re than twenty years old, rather short--perhaps
five feet six or seven inches--and powerfully built, with a shock of
tousled red hair and a handsome, rough-hewn face essentially masculine.

He seemed to be an extraordinarily good-humored chap, with the ready wit
of an Irishman. I liked him at once--I think we all did.

He began, characteristically, near the end rather than the beginning of
the events I knew he must have to tell us.

"I got away," he chuckled, grinning more broadly than ever. "But where I
was going to, search me. And who the deuce are _you_, if you don't mind my
asking? How did you ever get to this God-forsaken place?"

I smiled. "You tell us about yourself first; then I'll tell you about
myself. You are the earth-man we've been hearing about, aren't you--the
man Tao captured in Wyoming and brought here with him?"

"They caught me in Wyoming all right. Who's Tao?"

"He's the leader of them all."

"Oh. Well, they brought me here, as you say, and I guess they've had me
about all over this little earth since. They stuck me in a boat, and Lord
knows how far we went. We got here last night, and when my guard went to
sleep I beat it." He scratched his head lugubriously. "Though what good I
thought it was going to do me I don't know. That's about all, I guess.
Who the deuce are you?"

I laughed.

"Wait a minute--don't go so fast. Start at the beginning. What's your
name?"

"Oliver Mercer."

His face grew suddenly grave. "My brother was killed up there in
Wyoming--that's how I happened to go there in the first place."

"Mercer!" I exclaimed.

He started. "Yes--why? You don't think you know me, by any chance, do
you?"

"No, but I knew your brother--that is, I know Bob Trevor, who was with him
when he was killed. He's one of my best friends."

The young fellow extended his hand. "A friend of Bob Trevor's--away off
here! Don't it get you, just?"

Miela interrupted us here to translate to her mother and Anina what he
said.

Mercer went on: "The assumption is, you people here are not working with
this gang of crooks I got away from--this Tao? Am I right in thinking so?"

"You're certainly right, that far," I laughed.

I felt, more than I can say, a great sense of relief, a lessening of the
tension, the unconscious strain I had been under, at this swift, jovial
conversation with another human of my own kind.

"Yes, you're right on that. This Tao and I are not exactly on the same
side. I'll te