I mean! Shall we chance it? Try it? There's nothing else I can think
of to do. I have a revolver and two hunting rifles."

"Just what do you mean?" I demanded.

"I mean, we'll take my car and go to Tugh's house on Patton Place.
Right now! And if that mechanical monster returns, we'll seize it!"

Alten, the usually calm, precise man of science, was tensely vehement.
"Seize it! Why not? Three of us, armed, ought to be able to overcome a
Robot! Then we'll seize the Time-traveling cage. Perhaps we can
operate it. If not, with it in our possession we'll at least have
something to show the authorities; there'll be no ridicule then!"

Our inescapable destiny was making us plunge so rashly into this
mystery! With the excitement and the strange fantasy of it upon us, we
thought we were acting for the best.

Within a quarter of an hour, armed and with a long overcoat and a
scarf to hide Mary Atwood's beauty, we took Alten's car and drove to
Patton Place.

CHAPTER IV

_The Fight With the Robot_

Patrolman McGuire quite evidently had not passed through Patton Place
since we left it; or at least he had not noticed the broken window.
The house appeared as before, dark, silent, deserted, and the broken
basement window yawned with its wide black opening.

"I'll leave the car around on the other street," Alten said as slowly
we passed the house. "Quick--no one's in sight; you three get out
here."

We crouched in the dim entryway and in a moment he joined us.

I clung to Mary Atwood's arm. "You're not afraid?" I asked.

"No. Yes; of course I am afraid. But I want to do what we planned. I
want to go back to my own world, to my Father."

"Inside!" Alten whispered. "I'll go first. You two follow with her."

I can say now that we should not have taken her into that house. It is
so easy to look back upon what one might have done!

We climbed through the window, into the dark front basement room.
There was only silence, and our faintly padding footsteps on the
carpeted floor. The furniture was shrouded with cotton covers standing
like ghosts in the gloom. I clutched the loaded rifle which Alten had
given me. Larry was similarly armed; and Alten carried a revolver.

"Which way, Mary?" I whispered. "You're sure it was outdoors?"

"Yes. This way, I think."

We passed through the connecting door. The back room seemed to be a
dismantled kitchen.

"You stay with her here, a moment," Alten whispered to me. "Come on,
Larry.