Project Gutenberg's Hunters Out of Space, by Joseph Everidge Kelleam

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Title: Hunters Out of Space

Author: Joseph Everidge Kelleam

Release Date: May 1, 2008 [EBook #25270]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HUNTERS

OUT OF

SPACE

By JOSEPH E. KELLEAM

ILLUSTRATED by FINLAY

CHAPTER 1

In Kansas, spring usually falls on the day before summer. It had been such
a day, and now at midnight I was sitting at my desk. Both hands of the
clock were pointing to the ceiling--and to the limitless stars beyond. My
wife and daughter had long been asleep. I had stayed up to write a few
letters but it was not a night for working. Although it was a bit chilly
outside, the moon was bright and a bird was singing a glad and plaintive
song about the summer that was coming and all the summers that had passed
and all that would be. Adding, here and there, a bit of melody about all
the good things that happen to birds and men without their knowing why.

Both hands of the clock were pointing upward. And I was half-asleep, and
half-dreaming. Remembering all the friends I had--most of them scattered to
the four winds by now. And that best friend of all, Doctor Jack Odin! I
wondered where he was and how he had fared since he disappeared into that
dark cave in Texas.

Suddenly I became aware of a flickering light above me. I looked up. I had
thought that the lights were winking, but they were not. The room was lit
by a reading lamp, and the ceiling was so shadowy that at first I could see
nothing at all. Then I saw the light--or the ghost of a light--gleaming
faintly upon--or through--the ceiling. It was the faintest yellow, neither
a bull's eye nor a splotch. Instead, it seemed to be a tiny whirlpool of
movement--the faintest nebula in miniature with spirals of light swiftly
circling a central core. For a second