Look to the Stars

From a narrow strip of shore that fringed a murky sea, sheer cliffs rose--black, beetling, forbidding. In one direction the rampart lost itself in the haze of a bleak horizon; i...

Whenever he found a scattering of the baked clay fragments, or even isolated lumps, Marlin made it a point to carry them down to the water's edge, where in due course they would...

For the most part, the vessel had proceeded without producing any sense of motion. A violent shift would have dislodged everything loose in the shell--the scaffolding, ladders,...

"But the pipe is still projecting from the outside. Our sheriff friend will probably have gumption enough to force it in, just as we did. He'll be plenty mad by the time he fini...

From the time of the disclosure that their hull was slowly corroding under the chemical action of the clay, he had appeared frightened and morose. Once or twice, as Marlin appro...

Dave Marlin stood on the ledge in the chill air of early morning, looking into the sodden depths below. The rain had ceased, but the rays of the newly risen sun as yet had scarc...

Both hurried to the single window. Where the wagon trail skirted the base of the rocky hillside, a half dozen crouching figures came into view. Armed with rifles and pistols, th...

Marlin regretted afterward that he had not attempted to offer Norma some antidote for her moody thoughts on her visit to his observation point. He might have tried to put in wor...

Marlin made no reply. But in the days that followed, while slowly regaining his strength, he observed the pair. It was clear that he was definitely out of the picture. The girl,...

Curiosity centered for a while upon the outlaw, who was making a slow recovery. She--for after a few days her sex had become general knowledge--kept moodily to herself, having l...

Maw Barstow was snoring stertoriously in her cubbyhole. Pearl, who should have occupied the pallet next to her, was gone. Sally, pale from the retching she had endured, was slee...

A light gleamed feebly through a small window. Closer approach revealed that it was set in a wall which formed the front of a dwelling partly extending back into the cliff.

He woke with a stifling sense of oppression. In that indefinite period between sleeping and waking, he struggled with a terrified conviction that the whole mass of the enclosing...

In an ordinary group, such an announcement might have brought hysterical outbursts from the women and at least some kind of clamor from the men. Eli's motley guests were either...

In the long run, she'd be glad that the father of her children still had the responsibility of caring for them. What if he did beat her occasionally? Recollection of the fight t...

McGruder, who as a rule evinced little interest in matters beyond eating, sleeping, and following the feminine members of the party with pig-like, calculating eyes, was the one...

The rain settled into a steady downpour. Drenched to the marrow, Dave Marlin struggled on through the darkness and mire. At times he stumbled away from the wagon trail and floun...

They managed to get the cylinder up on the scaffolding and to insert one end in the opening gouged in the outer shell. Slow but steady progress toward penetrating the gummy mass...