By Murray Leinster Contents...

From some point far overhead a musical humming became audible. It was not the rasping roar of an aëroplane motor, but a deep, truly melodious note that seemed to grow rapidly in volume. The soft-voiced conversations on the upper deck were hushed. Every one listened to the strange sound from above. It grew and became clear and distinct. The source seemed to come nearer. At last the sound came from a spot directly overhead, then passed over and toward the Narrows. A cold breeze beat down suddenly.

New York was frightened, and the newspapers as they appeared did not allay that fear. The conservative Tribunal ran a scare head: HAS THE GLACIAL AGE COME AGAIN? and printed underneath a résumé of the phenomena up to the time of going to press—which did not include the appearance of the black flyer—with an interview from a prominent scientist. An enterprising reporter had routed the worthy gentleman out of bed and rushed him to the scene of the expanding ice cake in a fast motor boat, taking dow

Teddy Gerrod was stuffing his feet into heavy, fur-lined arctic boots. Ten or twelve soldiers were loading clumsy, awkward-looking engines on improvised sledges resting on the ice at the foot of the fort embankments. Others were putting equally ungainly iron globes with winged metal rods attached to them on other sledges. A dozen befurred and swathed figures came down the slope of the embankment and examined the preparations. A naval launch ran smartly alongside the edge of the ice, and a messen

Teddy threw himself out of the machine and rushed up the steps. Evelyn opened the door before he could ring, and his beaming face told her the news he had to give even without his enthusiastic, "It worked!" "The steam plume has stopped?" asked the professor anxiously. "Absolutely," said Teddy cheerfully. "Not a sign of steam except from two or three puddles of hot water that were cooling off when we left to get back to the fort. The commandant was setting his men to work with the navy-yard men w

Teddy put his hand comfortingly on Evelyn's shoulder. "There isn't anything I can say, Evelyn," he said awkwardly, "except that I couldn't have loved him more if he'd been my own father, and it hurts me terribly to have him go like this." Evelyn looked up. "Teddy," she said bravely, trying to hold back her sobs, "I've been fearing this for a long time, but—I can't believe it wasn't caused by that fearful Varrhus." "The professor did work very hard over that problem," admitted Teddy. "I don't mea

Teddy Gerrod straightened up and beat his hands together. "Forty-seven below," he said to the soldier behind him. "Put a marker here." He moved off to the right. Already a dozen little flags showed where the temperature reached that degree. Teddy was drawing what he would have termed an isothermal line—a line where the temperature was the same. He was making a circle about a large part of the open clearing on the ice floe. Other flags led back into the mist, marking a path, and from time to time

Teddy was thrown down by the concussion, and fell in a heap against the commandant. He leaped to his feet and rushed to the window, from which the glass had disappeared. He saw the remnants of the sheet of flame dying away and saw that the low-lying cloud of mist had been blown from the surface of the ice. A gaping orifice, five hundred feet across, showed itself where Teddy and the lieutenant had been working. Of the lieutenant and his men no trace could be seen. Two or three of the little red

New York lay below them. The long, straight lines of lights shining up through the semidarkness of the moonlit night made a strange appearance to the two in the swift machine. Davis had mounted to a great height, some ten thousand feet, and the pin points of light outlined more than a dozen cities and towns. The Hudson was a faintly silvery ribbon flowing down placidly from a far-distant source. Because of the ice cake in the Narrows its level had risen two or three feet, but now it flowed smoot

Next morning the world read at its breakfast table that the Mississippi River had frozen over just below St. Louis, and that the water was rising rapidly. The river had frozen solidly up to the surface. The level rose, and the water started to flow over the top of the ice cake, only to be turned into ice as it did so. Hour by hour the level rose, and hour by hour the solid ice barrier rose with the water level. Men had tried to blast a way through for the rushing waters, but without effect. As f

The stars winked palely from the graying sky. In the east a pallid whiteness showed which slowly yellowed and then turned to pink. The dawn was breaking. On the little reef men watched keenly. Far out at sea, its single funnel tipped with red paint from the crimson sunlight, a little boat tossed and rolled. That boat contained the men who had offered their lives for a chance to kill this Varrhus, who threatened the liberty of the world. Beside the camouflaged hangar two great horns, seeming to b

Teddy felt the fallen man's breast, but he was not breathing. In any event there was nothing that could have been done for him. An artery had been cut by a splinter of the one-pounder shell that had smashed the roof, and he had bled quietly to death, only trying desperately to land and get assistance before he died. The sight of Teddy and Davis sprinting toward him with drawn pistols had been too much for his hatred, however, and he had fired his automatic at them even as he was dying. Teddy fou