"

* * * * *

The sun was dropping toward the horizon when the two men again came
out into the cool mountain air.

"Just time for a quick look around," suggested Professor Sykes, "if
you are interested."

He took the lieutenant first to an enormous dome that bulged high
above the ground, and admitted him to the dark interior. They climbed
a stairway and came out into a room that held a skeleton frame of
steel. "This is the big boy," said Professor Sykes, "the one
hundred-inch reflector."

There were other workers there, one a man standing upon a raised
platform beside the steel frame, who arranged big holders for
photographic plates. The slotted ceiling opened as McGuire watched,
and the whole structure swung slowly around. It was still, and the
towering steel frame began to swing noiselessly when a man at a desk
touched various controls. McGuire looked about him in bewilderment.

"Quite a shop," he admitted; "but where is the telescope?"

Professor Sykes pointed to the towering latticework of steel. "Right
there," he said. "Like everyone else, you were expecting to see a big
tube."

He explained in simple words the operation of the great instrument
that brought in light rays from sources millions of light years away.
He pointed out where the big mirror was placed--the one hundred-inch
reflector--and he traced for the wondering man the pathway of light
that finally converged upon a sensitized plate to catch and record
what no eye had ever seen.

He checked the younger man's flow of questions and turned him back
toward the stairs. "We will leave them to their work," he said; "they
will be gathering light that has been traveling millions of years on
its ways. But you and I have something a great deal nearer to study."

* * * * *

Another building held the big refractor, and it was a matter of only a
few seconds and some cryptic instructions from Sykes until the
eye-piece showed the image of the brilliant planet.

"The moon!" McGuire exclaimed in disappointed tones when the professor
motioned him to see for himself. His eyes saw a familiar half-circle
of light.

"Venus," the professor informed him. "It has phases like the moon. The
planet is approaching; the sun's light strikes it from the side." But
McGuire hardly heard. He was gazing with all his faculties centered
upon that distant world, so near to him now.

"Venus," he whispered half alou