hest point that rocket explorers had previously reached, and on to
Uranus, where they could not land because of the unstable surface.

* * * * *

The remainder of the entries Thad found less frequent, shorter,
bearing the mark of excitement: landing upon Titania, the third and
largest satellite of Uranus; unearthly forests, sheltering strange and
monstrous life; the hunting of weird creatures, and mounting them for
museum specimens.

Then the discovery of a ruined city, whose remains indicated that it
had been built by a lost race of intelligent, spiderlike things; the
finding of a temple whose walls were of precious metals, containing a
crystal chest filled with wondrous gems; the smelting of the metal
into convenient ingots, and the transfer of the treasure to the hold.

The first sinister note there entered the diary:

"Some of the men say we shouldn't have disturbed the temple.
Think it will bring us bad luck. Rubbish, of course. But one
man did vanish while they were smelting the gold. Poor Mr.
Tom James. I suppose he ventured away from the rest, and
something caught him."

The few entries that followed were shorter, and showed increasing
nervous tension. They recorded the departure from Titania, made almost
as soon as the treasure was loaded. The last was made several weeks
later. A dozen men had vanished from the crew, leaving only gouts of
blood to hint the manner of their going. The last entry ran:

"Dad says I'm to stay in here to-day. Old dear, he's afraid
the thing will get me--whatever it is. It's really serious.
Two men taken from their berths last night. And not a trace.
Some of them think it's a curse on the treasure. One of them
swears he saw Dad's stuffed specimens moving about in the
hold.

"Some terrible thing must have slipped aboard the flier, out
of the jungle. That's what Dad and the captain think. Queer
they can't find it. They've searched all over. Well...."

Musing and regretful, Thad turned back for another look at the smiling
girl in the photograph.

What a tragedy her death had been! Reading the diary had made him like
her. Her balance and humor. Her quiet affection for "Dad." The calm
courage with which she seemed to have faced the creeping, lurking
death that darkened the ship with its unescapable shadow.

How had her body come to be in the coffer, he wondered, when all the
o