They watched, thrilled by the mystery of the midnight phenomenon. Minutes passed, but still it did not appear. Clee grew restive, and as his eyes chanced on his wrist watch he started violently and held out his arm for Jim to see. The radium-painted hands and dial were glowing with unusual brilliance. Looking quickly into the skies again, Clee sensed something wrong; something different. For a moment he could not figure out what--and then it came to him. One of the great stars, one that he had been watching in its climb up the sky through the night, had disappeared! * * * * * He got excitedly to his feet, grabbed his companion's arm and pointed out this strange thing--and as he pointed another star blinked out and did not reappear. "Something's happening up there," Jim said soberly. "I don't know what; but I, for one, don't feel quite comfortable." He kept peering at the place pointed out, at a spot of black even darker than the inky sky; or did he only imagine it was darker? he asked himself. Soon the spot enlarged; became a distinct patch; then, growing still, obliterated one star after another around its borders. It made a pure circle; and before long the starlight glinting off its sides showed it to be a great, tinted sphere. Swiftly it dropped down on the two men, and they watched it hypnotized, incapable of moving. It was only a hundred yards overhead when some presence of mind returned to Clee. "Run, Jim!" he yelled, moving away. "It's coming straight down!" Wilson came out of his daze and the two sprinted wildly for the path that led down the spur on which their camp was located. They had not made more than fifty yards when they heard a dull thud, and, turning, saw the great sphere resting on the ground with a slight rocking motion that quickly ceased. A gully cut into the trail ahead, and when they reached it Clee grabbed his partner's arm and pulled him off to one side, where, panting with their sudden exertion, they wormed up to the brow and peeped over at their strange visitor. * * * * * The sphere stood in the starlight on the very spot they had been occupying when they first saw it. Right in their campfire it lay--a great, dark-red crystal shape perhaps fifty feet in diameter, whose surface sparkled with innumerable facets. It rested quietly on the ground, as if oblivious of the two routed men breathlessly watching it from a short distance. No ports or variations of any kind were visible to mar its star-reflecting sides. "It must be some new kind of dirigible!" murmured Jim; "but why did it go and pick on us for its midnight call!" "It's a space ship from Mars," answered Clee with a serious face. "They heard you, and're coming to take you for your ride. See?" he added quickly, pointing.