Ellen, following a step behind him, vanished. I took another step, which brought me under the arch, _and the tower vanished_! One second it was there over my head, a steel lattice climbing skyward. The next second, no tower. No sky, no stars, no moon. No hillside, no high-line, no night. My tongue took a running jump and dived down into my throat to hide. "Wh--wh--wh--what the hell--" I heard my own voice say. I was in what looked like a big building. On one side was a lot of hooded machinery that was clicking softly to itself. I had the fleeting impression that this machinery was largely automatic in operation, that raw materials were being fed in from some source overhead and finished articles were rolling out into a large hopper. A soft blue light came from the walls of the building, which seemed to be windowless. Ellen was standing right in front of me. The only movement about her was a flutter of her eye-lids. She seemed to be frozen stiff. I was pretty well frozen myself. What the devil had happened to us? where were we? * * * * * Mad thoughts were bouncing up and down inside my brain. I had the impression I had gone insane. Tommy wasn't scared. He didn't seem to mind what had happened. Something that would scare a man with sense to the verge of hysterics had no effect on him. He understood almost nothing about the world in which he lived and consequently anything was possible to him. There are times when being a moron has its advantages. This was one of those times. This building did not astonish Tommy, nor was he perturbed about the miraculous way in which we had entered it. He ran over to the hopper in front of the big machine, thrust both hands into it, and came running back to us, his hands held out in front of him. "Firecrackers!" he said exultantly. He had a double handful of the round explosive pellets. The machine was manufacturing them. They were being made right here in this windowless building, in Ten Mile Valley. This was where Tommy had got those incredible bombs. Somehow he had stumbled into this hidden place. He looked expectantly up at me. "Gimme bar'l of candy?" he said hopefully. My tongue was still hiding down in my throat as if it was determined to have no part in the lies it knew I was going to tell. "S--sure," I stuttered. "I'll get the candy for you as soon as we get back to town. But Tommy, where are we?" That was the question! Where were we? "Huh?" said Tommy. Then he added, in explanation, "We're here!" Hell, I knew that! What I wanted to know was where _here_ was. I tried another tack. "Where did this building, all these machines, where did they come from?" He shrugged. The question was over his head. "Find 'em here," he said. He looked hopefully at me. "Candy for Tommy Sonofagun?"