redible quickness at the gnats that were stinging its flanks
and tail.

Desperately Brand played the tube across the vast chest, scoring a
smouldering gash in the scale-covered flesh just above the gash Dex
had seared a few moments before.

"Sorry, old fellow," Brand muttered to the screaming beast. "We hate
to bait you like this, but it has to be done. Come on, now, through
that wall behind you, and give us a chance at the lever."

* * * * *

But through the wall behind it the vast creature, not unnaturally,
refused to go! It darted from side to side. Backward and forward. Up
to the wall, only to back bewilderedly away from it. And constantly
the tubes flicked their blistering, maddening rays along its monstrous
sides and tail, as the Earthmen tried to guide it into the wall.

"Hope there's enough left of it to do the trick," said Brand,
white-lipped. The monster was smoking in a dozen spots now, and
several of the hump-like scales on its back had been burned away till
the vast spine looked like a giant saw that was missing a third of its
teeth. "God, I'm thinking we'll kill it before we can drive it through
that wall!"

Greca nodded soberly, keeping her eyes on the distant door to their
rear. Twice that door had been opened, and twice she had directed the
death rays into its opening to mow down the gangling figures behind
it. But she had said nothing of this to her man. He was busy enough
with his own task!

"The door to the dome--" Dex shouted suddenly.

But Brand merely nodded, even as a discharge from his tube annihilated
the Rogan that had appeared in the doorway before them. He had seen
that door stealthily opening even before Dex had.

"It had better be soon, Dex!" he called. "Rogans in front of
us--Rogans behind us--and--look out! On your side of the fence,
there!"

Dex whirled in time to pick off a grotesque, pipe-like figure that had
suddenly appeared on the broad wall of the enclosure. Then he turned
to the frenzied problem of driving the monster through the building
wall.

"The thing's going mad, Brand!" he cried, his voice high-pitched and
brittle. "Watch out!"

* * * * *

It was only too evident that his statement was true. The baited
monster, harried blindly this way and that, hounded against the blank
wall behind it by something that bit chunks of living flesh out of its
legs and sides, was losing whatever instinctive mental