nd.

In their laboratory, removed to the heart of the Adirondacks
wilderness, Cliff and Kay were working frantically.

"It's the last chance, Kay," said Cliff. "If I've not solved the
secret this time, it means another year's delay. The secret of
dissolving organic forms as well as inorganic ones! What is this
mysterious power that enables organic forms to withstand the terrific
bombardment of the W-ray?"

The W-ray was the Millikan cosmic ray, imprisoned and adapted for
human use. It was a million times more powerful than the highest known
voltage of electricity. Beneath it, even the diamond, the hardest
substance known, dissolved into a puff of dust; and yet the most
fragile plant growth remained unaffected.

* * * * *

The laboratory in the Adirondacks was open at one end. Here, against a
background of big forest trees, a curious medley of substances had
been assembled: old chairs, a couple of broken-down airplanes, a large
disused dynamo, a heap of discarded clothing, a miscellany of kitchen
utensils on a table, a gas stove, and a heap of metal junk of all
kinds. The place looked, in fact, like a junk heap.

The great top was set in a socket in a heavy bar of craolite, the new
metal that combined the utmost tensile strength with complete
infusibility, even in the electric furnace. About six feet in height,
it looked like nothing but what it was, a gyroscope in gimbals, with a
long and extremely narrow slit extending all around the central
bulge, but closed on the operator's side by a sliding cover of the
same craolite.

Within this top, which, by its motion, generated a field of electrical
force between the arms of an interior magnet, the W-rays were
generated in accordance with a secret formula; the speed of gyration,
exceeding anything known on earth, multiplied their force a
billionfold, converting them to wave-lengths shorter than the shortest
known to physical science. Like all great inventions, the top was of
the simplest construction.

"Well," said Cliff, "you'd better bring out Susie."

Kay left the laboratory and went to the cabin beside the lake that the
two men occupied. From her box in front of the stove a lady porcupine
looked up lazily and grunted. Kay raised the porcupine; in the box, of
course. Susie was constitutionally indolent, but one does not handle
porcupines, however smooth their quills may lie.

Kay brought her to the heap of junk and placed the box