Through the Crater’s Rim [Illustration] But even as I gazed, transfixed with horror, paralyzed by the sight, the vine threw its last coil about the dying man and before my eyes drew the quivering body into the tree above. Then something approached my leg. With a wild yell of terror I leaped aside. A second vine was writhing and twisting over the ground towards me. Through the Crater’s Rim By A. Hyatt Verrill Author of “Beyond the Pole” In this story the author of Beyond the Pole gives us another one of his amazing contributions to Scientifiction. Here we find a strange race living within an extinct volcanic crater somewhere in Central America. When it is remembered that only a few years ago an entirely new race was discovered by scientists in Panama, which are now known better under the name of White Indians, it should be understood that Mr. Verrill is not taxing your credulity by the strange race which he pictures in this story. We promise you a good half hour’s reading in this well-told tale. CHAPTER I INTO THE UNKNOWN “I tell you it’s there,” declared Lieutenant Hazen decisively. “It may not be a civilized city, but it’s no Indian village or native town. It’s big—at least a thousand houses—and they’re built of stone or something like it and not of thatch.” “You’ve been dreaming, Hazen,” laughed Fenton. “Or else you’re just trying to jolly us.” “Do you think I’d hand in an official report of a dream?” retorted the Lieutenant testily. “And it’s gospel truth I’ve been telling you.” “Never mind Fenton,” I put in. “He’s a born pessimist and skeptic anyhow. How much did you actually see?” We were seated on the veranda of the Hotel Washington in Colon and the aviator had been relating how, while making a reconnoissance flight over the unexplored and unknown jungles of Darien, he had sighted an isolated, flat topped mountain upon whose summit was a large city—of a thousand houses or more—and without visible pass, road or stream leading to it. “It was rotten air,” Hazen explained in reply to my question. “And I couldn’t get lower than 5,000 feet. So I can’t say what the people were like. But I could see ’em running about first time I went over and they were looking mightily excited. Then I flew back for a second look and not a soul was in sight—took to cover I expect. But I’ll swear the buildings were stone or ’dobe and not palm or thatch.” “Why didn’t you land and get acquainted?” enquired Fenton sarcastically.