CHAPTER VII
_The Ring_
_One of them pointed at the shaft Rawson had drilled._]
[Sidenote: Town after town is fired by the emerging Red Ones as Rawsonlies helpless, a prisoner, far down in their home within the earth.]
"Smithy," Rawson had called him when he found the youngster fightinggamely with death in the heat of Tonah Basin. And Gordon Smith was thename on the company records. Yet he remained always "Smithy" toRawson, and the name, which Rawson never ceased to believe wasassumed, became a mark of the affection which can spring up betweenman and man.
And now Smithy stood like a rigid carven statue in the midst of abarren sandy waste in the vast cup of a towering volcano top--sandthat was in reality coarse pumice and ash. This was a place of death,a place where raging fires had left nothing for plant or animal life.And, over all, the desert stars shone down coldly and added to thedesolation with their own pale light.
Smithy had seen Rawson pull himself to the top of the greatsquare-edged rock. Sensing that danger of some sort was threatening,he had started to run to the aid of the struggling man. Then cameRawson's cry.
"Back!" he shouted. "Get back, Smithy! I'm coming--"
But he did not come; and Smithy, halted by the command, was frozen tosudden, panic-stricken immobility by that which followed.
He saw the leaping things, like grotesque yellow giants. They camefrom the sand; then red ones leaped up from the open throat that hadsuddenly formed. They held flame throwers, the red ones; and the greenlines of fire melted the rock from beneath Rawson's feet. All in theone second's time, it was done, and Rawson's body, his arms wideflung, was hurtling downward into the waiting throat and thethreatening red glow from within. Then the carriers of the flamethrowers vanished again into the pit, and there was left only a huddleof giant figures that tore at the loose sand and ash with their hands.
They threw the material in a continuous stream; the air was full ofcascading sand. To Smithy they were suddenly inhuman--they were almostanimals; men like moles. And they and their companions had capturedDean Rawson--sent him to his death. Slowly the watching man raisedhimself from the crouched position that had kept him hidden.
They were through with their work, these great yellow-skinned nakedmen--or mole-men. Six of them--Smithy counted them slowly before hetook aim--and two were armed with flame-throwers.
Smithy rested his arm across the little hummock of gritty ash thathad sheltered him and sent six flashes of flame through the nighttoward the cluster of bodies.
* * * * *
He made no attempt to aim at each individual--the shapes were tooshadowy for that. And he had no knowledge of what other weapons theymight have. One thing was sure: he must take no chances on facing thered ones single-handed. He rammed his empty pistol back into itsholster as he turned and ran--ran with every ounce of energy hepossessed to drive his flying feet across the crater floor, outthrough the cleft in the rocks and down the steep mountainside.
He was stunned by the suddenness of the catastrophe that had overtakenthem. The horror of Dean Rawson's going; the fearful reality of those"devils from hell" that old Riley had seen--it was all too staggering,too numbing, for easy acceptance. Time was required for the truth tosink in; and through the balance of the night Smithy had plenty oftime to think.
He dared not go back to the camp where ripping flashes of green lighttold him the enemy was at work. And then, even had it been possible tocreep up on them in the darkness, that one chance vanished as thedesert about the camp sprang into view. One after another thebuildings burst into flame, and Smithy was thankful for theconcealment of the vast, empty desert.
* * * * *
The embers were still glowing when he dared go near. This enemy, itseemed, worked only at night, and Smithy waited only for the sun toshow above distant purple ranges. It had been their enemy once, thatfiercely hot sun; they had fought against the heat--but never had thesun wrought such destruction as this.
Smithy looked from haggard, hopeless eyes upon the wreckage ofRawson's camp. For the men who had worked there, this had meant only ajob; to Smithy it had been a fight against the desert which haddefeated him once. But to Rawson it meant the fruit of years ofeffort, the goal of his dreams brought almost within his reach.
Smithy looked at the smoldering heaps of gray where an idle windpuffed playfully at fluffy ash or fanned a bed of coals to flame.Twisted steel of the wrecked derrick was still further distorted; theenemy had ripped it to pieces with his stabbing flames. Even theunused materials, the steel and cement that had been neatly stackedfor future use--the flames had been turned on it all.
And Smithy, though his voice broke almost boyishly from his repressedemotion, spoke aloud in solemn promise:
"It's too late to help you, Dean. I'll go back to town, report to themen who were back of you, and then.... They're going to pay, Dean!Whoever--whatever--they are, they're going to pay!"
He turned away toward the mountains and the ribbon of road that woundoff toward the canyon. Then, at some recollection, he swung back.
"The cable's still down--he would have wanted it left all shipshape,"he whispered.
Where the derrick had stood was the mouth of the twenty-inch casing.The cable that ran from it was entangled with the wreckage of thederrick, but it had not been cut. Smithy set doggedly to work.
* * * * *
A little gin-pole and light tackle allowed him to erect a heaviertripod of steel beams; it hoisted the big sheave block into place, andgave Smithy's two hands the strength of twenty to rig a temporaryhoist. The juice was still on the main feed line, and the hoistingmotors hummed at his touch. The ten miles of cable wound slowly ontothe drums.
"It's nonsense, I suppose," he told himself silently. But somethingdrove him to do this last thing--to leave it all as Rawson would havehad it.
The long bailer came out at last; there was just room to hoist itclear and let it drop back upon the drilling floor. A glint of goldflashed in the sunlight as Smithy let the long metal tube down, and hebroke into voluble cursing at sight of the bit of metal that wascaught near the bailer's top.
The gold had started it all! That first finding of the gold on the bigdrill had begun it.... He crossed swiftly to the gleaming thing thatseemed somehow to symbolize his loss.
He stooped to reach for it, intending to throw it as far as he could.Instead he stood in an awkward stooping attitude--stood so while thelong uncounted minutes passed....
His eyes that stared and stared in disbelief seemed suddenly to haveturned traitor. They were telling him that they saw a ring--acameo--jammed solidly into the shackle at the bailer's end. And thatring, when last he had seen it, had been on Dean Rawson's hand! Deanhad caught it; he had hooked it over a lever in this very place--andnow, from ten miles down inside the solid earth, it had returned. Itmeant--it meant....
But the stocky, broad-shouldered youngster known as Smithy dared notthink what it meant. Nor had he time to follow the thought; he was toobusily engaged in running at suicidal speed across the hot sand towardbarren mountains where a ribbon of road showed through quivering air.