And then, inevitably, Tommy searched for the four Ragged Men who had
inspected the globe a little while since. He saw them, capering
horribly behind a screening of verdure. They did not shake their
clenched fists at the flying machine. Instead, they seemed filled with
a ghastly mirth. And suddenly they began to run frantically for the
far distance, as if bearing news of infinite importance.

And when he looked back at Denham, it seemed to Tommy that he wrung
his hands before he disappeared.

* * * * *

But that was the second day of the work upon our own world, and just
before sunset there was a droning in the earthly sky above the
laboratory, and Tommy ran out, and somebody shot at him from a patch
of woodland a quarter of a mile away from the brick building. Isolated
as Denham's place was, the shot would go unnoticed. The bullet passed
within a few feet of Tommy, but he paid no attention. It was one of
Jacaro's watchers, no doubt, but Jacaro did not want Tommy killed. So
Tommy waited until the plane swooped low--almost to the level of the
laboratory roof--and a thickly padded package thudded to the ground.
He picked it up and darted back into the laboratory as other bullets
came from the patch of woodland.

"Funny," he said dryly to Smithers, inside the laboratory again; "they
don't dare kill me--yet--and Von Holtz doesn't dare leave or refuse to
do what I tell him to do; and yet they expect to lick us."

Smithers growled. Tommy was unpacking the wrapped package. A grim,
blued-steel thing came out of much padding. Boxes tumbled after it.

"Sub-machine gun," said Tommy, "and ammunition. Jacaro and his little
pals will try to get in here when they think we've got the big
solenoid ready for use. They'll try to get it before we can use it.
This will attend to them."

"An' get us in jail," said Smithers calmly, "for forty-'leven years."

"No," said Tommy, and grinned. "We'll be in the fifth dimension. Our
job is to fling through the catapult all the stuff we'll need to make
another catapult to fling us back again."

"It can't be done," said Smithers flatly.

"Maybe not," agreed Tommy, "especially since we ruin all our springs
and one gymbal ring every time we use the thing. But I've got an idea.
I'll want five coils with hollow iron cores, and the whole works
shaped like this, with two holes bored so...."

* * * * *

He sketched. He had been work