l articles or reviews.
For information, address: Shasta Publishers, 5525 South Blackstone
Avenue, Chicago 37, Illinois.

_Copyright, 1953, by Will F. Jenkins. This_ POCKET BOOK _edition is
published by arrangement with Shasta Publishers. Library of Congress
Catalog Card Number: 53-7292. Printed in the U. S. A._

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| Transcriber's Note |
| |
| No evidence has been found that the copyright of this book |
| has been renewed. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

* * * * *

[Illustration: Pocket Book]

_Notice_: POCKET BOOK editions are published in the United States by
Pocket Books, Inc., in Canada by Pocket Books of Canada, Ltd. Trade
Marks registered in the United States and British Patent Offices by
Pocket Books, Inc., and registered in Canada by Pocket Books of Canada,
Ltd.

_To Joan Patricia Jenkins_

1

To the world at large, of course, it was just another day. A different
sort entirely at different places on the great, round, rolling Earth,
but nothing out of the ordinary. It was Tuesday on one side of the Date
Line and Monday on the other. It was so-and-so's wedding anniversary and
so-and-so's birthday and another so-and-so would get out of jail today.
It was warm, it was cool, it was fair, it was cloudy. One looked forward
to the future with confidence, with hope, with uneasiness or with terror
according to one's temperament and one's geographical location and past
history. To most of the human race this was nothing whatever but just
another day.

But to Joe Kenmore it was a most particular day indeed. Here, it was the
gray hour just before sunrise and already there were hints of reddish
colorings in the sky. It was chilly, and somehow the world seemed still
and breathless. To Joe, the feeling of tensity marked this morning off
from all the other mornings of his experience.

He got up and began to dress, in Major Holt's quarters back of that
giant steel half-globe called the Shed, near the town of Bootstrap. He
felt queer because he felt so much as usual. By all the rules, he should
have experienced a splendid, noble resolution and a fiery exaltation,