mined the metal wing; saw that it had been blackened with heat.
The metal was fused and twisted.

"I've seen a good many wrecks, Jim. I've seen planes that burned as
they fell. But nothing like that. The fuselage and engines were not
even afire. Jim, something struck out from that shining mountain and
brought them down!"

"Are they--" I began.

Ray was poking about in the snow in the cockpits.

"No. Not here. Probably would have been better for them if they had
been killed in the plane. Quick and merciful."

He examined the engines and propellers.

"No. Seems to be nothing wrong. Something struck them down!"

Soon we went on.

The shining mountain rose before us like a great cone of fire. It must
have been three thousand feet high, and about that in diameter at the
bottom. Its walls were as smooth and straight as though turned from
milky rock crystal in a gigantic lathe. It shone with a steady,
brilliantly white radiance.

"That's no natural hill!" Ray grunted beside me as we limped on.

We were less than a mile from the foot of the cone of fire. Soon we
observed another remarkable thing about it. It seemed that a straight
band of silvery metal rose from the snow about its foot.

"Has it a wall around it?" I exclaimed.

"Evidently," said Ray. "Looks as if it's built on a round metal
platform. But by whom? When? Why?"

* * * * *

We approached the curious wall. It was of a white metal, apparently
aluminum, or a silvery alloy of that metal. In places it was
twenty-five feet high, but more usually the snow and ice was banked
high against it. The smooth white wall of the gleaming mountain stood
several hundred yards back from the wall.

"Let's have a look over it." Ray suggested. "We can get up on that
hummock, against it. You know, this place must have been built by
men!"

We clambered up over the ice, as he suggested, until our heads came
above the top of the wall.

"A lake of fire!" cried Ray.

Indeed, a lake of liquid fire lay before us. The white aluminum wall
was hardly a foot thick. It formed a great circular tank, nearly a
mile across, with the cone of white fire rising in the center. And the
tank was filled, to within a foot of the top, with shimmeringly
brilliant white fluid, bright and luminous as the cone--liquid light!

Ray dipped a hand into it. The hand came up with fingers of fire,
radiant, gleaming, with shining drops falling from them. With a
spasmod