects a large radium pool might have on one, is not known. But one thing remains sure, that if you did approach closely to a large amount of this substance, something very strange would happen to you. Indeed, if you remained there long enough it might be that your entire physical structure might be affected.

This is the author's conclusion and it is based on sound scientific reasoning.

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THE RADIUM POOL
(Part 1, Science Wonder Stories, August 1929)

by Ed Earl Repp

To begin with, you may not believe this story, yet I sincerely urge you not to allow the apparent strangeness of it to create a prejudice against it. Many weird tales, most of which are true, come from the vast wastes of desert jungles. How little we actually know of Death Valley—the lowest spot on earth and the hottest! With its shifting sand-dunes, sun-baked hills, saline formations and mysterious atmospheres, the Valley of Death has long been the subject of mysteries for fiction and fact. In truth, it is the one spot on the North American Continent that has not been thoroughly explored either by desert rat or scientist. This is true especially of what lies beneath the surface. Neither has it been thoroughly explored on the surface—the area is too great—and it has never been found possible to remain there for any length of time! Only those who have spent much time in Death Valley can appreciate its intriguing mysteries, its radiant beauty and deathly lure!

James Dowell.

CHAPTER I
A Choice Assignment

AT my little desk tucked away in the corner of the editorial rooms of the Outstander, behind the broad, paper-littered table of the city editor, I sat praying for something to happen. Anything would do that would break the spell of semi-consciousness that had captured me during a lull in city news. I had cleared off my desk, inserted a new ribbon in the typewriter, winked a couple of times at the switchboard operator, and fell into a delightful doze. As star reporter for the Outstander I felt that I had some privileges and, under the conditions, a little snooze would not imperil my position, providing I did my snoozing where the city editor would have to yelp only once to have me at his side. Earlier in the day I had interviewed the District Attorney without any startling results. I had gone so far as to visit the Grand Jury impanelled to investigate charges of bribery in the city administration, but failed to learn the results of their probe. Then I had returned to the office to await anything that might come in. Now, under the pall of a quiet and none too cool afternoon, even the city editor was fighting to keep awake. As I dozed, I dreamed of visiting the glacier at Bishop. Then I floated down to Rio Janeiro. From there, all in a period of perhaps several quiet minutes, I traveled to San Juan Capistrano where I found that the old Bells of San Juan Mission were ringing loudly for the first time in a half century. I awoke with a start. The telephone on the city desk was jangling like a fire-bell.

I sat dazed for an instant. Then my brain cleared from its inertia and I sat back expecting something to happen. I heard the City Editor slam down the receiver. His swivel chair squeaked as he spun around.

"Dowell!" he called, lustily.

"Yes sir!" I answered, rubbing my bleary eyes. "Oh, I see you snapped out of it, eh? I was figuring to have the janitor bring you a cot to sleep on—or send you to a hotel for a rest, or——"

"Or tell me to take a vacation, huh?" I returned. "This is a helluva day!"

The City Editor grinned.

"Where'd yuh like to go, Dowell?" he asked.

"North Pole, boss! Or maybe up to Bishop to sleep in one of those glacial caves they rave so much about. Ought to be cool there."

"That's a good one on you, Dowell. But I am going to give you a little vacation in appreciation of your commendable work of late. I'm mighty sorry I can't let you go to the North Pole or to Bishop either. You're going to Death Valley!"

"I'm what!"

"I said you leave for Death Valley and I don't mean in December either!"

"That's a fine—oh well, it might be worse!"

"It could be, but it isn't. I gotta send you out because you seem to be the only reporter on the staff who understands scientific work. You like geology, archeology, anthropology and so on. You ought to be happy at a chance to work with a real scientist. You dash out to the Southland Institute of Technology and make arrangements with Professor Bloch to accompany him to Death Valley. Professor Bloch phoned in—yes, while you were sleepin' like the original babe in the woods—and invited us to send a reporter out to cover his reconnaissance of some important human fossils reported found in the Valley. He'll be gone several days, will pay all expenses and you ought to learn something. It'll be a feather in your hat if you bring in a corking scientific yarn for the Outstander Syndicate—and don't forget the bonus offered for the best story of the month."

"But its quite out of the ordinary to send the star reporter out on a goose chase, boss," I parried, hoping that he'd change his mind.

"It is, but not when a man like Professor Bloch asks for the star hand on this journal. You know he has always suspected that there's more in Death Valley than anybody ever learned. Who knows—he might make the greatest discovery ever as regards human development in America! I'm doing you a favor, Dowell, but you don't seem to appreciate it! I'd go myself if I wasn't tied down to this desk. Now get the hell out of here and remember that if a man bites a dog—that's news. And don't try to make a monkey out of this paper, either!"

"Okay, general! I'll wire you from Barstow on the way back so you can reserve a room for me down in the ice house. And thanks for the—er— the vacation!"

"Don't mention it, Dowell!" the City Editor laughed. "Have a hot time!"

A Rescue

THE trip to Death Valley was uneventful. We camped at what Professor Bloch believed to be the lost Mesquite Springs. The sun had just settled over the edge of the Funerals and the pack animals which we had picked up at Stovepipe Wells were munching barley at the tail of the buckboard when the professor beheld something bobbing about among the sand dunes. The object was too far away to make certain with the naked eye whether it was a man or an animal. Professor Bloch got out his field glasses and discovered that it was a man.

We watched him for several minutes and during that time he fell seven times. He was staggering in circles and appeared to move Only because some hidden power forced him to. Presently he fell again and this time he lay still. So Professor Bloch saddled a burro and rode out to get him. I stood up on the tail of the buckboard and watched the silent drama.

Coyotes had followed the stumbling' man patiently waiting for him to die. The professor rode to a spot where they were squatted on their hunkers, circled a small area and found his man. He brought him back to the camp, and after we washed the alkali and sand ticks from his eyes we gave him water. When it was safe enough for him to have all the water he wanted, we gave him food, after which he said his name was of no consequence but he had been foreman of the Panamint Mining Company over Balch way. Hysterically he told us that he had lost his partner, interspersing his words with fragments of a tale that made Professor Bloch's strong brows knit together and his eyes flash.

"He's gone—he'll never see this world again!" the man interrupted when I asked him if it were not too late for us to help his partner.

He inquired if by any chance we had ever heard of his partner, "Driftin'" Sands. I told him that I had, for I wanted the story which seemed to lie hazily in the back of his befuddled brain.

"Well!" he said, hysterically, "He's found his sweetheart, Allie Lane! We followed the trail together and we found her 'way over in hell across the Manalava plain! You can see it way over there in hell—it's the red streak table land off to the southeast. For more than forty years, Sands had been driftin' over the deserts searching for her. At last they are together!"

"Sands and I struck out for the Manalava Plain. Our water gave out. We were looking for a lost mine and Sands' girl!"

The prospector took a long pull at the canteen. Professor Bloch and I squatted in the sand beside our tiny cook fire. The mine foreman pointed with trembling hand, towards the southeast where the vague and sinister outlines of a mountain range loomed mysteriously in the ghostly desert dusk.

"That's a terrible place!" he groaned. "We found a band of heathens there where not even a sidewinder would dare to venture. That flat, above all else in these deserts, is the hottest place this side of hell! And the heathens? Waugh!—"

Professor Bloch sat bolt upright and eyed the prospector whose withered, leather-like visage loomed like a spectre in the glare of the camp-fire. His face glowed with a ghostly tint of greenish phosphorescence—like the radium dobbed face of a glowing watch-dial!

"Pardon my interruption, old man." Professor Bloch said, apologetically. "Did I understand you to say that strange human beings exist on the Manalava Plain?"

"A band of heathens, yes!" replied the prospector with a shudder. They ain't human, they're frog-faced beasts about seven feet tall, with funny long arms, long legs and big heads! We stumbled on them accidentally and they made us prisoners! God help Driftin' Sands and Allie Lane!"

"Did you escape?" I inquired, rather disdainfully, for I was figuring that the prospector suffered from the heat. I glanced over him. His hands now were steady but his lips trembled a trifle. He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes. I accepted the movement as an attempt to shut out some terrible vision from his sun-scorched brain.

"Yes, young fellow, I got away! But only because I was left for dead! And I come mighty close to passing on, too. I got a family over at Balch, and kids that's been needin' me, otherwise I couldn't have made it here!" he answered, heatedly, taking offense at my doubting attitude.

"I always suspected that a race of peculiar people existed out this way," Professor Bloch put in. "This account does not startle me in the least. In fact, my associate, Dr. Jorg Jamesson, recovered some strange and almost human remains in this neighborhood that gave rise to startling revelations. Lately our astronomers have noticed peculiar atmospheric conditions over Death Valley that seemed, to indicate some tremendous radioactive force emanating from the earth's surface!"

"If I remember right," the prospector commented, "Sands and I met your Dr. Jamesson sometime ago around here. We didn't have time to talk much with him. I believe he showed us some bones that appeared to be human. Let's see! Yes! He showed us a skull—a big skull that was twice as large as mine, with an overdropping forehead, and the face of a frog! Those Manalava heathens had the same kind of froggish faces!"

"Then that evidently proves Dr. Jamesson's contention that a race of freaks exists or existed here in Death Valley!" Professor Bloch slapped a thigh enthusiastically. Then turning to me he said: "Dowell, I told your City Editor that something was going to be found out here to substantiate Jamesson's assertions."

The Prospector's Story

I NODDED. "But what's the story about Driftin' Sands and Allie Lane?" I inquired of the prospector. It sounded like a good human interest yarn to me. I did not believe that it had any significance with Professor Bloch's project but it would make great feature stuff!

"Yes, yes! Go ahead with your story, old timer, by all means," the professor said.

"Well," the prospector began, somewhat wildly, "As I said, that's a terrible place, that Manalava flat, and we were near the end of our strings when we reached it.

"Our water was gone. We had two good drinks from a barrel cactus before we reached the edge of the Manalava flats. That rotten stuff didn't help any to quench our thirst. Near the flats we found a good spring with dead men's bones strewn around it. A fight had taken place there once—Indians and whites, and they must have fought for the water.

"The spring lies in a little box canyon opening out into the valley. Sands and I could see the sun glistening on the whitened bones even while we were yet a mile away from them. Our water was gone and it was safer to continue than to turn back.

"The whites had held the spring and the Indians fought from behind boulders on the hillsides. By the spring there's a semi-circle of old prairie schooners with arrowheads sticking in the rotted framework. You can find more arrowheads around the skeletons. There are no drafts there and the bones have lain untouched for years. Even coyotes and buzzards have stayed away from the Manalava Plain! I don't understand why Indians, with their superstition, would venture near the earthly hell.

"The spring was worth fighting for, I said to myself, as I ducked my head in the water. The water was cool and tasted good, but it had a greenish tint—that was the color peculiar to the heathens under the Manalava Plain! We camped at the spring all night.

"Sands did not sleep well that night. He seemed to be high-strung and excited in the morning. He claimed that he heard voices throughout the night and after breakfast he began talking about Allie Lane.

"You've heard the tale about Allie Lane, of course. Everybody who has lived in California long must have heard about it. She was Sand's sweetheart back in Kansas City when he was a youngster. He came to California first and Allie, with her father, started West with a wagon train the following spring in 1880. If that train had ever arrived, Sands would have known it. For over forty years he had been searching for news of Allie up and down the coast until it cracked his mind some.

"Allie must have meant a lot to him, for he never married and for forty years he's been drifting over California asking folks if they'd ever met up with anybody by the name of Lane from Kansas City.

"Allie Lane had been a member of a train such as lay scattered around the spring. This was worrying him, I could see. He was a bit off on the subject after having searched for her so long. It taxed his brain, and Sands was an old man. I watched him as he puttered and poked around those whitened, petrified bones.

"There was a wagon train—the remains of one that had probably taken the southern route across from El Paso, heading info California over the old Fremont Trail. It wasn't necessary for them to head into Death Valley; so they must have gone off the right trail and strayed through an unknown pass into the Valley where they died fighting the Apaches at this water hole.

"I tried to argue the old fellow out of the idea that Allie Lane had been killed, telling him that she had arrived safe, married, and forgotten all about him. But he would have none of it and flew into a rage, saying that she promised to wait for him and that he'd meet her alive in California. I let it go at that.

"I sat down on the wreck of one of the schooners and watched him putter around the bones. He had loved this Allie Lane in the days of his youth when he left her back in Kansas City. I suppose he had an indelible picture of her as she was when he left her, stamped in his brain, and did not figure that now she would be an old lady, even if she was alive.

"So Driftin' Sands continued his two great searches. One was for Allie Lane, first and always, and the other was for gold of which he had found plenty.

"I'm sure that Sands and I were the first to enter that Canyon since the fight by the spring. There was not a speck of ashes to prove that anyone else had ever camped there.

"The canyon was free from sand storms, and sheltered on practically all sides except for the Valley opening; and even if the sight of human bones would drive one away, there was always the spring to lure a man back. But it was hard on the nerves to stay there. There was something eerie and ghostly about the whole section of desert that was not caused by a few bones scattered around. We were to learn what it was later.

"Sands found an old trunk half buried in the sand. It was rotted and sprung by sun and weather and it crumbled at the touch of a hand. In that trunk Sands found an old family picture album. The photographs were so dim that very few were distinguishable. He pored over them nervously and when he had gone almost to the last page, his shaking fingers held a leaf. He found a picture that glued his eyes to the rotted book and then I had my first sight of Allie Lane!

CHAPTER II
What Sands Heard

"THE face on the tintype displayed the features of the most beautiful girl I have ever seen! Her features were clear-cut, her eyes soft and appealing. In spite of the years, that one picture, out of a hundred old tintypes, remained clear and distinct. Underneath the picture was a written description that we could not read with the naked eye. The ink had long since disappeared, leaving only faint traces of point imprints. I got out my magnifying glass that I used to study ore specimens, and read the words:

"Allie Lane,
"Kansas City, Missouri.
March 19, 1878

"I handed the glass to Sands and went over to douse my head in the spring. You see, I'd heard the name of Allie Lane so many times that when I came face to face with that picture of her, it fairly upset me.

"Presently Sands returned my glass and without speaking we packed our outfit, rolled in the spring, and struck off toward the Manalava Plain.

"That night was like all the rest. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and slept. But toward morning Sands awakened me.

"'Pardner! Get up!' he said. 'I hear a wagon passing off there in the valley and if we hit the trail now we can hook up with it until we reach the Manalava Springs. It's a long hike to the flats and water's scarce! Hear the wagon crashin' through the brush?'

"I raised on my elbow and listened. There was not a sound to be heard. I looked at Sands queerly. Was the heat and the excitement of seeing Allie's picture, affecting his mind, and anyway, why should a wagon of all things be trekking thru the desert during the dead of night? Anyone but an utter fool would use an auto. But I yielded to his excitement and we started out at once, leaving behind an extra blanket and some canned goods so as to travel lighter. I allowed Sands to lead where he thought the sounds came from.

"We went on and on, I all the while arguing that I could hear nothing while Sands insisted he heard the wagon continually.

"Little by little the gray and orange of approaching dawn began to steal over the valley. The world was assuming a definite shape and the day's heat began to mount even before the first rays of the rising sun were visible. A mile in front of us a great, red streak rose against the skyline, looming dimly and awesomely out of the lightening eastern heavens. Sands remarked at its ghostliness and informed me that we were nearing the southern extremities of the terrible Manalava Plain. I had never been in the section of Death Valley and of a certainty, Sands had never been nearer than he was then.

