ly._]

[Sidenote: Through infinite deeps of space Jerry Foster hurtles to the
Moon--only to be trapped by a barbaric race and offered as a living
sacrifice to Oong, their loathsome, hypnotic god.]

"Now that's a mighty queer noise." Jerry Foster told himself. He
dropped the pack from his shoulders and leaned closer to the canyon
rim.

Miles behind him was the last beaten trail: Jerry wanted peace and
solitude and quiet. And now the quiet of the silent mountains was
disturbed.

From far below came a steady, muffled roar. Faint it was, and distant,
but peculiar in its unvarying, unceasing rush.

"Not water," Jerry concluded; "not enough down there. Sounds
like--like a wind--like a wind that can't quit.

"Oh well--" He shrugged his shoulders and slipped into the straps of
his pack. Then he went back again to the granite ledge. "I wonder if
there's a way down," he said.

There was, but it took all of Jerry's strength to see him safely
through. On a fan-shaped talus of spreading boulders he stopped. There
was a limestone wall beyond. And at its base, from a crevice that was
almost a cave, came a furious rush of air and steam.

[Illustration]

It touched him lightly a hundred feet away, and he threw himself flat
to escape the hot blast. Endlessly it came, with its soft, rushing
roar, a ceaseless, scorching blast from the cold rocks.

"That's almighty funny," mused Foster, and sniffed the air. There was
no odor.

"And is it hot!" he said. "Nothing like that in my geology book. And
what is beyond? Looks like concrete work, as if someone had plastered
up the cave." He picked his way quickly across the rock slope.

It was hard going. Below him the rocks and dirt went steep to the
canyon floor. At its foot the blast swept diagonally over the slope.
He must see what lay beyond....

"Curious," he thought; "curious if that is nature's work--and a lot
more so if it isn't."

A rock rolled beneath his feet. Another! He scrambled and fought
desperately for foothold in the slipping earth. Then, rolling and
clawing, he rode helpless on the slide straight toward the mysterious
blast. He felt it envelop him, hot and strangling. His lungs were dry
and burning ... the blazing sun faded from the rocks ... the world was
dark....

* * * * *

Darkness was still about him when he awoke. But it was cool; the air
was sweet on his lips. And it was not entirely dark.

He turned his head. He was i