"Something over night had grown up in my pasture. Don't ask me what it is. The whole hillside was filled with it. I went to the pasture to milk my goats--that's some distance from the house and over a rise; you know how rugged my land is--and there was the stuff, acres of it, twenty, thirty feet tall, like--like nothing I had ever seen before. And Silby"--his voice was suddenly low--"I could see it growing." At this remarkable statement, everyone in sound of his voice gaped with astonishment. Had it been any other Indian they would have said he was drunk--but not John Redpath. He didn't drink. "Growing?" echoed Silby stupidly. "Yes. The damn stuff was growing. But it wasn't that which stampeded me out of there. It was the globe." "The globe!" said Silby, more mystified than ever. "It was floating over the growing stuff, like a black balloon. Just over my place the balloon began to sift down a shower of pebbles. Like beans, they were; seeds, rather; for when they hit the ground they started to sprout." "Sprout?" The constable was capable of nothing more than an echo. "I'm telling you the truth," continued Redpath. "Incredibly fast. I had barely time to crank up the car and get out of there. I never would have done it if the strange growth hadn't left the way clear from the garage to the road. Silby, I had the devil of a time getting the wife and kids out of the house. When I looked back after going a quarter of a mile the house had disappeared under a tangled mass." There was no time for anyone to question John Redpath further. Even as he finished speaking a large automobile dashed up and out tumbled a well-dressed and portly red-faced stranger. "What the devil's the matter with the road above here? Funniest thing I ever saw. The road to Mount Lemmon's blocked. My family," he said inconsequentially, "is at Mount Lemmon for the summer and I want to get through to them." Blocked! The crowd stared at him wonderingly. John Redpath threw in his clutch. "So long," he said. "I've a brother in Tucson, and I'm going to his place until this blows over." As he left Oracle, John Redpath noticed several dark globes drifting down on it from the hills. The first inkling the outside world had of the terrible tragedy that was happening at Oracle came over the phone to Tucson while John Redpath was still en route to that city. "Hello, hello! Is this the police station? Silby speaking. Silby, town constable at Oracle. For God's sake, send us help! We're being attacked. Yes, attacked from the air. By strange aircraft, round globes, discharging--oh, I don't know what it is; only it grows when it hits the earth. Yes, grows. Oracle is hemmed in. And there are the birds--b-i-r-d-s, birds----" There was a stifled cry, the voice suddenly ceased, and the wire went dead.