t
oh, my heart almost died in pity for you, Walter," she breathed. "What
can it be--THERE?"

I shook my head.

"Martin could not see you," she went on. "He was watching the road that
leads above. But I ran down--to help."

"Mart watching?" I asked. "Watching for what?"

"I--" she hesitated oddly. "I think I'd rather tell you before him. It's
so strange--so incredible."

She led us through the broken portal and into the fortress. It was more
gigantic even than I had thought. The floor of the vast chamber we
had entered was strewn with fragments fallen from the crackling,
stone-vaulted ceiling. Through the breaks light streamed from the level
above us.

We picked our way among the debris to a wide crumbling stairway, crept
up it, Ruth flitting ahead. We came out opposite one of the eye-like
apertures. Black against it, perched high upon a pile of blocks, I
recognized the long, lean outline of Ventnor, rifle in hand, gazing
intently up the ancient road whose windings were plain through the
opening. He had not heard us.

"Martin," called Ruth softly.

He turned. A shaft of light from a crevice in the gap's edge struck his
face, flashing it out from the semidarkness of the corner in which he
crouched. I looked into the quiet gray eyes, upon the keen face.

"Goodwin!" he shouted, tumbling down from his perch, shaking me by the
shoulders. "If I had been in the way of praying--you're the man I'd have
prayed for. How did you get here?"

"Just wandering, Mart," I answered. "But Lord! I'm sure GLAD to see
you."

"Which way did you come?" he asked, keenly. I threw my hand toward the
south.

"Not through that hollow?" he asked incredulously.

"And some hell of a place to get through," Drake broke in. "It cost us
our ponies and all my ammunition."

"Richard Drake," I said. "Son of old Alvin--you knew him, Mart."

"Knew him well," cried Ventnor, seizing Dick's hand. "Wanted me to go to
Kamchatka to get some confounded sort of stuff for one of his devilish
experiments. Is he well?"

"He's dead," replied Dick soberly.

"Oh!" said Ventnor. "Oh--I'm sorry. He was a great man."

Briefly I acquainted him with my wanderings, my encounter with Drake.

"That place out there--" he considered us thoughtfully. "Damned if I
know what it is. Thought maybe it's gas--of a sort. If it hadn't been
for it we'd have been out of this hole two days ago. I'm pretty sure it
must be gas. And it must be much less than it was this morn