Kreiss was firing from below; Chet knew dimly that this was checking the attack of the swarm. He saw Walt stagger; saw blood flowing from a slash on the back of his head, and knew that Kreiss had got the monster just in time. He sprang toward the stumbling man and got his arms under the unconscious figure of the girl to help carry the load. And now it was Kreiss who was shouting. "The trees! We'll be safe in the trees!" He saw Kreiss drop his pistol and dash headlong for the white trunks of ghostly trees. His arm was pierced by a stinging pain; cold eyes, with thick, leathery lids, were staring into Chet's as he cast one horrified glance over his shoulder. Then he crashed against the white trunk of a tree and helped Harkness drag the body of the girl between two twin trunks. He pulled himself to safety in the shelter of the protecting trees, and held weakly to one of them.... And the crimson lace-work of the sap-wood that showed through the white bark was no brighter red than the mark of his blood-stained hands where they clung for support. CHAPTER VIII _Doomed_ The sun was high when they ventured forth. Diane would have come, but the two men would have none of it. They remembered the sight they had seen; they knew what was left of a man's body lying on the rocks above; and they ordered the girl to stay hidden while Kreiss remained with her as a guard. There were only the four who lay hidden in the woods; Schwartzmann and Max, with the remaining three men, were gone. Harkness' calls were unanswered, and he ceased the halloo. "Better keep quiet," he advised himself and the others. "We are out of ammunition, though they don't know it. And they have got away. They will keep on going, too, and I am not any too well pleased with that. I wanted to put Schwartzmann where I could keep an eye on him.... Oh, well, he isn't very dangerous." But Chet Bullard made a few mental and unspoken reservations to that remark. "That boy is always dangerous," he told himself, "and he won't be happy unless he is making trouble. Thank the Lord he hasn't got that gun!" He came out cautiously from among the trees, but the red horde was gone. The reptiles' wings had rasped and clashed furiously for a time; they had darted in fiery flashes before the protecting trees: and the fitful breeze had brought gusts of nauseous odors--until a thin haze formed in the higher air and the red things were gone. "There will not be any more for a while," said Harkness. He pointed toward the fumerole they had seen from the lookout earlier in the day: again it was emitting jets of thin, steamy vapor that did not disappear like steam but floated up above their heads. "The gas has driven them off," he added. * * * * * The two men climbed slowly up the slope that had been the wave front of molten rock. Chet found his pistol by the path and picked it up.