confidential research in Gobi laboratories. Impossible to
communicate because area in which laboratories situated in Japanese
hands and surrounded by cordon of guards."

Jeter and Eyer stared at each other when the cable had been read and
digested.

"Queer, isn't it?" said Eyer.

Jeter didn't answer. That preoccupied expression was on his face, that
distant look which no man could erase from his face by any interruption
until Jeter had finished his train of thought.

"Queer," thought Jeter, "that Sitsumi should be so snooty and the three
Chinese totally unavailable."

* * * * *

There were many strange things happening lately, too, and the queer
things kept on happening, and in ever-increasing numbers, during the
second week of Kress' impossible absence in the stratosphere. Or was he
there? Had he ever reached it? Had he--Jeter and Eyer had noticed his
utter gloom at the take-off--merely, climbed out of sight of the Earth
and then slanted down to a dive into the ocean? Maybe he was a suicide.
But some bits of wreckage of his plane had many unsinkable parts about
it--the parachute ball for instance.

No, the solemn fact remained that Kress had simply flown up and hadn't
come down again. It would have sounded silly and absurd if it hadn't
been so serious.

And strange stories were seeping into the press of the world.

Out in Wyoming a cattleman had driven a herd of prime steers into the
round-up corral at night. Next morning not one of the steers could be
found. No tracks led away from the corral. The gates were closed,
exactly as they had been left the night before. There had been no
cowboys watching the steers, for the corral had always been strong
enough to hold the most rambunctious.

The tale of the missing steers hit the headlines, but so far nobody had
thought of this disappearance in connection with Kress'. How could any
one? Steers and scientists didn't go together. But it still was strange.

At least so Jeter thought. His mind worked with this and other strange
happenings even as he and Eyer worked at top speed.

A young fellow in Arizona told a yarn of wandering about the crater of a
meteor which had fallen on the desert thousands of years before. The
place wasn't important nor did it seem to have anything to do with the
crater or meteors--but the young fellow reported that he had seen a
faded white column of light, like the beam of a great searchlight,
reaching up