And Danny knew
that that air, of which eighty percent was nitrogen, was being rid of
its oxygen in the retort at his back, and the nitrogen alone was
pouring out beneath him in a tremendous and ceaseless blast.

The squadron had appeared--a row of dots that came in on a long
slanting drive from the ten thousand level. They swung into faultless
formation to "ride his tail" into whatever flaming breath he might
lead. And Danny O'Rourke threw his red ship down and into the valley
that seethed with a brew from the Pit itself.

* * * * *

There had been pines in that valley, and firs towering hundreds of
feet in the air. They were living torches now, half seen through a
whirling chaos of flame. It billowed as if the very gases that burned
were tortured in the burning. The black-red of smoke-choked flames
parted at times to show a deadlier white light below--a white, glaring
heat in the heart of this gigantic, furnace--a scintillant, quivering
horror on which Danny fixed the cross hairs of his sights as he rode
his screaming meteor down into the pit.

"Bats out o' hell!" And now the brood was returning, it must have
seemed. But beneath them, as they passed, that vivid whiteness went
dead. Yet before it changed Danny saw unbelievable things--pools of
molten rock, glaring white through the smoke.

Up and out at the end of the valley! And Danny gasped for breath even
in the shelter of his cabin's insulated walls. And, used as he was to
the red menace that they fought, he went sick at sight of a message
that spelled itself beside his controls.

"Ship number six down. Failed to come out." It was signed with the
name of the squadron commander who had followed where he led.

And the valley! For five miles they had laid a blanket of
non-combustible gases. For five minutes, perhaps, their course could
be seen. And at the end of that time it was as it had been before, and
the flames raged on unchecked.

His own Chief's number flashed before him; then a message that clicked
across his scanning plate:

"O'Rourke! Get out of that hole! Nitrogen won't touch it; we can't
pour in enough. It's the same all along the line. We'll have to break
it up--smother it one part at a time. Have you tried your sound
dampener?"

And Danny O'Rourke had the grace to blush even through the flush that
the fire's breath had given his face. "Forgot it!" he shouted into his
voice sender. "Forgot the ship had the littl