to me, trying to get me to tell what I knew about herdwelling-place. I would not, that is why he hurt me."
"Why did you come back, whatever-your-name?"
"My name is Nokomee, and I came back to tell you something you need toknow. Leave these others, and you will live! Stay with them, you will beslain with them. We do not allow such as he to come among us, goldengirl or no."
"I cannot leave my comrades because of danger. What kind of man do youthink me?"
"I do not care! I can only tell you. This is a secret place, where weremain hidden from the men of earth. I know what happens to those whostray upon our secrets! Go, and think no more to pry into treasure talesof this mountain land. It is not for such as you. Go, before it is toolate. I cannot hold back the death from you."
I laughed. I thought of the Koreans who had deserted, of their talkabout the fires at night, of demons and haunted mountains ahead.
"We came a long way on the track of Barto's tale of treasure from whichhe brought the golden girl. It will take more than words to frighten usaway."
"Do not laugh! I try to save you from something even worse than deaththat can come to you. I want to return to you the favor that you did me.If you do not listen to me, how can I help you?" Her voice took on aplaintive, charming note; she smiled a half-smile of complete witchery.
A high, keening cry came suddenly from the slopes above us, and sheraised on her toes as if to spring away.
"They come, my friends! I must leave you. I can only tell you to stayclose by your fire at night. I cannot say what fate will strike you. Icannot help you. Go back, friend who would live, go back!"
She turned and sprang lightly up the slope toward the sound of the cry,half human, half beast-like, that she had called "her friends." It hadsounded to me like the cry of a wolf, or a cat-man, anything but human.But people can make odd sounds, and imitate beasts. Still it had been aneerie sound that gave me a foreboding, added to her warning words. Whatkind of people were these, who wore leather and jewels and used bowsthat might have come off an Assyrian wall painting?
Came a tumult above, the high clear blast of some horn, a dozen eeriecries hardly human--a rush and a pounding in the earth as though a partyhad ridden off on heavy, full-size horses. No Manchurian pony ever madesuch a sound on soft ground!
Polter and Noldi came back about an hour later. I had dragged the bigBarto into a tent and made him comfortable. He was snoring peacefully.Polter squatted down beside me, folding his long form like a jackknife.
"That thing _was_ a ship, Keele," he said. There was a husky excitement,repressed but still obvious about him. I grunted.
"It landed among some big timber on the south end of the mountain. Wegot pretty close, enough to see the sides of the thing. Men busy aroundit, we couldn't get too close, afraid they'd see us."
I started, a pulse of unreasoning fear, of terrific interest, ranthrough me. I asked in a voice I couldn't keep calm, "What kind of men,Hank? I saw reports of such ships in the papers, no one got close enoughto see _that_ much. Newspapers called them illusions!"
"They're not our kind of men; they are something very different. I don'tknow just how to tell you, besides I couldn't be sure. But they seem tobe a people--" He stopped. "I'd rather you'd see it yourself. Youwouldn't believe me."
Noldi came out of the tent where Barto was still snoring. He came overand squatted across the fire, eyeing me strangely.
"What happened to the big jerk, Carl?" he asked, a little tremor ofanger in his voice.
"I've got to tell you fellows we're in trouble," I began. I did notbelieve that the girl's people would ignore Jake's attack upon her.
Hank looked at the slender man from New York's East Side. "What's thematter with Barto?"
"S'got a bruise on his jaw the size of a goose-egg. Like a mule kickedhim. Scratched up quite a bit. I just wondered. He's unconscious, too; Icouldn't wake him up."
"We may be in for it," I went on. "When I got back to camp, Hank had agirl. He'd thrown her down, was struggling with her. I had to put himasleep to stop it. Didn't want trouble with her people."
Noldi glanced at the torn place in the soft sod where the scuffle hadtaken place. I had unconsciously nodded toward it. He got up, walkedover, picked something out of the grass.
"Some girl, wearing this kind of stuff!"
He handed the glittering bauble to Polter. It was a necklace ofemeralds, with a pendant of gold in which was set a big blue stone thatI couldn't recognize, maybe a diamond, maybe something else. It lookedalmighty valuable, each stone was as big as a man's thumbnail. It hadsnapped, lain there unnoticed by either of us.
Noldi looked at me a little venomously.
"Looks as if you were a little premature, letting her go. We should havefound out where she gets this kind of sparkle first!"
"Seemed the safest thing to do. We are only four, how could we handleher friends?"
"Bah, they wouldn't have known where she was. We could have kept hertill we were good and ready to let her go."
I stood up, took out my pipe and filled it.
"What about this ship you saw, and the people around it. That'simportant, not this girl and her jewelry."
"We couldn't see much except that it was a ship and that it landed inthe trees where it couldn't be seen from the sky. It's pretty big, andthere are men moving around it. That's all."
"That's plenty! If we run into them, there is no knowing what they'lldo. That ship was never built on this planet."
Noldi didn't smile or laugh. He just looked at me. Serious, puzzled, anda little scared.
"You think it's a space ship, eh, Keele?"
I nodded.
"What else could it be?"
"What's it doin' out here in no man's land?" Polter asked. "You'd thinkstrangers like that would land near a city, try to make some kind ofofficial contact."
"If you were landing on a strange world, would you land near a city?" Iasked.
Polter laughed.
"I guess you hit it. They don't know whether they'd be welcome or not.Scared, eh?"
"Just careful, I'd say. We don't know anything about them. But shipslike that have been reported off and on for hundreds of years. Don't besurprised if you never see a trace of it again, and if no one else butme ever believes you when you mention it. I don't think we'll have toworry about the flying saucer."
"What the hell do they want, then?" Noldi didn't know what I meant,exactly.
"Nobody knows, Frans. Nobody ever saw them as close as you just didtoday."
* * *
Watching Jake Barto next morning, I saw that the little image in hishand pointed right across the center of that cloud-topping mountain.That meant we had to go around it, for we were not equipped for suchclimbing, nor would there have been any sense in it. Jake figured oncircling to the left, and I was glad, for I for one wanted no parts ofthat disk ship that Polter and Noldi had seen in the other direction.Jake ignored me. He was unpredictable!
It was a long mountain, and we traveled along one side, toward thenorth, figuring on crossing to the east wherever a pass appeared. Aftera time a faint trail showed, and we followed it. It drew us higher,until we were moving perilously along a ledge of rock, with precipitouswalls above and a sharp drop below. Higher and higher, above thetree-line now, the path went on, and there were signs of travel along itthat worried me.
Polter was in the lead, and as we rounded a shoulder of rock, gave a cryof wonder. We hurried after, to see the trail breaking over a low crestof the mountain, and leading now downward. This shoulder of rockoutthrust here marked the place where the trail we were followingcrossed the ridge of the mountain crest at its lowest point. But it alsomarked something else, which was what had caused Polter's cry.
A line of dust across the trail and along the near-bare rocks stirredand lifted and fell fitfully, as if the air was barred passage by someinvisible wall, and there were the skeletons of birds that had flungthemselves against the invisible wall and died, falling there
. There wasthe skeleton of a goat half across the trail; and at one side, what hadonce been a man! All these dead--and the bones could be seen here andthere along the far line of the dust--had gone so far and no farther.Polter had stopped fearfully ten feet from the clearly marked line--andI for one had no desire to add my skeleton to the others.
For a few minutes none of us had anything to say, then reason reasserteditself, and I pressed past Polter, knowing that the thing was anillusion born of coincidence and wind currents. Some baffling current ofwind around the mountain formed here a wall of air cleavage, and theskeletons were merely coincidence. I pushed up to the strange line