The bearded man went back to his seat and picked up the gnawed bit of meat again. The dispute had ceased. The chattering group of men dispersed.
Tommy was about to leave the eyepiece of the instrument when a movement nearby caught his eye. A head peered cautiously toward the encampment. A second rose beside it. Denham and his daughter Evelyn. They were apparently no more than thirty feet from the dimensoscope. Tommy could see them talking cautiously, saw Denham lift and examine a metal truncheon like the bearded man’s, and force his daughter to accept it. He clutched a club, himself, with a grim satisfaction.
Moments later they vanished quietly in the thick fern foliage, and though Tommy swung the dimensoscope around in every direction, he could see nothing of their retreat.
He rose from that instrument with something approaching hopefulness. He’d seen Evelyn very near and very closely. She did not look happy, but she did look alert rather than worn. And Denham was displaying a form of competence in the face of danger which was really more than would have been expected in a Ph.D., a M.A., and other academic distinctions running to most of the letters of the alphabet.
“I’ve just seen Denham and Evelyn again,” said Tommy crisply. “They’re safe so far. And I’ve seen one of the weapons of the Ragged Men in use. If we can get a couple of automatics and some cartridges to Denham, he’ll be safe until we can repair the big solenoid.”
“There was the small catapult,” said Von Holtz bitterly, “but it was dismantled. The Herr Professor saw me examining it, and he dismantled it. So that I did not learn how to calculate the way of changing the position—”
Tommy’s eyes rested queerly on Von Holtz for a moment.
“You know how to make the metal required,” he said suddenly. “You’d better get busy making it. Plenty of it. We’ll need it.”