Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/93

Rh margin on which life persists in the caves.

They, the original Red Men, the original tribes who entered the darkness, must have been recently persecuted and pursued and killed until they are no longer there in any numbers.

But, one hears from the West that still the Red Men struggle for life in the western and southern states and are succeding in holding large areas against the modern white monopolists: those same suppressors and secretives who keep the mighty wisdom of the Elder Work in the caverns from modern men of the surface.

This story is of that struggle: to give you these heretofore unwritten pages of the secret (in this case quite recent) history of our earth.

HE voice, out of the dark silence of the night, had said: "Every day one member of your Red Legion shall die."

Eonee Lane had paid no attention, for a voice in the night out of nowhere he knew could be anything. Could be his nerves, imagination, or the mischeivous and mad ones of the unseen below. But, one by one, the men of the Red Legion about Butte, Montana—had died!

One! Every day—one more! One every day! Why?

So hard it had been, building the Legion of the Loyal Red Men

Out of the hideous mire of futility that had consumed the Red Men;

Out of the miserable remnants of his race he had welded together this striving, active, educated and aware and able force of young men, seen it grow in numbers and in skill at the secret role they must play;

Out of a defeated and complacent nothing he had built, through the years, a strong and united spirit in the sons of his race, men who knew what terrific power might yet be won by them.

Now, suddenly, the unseen and mysterious underworld forces that had helped him so long; that had caused the Red Legion to grow almost miraculously to become a strong secret power through all the west; had turned instead into a destroying blight about Montana.

Every day some Indian friend's death was reported in the Butte daily news. No one noticed these deaths, apparently, but Lane. So far as he knew no one else had heard the voices in the night mocking the Red Legion and prophesying a daily death for its members; a prophecy that came true every day!

Each death was one strong son the ancient blood who had joined the legion.

Lane bent his black head into his arms, his strong back slumped over his desk. He felt old and beaten, though he was but thirty-eight.

The sun, shining redly out of the west into his wide office window, outlined the letters: "E. Lane and J. Stevens—Attorneys."

NOTHER, of very different apearanceappearance [sic] from surface man, but of the ancient blood that can still produce such vigorous fighters as Jim Thorpe and in the past has produced its share of Hiawathas—many, many men, now forgotten whose deeds rang then in the ears of all men on the American continent—yes, another of that fierce and ancient blood knew too of the deaths. Johnny Ahahne, his name, and he knew too, why these deaths occurred.

Johnny Ahahne, for the past few months, was reduced to bearing burdens. Before that, he had been a high-placed, somewhat lazy, member of the ruling caste of the tribe of Indians who held the caverns under Montana. They had more wealth and more power than most white men ever dream of possessing. They had, too, an ancient inability to make much use of the wealth and power—through lack of desire. Johnny Ahahne, Indian bearer, glanced at the notice, printed in, to him, nearly unreadable English words. Carries not Delivered on Deep Levels. He adjusted his tump strap, straightened his lean muscular legs under the 150-pound pack of luxury items from the surface. Silently he thanked the Great Spirit, and the mighty invisible serpent who had given his brothers courage to face death rather than submit to carrying the heavy packs to the deepest lower levels. Now they were not required to travel beyond their strength. Inwardly Johnny realized that this leniency was exercised only in order to keep them alive and available.