His musings thus completed, Myles hurried to the public hall to communicate this discovery to Crota and the village authorities. He found the headman already there in conference with Crota. Said Myles, exhibiting the bullet: “Here is one of the magic stones thrown by one of my own magic sling-shots, which is capable of shooting from the ground to the top of your cliffs and even penetrating your palisade. It is big magic! With its aid, the Roies can overcome us. Without it, I am powerless. Therefore, we must secure possession of it. What do you suggest?” Crota replied: “It is now sunset. Let us select a squad of picked scouts and try to stalk the camp of the enemy.” “No, no!” the headman of Sur exclaimed in horror. “Never have our men dared to attack the Roies by dark.” “Do the Roies know this?” Myles asked with interest. “Most certainly,” was the reply. “Then,” he said, “all the more reason for attempting it They will be unprepared.” The magistrate shrugged his furry shoulders with: “If you can persuade any men of Sur to attempt anything so foolhardy, I shall interpose no objection.” Within a twelfth of a day, Crota had enrolled twenty scouts, and with Myles Cabot, they had all begun the stealthy descent of the narrow winding path down the face of the cliff. Before starting, they had observed the direction of the Roy camp-fires on one of the surrounding hills; so now they crept quietly toward that hill, and then slowly up to its crest. In spite of the dense blackness of the Porovian night, they were able to find their way, first by starting in the correct direction and then by keeping the lights of their own village always behind them. As Cabot had expected from the remarks of the headman, there were no sentinels on post, for the enemy were quite evidently relying on the well-known Vairking fear of the unknown terrors of the dark. Indeed, it spoke volumes for the individual courage of the twenty-one members of this venture, and for their confidence in their earth-man leader, that they had dared to come. Finally, the party emerged from the underbrush at the top of the hill, a few score of feet from the tents and camp-fires of the Roies. There, motioning the others to remain where they were until he gave a signal, Myles crawled forward, always keeping in the shadow of some tent, until he was able to peek through a small bush beside one of the tents, directly at the group around one of the camp-fires. Just as Cabot arrived at this observation post, a Roy warrior was declaiming: “I told you it would work, for had I not seen it demonstrated fully to me? You yourselves saw it kill. Now will you not believe me?” Another spoke: “I cannot understand its principle. How can a weapon kill afar, and yet not resemble either a sling or a bow?” And another: “Show us how it works, friend. Then perhaps we may be persuaded.” And a third: “I do not believe that he has it.”