had not been quelled a moment before. "Stay down there.
Don't get up."

He found an old tomato can and used it to throw water from the
seep-spring upon the burning wood. Shorty and one or two of the other men
helped him. The heat near the mouth was so intense they could not stand
it. All but Sanders collapsed and staggered back to sink down to the
fresher air below.

Their place of refuge packed with smoke. A tree crashed down at the mouth
and presently a second one. These, blazing, sent more heat in to cook the
tortured men inside. In that bakehouse of hell men showed again their
nature, cursing, praying, storming, or weeping as they lay.

The prospect hole became a madhouse. A big Hungarian, crazed by the
torment he was enduring, leaped to his feet and made for the blazing hill
outside.

"Back there!" Dave shouted hoarsely.

The big fellow rushed him. His leader flung him back against the rock
wall. He rushed again, screaming in crazed anger. Sanders struck him down
with the long barrel of the forty-five. The Hungarian lay where he fell
for a few minutes, then crawled back from the mouth of the pit.

At intervals others tried to break out and were driven back.

Dave's eyebrows crisped away. He could scarcely draw a breath through his
inflamed throat. His eyes were swollen and almost blinded with smoke. His
lungs ached. Whenever he took a step he staggered. But he stuck to his
job hardily. The tomato can moved more jerkily. It carried less water.
But it still continued to drench the blazing timbers at the mouth of the
tunnel.

So Dave held the tunnel entrance against the fire and against his own
racked and tortured men. Occasionally he lay down to breathe the air
close to the floor. There was no circulation, for the tunnel ended in a
wall face. But the smoke was not so heavy close to the ground.

Man after man succumbed to the stupor of unconsciousness. Men choked,
strangled, and even died while their leader, his hair burnt and his eyes
almost sightless, face and body raw with agonizing wounds, crept feebly
about his business of saving their lives.

Fire-crisped and exhausted, he dropped down at last into forgetfulness of
pain. And the flames, which had fought with such savage fury to blot out
the little group of men, fell back sullenly in defeat. They had spent
themselves and could do no more.

The line of fire had passed over them. It left charred trees still
burning, a hillside black and smoking, desol