"You don't have to imagine them." Smithy's voice was strained; it showed the tension under which he was laboring. "Men or beasts--God knows what they are!--but when they come up from nowhere--" "Out of the sand," Rawson explained. Smithy stared at him. "Out of the sand," he repeated. "Then, when they cut a man in two, melt steel as if it were butter, pull a few tons of metal down out of sight as easy as we would sink it in the ocean, flash their lights over in the ghost town, up on top of a volcano--" "Stop!" shouted Rawson unexpectedly. Some sudden gleam of understanding had flashed through his mind. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered to the doorway where he clung until the nausea of a whirling world had passed. "The dust! The dust!" he gasped. Smithy put a hand on his shoulder. Plainly he thought Rawson out of his mind. "Easy, old-timer," he cautioned. "We'll get out of here. I hate to make you walk in the shape you're in, but the dirty cowards ran off with the trucks. They even took your car; there isn't a thing here on wheels." But Rawson did not hear. He was staring off across the sand, and he was muttering bitter words. "Fool! Oh, you utter fool!" he said. "The dust--the dust." Then he let the roughly tender hands of Smithy guide him back to the cot where he fell into a troubled sleep. * * * * * The comparative coolness of dusk was tempering the feverish midday heat when Rawson awoke. And, strangely, his troubles and all his conflicting plans had been simplified by the magic of sleep. His course was entirely plain. He was going to the crater again. "What's there?" Smithy demanded. "What do you think that you'll find?" "I don't know," was the reply. "Then why--what the devil's the idea?" "It's my job. They put it up to me, Erickson and his crowd. I've got to go." And nothing Smithy could say seemed able to reach Rawson and swerve him from his single idea. "You'll be safe on the road," Rawson told him, while he filled a canteen with water in preparation for his own trip. "You can get to the highway by morning." Smithy did not trouble to reply. Was Rawson out of his mind? He could not be sure. Certainly he had got an awful bump, but there were no bones broken. However, it might be that he was still dazed--a crack on the head might have done it. But there was no use in further argument, he admitted to himself. Dean was going to the crater again--there was no stopping him--but he was not going alone; Smithy could see to that. * * * * * Again Rawson took the more difficult ascent. They went first to the ghost town: the slope above Little Rhyolite would save weary miles. But, once there, they knew that the route was not a place where they would care to be in the night. The realization came when Smithy, walking where they had been the day before, passing the sand dune where the wind had been scouring, seized Rawson's arm.