is—"

"We know of six men who were captured," insisted Lockley, "and I was one of them. All six escaped. Vale may have escaped. They're not good at keeping prisoners. We don't know and can't know unless it's mentioned on a news broadcast that he's out and away. So there's absolutely no reason to assume that Vale is dead."

"But if he saw them, when he was fighting them—"

"The evidence," insisted Lockley again, "is that he[70] saw monsters. The only reason to doubt it is that they blindfolded four of us."

[70]

Jill seemed to think very hard. Presently she said resolutely, "I'm going to keep on hoping anyhow!"

"Good girl!" said Lockley.

They waited. He was impatient, both with fate and with himself. He felt that he'd made Jill face reality when—if this S.O.S. signal brought help—it wasn't necessary. And there was enough of grimness in the present situation to make it cruelty.

After a very long time they heard a faint droning in the air. There might have been others when they were trudging over bad terrain, and they might not have noticed because they were not listening for such sounds. There were planes aloft all around the lake area. They'd been sent up originally in response to a radar warning of something coming in from space. Now they flew in vast circles around the landing place of that reported object. They flew high, so high that only contrails would have pointed them out. But atmospheric conditions today were such that contrails did not form. The planes were invisible from the ground.

But the pilots could see. When one patrol group was relieved by another, it carried high-magnification photographs of all the park, to be developed and examined with magnifying glasses for any signs of activity by the crew of the object from space.

A second lieutenant spotted the S.O.S. within half an hour of the films' return. There was an immediate and intense conference. The lengths of shadows were measured. The size and slope and probable condition of the clearing's surface were estimated.

A very light plane, intended for artillery-spotting, took off from the nearest airfield to Boulder Lake.

And Lockley and Jill heard it long before it came[71] in sight. It flew low, threading its way among 

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