would come and
get it over with."

Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing in
on us.

The outside man was white and grim, but he grinned at Wilks. He tried
the familiar jest: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"

Wilks went out through the ports--a process of no more than a minute.
I wandered away again through the corridors.

I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazing
through a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff were tiny
blue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of the
crater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just coming
up. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not stop to
inspect the lights. That was routine. I thought it odd that he passed
them.

Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds over
toward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed the
treasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, but
before I lost sight of him, he came back. As though he had changed his
mind, he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the cliff
to where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred feet above
us, the narrow observatory was perched. He climbed with easy bounds,
the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom.

I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be something
queer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. I
watched him disappear over the summit.

Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could make
out his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny white
beam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once or
twice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing in
the Earthlight, gazing down.

Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a local
signal call which he sent out? Why should Wilks be signaling? What was
he doing with a hand helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no reason to
carry one.

And to whom could Wilks be signaling? To whom, across this Lunar
desolation? The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!

I waited less than a moment. No further light. Wilks was still up
there!

I went back to the lock entrance. Spare helmets and suits were here
beside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly.

"I'm going out, Franck. Just for a minute." It struck me that perhaps
I was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all of Grantline's men, wa