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Show i WliwiiLiLr and PHILIP WYLIE 5 Copyright by Edwin nalmer & Philip vyia j! ? WNU Scrvico i was. buttling her father, shouting him down, denying what had been laid before them nil. "Somebody," said Tony, "seems not to like what he has to hear." "Who Is he, Tony?" "Somebody who isn't very used to hearing what he doesn't like. . . . Oh Eve, Eve! My dear, my. dear! For the first time in my life. I'd like to be a poet; I wish for words to say what I feel. . . ." The sudden sud-den unmuft'ling of voices wjirned them that a door from the study hail opened ; some one had come out. It was her father. For a few moments he s.tood regarding them, debating what he should say. "Father," Eve said, "Tony and 1 Tony and I " Her father nodded. "I saw you for a few seconds before you realized real-ized I was here, Eve and Tony." Tony flushed. "We mean what you saw. sir," he said. "We more than mean it. We're going to be married as soon as we can aren't we, Eve?" " Can we. Father-.'" 5 . ju-" mo The argument In the room broke up and the arguers emerged. In a few minutes they all were gone; and Tony sought Cole Ilondron in his big study, where the plated which had come from South Africa were spread upon the table. There were squares of stars, usually usu-ally the same square of stars repeated re-peated over and over again. Then seemed to be a score oC exposures of the identical plate of close-clustered stars. "You were downtown today, Tony?" "Yes." "Today they took it, didn't they! They took It and closed the Exchange, Ex-change, I hear; and half the bust-nesses bust-nesses in town had a holiday. Foe they've known for quite some time that something has been hanging over them, hanging over the market. mar-ket. This morning we half told litem what It is; and they thought they believed it. Just now I told six men the other half or most of it and you heard them, Tony; they won't have it. The world won't come to an end; It can't possibly collide with another world, because well, for one thing, it never has done such a thing before, and for another, an-other, they won't have it. Not when you dwell upon the details. Tltey won't have it. Tomorrow there'U be a great swing back in feeling, Tony. The Exchange will open again; business is going on. That's a good thing; I'm glad of it. "The trouble is, men aren't really real-ly educated up to the telescope yet, as they are to the microscope. If a doctor took a bit of cell-tissue from any one of those men who were just here, and put it under che microscope, and said, 'Sorry, but that means you will die,' there isn't a man of them who wouldn't promptly put his affairs in shape. "None of them would ask to look through the microscope himself; he'd know it would mean nothing to him, "Riit they asked for Thomson's plates. I showed them ; here l hoy are, Tony. Look here. See this field of stars. All those fixed points, those round specks, every single one of thera is a star. But see here; there is a slight a very slight streak, but slill a streak. There, right beside it, is another one. Something Some-thing has moved, Tony! Two points of light have moved in a star-field whore nothing ought to move! A mistake, perhaps? A flaw in the coaling of the plate? Bronson considered con-sidered thisand other possibilities. He photographed the star-field again and again, night after night; and each time, you see, Tony, the same two points of light make a bit of streak. No chance of mis-rake; mis-rake; down there, where nothing ought to be moving, two objects have moved. lint all we have to show for it are two tiny streaks on a photographic plate. "What do. they mean? 'Gentlemen, the :time has come to put your house in order!' The affairs of all the world, the affairs of every one living in the world. Naturally, they can't really believe it. "Bronson himself, though he watched those planets himself night after, night for months, couldn't really believe it; nor could the other men who watched, in other observatories observ-atories south of the equator. "But they searched back over old plates of the same patch of the sky; and they found, in that same star-field, what they had missed before be-fore those same two specks always making tiny streaks. Two objects that weren't stars where only stars ought to be ; two strange objects that always were moving, where nothing 'ought' to move. "We need only three good observations ob-servations of an object to plot the course of a moving body; and already al-ready Bronson succeeded in obtaining obtain-ing a score of observations of these He worked out the result, and it was so sensational, that from the very first, he swore to secrecy every ev-ery one who worked with him and with whom he corresponded. They obtained, altogether, hundreds of observations; and the result always worked out the same. They al! checked (TO BK CONTINUED.) SYNOPSIS