sed up into the air to be gripped by black, waiting claws--and
Spud knew that he was seeing Chet Bullard, fighting, struggling, in the
grasp of these demons from the Pit.

* * * * *

The fumes from that inferno rose straight up. They passed out at another
funnel-shaped throat except for an occasional eddy that whirled back
toward the watching man. But Spud O'Malley, hanging precariously from
that opening above, knew nothing of the sulphurous fumes or of the
tight band they clamped about his throat. He was taking careful aim at
the first of the flying beasts, found Chet in his line of fire, and
snapped forward his pistol to fire at the lip of the pit instead. And he
slipped forward the continuous discharge lever that caused the pistol to
shake in his hand as it emptied its capacious magazine in a furious rain
of bullets whose every end was tipped with the deadliest explosive of
Earth.

The floor rose up toward him in a spouting volcano of fire, while Spud
glared wildly through glazed and blinded eyes and swung his pistol to
rake the flying horde where he knew Chet was not.

He saw, through the haze that was sweeping before him, Chet's sprawled
body on the floor; he saw him leap to his feet and rush to the rescue of
the girl. Then the empty pistol slipped from Spud's nerveless hand; and
his other, that had clung with unshakable grip to a sharp edge of rock,
relaxed, while he plunged headlong toward the floor below.

CHAPTER X

_One Stroke for Freedom_

In that subterranean chamber of the Moon, where the angry red of still
deeper fires flared fitfully; where winged demons, like evil creatures
of a drug-crazed dreamer's mind, darted shrieking through the sulphurous
air, it was a slender, blue-eyed girl who took control of events.

She it was who, when the explosions of detonite had ceased, saw the fall
of a body from high above. She saw it strike upon a mound of dead
Moon-beasts; saw the homely, human features as the body rolled to the
floor; and it was she who threw herself upon it protectingly when one of
the enemy wounded dragged his broken wings trailing across the stone
that he might reach that human face with his distended claws.

"A man!" Anita Haldgren screamed. "It's a man--help me!" And Chet was
beside her in an instant to drag the limp body to safety.

"Spud!" he shouted. "It's Spud O'Malley! He never went back! He came
down here to save us!"

He grabbed up the