"In some forgotten day a volcano had scattered its red hot lava and settled it into a stretch of plain which covered an area of thirty miles either way, although no trace of a volcanic mountain was visible. Bare and flat as a table-top and as hot under the glare of the sun as the inside of an oven! Such was the Manalava Plain, never explored, unmapped——a lost world of its own.

"Sands kept on insisting we were coming nearer to the sounds.

"Rapidly it became light enough for us to see the Plain. The sun, a huge fiery ball, popped up almost suddenly from behind the Manalava Plain and instantly the world was sweltering. Its golden glow reflected on the red lava of the Plain and created a murky green haze that added to the heat and burned acridly through the lungs. The odor was ungodly and unworldly!

"'There's the wagon!' Sands suddenly exclaimed. "I looked all over the desert, and not a thing like a wagon did I see.

"'I don't see a thing,' I told him soberly.

"'You don't,' he exclaimed incredulously. 'Why look out there.' He pointed toward the base of a low hill. There was not a thing to be seen. I knew then that his mind was slipping under the terrific strain. I tried to argue with him. I even shot off my pistol to show him that there would be no response. But Sands insisted on going on. Rather than have him travel into that hell alone, I shook my head and followed after him.

"We climbed the buttress of a low hill and swung to the left, discovering a natural causeway that led up and out into the very table-top of the Manalava Plain itself.

"Before us in unbroken desolation lay the forgotten country—Manalava Plain! The formation of the floor was a soft lava-like surface—rock that had once flowed in liquid form and after hardening to some extent, gave the country a flat and shiny -appearance like a great field of red asphalt.

"'The wagon is gone,' Sands exclaimed suddenly.

"'That's mighty peculiar, Driftin',' I said 'That they're gone when you said that they weren't more than a mile ahead of us.'

"'I don't savvy it at all,' he replied. 'But let's follow further. They'll sure need help.'

"Helplessly I followed.

Following A Phantom

"HERE was the Manalava Plain—as flat and Al smooth as a plate of glass—and stretching for miles either way, bare and deserted. Surely we were the only actual beings on the mesa!

"Perhaps, I thought, old Driftin' Sands was suffering from hallucinations. Perhaps the sight of the bleached bones back at the spring had gotten into his blood. I wanted to give up the chase but Sands declared again he would continue alone. I had no alternative but to accompany him. To me death beckoned either way and I'd been with Sands so long now that a few more miles would not matter.

"Presently we came upon a weird sort of a cactus tree—a species of a kind that I'd never seen on the desert! It was red instead of green and had long, flowing branches like the tentacles of an octopus! The tentacles twitched restlessly although there was not a breath of wind to stir them. I warned Sands to stay a safe distance away from it. The thing seemed alive! Farther off, standing dimly in the green murky haze, I saw other trees like the one in front of us. They stood motionless and stiff.

"By all the laws of nature, the trees in front of us should not have been growing there—should not have been on this world at all! We stopped and looked at each other.

"We looked at the cactus closely. Its tentacles were waving spasmodically as though warning us to return from whence we came. I tore my eyes from it and studied the earth. Sands gasped when I pointed out to him the fragments of a human skull and other anatomical portions of the human frame, apparently crushed, strewn under the waving, rubber-like tentacles of this weird cactus. "I felt an urge to dash away from the spot and it was with a mighty effort that I controlled an insanity that was creeping through my brain.

"'Do you admit there's no wagon here, ' I yelled at Sands.

"'I guess there isn't pardner," he acknowledged, downcast. His shoulders seemed to droop more than ever and the alertness in his eyes suddenly disappeared. 'But how do you account for my hearin' a man, a woman and a wagon? They've got to be here; so lets follow them out.'

"My insane desire to run now manifested itself into a reality, and with Sands at my heels, I started off at a run. Eventually I steadied my racked brain and slowed the pace. Sands came up, breathing heavily at the exertion. I noticed that he had cast his pack away and clung only to a gallon canteen in which I could hear the water sloshing around. The sound told me that it was almost empty.

"Presently we discovered the remains of an old schooner. It was just like those back at the spring. Its canvas tarpaulin, bleached white, clung from the top-ribs in streamers of gossamer. Not a single bone could be found in front of the wagon, lending more mystery to the trail. Where had the horses gone? What had become of them? Surely, there would be bleached skeletons in the traces had the horses been deserted.

"'The horses laid down here.' Sands was saying as to himself, kicking a foot at two wallows in front of the wagon. 'But they must've got up and wandered away after restin'. See, the traces have been cut! The man picked up the woman and packed her off. His trail is deeper now. We ought to find 'em soon.'

"I said nothing. Perhaps he had seen something and I was the one who was mad. Some story was plainly written on this wagon. Sands pointed at the side board. Cut deep were the even letters of Alfred Forsythe Lane, Allie's father. Below the name was a scratched message. With difficulty we read it.

"'God have mercy on us. Our water is gone— this is the end. I love you, Robert Sands of Kansas City. If you ever see this, you will know!'

"Sands sat down on the rotting tongue of the wagon and cried. His great, booming voice quivered with emotion as his body twitched with sobs. Tears rolled down his withered, weatherbeaten face in spite of the terrific heat of the Plain that sucked the moisture from our bodies. Hands, gnarled with years of toil and sorrow, fondly held the old tintype taken from the faded album found at the spring.

The Radium Pool

"SANDS straightened. His eyes, now dry and dim, surveyed me for a moment.

"'You'd better take this water, pardner,' he said, 'and hit the back trail! I'm going to follow this to the end and there'll be no return. You take it and go back to your wife and kids! They'll be needin' you, pard, like Allie needed me. Take it!'

"Instinctively I reached out for his proffered canteen. Then I thought better of it. I certainly did want to go back. What would my wife and kids do if I failed to return! But if I deserted Sands I would never be able to live it down. I decided to stick it out. A few more miles could not matter now and the chances of me finding my way out were mighty slender, anyway.

"'I couldn't take it, Sands,' I said. 'I'd rather go ahead and see what's beyond. I—I—er—er rather like this hike, you know.'

"And so I followed him again.

"'There they go, pardner!' he shouted finally. 'Down the draw! Hurry and we'll catch up with them!'

"I looked up in time to see two forms crawling on hands and knees down the draw. But I am certain that my own mind was giving way to hallucinations, and so to satisfy Sands I started forward at a trot. Sands was at my side. As he ran, his jaws were beating a loud tattoo. My heart ached for him and his sweetheart whom he'd searched for so long—Allie Lane! Maybe he would find her, I thought. But how!

"Presently we arrived at what we thought was the draw down which the two crawling figures had vanished. Instead of finding what we expected we actually encountered a saucer-like crater which I assumed at once to have been the one from which the lava forming the Manalava Plain had erupted. We stood on the brink of the yawning pit and noted that in the center, surrounded by overhanging lava forming a circular cave, brilliant with a green phosphorescent glow, was a pool probably a hundred feet in width. The pool seemed as alive as that grotesque cactus with its restless tentacles.

"The pale green that filled it, with its ghostly hue, reminded us of the spring at which we found the Lane album. The material shimmered and scintillated and even from our height we felt a terrific heat that must have come from the stuff. There was a powerful odor coming from it, too, sweet and nauseating. The glare from the pool seemed to burn our skin even at the distance we stood from it. Nowhere was there a sign of the mysterious crawling figures—the man and the woman, although under our feet were the marks of a ragged trail.

"'My Lord, Sands!' I shouted, 'the heat of that pool tells me that it must be radium.'

"Sands looked at me with a puzzled frown.

"'Hell!' he expostulated, 'there's not that much radium in the whole world and we wouldn't know it if we seen a lake of it. Looks like some green salt solution to me and indications point to some funny deposits here! What's that unearthly noise?'

"I cupped my hands behind my ears to catch the sound that Sands had heard. My hair literally stood on ends. Spooky? Lord! I couldn't have moved a foot if I wanted to. I was glued to the spot. The weird sound, like the low moan of a woman in mortal agony, issued from the circular-cave surrounding the luminous pool. It grew louder until the Manalava Plain groaned under the tumult. The sounds penetrated to the core of the brain and seemed to beckon us down into the crater. Sands was swaying to and fro as he stood on the slight parapet overlooking the crater, in perfect rhythm to the tempo of the devilish sounds. I felt that I too was keeping the same accompaniment and it was with an effort that I broke the spell.

"My hand dropped to my gun butt. I tore it out of its holster and fired rapidly, thumbing the hammer, into the pool. Sands yelled. Like a living fountain, long columns of luminous green and red and violet flame shot up to the parapet. Simultaneously we both leaped back. The air seemed alive with some mysterious vibrations. Finally it died away and the tumult issuing from the circular cave settled down to a low, steady hum. We once again stood on the crater's escarpment and looked within. The pool was glittering restlessly.

"'We might as well have a close look at that pool, pardner," Sands reminded me as I stood rooted on the edge of the crater, studying the formation surrounding the pool. 'I can't make it out. If it's some radium compound, you'll be a rich man. Your wife an' kids back in Balch will be needin' it, I'm a thinkin'. Let's go down.'

"Sands stepped over the escarpment. I followed him down into the crater. We paused about twenty feet from the edge of the pool. The heat was terrific—so great that it caused the blood to race to my head, and my heart to beat rapidly. And more intense came that mysterious vibration in the air, and a something that seemed to be eating into my flesh. I remarked about the phenomenon to Sands and told him that it must have been caused by some unknown power of radium. Rather than risk touching the stuff I threw a piece of cloth on it. There was a little sizzle and the cloth seemed literally to vanish before our eyes! He then took his revolver and dipped it in. The hard steel of the barrel melted like lead in a blast furnace, yet the butt in his hand did not heat beyond sun-temperature. The melted steel floated to the surface like slag and drifted out into the center of the pool, to sink again in a tiny whirl. Sands fondled his useless gun speculatively.

"'Pardner,' he said, 'You're lookin' into a pool of some radium compound! It must be radium for I've seen about everything else in its line. If Allie and her father came too close to this, you can imagine what happened to them. I fear the worst.'

"'Well,' I said, 'I don't like to think that your friends ended near the pool. We might see some bones if they did. Let's take a look under these overhanging shelves. The caves might tell us something.'

"'I don't reckon we'll find anything, pardner,' Sands returned, sick at heart and utterly dejected.

"'Can't tell! We've seen so many strange things that I'm interested,' I said.

"By all the laws of human nature and its greed for the precious, Sands and I should have danced around the radium pool with glee over our discovery. Untold wealth lay exposed before us, but under the sadness of our circumstances, the living, pulsating pool was nothing. The radium, which we believed oozed out of the old volcanic crater, could ruin the world, with its great power and radio-active qualities.

CHAPTER III
Eldorado

"AT any rate, we picked our way carefully, shielding our faces, remaining as close to the cave wall as possible, peeping intently into the greenly illuminated circular cavern. Glowing stalactites hung from the cave ceilings in mystic forms. Precious stones and metals in countless numbers cropped out of the lava-like formations. Rock which Sands had accepted previously as cinnabar was red rock-lava bearing iron pyrites and black quartz, containing a wealth of sapphire and diamond-like stones that glittered invitingly under the glare of the green rays cast off by the pool.

"'My God, Sands!' I shouted eagerly, forgetting momentarily my sorrows and sympathies for Sands and his sweetheart of long ago. 'We've struck it! This is the real El Dorado! It is like the myths handed down by the Spaniards! Wealth! Riches! Power and——'

"'——and unhappiness, greed and all the rest!' Sands added, staring at me curiously. 'It means the fulfillment of your dreams, pardner. You know what it means to me! To me it means the loss of all that I've ever held dear in this life. It means that I've spent my life in quest of happiness—and lost it right here at this pool! Do you realize that, pardner?'

"I most certainly did realize it and I calmed down to once again share Sands' great sorrow. He had trailed Allie Lane and her father over the forty-year old trail. Here we believed that it ended forever. No need to search farther. Yet for some unaccountable reason, Sands insisted that she was still alive or if not alive, some remains must exist in that vicinity.

"As we continued our search and explorations near the mouth of the cave, the weird, ominous moaning that vaguely portended the advent of something untoward, became audible again. Sands and I stopped in our tracks to listen. Coming from the far side of the pool, the moaning increased gradually until it became a steady wail like the shriek of high-speed machinery. We stood watching the spot which unlike the part of the crater on our side, did not glow with the green luminosity. It seemed to be an inky black pit. Not even a stalactite was visible!

"Suddenly as we stared at the spot, the blackness became shot with myriads of colors until it glittered blindingly. The wail was now a terrific shriek. The Manalava Plain seemed to groan under some tremendous impulse emanating from below our feet. The earth swayed and rumbled. From the pool, came a mysterious sputtering and a tiny swirl in its center at first, suddenly became a whirling maelstrom. A thin, silver-like column rose several feet into the air from its middle. Like a miniature water-spout, typical of typhoon infested sections of the South Seas, the rising column whirled faster and faster.

"Meanwhile, the once black, bottomless abyss which had suddenly become charged with blinding colors, was changing now to a more solid hue. Green was transplanting the reds and vermillions, and thin, wisp-like rays of yellow that seemed to charge the atmosphere with a super high-tension activity, were twitching nervously in the pit. Gradually the colors merged into a solid mass of luminous green and out of it spun a glistening sphere that appeared to be a ball of the same liquid that was now whirling over the pool!

"The sphere, probably twenty feet in diameter, moved slowly at first, toward the pool, its surface glowing as it revolved with a terrific speed. The atmosphere became stagnant and penetrated deep into the lungs, but Sands and I were too stupefied to move a muscle. I felt a sudden panic seize me and then breaking the grip of stupefaction I ran like a mad man along the edge of the whirling maelstrom. I was struck with fright. You cannot conceive my terror as I stumbled along the pool! I forgot about Sands—forgot about everything in my blind unreasoning. I felt no fatigue as I ran, only stark, mad terror.

"In my wild terrified scramble for safety, I ran past the only exit or entrance down into the crater and soon found myself face to face with the spinning sphere! Bright, swift moving lights passed around the sphere as it emerged from the abyss. The yellow rays were gone now and as I stared at it in my utter terror, the sphere began to glow like a great emerald ball. The high-pitched scream was more terrific here and it pounded in my eardrums with a metal-edged sharpness that sent me blind and unreasoning back around the other side of the pool! In my terror I thumped into Sands, who was standing in the same spot where he had been when I started my mad dash. The collision brought us both to the crater floor, clutching for the slightest handhold to prevent us from rolling into the ghastly pool. At the very edge of the pool we came to a stop. Sands put out a hand to brace himself but the tips of his fingers accidentally dipped into the liquid. He jerked back his hand with a bellow. The first digits of his left hand had disappeared, leaving instead, completely healed stumps! The shock of the collision restored my sanity and I helped Sands to his feet.

"We cast quick glances at the sphere. It had moved from the opening of the pit, now lighted brilliantly red, and was whirling at the top of the column in the center of the pool! Gradually the high-pitched scream became a steady hum. The sphere was spinning faster and faster under the whirling pressure of the column. The ball was changing slowly into cylindrical shape, with a sharp-pointed nose and concave butt which gradually thinned out. I stared with unbelief. Surely my brain was playing pranks. I shot a glance at Sands. The old fellow seemed like a statue, immobile as a rock. Insanity was gripping him, I could see, and I screamed.

"Suddenly, the hum of the sphere's rapid whirling motion ceased. Like a bullet shaped projectile it shot into the air, charging it with sparks of pale green lights that drifted back into the pool and settled. We caught a glimpse of the projectile as it leaped from the column. That was all. Immediately it was gone leaving behind only the floating green lights that, even in the radiance of midday, shone brilliantly. The fearful scream of its passing through the atmosphere gradually died away as its distance increased. At my scream Sands had regained control of himself. He placed a palsied hand on my shoulder and stared at me incredulously.

