hat thing just came out of the hole!"

"Then why can't we see the red beam?" I demanded.

"Because there's no air or anything to reflect it," he replied. "We
can't see it until we are right in it."

I devoutly hoped that he was right as he headed the ship toward the
waiting monster. As we approached the amoeba came rapidly to meet us and
a long feeler shot out. As it did so there was a flash of intense light
ahead of us as Jim turned loose the ray, and the feeler disappeared.
Another and another met the same fate. Then Jim rotated the ship
slightly and let out the full force of the ray toward the monster. A
huge hole was torn in it, and as we approached with our ray blazing, the
amoeba slowly retreated and our path was open before us. Again there was
an instant of intense heat as we passed through the red wall, and we
were again in the hole which Jim's lamps had blasted through the layer.
Below us still lay the fog which had obscured the earth when we had
started on our upward trip.

* * * * *

Down toward the distant earth we dropped. We had gone about thirty miles
before we saw on the side of the hole one of the huge amoeba which were
so thick above.

"We might stop and pick that fellow off," said Jim, "but, on the whole,
I think we'll experiment with him."

He drove the ship nearer and turned it on its axis, holding it in
position by one of the auxiliary discharges. A flash came from our
forward ray and a portion of the amoeba disappeared. A long arm moved
out toward us, but it moved slowly and sluggishly instead of with the
lightninglike swiftness which had characterized the movements of the
others. Jimmy easily eluded it and dropped the ship a few yards. The
creature pursued it, but it moved slowly. For a mile we kept our
distance ahead of it, but we had to constantly decrease our speed to
keep from leaving it behind. Soon we were almost at a standstill, and
Jim reversed our direction and drew nearer. A feeler came slowly and
feebly out a few feet toward us and then stopped. We dropped the ship a
few feet but the amoeba did not follow. Jim glanced at the altimeter.

"Just as I thought," he exclaimed. "We are about forty-five miles above
the earth and already the air is so dense that the thing cannot move
lower. They are fashioned for existence in the regions of space and in
even the most rarified air they are helpless. There is no chance of one
ever reaching the surface of th