eyes, but even the lids seemed paralyzed.

For almost a full minute the giant robot remained standing less than
ten feet from where Wetzel and I were lying. It seemed to sense the
presence of something of flesh and blood nearby. Its head turned
slowly from side to side in little uneven jerks that put ice cubes in
my veins. Finally the mammoth feet began their rhythmic thumping and a
moment later it disappeared among the trees.

After what seemed a long time Wetzel rose to his feet. I got up slowly
and leaned against the tree. "In a little while," I said softly, "I'll
wake up. I'll be in bed with my wife, under the nice clean white
sheets, and I'll know all this was a nightmare brought on by that
canned salmon we had for dinner."

This, I told myself sharply, wasn't getting me anywhere except next
door to hysteria. I ground my teeth together, shuddered uncontrollably
for a second or two, then was all right again. Or nearly so.

"Let's go," I said.

An hour or so later, after taking a twisting route through what seemed
to be the Belgian Congo, Wetzel halted under the spreading branches of
a towering cottonwood. With his lips close to my ear, he whispered,
"It's a-settin' out thar midst open ground." He gestured at the wall
of blackness hemming us in--blackness you could have cut into hunks
with an ax. "I'm thinkin' thar's plenty 'o them iron critters roamin'
'round twixt us an' it. You aimin' to await the dawn?"

"You," I said, "said it!"

* * * * *

The dawn came up nice and quiet. Blackness turned gray and then a
pearl pink--and there she was: a hundred yards from us, of some
gleaming metal resembling aluminum, twenty feet high and covering
about as much ground as a caretaker's cottage. It resembled nothing
more than a soup plate turned bottom up to dry.

A tall, semi-circular opening showed black in one side, with a sloping
metallic ramp reaching from it to the ground. Two robots guarded the
entrance, stiff and towering and without movement, the early light
glistening along their jointed bodies.

In sharp contrast to this scene from the distant future was the
anachronistic spectacle of six Indians, in war paint, fringed
buckskin and stripped to the waist, squatting around a small cooking
fire near the ship. Within easy reach of each was a long bow and a
quiver of arrows.

Nothing about them gave me a certain clue as to which Indian family
they belonged to. The single feather