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thought of that, too. He was drunk, of course, and probably wouldn't be so wild-sounding, sober — but from the looks of him he'll never be sober again till he dies. No use trying to find out anything more from him. And the other — well, did you ever try to find out anything from a drylander? Even a sober one?”
    Yarol lifted expressive shoulders. “I know. If we go into this, we go blind. Never dig any more out of those drunks. But something certainly scared them.”
    “And yet, “said Smith, “I'd like to know more about this. Dust of the gods — and all that.
    Interesting. Just what does he want with this dust, anyhow?”
    “Did you believe that yarn?”

    “Don't know — I've come across some pretty funny things here and there. He does it half-cracked, of course, but — well, those fellows back there certainly found something out of the ordinary, and they didn't go all the way at that.”
    “Well, if he'll buy us a drink I say let's take the job, “said Yarol. “I'd as soon be scared to death later as die of thirst now. What do you say?”
    “Good enough,” shrugged Smith. “I'm thirsty, too.”
    The little man looked up hopefully as they reseated themselves at the table.
    “If we can come to terms,” said Smith, “we'll take it. And if you can give us some idea of what we're looking for, and why.”
    “The dust of Pharol,” said the husky voice impatiently. “I told you that.”
    “What d'you want with it?”
    The little bright eyes stared suspiciously across the table into Smith's calm gaze.
    “What business is it of yours?”
    “We're risking our necks for it, aren't we?”
    Again the bright, small eyes bored into the Earthman's. The husky voice fell lower, to the very echo of a whisper, and he said, secretly,
    “I'll tell you, then. After all, why not? You don't know how to use it — it's of no value to anyone but me. Listen, then — I told you that the Three incarnated themselves into a material form to use as a door through which they could reach humanity. They had to do it, but it was a door that opened both ways — through it, if one dared, man could reach the Three. No one dared in those days — the power beyond was too terrible. It would have been like walking straight through a gateway into hell. But time has passed since then. The gods have drawn away from humanity into farther realms. The terror that was Pharol is only an echo in a forgetful world. The spirit of the god has gone — but not wholly. While any remnant of that shape which was once incarnate Pharol exists, Pharol can be reached. For the man who could lay hands on that dusk, knowing the requisite rites and formulae, all knowledge, all power would lie open like a book. To enslave a god!”
    The raw whisper rasped to a crescendo; fanatic lights flared in the small, bright eyes. He had forgotten them entirely — his piercing stare fixed on some shining future, and his hands on the table clenched into white-knuckled fists.
    Smith and Yarol exchanged dubious glances. Obviously the man was mad. . . .
    “Fifty thousand dollars to your account in any bank you choose,” the hoarse voice, eminently sane, broke in abruptly upon their dubiety. “All expenses, of course, will be paid. I'll give you charts and tell you all I know about how to get there. When can you start?” Smith grinned. Touched the man might be, but just then Smith would have stormed the gates of hell, at any madman's request, for fifty thousand Earth dollars.
    “Right now,”he said laconically. “Let's go.”

II
    Northward over the great curve of Mars, red slag and red dust and the reddish, low-lying dryland vegetation gave way to the saltlands around the Pole. Scrub grows there, and sparse, coarse grass, and the snow that falls by night lies all the cold, thin day among the tough grass-roots and on the hillocks of the dry salt soil.
    “Of all the God-forsaken countries,” said Northwest Smith, looking down from his pilot seat at the gray lands