Part 7

“Nobody,” panted Gray excitedly, “ever got it over fifty years of age!”

“Those who have come to us,” said Stephan, “have always been young.”

Gray struck his hands together.

“But it shouldn’t be that way!” he cried. “It should take all ages. It should show on the face and hands! Not one of you shows it on the face or hands. There should be a dark band across the forehead. The fingertips should be silver, and the fingers should be twisted and bent. . . . Have you ever seen a doctor?”

Stephan smiled grimly. “That”--he pointed again to Vladimir’s body--“when that was our master, he had a doctor to keep us alive. And there was never any doubt.”

“I was at Ellis Island,” said Gray excitedly. “I know what I’m talking----”

“It is finished,” said Stephan grimly. “We die. Go and send your soldiers or your people to kill us.”

“Cunningham, make him listen----”

“Go on, Gray,” said Cunningham hoarsely. His face was ashen. “They’d only put us in some--some horrible colony somewhere. I--I don’t want to live after this. If they want to die, let them. I’m going to stay and--and get killed with them, if I can.”

“Idiot!” snapped Gray. “I’ve been telling you for half an hour that the symptoms are all wrong. And I was on Ellis Island and I know what they have got! And I know how they got it. Why, you idiot, don’t you see that Vladimir was getting his father to send him slaves to work that damned mine? That the only way they could be kept as slaves would be to make them think they’d be killed if anybody else knew what he knew about them? They didn’t get that thing naturally. They were deliberately inoculated with _psoriasis_, a sub-tropical skin affection that looks enough like leprosy to give anybody a start, but doesn’t make a person unfit to work! These poor devils thought they were lepers, and they had a skin affection that is about as serious as dandruff! Creosote ointment or arsenic taken internally will cure it in ten days, and without one of those two things it lasts for years. Cooped up as they were, they reinfected each other. Believing themselves pariahs, they were afraid to run away from Vladimir until they had to. And he was trying to bluff them back to work in his mine. Don’t you see, you idiot? Don’t you see? It was a trick to get workers for his mine, workers who wouldn’t dare be disloyal to him. And when they had run away, why, he had to get them back or they might find out themselves what he’d done and tell where his mine was and about all the crimes he’s committed these twenty years back. Don’t you see, Cunningham, don’t you see?”

He turned to Stephan, who was staring at him incredulously.

“If you don’t think I’m telling the truth,” he snapped, “I’ll go and kiss every pretty girl in camp to prove it! You’ve been here twenty years. I can’t touch you. I can’t deport you. And I’m mighty glad of it! As for killing Vladimir and his brother, I’m going to do my best to get you medals for the performance. I’m going to set my men on these fool farmers and chase ’em home. We’ll sue them for the houses they’ve burnt. We’ll put that sheriff in jail. We’ll--we’ll---- Cunningham, you lucky son-of-a-gun, I’m going to be best man and kiss the bride!”

But Cunningham was already preceding him in that occupation.

18

It was a very, very long time later. Cunningham was sitting peacefully upon the veranda of a house among tall mountains. His eyes roved the length of a valley that was closed in at the farther end by precipitous cliffs. There were small, contented sounds from the house behind him.

A motor-car rolled up a smooth, graded roadway. A man by the road saw the occupant of the car and shouted a greeting. Cunningham sprang to his feet and ran down to meet it.

Gray tumbled out of the car and gripped Cunningham’s hand.

“I brought my fishing-rods,” he announced exuberantly. “Where’s that stream you were writing about?”

“Find it in the morning,” said Cunningham happily. “How d’you like our valley?”

Gray came up the steps and stared out at the empty space below him. There were tall buildings down in the valley floor--great concrete buildings, with a tall shaft-house where motors whirred and an engine puffed.

“There ain’t any such place!” announced Gray firmly. “I’m dreaming it! I found a concrete road leading here. I passed half a dozen motor-trucks on the way. And one scoundrel waved at me from a steering-wheel and I’ll swear he’s the chap that had a knife in the small of my back once, ready to stick it in.”

“Quite likely,” admitted Cunningham, grinning. “He is quite glad, now, that he did not stick it in. I’ve spread the news that you were the one who proved their title to the valley, through twenty years’ occupation.”

Gray squirmed, then grinned.

“Might be useful,” he admitted, “to be popular here, in case there are any more fire-ceremonies going on.”

Cunningham’s face was serious for a moment.

“They were desperate, then,” he said. “They’d tried the Christian God and things still looked black. So they called upon some ancient deities that their forefathers had worshiped.... You mustn’t blame them, Gray.”

“I don’t.” Gray grinned. “But I do want to study their dialect, Cunningham.”

“Go ahead. It’s disappearing. We’re going in for politics, and boy scouts, and radios. We are a long way from a railroad, but our mine has built a road to it, and we have a motor-truck line that’s as good as a trolley any day. We’re highly civilized now, Gray.”

He opened the door into the house. And there was Maria to smile and give Gray her hand.

“Your husband,” said Gray, “has been boasting outrageously about what’s happened in the valley since you people came back.”

“He did it all,” said Maria proudly. “Nobody does anything, ever, without asking him.”

Gray chuckled and lifted an eyebrow at Cunningham.

“You haven’t seen the prize exhibit yet,” said Cunningham hastily. “Chief!”

There was a movement and Stephan came up a flight of steps that led outside. There was a tiny figure balanced on his shoulders. Stephan twinkled as he saw Gray, and he set his burden on the ground.

“I found him,” he announced proudly, “going down the hillside with his air-rifle. He was going to hunt bears. That is a grandson!”

Gray stooped and beckoned. The small figure came shyly forward.

“Son,” said Gray gravely, “don’t you waste your time on small game like bears. Wait until you grow up a bit, and see a picture of a pretty girl in a magazine, and you find out where she is. And then--why, then you can start out on the route to romance and adventure.”

THE END

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in serial form in the March, April and May, 1928 issues of _Weird Tales_ Magazine.]