ollow of the second. It required force to thrust it through. It went
still more stiffly into the third magnet. It required nearly all his
strength to thrust it on, and on.... The end of it vanished. He pushed
two feet or more of it beyond the last place where it was visible. It
went into the magnet that hurt one's eyes. After that it could not be
seen.

Tommy's voice was strained.

"Swing the dimensoscope, Smithers," he ordered. "See if you can see
the wire. The end of it should be in the other world."

It seemed an age, an aeon, that Smithers searched. Then:

"Move it," he said.

Tommy obeyed.

"It's there," said Smithers evenly. "Two or three feet of it."

* * * * *

Tommy drew a deep, swift breath of relief.

"All right!" he said crisply. "Now we can fling anything we need
through there, when our globe arrives. We can built up a dump of
supplies, all sent through just before we slide through in the globe."

"Yeah," said Smithers. "Uh--Mr. Reames. There's a bunch of Ragged Men
in sight, hauling something heavy behind them. I don't know what it's
all about."

Tommy went to the brass tube and stared through it. The tree-fern
forest, drawing away in the distance. The vast and steaming morass.
The glittering city, far, far in the distance.

And then a mob of the Ragged Men, hauling at some heavy thing. They
were a long way off. Some of them came capering on ahead, and Tommy
swung the dimensoscope about to see Denham and Evelyn dart for cover
and vanish amid the tree-ferns. Denham was as ragged as the Ragged
Men, by now, and Evelyn's case was little better.

Frightened for them, Tommy swung the instrument about again. But they
had not been seen. The leaders who ran gleefully on ahead were merely
in haste. And they were followed more slowly by burly men and lean
ones, whole men and limping men, who hauled frantically on long ropes
of hide, dragging some heavy thing behind them. Tommy saw it only
indistinctly as the filthy, nearly naked bodies moved. But it was an
intricate device of a golden-colored metal, and it rested upon the
crudest of possible carts. The wheels were sections of tree trunks,
pierced for wooden axles. The cart itself was made of the most
roughly-hewed of timbers. And there were fifty or more of the Ragged
Men who dragged it.

The men in advance now attacked the underbrush at the edge of the
forest. They worked with a maniacal energy, clearing away the long