It was a city of enchantment, seen from our car. The jagged, serrated outline of its buildings loomed blackly against the glowing light, like the skyline of New York at the same hour. The buildings were all square and solid in appearance, and at the center of them there rose one building that towered far above the others, to a mighty height, its straight, perpendicular sides and flat roof standing up above the others, frowningly, brutally dominating them. There was a gasp at my side, and I turned to see that Lantin was also gazing at the outline of the distant city. He had brought the car to rest, and together we looked away toward that metropolis of the future. "We must go there," I said rapidly. "Spy out the place from a distance, learn what we can about it. Do you think that it is the home of the Raider?" "It may be," he said, "but we must be careful, Wheeler. It wouldn't do to enter that place blindly, not knowing what manner of people inhabit it. Nor can we risk having the car destroyed or taken from us, as it's our only way to get back to our own time. The best plan would be to hide the car some distance from the city, and then go nearer on foot, learning as much as we can about the place before venturing inside." And so we decided. Starting the car again, we sped along low over the ground, and finally, some five miles away from the city, came across a little range of rugged hills which appeared quite wild and uninhabited, like all the rest of the country we had traversed so far. On the slope of one of these hills was a little, shelflike clearing, patched with small trees, and we selected this for our hiding place, bringing the car gently down to rest on the ground there. We stepped out, cramped and stiff from our hours in the car, and then proceeded at once to hide it, breaking off big branches from the trees around us and planting them in the ground in such fashion that any casual passer-by would never have suspected the car's existence. When it was concealed to Lantin's satisfaction, we made a hasty meal from the food brought with us, and then prepared for our trip toward the city. The rifles we left in the car, as they were too heavy and cumbersome to carry through the thick underbrush that lined the slopes around us, but we looked to the pistols in our belts, which were of almost as heavy a caliber as the rifles. Then, with a last look at the car, we made our way down the slope to the bottom of the little valley which was formed by two low ranges of hills, on one of the slopes of which our car lay hidden. We followed this valley north for some distance, the hills on each side leveling down to mere dunes as we approached its ends. A thick little wood lay directly across the end of it, and through this we forced our way, as quietly as possible. It gradually grew thinner, and then with a sudden shock we emerged from it into open fields.