"God knows!" he muttered, in a tense voice. "It wasn't there this afternoon. Let's have a look at it."
Cautiously, not knowing what to expect, they advanced toward the singular phenomenon.
Nearing, they saw that it was a mechanism some twenty feet at the base and sixty or more feet high, pointed at the top.
"A rocket!" declared Professor Prescott. "Though I've never seen anything larger than a laboratory model, I'll gamble that's what it is."
"And I'll gamble you're right!" exclaimed Stoddard. "And one capable of carrying passengers, would you say?"
"Fully."
"Then I think we have solved the mystery of how these diamonds reach the market. The question now is, who's back of this thing? And since our position here probably isn't any too healthy—"
He broke off and drew his automatic, as a small, ghostly figure appeared—seemingly from nowhere.
The professor saw it, too—saw it followed by another, and another—and now he knew his eyesight had not failed him back on that wind-swept slope above, either, for these were actual creatures, incredible as they seemed.
The snow people?