ving a ground vehicle with two wheels. They
burst upon him and, with their scared faces constituting threats in
themselves, forced him to drive them out of the Golden City. They fled
along aluminum roads into the tree-fern forests, while the sky behind
them seemed to flame as the city woke to the tumult in its ways.

They killed the driver of their vehicle when he refused to take them
farther, and it was that murder which saved their lives. It was seen
by Ragged Men, the outlaws of the jungle, and it proved their enmity
to the Golden City. The Ragged Men greeted them joyously and fed them,
and enlisted their aid in a savage attack on a land-convoy on the way
to the city. Their weapons carried the convoy, and they watched
wounded prisoners killed with excruciating tortures....

They were with the Ragged Men now, Von Holtz believed. He had fled a
week or more before, when Jacaro--already learning the language of his
half-mad allies--began to plan a grandiose attack upon the Golden
City. Von Holtz was born a coward, and he knew where Tommy Reames and
Denham would shortly thrust a Tube through. It would come out just
where the catapult had flung Evelyn and Denham, months before, the
same spot where he had marooned them. He searched desperately for that
Tube, and failed to find it. He was chased by carnivores, scratched by
thorns, and at last pursued by a yelling horde of human devils who
were fired into by Smithers from the mouth of the just-finished Tube.

* * * * *

Tommy debated the story grimly as he stood guard in the Tube in the
humid jungle night. Many-colored stars winked fitfully through the
thatch of giant ferns overhead. The wind soughed unsteadily above the
jungle. There were queer creakings, and once or twice there were
distant cries, and when the wind died down there was a deep-toned
croaking audible somewhere which sounded rather like the croaking of
unthinkably, monstrous frogs. But it could not be that, of course. And
once there was the sound of dainty movement and something passed
nearby. Tommy Reames saw the shadowy outline of a bulk so vast that it
turned him cold to think about it, and it did not seem fair for any
creature as huge as that to move so quietly.

Then there was a little scuffling noise beneath him. A hand touched
his foot.

"It's--it's me, Tommy." Evelyn crowded up beside him and whispered
shakenly: "It--it was so lonesome down there, so quiet."

Tommy