been kept clear of snow by the incessant sweep of the
wind.

As Dave crouched by the plate-glass window staring down at that wonderful
and terrible spectacle of an unknown land, he asked himself the question:
"Was this land ever viewed by mortal man?"

The answer could be only a surmise. Perhaps some struggling band of
political exiles, fighting their way through summer's tundra swamps and
over winter's blizzard-swept hills, had passed this way, or lingered to
die here. Who could tell? Surely nothing was known of the mineral wealth,
the fish, the game, the timber of this unexplored inland empire. What a
field to dream of!

His mind was drawn from its revels by a groan from the stranger. He was
awake and conscious. Propping himself half up on an elbow, he stared about
him.

"Where am I?" He sank back, an expression of amazement and fear written on
his face.

"Who are you?" asked Dave.

"I--why--I," the man's consciousness appeared to waver for a second. "Why,
I'm Professor Todd from Tri-State University."

"What were you doing with the Orientals?"

"Orientals?" The man looked puzzled. "Orientals? Oh, you mean the natives;
the Chukches. Why, I was studying them. Getting their language, taking
pictures, getting phonographic records, and--"

Suddenly the man's face went white.

"Where--where are we?" he stammered through tight-set lips. The balloon,
caught in a pocket of thin air, had caused the car to lurch.

"Taking a little trip," said Dave reassuringly. "You're all right. We'll
land after a bit."

"Land? So we are on a ship? I've been sick? We're going home. It is well.
Life with the Chukches was rotten, positively rotten--positive--"

His voice trailing off into nothingness. He was asleep again.

Dave stared at him. Here was a new mystery. Was this man lying? Had he
been in collusion with the Orientals, and was he trying to hide that fact;
or had the rap on his head caused a lapse of memory, which blotted out all
recollections of the affair in the case and mine?

"Look, Dave!" exclaimed Jarvis suddenly, "as I live it's the City of
Gold!"

In the east the sun was just peeping over the horizon. But Jarvis was not
looking in that direction. He was looking west. There, catching the sun's
first golden glow, some object had cast it back, creating a veritable
conflagration of red and gold.

Dave, remembering to have viewed such a sight in other days, and in what
must have been something of the same loca