ips, will you examine it carefully? And,
stamped on the under side, you will find--"

"The patent marking," said Chet; then stopped short as the light of
understanding blazed into his brain.

"Patented," he reflected; "that's what it says," and a wondering
comprehension was in his voice: "patented by H. Kreiss, of Austria!
You--you are the inventor?"

* * * * *

"I did not speak with entire truth to Herr Schwartzmann," admitted
Kreiss, "on that occasion when I told him I could not rebuild the
control you had demolished. With your equipment on the ship I could have
done a quite creditable job, but even now,"--he pointed to the
leaf-wrapped bundle in Chet's hand--"with copper I have hammered from
the rocks, and with silver and gold and even iron which I found
occurring in a quite novel manner, I have done not so badly."

"This is--this is--" Chet stared at the object in his hand; his tongue
could not be brought to speak the words. "But what use? How can I get
in? The gas--"

"Cause and effect!" stated Herr Doktor Kreiss of the Institute at
Vienna, and once more he seemed addressing a class and taking pleasure
in his ability to dispense knowledge. "It is the law of the universe.

"I perform an act. It is a cause--I have invoked the law. And the
effects go out like circling waves in an endless ocean of time forever
beyond our reach.

"But we can do other acts, produce other causes, and sometimes we can
neutralize thereby the effects of the first. I do that now." He picked
up the second bundle in its wrapping of leaves; it was heavy for him to
manage with his wounded arm. "This is all that I have," he said! "I must
place it surely.

"Go down toward the ship," he ordered. "Wait where it is safe. Then
when the gas ceases you will have but three minutes. Three
minutes!--remember! Lose no time at the port!"

He had reached the base of the hill of mud. He was on the windward side;
above him the fumerole was grunting and roaring. And, to Chet, the thin
figure, gaunt and ungainly and absurd in its wrappings of dilapidated
garments, became somehow tremendous, vaguely symbolic. He could not get
it clearly, but there was something there of the cool, reasoning
sureness of science itself--an indomitable pressing on toward whatever
goal the law might lead one to; but Kreiss was human as well. He stopped
once and looked about him.

"A laboratory--this world!" he exclaimed. "Virgin! Untouched!..