In a moment another message came. "All lookouts be doubly alert. Globe may be searched for. Miners making good progress. We can leave by sunset. Courage!——The Prince."
Strapping the remaining rocket torpedo to his shoulders, and thrusting his ray pistol ready in his belt, Bill walked back along the brink of the precipice until he saw a comparatively easy way to the red plain below, and scrambled over the rim. Erosion of untold ages had left cracks and irregularities in the rock. Because of the slighter gravity of Mars, it was a simple feat to support his weight with the grip of his fingers on a ledge. In five minutes he had clambered down to the bank of talus. Hurriedly he scrambled down over great fallen boulders, panting and gasping for breath in the thin air.
He reached the red sand of the plain—it was worn by winds of ages into an impalpable scarlet dust, that rose in a thin, murky cloud about him, and settled in a blood-colored stain upon his perspiring limbs. The dry dust yielded beneath his feet as he made his way toward the silent gray bodies, making his progress most difficult.
Almost exhausted, he reached the gray creatures, examined them. They were far different from human beings, despite obvious similarities. Each of their "hands" had but three clawed digits; a curious, disk-like appendage took the place of the nose. In skeletal structure they were far different from homo sapiens.
Wearily Bill trudged back to the towering red cliff, red dust swirling up about him. He was oddly exhausted by his exertions, trifling as they had been. The murky red dust he inhaled was irritating to his nostrils; he choked and sneezed. Sweat ran in muddy red streams from his body, and he was suddenly very thirsty.
All the top of the red granite plateau—it was evidently the stone heart of an ancient mountain—was hidden from him. He could see nothing of the Red Rover or any of her crew. He could see no living thing.
The flat plain of red dust lay about him, curving below a near horizon. Loose dust sucked at his feet, rose about him in a suffocating saffron cloud. The sun, a little crimson globe in a blue-black sky, shone blisteringly. The sky was soberly dark, cold and hostile. In alarmed haste, he struggled toward the grim line of high, red cliffs.
Then he saw a round white object in the red sand.
Pausing to gasp for breath and to rub the sweat and red mud from his forehead, he kicked at it curiously. A sun-bleached human skull rolled out of the scarlet dust. He knew at once that it was human, not a skull of a creature like the gray things behind him on the sand.