Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Stories June, September, November 1932, January 1933. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazines. Two Thousand Miles Below _A Four-Part Novel_ By Charles Willard Diffin * * * * * CONTENTS CHAPTER PROLOGUE I A Man Named Smith II Gold! III Red Drops IV The Light in the Crater V The Attack VI Into the Crater VII The Ring VIII The Darkness IX A Subterranean World X Plumb Loco XI The White-Hot Pit XII Dreams XIII "N-73 Clear!" XIV Emergency Order XV The Lake of Fire XVI The Metal Shell XVII Gor XVIII The Dance of Death XIX The Voice of the Mountain XX Taloned Hands XXI Suicide? XXII The Red-Flowering Vine XXIII Oro and Grah XXIV The Bargain XXV Smithy XXVI Power! * * * * * PROLOGUE [Sidenote: Rawson learns to his cost that the life-spark of a fabled race glows in the black heart of a dead, Western volcano.] [Illustration: _The derrick was falling as he fired again._] In the gray darkness the curved fangs of a saber-toothed tiger gleamed white and ghostly. The man-figure that stood half crouched in the mouth of the cave involuntarily shivered. "Gwanga!" he said. "He goes, too!" But the man did not move more than to shift a club to his right hand. Heavy, that club, and knotted and with a head of stone tied and wrapped with leather thongs; but Gor of the tribe of Zoran swung it easily with one of his long arms. He paid only casual attention as the great cat passed on into the night. One leathery hand was raised to shield his slitted eyes; the wind from the north struck toward the mouth of the cave, and it brought with it cold driving rain and whirling flurries of frozen pellets that bit and stung. Snow! Gor had traveled far, but never had he seen a storm like this with white cold in the air. Again a shiver that was part fear rippled through his muscles and gripped with invisible fingers at his knotted arms. "The Beast of the North is angry!" he told himself. Through the dark and storm, animals drifted past before the blasts of cold. They were fleeing; they were full of fear--fear of something that the dull mind of Gor could not picture. But in that mind was the same wordless panic.