The Skeleton

"DID you see it, pardner?" he asked, completely unnerved.

"'Yes!' I answered, 'I've seen it whatever the thing was!'

"Sands stared at me, mouth agape.

"'Pardner,' he said, 'you look like a ghost! You're face and hands are turning green! Your skin is getting the same color as the stuff in the pool!'

"'You don't look like a white man yourself, Sands,' I managed to jest at him, trying to control my agitation.

"'Mebbe,' he returned, somewhat calmed, 'but, by jingle, I'm beginning to feel younger! Maybe this is that fountain of youth the old spies raved about!'

"'You must have just come into your second childhood,' I smiled back at him, weakly. He managed to grin and I saw something that startled me almost as much as did the luminous sphere.

"Sands' face was actually clearing! Deep furrowed wrinkles that had marked him as an old man, sun-hardened and leathery, were vanishing from his face! Except for a month's growth of beard, he appeared to have dropped, in those few minutes, many years of his age. His brown eyes that were dim, and watery, were taking on a sparkle that signifies the vigorous health of youth. His bowed shoulders straightened. In spite of the rapid change he was going through, the greenish hue remained to mar his features with a ghastly pallor caused, no doubt, by the radioactive power of the radium. As for myself, I could feel no change in my physical being. I wondered if the great radium deposit was to blame. I knew that science held transmutation of elements possible and has even accomplished it in a small way and that radium itself is the product of disintegration of uranium and ionium.

"For some reason, Sands and I felt better after the hurtling projectile hacj lifted from the whirling pool and passed into the infinite. After a short conference we decided to investigate the strange phenomenon we had witnessed, and at the same time continue our search for Allie Lane and her father, or whatever traces of them might remain. Our brains were clear as bells now, our wits sharp in spite of so many strange happenings that occurred since early that morning. After it all, we thought, we could not be surprised at anything that might arise in the future, and we might as well explore further, the weird circular cave and the black hole which we noticed still retained its red glow. Sands remarked that if the red glow continued to illuminate the cave from which had come the whirling sphere, there would be no need of the small carbide lamp I had in my pack still strapped to my shoulders. The only thing that seemed to worry us was the absence of water. Our canteens were practically empty and naturally we wanted to refill them if we could. We seemed to have no thirst and a strange comfort appeased the dryness of our throats.

"We single-filed along the edge of the pool toward the luminous red cave. In several minutes we had reached the entrance to our glowing objective. At the entrance of the cave with its glow of red radiancy, Sands and I paused before entering. What we saw there caused Sands to leap backward. I stood stock still, awed at the sight, not knowing what to do.

"On either side of the cave, hung intact, were the skeletons of two human beings! With skulls grinning like green ghosts, the skeletons hung against the side butts of the cave's entrance! Weirdly radiant with the pale green hue, the bones stood out in high relief against the red glow of the strange illumination as though to warn us that to go further meant doom.

"I turned at the sound of Sands' getting to his feet. He stood at my side, mouth agape.

"'That, pardner,' he said, softly, 'means the end of our search! I have hoped for the best for Allie and her dad, but what we see now tells the story of their deaths!'

"Sands doffed his hat and hung his head in reverence. I did likewise for I was thinking along the same lines. Sadly I lifted my head and again speculated on the skeletons. I was trying to figure who might have hung those grisly relics on the wall of the cavern. Whoever it was, I thought, had scant respect for the dead! The two could at least have been given decent burials. I clenched my fists and swore. Sands lifted his head suddenly at the oaths which escaped my lips. His hand grasped my sleeve.

"'What's wrong, pardner?' he asked, with a trace of anger in his voice.

"'I'm just wondering, Sands,' I replied, 'how they came to be hung up there like that. They couldn't hang themselves in suicide and the bones remain intact. Let's look closer!'

"We moved closer to the dangling relics. As I had implied, the bones were linked together with wire and hung against the wall with metal pegs!

"'The dogs!' Sands hissed in my ear, his voice steady and as strong as a young man of twenty-five. I looked at him curiously and indeed, he was a young man again, save for his whiskers. Strangely, I thought, had we actually come upon the mythical Fountain of Youth that the early Spaniards actually believed existed in one of the Seven Lost Cities of Cibola? Were we about to find, here in Death Valley, one of those seven cities? Hardly! My imagination must be running wild, I thought.

"'Maybe some prospector had found these deposits, Sands,' I whispered, 'and hung those skeletons there to keep others away. It's not impossible.'

"'No,' Sands said, 'it's not impossible, but it isn't likely! Skeletons wouldn't frighten a man away from a great wealth like lies here. Your idea don't explain that crazy ball of metal, either. I think there's more to this than shows on the surface.'

"'Perhaps you're right at that,' I acknowledged, 'but who in hell would want to hang a couple of grinning skeletons out here like that? By the way did you compare the bones?'

"'Yes, I did compare them and I'm convinced that they are the bones of two men. Neither is a woman! They are not Allie and her father!"

"I felt better at that. Buoyed up by the discovery, Sands' never dying hope that he would still find his lost sweetheart Allie Lane, expressed itself in his features.

"'And I feel that Allie is alive,' he continued. 'I don't know why I feel it. It might be what we call a coincidence or just a hunch, but I think we'll find her near here!'

"'Poor girl,' I muttered.

"I expected to find the age-whitened bones of Allie Lane and her father but events seemed to have bred within me a belief such as Sands'.

CHAPTER IV
Into the Cavern

"I FELT that our search was at its end when we beheld the two skeletons, but our observations told us that they were the remains of two heavy-set men, one of whom had the ball of an old time bullet lodged in his right wrist bone. We concluded that they had been a couple of frontier bandits or prospectors who wandered onto the Manalava Plain and died there of thirst. Sands strode over to the wall and lifted a skeleton from the pegs. I watched him with amazement. The rattle of the bones sounded oddly in the crater. He threw one and then the other into the pool. As we watched, intently, the bones slowly sank and vanished until there was nothing left. The stuff must have been horribly thick and viscous to retain it on the surface so long.

"'That's about the best burial they'll ever get,' he muttered. 'I'd hate to die knowing that my bones would be hung on a wall to frighten folks away!'

"I agreed with Sands. He seemed a different man altogether from the wrinkled old gent to whom I had been accustomed. With many of his years gone, and apparently young again, he was wide-awake to the adventures at hand. Without further words, he strode lightly to the entrance of the luminous cavern. I followed, choosing to be led rather than lead.

"Carefully we picked our way into the tunnel which widened perceptibly beyond the entrance. Inside, the red glow was more pronounced. Sparkling gems, cropping out of the walls, glittered brilliantly under the red radiance. A well worn path' led along the center of the cavern's floor and we followed it for perhaps a hundred yards on a downward angle of probably five or six degrees. We observed small caves branching off from the main tunnel, but we continued along the trail of the larger one.

"Suddenly, as we picked our way along the path, we heard the sounds of a dismal chant. Steadily the sound increased. The entire cavern reverberated with the ominous sound and almost from the moment it reached our ears, we found ourselves in total darkness! The entrance of the cave which had previously been open to the sun-light and looked bright and inviting from the cavern's interior, was now totally dark! The inky blackness was as oppressing as the damp, stagnant air was nauseating. I reached out and grabbed Sands' arm so that we would not get separated. At the same time I jerked my gun out of the holster. Sands grunted when he heard the click of the hammer being drawn back under the thumb.

"'Don't shoot until you're sure what you're shootin' at, pard,' he whispered in my ear. 'I think I hear footsteps off there to the left. Get around me or let me have the hog-laig!'

"'I hear something in back of me, Sands,' I replied, a little nervously. 'Something seems to be flyin' around our heads like bats but I don't hear the whirr of wings!'

"'Don't move then!' he advised.

"'That's a hell of a racket, ain't it?' I remarked, trying to control my agitation.

"We stood closer together in the blackness. The tunnel reeked with an evil odor that was sweet and lung-tickling. I have smelled something like that before in caves where wild cats had holed up, but this was a thousand times stronger.

"'No use standing here, pardner,' Sands whispered softly, 'I can't hear any more footsteps and the bats seem to have vanished. Suppose you light up the carbide lamp. I want to look around in here but not in the dark. Might fall into a hole!'

"'Let's stand still a few more minutes,' I said. 'I'm a little uneasy about this. I want to get my bearings for a line on that opening where we came in. Looks like the hole has been closed up.'

"'That hole couldn't be closed without us hearing it!'

"'With that noise down below you couldn't hear it anyhow!' I argued. 'Sounds like a pack of demons thirstin' for blood!'

"'It don't sound any too good, I'll admit that,' Sands acknowledged. 'It might be wind caused by an underground suction, or chlorine gas blowing out of a volcanic fissure. The stink smells like chlorine gas.'

"We peered into the darkness trying to penetrate a solid wall of unfathomable black. My eyes ached under the strain. I removed my hand from Sands' arm to rub them.

"Suddenly a darting light passed like a meteor through the blackness above, showering green, luminous sparks to the floor of the cave! In the brilliant light I caught sight of Sands' features. The expression on his face told me that he had barely missed being struck by the glaring missile. He yelled loudly to drop down flat, as another light in the form of a sphere apparently of molten metal, darted over us, dropping a shower of floating sparks.

"Instantly the meteor-like ball was followed by other bright, swift-moving lights which passed perilously close to us and raced to the end of the tunnel toward the entrance. Their passing was marked by a low, droning hum of a likeness to the drone of the big sphere that had been shot from the whirling column in the center of the pool.

"Lying flat on our backs on the hard lava floor of the cavern back there under the terrible Manalava Plains, Sands and I watched the space above us. Closer and closer came a steady stream of brilliant lights that permeated the already nauseating air with the odor of burning carbon! I raised my gun several times to fire at one of the lights but thought better of it until I was sure of hitting the mark. Meanwhile I began to think what might happen should I actually succeed in striking one of them. I asked Sands' advice. He suggested that I try my luck.

"I raised my head a little to look down into the tunnel. Issuing from what appeared to be a deep hole perhaps a half mile ahead, came a spinning ball of glaring fire. It hovered for^ an instant over the yawning, luminous hole and then darted in our direction at a terrific speed. I lifted my gun from my hip. When the light was near enough, I pulled the trigger.

"The sharpness of the concussion filled me with fear, but in the instant the light was gone. Only a shower of sparks remained to prove that my slug had gone true. The sparks lay on the tunnel floor, glowing like lumps of molten copper, green and red.

"We lay on the ground for several minutes more. Then I nudged Sands. We walked along the path for perhaps a dozen feet and then I realized that our sense of direction was gone altogether. We were completely lost in a strange world of blackness pierced only by mysterious lights and sounds, of whose origin I could not guess.

A Place of Terror

"PRESENTLY we realized that it was folly to A wander around when any step might precipitate us into unknown dangers. I had an unpleasant feeling of helpless fear that was gradually overcoming my reasoning powers again.

"At times I looked fearfully to the right and left, but saw nothing but blackness. The glowing remains of the light had long since died out and the cave was once again in total darkness. There was no life, no sound, no motion except for the movements of Sands and me. Allie Lane at that time was very remote from my thoughts. I was thinking of personal safety and although I had some assurance in the feel of my gun in my hand and its effectiveness on the dangerous lights, I was nevertheless fearful. I felt the panic of utter isolation from humanity. I was in a different world entirely!

"Sands suggested again that I get out my carbide lamp. I hesitated, fearful lest our positions be clearly defined in the light, and lay us open to further danger from the fast floating lights and their sources.

"Stagnation—everything sinking and stale! The cavern smelled of sheer funk. It curled our nostrils and nauseated our stomachs to such an extent that I became violently ill temporarily.

"'Let's get out of here, Sands!' I whispered. 'I think we are headed into the cave and if we turn around we can reach the opening.'

"'We can try it. I'd like to get a breath of air.'

"'Hold on to me then,' I said, 'we'll get out!'

"'Mebbe!'

"With Sands holding onto my arm we turned around and began a slow, deliberate walk back to what we thought was the entrance to the cave, long since dark. For perhaps fifteen minutes we picked our way along the cave not knowing what step might sink us into death.

"Suddenly I collided with a solid wall. Around the edges the sunlight of the outer world flickered and I knew that it was the entrance to the cave.

"We were stunned when we discovered that the entrance had been closed solidly with massive slabs of rock! The air was less heavy and stagnant here and we sat down after a strenuous effort to roll back the rock wall that trapped us. We rested, motionless on the floor of the cave. I could not see Sands but sounds of his heavy, even breathing came to me. We were too exhausted even to speak but I suddenly felt the pangs of hunger.

"I slipped my pack from my shoulders and felt within it. I handed Sands several squares of hardtack and a bar of chocolate for which he mumbled his thanks. Ravenously I devoured my ration; then got out my carbide lamp and toyed with it.

"As I sat I noticed that the low moaning sounds that we had previously heard were again issuing from deep within the cave. I shuddered. The sounds beat terrifically on my brain and in my terror I drew my gun and fired four shots rapidly toward the interior.

"Instantly the hole was a bedlam! I leaped td my feet to run but tripped over Sands' outstretched feet and tumbled to the floor.

"'Take it easy, pardner!' Sands advised, softly, his voice quivering. At his calm words I lay down quietly.

"You cannot conceive my terror. Could I have but known the reasons and the causes for the many things we had seen and the incidents that happened, I would have been better able to control myself. Terrified, I lay on the floor of the cave and it was a long time before I was able to think. Meanwhile the cavern was in pandemonium. The moaning sounds had again become a wail which gradually developed into high-pitched shrieking. I expected momentarily to see another huge whirling sphere shooting toward the entrance of the cave where we lay panic-stricken.

"To my horror, the cave began to lighten with the green luminous glow, and a score of yards beyond I saw what appeared to be a sluggish red stream, thick and mucky, flowing toward us. I kicked at Sands to draw his attention to it.

"'I see it, pardner,' he whispered. 'What do you think it is?'"

"'Lord!' I answered. 'If I only knew!'

'"Let me have your lamp. I'm going to take a chance on lighting it. We've got to get out of here!'

"My blood turned cold at the mention of the carbide lamp. For the first time I learned that it was not in my hands! At my attempt to run, I thought I must have dropped the lamp with my pack. At any rate it was gone! We crawled around the floor of the cave hoping to feel it. The murky green glow in the tunnel did not help us any at all. It only added to the disguise of the cave's interior.

"Sands cursed me for a fool at allowing the lamp to drop from my hands, leaving us without a means of penetrating the darkness. My pack, which I had placed on my knees before me, when digging out our rations, was gone likewise. Nowhere could they be found. We searched the floor of the cave minutely in the sickly green light but without success.

"Suddenly the cave became brilliant with light. The suddenness of the change from darkness blinded my eyes and instinctively my hands shot up to cover them. It stunned me for a moment and then I looked around.

"I stared incredulously at the sight; then turned to look at Sands. He was poised on his hands and knees, stopped by the sudden light, in his search for the lamp and the grub pack. His mouth hung open. I looked up again.

Strange Beings

"STANDING around us in a circle stood a score of the strangest man-like beings I ever beheld. They stood motionless, surveying us. Towering high above Sands and me, the strangers looked down through great eyes that blinked slow and deliberate like owls' orbs in the night. Instinctively my hand shot down to my gun butt. When it neared the metal it stopped and I jerked my hand away. The gun seemed charged with powerful electricity! I managed to grin foolishly under the glare of two-score blinking eyes. Then I made a careful appraisal of the beings surrounding us.

