"The Manalava Plain as far as I could see had strangely become ruffled and strewn with broken rocks. Wide fissures and crevices were visible at every hand and on several occasions as I picked my way off the Plain I was forced to leap over them or make wide detours in order to pass. After terrible torture I eventually reached the spring in the little hidden canyon. There I drank deeply of the water that had previously been pale green in color and was now strangely colorless. I looked around the weather-broken wagons and searched the old trunk that Sands had found before we started to follow the phantom wagon with its two mysterious humans, but failed to find anything in which I could carry a supply of water. After rolling in the spring I struck off across the Valley. It was hell, friends, and I would have lain down many times to die, but the ever present vision of my wife and youngsters over at Balch, constantly beckoned me to continue. So here I am and I thank you, gentlemen, for saving my life!" IX _I Have Doubts_ Thus ended the strangest and most fascinating narrative that I had ever heard in my entire career as a newspaperman. I sat breathless at the very fearlessness with which the man narrated it and I could not help but believe him. It seemed impossible for him to conjure in his imagination, in so short a time, such a weird story. It could not have been done even by the most versatile tellers of fabricated stories! Long before he had finished his narrative, night had fallen and with it had come its myriads of brilliant stars glowing overhead. So entranced were Professor Bloch and I as he told it, that we failed to notice that the shrouds of night were lifting in the east as the sun cast its first vermilion rays into the darkened heavens. Through the night the foreman had continued his tale uninterrupted and when he eventually finished, mumbling his thanks to us, the desert world had suddenly become brilliant with the everchanging colors of a desert dawn. I stared intently into the glowing coals of the camp-fire, fascinated over the strange experiences he had unfolded to us. It was hard, very hard, to believe that tale, but somehow, it rang true. I shuddered at the thought of the grotesque Jovians and their uncanny powers. The Professor remained silent lost in deep thought, apparently mulling over the story in his scientific way. I glanced at him quickly, expecting to see doubt written plainly on his features. Instead they were more serious than I had ever beheld them. The foreman hung his head in a stupor of exhaustion. "Dowell!" Professor Bloch suddenly called to me as I sat staring into the fire. The abruptness of his voice caused me to jump nervously. "Yes, Professor," I answered, very glad that the awesome silence which had settled over us after the foreman had finished his narrative, had been broken. "I'm very much awake sir."