Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 146 No. 4 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE FIRE PEOPLE. year. During February—after Professor Newland’s statements—the subject received a tremendous amount of publicity. Some scientific men rallied to Professor New- land’s support; others scouted the idea as absurd. Officially, the governments of the world ignored the matter entirely. In general, the press, editorially, wrote in a humorous vein, conjuring up many ridiculous possi- bilities of what was about to happen. The public followed this lead. It was amused, interested to a degree; but, as a mass, neither apprehensive nor serious—only cu- rious. In some parts of the earth—among the ‘smaller Latin nations particularly=—some apprehension was felt. But even so, no-one knew what to do about it—where to go to avoid the danger—for the attack, if it came at all, was as likely to strike one country as another. The first week in March arrived with public interest steadily increasing. Mer- cury, always difficult of observation, pre- sented no spectacle for the public gaze and imagination to feed upon. But, all over the world, there were probably more eyes turned toward the setting and rising sun during that week than ever had been turned there before. Professor Newland issued no more state- ments after that evening I have described. He was taken with a severe cold in the latter part of February, and as Beth was in delicate health and did not stand the Northern winters well, the whole family left for a few months’ stay at their bungalow home in Florida. They were quite close to the little village of Bay Head, on the Gulf coast. I kept in communication with them there. 3 The 8th of March came and passed _e out a report from any part of the earth of the falling of the Mercutian meteors, Satirical comment in the press. doubled. There was, indeed, no scientific report of any unusual astronomical phenomena, ex- cept from the Harvard observatory the fol- lowing morning. There Professor New- land’s assistant, Professor Brighton, stated he had again observed a new “ star ”—an interplanetary vehicle, as Professor New- _tle country thronged its streets. 487 land described it. been observed this time. Only a single one had It was seen just before dawn of the oth. Then, about 4 p.m., Atlantic time, on the afternoon of the oth, ‘the world was electri- fied by the report of the landing of in- vaders in the United States. The news came by wireless from Billings, Montana. An interplanetary vehicle of huge size had landed on the desert in the Shoshone River district of northern Wyoming, west of the Big Horn Mountains. This strange visitor—it was described as a gleaming, silvery object perhaps a hun- dred feet in diameter—had landed near the little Mormon settlement of Byron. ‘The hope that its mission might be friendly was dispelled even in the first report from Bil- lings. The characteristic red and green light-fire had swept the country near by— a horizontal beam this time—and the town of Byron was reported destroyed, and in all likelihood with the loss of its entire popula- tion. The Boston Observer sent me to Billings almost immediately by quadruplane. I ar- rived there about eight o’clock on the eve- ning of the roth. The city was in a tur- moil. Ranchers from the neighboring cat- A perfect exodus of people—Mormons and oil men from Shoshone country, almost the entire populations of Cody, Powell, Garland, and other towns near the threatened section, the Indians from the Crow Reservation at Frannie—all were streaming through Bil- lings. ! The Wyoming State Airplane Patrol, gathered in a squadron by orders from Cheyenne, occasionally passed overhead, flashing huge white searchlights. I went immediately to the office of the Billings Dispatch. It was so crowded I could not get in. From what I could pick up among the excited, frightened people of Billings, and the various bulletins that the Dispatch had sent out during the day, the devel- opments of the first twenty-four hours of Mercutian invasion were these: Only a single “ vehicle ’—we called it that for want of a better name—had land- ed. Airplane observation placed its exact position on the west bank .of, the Shoshon COMiC DOORS. conn