larging faster. Just a few moments--if I could
last a few moments!... My feet were off the ground, my chest close
pressed against the little golden cage between us. He had a hand
shoving back my head; his fingers sought my throat. I wound my legs
around him, and then he tried to throw me down and fall upon me. But
we had twisted and my back was to the cliff. The rocks were shoving at
us, insistently pushing with almost a living movement. Polter
staggered with me. His grip on my throat tightened, shutting off my
breath. My senses whirled. His grim sardonic face over me was blurred
to my sight. I tore futilely at my throat to break his choking grip.
All the world was a roaring 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; tried 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