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+Project Gutenberg's In Search of the Unknown, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In Search of the Unknown
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: June 23, 2006 [EBook #18668]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                          |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation matches the original document.      |
+    |                                                              |
+    | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected |
+    | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of  |
+    | this document.                                               |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SHE STARTED TOWARD THE DOOR]
+
+
+
+
+IN SEARCH OF THE
+UNKNOWN
+
+
+
+BY
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE MAIDS OF PARADISE" "THE MAID-AT-ARMS"
+"CARDIGAN" "THE CONSPIRATORS" ETC.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+1904
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1904, by ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+Published June, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+           TO
+        MY FRIEND
+    E. LE GRAND BEERS
+
+    MY DEAR LE GRAND,--You and I were early drawn together by a
+    common love of nature. Your researches into the natural
+    history of the tree-toad, your observations upon the
+    mud-turtles of Providence Township, your experiments with the
+    fresh-water lobster, all stimulated my enthusiasm in a
+    scientific direction, which has crystallized in this helpful
+    little book, dedicated to you.
+
+    Pray accept it as an insignificant payment on account for all
+    I owe to you.
+
+              THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+It appears to the writer that there is urgent need of more "nature
+books"--books that are scraped clear of fiction and which display only
+the carefully articulated skeleton of fact. Hence this little volume,
+presented with some hesitation and more modesty. Various chapters
+have, at intervals, appeared in the pages of various publications. The
+continued narrative is now published for the first time; and the
+writer trusts that it may inspire enthusiasm for natural and
+scientific research, and inculcate a passion for accurate observation
+among the young.
+
+  THE AUTHOR.
+
+  _April 1, 1904._
+
+
+
+
+    Where the slanting forest eaves,
+    Shingled tight with greenest leaves,
+    Sweep the scented meadow-sedge,
+    Let us snoop along the edge;
+    Let us pry in hidden nooks,
+    Laden with our nature books,
+    Scaring birds with happy cries,
+    Chloroforming butterflies,
+    Rooting up each woodland plant,
+    Pinning beetle, fly, and ant,
+    So we may identify
+    What we've ruined, by-and-by.
+
+
+
+
+IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN
+
+
+I
+
+
+Because it all seems so improbable--so horribly impossible to me now,
+sitting here safe and sane in my own library--I hesitate to record an
+episode which already appears to me less horrible than grotesque. Yet,
+unless this story is written now, I know I shall never have the
+courage to tell the truth about the matter--not from fear of ridicule,
+but because I myself shall soon cease to credit what I now know to be
+true. Yet scarcely a month has elapsed since I heard the stealthy
+purring of what I believed to be the shoaling undertow--scarcely a
+month ago, with my own eyes, I saw that which, even now, I am
+beginning to believe never existed. As for the harbor-master--and the
+blow I am now striking at the old order of things--But of that I shall
+not speak now, or later; I shall try to tell the story simply and
+truthfully, and let my friends testify as to my probity and the
+publishers of this book corroborate them.
+
+On the 29th of February I resigned my position under the government
+and left Washington to accept an offer from Professor Farrago--whose
+name he kindly permits me to use--and on the first day of April I
+entered upon my new and congenial duties as general superintendent of
+the water-fowl department connected with the Zoological Gardens then
+in course of erection at Bronx Park, New York.
+
+For a week I followed the routine, examining the new foundations,
+studying the architect's plans, following the surveyors through the
+Bronx thickets, suggesting arrangements for water-courses and pools
+destined to be included in the enclosures for swans, geese, pelicans,
+herons, and such of the waders and swimmers as we might expect to
+acclimate in Bronx Park.
+
+It was at that time the policy of the trustees and officers of the
+Zoological Gardens neither to employ collectors nor to send out
+expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided to depend upon
+voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in
+dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services
+as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers,
+snarers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at
+exorbitant rates.
+
+To the proprietors of five-legged kittens, mangy lynxes, moth-eaten
+coyotes, and dancing bears I returned courteous but uncompromising
+refusals--of course, first submitting all such letters, together with
+my replies, to Professor Farrago.
+
+One day towards the end of May, however, just as I was leaving Bronx
+Park to return to town, Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department,
+called out to me that Professor Farrago wanted to see me a moment; so
+I put my pipe into my pocket again and retraced my steps to the
+temporary, wooden building occupied by Professor Farrago, general
+superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. The professor, who was
+sitting at his desk before a pile of letters and replies submitted for
+approval by me, pushed his glasses down and looked over them at me
+with a whimsical smile that suggested amusement, impatience,
+annoyance, and perhaps a faint trace of apology.
+
+"Now, here's a letter," he said, with a deliberate gesture towards a
+sheet of paper impaled on a file--"a letter that I suppose you
+remember." He disengaged the sheet of paper and handed it to me.
+
+"Oh yes," I replied, with a shrug; "of course the man is
+mistaken--or--"
+
+"Or what?" demanded Professor Farrago, tranquilly, wiping his glasses.
+
+"--Or a liar," I replied.
+
+After a silence he leaned back in his chair and bade me read the
+letter to him again, and I did so with a contemptuous tolerance for
+the writer, who must have been either a very innocent victim or a very
+stupid swindler. I said as much to Professor Farrago, but, to my
+surprise, he appeared to waver.
+
+"I suppose," he said, with his near-sighted, embarrassed smile, "that
+nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a thousand would throw that letter
+aside and condemn the writer as a liar or a fool?"
+
+"In my opinion," said I, "he's one or the other."
+
+"He isn't--in mine," said the professor, placidly.
+
+"What!" I exclaimed. "Here is a man living all alone on a strip of
+rock and sand between the wilderness and the sea, who wants you to
+send somebody to take charge of a bird that doesn't exist!"
+
+"How do you know," asked Professor Farrago, "that the bird in question
+does not exist?"
+
+"It is generally accepted," I replied, sarcastically, "that the great
+auk has been extinct for years. Therefore I may be pardoned for
+doubting that our correspondent possesses a pair of them alive."
+
+"Oh, you young fellows," said the professor, smiling wearily, "you
+embark on a theory for destinations that don't exist."
+
+He leaned back in his chair, his amused eyes searching space for the
+imagery that made him smile.
+
+"Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of Heaven and a
+stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to--do you?"
+
+Rather red in the face, I said: "Don't you believe the great auk to be
+extinct?"
+
+"Audubon saw the great auk."
+
+"Who has seen a single specimen since?"
+
+"Nobody--except our correspondent here," he replied, laughing.
+
+I laughed, too, considering the interview at an end, but the professor
+went on, coolly:
+
+"Whatever it is that our correspondent has--and I am daring to believe
+that it _is_ the great auk itself--I want you to secure it for the
+society."
+
+When my astonishment subsided my first conscious sentiment was one of
+pity. Clearly, Professor Farrago was on the verge of dotage--ah, what
+a loss to the world!
+
+I believe now that Professor Farrago perfectly interpreted my
+thoughts, but he betrayed neither resentment nor impatience. I drew a
+chair up beside his desk--there was nothing to do but to obey, and
+this fool's errand was none of my conceiving.
+
+Together we made out a list of articles necessary for me and itemized
+the expenses I might incur, and I set a date for my return, allowing
+no margin for a successful termination to the expedition.
+
+"Never mind that," said the professor. "What I want you to do is to
+get those birds here safely. Now, how many men will you take?"
+
+"None," I replied, bluntly; "it's a useless expense, unless there is
+something to bring back. If there is I'll wire you, you may be sure."
+
+"Very well," said Professor Farrago, good-humoredly, "you shall have
+all the assistance you may require. Can you leave to-night?"
+
+The old gentleman was certainly prompt. I nodded, half-sulkily, aware
+of his amusement.
+
+"So," I said, picking up my hat, "I am to start north to find a place
+called Black Harbor, where there is a man named Halyard who possesses,
+among other household utensils, two extinct great auks--"
+
+We were both laughing by this time. I asked him why on earth he
+credited the assertion of a man he had never before heard of.
+
+"I suppose," he replied, with the same half-apologetic, half-humorous
+smile, "it is instinct. I feel, somehow, that this man Halyard _has_
+got an auk--perhaps two. I can't get away from the idea that we are on
+the eve of acquiring the rarest of living creatures. It's odd for a
+scientist to talk as I do; doubtless you're shocked--admit it, now!"
+
+But I was not shocked; on the contrary, I was conscious that the same
+strange hope that Professor Farrago cherished was beginning, in spite
+of me, to stir my pulses, too.
+
+"If he has--" I began, then stopped.
+
+The professor and I looked hard at each other in silence.
+
+"Go on," he said, encouragingly.
+
+But I had nothing more to say, for the prospect of beholding with my
+own eyes a living specimen of the great auk produced a series of
+conflicting emotions within me which rendered speech profanely
+superfluous.
+
+As I took my leave Professor Farrago came to the door of the
+temporary, wooden office and handed me the letter written by the man
+Halyard. I folded it and put it into my pocket, as Halyard might
+require it for my own identification.
+
+"How much does he want for the pair?" I asked.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars. Don't demur--if the birds are really--"
+
+"I know," I said, hastily, not daring to hope too much.
+
+"One thing more," said Professor Farrago, gravely; "you know, in that
+last paragraph of his letter, Halyard speaks of something else in the
+way of specimens--an undiscovered species of amphibious biped--just
+read that paragraph again, will you?"
+
+I drew the letter from my pocket and read as he directed:
+
+    "When you have seen the two living specimens of the great auk,
+    and have satisfied yourself that I tell the truth, you may be
+    wise enough to listen without prejudice to a statement I shall
+    make concerning the existence of the strangest creature ever
+    fashioned. I will merely say, at this time, that the creature
+    referred to is an amphibious biped and inhabits the ocean near
+    this coast. More I cannot say, for I personally have not seen
+    the animal, but I have a witness who has, and there are many
+    who affirm that they have seen the creature. You will
+    naturally say that my statement amounts to nothing; but when
+    your representative arrives, if he be free from prejudice, I
+    expect his reports to you concerning this sea-biped will
+    confirm the solemn statements of a witness I _know_ to be
+    unimpeachable.
+
+  "Yours truly,      BURTON HALYARD.
+
+  "BLACK HARBOR."
+
+"Well," I said, after a moment's thought, "here goes for the
+wild-goose chase."
+
+"Wild auk, you mean," said Professor Farrago, shaking hands with me.
+"You will start to-night, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, but Heaven knows how I'm ever going to land in this man
+Halyard's door-yard. Good-bye!"
+
+"About that sea-biped--" began Professor Farrago, shyly.
+
+"Oh, don't!" I said; "I can swallow the auks, feathers and claws, but
+if this fellow Halyard is hinting he's seen an amphibious creature
+resembling a man--"
+
+"--Or a woman," said the professor, cautiously.
+
+I retired, disgusted, my faith shaken in the mental vigor of Professor
+Farrago.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The three days' voyage by boat and rail was irksome. I bought my kit
+at Sainte Croix, on the Central Pacific Railroad, and on June 1st I
+began the last stage of my journey _via_ the Sainte Isole broad-gauge,
+arriving in the wilderness by daylight. A tedious forced march by
+blazed trail, freshly spotted on the wrong side, of course, brought me
+to the northern terminus of the rusty, narrow-gauge lumber railway
+which runs from the heart of the hushed pine wilderness to the sea.
+
+Already a long train of battered flat-cars, piled with sluice-props
+and roughly hewn sleepers, was moving slowly off into the brooding
+forest gloom, when I came in sight of the track; but I developed a
+gratifying and unexpected burst of speed, shouting all the while. The
+train stopped; I swung myself aboard the last car, where a pleasant
+young fellow was sitting on the rear brake, chewing spruce and reading
+a letter.
+
+"Come aboard, sir," he said, looking up with a smile; "I guess you're
+the man in a hurry."
+
+"I'm looking for a man named Halyard," I said, dropping rifle and
+knapsack on the fresh-cut, fragrant pile of pine. "Are you Halyard?"
+
+"No, I'm Francis Lee, bossing the mica pit at Port-of-Waves," he
+replied, "but this letter is from Halyard, asking me to look out for a
+man in a hurry from Bronx Park, New York."
+
+"I'm that man," said I, filling my pipe and offering him a share of
+the weed of peace, and we sat side by side smoking very amiably, until
+a signal from the locomotive sent him forward and I was left alone,
+lounging at ease, head pillowed on both arms, watching the blue sky
+flying through the branches overhead.
+
+Long before we came in sight of the ocean I smelled it; the fresh,
+salt aroma stole into my senses, drowsy with the heated odor of pine
+and hemlock, and I sat up, peering ahead into the dusky sea of pines.
+
+Fresher and fresher came the wind from the sea, in puffs, in mild,
+sweet breezes, in steady, freshening currents, blowing the feathery
+crowns of the pines, setting the balsam's blue tufts rocking.
+
+Lee wandered back over the long line of flats, balancing himself
+nonchalantly as the cars swung around a sharp curve, where water
+dripped from a newly propped sluice that suddenly emerged from the
+depths of the forest to run parallel to the railroad track.
+
+"Built it this spring," he said, surveying his handiwork, which seemed
+to undulate as the cars swept past. "It runs to the cove--or ought
+to--" He stopped abruptly with a thoughtful glance at me.
+
+"So you're going over to Halyard's?" he continued, as though answering
+a question asked by himself.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"You've never been there--of course?"
+
+"No," I said, "and I'm not likely to go again."
+
+I would have told him why I was going if I had not already begun to
+feel ashamed of my idiotic errand.
+
+"I guess you're going to look at those birds of his," continued Lee,
+placidly.
+
+"I guess I am," I said, sulkily, glancing askance to see whether he
+was smiling.
+
+But he only asked me, quite seriously, whether a great auk was really
+a very rare bird; and I told him that the last one ever seen had been
+found dead off Labrador in January, 1870. Then I asked him whether
+these birds of Halyard's were really great auks, and he replied,
+somewhat indifferently, that he supposed they were--at least, nobody
+had ever before seen such birds near Port-of-Waves.
+
+"There's something else," he said, running, a pine-sliver through his
+pipe-stem--"something that interests us all here more than auks, big
+or little. I suppose I might as well speak of it, as you are bound to
+hear about it sooner or later."
+
+He hesitated, and I could see that he was embarrassed, searching for
+the exact words to convey his meaning.
+
+"If," said I, "you have anything in this region more important to
+science than the great auk, I should be very glad to know about it."
+
+Perhaps there was the faintest tinge of sarcasm in my voice, for he
+shot a sharp glance at me and then turned slightly. After a moment,
+however, he put his pipe into his pocket, laid hold of the brake with
+both hands, vaulted to his perch aloft, and glanced down at me.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the harbor-master?" he asked, maliciously.
+
+"Which harbor-master?" I inquired.
+
+"You'll know before long," he observed, with a satisfied glance into
+perspective.
+
+This rather extraordinary observation puzzled me. I waited for him to
+resume, and, as he did not, I asked him what he meant.
+
+"If I knew," he said, "I'd tell you. But, come to think of it, I'd be
+a fool to go into details with a scientific man. You'll hear about the
+harbor-master--perhaps you will see the harbor-master. In that event I
+should be glad to converse with you on the subject."
+
+I could not help laughing at his prim and precise manner, and, after a
+moment, he also laughed, saying:
+
+"It hurts a man's vanity to know he knows a thing that somebody else
+knows he doesn't know. I'm damned if I say another word about the
+harbor-master until you've been to Halyard's!"
+
+"A harbor-master," I persisted, "is an official who superintends the
+mooring of ships--isn't he?"
+
+But he refused to be tempted into conversation, and we lounged
+silently on the lumber until a long, thin whistle from the locomotive
+and a rush of stinging salt-wind brought us to our feet. Through the
+trees I could see the bluish-black ocean, stretching out beyond black
+headlands to meet the clouds; a great wind was roaring among the trees
+as the train slowly came to a stand-still on the edge of the primeval
+forest.
+
+Lee jumped to the ground and aided me with my rifle and pack, and then
+the train began to back away along a curved side-track which, Lee
+said, led to the mica-pit and company stores.
+
+"Now what will you do?" he asked, pleasantly. "I can give you a good
+dinner and a decent bed to-night if you like--and I'm sure Mrs. Lee
+would be very glad to have you stop with us as long as you choose."
+
+I thanked him, but said that I was anxious to reach Halyard's before
+dark, and he very kindly led me along the cliffs and pointed out the
+path.
+
+"This man Halyard," he said, "is an invalid. He lives at a cove called
+Black Harbor, and all his truck goes through to him over the company's
+road. We receive it here, and send a pack-mule through once a month.
+I've met him; he's a bad-tempered hypochondriac, a cynic at heart, and
+a man whose word is never doubted. If he says he has a great auk, you
+may be satisfied he has."
+
+My heart was beating with excitement at the prospect; I looked out
+across the wooded headlands and tangled stretches of dune and hollow,
+trying to realize what it might mean to me, to Professor Farrago, to
+the world, if I should lead back to New York a live auk.
+
+"He's a crank," said Lee; "frankly, I don't like him. If you find it
+unpleasant there, come back to us."
+
+"Does Halyard live alone?" I asked.
+
+"Yes--except for a professional trained nurse--poor thing!"
+
+"A man?"
+
+"No," said Lee, disgustedly.
+
+Presently he gave me a peculiar glance; hesitated, and finally said:
+"Ask Halyard to tell you about his nurse and--the harbor-master.
+Good-bye--I'm due at the quarry. Come and stay with us whenever you
+care to; you will find a welcome at Port-of-Waves."
+
+We shook hands and parted on the cliff, he turning back into the
+forest along the railway, I starting northward, pack slung, rifle over
+my shoulder. Once I met a group of quarrymen, faces burned brick-red,
+scarred hands swinging as they walked. And, as I passed them with a
+nod, turning, I saw that they also had turned to look after me, and I
+caught a word or two of their conversation, whirled back to me on the
+sea-wind.
+
+They were speaking of the harbor-master.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Towards sunset I came out on a sheer granite cliff where the sea-birds
+were whirling and clamoring, and the great breakers dashed, rolling in
+double-thundered reverberations on the sun-dyed, crimson sands below
+the rock.
+
+Across the half-moon of beach towered another cliff, and, behind this,
+I saw a column of smoke rising in the still air. It certainly came
+from Halyard's chimney, although the opposite cliff prevented me from
+seeing the house itself.
+
+I rested a moment to refill my pipe, then resumed rifle and pack, and
+cautiously started to skirt the cliffs. I had descended half-way
+towards the beech, and was examining the cliff opposite, when
+something on the very top of the rock arrested my attention--a man
+darkly outlined against the sky. The next moment, however, I knew it
+could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of
+the cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before I
+could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf--or, at
+least, it seemed to--but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so
+unexpectedly, that I was not sure I had seen anything at all.
+
+However, I was curious enough to climb the cliff on the land side and
+make my way towards the spot where I imagined I saw the man. Of
+course, there was nothing there--not a trace of a human being, I mean.
+Something _had_ been there--a sea-otter, possibly--for the remains of
+a freshly killed fish lay on the rock, eaten to the back-bone and
+tail.
+
+The next moment, below me, I saw the house, a freshly painted, trim,
+flimsy structure, modern, and very much out of harmony with the
+splendid savagery surrounding it. It struck a nasty, cheap note in the
+noble, gray monotony of headland and sea.
+
+The descent was easy enough. I crossed the crescent beach, hard as
+pink marble, and found a little trodden path among the rocks, that led
+to the front porch of the house.
+
+There were two people on the porch--I heard their voices before I saw
+them--and when I set my foot upon the wooden steps, I saw one of them,
+a woman, rise from her chair and step hastily towards me.
+
+"Come back!" cried the other, a man with a smooth-shaven, deeply lined
+face, and a pair of angry, blue eyes; and the woman stepped back
+quietly, acknowledging my lifted hat with a silent inclination.
+
+The man, who was reclining in an invalid's rolling-chair, clapped both
+large, pale hands to the wheels and pushed himself out along the
+porch. He had shawls pinned about him, an untidy, drab-colored hat on
+his head, and, when he looked down at me, he scowled.
+
+"I know who you are," he said, in his acid voice; "you're one of the
+Zoological men from Bronx Park. You look like it, anyway."
+
+"It is easy to recognize you from your reputation," I replied,
+irritated at his discourtesy.
+
+"Really," he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh, "I'm
+obliged for your frankness. You're after my great auks, are you not?"
+
+"Nothing else would have tempted me into this place," I replied,
+sincerely.
+
+"Thank Heaven for that," he said. "Sit down a moment; you've
+interrupted us." Then, turning to the young woman, who wore the neat
+gown and tiny cap of a professional nurse, he bade her resume what she
+had been saying. She did so, with deprecating glance at me, which made
+the old man sneer again.
+
+"It happened so suddenly," she said, in her low voice, "that I had no
+chance to get back. The boat was drifting in the cove; I sat in the
+stern, reading, both oars shipped, and the tiller swinging. Then I
+heard a scratching under the boat, but thought it might be
+sea-weed--and, next moment, came those soft thumpings, like the sound
+of a big fish rubbing its nose against a float."
+
+Halyard clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl in
+grim displeasure.
+
+"Didn't you know enough to be frightened?" he demanded.
+
+"No--not then," she said, coloring faintly; "but when, after a few
+moments, I looked up and saw the harbor-master running up and down the
+beach, I was horribly frightened."
+
+"Really?" said Halyard, sarcastically; "it was about time." Then,
+turning to me, he rasped out: "And that young lady was obliged to row
+all the way to Port-of-Waves and call to Lee's quarrymen to take her
+boat in."
+
+Completely mystified, I looked from Halyard to the girl, not in the
+least comprehending what all this meant.
+
+"That will do," said Halyard, ungraciously, which curt phrase was
+apparently the usual dismissal for the nurse.
