ull head and shoulders taller than Polter. And he was
tiring, panting heavily. His face was cut and bleeding from the blows of
my fist. The rock I heaved struck his shoulder. He roared, head down,
and bored into me. He was heavier than I. His weight flung me back. My
foot slid on the loose stones of the gully floor. I did not know that
Babs, Alan and their father were huddled under those stones!

My back struck the opposite wall. Polter's upflung knee caught me in the
stomach, all but knocking the breath out of me. He was desperate,
oblivious to the closing walls. And as he flung his arms with a grip
about my neck, hanging, trying to bear down, I saw in his blazing dark
eyes what seemed the light of suicide. I think that then, with a sudden
frenzied madness he realized that he was beaten, and tried to pull us to
the ground and let the walls crush us.

I summoned all my remaining strength and heaved us forward. I broke his
hold. His body was jammed back against a lowering wall. Its top seemed
almost at our knees. I shoved frantically. He fell backward and I jumped
after him.

We were on a great rocky plateau. But it was shrinking, crawling into
itself. Spots of light were in the murk overhead: there seemed a
distant circular horizon of emptiness around us.

Polter was lying in a heap. But it was trickery, for as I incautiously
bent over him his hand crashed a rock against my head. I reeled, with
all the world turning black, but didn't fall. There was a terrible
instant when my senses were going, but I fought to hold them. Blood from
a wound on my forehead was streaming in my eyes. I was staggering. Then
I realized that I was grimly tossing my head, shaking the blood away;
and little by little my sight came back.

Polter was on his feet, rushing me. His fist came with an upward swing
at my chin, but I ducked.

And suddenly, fighting up there in the open, my mind envisioned how
gigantic we were! This was a great upland plateau, rounded with miles of
distance and shadowy dimly radiant abyss beyond its circular horizon.
And I was a thousand feet or more tall! A Titan, looming here in the
sky!

My fist quite unexpectedly caught Polter's jaw. His simultaneous swing
went wild, as I leapt backward from it. He staggered, and his arms
dropped to his sides. I was crouched forward, guarded, watching him
while I gasped for breath. There was the briefest of instant when an
expression of vague surprise swept his face. But I had