g
chaos to my fading senses. Then in the blur I saw horror sweep his
expression. His fingers involuntarily loosened. I got a breath of
blessed air, gasping, and my sight cleared.

Walls were closing around us! We were in a pit barely ten feet wide,
with the top a few feet above Polter's head. The nearer wall shoved us
again. Our bodies almost filled the shrinking pit! Polter lurched and
cast me off. I half fell, striking my shoulder against the opposite
wall, and I saw Polter leap at the dwindling brink and scramble out.

I was nearly wedged. As I rose, the top of the pit only reached my
waist. Polter had fallen on the upper ground, and was on hands and
knees. Instead of standing up, he lurched at me trying to shove me back.
But I was out; I clutched at him. We were almost of a size now. We
rolled on the ground, locked together; rolled to the brink of the pit
and over it, as it shrank to a little round hole unnoticed beneath our
threshing bodies!

* * * * *

At the side of the circular valley Alan and Dr. Kent crouched with the
smaller figure of Babs between them. They saw Polter and me as two
swaying gigantic forms locked in a death struggle, towering against the
sky. Tremendous expanded bodies! They saw us come to grips; saw the
great hunched Polter bend me backward, choking me.

Our bodies lurched. Our huge legs with a single step brought us to the
center of the valley. It was a shrinking valley to Alan, Babs and Dr.
Kent, for they too, were enlarging. But the fighting giant figures were
growing faster. In only a moment their shoulders were up there in the
sky, pressing against the narrowing cliff walls.

Alan gasped, "But George will be crushed! Look at him!"

Horror swept them as they crouched, watching. The enormous pillars of
Polter's legs towered straight up from near at hand. Alan was aware of
himself screaming:

"George, get out! You're too large! Too large for in here!"

As though his microscopic voice could reach me--my head a hundred feet
above him. But he screamed it again. This was all in a few horrible
moments, though it seemed to the three watchers an eternity. Alan was
helpless to aid me; they had taken all of the enlarging drug they had.

Then they saw Polter cast me off. I lurched and struck, with my
shoulders wedged against the cliff directly over where they crouched.
The overhead sky was darkened as Polter scrambled upward.

Alan was still screaming futil