+
+She rose, and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, stepping
+noiselessly into the house.
+
+"I want beef-tea!" bawled Halyard after her; then he gave me an
+unamiable glance.
+
+"I was a well-bred man," he sneered; "I'm a Harvard graduate, too, but
+I live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like."
+
+"You certainly are not reticent," I said, disgusted.
+
+"Why should I be?" he rasped; "I pay that young woman for my
+irritability; it's a bargain between us."
+
+"In your domestic affairs," I said, "there is nothing that interests
+me. I came to see those auks."
+
+"You probably believe them to be razor-billed auks," he said,
+contemptuously. "But they're not; they're great auks."
+
+I suggested that he permit me to examine them, and he replied,
+indifferently, that they were in a pen in his backyard, and that I was
+free to step around the house when I cared to.
+
+I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda, and hastened off with mixed
+emotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in his
+senses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, I
+argued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin to
+a penguin in that pen.
+
+I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupor of amazement when I
+came to the wire-covered enclosure. Not only were there two great
+auks in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on their
+sea-weed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two newly
+hatched chicks, all bill and feet, which nestled sedately at the edge
+of a puddle of salt-water, where some small fish were swimming.
+
+For a while excitement blinded, nay, deafened me. I tried to realize
+that I was gazing upon the last individuals of an all but extinct
+race--the sole survivors of the gigantic auk, which, for thirty years,
+has been accounted an extinct creature.
+
+I believe that I did not move muscle nor limb until the sun had gone
+down and the crowding darkness blurred my straining eyes and blotted
+the great, silent, bright-eyed birds from sight.
+
+Even then I could not tear myself away from the enclosure; I listened
+to the strange, drowsy note of the male bird, the fainter responses of
+the female, the thin plaints of the chicks, huddling under her breast;
+I heard their flipper-like, embryotic wings beating sleepily as the
+birds stretched and yawned their beaks and clacked them, preparing for
+slumber.
+
+"If you please," came a soft voice from the door, "Mr. Halyard awaits
+your company to dinner."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I dined well--or, rather, I might have enjoyed my dinner if Mr.
+Halyard had been eliminated; and the feast consisted exclusively of a
+joint of beef, the pretty nurse, and myself. She was exceedingly
+attractive--with a disturbing fashion of lowering her head and raising
+her dark eyes when spoken to.
+
+As for Halyard, he was unspeakable, bundled up in his snuffy shawls,
+and making uncouth noises over his gruel. But it is only just to say
+that his table was worth sitting down to and his wine was sound as a
+bell.
+
+"Yah!" he snapped, "I'm sick of this cursed soup--and I'll trouble you
+to fill my glass--"
+
+"It is dangerous for you to touch claret," said the pretty nurse.
+
+"I might as well die at dinner as anywhere," he observed.
+
+"Certainly," said I, cheerfully passing the decanter, but he did not
+appear overpleased with the attention.
+
+"I can't smoke, either," he snarled, hitching the shawls around until
+he looked like Richard the Third.
+
+However, he was good enough to shove a box of cigars at me, and I took
+one and stood up, as the pretty nurse slipped past and vanished into
+the little parlor beyond.
+
+We sat there for a while without speaking. He picked irritably at the
+bread-crumbs on the cloth, never glancing in my direction; and I,
+tired from my long foot-tour, lay back in my chair, silently
+appreciating one of the best cigars I ever smoked.
+
+"Well," he rasped out at length, "what do you think of my auks--and my
+veracity?"
+
+I told him that both were unimpeachable.
+
+"Didn't they call me a swindler down there at your museum?" he
+demanded.
+
+I admitted that I had heard the term applied. Then I made a clean
+breast of the matter, telling him that it was I who had doubted; that
+my chief, Professor Farrago, had sent me against my will, and that I
+was ready and glad to admit that he, Mr. Halyard, was a benefactor of
+the human race.
+
+"Bosh!" he said. "What good does a confounded wobbly, bandy-toed bird
+do to the human race?"
+
+But he was pleased, nevertheless; and presently he asked me, not
+unamiably, to punish his claret again.
+
+"I'm done for," he said; "good things to eat and drink are no good to
+me. Some day I'll get mad enough to have a fit, and then--"
+
+He paused to yawn.
+
+"Then," he continued, "that little nurse of mine will drink up my
+claret and go back to civilization, where people are polite."
+
+Somehow or other, in spite of the fact that Halyard was an old pig,
+what he said touched me. There was certainly not much left in life for
+him--as he regarded life.
+
+"I'm going to leave her this house," he said, arranging his shawls.
+"She doesn't know it. I'm going to leave her my money, too. She
+doesn't know that. Good Lord! What kind of a woman can she be to stand
+my bad temper for a few dollars a month!"
+
+"I think," said I, "that it's partly because she's poor, partly
+because she's sorry for you."
+
+He looked up with a ghastly smile.
+
+"You think she really is sorry?"
+
+Before I could answer he went on: "I'm no mawkish sentimentalist, and
+I won't allow anybody to be sorry for me--do you hear?"
+
+"Oh, I'm not sorry for you!" I said, hastily, and, for the first time
+since I had seen him, he laughed heartily, without a sneer.
+
+We both seemed to feel better after that; I drank his wine and smoked
+his cigars, and he appeared to take a certain grim pleasure in
+watching me.
+
+"There's no fool like a young fool," he observed, presently.
+
+As I had no doubt he referred to me, I paid him no attention.
+
+After fidgeting with his shawls, he gave me an oblique scowl and asked
+me my age.
+
+"Twenty-four," I replied.
+
+"Sort of a tadpole, aren't you?" he said.
+
+As I took no offence, he repeated the remark.
+
+"Oh, come," said I, "there's no use in trying to irritate me. I see
+through you; a row acts like a cocktail on you--but you'll have to
+stick to gruel in my company."
+
+"I call that impudence!" he rasped out, wrathfully.
+
+"I don't care what you call it," I replied, undisturbed, "I am not
+going to be worried by you. Anyway," I ended, "it is my opinion that
+you could be very good company if you chose."
+
+The proposition appeared to take his breath away--at least, he said
+nothing more; and I finished my cigar in peace and tossed the stump
+into a saucer.
+
+"Now," said I, "what price do you set upon your birds, Mr. Halyard?"
+
+"Ten thousand dollars," he snapped, with an evil smile.
+
+"You will receive a certified check when the birds are delivered," I
+said, quietly.
+
+"You don't mean to say you agree to that outrageous bargain--and I
+won't take a cent less, either--Good Lord!--haven't you any spirit
+left?" he cried, half rising from his pile of shawls.
+
+His piteous eagerness for a dispute sent me into laughter impossible
+to control, and he eyed me, mouth open, animosity rising visibly.
+
+Then he seized the wheels of his invalid chair and trundled away, too
+mad to speak; and I strolled out into the parlor, still laughing.
+
+The pretty nurse was there, sewing under a hanging lamp.
+
+"If I am not indiscreet--" I began.
+
+"Indiscretion is the better part of valor," said she, dropping her
+head but raising her eyes.
+
+So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated.
+
+"Doubtless," said I, "you are hemming a 'kerchief."
+
+"Doubtless I am not," she said; "this is a night-cap for Mr.
+Halyard."
+
+A mental vision of Halyard in a night-cap, very mad, nearly set me
+laughing again.
+
+"Like the King of Yvetot, he wears his crown in bed," I said,
+flippantly.
+
+"The King of Yvetot might have made that remark," she observed,
+re-threading her needle.
+
+It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man's
+ears feel.
+
+To cool them, I strolled out to the porch; and, after a while, the
+pretty nurse came out, too, and sat down in a chair not far away. She
+probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with.
+
+"I have so little company--it is a great relief to see somebody from
+the world," she said. "If you can be agreeable, I wish you would."
+
+The idea that she had come out to see me was so agreeable that I
+remained speechless until she said: "Do tell me what people are doing
+in New York."
+
+So I seated myself on the steps and talked about the portion of the
+world inhabited by me, while she sat sewing in the dull light that
+straggled out from the parlor windows.
+
+She had a certain coquetry of her own, using the usual methods with an
+individuality that was certainly fetching. For instance, when she lost
+her needle--and, another time, when we both, on hands and knees,
+hunted for her thimble.
+
+However, directions for these pastimes may be found in contemporary
+classics.
+
+I was as entertaining as I could be--perhaps not quite as entertaining
+as a young man usually thinks he is. However, we got on very well
+together until I asked her tenderly who the harbor-master might be,
+whom they all discussed so mysteriously.
+
+"I do not care to speak about it," she said, with a primness of which
+I had not suspected her capable.
+
+Of course I could scarcely pursue the subject after that--and, indeed,
+I did not intend to--so I began to tell her how I fancied I had seen a
+man on the cliff that afternoon, and how the creature slid over the
+sheer rock like a snake.
+
+To my amazement, she asked me to kindly discontinue the account of my
+adventures, in an icy tone, which left no room for protest.
+
+"It was only a sea-otter," I tried to explain, thinking perhaps she
+did not care for snake stories.
+
+But the explanation did not appear to interest her, and I was
+mortified to observe that my impression upon her was anything but
+pleasant.
+
+"She doesn't seem to like me and my stories," thought I, "but she is
+too young, perhaps, to appreciate them."
+
+So I forgave her--for she was even prettier than I had thought her at
+first--and I took my leave, saying that Mr. Halyard would doubtless
+direct me to my room.
+
+Halyard was in his library, cleaning a revolver, when I entered.
+
+"Your room is next to mine," he said; "pleasant dreams, and kindly
+refrain from snoring."
+
+"May I venture an absurd hope that you will do the same!" I replied,
+politely.
+
+That maddened him, so I hastily withdrew.
+
+I had been asleep for at least two hours when a movement by my bedside
+and a light in my eyes awakened me. I sat bolt upright in bed,
+blinking at Halyard, who, clad in a dressing-gown and wearing a
+night-cap, had wheeled himself into my room with one hand, while with
+the other he solemnly waved a candle over my head.
+
+"I'm so cursed lonely," he said--"come, there's a good fellow--talk to
+me in your own original, impudent way."
+
+I objected strenuously, but he looked so worn and thin, so lonely and
+bad-tempered, so lovelessly grotesque, that I got out of bed and
+passed a spongeful of cold water over my head.
+
+Then I returned to bed and propped the pillows up for a back-rest,
+ready to quarrel with him if it might bring some little pleasure into
+his morbid existence.
+
+"No," he said, amiably, "I'm too worried to quarrel, but I'm much
+obliged for your kindly offer. I want to tell you something."
+
+"What?" I asked, suspiciously.
+
+"I want to ask you if you ever saw a man with gills like a fish?"
+
+"Gills?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes, gills! Did you?"
+
+"No," I replied, angrily, "and neither did you."
+
+"No, I never did," he said, in a curiously placid voice, "but there's
+a man with gills like a fish who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you
+needn't look that way--nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I
+tell you that there's a man--or a thing that looks like a man--as big
+as you are, too--all slate-colored--with nasty red gills like a
+fish!--and I've a witness to prove what I say!"
+
+"Who?" I asked, sarcastically.
+
+"The witness? My nurse."
+
+"Oh! She saw a slate-colored man with gills?"
+
+"Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Mica Quarry
+Company at Port-of-Waves. So have a dozen men who work in the quarry.
+Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and anybody
+can tell you about the harbor-master."
+
+"The harbor-master!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a
+man--and--by Heaven! _is_ a man--that's the harbor-master. Ask any
+quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their
+boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of
+every cat-boat in the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he
+saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday!
+Ask anybody along the coast what sort of a thing moves about the
+cliffs like a man and slides over them into the sea like an otter--"
+
+"I saw it do that!" I burst out.
+
+"Oh, did you? Well, _what was it?_"
+
+Something kept me silent, although a dozen explanations flew to my
+lips.
+
+After a pause, Halyard said: "You saw the harbor-master, that's what
+you saw!"
+
+I looked at him without a word.
+
+"Don't mistake me," he said, pettishly; "I don't think that the
+harbor-master is a spirit or a sprite or a hobgoblin, or any sort of
+damned rot. Neither do I believe it to be an optical illusion."
+
+"What do you think it is?" I asked.
+
+"I think it's a man--I think it's a branch of the human race--that's
+what I think. Let me tell you something: the deepest spot in the
+Atlantic Ocean is a trifle over five miles deep--and I suppose you
+know that this place lies only about a quarter of a mile off this
+headland. The British exploring vessel, _Gull_, Captain Marotte,
+discovered and sounded it, I believe. Anyway, it's there, and it's my
+belief that the profound depths are inhabited by the remnants of the
+last race of amphibious human beings!"
+
+This was childish; I did not bother to reply.
+
+"Believe it or not, as you will," he said, angrily; "one thing I know,
+and that is this: the harbor-master has taken to hanging around my
+cove, and he is attracted by my nurse! I won't have it! I'll blow his
+fishy gills out of his head if I ever get a shot at him! I don't care
+whether it's homicide or not--anyway, it's a new kind of murder and it
+attracts me!"
+
+I gazed at him incredulously, but he was working himself into a
+passion, and I did not choose to say what I thought.
+
+"Yes, this slate-colored thing with gills goes purring and grinning
+and spitting about after my nurse--when she walks, when she rows, when
+she sits on the beach! Gad! It drives me nearly frantic. I won't
+tolerate it, I tell you!"
+
+"No," said I, "I wouldn't either." And I rolled over in bed convulsed
+with laughter.
+
+The next moment I heard my door slam. I smothered my mirth and rose to
+close the window, for the land-wind blew cold from the forest, and a
+drizzle was sweeping the carpet as far as my bed.
+
+That luminous glare which sometimes lingers after the stars go out,
+threw a trembling, nebulous radiance over sand and cove. I heard the
+seething currents under the breakers' softened thunder--louder than I
+ever heard it. Then, as I closed my window, lingering for a last look
+at the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle-deep, in the surf,
+all alone there in the night. But--was it a man? For the figure
+suddenly began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle,
+waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window
+again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the
+chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the
+coast--I heard nothing save the purring of bubbles on seething sands.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+It took me a week to perfect my arrangements for transporting the
+great auks, by water, to Port-of-Waves, where a lumber schooner was to
+be sent from Petite Sainte Isole, chartered by me for a voyage to New
+York.
+
+I had constructed a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to
+squat until they arrived at Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor
+Farrago were brief. One merely said "Victory!" Another explained that
+I wanted no assistance; and a third read: "Schooner chartered. Arrive
+New York July 1st. Send furniture-van to foot of Bluff Street."
+
+My week as a guest of Mr. Halyard proved interesting. I wrangled with
+that invalid to his heart's content, I worked all day on my osier
+cage, I hunted the thimble in the moonlight with the pretty nurse. We
+sometimes found it.
+
+As for the thing they called the harbor-master, I saw it a dozen
+times, but always either at night or so far away and so close to the
+sea that of course no trace of it remained when I reached the spot,
+rifle in hand.
+
+I had quite made up my mind that the so-called harbor-master was a
+demented darky--wandered from, Heaven knows where--perhaps shipwrecked
+and gone mad from his sufferings. Still, it was far from pleasant to
+know that the creature was strongly attracted by the pretty nurse.
+
+She, however, persisted in regarding the harbor-master as a
+sea-creature; she earnestly affirmed that it had gills, like a fish's
+gills, that it had a soft, fleshy hole for a mouth, and its eyes were
+luminous and lidless and fixed.
+
+"Besides," she said, with a shudder, "it's all slate color, like a
+porpoise, and it looks as wet as a sheet of india-rubber in a
+dissecting-room."
+
+The day before I was to set sail with my auks in a cat-boat bound for
+Port-of-Waves, Halyard trundled up to me in his chair and announced
+his intention of going with me.
+
+"Going where?" I asked.
+
+"To Port-of-Waves and then to New York," he replied, tranquilly.
+
+I was doubtful, and my lack of cordiality hurt his feelings.
+
+"Oh, of course, if you need the sea-voyage--" I began.
+
+"I don't; I need you," he said, savagely; "I need the stimulus of our
+daily quarrel. I never disagreed so pleasantly with anybody in my
+life; it agrees with me; I am a hundred per cent. better than I was
+last week."
+
+I was inclined to resent this, but something in the deep-lined face of
+the invalid softened me. Besides, I had taken a hearty liking to the
+old pig.
+
+"I don't want any mawkish sentiment about it," he said, observing me
+closely; "I won't permit anybody to feel sorry for me--do you
+understand?"
+
+"I'll trouble you to use a different tone in addressing me," I
+replied, hotly; "I'll feel sorry for you if I choose to!" And our
+usual quarrel proceeded, to his deep satisfaction.
+
+By six o'clock next evening I had Halyard's luggage stowed away in the
+cat-boat, and the pretty nurse's effects corded down, with the newly
+hatched auk-chicks in a hat-box on top. She and I placed the osier
+cage aboard, securing it firmly, and then, throwing tablecloths over
+the auks' heads, we led those simple and dignified birds down the path
+and across the plank at the little wooden pier. Together we locked up
+the house, while Halyard stormed at us both and wheeled himself
+furiously up and down the beach below. At the last moment she forgot
+her thimble. But we found it, I forget where.
+
+"Come on!" shouted Halyard, waving his shawls furiously; "what the
+devil are you about up there?"
+
+He received our explanation with a sniff, and we trundled him aboard
+without further ceremony.
+
+"Don't run me across the plank like a steamer trunk!" he shouted, as I
+shot him dexterously into the cock-pit. But the wind was dying away,
+and I had no time to dispute with him then.
+
+The sun was setting above the pine-clad ridge as our sail flapped and
+partly filled, and I cast off, and began a long tack, east by south,
+to avoid the spouting rocks on our starboard bow.
+
+The sea-birds rose in clouds as we swung across the shoal, the black
+surf-ducks scuttered out to sea, the gulls tossed their sun-tipped
+wings in the ocean, riding the rollers like bits of froth.
+
+Already we were sailing slowly out across that great hole in the
+ocean, five miles deep, the most profound sounding ever taken in the
+Atlantic. The presence of great heights or great depths, seen or
+unseen, always impresses the human mind--perhaps oppresses it. We were
+very silent; the sunlight stain on cliff and beach deepened to
+crimson, then faded into sombre purple bloom that lingered long after
+the rose-tint died out in the zenith.
+
+Our progress was slow; at times, although the sail filled with the
+rising land breeze, we scarcely seemed to move at all.
+
+"Of course," said the pretty nurse, "we couldn't be aground in the
+deepest hole in the Atlantic."
+
+"Scarcely," said Halyard, sarcastically, "unless we're grounded on a
+whale."
+
+"What's that soft thumping?" I asked. "Have we run afoul of a barrel
+or log?"
+
+It was almost too dark to see, but I leaned over the rail and swept
+the water with my hand.
+
+Instantly something smooth glided under it, like the back of a great
+fish, and I jerked my hand back to the tiller. At the same moment the
+whole surface of the water seemed to begin to purr, with a sound like
+the breaking of froth in a champagne-glass.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" asked Halyard, sharply.
+
+"A fish came up under my hand," I said; "a porpoise or something--"
+
+With a low cry, the pretty nurse clasped my arm in both her hands.
+
+"Listen!" she whispered. "It's purring around the boat."
+
+"What the devil's purring?" shouted Halyard. "I won't have anything
+purring around me!"
+
+At that moment, to my amazement, I saw that the boat had stopped
+entirely, although the sail was full and the small pennant fluttered
+from the mast-head. Something, too, was tugging at the rudder,
+twisting and jerking it until the tiller strained and creaked in my
+hand. All at once it snapped; the tiller swung useless and the boat
+whirled around, heeling in the stiffening wind, and drove shoreward.
+
+It was then that I, ducking to escape the boom, caught a glimpse of
+something ahead--something that a sudden wave seemed to toss on deck
+and leave there, wet and flapping--a man with round, fixed, fishy
+eyes, and soft, slaty skin.
+
+But the horror of the thing were the two gills that swelled and
+relaxed spasmodically, emitting a rasping, purring sound--two gasping,
+blood-red gills, all fluted and scolloped and distended.
+
+Frozen with amazement and repugnance, I stared at the creature; I felt
+the hair stirring on my head and the icy sweat on my forehead.
+
+"It's the harbor-master!" screamed Halyard.
+
+The harbor-master had gathered himself into a wet lump, squatting
+motionless in the bows under the mast; his lidless eyes were
+phosphorescent, like the eyes of living codfish. After a while I felt
+that either fright or disgust was going to strangle me where I sat,
+but it was only the arms of the pretty nurse clasped around me in a
+frenzy of terror.
+
+There was not a fire-arm aboard that we could get at. Halyard's hand
+crept backward where a steel-shod boat-hook lay, and I also made a
+clutch at it. The next moment I had it in my hand, and staggered
+forward, but the boat was already tumbling shoreward among the
+breakers, and the next I knew the harbor-master ran at me like a
+colossal rat, just as the boat rolled over and over through the surf,
+spilling freight and passengers among the sea-weed-covered rocks.
+
+When I came to myself I was thrashing about knee-deep in a rocky pool,
+blinded by the water and half suffocated, while under my feet, like a
+stranded porpoise, the harbor-master made the water boil in his
+efforts to upset me. But his limbs seemed soft and boneless; he had no
+nails, no teeth, and he bounced and thumped and flapped and splashed
+like a fish, while I rained blows on him with the boat-hook that
+sounded like blows on a football. And all the while his gills were
+blowing out and frothing, and purring, and his lidless eyes looked
+into mine, until, nauseated and trembling, I dragged myself back to
+the beach, where already the pretty nurse alternately wrung her hands
+and her petticoats in ornamental despair.
+
+Beyond the cove, Halyard was bobbing up and down, afloat in his
+invalid's chair, trying to steer shoreward. He was the maddest man I
+ever saw.
+
+"Have you killed that rubber-headed thing yet?" he roared.
