The story is recalled in a first-person perspective by the geologist William Dyer, a professor at Arkham's Miskatonic University, in the hope to prevent an important and much publicized scientific expedition to Antarctica. Throughout the course of his explanation, Dyer relates how he led a group of scholars from Miskatonic University on a previous expedition to Antarctica, during which they discovered ancient ruins and a dangerous secret, beyond a range of mountains higher than the Himalayas.
When the main expedition loses contact with Lake's party, Dyer and his colleagues investigate. Lake's camp is devastated, with the majority of men and dogs slaughtered, while a man named Gedney and one of the dogs are absent. Near the expedition's campsite, they find six star-shaped snow mounds with one specimen under each. They also discover that the better preserved life-forms have vanished, and that some form of dissection experiment has been done on both an unnamed man and a dog. The missing man is suspected of having gone utterly insane and having killed and mutilated all the others...