"Tall in stature—probably seven feet high, they towered above us. With great heads void of hair, powerful bull necks, barrel chests and long skinny limbs that appeared to be of rubber like the tentacles on the weird cactus back on the Manalava Plain, the creatures to the human eye, were repulsively grotesque! Their arms, thin and sinuous, like their legs, seemed of rubber and they hung motionless at their sides. I looked for hands. There were none. At the ends of the tentacle-like arms, there seemed to be sucker-like cups like the end of an elephant's trunk!

"For several moments they stood appraising us. Likewise we studied them. I noticed that above their heads waved two thin, flexible tubes that curled at the end and were attached to the brows just above their owlish orbs. Like the antennae on a desert butterfly, the tubes twitched this way and that! The absence of ears at the sides of their flat, heads added bestiality to their repulsive features, and their mouths, like the jaws of a toad, were pointed and bony! Each had the face of a frog and all looked alike except that the creature standing nearest to me and in front of the rest, was perhaps a head taller. He wore a brightly-hued belt of metal around his narrow, skinny hips.

"The big fellow's tubes at his forehead were waving nervously. I stared at him blankly for I had a peculiar feeling that somehow he was trying to speak to me. I shot an inquiring glance at Sands. He was still in the same position. His knit brows displayed a growing uneasiness. Surely, I thought, these grotesque fellows were not hostile, otherwise they would have made short work of us!

"I crawled slowly to my feet and stood erect in front of the repellant fellow, who was apparently the leader of the frog-featured beings. His green, luminous face was tilted down to me and from it radiated the warmth of radium. He towered three heads above me and I felt like a pigmy beside him and equally as helpless.

"'Well——,' I managed to say, in astonishment.

"His tubes stood out stiff and motionless. A strange power seemed to be penetrating into my crazed brain and his attitude made me feel that he was reading my thoughts. Suddenly my brain was struck with a direct question, although I heard no voice.

"'What are you doing here?' a strange, silent voice seemed to ask.

"In answer my thoughts asked the same question and instinctively my lips blurted out the words evasively. The awesome creature snapped his frog-like mouth and his antennae stood rigid.

"'Answer me! The silent demand was hostile under the glare of his owlish orbs.

"My hand hung close to the butt of my gun but I kept my fingers from touching it. My brain was a whirl of thoughts, making clear thinking impossible. There seemed to be a peculiar power continually stirring my brain, building up slowly an explanation for our presence there. I opened my mouth to speak but the strange power ordered me to keep it shut and to think. I looked around for Sands. He was standing at my side, his face as green as the ghastly faces in front of me. I felt somewhat assured by his presence and then my thoughts raced, omitting no episode of the long search by my partner for his sweetheart, Allie Lane. My thoughts told of tracing Allie and her father to the radium pool and how, on discovering the cave, we had decided to search within it for some remains of the ill-fated friends of Sands.

"In my excitement I blurted the question: "'Has anyone here ever heard of Allie Lane—have you ever seen her?'

"The big fellow turned his tubes towards Sands as though to question him. Sands must have been thinking terrible things about the grotesque beings who stood around us, for the big fellow reached out a rubber-like arm and suddenly circled it around his neck. Jerked from his feet, Sands fell to the floor with a curse.

"'Get him pardner!' he yelled at me. 'Shoot him!'

"The suddenness of the hostile move against my friend naturally forced me into action and in spite of the peculiar heat in the metal of my gun, I drew it from its holster and fired point blank into the big fellow's face.

"I expected to see him fall and the others dash away but the fellow merely croaked like a frog and tightened his hold upon Sands. A small, round hole appeared in his face where my slug had struck him just below the left eye. A yellow liquid that glowed like fire, trickled out of the hole for an instant, then vanished as the wound rapidly closed up! I jammed my gun into the holster, amazed and fearful.

"Instantly the circle of strange creatures tightened around us. We were doomed men, I thought, as I was roughly lifted into the arms of one of the frog-faced beings!

---

PERHAPS it is a bit unethical for the editor to wax enthusiastic about any story, but we certainly could not help mentally applauding when we first read "The Radium Pool."

Not since "The Moon Pool" has there been such a story and the second part which we are presenting to you now, is certainly by far the better part of the story.

The adventure interest accumulates gradually and with never-ending vigor the story leaps from adventure to science, so when finally one lays the story aside, it seems as if an entirely new world had been opened to you-a world that is as strange as it will be unforgettable. And if you read the story ten times, you will not fail to be thrilled at the tenth reading as you were at the first.

---

THE RADIUM POOL
(Part 2, Science Wonder Stories, September 1929

What Has Gone Before

JAMES DOWELL, reporter for the Los Angeles Outstander, is sent to accompany Professor Bloch who is going into Death Valley to study strange human remains found there. In the desert they rescue an old man who tells them a strange story. With his partner Driftin' Sands, he had gone into the Manalava Plain, one of the hottest parts of the Valley, to search for Allie Lane, the sweetheart of Sands, who has been missing for forty years. On the way Sands insists that he sees in the desert ahead of them Allie and her father with their wagon. They follow the mirage and finally reach a crater in the hollow of which is a pool of radium salts. Around the crater is a circular cavern from the ceiling of which is suspended the skeletons of two men. Sands in falling down near the pool immerses his fingers in it and on withdrawing finds only the stump remains. But hts years seem to be rubbed away and he becomes a young man again. Meanwhile they witness a strange sight. Out of the cave comes a great sphere which revolves over the pool and finally disappears in it. They go into the cave hoping to find Allie' Lane there and the wall of the opening is mysteriously blocked up. They find themselves lost and are suddenly surrounded by strange seven-foot beings with faces like frogs. They have tentacles above their heads and by these establish telepathic communication with the two visitors. A shot is fired at one of the beings but from his forehead a greenish fluid runs out and the wound closes up, without damage to him. They close in on the two men and pick them up.

"BOTH Sands and I were carried on the broad chests of the mysterious creatures far into the cavern. They made several abrupt descents and the oppressive air told me that we were far below the surface of the Manalava Plain! Their movements were rapid and forceful and their long skinny legs bore their weight remarkably well, although they wabbled like strutting geese. During the entire course, the tunnel was brilliant with changing colors of various hues from green to red and vermilion—everchanging.

"As I lay cradled in the tentacle-like arms of the big brute who carried me, I smelled his evil breath. The odor was the same nauseating smell that had curled our nostrils and threatened to explode our lungs on several occasions since we entered the cavern. With each slow blink of his eyelids, there was an accompanying metallic click. Occasionally he opened his toad-like mouth and when he closed it hard, bony lips snapped like the spring of a trap. Sands was being borne along by a broad-backed creature in front of me. I could see his head bobbing with each wobbly step of the beast and I knew that he was unconscious.

"I felt worried about Sands. The grip of the big fellow's arm around his throat could have broken the spine of an ox without any effort. I cursed the brutes venomously. The fellow bearing me tightened his grip around my chest and I was forced to gasp for breath. When I became quiet he loosened his hold. I felt a searing welt rise across my body.

"Presently we were carried into a great, circular chamber far below the surface of the Manalava Plain! The chamber was luminous with the strange, pale green color. In the center spun a huge glowing sphere and it was surrounded by smaller spheres, each spinning in an atmosphere of its own—like the earth— with its suns and moons revolving around it. The huge ball in the center seemed to float in air without any visible support. The smaller spheres likewise spun in mid-air at perhaps a forty-five degree angle from the large one. They emitted a high-pitched whine as they spun.

"My eyes, now accustomed to the luminous glow, searched every corner of the chamber. To the right, standing on a flat rock platform, were three massive chairs of green metal that was studded with precious stones. The chairs were vacant.

"Lined around the circular chamber were several hundred more of the grotesque creatures who had carried Sands and I far into the underground world. They stood motionless as though at attention. From deep in the bowels of the earth came a clanging of bells and each creature in the chamber, with the exception of the two who bore Sands and I across their chests, hung their heads. I heard the scraping of rock against rock over to my right and I allowed my gaze to wander there.

"A huge circular slab of rock was rolling away from an entrance into the chamber. I watched it intently until its removal exposed a glittering doorway. I had become so engrossed in watching the door that I failed to notice that I was being carried toward the platform. As I was borne nearer to the three chairs, I observed standing in the opening the majestic figure of a huge, bestial creature, bedecked in purple and gold robes of a metal that glistened blindingly. The fellow carrying me halted before the platform and placed me on the floor. The tall figure in the doorway moved quickly out of the entrance and walked stiff-legged toward the chairs.

"From his dignity I at once accepted him as the king or chief of the grotesque frog-men. I stood erect, my gaze following him. He appeared not to take the slightest interest in me. I looked around as he neared what I accepted as his throne. Sands was lying still on the broad chest of the brute who had carried him in. His head hung loosely on his shoulders. Disconsolately, my gaze again returned to the majestic figure on the throne. He sat stiffly, the tubes above his eyes, waving slowly. While my interest was centered on Sands' lifeless body, two other beings had followed the High Chief onto the throne and sat in the chairs on either side of him.

"To my uttermost surprise I beheld two human beings sitting beside the High Chief, one on either side! And one was a young woman, gayly adorned in brilliant robes of purple and gold! Her wealth of golden brown hair shimmered in the pale green light of the chamber. Her eyes were motionless and she looked out over the room like one in a trance. Her finely cut features and appealing blue eyes caused my pulse to beat more rapidly than ever before in all my life. My whole body tingled with exaltation. I had an impression that her features bore a distinct resemblance to some beautiful face that I had seen before. She stared straight ahead with unblinking eyes. I was unable to remove my eyes from her. Where had I seen that fascinating, clear-cut face? Whose features were they? Ah——I had it!

"Instantly I decided to look again at the photograph Sands had found in the old album back at the spring! Perhaps it was the photograph that had given me the impression of having at some past time beheld the gentle features of the girl.

"I walked unmolested, over to Sands' limp form and reached inside his vest. He was beginning to show signs of life when I brought forth the well-preserved photograph that he said was the picture of Allie Lane for whom we had been searching.

"Every owlish eye in that great assembly of unearthly beings, was riveted on me as I strode, photograph in hand, toward the platform. The dignified leader sat motionless on the throne and regarded me through saucer-like orbs. I felt, even though no sounds issued from his mouth, that he was conversing steadily with our capturers. The tubes, just above his broad forehead, waved in all directions as though catching thought waves being broadcast by the others in the chamber.

"The girl sat in stony immobility. The man on the other side of the High Chief was likewise motionless, his eyes staring straight ahead. The man was slightly wrinkled around the mouth though he looked to be no older than thirty. His jet black hair which had been freshly combed, glistened as from oil. Was this man Alfred Forsythe Lane, father of the beautiful girl whose trail led us to the edge of the radium pool? Hardly, I thought. "At the edge of the platform I halted, photograph held up before my eyes. For a moment I was utterly stunned! The photograph showed the same delicately rounded chin, finely shaped lips and radiant blue eyes that marked the beauty of the girl in the chair! I stumbled backward a few steps in my astonishment.

"'Allie Lane!' I must have shouted at the top of my lungs, for I heard a patter of feet that brought Driftin' Sands to my side. I looked at him. His face was white even under the luminous green glow that affected him.

"'My God!' he breathed in amazement. 'It's Allie!'

"With a leap Sands jumped to her side on the platform.

An Inquisition

"INSTANTLY the High Chief raised an arm menacingly and a thin shaft of green light shot from the sucker-like tip at the end. Sands placed a wearied hand over his eyes, a small round spot, the color of chalk, appeared on his brow as he sank to the floor heavily. Allie Lane moved her finely shaped head with its brown hair hanging in thin wisps curled around her temples, and stared blankly at her fallen lover. She quivered slightly and raised her dainty white hands to her temples as though striving to bring a return of memory. Presently she gave it up with a shudder and continued to stare straight in front of her. The gaze rested upon me, I felt, and I shifted my own uneasily, helplessly. The grotesque people of the underground had displayed their protective powers on several occasions and I was aware of what my fate would be if I interfered to aid my friend. Whether Sands was dead or merely stunned I could not guess, but I accepted the former readily enough.

"Expecting momentarily to feel the tingle of radium rays carrying me into oblivion, I hung my head. I stood limply at the edge of the platform, full of sorrow over the turn of affairs. Here was Sands, at the end of a forty-year search for his lost sweetheart—the only living thing that had kept him alive—and there was Allie Lane, probably broken in mind and spirit and unable to go to him. Now, I thought, his life was snuffed out while he stood on the very verge of complete happiness. I offered a prayer to our Maker to re-unite them again and let them enjoy the happiness that was theirs by right of nature and heritage!

"I didn't think how strange it was at the time for Allie Lane to be sitting there as fresh in the glory of youth as she was when the photograph had been made of her back in Kansas City forty years ago! I only knew that we had found her. I looked at Sands. He was lying in a heap where he had fallen. No move had been made on the part of the giant tunnel-dwellers to aid him. Certainly I could not! One move and I would meet with the same fate. I was not ready to die. I strained hard to think of some way to help him—to learn if he was dead. My mind was a blank and seemed not to function. Some irresistible influence was smothering all thought. It was then I realized that I was being questioned by the High Chief on the throne. I cast a quick glance past Allie Lane at him. His antennae tubes were pointed straight toward me. I felt the strange power that seemed to pass from his lubes to my mind. I shuddered for it gave me a terrific pain at the base of my skull. Nevertheless I steeled myself for the ordeal of questioning that I knew would follow. A peculiar feeling came over me. I felt that I was gradually rising out of my physical body. It was an incredible sensation. Then my brain grasped a vibratory mental question. I seemed in a trance.

'"You, Man of the Earth, what brings you into forbidden country?'

"The peculiar eerie question gave me a faint feeling that some time in the dim past I had heard it asked of me through a similar process. I glanced down at my feet. They were invisible. I seemed to hang, eyes only, suspended in a murky haze. Before me, on the throne, sat the three silent figures glowing brightly and tinged with a greenish hue. Sands' inert body seemed to have vanished! I strove to answer my questioner. My lips moved but I could hear no words. My brain told me that an answer was taking definite shape, but it would not be the answer the monster sought!

"'Forbidden country here in America?' I answered him silently. 'Why you must be crazy!'

"At that his saucer-like eyes blinked rapidly. His frog-like beak opened and a red, fiery tongue flicked out of a luminous opening that was his throat. The chamber was in stony silence. Only the click of the High Chief's huge eyelids broke the stillness.

"'You, Man of the Earth,' the words telegraphed to my brain. 'Dare you jest with me? Do you know that I, Abaris, second in command of Jupiter and the entire Universe, have the power and the right to forbid anything or condemn any world!'

"His words struck me as inexplicably funny. How silly and absurd, I thought, was this sudden boast of power from such a hideous, grotesque freak. Had he ever heard of the great armies of the United States that could fly over the Manalava Plain and annihilate his entire band of frog-like freaks? Hardly, I thought. I felt my lips curl up in scorn at his vanity.

"'By what right have you to condemn and destroy?' I asked, more controlled.

"His flat beak opened in a froggish attempt to laugh. A peculiar cackling sound, issued from his cavernous throat. He seemed to be enjoying himself hugely.

"'For a lowly creature like yourself, Man of the Earth, who is doomed, you speak strong words! What right have I to annihilate you? Why, ignorant one, I have the right by all the power of the Universe! I have the power of civilization ten million years in advance of your aboriginal powers! We, your superiors by millenniums, could condemn your earth to complete and instantaneous destruction should we so desire!"

