He waited a moment, then placed his eye to the eye-piece once more.
And then he sucked in his breath in wonder. The atmosphere had grown suddenly clearer, it seemed, or else the rest had benefited his eyesight. A low cry burst from his lips. For there before him, very faint but unmistakable, stood the hairlike lines of the figure he had longed for years to see again.
Was he insane? Had he looked too long? Was his mind wrought up to such a pitch that it was grasping at an optical illusion?
His camera and the color screen! That would prove whether or not his eyesight had betrayed him. Almost beside himself with eagerness, he clattered down the ladder, got his camera and the screen, and clambered to the top again.
Then a shot rang out, and he heard the thud of a bullet as it struck the metal dome.
Lee Sweet again! Or some of his men! No matter. No time now to think of them!
Again came a shot and a thud above him. The rifleman was shooting high in an effort to frighten him, thinking him on the floor and safe from harm. Well, he was not on the floor. He was high up in the dome, in the direct line of the bullets. Let them fire! What mattered it? He had seen the configuration on Mars which was to make him famous. That, or he had lost his reason. What mattered it? Let them shoot!
There came a fusillade of shots, and the dome rattled. Again and again it was repeated, and all the time Cole of Spyglass Mountain was setting up his camera and adjusting the color screen to photograph the strange hairlike figure he had seen.
He stepped one side on the ladder, at last ready to press the bulb. Another shower of bullets rattled against the dome, followed by a single shot and a lusty yell. Then before he could press the bulb everything went black, and Cole of Spyglass Mountain swayed and tumbled down the ladder, dragging his camera after him.