rance port of the other
space ship, lying a few hundred feet away, shrouded in darkness. He
had to know if anyone were aboard.

Gruffly he called inside:

"Judd! Hey, Judd! You there?"

There was no answer. Again he called, but the gloomy interior's
silence was not broken. Satisfied that it was empty, he doubled back
with noiseless speed, skirted round the _Star Devil_ and arrived like
a wind-carried wraith at the rear wall of the ranch house.

A short leap and his hands closed on the copper drain. The muscles of
his wiry arms flexed, and the lean figure raised himself foot by foot
to the eaves, where a pull and press up brought him over the edge.
Stooping, he padded to the side which faced on the clearing and the
corral.

And then the ray-gun was drawn from its holster.

For seconds the cold gray eyes reckoned the shooting distance and the
angle. The weapon came up and rested at arm's length. The first finger
of the deadly left hand began to squeeze back.

A pencil-thin streak of orange light speared the air!

CHAPTER VIII

_Stampede_

Judd the Kite was enjoying himself hugely. His bestial sense of humor
was tickled. It was very funny, the contortions of the negro in the
orange ray-stream!

"Climb over!" he suggested, amid roars of laughter from the circle of
men. "Climb over, why don't you? I've turned off the current. There's
no electricity in the fence. You won't be hurt. Why don't you climb
over?"

Friday did not, could not answer. His lips were sucked tight together
now in wordless agony; the cheek muscles, strained taut, stood out
like welts of flesh; the huge body, bathed always in that steady glow
of orange, was slightly livid in patches. He hopped mechanically,
changing from one aching leg to the other; his eyes were closed half
the time, his whole being one dumb agony. He did not know when it
would end, but he still had faith.

Overhead, the flames of four tarred wood torches bobbed and reeled as
the men who held them reeled; seemed to shake in the gusts of laughter
and yells and oaths that came ceaselessly from the onlookers. And in
this distorted light the half-shadowed snouts and bodies of the
phantis, clustered behind their nine-foot-high fence, looked indeed
diabolical. The fence was high, for the creatures possessed surprising
jumping powers; it was composed of eight strands of wire, running
parallel a foot apart from each other, with inter-crossing supports.
The electric curr