"This lengthy message, telegraphed to my stunned brain, caused me to wonder what sort of beings these creatures were, from where they had come and what was their mission here. Certainly, the owl-eyed freak talked like a military lord. I began to feel that I was the proverbial mouse and the cat was merely playing with me for his own amusement. The strange power the High Chief had displayed in striking Sands to the floor, awed me considerably. Of a certainty, we men on earth boasted of no such strange weapons that shot pencil-thin light rays and killed instantly and silently. Perhaps this giant freak was not boasting after all.

"In spite of my sudden fears that perhaps this tribe of strange creatures might be able to bring into play powers far superior to our own, I still felt contempt and scorn for them. To have my partner —my friend in years of toil and sorrow, suddenly struck down by the beasts when he had found joy, was enough to bring out my hatred. The fact that they held captive, two human beings like myself, one a woman, under a strange influence, only piled, fuel onto the fires of my fury.

"'What have you done with my friend, O Abaris, Great and Exalted Ruler of the boundless Universe?' I sneered contemptuously. "'Such a Great and Glorious Ruler as you must take great pleasure in striking down an unarmed man!'

"'I smite the hand that harms, Man of the Earth!' his soundless words shot back, hostilely.

"'His was not the hand that harms, O Brave Abaris! His was the hand of love and loyalty— with a mind of sorrow and grief!'

Abaris Explains

"AT this juncture I shot a glance at Allie Lane. Her profile was beautiful as she turned toward the grotesque creature sitting majestically at her side. Her eyes looked up into the owlish orbs appealingly. My heart jumped suddenly and I felt a lump rising in my throat. The High Chief Abaris looked down at her though wide lids. One of his snaky, tube-like arms writhed upward and encircled her soft shoulders. His head tubes hung drooped in apparent affection for this beautiful girl for whom Sands had spent the best part of his life in constant search. I cursed the huge beast roundly.

"I understood it now. The frightful brute had saved Allie Lane from a horrible death, and through some process unknown to man, he had retained within her the youth and beauty that was hers when he found her at the edge of the radium pool! He must have jealously guarded that youth through the passing of the years that had made Sands, her loyal suitor, an old and broken man! What was the secret of the strange process? Was it the radio-active qualities of the radium that had retained her youth as well as restore the youth of Driftin' Sands? If so, then why hadn't I gone through the same change? Then I remembered that Sands had accidentally dipped his fingers into the radium pool, burning off the tips. The radium must then have sent life-giving qualities surging through his veins and restored the worn and frayed nerves and tissue of his body! The same injection, but through a different process, I thought, must have been applied to the youthful body of Allie Lane. Her father, too, must necessarily have gone through the same procedure, else how could he have been restored to youth? Why had he been permitted to live at all? Surely, now, his years had passed the century mark!

"But, I thought, Allie Lane would have been better off had she died at the pool! With such a beast as the frog-featured Abaris constantly in her vision and showering her with his affections, a terrible life at best must have been hers! And Abaris must have read Sands' thoughts, too, before he struck the man down. He seemed to take great pride in his possession of the beautiful feminine creature, I felt, and guarded her zealously from others.

"Suddenly my subconscious mind reeled under the pressure of Abaris' strange power of mental telepathy. He rolled his great bald head aside and with owlish eyes, languidly regarded me. My gaze became fastened on his steadily blinking lids. Their metallic clap-clap-clap-clap as they opened and closed, sounded dismally throughout the chamber which was now lighted only with a pale green glow. The three figures on the throne, a deeper green but tinged with a brilliant red aurora, sat quietly. I wondered what had become of Driftin' Sands.

"Abaris' grotesque features stood out abruptly and seemed almost as fair as Allie Lane and her father, under the mixture of colors that glowed from the green and red hues. His great eyes bored into mine so deeply that I felt a sudden panic seize me.

"'You, ignorant Man of the Earth, have seen the power of Jupiter, greatest and most powerful planet in the Universe!' Abaris' words, booming and unspoken, reached my mind. I thought it strange that these grotesque beings could converse in my own language and by mental process at that.

'"Yes,' I admitted reluctantly. 'I have seen them! But do you know that one of our American bombing planes could fly over here and blow you and your crowd to hell?'

"Abaris' frog-like features parted in a grin. His throat rattled mirthfully. I stared at him, awed.

"'Hoh, hoh, hoooah!' My mind throbbed under the force of his booming mental laugh. 'Why, lowly worm!' he shot, his tubes pointing straight at me, 'If I but minded to I could destroy your entire world with one little globule of radium!'

"'What do you mean?' I asked with a sudden desire to learn all I could concerning these strangers and their awe-insipiring powers.

"'Just this!' Abaris said, evenly and with sarcasm, 'We of Jupiter are so far your superiors that you are but worms in comparison. When your people were still clinging by their tails we of Jupiter had already mastered mathematics. During the years that followed and developed you to your present state, we of Jupiter mastered many sciences—one of which brings us to your world now. That is radium. We have mastered radium in all its forms and we are therefore masters of the Universe and all life in it.'

'"Well,' I said, 'why didn't you destroy us here on earth then if you are so powerful? How did you get here on this earth if your planet is Jupiter?'

"'We, Man of the Earth,' he said, amused, as though enjoying the mental conversation immensely and taking great pride in the vast knowledge of his people, 'we do not take life without cause, even though that life is no more to us than your reptiles are to you!'

"'Then why did you kill my friend T I queried, earnestly. 'Why have you held these two white people with you?'

"'Your friend is unhurt physically, but mentally he now belongs to Jupiter! His intentions were doubtful when he leaped up here beside Eloli, whom your feeble mind refers to as Allie Lane! I should have killed him instantly!'

"I felt unable to think of anything for a moment, and I stared fascinated at the features that confronted me. I noticed that the colors in the chamber were changing again and that the lackadaisical visage of Abaris was growing more pronounced under the varying hues. His saucer-like eye-lids continued their resounding clap-clap-clap like the sound of shutters closing on a camera.

"'I don't believe you, Abaris!' my voice suddenly raised. 'You killed him because you knew that he was Allie Lane's man by all the laws of humanity on this world!'

"'What care we Jovians for the laws of your humanity!' Abaris' thought wave struck me sharply. 'I could have killed you both instantly! You were trespassing on forbidden ground and I therefore had the right to remove you from it!'

"'How did you know we were here?' I asked.

"'Our sentinels on the surface informed us of your coming long before you reached here. We had no intention of harming you unless you entered the crater!'

'"Then that's why you hung up these skeletons but there—to scare us away, eh?' I inquired. 'Did you think a few grinning skulls would make us run?'

"The skeleton of anything on this earth tends to frighten away the living!' Abaris declared, nonchalantly. 'Even a dog will run from the bones of its kind, why not you who are just a step higher intellectually than the dog?'

"'You're a bragging cuss, aren't you, Abaris?' I shot back with contempt and sarcasm. 'You've been misinformed as to the status of the human race on this world! I could think up a better way to frighten a man than that!'

"'We of Jupiter have many ways to frighten a man if you like to call yourself such. But you see we are not particularly interested in whether we frighten or not. You and your friend and these two humans beside me are the first to have come here since we arrived from Jupiter. We felt no need of methods to frighten others away!'

They Disappear

"MY Lord! I thought, had these creatures come to this world from another planet at a time when we on this world were crossing the country in ox-drawn wagon trains? Had they arrived here before Allie Lane and her father wandered into the Manalava Plain?

"'Yes, Man of the Earth,' Abaris' mental wave reached me in answer to my thoughts. 'We dropped down from Jupiter, long before your people began crossing your continent. We have been here exactly one hundred of your years and we are now ready to return to Jupiter, if that interests you. Our work here is completed. We return soon to our own world; four hundred million miles away.'

"Four hundred million miles! My mind whirled with staggering figures and I gave it up.

"'I can understand your mathematical deductions, Abaris,' I said, 'but just the same I'm from Missouri and you have to prove to me that you covered all that space just to visit this world. It is hard to believe that any living thing can exist long enough to do it. It don't sound possible!'

"'That's one of the failings of you Men of the Earth,' Abaris said, evenly. 'You think that everything that does not come within your scope of understanding is impossible. We of Jupiter long ago achieved immortality. But why should I, Abaris, second in command of the great Jupiter, explain to a lowly creature such as you, the vastly important facts of interplanetary travel?'

"'You could tell me so I might inform my fellows on this earth that it was actually performed. Otherwise I'll have to call you a liar!' I said, with a false show of bravado. So far no harm had come to me, and Abaris had informed me that Sands suffered no permanent physical injury. I could afford to hold up my chin and meet on equal terms, with the grotesque frog-men of Jupiter! What were they anyhow but unreal, mechanical freaks?

"'Well, to tell the truth, your world will never learn the secret from a Jovian, Man of the Earth!' Abaris' thought vibrations seemed to say. 'I might say that some day your scientists may evolve a medium for interplanetary travel and we of Jupiter do not intend to shorten the period of time when you will eventually try to visit us. You will not be welcome!'

"'You're giving us a lot more credit than you have been saying was due us, Abaris,' I remarked with a grin. 'I'm glad you have come around to to that. It makes me feel better to know that I'm a little more intelligent than a crawling worm.'

"Suddenly the chamber brightened under the brilliance of powerful rays. Small spheres, spinning rapidly and glowing luminously, shot restlessly to and fro in the far end of the chamber. At the sound they made I instinctively turned to them for several seconds. When my eyes again returned to Abaris and his two human companions, they were gone! They had vanished apparently in thin air during the few short seconds my eyes had wandered around the brilliantly lighted chamber.

"Save for an inert heap lying on the throne in the same position that I had seen Sands when he had fallen, the chamber was completely deserted. The spheres continued their back and forth movement as I dashed quickly to Sands' side. At the close range I discovered that his body was tinged with the same luminous glow that I had seen outlining the bodies of Abaris, Allie Lane and her father. Sands seemed stunned. He was breathing but his lungs functioned laboriously.

"'Sands!' I cried, shaking him by the shoulder. 'Are you hurt?'

"From his lips issued a deep groan. I swung his inert body around for a look at his face. The color of it was a deeper green than it had been before. I stretched him out flat on his back and rubbed his numbed hands to restore his circulation, but it availed me nothing. Then I remembered that on my desert prospects I always carried a square lump of camphor in my pockets to rub on my lips when they became parched from the heat. I searched through my pockets for it and was overjoyed when I found it. It was soft and spongy.

"Quickly I massaged Sands' lips and nostrils. Whether camphor would serve in the place of the more powerful spirits of ammonia, I did not know, but you can imagine my joy when his lids suddenly fluttered and his lips parted. The camphor fumes had actually brought him out of the faint into which the powerful rays from Abaris' deadly weapon had thrown him.

"I laughed nervously. 'That's it, old timer!' I said, 'Snap out of it! The devil said he didn't hurt you! We've got to get Allie and her father out of here. These freaks are planning to get away from here in a hurry, taking Allie and her dad with them. Sit still and take it easy for a minute!'

"Sands sat very still for several minutes, his head resting in his hands. I squatted on the floor of the platform beside him, my eyes scouring every side of the circular chamber. To the right, the entrance into the chamber through which had come Allie Lane, her father and Abaris, stood open. The huge circular rock which must have weighed many tons had not been replaced over the opening.

"The most conspicuous thing in the entire chamber was the fair-sized globe in the center, resting on an axis and revolving rapidly. From the distance I could see that it was lined with many criss-cross markings and glowed as though containing a transparent liquid of a beautiful emerald color, much similar to colored glass globes generally displayed in drug store windows, in the city. Occasionally the brilliant spheres that hung, spinning in mid-air, darted suddenly toward the larger globe in the center. When one of the smaller spheres neared it, the central ball emitted a peculiar high-pitched hum. The globes, combined with the darting lights, gave me the impression that they must be used by the Jovians for some astronomical purpose. The big sphere, I thought, must represent the home planet of the grotesque beings. What else could they be used for, I wondered? But I was due to learn much before I got out of there.

CHAPTER VI
Sands Recovers

"PRESENTLY Sands stood erect. He looked around him for several seconds evidently to get his bearings. I watched him nervously. What had Abaris meant when he said that 'mentally Sands belonged to Jupiter?' I knew when I looked into Sands' eyes. Like fathomless abysses, his eyes glowed like sulphurous fires. The pupils had grown until they seemed to disappear into the rim entirely! He seemed to be in the same trance that had held Allie Lane's and her father's eyes staring straight ahead without apparently comprehensive powers. Held in the embrace of the strange hypnotism that had probably forced Allie and her father to do the slightest bidding of the frog-like creatures, Sands truly belonged to Jupiter! At once I resigned myself to whatever fate might be in store for me for I could not hope for any co-operation from Sands.

"When I spoke to him he merely stared blankly, although I was certain that he understood my words. His lips moved to answer but no words formed in his throat. He seemed to have been stricken dumb! Suddenly I began an attempt to converse with him through the strange mental telepathy of the Jovians, but try as I might I received no response. He was a doomed man unless Abaris would restore him to his normal self.

"I shook him by the arm.

"'I think,' I said to him, pointing to the opening from which Abaris had come into the chamber and into which he had doubtless vanished, 'that we had better find Allie Lane and her father if we hope to get out of here alive. You know that she's here and alive, don't you, Sands?'

"To me it appeared that he made an attempt to speak when he heard Allie's name mentioned, but he merely stared dumbly. At any rate I believed he understood what I had said.

"I nudged him and he trembled under the touch.

"'If we can get to Allie and her father without these critters knowing it,' I whispered into his ear, 'she might be able to point a way out of here. If we can get out I'll strike toward Stovepipe Wells and send a telegram to Los Angeles asking for help. I'm afraid we'll need a couple of bombing planes from San Pedro to get us out of this mess!'

"I grabbed him by the arm and hustled him toward the circular shaft leading from the chamber. He came readily enough but when I loosened the pressure on his arm he stood there, stock still. He seemed to have no will power whatever and his legs moved only because I hustled him along. Perhaps the grip of the strange influence that held him would soon vanish, I thought. But for the present he remained in its embrace, physically and mentally!

"As we entered the only open shaft leading out of the chamber, a high-pitched musical note became audible. I wondered if our movements had sounded some mysterious warning. As we continued on into the luminous tunnel that glittered with deposits of priceless gems, the musical note rose higher and higher so that it seemed to tax the sense of hearing to its uttermost. Questioningly I turned to Sands. One of his trembling hands was chafing his temples with thumb and forefinger. The sound gradually became a wail like the metallic scream we had heard before entering the cave that led down to the chamber.

"Suddenly I became aware that Sands had broken the influence that had held him! With a frenzied scream he leaped aside and away from me. I gazed in wonder at the man as he crouched like a beast at bay. I expected him momentarily to spring at my throat. But he finally recognized me and became controlled when I assured him the Jovians were not in sight. His first questions were of Allie Lane. Had he really seen her, he wanted to know, or had he been suffering from a brain fever? Was she really alive—as beautiful as ever? I assured him that she was.

"'Lord!' he gasped, shuddering. 'That noise would drive a man insane!'

"'Yes,' I whispered softly, 'But you ought to thank it for bringing you to your senses!' I believed the shrill sounds were actually responsible for his recovery.

"'What do you mean?' he asked, blankly.

"'Don't you know that the Big Chief of these freaks bounced you for jumping onto the platform?'

"'I don't remember anything but that I'd seen or dreamed I've seen Allie Lane alive!' he said, disconsolately.

"'Well,' I explained, 'The High Chief, who calls himself by the name of Abaris, didn't like the idea of you getting familiar with Allie and he knocked you out cold. I thought he killed you and he might have at that had he wanted to. I thought you were a goner!'