+
+"I can't kill it," I shouted, breathlessly. "I might as well try to
+kill a football!"
+
+"Can't you punch a hole in it?" he bawled. "If I can only get at
+him--"
+
+His words were drowned in a thunderous splashing, a roar of great,
+broad flippers beating the sea, and I saw the gigantic forms of my two
+great auks, followed by their chicks, blundering past in a shower of
+spray, driving headlong out into the ocean.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" I said. "I can't stand that," and, for the first time in
+my life, I fainted peacefully--and appropriately--at the feet of the
+pretty nurse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is within the range of possibility that this story may be doubted.
+It doesn't matter; nothing can add to the despair of a man who has
+lost two great auks.
+
+As for Halyard, nothing affects him--except his involuntary sea-bath,
+and that did him so much good that he writes me from the South that
+he's going on a walking-tour through Switzerland--if I'll join him. I
+might have joined him if he had not married the pretty nurse. I wonder
+whether--But, of course, this is no place for speculation.
+
+In regard to the harbor-master, you may believe it or not, as you
+choose. But if you hear of any great auks being found, kindly throw a
+table-cloth over their heads and notify the authorities at the new
+Zoological Gardens in Bronx Park, New York. The reward is ten thousand
+dollars.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Before I proceed any further, common decency requires me to reassure
+my readers concerning my intentions, which, Heaven knows, are far from
+flippant.
+
+To separate fact from fancy has always been difficult for me, but now
+that I have had the honor to be chosen secretary of the Zoological
+Gardens in Bronx Park, I realize keenly that unless I give up writing
+fiction nobody will believe what I write about science. Therefore it
+is to a serious and unimaginative public that I shall hereafter
+address myself; and I do it in the modest confidence that I shall
+neither be distrusted nor doubted, although unfortunately I still
+write in that irrational style which suggests covert frivolity, and
+for which I am undergoing a course of treatment in English literature
+at Columbia College. Now, having promised to avoid originality and
+confine myself to facts, I shall tell what I have to tell concerning
+the dingue, the mammoth, and--something else.
+
+For some weeks it had been rumored that Professor Farrago, president
+of the Bronx Park Zoological Society, would resign, to accept an
+enormous salary as manager of Barnum & Bailey's circus. He was now
+with the circus in London, and had promised to cable his decision
+before the day was over.
+
+I hoped he would decide to remain with us. I was his secretary and
+particular favorite, and I viewed, without enthusiasm, the advent of a
+new president, who might shake us all out of our congenial and
+carefully excavated ruts. However, it was plain that the trustees of
+the society expected the resignation of Professor Farrago, for they
+had been in secret session all day, considering the names of possible
+candidates to fill Professor Farrago's large, old-fashioned shoes.
+These preparations worried me, for I could scarcely expect another
+chief as kind and considerate as Professor Leonidas Farrago.
+
+That afternoon in June I left my office in the Administration Building
+in Bronx Park and strolled out under the trees for a breath of air.
+But the heat of the sun soon drove me to seek shelter under a little
+square arbor, a shady retreat covered with purple wistaria and
+honeysuckle. As I entered the arbor I noticed that there were three
+other people seated there--an elderly lady with masculine features and
+short hair, a younger lady sitting beside her, and, farther away, a
+rough-looking young man reading a book.
+
+For a moment I had an indistinct impression of having met the elder
+lady somewhere, and under circumstances not entirely agreeable, but
+beyond a stony and indifferent glance she paid no attention to me. As
+for the younger lady, she did not look at me at all. She was very
+young, with pretty eyes, a mass of silky brown hair, and a skin as
+fresh as a rose which had just been rained on.
+
+With that delicacy peculiar to lonely scientific bachelors, I modestly
+sat down beside the rough young man, although there was more room
+beside the younger lady. "Some lazy loafer reading a penny dreadful,"
+I thought, glancing at him, then at the title of his book. Hearing me
+beside him, he turned around and blinked over his shabby shoulder, and
+the movement uncovered the page he had been silently conning. The
+volume in his hands was Darwin's famous monograph on the monodactyl.
+
+He noticed the astonishment on my face and smiled uneasily, shifting
+the short clay pipe in his mouth.
+
+"I guess," he observed, "that this here book is too much for me,
+mister."
+
+"It's rather technical," I replied, smiling.
+
+"Yes," he said, in vague admiration; "it's fierce, ain't it?"
+
+After a silence I asked him if he would tell me why he had chosen
+Darwin as a literary pastime.
+
+"Well," he said, placidly, "I was tryin' to read about annermals, but
+I'm up against a word-slinger this time all right. Now here's a
+gum-twister," and he painfully spelled out m-o-n-o-d-a-c-t-y-l,
+breathing hard all the while.
+
+"Monodactyl," I said, "means a single-toed creature."
+
+He turned the page with alacrity. "Is that the beast he's talkin'
+about?" he asked.
+
+The illustration he pointed out was a wood-cut representing Darwin's
+reconstruction of the dingue from the fossil bones in the British
+Museum. It was a well-executed wood-cut, showing a dingue in the
+foreground and, to give scale, a mammoth in the middle distance.
+
+"Yes," I replied, "that is the dingue."
+
+"I've seen one," he observed, calmly.
+
+I smiled and explained that the dingue had been extinct for some
+thousands of years.
+
+"Oh, I guess not," he replied, with cool optimism. Then he placed a
+grimy forefinger on the mammoth.
+
+"I've seen them things, too," he remarked.
+
+Again I patiently pointed out his error, and suggested that he
+referred to the elephant.
+
+"Elephant be blowed!" he replied, scornfully. "I guess I know what I
+seen. An' I seen that there thing you call a dingue, too."
+
+Not wishing to prolong a futile discussion, I remained silent. After a
+moment he wheeled around, removing his pipe from his hard mouth.
+
+"Did you ever hear tell of Graham's Glacier?" he demanded.
+
+"Certainly," I replied, astonished; "it's the southernmost glacier in
+British America."
+
+"Right," he said. "And did you ever hear tell of the Hudson Mountings,
+mister?"
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+"What's behind 'em?" he snapped out.
+
+"Nobody knows," I answered. "They are considered impassable."
+
+"They ain't, though," he said, doggedly; "I've been behind 'em."
+
+"Really!" I replied, tiring of his yarn.
+
+"Ya-as, reely," he repeated, sullenly. Then he began to fumble and
+search through the pages of his book until he found what he wanted.
+"Mister," he said, "jest read that out loud, please."
+
+The passage he indicated was the famous chapter beginning:
+
+    "Is the mammoth extinct? Is the dingue extinct? Probably. And
+    yet the aborigines of British America maintain the contrary.
+    Probably both the mammoth and the dingue are extinct; but
+    until expeditions have penetrated and explored not only the
+    unknown region in Alaska but also that hidden table-land
+    beyond the Graham Glacier and the Hudson Mountains, it will
+    not be possible to definitely announce the total extinction of
+    either the mammoth or the dingue."
+
+When I had read it, slowly, for his benefit, he brought his hand down
+smartly on one knee and nodded rapidly.
+
+"Mister," he said, "that gent knows a thing or two, and don't you
+forgit it!" Then he demanded, abruptly, how I knew he hadn't been
+behind the Graham Glacier.
+
+I explained.
+
+"Shucks!" he said; "there's a road five miles wide inter that there
+table-land. Mister, I ain't been in New York long; I come inter port a
+week ago on the _Arctic Belle_, whaler. I was in the Hudson range when
+that there Graham Glacier bust up--"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Didn't you know it?" he asked. "Well, mebbe it ain't in the papers,
+but it busted all right--blowed up by a earthquake an' volcano
+combine. An', mister, it was oreful. My, how I did run!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that some convulsion of the earth has
+shattered the Graham Glacier?" I asked.
+
+"Convulsions? Ya-as, an' fits, too," he said, sulkily. "The hull blame
+thing dropped inter a hole. An' say, mister, home an' mother is good
+enough fur me now."
+
+I stared at him stupidly.
+
+"Once," he said, "I ketched pelts fur them sharps at Hudson Bay, like
+any yaller husky, but the things I seen arter that convulsion-fit--the
+_things I seen behind the Hudson Mountings_--don't make me hanker
+arter no life on the pe-rarie wild, lemme tell yer. I may be a Mother
+Carey chicken, but this chicken has got enough."
+
+After a long silence I picked up his book again and pointed at the
+picture of the mammoth.
+
+"What color is it?" I asked.
+
+"Kinder red an' brown," he answered, promptly. "It's woolly, too."
+
+Astounded, I pointed to the dingue.
+
+"One-toed," he said, quickly; "makes a noise like a bell when
+scutterin' about."
+
+Intensely excited, I laid my hand on his arm. "My society will give
+you a thousand dollars," I said, "if you pilot me inside the Hudson
+table-land and show me either a mammoth or a dingue!"
+
+He looked me calmly in the eye.
+
+"Mister," he said, slowly, "have you got a million for to squander on
+me?"
+
+"No," I said, suspiciously.
+
+"Because," he went on, "it wouldn't be enough. Home an' mother suits
+me now."
+
+He picked up his book and rose. In vain I asked his name and address;
+in vain I begged him to dine with me--to become my honored guest.
+
+"Nit," he said, shortly, and shambled off down the path.
+
+But I was not going to lose him like that. I rose and deliberately
+started to stalk him. It was easy. He shuffled along, pulling on his
+pipe, and I after him.
+
+It was growing a little dark, although the sun still reddened the tops
+of the maples. Afraid of losing him in the falling dusk, I once more
+approached him and laid my hand upon his ragged sleeve.
+
+"Look here," he cried, wheeling about, "I want you to quit follerin'
+me. Don't I tell you money can't make me go back to them mountings!"
+And as I attempted to speak, he suddenly tore off his cap and pointed
+to his head. His hair was white as snow.
+
+"That's what come of monkeyin' inter your cursed mountings," he
+shouted, fiercely. "There's things in there what no Christian oughter
+see. Lemme alone er I'll bust yer."
+
+He shambled on, doubled fists swinging by his side. The next moment,
+setting my teeth obstinately, I followed him and caught him by the
+park gate. At my hail he whirled around with a snarl, but I grabbed
+him by the throat and backed him violently against the park wall.
+
+"You invaluable ruffian," I said, "now you listen to me. I live in
+that big stone building, and I'll give you a thousand dollars to take
+me behind the Graham Glacier. Think it over and call on me when you
+are in a pleasanter frame of mind. If you don't come by noon to-morrow
+I'll go to the Graham Glacier without you."
+
+He was attempting to kick me all the time, but I managed to avoid him,
+and when I had finished I gave him a shove which almost loosened his
+spinal column. He went reeling out across the sidewalk, and when he
+had recovered his breath and his balance he danced with displeasure
+and displayed a vocabulary that astonished me. However, he kept his
+distance.
+
+As I turned back into the park, satisfied that he would not follow,
+the first person I saw was the elderly, stony-faced lady of the
+wistaria arbor advancing on tiptoe. Behind her came the younger lady
+with cheeks like a rose that had been rained on.
+
+Instantly it occurred to me that they had followed us, and at the same
+moment I knew who the stony-faced lady was. Angry, but polite, I
+lifted my hat and saluted her, and she, probably furious at having
+been caught tip-toeing after me, cut me dead. The younger lady passed
+me with face averted, but even in the dusk I could see the tip of one
+little ear turn scarlet.
+
+Walking on hurriedly, I entered the Administration Building, and found
+Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department, preparing to leave.
+
+"Don't you do it," I said, sharply; "I've got exciting news."
+
+"I'm only going to the theatre," he replied. "It's a good show--Adam
+and Eve; there's a snake in it, you know. It's in my line."
+
+"I can't help it," I said; and I told him briefly what had occurred in
+the arbor.
+
+"But that's not all," I continued, savagely. "Those women followed us,
+and who do you think one of them turned out to be? Well, it was
+Professor Smawl, of Barnard College, and I'll bet every pair of boots
+I own that she starts for the Graham Glacier within a week. Idiot that
+I was!" I exclaimed, smiting my head with both hands. "I never
+recognized her until I saw her tip-toeing and craning her neck to
+listen. Now she knows about the glacier; she heard every word that
+young ruffian said, and she'll go to the glacier if it's only to
+forestall me."
+
+Professor Lesard looked anxious. He knew that Miss Smawl, professor of
+natural history at Barnard College, had long desired an appointment
+at the Bronx Park gardens. It was even said she had a chance of
+succeeding Professor Farrago as president, but that, of course, must
+have been a joke. However, she haunted the gardens, annoying the
+keepers by persistently poking the animals with her umbrella. On one
+occasion she sent us word that she desired to enter the tigers'
+enclosure for the purpose of making experiments in hypnotism.
+Professor Farrago was absent, but I took it upon myself to send back
+word that I feared the tigers might injure her. The miserable small
+boy who took my message informed her that I was afraid she might
+injure the tigers, and the unpleasant incident almost cost me my
+position.
+
+"I am quite convinced," said I to Professor Lesard, "that Miss Smawl
+is perfectly capable of abusing the information she overheard, and of
+starting herself to explore a region that, by all the laws of decency,
+justice, and prior claim, belongs to me."
+
+"Well," said Lesard, with a peculiar laugh, "it's not certain whether
+you can go at all."
+
+"Professor Farrago will authorize me," I said, confidently.
+
+"Professor Farrago has resigned," said Lesard. It was a bolt from a
+clear sky.
+
+"Good Heavens!" I blurted out. "What will become of the rest of us,
+then?"
+
+"I don't know," he replied. "The trustees are holding a meeting over
+in the Administration Building to elect a new president for us. It
+depends on the new president what becomes of us."
+
+"Lesard," I said, hoarsely, "you don't suppose that they could
+possibly elect Miss Smawl as our president, do you?"
+
+He looked at me askance and bit his cigar.
+
+"I'd be in a nice position, wouldn't I?" said I, anxiously.
+
+"The lady would probably make you walk the plank for that tiger
+business," he replied.
+
+"But I didn't do it," I protested, with sickly eagerness. "Besides, I
+explained to her--"
+
+He said nothing, and I stared at him, appalled by the possibility of
+reporting to Professor Smawl for instructions next morning.
+
+"See here, Lesard," I said, nervously, "I wish you would step over to
+the Administration Building and ask the trustees if I may prepare for
+this expedition. Will you?"
+
+He glanced at me sympathetically. It was quite natural for me to wish
+to secure my position before the new president was elected--especially
+as there was a chance of the new president being Miss Smawl.
+
+"You are quite right," he said; "the Graham Glacier would be the
+safest place for you if our next president is to be the Lady of the
+Tigers." And he started across the park puffing his cigar.
+
+I sat down on the doorstep to wait for his return, not at all charmed
+with the prospect. It made me furious, too, to see my ambition nipped
+with the frost of a possible veto from Miss Smawl.
+
+"If she is elected," thought I, "there is nothing for me but to
+resign--to avoid the inconvenience of being shown the door. Oh, I wish
+I had allowed her to hypnotize the tigers!"
+
+Thoughts of crime flitted through my mind. Miss Smawl would not remain
+president--or anything else very long--if she persisted in her desire
+for the tigers. And then when she called for help I would pretend not
+to hear.
+
+Aroused from criminal meditation by the return of Professor Lesard, I
+jumped up and peered into his perplexed eyes. "They've elected a
+president," he said, "but they won't tell us who the president is
+until to-morrow."
+
+"You don't think--" I stammered.
+
+"I don't know. But I know this: the new president sanctions the
+expedition to the Graham Glacier, and directs you to choose an
+assistant and begin preparations for four people."
+
+Overjoyed, I seized his hand and said, "Hurray!" in a voice weak with
+emotion. "The old dragon isn't elected this time," I added,
+triumphantly.
+
+"By-the-way," he said, "who was the other dragon with her in the park
+this evening?"
+
+I described her in a more modulated voice.
+
+"Whew!" observed Professor Lesard, "that must be her assistant,
+Professor Dorothy Van Twiller! She's the prettiest blue-stocking in
+town."
+
+With this curious remark my confrère followed me into my room and
+wrote down the list of articles I dictated to him. The list included a
+complete camping equipment for myself and three other men.
+
+"Am I one of those other men?" inquired Lesard, with an unhappy smile.
+
+Before I could reply my door was shoved open and a figure appeared at
+the threshold, cap in hand.
+
+"What do you want?" I asked, sternly; but my heart was beating high
+with triumph.
+
+The figure shuffled; then came a subdued voice:
+
+"Mister, I guess I'll go back to the Graham Glacier along with you.
+I'm Billy Spike, an' it kinder scares me to go back to them Hudson
+Mountains, but somehow, mister, when you choked me and kinder walked
+me off on my ear, why, mister, I kinder took to you like."
+
+There was absolute silence for a minute; then he said:
+
+"So if you go, I guess I'll go, too, mister."
+
+"For a thousand dollars?"
+
+"Fur nawthin'," he muttered--"or what you like."
+
+"All right, Billy," I said, briskly; "just look over those rifles and
+ammunition and see that everything's sound."
+
+He slowly lifted his tough young face and gave me a doglike glance.
+They were hard eyes, but there was gratitude in them.
+
+"You'll get your throat slit," whispered Lesard.
+
+"Not while Billy's with me," I replied, cheerfully.
+
+Late that night, as I was preparing for pleasant dreams, a knock came
+on my door and a telegraph-messenger handed me a note, which I read,
+shivering in my bare feet, although the thermometer marked eighty
+Fahrenheit:
+
+    "You will immediately leave for the Hudson Mountains via
+    Wellman Bay, Labrador, there to await further instructions.
+    Equipment for yourself and one assistant will include
+    following articles" [here began a list of camping utensils,
+    scientific paraphernalia, and provisions]. "The steamer
+    _Penguin_ sails at five o'clock to-morrow morning. Kindly find
+    yourself on board at that hour. Any excuse for not complying
+    with these orders will be accepted as your resignation.
+
+                "SUSAN SMAWL,
+             "President Bronx Zoological Society."
+
+"Lesard!" I shouted, trembling with fury.
+
+He appeared at his door, chastely draped in pajamas; and he read the
+insolent letter with terrified alacrity.
+
+"What are you going to do--resign?" he asked, much frightened.
+
+"Do!" I snarled, grinding my teeth; "I'm going--that's what I'm going
+to do!"
+
+"But--but you can't get ready and catch that steamer, too," he
+stammered.
+
+He did not know me.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+And so it came about that one calm evening towards the end of June,
+William Spike and I went into camp under the southerly shelter of that
+vast granite wall called the Hudson Mountains, there to await the
+promised "further instructions."
+
+It had been a tiresome trip by steamer to Anticosti, from there by
+schooner to Widgeon Bay, then down the coast and up the Cape Clear
+River to Port Porpoise. There we bought three pack-mules and started
+due north on the Great Fur Trail. The second day out we passed Fort
+Boisé, the last outpost of civilization, and on the sixth day we were
+travelling eastward under the granite mountain parapets.
+
+On the evening of the sixth day out from Fort Boisé we went into camp
+for the last time before entering the unknown land.
+
+I could see it already through my field-glasses, and while William was
+building the fire I climbed up among the rocks above and sat down,
+glasses levelled, to study the prospect.
+
+There was nothing either extraordinary or forbidding in the landscape
+which stretched out beyond; to the right the solid palisade of granite
+cut off the view; to the left the palisade continued, an endless
+barrier of sheer cliffs crowned with pine and hemlock. But the
+interesting section of the landscape lay almost directly in front of
+me--a rent in the mountain-wall through which appeared to run a level,
+arid plain, miles wide, and as smooth and even as a highroad.
+
+There could be no doubt concerning the significance of that rent in
+the solid mountain-wall; and, moreover, it was exactly as William
+Spike had described it. However, I called to him and he came up from
+the smoky camp-fire, axe on shoulder.
+
+"Yep," he said, squatting beside me; "the Graham Glacier used to
+meander through that there hole, but somethin' went wrong with the
+earth's in'ards an' there was a bust-up."
+
+"And you saw it, William?" I said, with a sigh of envy.
+
+"Hey? Seen it? Sure I seen it! I was to Spoutin' Springs, twenty mile
+west, with a bale o' blue fox an' otter pelt. Fust I knew them geysers
+begun for to groan egregious like, an' I seen the caribou gallopin'
+hell-bent south. 'This climate,' sez I, 'is too bracin' for me,' so I
+struck a back trail an' landed onto a hill. Then them geysers blowed
+up, one arter the next, an' I heard somethin' kinder cave in between
+here an' China. I disremember things what happened. Somethin' throwed
+me down, but I couldn't stay there, for the blamed ground was runnin'
+like a river--all wavy-like, an' the sky hit me on the back o' me
+head."
+
+"And then?" I urged, in that new excitement which every repetition of
+the story revived. I had heard it all twenty times since we left New
+York, but mere repetition could not apparently satisfy me.
+
+"Then," continued William, "the whole world kinder went off like a
+fire-cracker, an' I come too, an' ran like--"
+
+"I know," said I, cutting him short, for I had become wearied of the
+invariable profanity which lent a lurid ending to his narrative.
+
+"After that," I continued, "you went through the rent in the
+mountains?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"And you saw a dingue and a creature that resembled a mammoth?"
+
+"Sure," he repeated, sulkily.
+
+"And you saw something else?" I always asked this question; it
+fascinated me to see the sullen fright flicker in William's eyes, and
+the mechanical backward glance, as though what he had seen might still
+be behind him.
+
+He had never answered this third question but once, and that time he
+fairly snarled in my face as he growled: "I seen what no Christian
+oughter see."
+
+So when I repeated: "And you saw something else, William?" he gave me
+a wicked, frightened leer, and shuffled off to feed the mules.
+Flattery, entreaties, threats left him unmoved; he never told me what
+the third thing was that he had seen behind the Hudson Mountains.
