"A. F. F. Headquarters, Washington," it shrilled. "General Alarm. Chicago destroyed by fire. Flames sweeping in well defined paths across the country. Originated in Mountain Division. Cause undetermined. Three lines of fire reported; coming east fast--unbelievable speed.... There! Cleveland has got it; reports a path of fire has cut across city melting steel and even stone.... Now Buffalo!... God knows what it is." The voice broke with excitement for an instant; Danny could almost see the distant man fighting for control of himself as a maze of instruments about him wrote incredible things. * * * * * "Orders!" said the voice now. "All A. F. F. ships report to your Division Headquarters. Division officers keep in communication with Washington. Mountain Division send all equipment east. Flying orders will be given you en route. The country--the whole world--is in flames!" Beside him, Danny O'Rourke heard the voice of his Chief. "Unbelievable--impossible--preposterous!" His voice like that other was growing shrill. "The country--world--in flames!" But he found voice to snap out a command to a waiting officer in the doorway of the adjoining room. "Repeat general order. Send all craft east!" To Danny he whispered. "Your 'little doodad'--I wish to heaven we had a thousand of them now! But what does it mean? Lanes of fire across the country--whole cities destroyed! What devil's work is this?... There's nobody who knows." But Danny was staring as if he saw through the high, instrument-covered walls. Back to a valley of flame that was like a doorway to hell, where rocks, gray with the frosty years, had been melted to pools ... back to a glinting light where something swift and scintillant had flashed once in a cloudless sky ... back--far back ... back to a street in a town half across the world, and a figure of a giant who strode away with a smile of triumph on his ill-formed face ... but first that giant had melted his way through walls of stone; and, like the stone, steel bars and human flesh were as nothing before the invisible heat that come from a slender rod! His own voice, when he moved his dry tongue to speak, came huskily; it was as if another person were speaking far off: "I think you're wrong ... yes, I thing you're wrong, Chief. There's one man who knows and 'tis myself is that one.... One man--and the other is a beast like no livin' man on the face of the earth! _He_ knows--he and the devils he's brought with him!" * * * * * It was an unsatisfactory interview that Danny had with the Chief. "You're crazy!" was the verdict of that A. F. F. official when Danny had finished. "You're crazy, or else--or else--" His voice trailed off; his eyes were on the moving letters that flashed their message of disaster in an ever changing procession across the scanning screen on the wall.