"'He's got a hell of a nerve then!' he exploded, his face twitching in terrible rage that under the glow of green made him almost as grotesque as Abaris himself. 'I've loved Allie Lane all my life and now that I've found her nothing but death will stop me from having her!'

"'We haven't found her yet, Sands,' I reminded him softly. 'She's somewhere down this tunnel! I think we ought to get to her as soon as we can. Those devils are going to leave here! Abaris'll probably take Allie with him!'

'"How do they think they can gel away so quick?' he inquired.

"'I don't know that yet,' I said. 'But we'll soon find out.'

"For perhaps several hundred feet we picked our way, hugging the gem-studded walls, along the tunnel though which Allie Lane had entered the chamber. Overhead small balls of light flitted occasionally, illuminating the entire passageway. We encountered several smaller passageways branching off from the main shaft but we continued along the wider .thoroughfare. What had become of the Jovians? I wondered, as we slowly edged our way along the wall. The only thing that seemed to mark their existence in the great underground maze of tunnel and caverns, deep below Death Valley, was the persistent high-pitched musical notes that smashed into the ear-drums with an unending viciousness.

The Underground Search

"PRESENTLY our footsteps led us into another circular chamber somewhat larger than the one into which Abaris had come. This great room was illuminated by darting lights which exposed units of rapidly revolving machinery from which emanated the high-pitched musical notes! I motioned Sands to halt until we studied the apparatus.

"In our appraisal of the machinery we saw what appeared to be perhaps a half dozen cylindrical tubes that stood upright, spinning rapidly. Over each glowed a pale green luminosity. The bases of the cylinders went through the hard rock floor of the chamber and their spinning movement created a terrific suction, for the air in the cavern was swirling. Attached to each of the cylinders were hundreds of small tubes that gave off a deep green ray for their entire length. One tube ran from the cylinders to a central manifold to which was attached a larger tube that fairly sputtered and glowed under a force similar to but more powerful than a great vacuum tube.

"Audible even above the noise that was created by the rapid whirl of the peculiar machines, came the steady, rhythmic throb of centrifugal pumps. The throb was the same sound that we had heard while we stood for the first time on the rim overlooking the crater containing the radium pool. "Lights floated above the spinning machinery. They made little bright spots in the luminous green that formed the drafty atmosphere, like lanterns being swung rapidly in a murky fog. I turned to Sands who was standing just behind me staring over my shoulder, intently watching the motion of the machinery and the darting lights.

"'I'm beginning to believe Abaris now,' I whispered in his ear. 'These devils are actually draining this world of an unknown radium deposit! All this machinery, the spheres and lights must be operated by radium power of intensity that is not possessed in the small quantities that we have found so far!'

'"Well that might be so, pardner,' Sands placed his lips close to my ear, 'But I'm interested in Allie Lane, nothing else! Let's find her!'

"I gave him an assuring nudge and we edged our way along the wall of the circular chamber, maintaining a safe distance from the whirling machinery for it seemed possessed with a powerful magnetism. I would like to have studied it closer, but something seemed to warn me to remain a safe distance away from whirling cylinders which spun like electrical generators with the tubes connected like generating brushes. I might be drawn into the whirling things and be sucked to death!

"I was still awed over the sudden disappearance of the Jovians and felt that their absence spelled some sinister disaster to us. I momentarily expected some of them to appear and seize us. With an effort I cast off the feeling and we continued along the chamber wall.

"Suddenly we came to an exit shaft just high enough to admit a Jovian, without bending. I raised an arm to estimate the height of the ceiling. My fingertips just scraped it. The tunnel was in total darkness and this appeared to be the only exit from the chamber with the exception of the one through which we had entered. We clung, hand in hand, as we went into it. We had not gone more than a dozen steps until we were enveloped in an inky blackness. Certainly, I thought, the Jovians must be aware, through their peculiar mental telepathy, that we were exploring their secret chambers. Why didn't they swoop down upon us and challenge our progress? Perhaps, I thought, they did not figure it worthwhile, believing that we would eventually lose ourselves in the network of underground vistas, tunnels and chambers, and die as the result. It was a grim outlook for both of us at best, but I had one thing—the assurance of Abaris himself, that the Jovians had no intention of harming us seriously. On the other hand, neither would they go out of their way to aid us. That was certain!

"Eventually we became somewhat accustomed to the inky blackness of the tunnel and we were able to make out the forms of each other. Staring straight ahead I discovered what I accepted to be a small circular hole through which came a faint luminosity. We made for it as rapidly as we could, although we were extremely cautious and fearful lest we step into one of the bottomless abysses which I felt existed in the underground world.

"We edged our way along the tunnel for perhaps a quarter of a mile before we eventually came to the circular light which we had seen. I was not surprised when we found that it was an entrance or an exit of another chamber! We approached it carefully not knowing what might lie ahead. We had no intention of exposing ourselves to the ire of Abaris could we help it. We wanted to find Allie Lane and her father—now that he too was alive! I crawled on hands and knees to the tunnel outlet. Sands was on the opposite side of the hole. We peered intently into the chamber which was brilliantly lighted. The white brightness of the light gave me an impression that it emanated from the sun 1 It blinded us temporarily.

"The chamber was decorated gorgeously in purple and gold drapes that hung suspended from the room's walls. Massive metal chairs, like the three on the platform back in the first chamber, stood in artistic positions. On one side of the wall, draped with a yellow cloth of metal that glistened like fire in the brilliant light, hung a great sheet of glass-like material that mirrored other objects in the chamber. Under it stood a golden dressing table at which was a frail silver bench. Truly, I thought, as I surveyed the mirror, vanity and bench, these objects could be of no use to anyone except a beautiful woman 1 The thought gave birth to another idea. Perhaps this was the room to which Allie Lane had been confined!

"My eyes wandered to the far end of the chamber. To my surprise there stood, near the wall, a massive couch that seemed to have been hewn from a great emerald block. Its coverings were of a soft, silken material, edged with gold! As I stared at the beautiful piece my eyes detected a slight movement of the coverings. I looked on the couch awestruck.

Reunion

"THERE before our very eyes, and apparently alone, lay Allie Lane on the silken covered, emerald couch! From underneath her brilliant robes protruded a dainty foot and ankle. Her face lay buried in her arms and her body wracked with silent sobs, her brown hair shimmering in the glare of the light. I looked at Sands, across the tunnel outlet.

"He stared intently at the reclining figure, his mouth agape. He allowed a hand to run nervously across his brow as though to gain assurance that his eyes were not playing him false. Then I made a careful scrutiny of the chamber to make certain that Allie was alone.

"'Sands!' I hissed, in low undertones that could not have been heard beyond the few feet that separated us. 'There's your chance! There's Allie Lane on that couch, sobbing for you! Go to her, partner! I'll stay here and watch!'

"Sands looked at me for an instant, then taking my hand he squeezed it until my fingers ached.

"'Thanks, pard!' was all he said, but his eyes showed what words would fail to tell. Releasing his grip on my hand he stepped softly into the chamber, and strode lightly with a buoyant step, toward the silken couch. A lump rose in my throat as I watched him moving swiftly toward the girl he had gone through hell to find. Few men would have remained loyal as he to this slip of a girl and hunted in every nook of California for more than forty long, weary years! It was his great love for her in the first place, his beautiful sense of loyalty, that had caused' me to join him in the last few years of his search. Now he was at her side!

"'Allie! Allie!' his voice, softly appealing, came to me where I squatted, silently guarding the chamber. My eyes wandered around the room, nothing escaping them. Again came Sands' appealing call. I looked at him as he stood beside the couch, arms outstretched. The girl lay perfectly still now, and her face remained buried in her arms as though fearful to look up. Slowly her head turned. From where I squatted, I could see her profile as it turned towards Sands, tears like pearls, streaming down her cheek. I expected to see again her sweet features staring mutely blank as they were before me when I first beheld her.

"Suddenly the girl sat upright and turned her face up to Sands! Her eyes widened in amazement and fright. I watched her closely, temporarily forgetting my own sworn duty to stand guard over the chamber. Would she recognize her lover of forty years ago? I wondered if she really would. Or was she still under the spell of some strange Jovian trance? My blood pounded at my temples in those few seconds of uncertainty. I could imagine her amazement at seeing Sands but I could not comprehend her delay in flying to his embrace if she still loved him. She sat very still, staring up into Sands' luminous green features with their month's growth of beard. Perhaps his radium affliction and his beard had puzzled her I thought. That was true. She did not recognize him immediately as the result. For long minutes she stared at him through glistening tears.

"Then with a soft cry Allie Lane literally flew into his arms. Sands squeezed her close to him, his face buried in her tumbled brown hair. A feeling of exultation and of triumph surged through my whole body and I slapped my thigh with joy. I was immensely happy! But my joy was short lived. I always was more or less of a crank and my happiness soon fled before a cloud of gloom that formed sinister thoughts in my brain.

"Now that Sands and Allie Lane were together again, how were they to escape from the underground outpost of Jupiter? If we did succeed in finding our way out of the maze of tunnels, how did we expect to traverse Death Valley without water? It was impossible! Better had we all remain hidden far below Death Valley's burning surface than to expose ourselves to the sinister power of Abaris or the terrible fatal heat of the surface!

"Meanwhile my attention was drawn again to the two lovers as they stood beside the silken couch. Allie nestled close to the broad, powerful chest of her sweetheart and spoke to him in a low, musical voice. Quickly I glanced around the room trying not to listen to them. I had already a violent feeling of being an intruder on their reunion.

"'Oh, Robert!' her voice, tense with both fright and joy. How did you ever find me—why did you risk your life to come here in the midst of these terrible creatures? I'm so afraid!'

"'I love you, Allie!' Sands whispered affectionately. 'I love you better than life itself! I've searched for you for mamy years and I would have continued searching until I could no longer crawl! At last I have found you, Allie, and I shall never leave you again!'

"'Why, Robert!' she suddenly exclaimed. 'You haven't searched for me for many years! You couldn't have because you are just the same Bob Sands you were when you started to California. Why did you let those terrible whiskers grow? I don't like them.' Allie emitted a little musical laugh ; then continued. 'You must shave those horrible whiskers off at once!'

"'Don't you know, Allie dear, that you have been lost from me for over forty years? I've forgotten just exactly how many years. I've been searching so long that I've lost track of time.' Sands whispered softly, looking into her expressive eyes. A smile played at the corners of her lips.

"'You are fooling, Robert,' she said, searching his face for proof of jest. 'It just couldn't be! Why Robert I'd be an old woman now if it were true— I'd be almost sixty.'

"'Good Lord!' I gasped to myself as I stood guard over the chamber and this secret love tryst between Allie Lane and Driftin' Sands. Didn't she know that she's been lost to the world for over forty years? Poor girl! Sands oughtn't to tell her! Then, again, it might be best for her to know everything!

"I listened intently, for now I wanted to learn any information that Allie might give to Sands regarding the grotesque Jovians and their plans. The information might aid us materially in finding ways and means of escaping them.

CHAPTER VII
How to Escape?

"SHE was crying softly, 'It's hard to believe you Robert!' I know that you wouldn't lie to me—but it does seem impossible. Why I'm just the same as I was when you left me back in Kansas City—I don't seem to have grown older! Let me look at myself, please dear?'

"Allie walked with faltering steps over to the huge mirror hanging on the wall, and stared into it, her hands wandering softly over her features. Sands walked to her side and peered into the radium reflector. The reflection he witnessed there caused him to leap aside. For the first time he saw his face since the radio-active qualities of the radium had restored his youth. Here he was, in reality an old man who had been suddenly returned to youth. And instead of seeing the visage of a wrinkled and weatherbeaten old man he beheld the features of Robert Sands as they were when he arrived in California forty years before! His was a surprise beyond description of words. He ran a hand over his face incredulously.

"Taking this opportunity to attract his attention, I whistled softly. He looked up with a jerk and patting Allie lightly on the shoulder, he came to the entrance of the tunnel where I squatted. Allie was staring into the mirror, incredulously, as though unable to believe that under ordinary circumstances she would be in the autumn of life on this earth—that the beautiful face in the mirror would long ago have become wrinkled and shrunken!

"'Hadn't we better get Allie's father and try to get out of here, Sands?' I asked him. 'Those devils might show up any minute!'

"'I plum forgot about you, pardner,' he said, apologetically. 'I forgot about everything. Have you any idea how we're going to get out of here? I haven't! Maybe Allie knows of some way. I'll ask her.'

"'Yes, ask her now,' I advised. 'It's now or never!'

"With that he walked back to Allie. At the scraping sound of his boots she turned to him, smiling joyously.

"'Allie dear,' I heard him whisper, 'I brought a friend of mine here. He's standing guard to warn us if anyone comes. I've got him in this terrible predicament and I want to get him out—get you and all of us out of here. You want to go with me back to civilization, don't you dear?'

"'I will go anywhere with you, Robert,' she said, placing her hands on his chest endearingly.

"'Then, dear, can you tell me how to lead us out?'

"'I know of only one way to get out of here, Robert,' she whispered, "but Abaris has guards there constantly. I'm afraid we could not get through them. You needn't be afraid of Abaris, Bob dear. He has been very kind to me and daddy.'

"'Humph!' Sands snorted, curtly. 'He has not been so nice to me! I'd like to blast him to hell! He knocked me cold when I first saw you, Allie, out there on the throne!'

"'You saw me there, Robert?' she asked. 'And Abaris harmed you when you came near me?'

"'He did, Allie! Knocked me plumb out and nearly killed me!'

"'The brute!' she said, angrily. 'Well, maybe we'll find a way out of here, Robert! Let me call father. He's in the room next to me. Wait here!'

"Sands returned to the tunnel and squatted in the semi-darkness beside me. He was breathing hard with excitement, and there was a twinkle of joy and anticipation that formed crows' feet at the sides of his eyes. He seemed suddenly a very joyous man and forgetful of the sinister danger that hovered over all of us. What would happen, I wondered, if Abaris suddenly came upon the secret love tryst of Sands and his sweetheart? Would he fly into a sudden rage and destroy us with his terrible, invisible weapon that shot green, pencil-thin rays and killed instantly? We sat silently, Sands with his thoughts of love and happiness—I with thoughts of danger and death.

"Presently we heard a sound like the scraping of feet. Sands and I shrank close to the tunnel's wall in the semi-darkness. Our fears fled, however, when Allie came into the chamber followed by her father. Lane appeared, at close range, to be a man of about forty. His hair was black and his eyes were gray and penetrating. His carriage was that of a man in his prime of life, full of power and vigor and his eyes flashed as they searched Allie's room nervously. Sands got to his feet and walked slowly into the lighted chamber. Lane stopped abruptly and surveyed him with an incredulous stare. Suddenly he stepped swiftly to Sands' side, their hands met firmly.

"'I'd given up all hope of ever seeing you again, Bob,' he said in a clear voice that tingled with excitement. 'It-is indeed, a pleasure to have you with us again. I'm sure Allie is glad.'

"'Thanks, Mr. Lane!' Sands returned. 'It's been a long time, but I've struggled hard for this meeting. You've fared well under conditions—you and Allie, but we've got to get away from these frog-faced freaks here. Tell me what you know about a way out and we'll start at once.'

"'Just like you, Bob,' Lane said, admiringly. 'You always did want to be the first to get started. Let's sit down and talk it over. I'm terribly afraid that we'll find it hard to get out, however.'

"'I've gone through a lot,' Sands whispered. 'A little more wouldn't amount to much.'

