hed a low wall--a barrier of gold. It was the
council room, where once before he had faced Phee-e-al in all that
savage's hideous splendor.

* * * * *

He listened. All was silent. Then Loah whispered: "Phee-e-al comes
this way when he goes to the council room. But when he comes, or how
often, I do not know."

Dean pressed her back into the narrow way with his hands. "Wait here!"
he said, and gave her the flame-thrower. "I've an idea!" He stepped
softly out into the broad passage and on naked, noiseless feet, moved
swiftly toward the lighted room.

It was empty. Beyond the barrier were no red figures, nor were there
whistling voices to echo as he had heard them before. Here was the
throne where Phee-e-al had sat; here the priests had stood; there,
along the wall, were the chests.

Fully twenty of them, each eight feet long, they stood ranged along
the three walls of that part of the room protected by the barrier. No
two of them alike; all of them were oddly carved and studded with
jewels.

The chests were ranged in a straight row a foot or more out from the
wall. He crossed to them swiftly. About here was where that priest
must have gone. He raised one of the heavy lids till the light struck
within.

Bones! Only fragments of a skeleton, blackened by age; a necklace of
teeth from some animal's jaw; worthless trifles for the mummery of the
priests. Then, beneath them, he saw two great fangs, a foot in length.
They were curved, sharply pointed and yellow as old ivory.

What was it Gor had said of legends that told of ancestors coming from
the outer world? Rawson knew that he was looking at priceless relics
of the tribe, at the tusks of man's long extinct enemy, the great
sabre-toothed tiger.

* * * * *

But he had neither time nor thoughts to spare for marvels new or
old--he must find his gun. Yet, even then, he wondered what
undreamed-of treasures the other chests might hold--what jewels, what
paraphernalia of ancient kings.

He must be silent! Perhaps the next great glittering container might
hold the blue gleam of his gun. And this time as the gem-studded lid
was swung upward and back to rest noiselessly against the rock wall,
Dean could not repress the audible gasp that came to his lips.

His own pistol! He had expected to find the one weapon, but, instead,
the chest was filled with all it would hold of rifles and side arms
and cartridge bel