e at once."

* * * * *

Smithy handed the telephone to the sheriff. "Someone's anxious to talk
to you," he said. He searched his pockets hurriedly, found a
ten-dollar bill which he laid on the sheriff's desk. "That will cover
it," he said with a new note in his voice. "Perhaps you're not just
the man for this job, sheriff. It's going to be a whole lot too hot
for you to handle."

He had turned quickly toward the door, but something in the sheriff's
excited voice checked him. "Burned? Wiped out, you say?"

Halfway across the room Smithy could hear another hoarse voice in the
telephone. The sheriff repeated the words. "Red devils! They wasn't
Injuns? The whole town of Seven Palms destroyed!"

"I thought," said Smithy softly to himself, "that we'd have to go down
_there_ to find _them_, and instead they're out looking for us. Yes, I
think this will be decidedly too hot for you to handle, sheriff." He
turned and bolted out the door.

* * * * *

An attentive audience was awaiting Gordon Smith on his arrival in
Sacramento. Smithy's father was not one to be kept waiting even by the
Governor of the state. Also, Smithy was coming from the Tonah Basin
region, and the news of the destruction of the desert town of Seven
Palms had preceded him. Even the swift planes of the Coastal Service
could not match the speed of the radio news.

There were only two men in the room when Smithy entered. One of them,
tall, heavily built, as square-shouldered as Smithy, came forward and
put his two hands on the young man's shoulders. Their greetings were
brief.

"Well, son?" asked the older man, and packed a world of questioning
into the interrogation.

"O. K., Dad," said Smithy simply.

His father nodded silently and turned to the other man. "Governor, my
son, Gordon. He got tired of being known as the 'Old Man's
son'--started out on his own--not looking for adventure exactly, but I
judge he has found it. He's got something to tell us."

And again Smithy told his wild, unbelievable tale. But it was not so
incredible now, for, even while Smithy was talking, the Governor was
glancing at the report on his desk which told of the destruction of
the little town of Seven Palms.

"I can't tell you what it means," Smithy concluded. He paused before
venturing a prediction which was to prove remarkably accurate. "But I
saw them--I saw them come up out of the earth, and I'm betting