+
+William had retired to mix up with his mules; I resumed my binoculars
+and my silent inspection of the great, smooth path left by the Graham
+Glacier when something or other exploded that vast mass of ice into
+vapor.
+
+The arid plain wound out from the unknown country like a river, and I
+thought then, and think now, that when the glacier was blown into
+vapor the vapor descended in the most terrific rain the world has ever
+seen, and poured through the newly blasted mountain-gateway, sweeping
+the earth to bed-rock. To corroborate this theory, miles to the
+southward I could see the débris winding out across the land towards
+Wellman Bay, but as the terminal moraine of the vanished glacier
+formerly ended there I could not be certain that my theory was
+correct. Owing to the formation of the mountains I could not see more
+than half a mile into the unknown country. What I could see appeared
+to be nothing but the continuation of the glacier's path, scored out
+by the cloud-burst, and swept as smooth as a floor.
+
+Sitting there, my heart beating heavily with excitement, I looked
+through the evening glow at the endless, pine-crowned mountain-wall
+with its giant's gateway pierced for me! And I thought of all the
+explorers and the unknown heroes--trappers, Indians, humble
+naturalists, perhaps--who had attempted to scale that sheer barricade
+and had died there or failed, beaten back from those eternal cliffs.
+Eternal? No! For the Eternal Himself had struck the rock, and it had
+sprung asunder, thundering obedience.
+
+In the still evening air the smoke from the fire below mounted in a
+straight, slender pillar, like the smoke from those ancient altars
+builded before the first blood had been shed on earth.
+
+The evening wind stirred the pines; a tiny spring brook made thin
+harmony among the rocks; a murmur came from the quiet camp. It was
+William adjuring his mules. In the deepening twilight I descended the
+hillock, stepping cautiously among the rocks.
+
+Then, suddenly, as I stood outside the reddening ring of firelight,
+far in the depths of the unknown country, far behind the
+mountain-wall, a sound grew on the quiet air. William heard it and
+turned his face to the mountains. The sound faded to a vibration which
+was felt, not heard. Then once more I began to divine a vibration in
+the air, gathering in distant volume until it became a sound, lasting
+the space of a spoken word, fading to vibration, then silence.
+
+Was it a cry?
+
+I looked at William inquiringly. He had quietly fainted away.
+
+I got him to the little brook and poked his head into the icy water,
+and after a while he sat up pluckily.
+
+To an indignant question he replied: "Naw, I ain't a-cussin' you.
+Lemme be or I'll have fits."
+
+"Was it that sound that scared you?" I asked.
+
+"Ya-as," he replied with a dauntless shiver.
+
+"Was it the voice of the mammoth?" I persisted, excitedly. "Speak,
+William, or I'll drag you about and kick you!"
+
+He replied that it was neither a mammoth nor a dingue, and added a
+strong request for privacy, which I was obliged to grant, as I could
+not torture another word out of him.
+
+I slept little that night; the exciting proximity of the unknown land
+was too much for me. But although I lay awake for hours, I heard
+nothing except the tinkle of water among the rocks and the plover
+calling from some hidden marsh. At daybreak I shot a ptarmigan which
+had walked into camp, and the shot set the echoes yelling among the
+mountains.
+
+William, sullen and heavy-eyed, dressed the bird, and we broiled it
+for breakfast.
+
+Neither he nor I alluded to the sound we had heard the night before;
+he boiled water and cleaned up the mess-kit, and I pottered about
+among the rocks for another ptarmigan. Wearying of this, presently, I
+returned to the mules and William, and sat down for a smoke.
+
+"It strikes me," I said, "that our instructions to 'await further
+orders' are idiotic. How are we to receive 'further orders' here?"
+
+William did not know.
+
+"You don't suppose," said I, in sudden disgust, "that Miss Smawl
+believes there is a summer hotel and daily mail service in the Hudson
+Mountains?"
+
+William thought perhaps she did suppose something of the sort.
+
+It irritated me beyond measure to find myself at last on the very
+border of the unknown country, and yet checked, held back, by the
+irresponsible orders of a maiden lady named Smawl. However, my salary
+depended upon the whim of that maiden lady, and although I fussed and
+fumed and glared at the mountains through my glasses, I realized that
+I could not stir without the permission of Miss Smawl. At times this
+grotesque situation became almost unbearable, and I often went away by
+myself and indulged in fantasies, firing my gun off and pretending I
+had hit Miss Smawl by mistake. At such moments I would imagine I was
+free at last to plunge into the strange country, and I would squat on
+a rock and dream of bagging my first mammoth.
+
+The time passed heavily; the tension increased with each new day. I
+shot ptarmigan and kept our table supplied with brook-trout. William
+chopped wood, conversed with his mules, and cooked very badly.
+
+"See here," I said, one morning; "we have been in camp a week to-day,
+and I can't stand your cooking another minute!"
+
+William, who was washing a saucepan, looked up and begged me
+sarcastically to accept the _cordon bleu_. But I know only how to cook
+eggs, and there were no eggs within some hundred miles.
+
+To get the flavor of the breakfast out of my mouth I walked up to my
+favorite hillock and sat down for a smoke. The next moment, however, I
+was on my feet, cheering excitedly and shouting for William.
+
+"Here come 'further instructions' at last!" I cried, pointing to the
+southward, where two dots on the grassy plain were imperceptibly
+moving in our direction.
+
+"People on mules," said William, without enthusiasm.
+
+"They must be messengers for us!" I cried, in chaste joy. "Three
+cheers for the northward trail, William, and the mischief take
+Miss--Well, never mind now," I added.
+
+"On them approachin' mules," observed William, "there is wimmen."
+
+I stared at him for a second, then attempted to strike him. He dodged
+wearily and repeated his incredible remark: "Ya-as, there
+is--wimmen--two female ladies onto them there mules."
+
+"Bring me my glasses!" I said, hoarsely; "bring me those glasses,
+William, because I shall destroy you if you don't!"
+
+Somewhat awed by my calm fury, he hastened back to camp and returned
+with the binoculars. It was a breathless moment. I adjusted the lenses
+with a steady hand and raised them.
+
+Now, of all unexpected sights my fate may reserve for me in the
+future, I trust--nay, I know--that none can ever prove as unwelcome as
+the sight I perceived through my binoculars. For upon the backs of
+those distant mules were two women, and the first one was Miss Smawl!
+
+Upon her head she wore a helmet, from which fluttered a green veil.
+Otherwise she was clothed in tweeds; and at moments she beat upon her
+mule with a thick umbrella.
+
+Surfeited with the sickening spectacle, I sat down on a rock and tried
+to cry.
+
+"I told yer so," observed William; but I was too tired to attack him.
+
+When the caravan rode into camp I was myself again, smilingly prepared
+for the worst, and I advanced, cap in hand, followed furtively by
+William.
+
+"Welcome," I said, violently injecting joy into my voice. "Welcome,
+Professor Smawl, to the Hudson Mountains!"
+
+"Kindly take my mule," she said, climbing down to mother earth.
+
+"William," I said, with dignity, "take the lady's mule."
+
+Miss Smawl gave me a stolid glance, then made directly for the
+camp-fire, where a kettle of game-broth simmered over the coals. The
+last I saw of her she was smelling of it, and I turned my back and
+advanced towards the second lady pilgrim, prepared to be civil until
+snubbed.
+
+Now, it is quite certain that never before had William Spike or I
+beheld so much feminine loveliness in one human body on the back of a
+mule. She was clad in the daintiest of shooting-kilts, yet there was
+nothing mannish about her except the way she rode the mule, and that
+only accentuated her adorable femininity.
+
+I remembered what Professor Lesard had said about blue stockings--but
+Miss Dorothy Van Twiller's were gray, turned over at the tops, and
+disappearing into canvas spats buckled across a pair of slim
+shooting-boots.
+
+"Welcome," said I, attempting to restrain a too violent cordiality.
+"Welcome, Professor Van Twiller, to the Hudson Mountains."
+
+"Thank you," she replied, accepting my assistance very sweetly; "it is
+a pleasure to meet a human being again."
+
+I glanced at Miss Smawl. She was eating game-broth, but she resembled
+a human being in a general way.
+
+"I should very much like to wash my hands," said Professor Van
+Twiller, drawing the buckskin gloves from her slim fingers.
+
+I brought towels and soap and conducted her to the brook.
+
+She called to Professor Smawl to join her, and her voice was
+crystalline; Professor Smawl declined, and her voice was batrachian.
+
+"She is so hungry!" observed Miss Van Twiller. "I am very thankful we
+are here at last, for we've had a horrid time. You see, we neither of
+us know how to cook."
+
+I wondered what they would say to William's cooking, but I held my
+peace and retired, leaving the little brook to mirror the sweetest
+face that was ever bathed in water.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+That afternoon our expedition, in two sections, moved forward. The
+first section comprised myself and all the mules; the second section
+was commanded by Professor Smawl, followed by Professor Van Twiller,
+armed with a tiny shot-gun. William, loaded down with the ladies'
+toilet articles, skulked in the rear. I say skulked; there was no
+other word for it.
+
+"So you're a guide, are you?" observed Professor Smawl when William,
+cap in hand, had approached her with well-meant advice. "The woods are
+full of lazy guides. Pick up those Gladstone bags! I'll do the guiding
+for this expedition."
+
+Made cautious by William's humiliation, I associated with the mules
+exclusively. Nevertheless, Professor Smawl had her hard eyes on me,
+and I realized she meant mischief.
+
+The encounter took place just as I, driving the five mules, entered
+the great mountain gateway, thrilled with anticipation which almost
+amounted to foreboding. As I was about to set foot across the
+imaginary frontier which divided the world from the unknown land,
+Professor Smawl hailed me and I halted until she came up.
+
+"As commander of this expedition," she said, somewhat out of breath,
+"I desire to be the first living creature who has ever set foot
+behind the Graham Glacier. Kindly step aside, young sir!"
+
+"Madam," said I, rigid with disappointment, "my guide, William Spike,
+entered that unknown land a year ago."
+
+"He _says_ he did," sneered Professor Smawl.
+
+"As you like," I replied; "but it is scarcely generous to forestall
+the person whose stupidity gave you the clew to this unexplored
+region."
+
+"You mean yourself?" she asked, with a stony stare.
+
+"I do," said I, firmly.
+
+Her little, hard eyes grew harder, and she clutched her umbrella until
+the steel ribs crackled.
+
+"Young man," she said, insolently; "if I could have gotten rid of you
+I should have done so the day I was appointed president. But Professor
+Farrago refused to resign unless your position was assured, subject,
+of course, to your good behavior. Frankly, I don't like you, and I
+consider your views on science ridiculous, and if an opportunity
+presents itself I will be most happy to request your resignation.
+Kindly collect your mules and follow me."
+
+Mortified beyond measure, I collected my mules and followed my
+president into the strange country behind the Hudson Mountains--I who
+had aspired to lead, compelled to follow in the rear, driving mules.
+
+The journey was monotonous at first, but we shortly ascended a ridge
+from which we could see, stretching out below us, the wilderness
+where, save the feet of William Spike, no human feet had passed.
+
+As for me, tingling with enthusiasm, I forgot my chagrin, I forgot the
+gross injustice, I forgot my mules. "Excelsior!" I cried, running up
+and down the ridge in uncontrollable excitement at the sublime
+spectacle of forest, mountain, and valley all set with little lakes.
+
+"Excelsior!" repeated an excited voice at my side, and Professor Van
+Twiller sprang to the ridge beside me, her eyes bright as stars.
+
+Exalted, inspired by the mysterious beauty of the view, we clasped
+hands and ran up and down the grassy ridge.
+
+"That will do," said Professor Smawl, coldly, as we raced about like a
+pair of distracted kittens. The chilling voice broke the spell; I
+dropped Professor Van Twiller's hand and sat down on a bowlder, aching
+with wrath.
+
+Late that afternoon we halted beside a tiny lake, deep in the unknown
+wilderness, where purple and scarlet bergamot choked the shores and
+the spruce-partridge strutted fearlessly under our very feet. Here we
+pitched our two tents. The afternoon sun slanted through the pines;
+the lake glittered; acres of golden brake perfumed the forest silence,
+broken only at rare intervals by the distant thunder of a partridge
+drumming.
+
+Professor Smawl ate heavily and retired to her tent to lie torpid
+until evening. William drove the unloaded mules into an intervale full
+of sun-cured, fragrant grasses; I sat down beside Professor Van
+Twiller.
+
+The wilderness is electric. Once within the influence of its currents,
+human beings become positively or negatively charged, violently
+attracting or repelling each other.
+
+"There is something the matter with this air," said Professor Van
+Twiller. "It makes me feel as though I were desperately enamoured of
+the entire human race."
+
+She leaned back against a pine, smiling vaguely, and crossing one knee
+over the other.
+
+Now I am not bold by temperament, and, normally, I fear ladies.
+Therefore it surprised me to hear myself begin a frivolous _causerie_,
+replying to her pretty epigrams with epigrams of my own, advancing to
+the borderland of badinage, fearlessly conducting her and myself over
+that delicate frontier to meet upon the terrain of undisguised
+flirtation.
+
+It was clear that she was out for a holiday. The seriousness and
+restraints of twenty-two years she had left behind her in the
+civilized world, and now, with a shrug of her young shoulders, she
+unloosened her burden of reticence, dignity, and responsibility and
+let the whole load fall with a discreet thud.
+
+"Even hares go mad in March," she said, seriously. "I know you intend
+to flirt with me--and I don't care. Anyway, there's nothing else to
+do, is there?"
+
+"Suppose," said I, solemnly, "I should take you behind that big tree
+and attempt to kiss you!"
+
+The prospect did not appear to appall her, so I looked around with
+that sneaking yet conciliatory caution peculiar to young men who are
+novices in the art. Before I had satisfied myself that neither William
+nor the mules were observing us, Professor Van Twiller rose to her
+feet and took a short step backward.
+
+"Let's set traps for a dingue," she said, "will you?"
+
+I looked at the big tree, undecided. "Come on," she said; "I'll show
+you how." And away we went into the woods, she leading, her kilts
+flashing through the golden half-light.
+
+Now I had not the faintest notion how to trap the dingue, but
+Professor Van Twiller asserted that it formerly fed on the tender tips
+of the spruce, quoting Darwin as her authority.
+
+So we gathered a bushel of spruce-tips, piled them on the bank of a
+little stream, then built a miniature stockade around the bait, a foot
+high. I roofed this with hemlock, then laboriously whittled out and
+adjusted a swinging shutter for the entrance, setting it on springy
+twigs.
+
+"The dingue, you know, was supposed to live in the water," she said,
+kneeling beside me over our trap.
+
+I took her little hand and thanked her for the information.
+
+"Doubtless," she said, enthusiastically, "a dingue will come out of
+the lake to-night to feed on our spruce-tips. Then," she added, "we've
+got him."
+
+"True!" I said, earnestly, and pressed her fingers very gently.
+
+Her face was turned a little away; I don't remember what she said; I
+don't remember that she said anything. A faint rose-tint stole over
+her cheek. A few moments later she said: "You must not do that again."
+
+It was quite late when we strolled back to camp. Long before we came
+in sight of the twin tents we heard a deep voice bawling our names. It
+was Professor Smawl, and she pounced upon Dorothy and drove her
+ignominiously into the tent.
+
+"As for you," she said, in hollow tones, "you may explain your
+conduct at once, or place your resignation at my disposal."
+
+But somehow or other I appeared to be temporarily lost to shame, and I
+only smiled at my infuriated president, and entered my own tent with a
+step that was distinctly frolicsome.
+
+"Billy," said I to William Spike, who regarded me morosely from the
+depths of the tent, "I'm going out to bag a mammoth to-morrow, so
+kindly clean my elephant-gun and bring an axe to chop out the tusks."
+
+That night Professor Smawl complained bitterly of the cooking, but as
+neither Dorothy nor I knew how to improve it, she revenged herself on
+us by eating everything on the table and retiring to bed, taking
+Dorothy with her.
+
+I could not sleep very well; the mosquitoes were intrusive, and
+Professor Smawl dreamed she was a pack of wolves and yelped in her
+sleep.
+
+"Bird, ain't she?" said William, roused from slumber by her weird
+noises.
+
+Dorothy, much frightened, crawled out of her tent, where her
+blanket-mate still dreamed dyspeptically, and William and I made her
+comfortable by the camp-fire.
+
+It takes a pretty girl to look pretty half asleep in a blanket.
+
+"Are you sure you are quite well?" I asked her.
+
+To make sure, I tested her pulse. For an hour it varied more or less,
+but without alarming either of us. Then she went back to bed and I sat
+alone by the camp-fire.
+
+Towards midnight I suddenly began to feel that strange, distant
+vibration that I had once before felt. As before, the vibration grew
+on the still air, increasing in volume until it became a sound, then
+died out into silence.
+
+I rose and stole into my tent.
+
+William, white as death, lay in his corner, weeping in his sleep.
+
+I roused him remorselessly, and he sat up scowling, but refused to
+tell me what he had been dreaming.
+
+"Was it about that third thing you saw--" I began. But he snarled up
+at me like a startled animal, and I was obliged to go to bed and toss
+about and speculate.
+
+The next morning it rained. Dorothy and I visited our dingue-trap but
+found nothing in it. We were inclined, however, to stay out in the
+rain behind a big tree, but Professor Smawl vetoed that proposition
+and sent me off to supply the larder with fresh meat.
+
+I returned, mad and wet, with a dozen partridges and a white
+hare--brown at that season--and William cooked them vilely.
+
+"I can taste the feathers!" said Professor Smawl, indignantly.
+
+"There is no accounting for taste," I said, with a polite gesture of
+deprecation; "personally, I find feathers unpalatable."
+
+"You may hand in your resignation this evening!" cried Professor
+Smawl, in hollow tones of passion.
+
+I passed her the pancakes with a cheerful smile, and flippantly
+pressed the hand next me. Unexpectedly it proved to be William's
+sticky fist, and Dorothy and I laughed until her tears ran into
+Professor Smawl's coffee-cup--an accident which kindled her wrath to
+red heat, and she requested my resignation five times during the
+evening.
+
+The next day it rained again, more or less. Professor Smawl complained
+of the cooking, demanded my resignation, and finally marched out to
+explore, lugging the reluctant William with her. Dorothy and I sat
+down behind the largest tree we could find.
+
+I don't remember what we were saying when a peculiar sound interrupted
+us, and we listened earnestly.
+
+It was like a bell in the woods, ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong!--a
+low, mellow, golden harmony, coming nearer, then stopping.
+
+I clasped Dorothy in my arms in my excitement.
+
+"It is the note of the dingue!" I whispered, "and that explains its
+name, handed down from remote ages along with the names of the
+behemoth and the coney. It was because of its bell-like cry that it
+was named! Darling!" I cried, forgetting our short acquaintance, "we
+have made a discovery that the whole world will ring with!"
+
+Hand in hand we tiptoed through the forest to our trap. There was
+something in it that took fright at our approach and rushed
+panic-stricken round and round the interior of the trap, uttering its
+alarm-note, which sounded like the jangling of a whole string of
+bells.
+
+I seized the strangely beautiful creature; it neither attempted to
+bite nor scratch, but crouched in my arms, trembling and eying me.
+
+Delighted with the lovely, tame animal, we bore it tenderly back to
+the camp and placed it on my blanket. Hand in hand we stood before it,
+awed by the sight of this beast, so long believed to be extinct.
+
+"It is too good to be true," sighed Dorothy, clasping her white hands
+under her chin and gazing at the dingue in rapture.
+
+"Yes," said I, solemnly, "you and I, my child, are face to face with
+the fabled dingue--_Dingus solitarius_! Let us continue to gaze at it,
+reverently, prayerfully, humbly--"
+
+Dorothy yawned--probably with excitement.
+
+We were still mutely adoring the dingue when Professor Smawl burst
+into the tent at a hand-gallop, bawling hoarsely for her kodak and
+note-book.
+
+Dorothy seized her triumphantly by the arm and pointed at the dingue,
+which appeared to be frightened to death.
+
+"What!" cried Professor Smawl, scornfully; "_that_ a dingue? Rubbish!"
+
+"Madam," I said, firmly, "it is a dingue! It's a monodactyl! See! It
+has but a single toe!"
+
+"Bosh!" she retorted; "it's got four!"
+
+"Four!" I repeated, blankly.
+
+"Yes; one on each foot!"
+
+"Of course," I said; "you didn't suppose a monodactyl meant a beast
+with one leg and one toe!"
+
+But she laughed hatefully and declared it was a woodchuck.
+
+We squabbled for a while until I saw the significance of her attitude.
+The unfortunate woman wished to find a dingue first and be accredited
+with the discovery.
+
+I lifted the dingue in both hands and shook the creature gently, until
+the chiming ding-dong of its protestations filled our ears like sweet
+bells jangled out of tune.
+
+Pale with rage at this final proof of the dingue's identity, she
+seized her camera and note-book.
+
+"I haven't any time to waste over that musical woodchuck!" she
+shouted, and bounced out of the tent.
+
+"What have you discovered, dear?" cried Dorothy, running after her.
+
+"A mammoth!" bawled Professor Smawl, triumphantly; "and I'm going to
+photograph him!"
+
+Neither Dorothy nor I believed her. We watched the flight of the
+infatuated woman in silence.
+
+And now, at last, the tragic shadow falls over my paper as I write. I
+was never passionately attached to Professor Smawl, yet I would gladly
+refrain from chronicling the episode that must follow if, as I have
+hitherto attempted, I succeed in sticking to the unornamented truth.
+
+I have said that neither Dorothy nor I believed her. I don't know why,
+unless it was that we had not yet made up our minds to believe that
+the mammoth still existed on earth. So, when Professor Smawl
+disappeared in the forest, scuttling through the underbrush like a
+demoralized hen, we viewed her flight with unconcern. There was a
+large tree in the neighborhood--a pleasant shelter in case of rain. So
+we sat down behind it, although the sun was shining fiercely.
