They had seen the buds on that earlier trip; had seen the revolting beauty of them--the fleshy lips that opened above a pool of death into which those reaching arms would drop any living thing they touched. They kept well out of reach when a splash of crimson against the white trees flashed in warning. Again they would traverse an open space, where outcropping rocks would send Kreiss into transports of delight over their rich mineral contents. But always their leader's eyes were turned toward a range of hills. "It is beyond there," he assured them, "if only we can reach it." Harkness pointed to a scar on a mountainside where a crystal outcrop in a sheer face of rock sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight. "I remember that--it isn't so very far--and we can look back down the valley from there and see our ship." "But we'll never make it to-night," said Chet; "it's a case of making camp again." They had gained an altitude of perhaps a thousand feet. No longer did the jungle press so hard upon them. Even the single file that had been their manner of marching could be abandoned, and Harkness drew Diane to his side that he might lend her some of his own strength. Again the soft contours of the rolling ground had been disturbed: a landslide in some other century had sent a torrent of boulders from the high slopes above. Harkness threaded his way among great masses of granite to come at last to an opening where massive monoliths formed a gateway. * * * * * It was an entrance to another valley. They did not need to enter, for they could skirt it and continue toward the high pass in the hills. But the gateway seemed inviting. Harkness took Diane's hand to help her toward it; the others followed. The fast sinking sun had buried itself behind a distant range, and long shadows swept swiftly across the world, as if the oncoming night were alive--as if it were rousing from the somnolence of its daytime sleep and reaching out with black and clutching hands toward a fearful, waiting world. "No twilight here," Chet observed; "let's find a hide-out--a cave, by choice--where we can guard the entrance and--" A gasp from Diane checked him. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "It is not real! _C'est impossible!_" Chet had been busied with the matter of a secure footing; he looked up now and took a step forward where Harkness and Diane stood motionless in a gateway of stone. And he, too, stopped as if stunned by the weird beauty of the scene.