"

Enoch Wetzel was still standing exactly as he had while telling his
story. I walked over to him. "Let's get one thing straight, mister. If
you and I are going to work together, we leave personal feelings out
of it. A few minutes ago I passed a remark or two about one of your
relatives and you tried to knock my head off. I'm willing to forget it
if you are. But I don't want any more cracks out of you about my being
a half-breed. Is that clear?"

He eyed me stonily, then without change of expression spat on the rug
within a quarter-inch of my left shoe. I felt the muscles in my arms
twang like plucked wires as I resisted the impulse to swing on him.
"Is that your answer, Wetzel?"

"I'll git you thar," he said tonelessly. "I promised these yere
gennelmen I'd do thet much. But it don't hold I gotta cotton to you."

We stood there staring into each other's eyes. There was a wall of
hatred between us that could never be destroyed, a wall not fashioned
by us but by our forefathers generations before. Yet a chain of
incredible events had made us allies against an alien foe. In spite of
our mutual dislike we must work together.

* * * * *

I turned back to Proudfit. "I'll need a pair of heavy black basketball
shoes, dark coveralls, a good heavy sweater, a .38 Colt automatic with
plenty of ammunition, and a compass."

* * * * *

The bomber pilot was a fresh-faced youngster who chewed gum and
claimed to have been the second-ranking tennis player in Des Moines,
Iowa. He shook hands gravely with me, eyed Wetzel and his strange garb
and out-size rifle with blank-faced wonder, and mentioned that it was
a nice night for flying.

The plane took off at 1:27. We were due over our target by 4:00
o'clock Eastern Standard Time, or 2:00 Mountain Time. The plans called
for the bomber to fly at a high altitude, then come in on Burdette
with jets off and drop us by 'chute. Wetzel had balked for a while at
the idea of stepping off into space, but a brief but patient
explanation of how a parachute worked finally brought him grudgingly
around.

The trip seemed to take forever. I was torn by a thousand doubts,
saddened by not being allowed to say goodbye to Lois, not a little
afraid of what I would likely run into in Colorado. And all the while,
my companion, out of his normal world and time, surrounded by wonders
beyond his wildest nightmares, slept sound as an infant....