+
+It was one of those peaceful afternoons in the wilderness when the
+whole forest dreams, and the shadows are asleep and every little
+leaflet takes a nap. Under the still tree-tops the dappled sunlight,
+motionless, soaked the sod; the forest-flies no longer whirled in
+circles, but sat sunning their wings on slender twig-tips.
+
+The heat was sweet and spicy; the sun drew out the delicate essence
+of gum and sap, warming volatile juices until they exhaled through the
+aromatic bark.
+
+The sun went down into the wilderness; the forest stirred in its
+sleep; a fish splashed in the lake. The spell was broken. Presently
+the wind began to rise somewhere far away in the unknown land. I heard
+it coming, nearer, nearer--a brisk wind that grew heavier and blew
+harder as it neared us--a gale that swept distant branches--a furious
+gale that set limbs clashing and cracking, nearer and nearer. Crack!
+and the gale grew to a hurricane, trampling trees like dead twigs!
+Crack! Crackle! Crash! Crash!
+
+_Was it the wind?_
+
+With the roaring in my ears I sprang up, staring into the forest
+vista, and at the same instant, out of the crashing forest, sped
+Professor Smawl, skirts tucked up, thin legs flying like
+bicycle-spokes. I shouted, but the crashing drowned my voice. Then all
+at once the solid earth began to shake, and with the rush and roar of
+a tornado a gigantic living thing burst out of the forest before our
+eyes--a vast shadowy bulk that rocked and rolled along, mowing down
+trees in its course.
+
+Two great crescents of ivory curved from its head; its back swept
+through the tossing tree-tops. Once it bellowed like a gun fired from
+a high bastion.
+
+The apparition passed with the noise of thunder rolling on towards the
+ends of the earth. Crack! crash! went the trees, the tempest swept
+away in a rolling volley of reports, distant, more distant, until,
+long after the tumult had deadened, then ceased, the stunned forest
+echoed with the fall of mangled branches slowly dropping.
+
+That evening an agitated young couple sat close together in the
+deserted camp, calling timidly at intervals for Professor Smawl and
+William Spike. I say timidly, because it is correct; we did not care
+to have a mammoth respond to our calls. The lurking echoes across the
+lake answered our cries; the full moon came up over the forest to look
+at us. We were not much to look at. Dorothy was moistening my shoulder
+with unfeigned tears, and I, afraid to light the fire, sat hunched up
+under the common blanket, wildly examining the darkness around us.
+
+Chilled to the spinal marrow, I watched the gray lights whiten in the
+east. A single bird awoke in the wilderness. I saw the nearer trees
+looming in the mist, and the silver fog rolling on the lake.
+
+All night long the darkness had vibrated with the strange monotone
+which I had heard the first night, camping at the gate of the unknown
+land. My brain seemed to echo that subtle harmony which rings in the
+auricular labyrinth after sound has ceased.
+
+There are ghosts of sound which return to haunt long after sound is
+dead. It was these voiceless spectres of a voice long dead that
+stirred the transparent silence, intoning toneless tones.
+
+I think I make myself clear.
+
+It was an uncanny night; morning whitened the east; gray daylight
+stole into the woods, blotting the shadows to paler tints. It was
+nearly mid-day before the sun became visible through the fine-spun web
+of mist--a pale spot of gilt in the zenith.
+
+By this pallid light I labored to strike the two empty tents, gather
+up our equipments and pack them on our five mules. Dorothy aided me
+bravely, whimpering when I spoke of Professor Smawl and William Spike,
+but abating nothing of her industry until we had the mules loaded and
+I was ready to drive them, Heaven knows whither.
+
+"Where shall we go?" quavered Dorothy, sitting on a log with the
+dingue in her lap.
+
+One thing was certain; this mammoth-ridden land was no place for
+women, and I told her so.
+
+We placed the dingue in a basket and tied it around the leading mule's
+neck. Immediately the dingue, alarmed, began dingling like a cow-bell.
+It acted like a charm on the other mules, and they gravely filed off
+after their leader, following the bell. Dorothy and I, hand in hand,
+brought up the rear.
+
+I shall never forget that scene in the forest--the gray arch of the
+heavens swimming in mist through which the sun peered shiftily, the
+tall pines wavering through the fog, the preoccupied mules marching
+single file, the foggy bell-note of the gentle dingue in its swinging
+basket, and Dorothy, limp kilts dripping with dew, plodding through
+the white dusk.
+
+We followed the terrible tornado-path which the mammoth had left in
+its wake, but there were no traces of its human victims--neither one
+jot of Professor Smawl nor one solitary tittle of William Spike.
+
+And now I would be glad to end this chapter if I could; I would gladly
+leave myself as I was, there in the misty forest, with an arm
+encircling the slender body of my little companion, and the mules
+moving in a monotonous line, and the dingue discreetly jingling--but
+again that menacing shadow falls across my page, and truth bids me
+tell all, and I, the slave of accuracy, must remember my vows as the
+dauntless disciple of truth.
+
+Towards sunset--or that pale parody of sunset which set the forest
+swimming in a ghastly, colorless haze--the mammoth's trail of ruin
+brought us suddenly out of the trees to the shore of a great sheet of
+water.
+
+It was a desolate spot; northward a chaos of sombre peaks rose, piled
+up like thunder-clouds along the horizon; east and south the darkening
+wilderness spread like a pall. Westward, crawling out into the mist
+from our very feet, the gray waste of water moved under the dull sky,
+and flat waves slapped the squatting rocks, heavy with slime.
+
+And now I understood why the trail of the mammoth continued straight
+into the lake, for on either hand black, filthy tamarack swamps lay
+under ghostly sheets of mist. I strove to creep out into the bog,
+seeking a footing, but the swamp quaked and the smooth surface
+trembled like jelly in a bowl. A stick thrust into the slime sank into
+unknown depths.
+
+Vaguely alarmed, I gained the firm land again and looked around,
+believing there was no road open but the desolate trail we had
+traversed. But I was in error; already the leading mule was wading out
+into the water, and the others, one by one, followed.
+
+How wide the lake might be we could not tell, because the band of fog
+hung across the water like a curtain. Yet out into this flat, shallow
+void our mules went steadily, slop! slop! slop! in single file.
+Already they were growing indistinct in the fog, so I bade Dorothy
+hasten and take off her shoes and stockings.
+
+She was ready before I was, I having to unlace my shooting-boots, and
+she stepped out into the water, kilts fluttering, moving her white
+feet cautiously. In a moment I was beside her, and we waded forward,
+sounding the shallow water with our poles.
+
+When the water had risen to Dorothy's knees I hesitated, alarmed. But
+when we attempted to retrace our steps we could not find the shore
+again, for the blank mist shrouded everything, and the water deepened
+at every step.
+
+I halted and listened for the mules. Far away in the fog I heard a
+dull splashing, receding as I listened. After a while all sound died
+away, and a slow horror stole over me--a horror that froze the little
+net-work of veins in every limb. A step to the right and the water
+rose to my knees; a step to the left and the cold, thin circle of the
+flood chilled my breast. Suddenly Dorothy screamed, and the next
+moment a far cry answered--a far, sweet cry that seemed to come from
+the sky, like the rushing harmony of the world's swift winds. Then the
+curtain of fog before us lighted up from behind; shadows moved on the
+misty screen, outlines of trees and grassy shores, and tiny birds
+flying. Thrown on the vapory curtain, in silhouette, a man and a woman
+passed under the lovely trees, arms about each other's necks; near
+them the shadows of five mules grazed peacefully; a dingue gambolled
+close by.
+
+"It is a mirage!" I muttered, but my voice made no sound. Slowly the
+light behind the fog died out; the vapor around us turned to rose,
+then dissolved, while mile on mile of a limitless sea spread away
+till, like a quick line pencilled at a stroke, the horizon cut sky and
+sea in half, and before us lay an ocean from which towered a mountain
+of snow--or a gigantic berg of milky ice--for it was moving.
+
+"Good Heavens," I shrieked; "it is alive!"
+
+At the sound of my crazed cry the mountain of snow became a pillar,
+towering to the clouds, and a wave of golden glory drenched the figure
+to its knees! Figure? Yes--for a colossal arm shot across the sky,
+then curved back in exquisite grace to a head of awful beauty--a
+woman's head, with eyes like the blue lake of heaven--ay, a woman's
+splendid form, upright from the sky to the earth, knee-deep in the
+sea. The evening clouds drifted across her brow; her shimmering hair
+lighted the world beneath with sunset. Then, shading her white brow
+with one hand, she bent, and with the other hand dipped in the sea,
+she sent a wave rolling at us. Straight out of the horizon it sped--a
+ripple that grew to a wave, then to a furious breaker which caught us
+up in a whirl of foam, bearing us onward, faster, faster, swiftly
+flying through leagues of spray until consciousness ceased and all was
+blank.
+
+Yet ere my senses fled I heard again that strange cry--that sweet,
+thrilling harmony rushing out over the foaming waters, filling earth
+and sky with its soundless vibrations.
+
+And I knew it was the hail of the Spirit of the North warning us back
+to life again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Looking back, now, over the days that passed before we staggered into
+the Hudson Bay outpost at Gravel Cove, I am inclined to believe that
+neither Dorothy nor I were clothed entirely in our proper minds--or,
+if we were, our minds, no doubt, must have been in the same condition
+as our clothing. I remember shooting ptarmigan, and that we ate them;
+flashes of memory recall the steady downpour of rain through the
+endless twilight of shaggy forests; dim days on the foggy tundra,
+mud-holes from which the wild ducks rose in thousands; then the
+stunted hemlocks, then the forest again. And I do not even recall the
+moment when, at last, stumbling into the smooth path left by the
+Graham Glacier, we crawled through the mountain-wall, out of the
+unknown land, and once more into a world protected by the Lord
+Almighty.
+
+A hunting-party of Elbon Indians brought us in to the post, and
+everybody was most kind--that I remember, just before going into
+several weeks of unpleasant delirium mercifully mitigated with
+unconsciousness.
+
+Curiously enough, Professor Van Twiller was not very much battered,
+physically, for I had carried her for days, pickaback. But the awful
+experience had produced a shock which resulted in a nervous condition
+that lasted so long after she returned to New York that the wealthy
+and eminent specialist who attended her insisted upon taking her to
+the Riviera and marrying her. I sometimes wonder--but, as I have said,
+such reflections have no place in these austere pages.
+
+However, anybody, I fancy, is at liberty to speculate upon the fate of
+the late Professor Smawl and William Spike, and upon the mules and the
+gentle dingue. Personally, I am convinced that the suggestive
+silhouettes I saw on that ghastly curtain of fog were cast by
+beatified beings in some earthly paradise--a mirage of bliss of which
+we caught but the colorless shadow-shapes floating 'twixt sea and
+sky.
+
+At all events, neither Professor Smawl nor her William Spike ever
+returned; no exploring expedition has found a trace of mule or lady,
+of William or the dingue. The new expedition to be organized by
+Barnard College may penetrate still farther. I suppose that, when the
+time comes, I shall be expected to volunteer. But Professor Van
+Twiller is married, and William and Professor Smawl ought to be, and
+altogether, considering the mammoth and that gigantic and splendid
+apparition that bent from the zenith to the ocean and sent a
+tidal-wave rolling from the palm of one white hand--I say, taking all
+these various matters under consideration, I think I shall decide to
+remain in New York and continue writing for the scientific
+periodicals. Besides, the mortifying experience at the Paris
+Exposition has dampened even my perennially youthful enthusiasm. And
+as for the late expedition to Florida, Heaven knows I am ready to
+repeat it--nay, I am already forming a plan for the rescue--but though
+I am prepared to encounter any danger for the sake of my beloved
+superior, Professor Farrago, I do not feel inclined to commit
+indiscretions in order to pry into secrets which, as I regard it,
+concern Professor Smawl and William Spike alone.
+
+But all this is, in a measure, premature. What I now have to relate is
+the recital of an eye-witness to that most astonishing scandal which
+occurred during the recent exposition in Paris.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+When the delegates were appointed to the International Scientific
+Congress at the Paris Exposition of 1900, how little did anybody
+imagine that the great conference would end in the most gigantic
+scandal that ever stirred two continents?
+
+Yet, had it not been for the pair of American newspapers published in
+Paris, this scandal would never have been aired, for the continental
+press is so well muzzled that when it bites its teeth merely meet in
+the empty atmosphere with a discreet snap.
+
+But to the Yankee nothing excepting the Monroe Doctrine is sacred, and
+the unsopped watch-dogs of the press bite right and left, unmuzzled.
+The biter bites--it is his profession--and that ends the affair; the
+bitee is bitten, and, in the deplorable argot of the hour, "it is up
+to him."
+
+So now that the scandal has been well aired and hung out to dry in the
+teeth of decency and the four winds, and as all the details have been
+cheerfully and grossly exaggerated, it is, perhaps, the proper moment
+for the truth to be written by the only person whose knowledge of all
+the facts in the affair entitles him to speak for himself as well as
+for those honorable ladies and gentlemen whose names and titles have
+been so mercilessly criticised.
+
+These, then, are the simple facts:
+
+The International Scientific Congress, now adjourned _sine die_, met
+at nine o'clock in the morning, May 3, 1900, in the Tasmanian Pavilion
+of the Paris Exposition. There were present the most famous scientists
+of Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, and the
+United States.
+
+His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco presided.
+
+It is not necessary, now, to repeat the details of that preliminary
+meeting. It is sufficient to say that committees representing the
+various known sciences were named and appointed by the Prince of
+Monaco, who had been unanimously elected permanent chairman of the
+conference. It is the composition of a single committee that concerns
+us now, and that committee, representing the science which treats of
+bird life, was made up as follows:
+
+Chairman--His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco. Members--Sir
+Peter Grebe, Great Britain; Baron de Becasse, France; his Royal
+Highness King Christian, of Finland; the Countess d'Alzette, of
+Belgium; and I, from the United States, representing the Smithsonian
+Institution and the Bronx Park Zoological Society of New York.
+
+This, then, was the composition of that now notorious ornithological
+committee, a modest, earnest, self-effacing little band of workers,
+bound together--in the beginning--by those ties of mutual respect and
+esteem which unite all laborers in the vineyard of science.
+
+From the first meeting of our committee, science, the great leveller,
+left no artificial barriers of rank or title standing between us. We
+were enthusiasts in our love for ornithology; we found new inspiration
+in the democracy of our common interests.
+
+As for me, I chatted with my fellows, feeling no restraint myself and
+perceiving none. The King of Finland and I discussed his latest
+monograph on the speckled titmouse, and I was glad to agree with the
+King in all his theories concerning the nesting habits of that
+important bird.
+
+Sir Peter Grebe, a large, red gentleman in tweeds, read us some notes
+he had made on the domestic hen and her reasons for running ahead of a
+horse and wagon instead of stepping aside to let the disturbing
+vehicle pass.
+
+The Crown-Prince of Monaco took issue with Sir Peter; so did the Baron
+de Becasse; and we were entertained by a friendly and marvellously
+interesting three-cornered dispute, shared in by three of the most
+profound thinkers of the century.
+
+I shall never forget the brilliancy of that argument, nor the modest,
+good-humored retorts which gave us all a glimpse into depths of
+erudition which impressed us profoundly and set the seal on the bonds
+which held us so closely together.
+
+Alas, that the seal should ever have been broken! Alas, that the
+glittering apple of discord should have been flung into our
+midst!--no, not flung, but gently rolled under our noses by the gloved
+fingers of the lovely Countess d'Alzette.
+
+"Messieurs," said the fair Countess, when all present, excepting she
+and I, had touched upon or indicated the subjects which they had
+prepared to present to the congress--"messieurs mes confrères, I have
+been requested by our distinguished chairman, the Crown-Prince of
+Monaco, to submit to your judgment the subject which, by favor of the
+King of the Belgians, I have prepared to present to the International
+Scientific Congress."
+
+She made a pretty courtesy as she named her own sovereign, and we all
+rose out of respect to that most austere and moral ruler the King of
+Belgium.
+
+"But," she said, with a charming smile of depreciation, "I am very,
+very much afraid that the subject which I have chosen may not meet
+with your approval, gentlemen."
+
+She stood there in her dainty Parisian gown and bonnet, shaking her
+pretty head uncertainly, a smile on her lips, her small, gloved
+fingers interlocked.
+
+"Oh, I know how dreadful it would be if this great congress should be
+compelled to listen to any hoax like that which Monsieur de Rougemont
+imposed on the British Royal Society," she said, gravely; "and because
+the subject of my paper is as strange as the strangest phenomenon
+alleged to have been noted by Monsieur de Rougemont, I hesitate--"
+
+She glanced at the silent listeners around her. Sir Peter's red face
+had hardened; the King of Finland frowned slightly; the Crown-Prince
+of Monaco and Baron de Becasse wore anxious smiles. But when her
+violet eyes met mine I gave her a glance of encouragement, and that
+glance, I am forced to confess, was not dictated by scientific
+approval, but by something that never entirely dries up in the
+mustiest and dustiest of savants--the old Adam implanted in us all.
+
+Now, I knew perfectly well what her subject must be; so did every man
+present. For it was no secret that his Majesty of Belgium had been
+swindled by some natives in Tasmania, and had paid a very large sum of
+money for a skin of that gigantic bird, the ux, which has been so
+often reported to exist among the inaccessible peaks of the Tasmanian
+Mountains. Needless, perhaps, to say that the skin proved a fraud,
+being nothing more than a Barnum contrivance made up out of the skins
+of a dozen ostriches and cassowaries, and most cleverly put together
+by Chinese workmen; at least, such was the report made on it by Sir
+Peter Grebe, who had been sent by the British Society to Antwerp to
+examine the acquisition. Needless, also, perhaps, to say that King
+Leopold, of Belgium, stoutly maintained that the skin of the ux was
+genuine from beak to claw.
+
+For six months there had been a most serious difference of opinion
+among European ornithologists concerning the famous ux in the Antwerp
+Museum; and this difference had promised to result in an open quarrel
+between a few Belgian savants on one side and-all Europe and Great
+Britain on the other.
+
+Scientists have a deep--rooted horror of anything that touches on
+charlatanism; the taint of trickery not only alarms them, but drives
+them away from any suspicious subject, and usually ruins,
+scientifically speaking, the person who has introduced the subject for
+discussion.
+
+Therefore, it took no little courage for the Countess d'Alzette to
+touch, with her dainty gloves, a subject which every scientist in
+Europe, with scarcely an exception, had pronounced fraudulent and
+unworthy of investigation. And to bring it before the great
+International Congress required more courage still; for the person
+who could face, in executive session, the most brilliant intellects in
+the world, and openly profess faith in a Barnumized bird skin, either
+had no scientific reputation to lose or was possessed of a bravery far
+above that of the savants who composed the audience.
+
+Now, when the pretty Countess caught a flash of encouragement in my
+glance she turned rosy with gratification and surprise. Clearly, she
+had not expected to find a single ally in the entire congress. Her
+quick smile of gratitude touched me, and made me ashamed, too, for I
+had encouraged her out of the pure love of mischief, hoping to hear
+the whole matter threshed before the congress and so have it settled
+once for all. It was a thoughtless thing to do on my part. I should
+have remembered the consequences to the Countess if it were proven
+that she had been championing a fraud. The ruffled dignity of the
+congress would never forgive her; her scientific career would
+practically be at an end, because her theories and observations could
+no longer command respect or even the attention of those who knew that
+she herself had once been deceived by a palpable fraud.
+
+I looked at her guiltily, already ashamed of myself for encouraging
+her to her destruction. How lovely and innocent she appeared, standing
+there reading her notes in a low, clear voice, fresh as a child's,
+with now and then a delicious upward sweep of her long, dark lashes.
+
+With a start I came to my senses and bestowed a pinch on myself. This
+was neither the time nor the place to sentimentalize over a girlish
+beauty whose small, Parisian head was crammed full of foolish, brave
+theories concerning an imposition which her aged sovereign had been
+unable to detect.
+
+I saw the gathering frown on the King of Finland's dark face; I saw
+Sir Peter Grebe grow redder and redder, and press his thick lips
+together to control the angry "Bosh!" which need not have been uttered
+to have been understood. The Baron de Becasse wore a painfully neutral
+smile, which froze his face into a quaint gargoyle; the Crown-Prince
+of Monaco looked at his polished fingernails with a startled yet
+abstracted resignation. Clearly the young Countess had not a
+sympathizer in the committee.
+
+Something--perhaps it was the latent chivalry which exists imbedded in
+us all, perhaps it was pity, perhaps a glimmering dawn of belief in
+the ux skin--set my thoughts working very quickly.
+
+The Countess d'Alzette finished her notes, then glanced around with a
+deprecating smile, which died out on her lips when she perceived the
+silent and stony hostility of her fellow-scientists. A quick
+expression of alarm came into her lovely eyes. Would they vote against
+giving her a hearing before the congress? It required a unanimous vote
+to reject a subject. She turned her eyes on me.
+
+I rose, red as fire, my head humming with a chaos of ideas all
+disordered and vague, yet whirling along in a single, resistless
+current. I had come to the congress prepared to deliver a monograph on
+the great auk; but now the subject went overboard as the birds
+themselves had, and I found myself pleading with the committee to give
+the Countess a hearing on the ux.
+
+"Why not?" I exclaimed, warmly. "It is established beyond question
+that the ux does exist in Tasmania. Wallace saw several uxen, through
+his telescope, walking about upon the inaccessible heights of the
+Tasmanian Mountains. Darwin acknowledged that the bird exists;
+Professor Farrago has published a pamphlet containing an accumulation
+of all data bearing upon the ux. Why should not Madame la Comtesse be
+heard by the entire congress?"
