"Good God, Mortenson!" Steckel groaned. "We're out-numbered fifteen to one!"
The scientist shuddered, his eyes bulging with terror. "We can't lie here and let them run us down!" he mumbled tensely. "Order your men to shoot their mounts! That'll stop them for the present!"
Steckel stood up impulsively. His head and shoulders rose above the lush. His men lay around him, watching the approaching horde through the vegetation. Before he could give an order, something tugged at his sleeve. A dull report followed and a wisp of white smoke floated from the back of one of the running monsters. Steckel sank with a groan, his left arm feeling numb.
"He got me!" he said dismally. "The killer!"
"Hurt bad, Chief?" Barton quizzed, excitedly.
Steckel shook his head. "Creased me, Barton," he replied. Then he yelled at his men. Instantly the lush at the edge of the clearing became a hornet's nest. The machine guns rattled dully. Mortenson's pistol cracked and his target pitched to the ground. A half-dozen beasts reared up, screamed hideously, and rolled over, spilling their riders headlong. The latter dodged behind the prostrate beasts and showered the ambushers with a hail of arrows.
A shaft buried itself in Riley's chest. He emitted a shrill death cry and rolled over, clutching frenziedly at the arrow. Steckel picked up the detective's machine gun and sent death into more of the running beasts. But there was no halting their mad rush. They continued on toward the men in the lush and the creatures on their backs were either tremendously courageous or too stupid to sense their own danger. They stuck to their mounts until they fell. The clearing was littered with dead and dying. Then the last of the beasts went down under a solid barrage of bullets from the machine guns. It was literally torn to pieces. The riders were buried under it as it rolled over on its back.
Mortenson had a glimpse of a human being running back toward the town. Instantly his automatic went up, but Mortenson had never been a marksman. He emptied his gun at the fleeing desperado and groaned as the man vanished from view. He turned quickly to Steckel. The chief was shooting wildly at the dead beasts hoping to down some of the hideous creatures shielded behind them.
"Steckel!" Mortenson called to attract his attention. The chief looked around, quizzically. "The bandit just ran into a shack to the left," the scientist continued. "I saw him! He didn't have on his Fifth Dimensional apparatus! We've got to get him before he puts it on and vanishes back to our own world! What do you say we rush the town?"
"We'll be killed, Mortenson!" Steckel declared excitedly. "Those devils will run us through with arrows, before we get half-way across the clearing!"