urs of driving, and Rawson walked into the office of Erickson,
Incorporated, with a steady step. Another hour, and his tanned face
had gone a trifle pale; his lips were set grimly in a straight line
that would not relax under the verdict he felt certain he was about to
hear.

For an hour he had faced the steely-eyed man across the long table in
the Directors Room--faced him and replied to questions from this man
and the half-dozen others seated there. Skeptical questions, tricky
questions; and now the man was speaking:

"Rawson, six months ago you laid your Tonah Basin plans before
us--plans to get power from the center of the Earth, to utilize that
energy, and to control the power situation in this whole Southwest.
It looked like a wild gamble then, but we investigated. It still looks
like a gamble."

"Yes," said Rawson, "it is a gamble. Did I ever call it anything
else?"

"The Ehrmann oscillator," the man continued imperturbably, "invented
in 1940, two years ago, solves the wireless transmission problem, but
the success of your plan depends upon your own invention--upon your
straight-line drills that you say will not wander off at a tangent
when they get down a few miles. And more than that, it depends upon
you.

"Even that does not damn the scheme; but, Rawson, there's only one
factor we gamble on. No wild plans, no matter how many hundreds of
millions they promise: no machines, no matter what they are designed
to do, get a dollar of our backing. It's men we back with our money!"

Rawson's face was set to show no emotion, but within his mind were
insistent, clamoring thoughts:

"Why can't he say it and get it over with? I've lost--what a
hard-boiled bunch they are!--but he doesn't need to drag out the
agony." But--but what was the man saying?

"Men, Rawson!" the emotionless voice continued. "And we've checked up
on you from the time you took your nourishment out of a bottle; it's
you we're backing. That's why we have organized the little company of
Thermal Explorations, Limited. That's why we've put a million of hard
coin into it. That's why we've put you in charge of operations."

He was extending a hand that Dean Rawson had to reach for blindly.

"I'd drill through to hell," Dean said and fought to keep his voice
steady, "with backing like that!"

He allowed his emotion to express itself in a shaky laugh. "Perhaps I
will at that," he added: "I'll certainly be heading in the right
direction."