Slowly Rawson began to feel the return flow of life through his body; the shock had jarred every nerve to insensibility. Slowly he remembered and comprehended what had happened.
He was in his little office; he recognized his surroundings now. The windows were open. Outside the sun was shining. He realized at last the utter silence of that outer world.
He tried to raise himself from the cot, but fell back as his surroundings began to spin. "The camp!" he gasped weakly. "The men—I don't hear them."
"Gone!" Smith told him, while his eyes narrowed at some recollection and his hand came up unconsciously to a bruise of his cheek. "They beat it—went last night after the derrick fell. I tried to stop them. The fools were crazy with fear—devils, hell, all that kind of stuff. It all wound up in a fight—I couldn't hold 'em.
"You've got to get better kind of fast," he told Rawson. "We've got to get out of here ourselves—that flame-throwing stuff is too strong for me to take."
Rawson suddenly remembered the vague figure that had directed that flame. "Did I get him?" he demanded eagerly.
"You got him, yes, but then a whole swarm of things boiled up out of nowhere and carried him off! We weren't any of us close enough to see. The men said they were devils; I'm not sure they were wrong, either. Dean, old man, we're up against something rotten. We've got to get fixed for a fight; we can't handle this by ourselves."
awson was silent. He spoke slowly at last: