Evidently it took some doing. Faced with a familiar danger, there is no human more courageous than an Indian. But the thought of entering the yawning maw of that steel cavern would have shaken the nerves of Manabus himself.
Finally the visiting Indian's oratory paid off, and nine or ten of the tribal leaders reluctantly entered the spaceship. Two robots took up positions on the ramp to discourage kibitzers, and after an hour or so in which nothing more happened, the rest of the camp returned pretty much to normal.
Mid-afternoon came and passed, and still the meeting inside the ship went on. Enoch was finding the tree branch not the most comfortable place to spend a weekend, and he was growing steadily more uneasy by his father's continued absence.
More hours passed. The sun was gone now and campfires began to dot the night. Orders or no orders, Enoch decided, he was going to find his Pop. With a stealth equal to that of any Indian, he dropped to the ground and began a cautious advance in the direction his father had taken hours before.
Suddenly the bushes crashed apart directly in front of him, and his father came bounding through. Only a few yards back, its giant strides rapidly closing the gap, came one of the huge steel men.
Enoch's gun flashed up and he fired without aiming. The bullet struck one of the robot's huge eyes, shattering the glass and sending the towering figure crashing headlong into a tree. At the same instant, an ear-shattering wail came from the fallen robot, and powerful rays of light flashed from the rim of the spaceship to bathe the spot where the two Wetzels stood.
Mixed with the siren wail from the fallen man of steel came a chorus of blood-curdling warhoops as the Indians made out the figures of the two men, and a hundred braves came pouring across the clearing toward them. Instantly the two scouts took to their heels, darting through the inky blackness of the forest with the sure-footed celerity of long practice.
They would have escaped easily under ordinary circumstances. But suddenly the blast of another siren sounded directly ahead and a lance of light impaled them. Blinded, they stumbled aside, only to be caught by still another beam.
The two men split apart and dived for cover. Enoch, finding himself shielded from the rays by the thick bole of a tree, scrambled into its branches. A moment later the first wave of Indians passed below him.