David Jtansdell, noLod aviator, has oen commissioned at Capetown to Iclivcr a consign men t of plioto-Eiaphic plioto-Eiaphic plates to Dr. Cole Uendron, m New York. Tony Drake calls al ihe Hendrons' apartment. Iiansdell ivrives and Eve Hendron. with ii'hoin Tony Is deeply in love, in-iroduces in-iroduces Tony to Iiansdell. New ?ork newspapers publish a statement state-ment made by Hendron. saying :hat Professor Bronson has diseov-trcd diseov-trcd two planets, which must have iroken away from another star or tun, and are approaching the earth. The result of the Inevitable collision col-lision must be the end of this H'orld. The approach ng bod !es are 'ef erred to as Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta. Bronson Alpha. It Is tsserted, will hit the earth and de-noltsh de-noltsh it. To devise means of transferring trans-ferring to Bronson Beta is what b occupying the minds of Hie mem-l-ers of the League of the Last Vays. CHAPTER III Continued 7 'Because of the tides, for one !hing. The moon, which "is hardiv in eighteenth of the world in m raises tides that run forty to sivrv feet. In places like the Bay oi Tundy." "Of course the tides," Tony r zer aloud. "Bronson Beta is the size of tne tarth, Tony; Bronson Alpha is esu-nared esu-nared to have eleven to tw amos that mass. That sphere win ass. the first time, within the or-it or-it of the moon. Bronson Beta win alse tides many times as high ; and bronson Alpha you can't express n ly mere multiplication. Tony. Now fork will be under water to imp ops of its towers a tidal wave ne-'ond ne-'ond all imagination ! The sea cor tf all the world will he swept nv lie seas, sucked up toward the ind washed back and forth. Tne raves will wash back to the An-talachians; An-talachians; find it will he the same n Europe and Asia. Holland. Boi-linm, Boi-linm, half of France and Oormnnv. lalf of India and China, will be un-ler un-ler the wave of water. There'll be in earth tide, too." "Earth tide?" "Earthquake from the pull on tne rust of the earth. ' Home of the nen writing to Father think thai fhe earth will he torn to pieces just ty the first passing of Bronson Alalia; Al-alia; but some of them think it will lurvive the strain." "What does your father t hink ?" "He thinks the earth will survive ;he first stress and that it is pos-lible pos-lible that a fifth of (he, population nay live through it. too.1 Of course that's only a guess." "A fifth." repeated Tony. "A fifth f all on the earth." Eve v.'as watching him.. Through Hie years of their friendship and fondness, she had seen Tony as a lormal man. to whom everything lhat happened was happy, felicitous ind ucbizarre. The only crises in ft'htch she observed him were emergencies emer-gencies on the football field, "and Uarms in the stock market, which !n the first case represented mere Sport, and in the second, money tvhich he did not properly understand, under-stand, because all bis life he had possessed money enough, and more. Now, as she watched him, she thought that she would meet with him and she exulted therein the most terrific reality that man had ever faced. So far as he had yet been called upon, he had met It without attempting to evade it; his effort had been solely for more complete com-plete understanding. A contrast to some of those men among them men who were called the greatest in I lie nation whose voices rose loud again behind the closed doors. Some one she could not identify htm from his voice, which ranted In a strange shrill raire evidently "New York Will Be Under Water to the Tops of Its Towers A Tidal Wave Beyond All Imagination! The Seacoasts of the World Will Be Swept by the Seas." Cole Hendron shook his head.; "There can't be marrying or love j Tor either of -yon. No tima ta JetH ; you why not ; only there can't." j "Why can't there be, sir?" ' "There's going to" be altogether too much else. In a few months, ; you'll know. Meanwhile, don't spoil j my plans by eloping. And don't go on doing what I just saw. It'll only make it harder for bo Hi of you as you'll see wheu you figure out what's before you. Tony, there'V nothing personal in that. I like you, i and you know it. If the world were going to remain, I'd not say a word ; but the world cannot possibly remain. re-main. We can tall; of this later." The study door ngain opened; some, one called him, and he returned re-turned to the argument in the next room. "Now," demanded Tony of Eve, "what in the world,' which cannot possibly remain, does he mean by that? That we shouldn't love and marry1 because we're going to die? All the more reason for it and quicker, too." "Neither of us can possibly guess what he . means, Tony ; we'd be months behind him in thinking; for lie's done nothing else, "realty, for half a year, but plan what we what all the human race will have to do. He means, I think, that he's put us in syrne scheme of things that won't let us marry." |