e rock. Faintly
gasping, with blood-foam at her livid lips, she lay motionless. But her
glazing eyes gazed up at Lee, and she was trying to smile.

"I went with them--that damned Franklin--he thought I was as bad as
him--" Her faint words were barely audible as he bent down to her. "Just
want to tell you, Lee--you're perfectly swell--I guess I fell for you,
didn't I? That's over now--just wanted you to know it anyway. There's
one of the damned mechanisms they've got--"

"Where are they, Vivian?"

"A cave, not very far from here--down that little ravine--just
ahead--they're in there--four or five of them, getting ready to--" Blood
was rattling in her throat, choking her. She tried, horribly, to cough.
And then she gasped:

"I stole this mechanism. He--Franklin--he caught me--slashed me. He
thought I was dead, I guess--but--when he had gone, I got this
mechanism--trying to get to you--"

Her choking, rattling breath again gave out. For a moment she lay with a
paroxysm of death twitching her. And then, very faintly she gasped:

"Sort of nice--I was able to do one good thing--anyhow. I'm glad of
that--"

The paroxysm ended in a moment. Her white lips were still trying to
smile as the light went out of her eyes and she was gone. Trembling, Lee
stood up, with the mute, white-faced Aura clinging to him. It was fairly
obvious how the weird mechanism should be adjusted--anklets, the
skeleton helmet of electrodes, the belt around his waist, with its
grids, tiny dials and curved battery box. In a moment he stood with the
wires strung from his head, to wrist, ankles and waist. There seemed but
one little control switch that would slide over a metal arc of intensity
contacts.

"Oh, Lee--what--what are you going to do--?" Aura stood white with
terror.

"She said--four or five of them in a cave near here--perhaps they
haven't yet gotten large--"

* * * * *

Down in a little ravine Lee found himself running forward in the
luminous darkness. He called back, "Aura--you stay where you are--you
hide, until it's over--"

Then, in the turmoil of his mind, there was no thought of the girl.
There was only the vision of old Anthony lying back there so
helpless--his burning eyes bitter with this thing which had so horribly
come to his little realm. To meet force with force was the only answer.

It was not Lee's plan to increase his size for a moment now. By doing
that, almost at once he would be d