Young George Carter had always particularly liked the little rock garden which lay on the declivity behind his home. His mother, now dead, had designed and planted it with loving care. In the spring, and particularly on hot summer evenings when the moonlight patched the garden with silver, it was his favorite spot, the place where he liked to sit alone, smoking and dreaming. Despite his intention of following in his father's footsteps and becoming a scientist, there was incongruously much of the dreamer, the romanticist, in young George Carter. At nineteen now, six feet tall, he was lean and rangy, with a rugged, handsome face, dark eyes and unruly, longish black hair. Admiring college girls had sometimes told him that he was a combination of Abe Lincoln and Lord Byron. That pleased him, though in his heart he knew it really wasn't very important. He was finished with his studies now, ready for the world of achievement. His father, a retired Professor of Ethnology, had arranged the financing of an exploring expedition. Alice—George's twin sister, who from birth had been blind—was going to visit distant relatives. George and his father would go to central Asia. Perhaps they would find some Neanderthal skeletons, crumbling bones that could be pieced together thrillingly to throw more light upon the nature of our savage ancestors of a few million years ago.