le town.
The next second our wheels ground in the sand.

I heard a splintering crash; something struck me violently on the
shoulder; then--blackness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MEETING.

Professor Newland and his family were living in seclusion in their Florida
home at the time the Mercutian invaders landed in Wyoming. The curious
events in Florida, which connected them so directly with the invasion and
caused Alan later to play so vital a part in it, are so important that I
am impelled to relate them chronologically, rather than as they were told
me afterward by Alan and Beth.

When, on March 9, the news that the Mercutians had landed in Wyoming
reached Professor Newland, he immediately established telegraphic
communication with Harvard. Thus he was kept fully informed on the
situation--indeed, he saw it as a whole far better than I did.

On March 12, three days after the landing, orders from Washington were
given out, regulating all passenger transportation in the direction of the
danger zone. One hundred miles was the limit set. State troops were placed
on all trains, State roads were likewise guarded, and the State airplane
patrols united in a vigilant effort to keep outside planes from getting
in. On the 13th the President of the United States issued an appeal to all
persons living within the hundred-mile limit, asking them to leave.

On March 14 the Canadian government offered its assistance in any way
possible--its Saskatchewan airplane patrol was already helping Montana
maintain the hundred-mile limit. Similar offers were immediately made by
nearly every government in the world.

Such were the first main steps taken to safeguard the people.

By March 14 the actual conditions of affairs in the threatened section of
Wyoming was fairly well known. The town of Garland was destroyed by fire
on the night of the 10th, and the towns of Mantua and Powell--north and
south of Garland respectively--the following morning. On the evening of
the 11th a government plane, flying without lights, sacrificed itself in
an attempt to drop a bomb into the Mercutian camp. It was caught by the
light when almost directly over the Mercutians, and was seen to fall in
flames.

It was estimated that the single light was controlling an area with a
radius of about ten miles. To the south and west there was practically
nothing but desert. To the west Garland, Mantua and Powell were burned. To
the north Deaver and Crowley--on another