With a tragic intensity akin to wildness, Gray stared up into Allie Briskow's face. "Worthless, eh? And they told me ten thousand barrels." He carried a shaking hand to his bandaged head and tried vainly to collect his wits. "What's matter?" he queried, thickly. "Everything whirling--sick--" "You had an accident, but it's all right; all right--No, no! Please lie still." "Running wild, eh? Tha's what hurts my head so. Blown the casing out--Bad, isn't it? Sometimes they run wild for weeks, years--ruin everything." He tried again to rise, then insisted, querulously: "Goto get oil in this well! I've got to! Last chance, Allie. Got to get ten thousand barrels!" "Please! You mustn't--" Allie had her strong hands upon his shoulders; she was arguing firmly but as gently as possible under the circumstances, when something occurred so extraordinary, so unexpected, as to paralyze her. Of a sudden the interior of the dim-lit, canvas-roofed shack was illuminated as if by a searchlight, and she turned her head to see that the whole out-of-doors was visible and that the night itself had turned into day. With a cry that died weakly amid the chaos of sound beating over her, the girl ran to the window and looked out. What she beheld was a nightmare scene. The well was afire. It had exploded into flame. Where, a moment before, it had been belching skyward an enormous stream of gaseous vapor, all but invisible except at the casing head, now it was a monstrous blow torch, the flaming crest of which was tossed a hundred feet high. Nothing in the nature of a conflagration could have been more awe-inspiring, more confounding to the faculties than that roaring column of consuming fire. It was a thing incredibly huge, incredibly furious, incredibly wild. Human figures, black against its glare, were flying to safety, near-by silhouettes were flinging their arms aloft and dashing backward 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.