The Project Gutenberg EBook of Valley of the Croen, by Lee Tarbell

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Title: Valley of the Croen

Author: Lee Tarbell

Release Date: July 8, 2008 [EBook #26010]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VALLEY OF THE CROEN ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, V. L. Simpson and the Online
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[Transcriber's Notes:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Misspellings have been corrected.]

[Illustration]

VALLEY of the CROEN

By LEE TARBELL

There was a mysterious golden statue that always pointed one
way--and it led to sudden death in the valley where flying disks
landed.

[Illustration: Like a lodestone drawn to a magnet, the tiny golden
statue leaped from his hand and darted toward its huge counterpart.]

They say cross-eyed men are bad luck. He stood there, in my doorway,
eyeing me up and down with those in-focused black eyes.

His face was hideous even if the eyes had been normal. He was slashed
with a wide cicatrice of livid scar tissue from one cheekbone across his
nose and down to the button of his jaw on the other side.

He was big, and he looked like bad news to me. I inadvertently moved the
door as if to close it, then he spoke:

"You Keele, the mining man?"

I nodded, wondering at the mild voice from the huge battered figure.

"Been looking for you. I've run across something I wouldn't tell just
anyone. But I've heard of you, that you are on the level. Here in
Korea, you're known already."

I still didn't step back and swing the door wide. But he had aroused my
curiosity as well as my natural desire to acquire things. I had made two
fortunes and lost both in mining ventures. My present not small income
came from an emerald mine in the Andes. It had been a very dirty and
very sick Indio who had led me to that emerald mine. You never know!

"I'm pretty busy, could you give me some idea...." I hedged. It doesn't
do to seem too anxious or eager in any bus