Marching Sands

It was neither question nor statement. It came in a level voice, the words dropping slowly from the lips of the man in the chair as if he weighed each one.

He might have been speaking aloud to himself, as he sat staring directly in front of him, powerful hands crossed placidly over his knees. He was a man that other men would look at twice, and a woman might glance at once--and remember. Yet there was nothing remarkable about him, except perhaps a singular depth of chest that made his quiet words resonant.

That and the round column of a throat bore out the evidence of strength shown in the hands. A broad, brown head showed a hard mouth, and wide-set, green eyes. These eyes were level and slow moving, like the lips--the eyes of a man who could play a poker hand and watch other men without looking at them directly.

There was a certain melancholy mirrored in the expressionless face. The melancholy that is the toll of hardships and physical suffering. This, coupled with great, though concealed, physical strength, was the curious trait of the man in the chair, Captain Robert Gray, once adventurer and explorer, now listed in the United States Army Reserve.

He had the voyager's trick of wearing excellent clothes carelessly, and the army man's trait of restrained movement and speech. He was on the verge of a vital decision; but he spoke placidly, even coldly. So much so that the man at the desk leaned forward earnestly.

"No, we don't want you to fail, Captain Gray. We want you to find out the truth and to tell us what you have found out."

"Suppose there is nothing to discover?"

"We will know we are mistaken."

"Will that satisfy you?"

"Yes."

Captain "Bob" Gray scrutinized a scar on the back of his right hand. It had been made by a Mindanao kris, and, as the edge of the kris had been poisoned, the skin was still a dull purple. Then he smiled.

"I thought," he said slowly, "that the lost people myths were out of date. I thought the last missing tribe had been located and card-indexed by the geographical and anthropological societies."

Dr. Cornelius Van Schaick did not smile. He was a slight, gray man, with alert eyes. And he was the head of the American Exploration Society, a director of the Museum of Natural History--in the office of which he was now seated with Gray--and a member of sundry scientific and historical academies.

"This is not a lost people, Captain Gray," He paused, pondering his words. "It is a branch of our own race, the Indo-Aryan, or white race. It is the Wusun--the 'Tall Ones.' We--the American Exploration Society--believe it is to be found, in the heart of Asia." He leaned back, alertly.

Gray's brows went up.

"And so you are going to send an expedition to look for it?"

"To look for it." Van Schaick nodded, with the enthusiasm of a scientist on the track of a discovery. "We are going to send you, to prove that it exists. If this is proved," he continued decisively, "we will know that a white race was dominant in Asia before the time of the great empires; that the present Central Asian may be descended from Aryan stock. We will have new light on the development of races--even on the Bible----"

"Steady, Doctor!" Gray raised his hand. "You're getting out of my depth. What I want to know is this: Why do you think that I can find this white tribe in Asia--the Wusuns? I'm an army officer, out of a job and looking for one. That's why I answered your letter. I'm broke, and I need work, but----"

Van Schaick peered at a paper that he drew from a pile on his desk.