The fearsome-looking creature came on with hands upraised in a menacing gesture! Bud could not see its features in the darkness and did not wait for a close-up. Terrified at the thought of being crushed in its brutal grasp, he fled down the hill into the darkness of the woods.
       Stumbling and gasping, Bud plunged on among trees and bushes. For a hundred yards he heard the growls of his pursuer. Then the sounds behind him ceased. He paused beside a rock at the foot of a gully to catch his breath.
       "I'd better work out some kind of strategy," Bud muttered.
       He dared not go up the trail again, with the monster lurking at the top of the hill. And there was no point in taking any other direction since he would risk getting lost in the forest. He decided to lie down by the rock to wait for daybreak. Gradually his fears gave way to exhaustion, and he fell into an uneasy sleep.

       Although Tom was in a comfortable hotel bed, he did not sleep much better. He kept waking up and asking himself, "Did the Tall One recognize me on Santa Lucia Hill? If so, what should I do about it?" He rose early, worried.
       After breakfast Tom rented a car and drove to a Santiago street corner where he and Chow had agreed to meet. He picked up the roly-poly Texan, who boasted of having enjoyed a good night's sleep. "That's standard operating procedure." Tom grinned. "You could sleep through an earthquake!"
       As they rode along in the foothills of the Andes, they heard a faint cry. Chow placed a hand on his companion's shoulder.
       "Easy with the reins, pard. This nag's gallopin' too fast fer me to size up that maverick who's tryin' to hitch a ride with us!"
       Tom braked and gazed up the hill. "Say, Chow, that looks like Bud!"
       "Our brand, all right," the cook said as Bud ran toward them. "Why are you runnin' around on this here range?" he demanded as the youth jumped in.
       Tom stepped on the gas. The three were soon barreling along at top speed while Bud recounted his adventure with the giant. He explained that he had been asleep by the rock when the sound of a car's motor awakened him. He had come down to ask for a lift.
       "This creature you saw might be the so-called snowman that has been frightening the villagers," Tom remarked. "Could you lead me to the place you met him?"
       "Could I!" said Bud. "It's burned into my memory!"
       "We'll go there this afternoon on horseback. Perhaps we'll find some clue to what the creature is and where it hides."
       Tom briefed Bud on his encounter with the tall, thin man on Santa Lucia Hill. "It's possible the Brungarians know we're here," Tom added as he turned the car into the entrance of the Castilla hacienda.
       The orange grower was waiting for them with Burkart and Mr. Swift. "The two Chilean engineers are scouring the mountains for Alvarez and the cave with the mastodon," Castilla reported. "No luck so far."
       "I'll send a man with a can of gas to bring in your stranded car," Burkart told Bud. "From your description of the terrain, it must be just over the hill. And I'll have both cars driven back to the rent-a-car outfit where you fellows hired them."
       A few minutes later Chow called out, "Come 'n' git it!" At Castilla's invitation the Texan had installed himself in the kitchen and whipped up a second breakfast. "Scrambled eggs 'n'––"
       "Mushrooms!" Bud guessed.
       "You've hit the bull's-eye, Buddy boy!" Chow retorted. "I brought a sackful of 'em with me!"
       "You deserve a reward for that, Chow," Bud said, winking at Tom. "Why don't you join us for a ride through the mountains?"
       "Sure thing, pardner. No true Texan turns down a chance to git astride a cayuse!"
       As Chow disappeared into the kitchen, Bud whispered to Tom that he was going to get even with Chow for whipping up the never-ending mushroom concoctions.
       "I'll see that Chow gets a good scare in the mountains!" Bud said gleefully.
       Mr. Swift then escorted Tom and Bud through the lab he had constructed. "This is underneath those low tile-roofed outbuildings beyond the house," he explained. "We couldn't have finished it this soon except for your earth blaster, Tom. That machine chews rock like candy! It hollowed out this area in no time flat."
       The lab had two rooms. One, for general work, held a completed peri-prober, Tom's combination periscope and megascope for studying the heavens. The barrel of the peri-prober projected above-ground behind one of the buildings.
       Leading the way into the second room, Mr. Swift commented, "We'll handle the Photo-Essence in here, Tom, if and when you succeed in bringing a sample down to earth. We'll set up the Transmittaton on this side, and the receiving tank over there."
       "How's the work on the tank going at the university?" Tom asked.
       "Not too fast, I'm afraid. The plans have disappeared! The professors think a Brungarian agent stole them. I've sent duplicates, but it's a setback for all of us."
       "We'd better be prepared to get along without the Transmittaton, Dad."
