e Loah to safety, and kept the flame
where it should be--until at length the last aperture was closed, the
last gap in the wall filled in. And even after that Rawson kept the
flame still playing above that wall till he had melted rock and more
rock that flowed down to make the barrier a single heavy, solid mass.

Steam was coming now from the narrow cleft where the green light had
flashed out to bar their way. But that was simple, and he sealed the
gap shut with his flame.

He was gasping. The radiant heat from that molten mass had been
torture that his naked body could never have borne but for the
desperate necessity that drove him.

Smithy and Loah were again beside him. "Now," he choked, "we can go,
but if there are any cross passages I'll have to block them too."

"There aren't," said Smithy, and added: "I thought you were crazy.
You've saved us all, Dean; we never could have made it to the top.
That steam was getting hot--hot as if it had come right out of hell."

"It did," said Rawson. Then the flame-thrower fell from his nerveless
hand. He was swaying; his knees were trembling with weakness when
Smithy and Loah, on either side, took his burned arms tenderly and
helped him on where the others had gone.

Colonel Culver and a rescue party met them halfway. The Colonel had
seen his men safely to the bottom of the volcanic pit. Others had run
from their station beside a field gun to meet them; then Culver had
called for volunteers and had gone back. And now there were plenty of
willing arms to help.

* * * * *

The big lift, with its platforms of metal plates, awaited them at the
tunnel's end. There was room on it now for all who were left; there
was no crowding of men's bodies as there had been on the downward
passage. Rawson was stretched on the floor-plates, whose touch was
cool to his tortured body. Loah was seated that his head might rest
in her lap on that absurd little fragment of skirt. She bent above
him, whispering brokenly: "Dean-San--my dear--my own Dean-San! We
live, Dean-San. I can scarcely believe it, but I know that we live,
for I still have you."

But Dean was able to stand when that journey was done. First, though,
there were men who placed him carefully on a stretcher and carried
him, when he commanded, to the crater's outer rim. On the ashy floor
of the crater a big transport was waiting with idling motors, but Dean
would not let them put him inside. He wan