r over their heads. Even as Jan stared
horror-stricken in that one moment, they locked at the edge of the
chasm. Above the tumult of the flood below and the fire above there
rose a wild yell, and the two plunged down into the abyss, locked and
fighting even as they fell in a twisting, formless shape to the death
below.

It happened in an instant--like the flash of a quick picture on a
screen--and even as Jan caught the last of Jackpine's terrible face,
his hand drove eight inches of steel toward O'Grady's body. The blade
struck something hard--something that was neither bone nor flesh, and
he drew back again to strike. He had struck the steel buckle on
O'Grady's belt. This time--

A sudden hissing roar filled the air. Jan knew that he did not
strike--but he scarcely knew more than that in the first shock of the
fiery avalanche that had dropped upon them from the rock wall of the
mountain. He was conscious of fighting desperately to drag himself from
under a weight that was not O'Grady's--a weight that stifled the breath
in his lungs, that crackled in his ears, that scorched his face and his
hands, and was burning out his eyes. A shriek rang in his ears unlike
any other cry of man he had ever heard, and he knew that it was
O'Grady's. He pulled himself out, foot by foot, until fresher air
struck his nostrils, and dragged himself nearer and nearer to the edge
of the chasm. He could not rise. His limbs were paralyzed. His knife
arm dragged at his side. He opened his eyes and found that he could
see. Where they had fought was the smoldering ruin of a great tree, and
standing out of the ruin of that tree, half naked, his hands tearing
wildly at his face, was O'Grady. Jan's fingers clutched at a small
rock. He called out, but there was no meaning to the sound he made.
Clarry O'Grady threw out his great arms.

"Jan--Jan Larose--" he cried. "My God, don't strike now! I'm
blind--blind--"

He staggered back, as if expecting a blow. "Don't strike!" he almost
shrieked. "Mother of Heaven--my eyes are burned out--I'm blind--blind--"

He backed to the wall, his huge form crouched, his hands reaching out
as if to ward off the deathblow. Jan tried to move, and the effort
brought a groan of agony to his lips. A second crash filled his ears as
a second avalanche of fiery debris plunged down upon the trail farther
back. He stared straight up through the stifling smoke. Lurid tongues
of flame were leaping over the wall of the mountain