+
+I looked at Sir Peter Grebe.
+
+"Have _you_ seen this alleged bird skin in the Antwerp Museum?" he
+asked, perspiring with indignation.
+
+"Yes, I have," said I. "It has been patched up, but how are we to know
+that the skin did not require patching? I have not found that ostrich
+skin has been used. It is true that the Tasmanians may have shot the
+bird to pieces and mended the skin with bits of cassowary hide here
+and there. But the greater part of the skin, and the beak and claws,
+are, in my estimation, well worth the serious attention of savants. To
+pronounce them fraudulent is, in my opinion, rash and premature."
+
+I mopped my brow; I was in for it now. I had thrown in my reputation
+with the reputation of the Countess.
+
+The displeasure and astonishment of my confrères was unmistakable. In
+the midst of a strained silence I moved that a vote be taken upon the
+advisability of a hearing before the congress on the subject of the
+ux. After a pause the young Countess, pale and determined, seconded my
+motion. The result of the balloting was a foregone conclusion; the
+Countess had one vote--she herself refraining from voting--and the
+subject was entered on the committee-book as acceptable and a date set
+for the hearing before the International Congress.
+
+The effect of this vote on our little committee was most marked.
+Constraint took the place of cordiality, polite reserve replaced that
+guileless and open-hearted courtesy with which our proceedings had
+begun.
+
+With icy politeness, the Crown-Prince of Monaco asked me to state the
+subject of the paper I proposed to read before the congress, and I
+replied quietly that, as I was partly responsible for advocating the
+discussion of the ux, I proposed to associate myself with the Countess
+d'Alzette in that matter--if Madame la Comtesse would accept the offer
+of a brother savant.
+
+"Indeed I will," she said, impulsively, her blue eyes soft with
+gratitude.
+
+"Very well," observed Sir Peter Grebe, swallowing his indignation and
+waddling off towards the door; "I shall resign my position on this
+committee--yes, I will, I tell you!"--as the King of Finland laid a
+fatherly hand on Sir Peter's sleeve--"I'll not be made responsible for
+this damn--"
+
+He choked, sputtered, then bowed to the horrified Countess, asking
+pardon, and declaring that he yielded to nobody in respect for the
+gentler sex. And he retired with the Baron de Becasse.
+
+But out in the hallway I heard him explode. "Confound it! This is no
+place for petticoats, Baron! And as for that Yankee ornithologist,
+he's hung himself with the Countess's corset--string--yes, he has!
+Don't tell me, Baron! The young idiot was all right until the Countess
+looked at him, I tell you. Gad! how she crumpled him up with those
+blue eyes of hers! What the devil do women come into such committees
+for? Eh? It's an outrage, I tell you! Why, the whole world will jeer
+at us if we sit and listen to her monograph on that fraudulent bird!"
+
+The young Countess, who was writing near the window, could not have
+heard this outburst; but I heard it, and so did King Christian and the
+Crown-Prince of Monaco.
+
+"Lord," thought I, "the Countess and I are in the frying-pan this
+time. I'll do what I can to keep us both out of the fire."
+
+When the King and the Crown-Prince had made their adieux to the
+Countess, and she had responded, pale and serious, they came over to
+where I was standing, looking out on the Seine.
+
+"Though we must differ from you," said the King, kindly, "we wish you
+all success in this dangerous undertaking."
+
+I thanked him.
+
+"You are a young man to risk a reputation already established,"
+remarked the Crown-Prince, then added: "You are braver than I.
+Ridicule is a barrier to all knowledge, and, though we know that, we
+seekers after truth always bring up short at that barrier and
+dismount, not daring to put our hobbies to the fence."
+
+"One can but come a cropper," said I.
+
+"And risk staking our hobbies? No, no, that would make us ridiculous;
+and ridicule kills in Europe."
+
+"It's somewhat deadly in America, too," I said, smiling.
+
+"The more honor to you," said the Crown-Prince, gravely.
+
+"Oh, I am not the only one," I answered, lightly. "There is my
+confrère, Professor Hyssop, who studies apparitions and braves a
+contempt and ridicule which none of us would dare challenge. We
+Yankees are learning slowly. Some day we will find the lost key to the
+future while Europe is sneering at those who are trying to pick the
+lock."
+
+When King Christian, of Finland, and the Crown-Prince of Monaco had
+taken their hats and sticks and departed, I glanced across the room at
+the young Countess, who was now working rapidly on a type-writer,
+apparently quite oblivious of my presence.
+
+I looked out of the window again, and my gaze wandered over the
+exposition grounds. Gilt and scarlet and azure the palaces rose in
+every direction, under a wilderness of fluttering flags. Towers,
+minarets, turrets, golden spires cut the blue sky; in the west the
+gaunt Eiffel Tower sprawled across the glittering Esplanade; behind it
+rose the solid golden dome of the Emperor's tomb, gilded once more by
+the Almighty's sun, to amuse the living rabble while the dead
+slumbered in his imperial crypt, himself now but a relic for the
+amusement of the people whom he had despised. O tempora! O mores! O
+Napoleon!
+
+Down under my window, in the asphalted court, the King of Finland was
+entering his beautiful victoria. An adjutant, wearing a cocked hat and
+brilliant uniform, mounted the box beside the green-and-gold coachman;
+the two postilions straightened up in their saddles; the four horses
+danced. Then, when the Crown-Prince of Monaco had taken a seat beside
+the King, the carriage rolled away, and far down the quay I watched it
+until the flutter of the green-and-white plumes in the adjutant's
+cocked hat was all I could see of vanishing royalty.
+
+I was still musing there by the window, listening to the click and
+ringing of the type-writer, when I suddenly became aware that the
+clicking had ceased, and, turning, I saw the young Countess standing
+beside me.
+
+"Thank you for your chivalrous impulse to help me," she said, frankly,
+holding out her bare hand.
+
+I bent over it.
+
+"I had not realized how desperate my case was," she said, with a
+smile. "I supposed that they would at least give me a hearing. How can
+I thank you for your brave vote in my favor?"
+
+"By giving me your confidence in this matter," said I, gravely. "If we
+are to win, we must work together and work hard, madame. We are
+entering a struggle, not only to prove the genuineness of a bird skin
+and the existence of a bird which neither of us has ever seen, but
+also a struggle which will either make us famous forever or render it
+impossible for either of us ever again to face a scientific audience."
+
+"I know it," she said, quietly "And I understand all the better how
+gallant a gentleman I have had the fortune to enlist in my cause.
+Believe me, had I not absolute confidence in my ability to prove the
+existence of the ux I should not, selfish as I am, have accepted your
+chivalrous offer to stand or fall with me."
+
+The subtle emotion in her voice touched a responsive chord in me. I
+looked at her earnestly; she raised her beautiful eyes to mine.
+
+"Will you help me?" she asked.
+
+Would I help her? Faith, I'd pass the balance of my life turning
+flip-flaps to please her. I did not attempt to undeceive myself; I
+realized that the lightning had struck me--that I was desperately in
+love with the young Countess from the tip of her bonnet to the toe of
+her small, polished shoe. I was curiously cool about it, too, although
+my heart gave a thump that nigh choked me, and I felt myself going red
+from temple to chin.
+
+If the Countess d'Alzette noticed it she gave no sign, unless the pink
+tint under her eyes, deepening, was a subtle signal of understanding
+to the signal in my eyes.
+
+"Suppose," she said, "that I failed, before the congress, to prove my
+theory? Suppose my investigations resulted in the exposure of a fraud
+and my name was held up to ridicule before all Europe? What would
+become of you, monsieur?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"You are already celebrated as the discoverer of the mammoth and the
+great auk," she persisted. "You are young, enthusiastic, renowned, and
+you have a future before you that anybody in the world might envy."
+
+I said nothing.
+
+"And yet," she said, softly, "you risk all because you will not leave
+a young woman friendless among her confrères. It is not wise,
+monsieur; it is gallant and generous and impulsive, but it is not
+wisdom. Don Quixote rides no more in Europe, my friend."
+
+"He stays at home--seventy million of him--in America," said I.
+
+After a moment she said, "I believe you, monsieur."
+
+"It is true enough," I said, with a laugh. "We are the only people who
+tilt at windmills these days--we and our cousins, the British, who
+taught us."
+
+I bowed gayly, and added:
+
+"With your colors to wear, I shall have the honor of breaking a lance
+against the biggest windmill in the world."
+
+"You mean the Citadel of Science," she said, smiling.
+
+"And its rock-ribbed respectability," I replied.
+
+She looked at me thoughtfully, rolling and unrolling the scroll in her
+hands. Then she sighed, smiled, and brightened, handing me the scroll.
+
+"Read it carefully," she said; "it is an outline of the policy I
+suggest that we follow. You will be surprised at some of the
+statements. Yet every word is the truth. And, monsieur, your reward
+for the devotion you have offered will be no greater than you deserve,
+when you find yourself doubly famous for our joint monograph on the
+ux. Without your vote in the committee I should have been denied a
+hearing, even though I produced proofs to support my theory. I
+appreciate that; I do most truly appreciate the courage which prompted
+you to defend a woman at the risk of your own ruin. Come to me this
+evening at nine. I hold for you in store a surprise and pleasure which
+you do not dream of."
+
+"Ah, but I do," I said, slowly, under the spell of her delicate beauty
+and enthusiasm.
+
+"How can you?" she said, laughing. "You don't know what awaits you at
+nine this evening?"
+
+"You," I said, fascinated.
+
+The color swept her face; she dropped me a deep courtesy.
+
+"At nine, then," she said. "No. 8 Rue d'Alouette."
+
+I bowed, took my hat, gloves, and stick, and attended her to her
+carriage below.
+
+Long after the blue-and-black victoria had whirled away down the
+crowded quay I stood looking after it, mazed in the web of that
+ancient enchantment whose spell fell over the first man in Eden, and
+whose sorcery shall not fail till the last man returns his soul.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+I lunched at my lodgings on the Quai Malthus, and I had but little
+appetite, having fed upon such an unexpected variety of emotions
+during the morning.
+
+Now, although I was already heels over head in love, I do not believe
+that loss of appetite was the result of that alone. I was slowly
+beginning to realize what my recent attitude might cost me, not only
+in an utter collapse of my scientific career, and the consequent
+material ruin which was likely to follow, but in the loss of all my
+friends at home. The Zoological Society of Bronx Park and the
+Smithsonian Institution of Washington had sent me as their trusted
+delegate, leaving it entirely to me to choose the subject on which I
+was to speak before the International Congress. What, then, would be
+their attitude when they learned that I had chosen to uphold the
+dangerous theory of the existence of the ux.
+
+Would they repudiate me and send another delegate to replace me? Would
+they merely wash their hands of me and let me go to my own
+destruction?
+
+"I will know soon enough," thought I, "for this morning's proceedings
+will have been cabled to New York ere now, and read at the
+breakfast-tables of every old, moss-grown naturalist in America before
+I see the Countess d'Alzette this evening." And I drew from my pocket
+the roll of paper which she had given me, and, lighting a cigar, lay
+back in my chair to read it.
+
+The manuscript had been beautifully type-written, and I had no trouble
+in following her brief, clear account of the circumstances under which
+the notorious ux-skin had been obtained. As for the story itself, it
+was somewhat fishy, but I manfully swallowed my growing nervousness
+and comforted myself with the belief of Darwin in the existence of the
+ux, and the subsequent testimony of Wallace, who simply stated what he
+had seen through his telescope, and then left it to others to identify
+the enormous birds he described as he had observed them stalking about
+on the snowy peaks of the Tasmanian Alps.
+
+My own knowledge of the ux was confined to a single circumstance.
+When, in 1897, I had gone to Tasmania with Professor Farrago, to make
+a report on the availability of the so-called "Tasmanian devil," as a
+substitute for the mongoose in the West Indies, I of course heard a
+great deal of talk among the natives concerning the birds which they
+affirmed haunted the summits of the mountains.
+
+Our time in Tasmania was too limited to admit of an exploration then.
+But although we were perfectly aware that the summits of the Tasmanian
+Alps are inaccessible, we certainly should have attempted to gain them
+had not the time set for our departure arrived before we had completed
+the investigation for which we were sent.
+
+One relic, however, I carried away with me. It was a single greenish
+bronzed feather, found high up in the mountains by a native, and sold
+to me for a somewhat large sum of money.
+
+Darwin believed the ux to be covered with greenish plumage; Wallace
+was too far away to observe the color of the great birds; but all the
+natives of Tasmania unite in affirming that the plumage of the ux is
+green.
+
+It was not only the color of this feather that made me an eager
+purchaser, it was the extraordinary length and size. I knew of no
+living bird large enough to wear such a feather. As for the color,
+that might have been tampered with before I bought it, and, indeed,
+testing it later, I found on the fronds traces of sulphate of copper.
+But the same thing has been found in the feathers of certain birds
+whose color is metallic green, and it has been proven that such birds
+pick up and swallow shining bits of copper pyrites.
+
+Why should not the ux do the same thing?
+
+Still, my only reason for believing in the existence of the bird was
+this single feather. I had easily proved that it belonged to no known
+species of bird. I also proved it to be similar to the tail-feathers
+of the ux-skin in Antwerp. But the feathers on the Antwerp specimen
+were gray, and the longest of them was but three feet in length, while
+my huge, bronze-green feather measured eleven feet from tip to tip.
+
+One might account for it supposing the Antwerp skin to be that of a
+young bird, or of a moulting bird, or perhaps of a different sex from
+the bird whose feather I had secured.
+
+Still, these ideas were not proven. Nothing concerning the birds had
+been proven. I had but a single fact to lean on, and that was that the
+feather I possessed could not have belonged to any known species of
+bird. Nobody but myself knew of the existence of this feather. And now
+I meant to cable to Bronx Park for it, and to place this evidence at
+the disposal of the beautiful Countess d'Alzette.
+
+My cigar had gone out, as I sat musing, and I relighted it and resumed
+my reading of the type-written notes, lazily, even a trifle
+sceptically, for all the evidence that she had been able to collect to
+substantiate her theory of the existence of the ux was not half as
+important as the evidence I was to produce in the shape of that
+enormous green feather.
+
+I came to the last paragraph, smoking serenely, and leaning back
+comfortably, one leg crossed over the other. Then, suddenly, my
+attention became riveted on the words under my eyes. Could I have read
+them aright? Could I believe what I read in ever-growing astonishment
+which culminated in an excitement that stirred the very hair on my
+head?
+
+    "The ux exists. There is no longer room for doubt. Ocular
+    proof I can now offer in the shape of _five living eggs_ of
+    this gigantic bird. All measures have been taken to hatch
+    these eggs; they are now in the vast incubator. It is my plan
+    to have them hatch, one by one, under the very eyes of the
+    International Congress. It will be the greatest triumph that
+    science has witnessed since the discovery of the New World.
+
+          [Signed] "SUSANNE D'ALZETTE."
+
+"Either," I cried out, in uncontrollable excitement--"either that girl
+is mad or she is the cleverest woman on earth."
+
+After a moment I added:
+
+"In either event I am going to marry her."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+That evening, a few minutes before nine o'clock, I descended from a
+cab in front of No. 8 Rue d'Alouette, and was ushered into a pretty
+reception-room by an irreproachable servant, who disappeared directly
+with my card.
+
+In a few moments the young Countess came in, exquisite in her silvery
+dinner-gown, eyes bright, white arms extended in a charming, impulsive
+welcome. The touch of her silky fingers thrilled me; I was dumb under
+the enchantment of her beauty; and I think she understood my silence,
+for her blue eyes became troubled and the happy parting of her lips
+changed to a pensive curve.
+
+Presently I began to tell her about my bronzed-green feather; at my
+first word she looked up brightly, almost gratefully, I fancied; and
+in another moment we were deep in eager discussion of the subject
+which had first drawn us together.
+
+What evidence I possessed to sustain our theory concerning the
+existence of the ux I hastened to reveal; then, heart beating
+excitedly, I asked her about the eggs and where they were at present,
+and whether she believed it possible to bring them to Paris--all these
+questions in the same breath--which brought a happy light into her
+eyes and a delicious ripple of laughter to her lips.
+
+"Why, of course it is possible to bring the eggs here," she cried. "Am
+I sure? Parbleu! The eggs are already here, monsieur!"
+
+"Here!" I exclaimed. "In Paris?"
+
+"In Paris? Mais oui; and in my own house--_this very house_, monsieur.
+Come, you shall behold them with your own eyes!"
+
+Her eyes were brilliant with excitement; impulsively she stretched out
+her rosy hand. I took it; and she led me quickly back through the
+drawing-room, through the dining-room, across the butler's pantry, and
+into a long, dark hallway. We were almost running now--I keeping tight
+hold of her soft little hand, she, raising her gown a trifle, hurrying
+down the hallway, silken petticoats rustling like a silk banner in the
+wind. A turn to the right brought us to the cellar-stairs; down we
+hastened, and then across the cemented floor towards a long,
+glass-fronted shelf, pierced with steam-pipes.
+
+"A match," she whispered, breathlessly.
+
+I struck a wax match and touched it to the gas-burner overhead.
+
+Never, never can I forget what that flood of gas-light revealed. In a
+row stood five large, glass-mounted incubators; behind the glass doors
+lay, in dormant majesty, five enormous eggs. The eggs were
+pale-green--lighter, somewhat, than robins' eggs, but not as pale as
+herons' eggs. Each egg appeared to be larger than a large hogs-head,
+and was partly embedded in bales of cotton-wool.
+
+Five little silver thermometers inside the glass doors indicated a
+temperature of 95° Fahrenheit. I noticed that there was an automatic
+arrangement connected with the pipes which regulated the temperature.
+
+I was too deeply moved for words. Speech seemed superfluous as we
+stood there, hand in hand, contemplating those gigantic, pale-green
+eggs.
+
+There is something in a silent egg which moves one's deeper
+emotions--something solemn in its embryotic inertia, something awesome
+in its featureless immobility.
+
+I know of nothing on earth which is so totally lacking in expression
+as an egg. The great desert Sphinx, brooding through its veil of sand,
+has not that tremendous and meaningless dignity which wraps the
+colorless oval effort of a single domestic hen.
+
+I held the hand of the young Countess very tightly. Her fingers closed
+slightly.
+
+Then and there, in the solemn presence of those emotionless eggs, I
+placed my arm around her supple waist and kissed her.
+
+She said nothing. Presently she stooped to observe the thermometer.
+Naturally, it registered 95° Fahrenheit.
+
+"Susanne," I said, softly.
+
+"Oh, we must go up-stairs," she whispered, breathlessly; and, picking
+up her silken skirts, she fled up the cellar-stairs.
+
+I turned out the gas, with that instinct of economy which early
+wastefulness has implanted in me, and followed the Countess Suzanne
+through the suite of rooms and into the small reception-hall where she
+had first received me.
+
+She was sitting on a low divan, head bent, slowly turning a sapphire
+ring on her finger, round and round.
+
+I looked at her romantically, and then--
+
+"Please don't," she said.
+
+The correct reply to this is:
+
+"Why not?"--very tenderly spoken.
+
+"Because," she replied, which was also the correct and regular answer.
+
+"Suzanne," I said, slowly and passionately.
+
+She turned the sapphire ring on her finger. Presently she tired of
+this, so I lifted her passive hand very gently and continued turning
+the sapphire ring on her finger, slowly, to harmonize with the cadence
+of our unspoken thoughts.
+
+Towards midnight I went home, walking with great care through a new
+street in Paris, paved exclusively with rose-colored blocks of air.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+At nine o'clock in the evening, July 31, 1900, the International
+Congress was to assemble in the great lecture-hall of the Belgian
+Scientific Pavilion, which adjourned the Tasmanian Pavilion, to hear
+the Countess Suzanne d'Alzette read her paper on the ux.
+
+That morning the Countess and I, with five furniture vans, had
+transported the five great incubators to the platform of the
+lecture-hall, and had engaged an army of plumbers and gas-fitters to
+make the steam-heating connections necessary to maintain in the
+incubators a temperature of 100° Fahrenheit.
+
+A heavy green curtain hid the stage from the body of the lecture-hall.
+Behind this curtain the five enormous eggs reposed, each in its
+incubator.
+
+The Countess Suzanne was excited and calm by turns, her cheeks were
+pink, her lips scarlet, her eyes bright as blue planets at midnight.
+
+Without faltering she rehearsed her discourse before me, reading from
+her type-written manuscript in a clear voice, in which I could
+scarcely discern a tremor. Then we went through the dumb show of
+exhibiting the uxen eggs to a frantically applauding audience; she
+responded to countless supposititious encores, I leading her out
+repeatedly before the green curtain to face the great, damp, darkened
+auditorium.
+
+Then, in response to repeated imaginary recalls, she rehearsed the
+extemporaneous speech, thanking the distinguished audience for their
+patience in listening to an unknown confrère, and confessing her
+obligations to me (here I appeared and bowed in self-abasement) for my
+faith in her and my aid in securing for her a public hearing before
+the most highly educated audience in the world.
+
+After that we retired behind the curtain to sit on an empty box and
+eat sandwiches and watch the last lingering plumbers pasting up the
+steam connections with a pot of molten lead.
+
+The plumbers were Americans, brought to Paris to make repairs on the
+American buildings during the exposition, and we conversed with them
+affably as they pottered about, plumber-like, poking under the
+flooring with lighted candles, rubbing their thumbs up and down musty
+old pipes, and prying up planks in dark corners.
+
+They informed us that they were union men and that they hoped we were
+too. And I replied that union was certainly my ultimate purpose, at
+which the young Countess smiled dreamily at vacancy.
+
+We did not dare leave the incubators. The plumbers lingered on, hour
+after hour, while we sat and watched the little silver thermometers,
+and waited.
