heir camp, the horrible
reality of it gripped him again.

He could not speak at first. The air of the five-thousand level was
not uncomfortably warm, but Smithy was feeling again the baking heat
of that desert land; again he was with Rawson in the volcanic crater;
Dean was calling to him, warning him....

A sharp question from Culver was repeated twice before Smithy could
reply.

He side-slipped in above the crater's ragged rim, heedless of
down-drafts--the power of the DeGrosse motor would pull them out of
anything in a ten-thousand-foot vertical climb if need arose. Smithy
was pointing toward a confusion of shining black rock.

"Over there," he told Culver. Then he was shouting into the telephone
transmitter. "It's open," he said. "That's where Dean went down--and
there they are! Look, man, there--there!"

CHAPTER XIV

_Emergency Order_

The throat of the old volcano was a pit of blackness in the midst of
gray ash and the red-yellow of cinders. Beside it were other flecks of
color: red, moving bodies; metal, that twinkled brightly under the
desert sun--and in an instant they were gone. Nor did Smithy, throwing
the thundering plane close over that place, know how near he had
passed to sudden, invisible death. Rugged pinnacles of rock were
ahead. The plane under Smithy's hands vaulted over them and roared on
above the desert.

"Did you see them?" Smithy was shouting.

The man in the forward cockpit turned to face his pilot. "I am
apologizing, Smith, for all the things I have been thinking and
haven't said. We've got a job on our hands. Now let's find that fool
sheriff who thinks he's hunting for drunken Indians. We must warn
him."

Smithy wondered at the wisps of blue smoke still rising from the ruins
of Seven Palms as he drove in above it. It seemed years since he had
left the Basin, yet the wreckage of this little town, only five miles
outside, still smoldered.

Colonel Culver was shouting to him. "East," he said. "Swing east.
There's fighting over there." Then, in his usual cool tone: "I'll take
the ship, Smith. Give then a burst or two from up here--perhaps the
sheriff can use a little help."

Across the yellow sand ran a desert road. Ten miles away black smoke
clouds were lifting. Smithy knew there had been a little settlement
there. A dozen houses, perhaps, and a gasoline station. At half that
distance the clear sunlight showed moving objects on the sand:
automobiles, smaller dots that we