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their knees.
    “You each have one of Monk’s gas bombs?” Doc asked, just to be sure.
    They had.
    Doc breathed terse orders of campaign. “Monk in front, Long Tom and Johnny on the right, Renny on the left. I’ll take the back. Ham, you stay off to one side as a sort of reserve if some quick thinking and moving has to be done.”
    Doc gave them half a minute to place themselves. Not long, but all the time they needed. He went forward himself.
    The red brick house on the comer had two ramshackle stories. It had been deserted a long time. Two of the three porch posts canted crazily. Shingles still clung to the roof only in scabs. The windows were planked up solid. And the brick looked rotten and soft.
    The street lamp at the corner cast light so pale as to be near nonexistent.
    Doc encountered brush, eased into it with a peculiar twisting, worming movement of his powerful, supple frame. He had seen great jungle cats slide through dense leafage in that strangely noiseless fashion, and had copied it himself. He made absolutely no sound.
    And in a moment, he had raised his quarry.
    The man was at the rear of the house, going over the back yard a foot at a time, lighting matches in succession.
    He was short, but perfectly formed, with a smooth yellow skin, and a seeming plumpness that probably meant great muscular development. His nose was curving, slightly hooked, his lips full, his chin not particularly large. A man of a strange race.
    The ends of his fingers were dyed a brilliant scarlet.
    Doc did not reveal himself at once, but watched curiously.
    The stocky, golden-skinned man seemed very puzzled, as indeed he had reason to be, for what he sought was not there. He muttered disgustedly in some strange clucking language.
    Doc, when he heard the words, held back even longer. He was astounded. He had never expected to hear a man speaking that language as though it were his native tongue. For it was the lingo of a lost civilization!
    The stocky man showed signs of giving up his search. He lit one more match, putting his box away as though he didn’t intend to ignite more. Then he stiffened.
    Into the soaking night had permeated a low, mellow, trilling sound like the song of some exotic bird. It seemed to emanate from underfoot, overhead, to the sides, everywhere—and nowhere. The stocky man was bewildered. The sound was startling, but not awesome.
    Doc was telling his men to beware. There might be more of the enemy about than this one fellow.
    The stocky man half turned, searching the darkness. He took a step toward a big, double-barreled elephant rifle that leaned against a pile of scrap wood near him. It was of huge caliber, that rifle, fitted with telescopic sights. The man’s hand started to close over the gun. And Doc had him! Doc’s leap was more expert even than the lunge of a jungle prowler, for the victim gave not even a single bleat before he was pinned, helpless in arms that banded him like steel, and a hand that cut off his wind as though his throat had been poured full of lead.

    SWIFTLY, the others came up. They had found no one else about.
    “I’d be glad to hold him for you!” Monk suggested hopefully to Doc. His furry fingers opened and shut.
    Doc shook his head and released the prisoner. The man instantly started to run. But Doc’s hand, floating out with incredible speed, stopped the man with a snap that made his teeth pop together like clapped hands.
    “Why did you shoot at us?” Doc demanded in English.
    The stocky man spewed clucking gutturals, highly excited.
    Doc looked swiftly aside, at Johnny.
    The gaunt archaeologist, who knew a great deal about ancient races, was scratching his head with thick fingers. He took off the glasses with the magnifying lens on the left side, then nervously put them back on again.
    “It’s incredible!” he muttered. “The language that fellow speaks—I think it is ancient Mayan. The lingo of the tribe that built the great pyramids at Chichen Itza, then