e people, in spite of the crudities of their
own life, enjoyed some of the advantages of a fairly complex
civilization. Their implements were not hand-craft products, but showed
machine workmanship. There were two objects hanging on hooks on the
kitchen wall which he was sure were weapons. Both had wooden
shoulder-stocks, and wooden fore-pieces; they had long tubes extending
to the front, and triggers like blasters. One had double tubes mounted
side-by-side, and double triggers; the other had an octagonal tube
mounted over a round tube, and a loop extension on the trigger-guard.
Then, there was a box on the kitchen wall, with a mouthpiece and a
cylindrical tube on a cord. Sometimes a bell would ring out of the box,
and the woman would go to this instrument, take down the tube and hold
it to her ear, and talk into the mouthpiece. There was another box from
which voices would issue, of people conversing, or of orators, or of
singing, and sometimes instrumental music. None of these were objects
made by savages; these people probably traded with some fairly high
civilization. They were not illiterate; he found printed matter,
indicating the use of some phonetic alphabet, and paper pamphlets
containing printed reproductions of photographs as well as verbal text.

There was also a vehicle on the farm, powered, like the one he had seen
on the road, by an engine in which a hydrocarbon liquid-fuel was
exploded. He made it his business to examine this minutely, and to study
its construction and operation until he was thoroughly familiar with it.

It was not until the third day after his arrival that the chickens began
to die. In the morning, Hradzka found three of them dead when he went to
feed them, the rest drooping unhealthily; he summoned the man and showed
him what he had found. The next morning, they were all dead, and the cow
was sick. She gave bloody milk, that evening, and the next morning she
lay in her stall and would not get up.

The man and the woman were also beginning to sicken, though both of them
tried to continue their work. It was the woman who first noticed that
the plants around the farmhouse were withering and turning yellow.

* * * * *

The farmer went to the stable with Hradzka and looked at the cow.
Shaking his head, he limped back to the house, and returned carrying one
of the weapons from the kitchen--the one with the single trigger and the
octagonal tube. As he entere