ackward and forward; faces upturned to it were white and
terrified. The scattered mesquite stood against the night like a wall,
spotted with inky shadows, and, above, the heavens resembled a boiling
caldron.

It was a hellish picture; it remained indelibly fixed upon Allie
Briskow's mind. As she looked on in horrid fascination, she saw the
derrick change into a latticelike tower of flame, saw its upper part
begin slowly to crumble and disintegrate. The force with which the gas
issued blew the blaze high and held it dancing, tumbling in mid-air, a
phenomenon indescribably weird and impressive. The men who stood
nearest bent their heads and shielded their faces from the heat.

Allie tore her eyes away from the spectacle finally. She turned back to
the bed, then she halted, for it was empty. The door, still ajar from
Buddy's headlong exit, informed her whence her patient had gone, and
she flew after him.

She found him not half a dozen paces away. In fact, she stumbled over
his prostrate body. With an amazon's strength, she gathered him into
her arms, then staggered with him back to his couch, and as she
strained him to herself she loudly called his name. Amid that demoniac
din, amid the shrieking of those million devils, freed from the black
chasms of the rock, her voice was as feeble as the wail of a sick child.

When she had laid her inert burden upon the bed, Allie knelt and took
Gray's head upon her bosom. Then, for the first time, those forces
imprisoned deep within her being ran wild, and under the red glare of
that flaming geyser she kissed his hair, his eyes, his lips. Over and
over again she kissed them with the hungry passion of a woman starved.

CHAPTER XXVI

A subdued but continuous whispering irritated Calvin Gray. When it
persisted, minute after minute, he opened his eyes, asking himself,
dully, why it was that people couldn't let a fellow sleep. He lay, for
some time, trying to recognize his unfamiliar surroundings; oddly
enough, he could not discover the origin of that low-pitched murmur,
since there was nobody in his bedroom. Evidently he had slept too hard,
for his eyes were heavy, his vision was distorted, and an unaccustomed
lassitude bore down his body and stupefied his brain. A thousand
indistinct memories were moving about in the penumbral borderland of
consciousness, but they refused to take shape. They would emerge into
the light presently, of course. Meanwhile, it was restful to remain