the woods an'right soon we catch sight of camp fires. There's a whole grist of themred devils prancin' around, all fixed out in war paint--more of 'em asI ever see'd afore. Even Pop allows as how it bugs out _his_ eyes--andPop's a man to do an amount of travelin'."
It was a page torn out of technicolor nightmare: three of the world'smost important men hanging onto the words of a madman who claimed tobe an Eighteenth Century Indian scout in the employ of one of GeorgeWashington's generals. Yet the man's every word, every gesture,everything he wore, was as authentic to that period as the powder hornaround his neck.
"We draw back in the woods aways an' wait. It's gettin' along to'ardsun-up, an' Pop says he aims to get a better idea how many Injunsthey is, an' what tribes. Most of the braves got nice new British gunsan' General Harmer'll want to know about that."
Wetzel's voice began to shake a little, remembering. "Pop an' me arehidin' in a clump of sumac when this here sudden racket starts up,equal to a hundred waterfalls goin' all at oncet. We look up in theair where it's comin' from, and holy hokey if fallin' right out of thesky ain't this round iron thing! Flat as a hoe-cake an' big around asan acre of land, with the fires of Hell breathin' at its edges!
"Well sir, them Injuns lit a shuck out of there like the spirits wasafter them. My legs were tryin' to run, too. But Pop takes a holt onmy arm an' says, 'By Janey, I aim to see this if'en I swing for it!'
"It drops down," Wetzel continued, demonstrating with a slow gracefulmovement of his hand, "lookin' no less than a big shiny stove-lid, an'settles in the clearin' as light an' easy as the feather off'en aduck's back. It stands high as a Pennsylvany school house an' twicetthe size around, an' no sound from it at all."
* * * * *
He stood slim and straight as a Shawnee arrow, smooth-faced andsolemn, obviously not much past his twentieth birthday, yet by his ownaccount born before the Declaration of Independence was on paper. Hewent on talking, sounding like a character out of James FenimoreCooper. His story, boiled down and translated, came out something likethis:
The sudden arrival of the strange object had literally paralyzed theIndian encampment. The warriors dropped their weapons and called onthe spirits to protect them, while a hole opened in the side of whatcouldn't be anything else but a spaceship. Then out of the openingcame huge steel caricatures of men. There were over a dozen of theserobots, each the height of two men, and their eyes were strange roundcircles of faceted glass. In single file they moved down the ramp andstalked through the ranks of fear-frozen Indians, disappearing intothe forest.
Enoch's father ordered his son to crawl up into a tree out of sight,then shouldered his rifle and slipped away through the bushes to get abetter look at what was going on. Enoch "allowed" that his Pop was a"moughty" brave man, and none of his audience gave him an argument onthat score.
From his place among the leaves, Enoch watched his father melt intothe trees. The sun was above the horizon by this time and the youngfrontiersman discovered that his present position was the equivalentof a box seat on the fifty-yard line.
The next figure to emerge from the spaceship brought an amazed murmurfrom hundreds of throats. No twelve-foot robot this time, no alienmonster beyond description. Very simply, this was an Indian.
Yet what an Indian! He stood on the ramp, wearing only leatherbreeches and unadorned moccasins, muscles rippling across a powerfulsun-tanned chest, his head thrown back in a posture of arrogantdignity. He wore a single crimson feather in his black topknot, and athis belt was a tomahawk only slightly less deadly looking than ahowitzer.
Arms folded across his chest, he swept his stunned audience with aneye like an eagle's, then began to speak. His voice, deep and ringing,carried beyond the edges of the crowd, so that Enoch was able to catcha portion of what he was saying.
Wetzel admitted he understood very little of any of the Indiantongues. He thought the one he was hearing had its roots in theDelaware tribe, but admitted this was no more than a guess. However,it appeared that the visitor was summoning the chiefs of the assembledtribes to a meeting within the spaceship.
* * * * *
Evidently it took some doing. Faced with a familiar danger, there isno human more courageous than an Indian. But the thought of enteringthe yawning maw of that steel cavern would have shaken the nerves ofManabus himself.
