ealed that there was another sound at his command. He said,
"Whooooooosh!"

We all stared at the end of the street.

* * * * *

Nothing! Just the wide avenue between the houses, and the high sand dune
down at the end of it, from which we had first looked upon the village.

The chief described a large circle with one hand, sweeping the hand
above his head, down to his knees, up again, as fast as he could. He
pursed his monkey-lips and said, "Whooooooosh!" And made the circle
again.

A Martian emerged from the door in the side of a house across the avenue
and blinked at the Sun, as if he had just awakened. Then he saw what was
going on below and blinked again, this time in interest. He made his way
down around the winding lamp and started to cross the street.

About halfway, he paused, eyed the calendar on the house wall, glanced
at his shadow. Then he got down on his hands and knees and _crawled_
across the middle of the street. Once past the middle, he rose, walked
the rest of the way to join one of the groups and calmly stared at us
along with the rest of them.

"They're all crazy," Randolph said disgustedly. "I'm going to cross that
street!"

"Shut up. So it's a certain time of a certain day," Allenby mused. "And
from the way the chief is acting, he's afraid for you to cross the
street. And that other one just _crawled_. By God, do you know what this
might tie in with?"

We were silent for a moment. Then Gonzales said, "Of course!"

And Burton said, "The _holes_!"

"Exactly," said Allenby. "Maybe whatever made--or makes--the holes comes
right down the center of the street here. Maybe that's why they built
the village this way--to make room for--"

"For what?" Randolph asked unhappily, shifting his feet.

"I don't know," Allenby said. He looked thoughtfully at the chief. "That
circular motion he made--could he have been describing something that
went around and around the planet? Something like--oh, no!" Allenby's
eyes glazed. "I wouldn't believe it in a million years."

His gaze went to the far end of the street, to the high sand dune that
rose there. The chief seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

"I'm going to crawl," Randolph stated. He got to his hands and knees and
began to creep across the center of the avenue.

The chief let him go.

The sand dune at the end of the street suddenly erupted. A forty-foot
spout of dust shot straight out from the sloping