searing brand of Lucifer himself!

For an instant the madman stood motionless, his ghastly brutality
unchallenged. Then Jeff Winters started for it. Jeff had come to Mars
alone and grown more solitary with every passing day. He was a brooding,
ingrown man, secretive and sullen, with a streak of wildness which he
usually managed to control. He went for the madman like a gigantic
terrier pup, shaggy and ferocious and contemptuous of death.

The big figure turned quickly, raised his arm, and brought his closed
fist down on Jeff's skull. Jeff collapsed like a shattered plaster cast.
His body seemed to break and splinter, and he sprawled forward on the
sand.

He did not get up.

Frank Anders had guns on both hips, and he drew them fast. No one knew
what kind of man Anders was. He hardly ever complained or made a
spectacle of himself. A little guy with sandy hair and cold blue eyes,
he had an accuracy of aim that did his talking for him.

His guns suddenly roared. For an instant the air between his hands and
the maniac was a crackling wall of flame. The brute swayed a little but
did not turn aside. He went straight for Anders with both arms spread
wide.

He caught Anders about the waist, lifted him up, and slammed his body
down against the sand. A sickness came over me as I stared. The madman
bashed Anders' head against the ground again and again. Then suddenly
the big arms relaxed and Anders sagged limply to the ground.

For an instant the madman swayed slowly back and forth, like a
blood-stained marionette on a wire. Then he moved forward with a
terrible, shambling gait, his head lowered, a dark, misshapen shadow
seeming to lengthen before him on the sand like a spindle of flame.

The clearing was abruptly tumultuous with sound. The fury which had been
unleashed against me turned upon the monster and became a closed circle
of deadly, intent purpose hemming him in--and he was caught in a
crossfire that hurled him backwards to the sand.

He jumped up and lunged straight for the well. What happened then was
like the awakening stages of some horrible dream. The madman shambled
past the well, the air at his back a crackling sheet of flame. The
barrage behind him was continuous and merciless. The men were organized
now, standing together in a solid wall, firing with deadly accuracy and
a grim purpose which transcended fear.

The madman went clumping on past me and climbed a dune with his
shoulders held straight. With