* * * *

Rawson was silent. He spoke slowly at last:

"You mean we've got to quit--quit without knowing what we're up
against. Can you imagine what they'll say to me back in town? Scared
out, licked by something I've never even seen!"

"Scared?" Smithy inquired. "You couldn't find a better word for it if
you hunted through the whole dictionary. Scared? Why, say, I'm so damn
scared I'm shaking yet, and the only thing that will cure me of it is
to look at those devils along the top of a machine gun! We'll go catch
us some equipment and a few service men--"

"You're a good guy, Smithy," Rawson reached out and gripped one brown
hand. "And we'll do as you say; but first I've got to get a line on
things. I'm becoming as irrational as the men. I'm imagining all sort
of crazy things."

"You don't have to imagine them." Smithy's voice was strained; it
showed the tension under which he was laboring. "Men or beasts--God
knows what they are!--but when they come up from nowhere--"

"Out of the sand," Rawson explained.

Smithy stared at him. "Out of the sand," he repeated. "Then, when they
cut a man in two, melt steel as if it were butter, pull a few tons of
metal down out of sight as easy as we would sink it in the ocean,
flash their lights over in the ghost town, up on top of a volcano--"

"Stop!" shouted Rawson unexpectedly. Some sudden gleam of
understanding had flashed through his mind. He dragged himself to his
feet and staggered to the doorway where he clung until the nausea of a
whirling world had passed. "The dust! The dust!" he gasped.

Smithy put a hand on his shoulder. Plainly he thought Rawson out of
his mind. "Easy, old-timer," he cautioned. "We'll get out of here. I
hate to make you walk in the shape you're in, but the dirty cowards
ran off with the trucks. They even took your car; there isn't a thing
here on wheels."

But Rawson did not hear. He was staring off across the sand, and he
was muttering bitter words.

"Fool! Oh, you utter fool!" he said. "The dust--the dust." Then he let
the roughly tender hands of Smithy guide him back to the cot where he
fell into a troubled sleep.

* * * * *

The comparative coolness of dusk was tempering the feverish midday
heat when Rawson awoke. And, strangely, his troubles and all his
conflicting plans had been simplified by the magic of sleep. His
course was entirely plain. He was going to the crater again.

"What'