of my return, nor could I find any member of my former party who

could lead me to the same spot.

For months I searched that scorching land, interviewing countless

desert sheiks in the hope that at last I might find one who had

heard of Innes and his wonderful iron mole. Constantly my eyes

scanned the blinding waste of sand for the ricky cairn beneath

which I was to find the wires leading to Pellucidar--but always

was I unsuccessful.

And always do these awful questions harass me when I think of David

Innes and his strange adventures.

Did the Arabs murder him, after all, just on the eve of his departure?

Or, did he again turn the nose of his iron monster toward the inner

world? Did he reach it, or lies he somewhere buried in the heart

of the great crust? And if he did come again to Pellucidar was it

to break through into the bottom of one of her great island seas,

or among some savage race far, far from the land of his heart's

desire?

Does the answer lie somewhere upon the bosom of the broad Sahara,

at the end of two tiny wires, hidden beneath a lost cairn? I wonder.

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