"'Maybe not, Bob,' Lane interjected with a frown. 'But this is one time when you do not know what you are up against. As much as I'd like to get back home to my friends, I can't see any definite way to escape. But I'll co-operate to the fullest for yours and Allie's sake.'

"The three of them walked softly to Allie's silken couch and sat down, Allie close to Sands, his arms about her waist. I heard a faint sound issuing from the tunnel that led from Lane's chamber. I held my breath in fear. Was Abaris or some of his Jovians coming upon the scene? My blood pounded as I listened with my hands cupped behind my ears to magnify any sound. No more sounds came and I breathed easier. I turned again to the three in Allie's room. Lane was speaking, his voice, in muffled tones, reached me.

"'Allie explained to me how you came to be here, Bob,' he was saying, 'so we won't recount it again. These strange people here claim they are from the planet Jupiter and came here solely for the purpose of obtaining a great supply of radium. It seems that they have exhausted the supply on their own planet. Through delicate instruments, Abaris says, their scientists discovered that this earth contained a great deposit of the metal. They henceforth set out to get it because life on their planet depends upon it for existence. If Abaris fails, it means that perhaps the entire population fc>f Jupiter will be wiped out unless some other heavenly body is found to contain a deposit.'

"'How the devil did they ever get here?' Sands asked, interestedly.

Lane's Story

"'I'M coming to that now, Bob,' Lane continued, A softly. 'It sounds quite impossible but it is a fact that Abaris and his henchmen left Jupiter in a great spherical machine similar to some of the spheres that you probably saw on your way in here. This sphere, which is capable of interstellar travel, propelled by a radium process known only to their mechanics, is ready at this minute to return to Jupiter with the greater stock of that metal. For a long time they have been pumping radium out of the earth and sending it to Jupiter in small spheres which are controlled and guided by an unknown source of power. Abaris says that the deposit here is about exhausted and the cylinder pumps are bringing up the last drops of radium existing in this earth!'

"'Abaris expects to halt the pumps very soon and enter the interplanetary sphere for departure to Jupiter! He has said that we were to accompany him to his planet and being unable to escape Allie and I have resigned ourselves to whatever fate is in store for us. I must admit that Abaris has been very good to us and while we would certainly like to get back to our people, I hold no animosity against him, except, of course, that his appearance, as are all the rest of his kind, is horrifying to us. But we have become adapted to the environment, yet we must naturally rebel against being spirited away from this glorious world of ours—to perhaps be regarded on Jupiter much in the same manner as we have looked upon strange animals here.

"'For sometime I have suspected that Abaris in his grotesque way, is exceptionally fond of Allie! She has wanted for nothing. Her every wish has been granted, but he will not consent to our appearing before the multitude unless we submit to being placed under a strange power. In other words we are forced to undergo hypnotism for a reason that I have not been able to learn. That is why we did not see you when you stood before the platform in the throne chamber.

"'As Allie told you, there is one exit from this underground world and that is guarded constantly either by the Jovians themselves or their grotesque, death-dealing mechanical guards in the shape of a cactus tree with arms like an octopus. The mechanical Jovians seem to have all the powers of the creatures themselves, lacking only their mental faculties. Unless controlled by a living hand they are helpless.

"'These Jovians are really geniuses in all forms. You have seen the series of spheres in the throne room with the large hall in the center. The large sphere is Jupiter in a miniature orbit. The small spheres are its moons, as good Abaris explained to us. Through these they are able to watch the progress of their radium spheres as they shoot their way toward Jupiter. The large spheres show their passage very plainly. But these explanations of Jovian objects and scientific genius are not getting us to our goal. So let us consider the possibility of escape. I have a plan that we may be able to use.'

"I listened intently to the plan of possible action as Lane outlined it to Sands. Allie's father explained that at a certain time the guards at the only avenue of escape would be changed and the mechanical Jovians with their tentacle-like arms, controlled by a remote central, would be put in their places. Lane explained how he had previously located the source of control over the mechanical men and was therefore, perhaps, in the position to disconnect the controlling system and suspend their activity. This sounded like a very excellent plan, but how, I thought, would it be possible for us to steal near the central control apparatus in our attempt to disconnect it? Surely, the Jovians must maintain a constant guard over such delicate and important apparatus. But on the other hand, they may not feel a need of it in view of the fact that Allie Lane and her father had been with them so long that they accepted them as being harmless.

"At any rate, Sands approved of the plan and it was decided that the attempt to escape would be made at a time when Lane was to give a low whistle and we would all meet in Allie's chamber, providing, of course, that the way was clear. Lane, with his forefinger, drew an invisible outline, showing the tunnel through which we were to go. Sands watched him closely and absorbed the information. Meanwhile, I shot rapid glances around the chamber in its entirety in my part as guard. Several times my heart jumped when I heard sounds that softly broke the stillness of the cavern, but the sounds failed to bring what I expected—the grotesque Jovians.

"Sands was standing in the center of the room now, Allie Lane in his arms. They kissed endearingly. Allie's father paced the floor nervously. Suddenly Lane stopped pacing and faced his daughter and her lover. He opened his lips to say something, thought better of it, then turned half away. He swung around presently as though he had decided on some question confronting him, and spoke softly.

"'Allie,' his words, nervous and tense, reached me. 'You love, Bob, don't you dear?'

"'As well as life, father,' she answered. Sands turned to look at Lane, puzzled.

"'Suppose, then,' Lane returned, 'that you marry Bob now. It would be a good thing in the face of whatever confronts us.'

"'I would marry him now, father,' Allie said in a half whisper that I barely caught. 'But how?'

"'You forget, my dear, that I was a minister back in Kansas City,' her father smiled.

"'I've waited a long time, Allie,' Sands put in, holding Allie's shoulder and looking into her eyes lovingly.

"'Then I will marry you at once, Robert,' she said, her eyes shining with happy tears. 'Father can perform the ceremony.'

Caught!

"FASCINATED, I watched the procedure that followed, forgetting my duty as guard in whose hands must rest the lives of the happy three. With my eyes and attention on Allie as she whispered 'I do,' I failed to notice that Abaris had suddenly come to the entrance of the chamber and was standing there silently regarding the trio. Lane was saying 'I now pronounce you man and wife,' when I beheld Abaris' towering form as he stood menacingly just inside the room. The tubes of his forehead stuck out rigidly, his tentacle-like arms twitching in anger, and his owlish eyes opened and closed rapidly. I shrank back into the darkness of the tunnel, fearful, lest I be discovered. From my hiding place, however, I could see the entire chamber.

"As though struck by some terrific force, Sands and Lane at once spun around and faced Abaris. Allie emitted a fearful little cry and shrank back against the wall. Abaris' tubes were pointed at them menacingly and I knew that he was speaking to them in his peculiar mental telepathy. What words flew between them I was not able to catch for I had learned that I could not receive the wave vibrations unless the tubes were pointing directly at me.

"Suddenly I heard Sands' words as he angrily informed Abaris that Allie had just become his wife and that it was no man's business what he was doing in the chamber with her. His features twitched with growing anger as he spoke, his hands were clenched.

"'You, frog-face!' I heard him shout, 'I've searched for Allie Lane for forty years! Now that I have found her and she has become my wife, you nor anyone else can take her away from me alive!'

"'Eloli is the bride of Jupiter, Man of the Earth!' I caught the thunderous vibrations from Abaris' tubes which now waved spasmodically in all directions. His thoughts were so powerful that they carried to me where I crouched.

"'Allie Lane is my wife!' cried Sands, hotly. 'We die before she goes with you to your planet of crazy freaks!'

"'Yes, O Abaris,' Lane put in, weakly, shaking as one palsied. 'Allie is this man's wife. You cannot take her away from him. If is the law of humanity!'

"Abaris' frog-like beak opened and then closed with a resounding snap. I expected him momentarily to bring into play his terrible, invisible ray of death. His skinny, tube-like legs held up his barrel-shaped body admirably, I thought, as I watched him from my hiding place. They seemed like stilts, unjointed except at the hips, around which was draped a narrow breech cloth of gold-edged purple. His body glistened oilily and around his bald, misshapen head rested a thin metal band, glowing luminously green. His antennae tubes waved angrily.

"'Eloli goes with Abaris to Jupiter!' Abaris thundered, his vibrations reaching me sharply. I shuddered under the force of his powerful thought waves. 'On Jupiter we have specimens of many planetarial beings. Our scientists would like to study specimens of the aborigines of this planet. Therefore the three of you will accompany me to Jupiter! Eloli comes as the bride of Jove!'

"'We would die there, O Abaris,' Lane parried, dejectedly. 'We of this earth could not adapt ourselves to your environment!'

"'You do not seem to understand, Man of the Earth,' Abaris' vibrations said, 'that we of Jupiter have accomplished immortality. There is no death on Jupiter! Will you come voluntarily or shall I be forced to resort to other methods?'

"From where I lay hidden in terror, I watched Sands' face. In his anger his features twisted with fury. I could not help him should he attempt to attack the huge Jovian commander who stood before him. If I only could, how gladly I would have gone into the chamber!

"Suddenly I heard a dismal hooting from somewhere behind Abaris, that gradually grew nearer. I watched the opening of the tunnel behind him expecting momentarily to see his followers enter the room. Two abreast they came, their bodies shining with freshly applied oil, their loins covered with shimmering breech-cloths. Unlike Abaris, they wore no bands around their huge heads. Like soldiers, their line broke in the center where Abaris' huge body stood like a pivot, and they single-filed around the walls of the circular chamber.

"I shot a quick glance at Sands. He stood belligerently watching. Allie had crept into his arms and buried her head against his bosom. Lane stared down at the floor, downcast and utterly dejected. When I first beheld Lane, I was impressed with his flashing eyes and strong, powerful body and had figured upon his co-operation at such a dire moment as this. But perhaps, I thought, he realized unlike Sands and myself, the utter futility of objecting to the demands of the Jovians. But Sands was of a different mettle.

"Slowly he moved Allie behind him and again faced Abaris. The Jovians lined around the chamber wall, stood apparently at attention. They made no move to interfere. Had Abaris ordered them to remain inactive, relying upon his own power of combat to force the three humans into submission?

"'Frog-face!' Sands shouted, insultingly, at Abaris. 'You call off your dogs and we'll settle this right now! I'm not afraid of your crazy lights and even if I was I'd rather die than submit to you!'

"Abaris' throat cackled with his peculiar laugh. His owlish eyes stared through unblinking lids. Sands approached him with sinister steadiness, crouched ready to spring at the bull-like throat of the giant. I stared at him fearfully. Here was the end, I thought, as Abaris tilted his huge head to look down upon his insignificant antagonist. I glanced around the chamber at the froggish Jovians. They continued to stand silently at attention.

CHAPTER VIII
The Struggle

"AS I watched the unfolding 5f the terrible scene in the chamber, I found myself wondering what I would do if Sands actually attempted to fight his way through the death-dealing rays of the Jovians. My hand accidentally touched my gun butt and for the first time since I had used the weapon back in the first tunnel, I remembered that I still possessed it. I felt somewhat heartened at the reassuring touch but how useless it was in fighting the grotesque frog-men from the distant world! Surely it could not kill or disable them for hadn't I thumbed a slug into the bony features of one of them? That slug would have killed a man instantly, but the Jovian had no more than croaked as the lead tore through his head!

"I patted the gun affectionately and inspected the cylinder. Reloading I snapped it back into its holster with a grim determination that I would use it! Better had Allie Lane, her father and Driftin' Sands rest in peace on this earth, than in mortal terror forever on Jupiter, I thought!

"Suddenly my eyes were brought back to the chamber by a curdling scream. Allie had fainted as Sands sprang at the bull-like throat of Abaris, upsetting him in the suddenness of his attack. Lane stood petrified, Allie lay unmolested and unaided upon the floor.

"Just inside the chamber near the entrance, Sands and Abaris seemed locked in a terrible embrace of death. Chest to chest they lay on the floor, Sands on top, holding in his powerful hands the thin, rubber-like arms of the hideous, bestial-visaged ruler of the Jovians! Sands grunted as he strained hard to hold Abaris' flexible arms to prevent him from bringing into play the terrible weapon that seemed to be concealed in the sucker-like tips at their ends. It seemed like the conflict of two great forces—man and beast—in a terrible battle for supremacy—like good and evil, angel and demon. I was thrilled at the great heroism of Sands and my heart swelled with the pride of having his loyal friendship. Slowly I edged my way toward the chamber, keeping well against the wall, for a closer view of the struggle. As uneven as it seemed, Sands, I thought, was the better of the two physically. But how could he hope to win such an unequal combat, unarmed, and against the terrible green death rays of Abaris? White man and planetarial beast! No greater contrast could be imagined.

"The muscles in Sands' neck bulged as he labored to hold the tough, flexible arms of Abaris. The Jovian's skinny legs, unjointed and stilt-like kicked spasmodically, poor protection against Sands' powerful limbs. From a better point of vantage I watched the struggle. Which of the two would win the terrible battle of physical forces?

"Suddenly Abaris gave a great heave that cast Sands clear from his barrel-like body! But Sands held, with bull dog tenacity, onto the writhing arms of the Jovian leader, struggling vainly to prevent Abaris from aiming his pencil-thin emerald rays of destruction. Once Abaris shot his terrible ray and a Jovian near him vanished entirely in a puff of acrid smoke! A ray struck one of the huge chairs and it crumbled. This combat, I felt, would be more like a wrestling match due to the fact that it seemed impossible for Abaris to rise on his stilt-like legs. That much in favor of Sands 1 But what would happen to him if Abaris succeeded in striking him with a green ray shot with uncontrollable anger?

"I studied Abaris' bestial features to see how he was accepting the terrific throttling he was receiving. His owlish orbs gleamed, flaming red, and stared bestially into Sands' set features, his terrible power of will burning into the man's brain. I cast a quick glance at Allie. She was just recovering from her faint and her father was at her side. From behind fluttering lids, Allie looked at the struggling figures, thrashing about on the chamber floor. She groaned softly and hid her face, sobbing.

"Watching them my muscles involuntarily became tense. My breath came in gasps born of sheer sympathy for Sands and his long lost sweetheart.

"Slowly, very slowly, the dominating will power of Abaris overcame the struggling physical force of Sands. Gradually he eased his terrible grip on the Jovian's writhing arms, and steadily Abaris was bringing their sucker-like tips toward his antagonist. Realizing his waning strength, Sands made a desperate effort to tear his eyes from the blazing, relentless orbs of Abaris, turning his head to the side. But struggle as he would, with all the physical strength at his command, he could not check the gradual domination of brain-power and will that was slowly but surely smothering him to submission.

"Presently Sands' muscles relaxed and finally the terrific power of Abaris' dominating will swept into the core of his brain, overpowering him. I cursed softly and hid my face in my hands for a second.

"Sand's head dropped to one side, his powerful arms hung limply. Blood streamed from his nostrils, caused by his tremendous physical efforts. I caught a glimpse of his eyes as his head fell. They were stark, unseeing eyes! His body shuddered convulsively as it slipped inertly to the chamber floor. Abaris was hoisted erect by two of his Jovians, his tubes waving victoriously, a cackling laugh in his throat.

"Allie Lane screamed and her father stroked her shaking head gently as Abaris strode, wobbling like a duck, toward them. I looked at Sands. His breathing was heavy and irregular. Abaris, I thought, had not killed him outright, nor had he brought into play his terrible rays. His great mental power alone had completely subdued him.

