A moment later the two youths were bending over a pair of human skeletons whitened by years of exposure. With them there lay several coins, two tarnished brass buckles and the rusted remnants of a few metal buttons. The owners of those bones had obviously been dead for a very long time.
"These are evidently the men that Diaz spoke of," said Pelton, "but what in the name of Heaven could have killed them, George?" There was a look almost expressive of fear in his face.
"Volcanic gases, probably," essayed Calhoun.
"Impossible, man!" returned Pelton; "This volcano has certainly been extinct for ages."
Calhoun knelt down beside the skeletons and began to examine them. "Let's see if there are any marks of violence, fractured skulls, broken ribs, or anything," he said.
Pelton stepped back from the ghastly patch of earth. Never afterward was he able to tell exactly why.
And then a miracle happened—a miracle and a tragedy. The setting sun at last escaped from the cloud that covered it and its ruddy rays, coming over the summit of a nearby Andean peak, fell upon the mass of crystal at the western edge of the valley. A beam of bluish light, like the reflection from the glossy scales of a black serpent and more evilly gorgeous than the slumbering fires of a thousand opals, leaped from it. The ray struck Calhoun squarely. He staggered to his feet, uttered a choking cry, and crumpled lifeless to the earth! A few moments later the sun dropped behind the mountains and "The Devil's Nest" was again in shadow.
Ready for Battle
Six more weeks rolled by and, now the Asiatic Air Fleet advancing up the Mississippi Valley was only five hundred miles from Chicago. Should this last big city of the Occident be destroyed, all hope for further resistance would immediately crumble; for here were situated the munition factories and here was the government that kept the dwindling energies of the United States organized.