Project Gutenberg's Two Thousand Miles Below, by Charles Willard Diffin

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Title: Two Thousand Miles Below

Author: Charles Willard Diffin

Release Date: September 12, 2009 [EBook #29965]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO THOUSAND MILES BELOW ***

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories June, September,
November 1932, January 1933. Extensive research did not uncover
any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazines.

Two Thousand Miles Below

_A Four-Part Novel_

By Charles Willard Diffin

* * * * *

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
PROLOGUE
I A Man Named Smith
II Gold!
III Red Drops
IV The Light in the Crater
V The Attack
VI Into the Crater
VII The Ring
VIII The Darkness
IX A Subterranean World
X Plumb Loco
XI The White-Hot Pit
XII Dreams
XIII "N-73 Clear!"
XIV Emergency Order
XV The Lake of Fire
XVI The Metal Shell
XVII Gor
XVIII The Dance of Death
XIX The Voice of the Mountain
XX Taloned Hands
XXI Suicide?
XXII The Red-Flowering Vine
XXIII Oro and Grah
XXIV The Bargain
XXV Smithy
XXVI Power!

* * * * *

PROLOGUE

[Sidenote: Rawson learns to his cost that the life-spark of a fabled
race glows in the black heart of a dead, Western volcano.]

[Illustration: _The derrick was falling as he fired again._]

In the gray darkness the curved fangs of a saber-toothed tiger gleamed
white and ghostly. The man-figure that stood half crouched in the
mouth of the cave involuntarily shivered.

"Gwanga!" he said. "He goes, too!"

But the man did not move more than to shift a club to his right hand.
Heavy, that club, and knotted