+
+It was time for the Countess Suzanne to dress, and still the plumbers
+had not finished; so I sent a messenger for her maid, to bring her
+trunk to the lecture-hall, and I despatched another messenger to my
+lodgings for my evening clothes and fresh linen.
+
+There were several dressing-rooms off the stage. Here, about six
+o'clock, the Countess retired with her maid, to dress, leaving me to
+watch the plumbers and the thermometers.
+
+When the Countess Suzanne returned, radiant and lovely in an evening
+gown of black lace, I gave her the roses I had brought for her and
+hurried off to dress in my turn, leaving her to watch the
+thermometers.
+
+I was not absent more than half an hour, but when I returned I found
+the Countess anxiously conversing with the plumbers and pointing
+despairingly at the thermometers, which now registered only 95°.
+
+"You must keep up the temperature!" I said. "Those eggs are due to
+hatch within a few hours. What's the trouble with the heat?"
+
+The plumber did not know, but thought the connections were defective.
+
+"But that's why we called you in!" exclaimed the Countess. "Can't you
+fix things securely?"
+
+"Oh, we'll fix things, lady," replied the plumber, condescendingly,
+and he ambled away to rub his thumb up and down a pipe.
+
+As we alone were unable to move and handle the enormous eggs, the
+Countess, whose sweet character was a stranger to vindictiveness or
+petty resentment, had written to the members of the ornithological
+committee, revealing the marvellous fortune which had crowned her
+efforts in the search for evidence to sustain her theory concerning
+the ux, and inviting these gentlemen to aid her in displaying the
+great eggs to the assembled congress.
+
+This she had done the night previous. Every one of the gentlemen
+invited had come post-haste to her "hotel," to view the eggs with
+their own sceptical and astonished eyes; and the fair young Countess
+and I tasted our first triumph in her cellar, whither we conducted Sir
+Peter Grebe, the Crown-Prince of Monaco, Baron de Becasse, and his
+Majesty King Christian of Finland.
+
+Scepticism and incredulity gave place to excitement and unbounded
+enthusiasm. The old King embraced the Countess; Baron de Becasse
+attempted to kiss me; Sir Peter Grebe made a handsome apology for his
+folly and vowed that he would do open penance for his sins. The poor
+Crown-Prince, who was of a nervous temperament, sat on the
+cellar-stairs and wept like a child.
+
+His grief at his own pig-headedness touched us all profoundly.
+
+So it happened that these gentlemen were coming to-night to give their
+aid to us in moving the priceless eggs, and lend their countenance and
+enthusiastic support to the young Countess in her maiden effort.
+
+Sir Peter Grebe arrived first, all covered with orders and
+decorations, and greeted us affectionately, calling the Countess the
+"sweetest lass in France," and me his undutiful Yankee cousin who had
+landed feet foremost at the expense of the British Empire.
+
+The King of Finland, the Crown-Prince, and Baron de Becasse arrived
+together, a composite mass of medals, sashes, and academy palms. To
+see them moving boxes about, straightening chairs, and pulling out
+rugs reminded me of those golden-embroidered gentlemen who run out
+into the arena and roll up carpets after the acrobats have finished
+their turn in the Nouveau Cirque.
+
+I was aiding the King of Finland to move a heavy keg of nails, when
+the Countess called out to me in alarm, saying that the thermometers
+had dropped to 80° Fahrenheit.
+
+I spoke sharply to the plumbers, who were standing in a circle behind
+the dressing-rooms; but they answered sullenly that they could do no
+more work that day.
+
+Indignant and alarmed, I ordered them to come out to the stage, and,
+after some hesitation, they filed out, a sulky, silent lot of workmen,
+with their tools already gathered up and tied in their kits. At once I
+noticed that a new man had appeared among them--a red-faced, stocky
+man wearing a frock-coat and a shiny silk hat.
+
+"Who is the master-workman here?" I asked.
+
+"I am," said a man in blue overalls.
+
+"Well," said I, "why don't you fix those steam-fittings?"
+
+There was a silence. The man in the silk hat smirked.
+
+"Well?" said I.
+
+"Come, come, that's all right," said the man in the silk hat. "These
+men know their business without you tellin' them."
+
+"Who are you?" I demanded, sharply.
+
+"Oh, I'm just a walkin' delegate," he replied, with a sneer. "There's
+a strike in New York and I come over here to tie this here exposition
+up. See?"
+
+"You mean to say you won't let these men finish their work?" I asked,
+thunderstruck.
+
+"That's about it, young man," he said, coolly.
+
+Furious, I glanced at my watch, then at the thermometers, which now
+registered only 75°. Already I could hear the first-comers of the
+audience arriving in the body of the hall. Already a stage-hand was
+turning up the footlights and dragging chairs and tables hither and
+thither.
+
+"What will you take to stay and attend to those steam-pipes?" I
+demanded, desperately.
+
+"It can't be done nohow," observed the man in the silk hat. "That New
+York strike is good for a month yet." Then, turning to the workmen, he
+nodded and, to my horror, the whole gang filed out after him, turning
+deaf ears to my entreaties and threats.
+
+There was a deathly silence, then Sir Peter exploded into a vivid
+shower of words. The Countess, pale as a ghost, gave me a
+heart-breaking look. The Crown-Prince wept.
+
+"Great Heaven!" I cried; "the thermometers have fallen to 70°!"
+
+The King of Finland sat down on a chair and pressed his hands over his
+eyes. Baron de Becasse ran round and round, uttering subdued and
+plaintive screams; Sir Peter swore steadily.
+
+"Gentlemen," I cried, desperately, "we must save those eggs! They are
+on the very eve of hatching! Who will volunteer?"
+
+"To do what?" moaned the Crown-Prince.
+
+"I'll show you," I exclaimed, running to the incubators and beckoning
+to the Baron to aid me.
+
+In a moment we had rolled out the great egg, made a nest on the stage
+floor with the bales of cotton-wool, and placed the egg in it. One
+after another we rolled out the remaining eggs, building for each its
+nest of cotton; and at last the five enormous eggs lay there in a row
+behind the green curtain.
+
+"Now," said I, excitedly, to the King, "you must get up on that egg
+and try to keep it warm."
+
+The King began to protest, but I would take no denial, and presently
+his Majesty was perched up on the great egg, gazing foolishly about at
+the others, who were now all climbing up on their allotted eggs.
+
+"Great Heaven!" muttered the King, as Sir Peter settled down
+comfortably on his egg, "I am willing to give life and fortune for the
+sake of science, but I can't bear to hatch out eggs like a bird!"
+
+The Crown-Prince was now sitting patiently beside the Baron de
+Becasse.
+
+"I feel in my bones," he murmured, "that I'm about to hatch something.
+Can't you hear a tapping on the shell of your egg, Baron?"
+
+"Parbleu!" replied the Baron. "The shell is moving under me."
+
+It certainly was; for, the next moment, the Baron fell into his egg
+with a crash and a muffled shriek, and floundered out, dripping,
+yellow as a canary.
+
+"N'importe!" he cried, excitedly. "Allons! Save the eggs! Hurrah! Vive
+la science!" And he scrambled up on the fourth egg and sat there, arms
+folded, sublime courage transfiguring him from head to foot.
+
+We all gave him a cheer, which was hushed as the stage-manager ran in,
+warning us that the audience was already assembled and in place.
+
+"You're not going to raise the curtain while we're sitting, are you?"
+demanded the King of Finland, anxiously.
+
+"No, no," I said; "sit tight, your Majesty. Courage, gentlemen! Our
+vindication is at hand!"
+
+The Countess glanced at me with startled eyes; I took her hand,
+saluted it respectfully, and then quietly led her before the curtain,
+facing an ocean of upturned faces across the flaring footlights.
+
+She stood a moment to acknowledge the somewhat ragged applause, a calm
+smile on her lips. All her courage had returned; I saw that at once.
+
+Very quietly she touched her lips to the _eau-sucrée_, laid her
+manuscript on the table, raised her beautiful head, and began:
+
+"That the ux is a living bird I am here before you to prove--"
+
+A sharp report behind the curtain drowned her voice. She paled; the
+audience rose amid cries of excitement.
+
+"What was it?" she asked, faintly.
+
+"Sir Peter has hatched out his egg," I whispered. "Hark! There goes
+another egg!" And I ran behind the curtain.
+
+Such a scene as I beheld was never dreamed of on land or sea. Two
+enormous young uxen, all over gigantic pin-feathers, were wandering
+stupidly about. Mounted on one was Sir Peter Grebe, eyes starting from
+his apoplectic visage; on the other, clinging to the bird's neck, hung
+the Baron de Becasse.
+
+Before I could move, the two remaining eggs burst, and a pair of huge,
+scrawny fledglings rose among the débris, bearing off on their backs
+the King and Crown-Prince.
+
+"Help!" said the King of Finland, faintly. "I'm falling off!"
+
+I sprang to his aid, but tripped on the curtain-spring. The next
+instant the green curtain shot up, and there, revealed to that vast
+and distinguished audience, roamed four enormous chicks, bearing on
+their backs the most respected and exclusive aristocracy of Europe.
+
+The Countess Suzanne turned with a little shriek of horror, then sat
+down in her chair, laid her lovely head on the table, and very quietly
+fainted away, unconscious of the frantic cheers which went roaring to
+the roof.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This, then, is the _true_ history of the famous exposition scandal.
+And, as I have said, had it not been for the presence in that audience
+of two American reporters nobody would have known what all the world
+now knows--nobody would have read of the marvellous feats of bareback
+riding indulged in by the King of Finland--nobody would have read how
+Sir Peter Grebe steered his mount safely past the footlights only to
+come to grief over the prompter's box.
+
+But this _is_ scandal. And, as for the charming Countess Suzanne
+d'Alzette, the public has heard all that it is entitled to hear, and
+much that it is not entitled to hear.
+
+However, on second thoughts, perhaps the public is entitled to hear a
+little more. I will therefore say this much--the shock of astonishment
+which stunned me when the curtain flew up, revealing the
+King-bestridden uxen, was nothing to the awful blow which smote me
+when the Count d'Alzette leaped from the orchestra, over the
+footlights, and bore away with him the fainting form of his wife, the
+lovely Countess d'Alzette.
+
+I sometimes wonder--but, as I have repeatedly observed, this dull and
+pedantic narrative of fact is no vehicle for sentimental soliloquy. It
+is, then, merely sufficient to say that I took the earliest steamer
+for kinder shores, spurred on to haste by a venomous cable-gram from
+the Smithsonian, repudiating me, and by another from Bronx Park,
+ordering me to spend the winter in some inexpensive, poisonous, and
+unobtrusive spot, and make a collection of isopods. The island of Java
+appeared to me to be as poisonously unobtrusive and inexpensive a
+region as I had ever heard of; a steamer sailed from Antwerp for
+Batavia in twenty-four hours. Therefore, as I say, I took the
+night-train for Brussels, and the steamer from Antwerp the following
+evening.
+
+Of my uneventful voyage, of the happy and successful quest, there is
+little to relate. The Javanese are frolicsome and hospitable. There
+was a girl there with features that were as delicate as though
+chiselled out of palest amber; and I remember she wore a most
+wonderful jewelled, helmet-like head-dress, and jingling bangles on
+her ankles, and when she danced she made most graceful and poetic
+gestures with her supple wrists--but that has nothing to do with
+isopods, absolutely nothing.
+
+Letters from home came occasionally. Professor Farrago had returned to
+the Bronx and had been re-elected to the high office he had so nobly
+held when I first became associated with him.
+
+Through his kindness and by his advice I remained for several years in
+the Far East, until a letter from him arrived recalling me and also
+announcing his own hurried and sudden departure for Florida. He also
+mentioned my promotion to the office of subcurator of department; so I
+started on my homeward voyage very much pleased with the world, and
+arrived in New York on April 1, 1904, ready for a rest to which I
+believed myself entitled. And the first thing that they handed me was
+a letter from Professor Farrago, summoning me South.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The letter that started me--I was going to say startled me, but only
+imaginative people are startled--the letter, then, that started me
+from Bronx Park to the South I print without the permission of my
+superior, Professor Farrago. I have not obtained his permission, for
+the somewhat exciting reason that nobody knows where he is. Publicity
+being now recognized as the annihilator of mysteries, a benevolent
+purpose alone inspires me to publish a letter so strange, so
+pathetically remarkable, in view of what has recently occurred.
+
+As I say, I had only just returned from Java with a valuable
+collection of undescribed isopods--an order of edriophthalmous
+crustaceans with seven free thoracic somites furnished with fourteen
+legs--and I beg my reader's pardon, but my reader will see the
+necessity for the author's absolute accuracy in insisting on detail,
+because the story that follows is a dangerous story for a scientist to
+tell, in view of the vast amount of nonsense and fiction in
+circulation masquerading as stories of scientific adventure.
+
+I was, therefore, anticipating a delightful summer's work with pen and
+microscope, when on April 1st I received the following extraordinary
+letter from Professor Farrago:
+
+
+            "IN CAMP, LITTLE SPRITE LAKE,
+
+          "EVERGLADES, FLORIDA, _March 15, 1902._
+
+    "MY DEAR MR. GILLAND,--On receipt of this communication you
+    will immediately secure for me the following articles:
+
+    "One complete outfit of woman's clothing.
+    "One camera.
+    "One light steel cage, large enough for you to stand in.
+    "One stenographer (male sex).
+    "One five-pound steel tank, with siphon and hose attachment.
+    "One rifle and ammunition.
+    "Three ounces rosium oxyde.
+    "One ounce chlorate strontium.
+
+    "You will then, within twenty-four hours, set out with the
+    stenographer and the supplies mentioned and join me in camp on
+    Little Sprite Lake. This order is formal and admits of no
+    delay. You will appreciate the necessity of absolute and
+    unquestioning obedience when I tell you that I am practically
+    on the brink of the most astonishing discovery recorded in
+    natural history since Monsieur Zani discovered the
+    purple-spotted zoombok in Nyanza; and that I depend upon you
+    and your zeal and fidelity for success.
+
+    "I dare not, lest my letter fall into unscrupulous hands,
+    convey to you more than a hint of what lies before us in these
+    uncharted solitudes of the Everglades.
+
+    "You must read between the lines when I say that because one
+    can see through a sheet of glass, the glass is none the less
+    solid and palpable. One can see _through_ it--if that is also
+    seeing it; but one can nevertheless hold it and feel it and
+    receive from it sensations of cold or heat according to its
+    temperature.
+
+    "Certain jellyfish are absolutely transparent when in the
+    water, and one can only know of their presence by accidental
+    contact, not by sight.
+
+    "_Have you ever thought that possibly there might exist larger
+    and more highly organized creatures transparent to eyesight,
+    yet palpable to touch?_
+
+    "Little Sprite Lake is the jumping-off place; beyond lie the
+    Everglades, the outskirts of which are haunted by the
+    Seminoles, the interior of which have never been visited by
+    man, as far as we know.
+
+    "As you are aware, no general survey of Florida has yet been
+    made; there exist no maps of the Everglades south of
+    Okeechobee; even Little Sprite Lake is but a vague blot on our
+    maps. We know, of course, that south of the eleven thousand
+    square miles of fresh water which is called Lake Okeechobee
+    the Everglades form a vast, delta-like projection of thousands
+    and thousands of square miles. Darkest Africa is no longer a
+    mystery; but the Everglades to-day remain the sombre secret of
+    our continent. And, to-day, this unknown expanse of swamps,
+    barrens, forests, and lagoons is greater than in the days of
+    De Soto, because the entire region has been slowly rising.
+
+    "All this, my dear sir, you already know, and I ask your
+    indulgence for recalling the facts to your memory. I do it for
+    this reason--the search for _what I am seeking_ may lead us to
+    utter destruction; and therefore my formal orders to you
+    should be modified to this extent:--do you volunteer? If you
+    volunteer, my orders remain; if not, turn this letter over to
+    Mr. Kingsley, who will find for me the companion I require.
+
+    "In the event of your coming, you must break your journey at
+    False Cape and ask for an old man named Slunk. He will give
+    you a packet; you will give him a dollar, and drive on to Cape
+    Canaveral, and you will do what is to be done there. From
+    there to Fort Kissimmee, to Okeechobee, traversing the lake to
+    the Rita River, where I have marked the trail to Little
+    Sprite.
+
+    "At Little Sprite I shall await you; beyond that point a
+    merciful Providence alone can know what awaits us.
+
+          "Yours fraternally,
+
+          "FARRAGO.
+
+    "P.S.--I think that you had better make your will, and suggest
+    the same idea to the stenographer who is to accompany you.
+
+              F."
+
+And that was the letter I received while seated comfortably on the
+floor of my work-room, surrounded by innocent isopods, all patiently
+awaiting scientific investigation.
+
+And this is what I did: Within twenty-four hours I had assembled the
+supplies required--the cage, the woman's clothing, tank, arms and
+ammunition, and the chemicals; I had secured accommodations, for that
+evening, on the Florida, Volusia, and Fort Lauderdale Railway as far
+as Citron City; and I had been interviewing stenographers all day
+long, the result of an innocently worded advertisement in the daily
+newspapers.
+
+It was now very close to the time when I must summon a cab and drive
+to the ferry; and yet I was still shy one stenographer.
+
+I had seen scores; they simply would not listen to the proposition.
+"Why does a gentleman in the backwoods of Florida want a
+stenographer?" they demanded; and as I had not the faintest idea, I
+could only say so. I think the majority interviewed concluded I had
+escaped from a State institution.
+
+As the time for departure approached I became desperate, urging and
+beseeching applicants to accompany me; but neither sympathy for my
+instant need nor desire for salary moved them.
+
+I waited until the last moment, hoping against hope. Then, with a
+groan of despair, I seized luggage and raincoat, made for the door and
+flung it open, only to find myself face to face with an attractive
+young girl, apparently on the point of pressing the electric button.
+
+"I'm sorry," I said, "but I have a train to catch."
+
+She was noticeably attractive in her storm-coat and pretty hat, and I
+really was sorry--so sorry that I added:
+
+"I have about twenty-seven seconds to place at your service before I
+go."
+
+"Twenty will be sufficient," she replied, pleasantly. "I saw your
+advertisement for a stenographer--"
+
+"We require a man," I interposed, hastily.
+
+"Have you engaged him?"
+
+"N-no."
+
+We looked at each other.
+
+"You wouldn't accept, anyway," I began.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"You wouldn't leave town, would you?"
+
+"Yes, if you required it."
+
+"What? Go to Florida?"
+
+"Y-yes--if I must."
+
+"But think of the alligators! Think of the snakes--big, bitey snakes!"
+
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed, eyes growing bigger.
+
+"Indians, too!--unreconciled, sulky Seminoles! Fevers! Mud-puddles!
+Spiders! And only fifty dollars a week--"
+
+"I--I'll go," she stammered.
+
+"Go?" I repeated, grimly; "then you've exactly two and three-quarter
+seconds left for preparations."
+
+Instinctively she raised her little gloved hand and patted her hair.
+"I'm ready," she said, unsteadily.
+
+"One extra second to make your will," I added, stunned by her
+self-possession.
+
+"I--I have nothing to leave--nobody to leave it to," she said,
+smiling; "I am ready."
+
+I took that extra second myself for a lightning course in reflection
+upon effects and consequences.
+
+"It's silly, it's probably murder," I said, "but you're engaged! Now
+we must run for it!"
+
+And that is how I came to engage the services of Miss Helen Barrison
+as stenographer.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+At noon on the second day I disembarked from the train at Citron City
+with all paraphernalia--cage, chemicals, arsenal, and stenographer; an
+accumulation of very dusty impedimenta--all but the stenographer. By
+three o'clock our hotel livery-rig was speeding along the beach at
+False Cape towards the tall lighthouse looming above the dunes.
+
+The abode of a gentleman named Slunk was my goal. I sat brooding in
+the rickety carriage, still dazed by the rapidity of my flight from
+New York; the stenographer sat beside me, blue eyes bright with
+excitement, fair hair blowing in the sea-wind.
+
+Our railway companionship had been of the slightest, also absolutely
+formal; for I was too absorbed in conjecturing the meaning of this
+journey to be more than absent-mindedly civil; and she, I fancy, had
+had time for repentance and perhaps for a little fright, though I
+could discover traces of neither.
+
+I remember she left the train at some city or other where we were held
+for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a
+brand-new grip sack.
+
+She must have bought clothes, for she continued to remain cool and
+fresh in her summer shirt-waists and short outing skirt; and she
+looked immaculate now, sitting there beside me, the trace of a smile
+curving her red mouth.
+
+"I'm looking for a personage named Slunk," I observed.
+
+After a moment's silent consideration of the Atlantic Ocean she said,
+"When do my duties begin, Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"The Lord alone knows," I replied, grimly. "Are you repenting of your
+bargain?"
+
+"I am quite happy," she said, serenely.
+
+Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail,
+pink-and-ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs
+of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the
+incarnation of New York piquancy--a translated denizen of the
+metropolis--a slender spirit of the back offices of sky-scrapers. Why
+had I lured her hither?--here where the heavy, lavender-tinted
+breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune-jungles
+vultures soared, and snowy-headed eagles, hulking along the sands,
+tore dead fish and yelped at us as we passed.
+
+Strange waters, strange skies--a strange, lost land aquiver under an
+exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child,
+unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.
+
+"May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?" I asked, amused.
+
+"Certainly," she said, smiling as the maid of Manhattan alone knows
+how to smile--shyly, inquiringly--with a lingering hint of laughter in
+the curled lips' corners. Then her sensitive features fell a trifle.
+"Not pluck," she said, "but necessity; I had no chance to choose, no
+time to wait. My last dollar, Mr. Gilland, is in my purse!"
+
+With a gay little gesture she drew it from her shirt-front, then,
+smiling, sat turning it over and over in her lap.
