The story of the fellow who had seen the columns of light might have been believed if he had stuck to his first yarn of seeing but one. But when he mentioned five ... well, he didn't have any too good a reputation for veracity and wasn't regarded as being overly bright.

Besides, he had stated that the thickness of the columns of light seemed to be the same from the ground as far as his eyes could follow them upward. Everybody knew that a searchlight's beams spread out a bit.

"I wonder," thought Jeter, "why the kid didn't say he saw those five columns move--like a five-legged animal, walking."

Silly, of course, but behind the silliness of the thought Jeter thought there might be something of interest, something on which to work.

The Jeter-Eyer s.p.a.ce ship still was not finished--though almost--when the world moved into the third week since the disappearance of Franz Kress.

An Indian in the Southwest had reported seeing one of those columns of light. However, this merited just a line on about page sixteen, even of the newspaper closest to the spot where the redskin had seen the column.

"Eyer," said Jeter at last, "we've got to start digging into newspaper stories, especially into stories which deal with unusually queer happenings throughout the world. I've a hunch that the keys to Kress'

disappearance may be found in some of them, or a combination of a great many of them."

"How do you mean, Lucian?"

"Don't you notice that all this queer stuff has been happening since Kress left? It sounds silly, perhaps, but I feel sure that the disappearance of those steers in Wyoming, the story the boy told about the columns of light--yes, all five of them!--and the Indian's partial confirmation of it, are all tied up together with the disappearance of Kress."

Eyer started to grin his disbelief, but a look at his partner's tense face stopped him.

"What could want all those steers, Lucian?" said Eyer softly. "I can't think of anything or anybody disposing of such a bunch on such short notice, except a marching army, a marching column of soldier ants, or all the world's buzzards gathered together at one place. In any case the animals themselves would have created a fuss, would have kicked up so much noise that somebody would have heard. But this story of the steers seems to suggest, or say right out loud--though I know you can't believe everything in the newspapers--that the steers vanished in utter silence."

"Doesn't it also seem funny to you," went on Jeter, "that the vanishing of the herd wasn't discovered until next morning? I've read enough Western stuff to know that a herd always makes noise. Yes, even at night. The cowhands wouldn't have lost a wink of sleep over that. But, listen, Tema, suppose you lived in New York City near some busy intersection which was always noisy, even after midnight--and all the noise suddenly stopped. Would you sleep right on through it?"

"No, I'd wake up--unless I were drunk or doped."

"Yet n.o.body seems to have wakened at that ranch when--and it must have happened--the herd stopped making any noise whatever. The utter silence _should_ have wakened seasoned cowhands. It didn't. Why? What happened to them that they slept so soundly they heard nothing?"

Eyer did not answer. It wasn't the first time he had been called upon to hear Jeter think out loud.

"It all ties up somehow," repeated Jeter, "and I intend to find out how."

But he didn't find out. Strange stories kept appearing. The three Chinese scientists still had not communicated with the outside world.

The chap out in Arizona had now so elaborated on his yarn that n.o.body believed him and the public lost interest--all save Jeter, who was on the trail of a queer idea.

Nothing happened however until near the end of the third week after Kress' disappearance.

Then, out of a clear sky almost, Kress came back.

He came down by parachute, without the ball in which he should have sealed himself. His return caused plenty of comment. There was good reason. He had been gone the impossibly long period of three weeks.

He was dead--but _had_ been for less than seventy-two hours!

His body was frozen solid.

It landed on the roof of the Jeter-Eyer laboratory; had he been alive he couldn't possibly have maneuvered his chute to land him on such a small place.

The partners stared at each other. It seemed strange to them indeed that Kress should have come back to land on the roof of the two who had promised to follow him into the stratosphere if he didn't return.

Very strange indeed.

He had returned, though, releasing Jeter and Eyer from their promise.

Strangely enough that fact made them all the more determined to go. And while the newspaper reporters went wild over Kress' return, the partners started making additional plans.

CHAPTER III

_Strange Levitation_

"In two days we'll be ready, Tema," said Lucian Jeter quietly. "And make no mistake about it; when we take off for the stratosphere we're going to encounter strange things. n.o.body can tell me that Kress' plane actually flew three weeks! And where did it come down? Why didn't Kress use the parachute ball? Where is it? I'll wager we'll find answers to plenty of those questions--if we live!"

"If we live?" repeated Eyer. "You mean--?"

"You know what happened to Kress? Or rather you know the result of what happened to him?"

"Sure."

"Why should we be immune? I tell you, Eyer, we're on the eve of something colossal, awe-inspiring--perhaps catastrophic."

Eyer grinned. Jeter grinned back at him. If they knew they flew inescapably to death they still would have grinned. They had plenty of courage.

"We'd better go into town for a meeting with newspaper people," went on Jeter. "You know how things go in the news; there are probably plenty of stories which for one reason or another have not been published. Maybe the law has clamped down on some of them. I've a feeling that if everything were told, the whole world would be frightened stiff. And you notice how quickly the papers finished with the Kress' thing."

Eyer knew, all right. The papers had broken the story of the return in flaming scareheads. Then the thing had come to a full stop. It was significant that no real satisfactory explanation had been offered by any one. The papers had, on their own initiative, tried to communicate with Sitsumi, and the three Chinese scientists, and had failed all around. Sitsumi did not answer, denied himself to representatives of the American press in j.a.pan, and crawled into an impenetrable Oriental sh.e.l.l. The three Chinese could not answer, according to advices from Peking, because they could not be located.

Jeter called the publisher of the leading newspaper for a conference.

"Strange that you should have called just now," said the publisher, "for I was on the point of calling you and Eyer and inviting you to a conference to be held this evening at my office in Manhattan."

"What's the purpose of your conference? Who will attend?"

"I--I--well, let us say I had hoped to make you and Eyer available to all interviewers on the eve of your flight into the stratosphere."

Jeter hesitated, realizing that the publisher did not wish to tell everything over the telephone.

"We'll be right along, sir," he said.

It took an hour for them to reach the publisher's office. Wires had plainly been pulled, too, for a motorcycle escort joined them at the Queensboro Bridge and led them, sirens screaming, to their meeting with George Hadley, the publisher.

They looked at each other in surprise when they were admitted to the meeting.