       "Yes, Tom," his father agreed. "You may have to rely on your X-raser to release the mastodon from the ice. That's why the Sky Queen is parked in a remote valley with a skeleton crew aboard. Your Flying Lab can transport the beast. Also, a pilot is standing by with an ordinary jet in case additional transportation is needed."
       Bud was looking about the underground complex. "How many entrances does this lab have, Mr. Swift?" he inquired.
       "Two tunnels, Bud. The one we used when we came in from the hacienda cellar, and the other from the stable. They're camouflaged to keep intruders from finding them."
       After lunch Tom opened his suitcase and produced the Racodio model. Mr. Swift agreed to spend the afternoon working on the machine while the boys went by horseback with Chow to the place where Bud had seen the white giant.
       "I can't wait to git my legs around a hoss," Chow said with a wide grin.
       Señor Castilla ordered three of his finest ponies saddled. Tom and Bud mounted nimbly. Chow swung into the saddle with the practiced agility of a rider who had followed the cowpokes in the Texas Panhandle. His bowlegs got a firm grip on either side of his pony.
       "Yippee!" he cried, waving his hat. "Let's head fer the hills!"
       "This way, pardner," Bud shouted in reply.
       Following Burkart's directions, he started off at a rapid canter. When he reached the rock at the top of the hill, Bud reined in his mount and waited for the other two to join him.
       "Chow," said Bud, "remember the snowman I met in the mountains last night?"
       "Sure do!"
       "Well, this is the spot where I met him! I wonder if he's around today."
       "Don't talk like that, Buddy boy," Chow said uneasily, eyeing the narrow trail along a cliff. "I ain't fixin' to meet up with no such ornery critter!"
       "But suppose he's fixin' to meet up with you," Bud needled Chow. "Suppose he spooks your horse into a stampede through the Andes?"
       As if frightened by the words, the three ponies suddenly reared. Snorting, they began to buck and then run along the narrow ledge with a sheer drop of hundreds of feet.
       Tom and Bud fought to control their mounts. "Watch out," Tom yelled, "or we'll go over the cliff!"
       "I can't do anything with this fellow!" Bud shouted back.
       The ponies stopped running, but reared and bucked wildly. Suddenly firm hands grasped each bridle.
       "Whoa there, you critters! Whoa!" demanded Chow.
       He had jumped from his pony and miraculously got strong grips on the boys' bridles. The Westerner quickly subdued the excited mounts.
       "Thanks, Chow," Bud gulped. "You're an even better horseman than I thought. When I was kidding you, I didn't expect this to happen."
       "I wonder what spooked the ponies," Tom remarked. "Did the scent of some strange mountain creature make them buck like that?"
       He dismounted and walked back to examine the spot where the ponies had been frightened. "I don't see tracks," he said. "And I don't believe in any legendary snowman. But it is odd."
       "The creature I saw last night might have been a human being in disguise," Bud admitted.
       "Perhaps a Brungarian," Tom commented. "We should have thought of that."
       The three rode back to the hacienda, where they found that the Chilean engineers had returned from another fruitless search for Alvarez and the mastodon. Castilla and Burkart had questioned the villagers, but they also had failed to learn anything about the location of the cave.
       "It all seems hopeless," Castilla groaned.
       "And yet we can't give up!" Bud declared. "You'll have to think of something, Tom!"
       Chow came in to announce dinner was served. He had made friends with the hacienda's servants and introduced them to his box of mushrooms.
       He said solemnly, "I fixed yo' all a mushroom surprise. Spanish omelet with mushrooms for a first course." Bud meekly finished his without protest, but enjoyed the rest of the dinner more.
       That night Tom stayed up late testing his per-prober. Scanning the solar system in search of Mars, he found his angle too high. Diminishing this, it became too low, picking up terrestrial scenery, mostly the peaks of the Andes.
       He was about to reverse direction when something on the mountaintop caught his attention. "A circle of blue flames!" Tom gasped. "The phenomenon that's been scaring the Indians!"
       He called Bud, who hurried in. It required only a moments consultation for them to reach a decision on a course of action. After donning their mountaineering gear, they set out in one of Castilla's two jeeps. When they reached the foot of the peak, Tom and Bud began to climb.
       "The fire's out!" Bud cried as they drew near the summit.
       "Let's take a look at the site, anyway," Tom said, puffing. "We might find a clue."
       When they reached the top the boys could see the lights of Santiago far off to the west. Near them the mountains rose, peak after peak, with dark passes between them.
       As Tom and Bud gazed off into the distance a ring of fire suddenly flared up around tom and Bud! The blaze drew nearer and nearer. In a moment flames were licking at their parkas!"