"Slowly my hand stole to the butt of my gun. With a jerk I snapped the weapon out of its holster, holding back the hammer with my thumb. In a space of several seconds I could have hurled five slugs at Allie and her father and the inert form of Sands. The sixth, I had planned, was to crash through my own brain. I levelled the gun at Allie's temple exposed through a wisp of her soft, brown hair, but I could not find the heart to release my thumb from the hammer. Suddenly I felt a wave of great remorse surge deep within me for not sending a half dozen shot into the owlish eyes of Abaris. Why hadn't I shot him as he lay there on the ground struggling under Sands, and clipped the writhing arms from his body? Was I actually the kind of a coward who would stand by, hiding like a frightened jack-rabbit while the life was being crushed out of my dearest and most loyal friends?

Alone

"A TERRIBLE rage filled me. What would my wife think of me back at Balch if she learned that I had stood idly by like a whipped cur and permitted those uncouth freaks to commit a wrong against Allie and her lover? How could my children ever live down the cowardice of their father! It was with these thoughts in my maddened brain that I suddenly dashed out of the tunnel, gun in hand, and blocked Abaris' passage toward Allie and her father. I felt a terrible urge to kill—to spill the blood or whatever it was that coursed through the veins of the frog-faced beasts!

"'Stop, Abaris,' I shouted hysterically. 'Stop where you are! I'll kill you if you move!'

"He stared at me through flaming, owlish orbs. His frog-like mouth opened and there came from his cavernous throat the mocking, cackling laugh. It was maddening—his cackling indifference! Suddenly remembering that it was within the power of these strange creatures to render my weapon useless, causing it to heat and burn my hand, I lifted the barrel from my hip and let fly. Swiftly and with the flaming desire to kill pounding at my brain I thumbed the hammer of my gun! In a row, six round, green holes appeared just above Abaris' flaming eyes! He tottered for an instant and then recovered himself. An emerald green liquid poured from the holes and ran down into his owlish eyes.

"So rapidly were the slugs hurled from my gun that the Jovians did not instantly grasp their significance. Then abruptly the entire chamber seemed alive with thin green rays that played with deadly precision around me. Abaris, suddenly ill from the effect of the six slugs passing through his head, made a weak attempt to lift a tentacle-like arm. It was with an effort that he brought it up. I made a leap at him but I was too late. A ray shot from the tip of his fiendish arm! I felt a tingle on my left side, just over the heart. The chamber floor seemed to rush up as I fell, heavily. For several seconds I lay there, in full command of my faculties but unable to move a muscle. My head swam and I had a feeling that I was being hurled through space at a terrific speed. Then a terrible blackness overcame me and I seemed to be falling into a yawning abyss.

"How long I lay there I do not know. For ages, it seemed, I lay on my back making no attempt to move, but staring into an inky blackness overhead. What had caused the chamber to become dark, I wondered? Were my eyes really open? I pinched myself. I was not dead after all! I listened attentively for some sound to indicate the presence of someone. I heard nothing. The silence was awful. Then I wondered if I had succeeded in killing Abaris. If so, he should be lying at my feet. With an effort I wiggled a leg in an attempt to feel the floor near it. Perhaps Abaris had crawled away, or his men had removed him from the room, I thought. Then I remembered the futility of trying to kill a Jovian!

"I felt no pain although the blood pounded at my temples and I felt terribly weak and nauseated. My left side seemed numb—deadened where Abaris' ray had struck. Presently as I lay in the darkness, my ears caught a low moaning sound. Increasing in volume, the sound soon became a high-pitched wail like that which we had heard when we beheld the sphere whirling on the column in the center of the radium pool. My ear drums pounded under the force of the shriek and I placed my hands over them to shut out the maddening sound.

"Suddenly the whole earth seemed to tremble! A rumble filled the room as though the world were in the tumultuous throes of some great upheaval! With an ominous roar the floor under me shuddered and cracked. I lay panic-stricken, thinking that a terrible earthquake had swept over the Valley of Death. Crashing earth-slides roared around me as I lay helpless. Overhead I could see a thin streak of light penetrating through a fissure that was slowly widening! The chamber was becoming brighter under the glare of light that entered it from the fissure. I stood upon my feet and braced myself to keep from falling under the swaying movements of the earth. I looked around quickly. The chamber was entirely vacant. Not a sign remained of Abaris, his Jovians, Allie or any of them! They were gone! At my feet I noticed a spreading pool of green liquid. I cursed Abaris and his hideous followers roundly.

"Presently as I stood staring down at the liquid that must have poured from the wounds I had inflicted upon Abaris, I heard a terrific roar coming from somewhere near. The floor of the chamber rolled like the surface of an angry sea. I was dashed against the wall where I lay. I expected momentarily to see the chamber close up and crush me to death, sealing me in a living tomb deep beneath the Manalava Plain!

"There came a terrific, thunderous crash, the impact of which caused me to rise from the ground and fall again yards away! With the crash came the blinding flash of some terrible explosion. A great, hissing sound reached my ears and then I heard a loud, ear-splitting shriek. I looked overhead at the fissure in the earth through which filtered the soul-gladdening sun light. I caught a glimpse of a great sphere travelling at a terrific speed into the sky! As it sped away, the shriek of its passing became less discernible and soon died out altogether. The Jovians had departed for their own planet, taking Allie Lane, her father and Driftin' Sands with them! Gradually the earth roar ceased and with it ceased the earth's heaving.

"I stared around me now able to see the entire chamber. Not an object remained in it—not a fragment of any of the beautiful purple and gold drapes that had decorated the room which had been Allie Lane's. The Jovians had removed every object while I lay on the floor, apparently dead. Abaris' ray could not have struck me squarely, or else he had been too feeble and weak as the result of his wounds, to do more than stun me temporarily. In my rapid search of the room I discovered that the upheaval caused by the departure of the great interplanetary traveler, had sealed the tunnel in which I had hidden during the conflict between Sands and Abaris. The tunnel through which Abaris had suddenly appeared was likewise closed with massive rocks.

"As a last resort to escape from the underground world I began to study the possibility of crawling to the surface of the Manalava Plain through the wide fissure overhead. The opening was too high for me to reach up and obtain enough of a handhold to support my weight. I spent hours, working constantly, piling some of the broken rocks from the tunnels under the fissure. Eventually I succeeded in grasping a sharp rock protruding from the side of the crevice and hoisted myself up. It was hard, that climb to the outer world.

"Presently after what seemed hours of backbreaking labor I reached the surface. How good it was to breathe the pure air of Death Valley again! The atmosphere, in spite of the terrific heat of the Manalava Plain, was sweet and beautiful. My lungs, long since taxed with the foul, nauseating atmosphere of the tunnels and caverns deep below me, pumped madly, as I breathed in the delightful air of my own world!

"The Manalava Plain as far as I could see had strangely become ruffled and strewn with broken rocks. Wide fissures and crevices were visible at every hand and on several occasions as I picked my way off the Plain I was forced to leap over them or make wide detours in order to pass. After terrible torture I eventually reached the spring in the little hidden canyon. There I drank deeply of the water that had previously been pale green in color and was now strangely colorless. I looked around the weather-broken wagons and searched the old trunk that Sands had found before we started to follow the phantom wagon with its two mysterious humans, but failed to find anything in which I could carry a supply of water. After rolling in the spring I struck off across the Valley. It was hell, friends, and I would have lain down many times to die, but the ever present vision of my wife and youngsters over at Balch, constantly beckoned me to continue. So here I am and I thank you, gentlemen, for saving my life!"

*   *   *   *   *

CHAPTER IX
I Have Doubts

THUS ended the strangest and most fascinating narrative that I had ever heard in my entire career as a newspaperman. I sat breathless at the very fearlessness with which the man narrated it and I could not help but believe him. It seemed impossible for him to conjure in his imagination, in so short a time, such a weird story. It could not have been done even by the most versatile tellers of fabricated stories!

Long before he had finished his narrative, night had fallen and with it had come its myriads of brilliant stars glowing overhead. So entranced were Professor Bloch and I as he told it, that we failed to notice that the shrouds of night were lifting in the east as the sun cast its first vermilion rays into the darkened heavens.

Through the night the foreman had continued his tale uninterrupted and when he eventually finished, mumbling his thanks to us, the desert world had suddenly become brilliant with the everchanging colors of a desert dawn. I stared intently into the glowing coals of the camp fire, fascinated over the strange experiences he had unfolded to us. It was hard, very hard, to believe that tale, but somehow, it rang true. I shuddered at the thought of the grotesque Jovians and their uncanny powers. The Professor remained silent lost in deep thought, apparently mulling over the story in his scientific way. I glanced at him quickly, expecting to see doubt written plainly on his features. Instead they were more serious than I had ever beheld them. The foreman hung his head in a stupor of exhaustion.

"Dowell!" Professor Bloch suddenly called to me as I sat staring into the fire. The abruptness of his voice caused me to jump nervously.

"Yes, Professor," I answered, very glad that the awesome silence which had settled over us after the foreman had finished his narrative, had been broken. "I'm very much awake, sir."

"My friend," said the Professor, seriously, "you have heard this gentleman's weird story. Tell me plainly just how you have taken it. Do not be afraid to express yourself."

"Well, Professor," I said, nervously. "It is difficult for a layman to accept such a story without basic facts, yet I feel that certain portions of it are true. Taking into consideration the fact that astronomers have just about proven that life exists on certain distant planets, it is not difficult to believe their assertions that its development there could be much further advanced than our own in scientific achievements. It seems quite natural that any form of life on Jupiter would differ greatly from our own due to atmospheric conditions and environment. As for radium, it seems quite possible that a great quantity of it would contain more qualities than are found in the small amounts of the metal that we have been able to obtain. However, in my opinion there seems to be but one factor in the narrative that has caused me to doubt a certain portion of it."

Pausing, I cast a quick glance at the mine-foreman. His head still hung in the stupor of exhaustion. He appeared to be sleeping soundly in a squatting position. I looked at Professor Bloch. He was regarding me thoughtfully, chin resting on his sun-tanned fists. Then I continued:

"It seems to me, Professor," I said, eyeing him, "that if the Jovians were immortal and could not be killed as this gentleman has related, there could be no existing skeletal remains. You say that Dr. Jamesson has recovered a huge skull. This man claims it fits perfectly with the facial characteristics of the Jovians. Under those conditions it is hard to accept that part of the narrative due to the fact that this man says that the Jovians cannot be destroyed and yet identifies a skull as being in exact conformity with the cranial structure of the terrestrial beings. How could it be possible to recover the skeletal remains of any creature that is allegedly immortal and therefore immune to death?"

"Your scientific observations and opinions, my friend," Professor Bloch said, enthusiastically, "are great for a newspaperman! I congratulate you! Your City Editor told me that you were the best hand on the Outstander at scientific matters and I believe him. However, I have gone over the narrative thoroughly and find in it the very same faults you have mentioned. But I actually believe this man told the truth! The green tint which marks his skin was undoubtedly caused by radium. I have seen radium affliction several times and its power discolors the human skin permanently when it is exposed to its rays for any length of time. I agree with you when you say that radium in large quantities must have more qualities than are known to exist in the small amounts recovered.

"As for the huge skull which Dr. Jamesson recovered. It is my opinion that the Jovians were not entirely immortal—that is, when they are outside of their accustomed atmospheric conditions. It is easy to believe that they achieved immortality on their own planet, for we today, on this globe, are slowly approaching a period when longevity will be increased to an astonishing degree. It is my prediction that we, too, will some day have achieved immortality to a certain degree inasmuch as radium is already known to have removed the cancerous tissues of the human anatomy that cause death.

"However, I have reasons to believe that some of the Jovians were destroyed by the peculiar atmosphere of this earth when they arrived here. Naturally they could not be accustomed to our atmospheric conditions and results were that only the fittest survived the rigors of an alien planet. We must consider that years must have been consumed before they actually succeeded in locating the underground source of the radium deposit. Those who were unable to keep up the strenuous pace, weighted down by the earth's own atmosphere, were quite naturally cast aside. Some of them could not survive. Hence the skeletal remains recovered by Dr. Jamesson!"

"But, Professor," I argued, seriously, "How could they survive the slugs from this gentleman's gun? Such a slug as shot from his calibre of gun would kill an elephant instantly."

"That, my friend, is one of their secrets of immortality. I do not know how they could survive. I can merely hazard an opinion. This man narrated that a peculiar green liquid poured from the wounds. I am convinced, then, that a radium compound instead of blood, coursed through their veins with power enough to heal even the most gaping wounds instantly. Radium flowing through their anatomies would have the power to banish the leaden slugs even as they entered. The lead, like other lesser metals, would vanish into invisible atoms under the embrace of radium and would therefore have no more effect upon the Jovians than would pulverized dust. But great heat, alien atmospheric conditions or some tremendous violence, would actually destroy a Jovian if he were not of the most hardy sort. I feel certain of that, my friend!"

The Professor Makes A Promise

WE remained all that day at the camp by the Mesquite Springs. After a'hurried breakfast we lay down and slept until late afternoon. The heat was terrific and it beat down upon me with deadening effect. I slept through it, dreaming terrible dreams. Eventually I was awakened by Professor Bloch who had already prepared a light lunch. The mine-foreman was holding a pan of sizzling bacon over a tiny fire while the Professor set other victuals on the tail of the buckboard. I rubbed my eyes sleepily and tilted my hat forward to keep the burning sun from searing my face.

"We almost left you, Dowell." Professor Bloch laugh ted, good naturedly. "You were sleeping so sound and dreaming so pleasantly that I hated to disturb you, but our friend here thought it best to take you along."

"'I'd just as soon die from the heat there, I guess, as melt completely here. Let's eat! I want to get back to Los Angeles. The City Editor is reserving a room for me in the ice-house!"

"Very well, we're starting now."

Immediately after lunch we started across the Valley toward the mysterious red streak of tableland that marked the Manalava Plain. For hours we rode in the bouncing buckboard—for hours, it seemed, we walked along side of it to relieve the laboring animals. The sun beat down with terrific intensity and the heat waves danced blindingly from the sand.

Eventually we found it necessary to continue on foot, leaving the burros and the buckboard in a little, partly sheltered arroyo. About noon we arrived at what the foreman claimed to be the spot where he and Sands had located the radium pool. The surface of the Manalava Plain was a jumble of broken rocks and a maze of wide crevices. We stared at a deep crater-like depression before us but it was void of anything in the form of liquid. Nothing but boulders lay in its basin and the sides had crumbled in steep, loose rock-slides!

For what seemed ages, we searched around the surface for some opening that might lead us down into the deserted tunnels and chambers of the Jovians. None could be found. Evidence of some great, recent upheaval was everywhere and search as we did we could locate no avenue by which we might enter the strange underground world. Presently Professor Bloch decided that the underground domain had been destroyed completely by the upheaval, caused no doubt, by the tremendous force of the radium in propelling the spacetraveler from this earth. Disconsolately we trailed back to the buckboard.

When we eventually returned to Los Angeles, Professor Bloch refused to make a public statement regarding the foreman's strange experiences, and I was henceforth unable to submit the narrative for publication in the Outstander. I did, however, write an account of Dr. Jamesson's discovery of the peculiar skull and hinted indirectly at its remote connection with the chain of evolution on this globe, and the possibility of this world being invaded at some future period by Martians, Jovians or Venerians, but the Outstander published only a few garbled paragraphs that were unintelligible and valueless. And for many months I have secretly withheld the narrative until at last I have mustered courage enough to submit it for publication to a scientific journal. Readers of Science Wonder Stories usually can tell fact from fiction. They know well that many unheard of tales come from the vast jungles of desert wastes and invariably they are true! One thing Professor Bloch did say, was that if money and inventive skill could be obtained an attempt might be made to go to Jupiter to rescue the unfortunate trio. If such a thing were to happen I will be one of the crew.

The End