Meantime, too, the glow over the stockade
was getting stronger. Presently the trees ceased; and there before
them the men saw a wide, cleared space, a hundred feet of empty land
between the woods and a tall, stout fence topped with live wires and
with numerous incandescents.
"Nice place to tackle, if anybody were left to defend it!" commented
Bohannan. None of the others answered. The Master started diagonally
across the cleared space, toward a cluster of little buildings and
stout gate-posts.
Hardly had they emerged from the woods, when, all up and down the
line, till it was broken by the woods at both ends where the stockade
joined its eastern and western wall, other men began appearing. And
all, alike, converged toward the gate.
But to these, the little party of four gave no heed. Other men
absorbed their interest--sleeping men, now more and more thickly
scattered all along the stockade. Save for a slight, saline tang
to the air--an odor by no means unpleasant--nothing remained of the
lethal gas.
But its victims still lay there, prone, in every possible attitude of
complete and overpowering abandonment. And all, as the party of four
passed, were quickly disarmed.
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