Finally the visiting Indian's oratory paid off, and nine or ten of thetribal leaders reluctantly entered the spaceship. Two robots took uppositions on the ramp to discourage kibitzers, and after an hour or soin which nothing more happened, the rest of the camp returned prettymuch to normal.
Mid-afternoon came and passed, and still the meeting inside the shipwent on. Enoch was finding the tree branch not the most comfortableplace to spend a weekend, and he was growing steadily more uneasy byhis father's continued absence.
More hours passed. The sun was gone now and campfires began to dot thenight. Orders or no orders, Enoch decided, he was going to find hisPop. With a stealth equal to that of any Indian, he dropped to theground and began a cautious advance in the direction his father hadtaken hours before.
Suddenly the bushes crashed apart directly in front of him, and hisfather came bounding through. Only a few yards back, its giant stridesrapidly closing the gap, came one of the huge steel men.
Enoch's gun flashed up and he fired without aiming. The bullet struckone of the robot's huge eyes, shattering the glass and sending thetowering figure crashing headlong into a tree. At the same instant, anear-shattering wail came from the fallen robot, and powerful rays oflight flashed from the rim of the spaceship to bathe the spot wherethe two Wetzels stood.
Mixed with the siren wail from the fallen man of steel came a chorusof blood-curdling warhoops as the Indians made out the figures of thetwo men, and a hundred braves came pouring across the clearing towardthem. Instantly the two scouts took to their heels, darting throughthe inky blackness of the forest with the sure-footed celerity of longpractice.
They would have escaped easily under ordinary circumstances. Butsuddenly the blast of another siren sounded directly ahead and a lanceof light impaled them. Blinded, they stumbled aside, only to be caughtby still another beam.
The two men split apart and dived for cover. Enoch, finding himselfshielded from the rays by the thick bole of a tree, scrambled into itsbranches. A moment later the first wave of Indians passed below him.
For fully ten minutes he crouched there among the leaves. The barrageof light, he discovered, had come from the towering robots, and herecalled the dozen or so steel monsters that had left the camp soonafter the spaceship landed. Evidently they had been sent out toencircle the camp so that no one might leave or enter until thevisitors permitted it.
* * * * *
Finally Enoch heard the Indians returning toward camp. He knew theywould search every tree hunting for him. Reloading his rifle, hedropped to the ground and adopting the only maneuver they would notexpect, made his way cautiously back toward the camp.
He had hoped to skirt the camp itself and find an avenue to freedom inthe opposite direction. But his hopes were almost immediately dashed,for he soon made out the darting rays of light marking more of therobots.
Enoch was trapped. Taking advantage of every possible means of cover,he inched ahead, changing his direction a dozen times, until hesuddenly stopped short, his path barred by the towering spaceshipitself. Staying within the dense shadows at its base, he began toskirt the ship, hoping to find a place where he could hide out untilthe enemy gave up the search.
But again his luck failed to hold. This time he was stopped by a wallof metal fully ten feet high, which turned out to be one side of theentrance ramp to the spaceship. Circling it would bring him right intothe camp, to climb over it was impossible; to turn back, useless. Thiswas the end of the line!
As he stood there trying to figure out his next move, he caught thesound of a guarded movement some distance behind him. Instantl
y hedropped to the grass, his long rifle ready to take at least one of hisenemies with him. And that was when he learned that the bottom of theramp was nearly two feet above the ground.
Even Macy's shopping service couldn't have furnished him with a betterhiding place. Enoch wriggled himself under the edge and lay therebreathing quietly, while, a moment later, three pairs of moccasinedfeet moved over the spot where he had been hiding.
* * * * *
Some time passed. He could hear voices very near and the rustle offeet moving through the grass. Then came the dull thud of metalagainst metal over his head in a rhythmic tempo like the tread ofmarching soldiers. Hardly had this ceased before he heard anothersound which he could not identify, and the ramp itself began to move!
It was