+
+The sun fell on her hands, gilding the smooth skin with the first tint
+of sunburn. Under the corners of her eyes above the rounded cheeks a
+pink stain lay like the first ripening flush on a wild strawberry.
+That, too, was the mark left by the caress of wind and sun. I had had
+no idea she was so pretty.
+
+"I think we'll enjoy this adventure," I said; "don't you?"
+
+"I try to make the best of things," she said, gazing off into the
+horizon haze. "Look," she added; "is that a man?"
+
+A spot far away on the beach caught my eye. At first I thought it was
+a pelican--and small wonder, too, for the dumpy, waddling,
+goose-necked individual who loomed up resembled a heavy bottomed bird
+more than a human being.
+
+"Do you suppose that could be Mr. Slunk?" asked the stenographer, as
+our vehicle drew nearer.
+
+He looked as though his name ought to be Slunk; he was digging coquina
+clams, and he dug with a pecking motion like a water-turkey mastering
+a mullet too big for it.
+
+His name was Slunk; he admitted it when I accused him. Our negro
+driver drew rein, and I descended to the sand and gazed on Mr. Slunk.
+
+He was, as I have said, not impressive, even with the tremendous
+background of sky and ocean.
+
+"I've come something over a thousand miles to see you," I said,
+reluctant to admit that I had come as far to see such a specimen of
+human architecture.
+
+A weather-beaten grin stretched the skin that covered his face, and he
+shoved a hairy paw into the pockets of his overalls, digging deeply
+into profound depths. First he brought to light a twist of South
+Carolina tobacco, which he leisurely inserted in his mouth--not,
+apparently, for pleasure, but merely to get rid of it.
+
+The second object excavated from the overalls was a small packet
+addressed to me. This he handed to me; I gravely handed him a silver
+dollar; he went back to his clam-digging, and I entered the carriage
+and drove on. All had been carried out according to the letter of my
+instructions so far, and my spirits brightened.
+
+"If you don't mind I'll read my instructions," I said, in high
+good-humor.
+
+"Pray do not hesitate," she said, smiling in sympathy.
+
+So I opened the little packet and read:
+
+    "Drive to Cape Canaveral along the beach. You will find a gang
+    of men at work on a government breakwater. The superintendent
+    is Mr. Rowan. Show him this letter.
+
+                "FARRAGO."
+
+Rather disappointed--for I had been expecting to find in the packet
+some key to the interesting mystery which had sent Professor Farrago
+into the Everglades--I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a
+study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed:
+ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay,
+sparkleberry, and live-oak, with here and there a weather-twisted
+palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus
+and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the
+vultures, sailing, sailing--some mere circling motes lost in the blue
+above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping
+shadows slanted continually across our road.
+
+"I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud.
+
+"I thought they were crows," she confessed.
+
+"Carrion-crows--yes.
+
+    "'The carrion-crows
+      Sing, Caw! caw!'
+
+--only they don't," I added, my song putting me in good-humor once
+more. And I glanced askance at the pretty stenographer.
+
+"It is a pleasure to be employed by agreeable people," she said,
+innocently.
+
+"Oh, I can be much more agreeable than that," I said.
+
+"Is Professor Farrago--amusing?" she asked.
+
+"Well--oh, certainly--but not in--in the way I am."
+
+Suddenly it flashed upon me that my superior was a confirmed hater of
+unmarried women. I had clean forgotten it; and now the full import of
+what I had done scared me silent.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Barrison.
+
+"No--not yet," I said, ominously.
+
+How on earth could I have overlooked that well-known fact. The hurry
+and anxiety, the stress of instant preparation and departure, had
+clean driven it from my absent-minded head.
+
+Jogging on over the sand, I sat silent, cudgelling my brains for a
+solution of the disastrous predicament I had gotten into. I pictured
+the astonished rage of my superior--my probable dismissal from
+employment--perhaps the general overturning and smash-up of the entire
+expedition.
+
+A distant, dark object on the beach concentrated my distracted
+thoughts; it must be the breakwater at Cape Canaveral. And it was the
+breakwater, swarming with negro workmen, who were swinging great
+blocks of coquina into cemented beds, singing and whistling at their
+labor.
+
+I forgot my predicament when I saw a thin white man in sun-helmet and
+khaki directing the work from the beach; and as our horses plodded up,
+I stepped out and hailed him by name.
+
+"Yes, my name is Rowan," he said, instantly, turning to meet me. His
+sharp, clear eyes included the vehicle and the stenographer, and he
+lifted his helmet, then looked squarely at me.
+
+"My name is Gilland," I said, dropping my voice and stepping nearer.
+"I have just come from Bronx Park, New York."
+
+He bowed, waiting for something more from me; so I presented my
+credentials.
+
+His formal manner changed at once. "Come over here and let us talk a
+bit," he said, cordially--then hesitated, glancing at Miss
+Barrison--"if your wife would excuse us--"
+
+The pretty stenographer colored, and I dryly set Mr. Rowan
+right--which appeared to disturb him more than his mistake.
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Gilland, but you do not propose to take this young
+girl into the Everglades, do you?"
+
+"That's what I had proposed to do," I said, brusquely.
+
+Perfectly aware that I resented his inquiry, he cast a perplexed and
+troubled glance at her, then slowly led the way to a great block of
+sun-warmed coquina, where he sat down, motioning me to do the same.
+
+"I see," he said, "that you don't know just where you are going or
+just what you are expected to do."
+
+"No, I don't," I said.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, then. You are going into the devil's own country
+to look for something that I fled five hundred miles to avoid."
+
+"Is that so?" I said, uneasily.
+
+"That is so, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"Oh! And what is this object that I am to look for and from which you
+fled five hundred miles?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know what you ran away from?"
+
+"No, sir. Perhaps if I had known I should have run a thousand miles."
+
+We eyed one another.
+
+"You think, then, that I'd better send Miss Barrison back to New
+York?" I asked.
+
+"I certainly do. It may be murder to take her."
+
+"Then I'll do it!" I said, nervously. "Back she goes from the first
+railroad station."
+
+In a flash the thought came to me that here was a way to avoid the
+wrath of Professor Farrago--and a good excuse, too. He might forgive
+my not bringing a man as stenographer in view of my limited time; he
+never would forgive my presenting him with a woman.
+
+"She must go back," I repeated; and it rather surprised me to find
+myself already anticipating loneliness--something that never in all my
+travels had I experienced before.
+
+"By the first train," I added, firmly, disliking Mr. Rowan without any
+reason except that he had suddenly deprived me of my stenographer.
+
+"What I have to tell you," he began, lighting a cigarette, the mate to
+which I declined, "is this: Three years ago, before I entered this
+contracting business, I was in the government employ as officer in the
+Coast Survey. Our duties took us into Florida waters; we were months
+at a time working on shore."
+
+He pulled thoughtfully at his cigarette and blew a light cloud into
+the air.
+
+"I had leave for a month once; and like an ass I prepared to spend it
+in a hunting-trip among the Everglades."
+
+He crossed his lean legs and gazed meditatively at his cigarette.
+
+"I believe," he went on, "that we penetrated the Everglades farther
+than any white man who ever lived to return. There's nothing very
+dismal about the Everglades--the greater part, I mean. You get high
+and low hummock, marshes, creeks, lakes, and all that. If you get
+lost, you're a goner. If you acquire fever, you're as well off as the
+seraphim--and not a whit better. There are the usual animals
+there--bears (little black fellows) lynxes, deer, panthers,
+alligators, and a few stray crocodiles. As for snakes, of course
+they're there, moccasins a-plenty, some rattlers, but, after all, not
+as many snakes as one finds in Alabama, or even northern Florida and
+Georgia.
+
+"The Seminoles won't help you--won't even talk to you. They're a
+sullen pack--but not murderous, as far as I know. Beyond their inner
+limits lie the unknown regions."
+
+He bit the wet end from his cigarette.
+
+"I went there," he said; "I came out as soon as I could."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well--for one thing, my companion died of fright."
+
+"Fright? What at?"
+
+"Well, there's something in there."
+
+"What?"
+
+He fixed a penetrating gaze on me. "I don't know, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"Did you see anything to frighten you?" I insisted.
+
+"No, but I felt something." He dropped his cigarette and ground it
+into the sand viciously. "To cut it short," he said, "I am most
+unwillingly led to believe that there are--creatures--of some sort in
+the Everglades--living creatures quite as large as you or I--and that
+they are perfectly transparent--as transparent as a colorless
+jellyfish."
+
+Instantly the veiled import of Professor Farrago's letter was made
+clear to me. He, too, believed that.
+
+"It embarrasses me like the devil to say such a thing," continued
+Rowan, digging in the sand with his spurred heels. "It seems so--so
+like a whopping lie--it seems so childish and ridiculous--so cursed
+cheap! But I fled; and there you are. I might add," he said,
+indifferently, "that I have the ordinary portion of courage allotted
+to normal men."
+
+"But what do you believe these--these animals to be?" I asked,
+fascinated.
+
+"I don't know." An obstinate look came into his eyes. "I don't know,
+and I absolutely refuse to speculate for the benefit of anybody. I
+wouldn't do it for my friend Professor Farrago; and I'm not going to
+do it for you," he ended, laughing a rather grim laugh that somehow
+jarred me into realizing the amazing import of his story. For I did
+not doubt it, strange as it was--fantastic, incredible though it
+sounded in the ears of a scientist.
+
+What it was that carried conviction I do not know--perhaps the fact
+that my superior credited it; perhaps the manner of narration. Told in
+quiet, commonplace phrases, by an exceedingly practical and
+unimaginative young man who was plainly embarrassed in the telling,
+the story rang out like a shout in a cañon, startling because of the
+absolute lack of emphasis employed in the telling.
+
+"Professor Farrago asked me to speak of this to no one except the man
+who should come to his assistance. He desired the first chance of
+clearing this--this rather perplexing matter. No doubt he didn't want
+exploring parties prowling about him," added Rowan, smiling. "But
+there's no fear of that, I fancy. I never expect to tell that story
+again to anybody; I shouldn't have told him, only somehow it's worried
+me for three years, and though I was deadly afraid of ridicule, I
+finally made up my mind that science ought to have a hack at it.
+
+"When I was in New York last winter I summoned up courage and wrote
+Professor Farrago. He came to see me at the Holland House that same
+evening; I told him as much as I ever shall tell anybody. That is all,
+Mr. Gilland."
+
+For a long time I sat silent, musing over the strange words. After a
+while I asked him whether Professor Farrago was supplied with
+provisions; and he said he was; that a great store of staples and tins
+of concentrated rations had been carried in as far as Little Sprite
+Lake; that Professor Farrago was now there alone, having insisted upon
+dismissing all those he had employed.
+
+"There was no practical use for a guide," added Rowan, "because no
+cracker, no Indian, and no guide knows the region beyond the Seminole
+country."
+
+I rose, thanking him and offering my hand. He took it and shook it in
+manly fashion, saying: "I consider Professor Farrago a very brave man;
+I may say the same of any man who volunteers to accompany him.
+Good-bye, Mr. Gilland; I most earnestly wish for your success.
+Professor Farrago left this letter for you."
+
+And that was all. I climbed back into the rickety carriage, carrying
+my unopened letter; the negro driver cracked his whip and whistled,
+and the horses trotted inland over a fine shell road which was to lead
+us across Verbena Junction to Citron City. Half an hour later we
+crossed the tracks at Verbena and turned into a broad marl road. This
+aroused me from my deep and speculative reverie, and after a few
+moments I asked Miss Barrison's indulgence and read the letter from
+Professor Farrago which Mr. Rowan had given me:
+
+    "DEAR MR. GILLAND,--You now know all I dared not write,
+    fearing to bring a swarm of explorers about my ears in case
+    the letter was lost, and found by unscrupulous meddlers. If
+    you still are willing to volunteer, knowing all that I know,
+    join me as soon as possible. If family considerations deter
+    you from taking what perhaps is an insane risk, I shall not
+    expect you to join me. In that event, return to New York
+    immediately and send Kingsley.
+
+              "Yours, F."
+
+"What the deuce is the matter with him!" I exclaimed, irritably. "I'll
+take any chances Kingsley does!"
+
+Miss Barrison looked up in surprise.
+
+"Miss Barrison," I said, plunging into the subject headfirst, "I'm
+extremely sorry, but I have news that forces me to believe the journey
+too dangerous for you to attempt, so I think that it would be much
+better--" The consternation in her pretty face checked me.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," I muttered, appalled by her silence.
+
+"But--but you engaged me!"
+
+"I know it--I should not have done it. I only--"
+
+"But you did engage me, didn't you?"
+
+"I believe that I did--er--oh, of course--"
+
+"But a verbal contract is binding between honorable people, isn't it,
+Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"And ours was a verbal contract; and in consideration you paid me my
+first week's salary, and I bought shirt-waists and a short skirt and
+three changes of--and tooth-brushes and--"
+
+"I know, I know," I groaned. "But I'll fix all that."
+
+"You can't if you break your contract."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because," she said, flushing up, "I should not accept."
+
+"You don't understand--"
+
+"Really I do. You are going into a dangerous country and you're afraid
+I'll be frightened."
+
+"It's something like that."
+
+"Tell me what are the dangers?"
+
+"Alligators, big, bitey snakes--"
+
+"Oh, you've said all that before!"
+
+"Seminoles--"
+
+"And that too. What else is there? Did the young man in the sun-helmet
+tell you of something worse?"
+
+"Yes--much worse! Something so dreadfully horrible that--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I am not at liberty to tell you, Miss Barrison," I said, striving to
+appear shocked.
+
+"It would not make any difference anyway," she observed, calmly. "I'm
+not afraid of anything in the world."
+
+"Yes, you are!" I said. "Listen to me; I'd be awfully glad to have you
+go--I--I really had no idea how I'd miss you--miss such pleasant
+companionship. But it is not possible--" The recollection of Professor
+Farrago's aversion suddenly returned. "No, no," I said, "it can't be
+done. I'm most unhappy over this mistake of mine; please don't look as
+though you were ready to cry!"
+
+"Don't discharge me, Mr. Gilland," she said.
+
+"I'm a brute to do it, but I must; I was a bigger brute to engage you,
+but I did. Don't--please don't look at me that way, Miss Barrison! As
+a matter of fact, I'm tender-hearted and I can't endure it."
+
+"If you only knew what I had been through you wouldn't send me away,"
+she said, in a low voice. "It took my last penny to clothe myself and
+pay for the last lesson at the college of stenography. I--I lived on
+almost nothing for weeks; every respectable place was filled; I walked
+and walked and walked, and nobody wanted me--they all required people
+with experience--and how can I have experience until I begin, Mr.
+Gilland? I was perfectly desperate when I went to see you, knowing
+that you had advertised for a man--" The slightest break in her clear
+voice scared me.
+
+"I'm not going to cry," she said, striving to smile. "If I must go, I
+will go. I--I didn't mean to say all this--but--but I've been so--so
+discouraged;--and you were not very cross with me--"
+
+Smitten with remorse, I picked up her hand and fell to patting it
+violently, trying to think of something to say. The exercise did not
+appear to stimulate my wits.
+
+"Then--then I'm to go with you?" she asked.
+
+"I will see," I said, weakly, "but I fear there's trouble ahead for
+this expedition."
+
+"I fear there is," she agreed, in a cheerful voice. "You have a rifle
+and a cage in your luggage. Are you going to trap Indians and have me
+report their language?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to trap Indians," I said, sharply. "They may trap
+us--but that's a detail. What I want to say to you is this: Professor
+Farrago detests unmarried women, and I forgot it when I engaged you."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" she asked, laughing.
+
+"Not all, but enough to cost me my position."
+
+"How absurd! Why, there are millions of things we might
+do!--millions!"
+
+"What's one of them?" I inquired.
+
+"Why, we might pretend to be married!" Her frank and absolutely
+innocent delight in this suggestion was refreshing, but troubling.
+
+"We would have to be demonstrative to make that story go," I said.
+
+"Why? Well-bred people are not demonstrative in public," she retorted,
+turning a trifle pink.
+
+"No, but in private--"
+
+"I think there is no necessity for carrying a pleasantry into our
+private life," she said, in a perfectly amiable voice. "Anyway, if
+Professor Farrago's feelings are to be spared, no sacrifice on the
+part of a mere girl could be too great," she added, gayly; "I will
+wear men's clothes if you wish."
+
+"You may have to anyhow in the jungle," I said; "and as it's not an
+uncommon thing these days, nobody would ever take you for anything
+except what you are--a very wilful and plucky and persistent and--"
+
+"And what, Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"And attractive," I muttered.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"You're welcome," I snapped. The near whistle of a locomotive warned
+us, and I rose in the carriage, looking out across the sand-hills.
+
+"That is probably our train," observed the pretty stenographer.
+
+"_Our_ train!"
+
+"Yes; isn't it?"
+
+"Then you insist--"
+
+"Ah, no, Mr. Gilland; I only trust implicitly in my employer."
+
+"We'll wait till we get to Citron City," I said, weakly; "then it will
+be time enough to discuss the situation, won't it?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," she said, smiling; but she knew, and I already feared,
+that the situation no longer admitted of discussion. In a few moments
+more we emerged, without warning, from the scrub-crested sand-hills
+into the single white street of Citron City, where China-trees hung
+heavy with bloom, and magnolias, already set with perfumed candelabra,
+spread soft, checkered shadows over the marl.
+
+The train lay at the station, oceans of heavy, black smoke lazily
+flowing from the locomotive; negroes were hoisting empty fruit-crates
+aboard the baggage-car, through the door of which I caught a glimpse
+of my steel cage and remaining paraphernalia, all securely crated.
+
+"Telegram hyah foh Mistuh Gilland," remarked the operator, lounging at
+his window as we descended from our dusty vehicle. He had not
+addressed himself to anybody in particular, but I said that I was Mr.
+Gilland, and he produced the envelope. "Toted in from Okeechobee?" he
+inquired, listlessly.
+
+"Probably; it's signed 'Farrago,' isn't it?"
+
+"It's foh yoh, suh, I reckon," said the operator, handing it out with
+a yawn. Then he removed his hat and fanned his head, which was
+perfectly bald.
+
+I opened the yellow envelope. "Get me a good dog with points," was the
+laconic message; and it irritated me to receive such idiotic
+instructions at such a time and in such a place. A good dog? Where the
+mischief could I find a dog in a town consisting of ten houses and a
+water-tank? I said as much to the bald-headed operator, who smiled
+wearily and replaced his hat: "Dawg? They's moh houn'-dawgs in Citron
+City than they's wood-ticks to keep them busy. I reckon a dollah 'll
+do a heap foh you, suh."
+
+"Could you get me a dog for a dollar?" I asked;--"one with points?"
+
+"Points? I sholy can, suh;--plenty of points. What kind of dawg do yoh
+requiah, suh?--live dawg? daid dawg? houn'-dawg? raid-dawg? hawg-dawg?
+coon-dawg?--"
+
+The locomotive emitted a long, lazy, softly modulated and thoroughly
+Southern toot. I handed the operator a silver dollar, and he presently
+emerged from his office and slouched off up the street, while I walked
+with Miss Barrison to the station platform, where I resumed the
+discussion of her future movements.
+
+"You are very young to take such a risk," I said, gravely. "Had I not
+better buy your ticket back to New York? The north-bound train meets
+this one. I suppose we are waiting for it now--" I stopped, conscious
+of her impatience.
+
+Her face flushed brightly: "Yes; I think it best. I have embarrassed
+you too long already--"
+
+"Don't say that!" I muttered. "I--I--shall be deadly bored without
+you."
+
+"I am not an entertainer, only a stenographer," she said, curtly.
+"Please get me my ticket, Mr. Gilland."
+
+She gazed at me from the car-platform; the locomotive tooted two
+drawling toots.
+
+"It is for your sake," I said, avoiding her gaze as the far-off
+whistle of the north-bound express came floating out of the blue
+distance.
+
+She did not answer; I fished out my watch, regarding it in silence,
+listening to the hum of the approaching train, which ought presently
+to bear her away into the North, where nothing could menace her except
+the brilliant pitfalls of a Christian civilization. But I stood
+there, temporizing, unable to utter a word as her train shot by us
+with a rush, slower, slower, and finally stopped, with a long-drawn
+sigh from the air-brakes.
+
+At that instant the telegraph-operator appeared, carrying a dog by the
+scruff of the neck--a sad-eyed, ewe-necked dog, from the four corners
+of which dangled enormous, cushion-like paws. He yelped when he beheld
+me. Miss Barrison leaned down from the car-platform and took the
+animal into her arms, uttering a suppressed exclamation of pity as she
+lifted him.
+
+"You have your hands full," she said to me; "I'll take him into the
+car for you."
+
+She mounted the steps; I followed with the valises, striving to get a
+good view of my acquisition over her shoulder.
+
+"That isn't the kind of dog I wanted!" I repeated again and again,
+inspecting the animal as it sprawled on the floor of the car at the
+edge of Miss Barrison's skirt. "That dog is all voice and feet and
+emotion! What makes it stick up its paws like that? I don't want that
+dog and I'm not going to identify myself with it! Where's the
+operator--"
+
+I turned towards the car-window; the operator's bald head was visible
+on a line with the sill, and I made motions at him. He bowed with
+courtly grace, as though I were thanking him.
+
+"I'm not!" I cried, shaking my head. "I wanted a dog with points--not
+the kind of points that stick up all over this dog. Take him away!"
+
+The operator's head appeared to be gliding out of my range of vision;
+then the windows of the north-bound train slid past, faster and
+faster. A melancholy grace-note from the dog, a jolt, and I turned
+around, appalled.
+
+"This train is going," I stammered, "and you are on it!"
+
+Miss Barrison sprang up and started towards the door, and I sped after
+her.
+
+"I can jump," she said, breathlessly, edging out to the platform;
+"please let me! There is time yet--if you only wouldn't hold me--so
+tight--"
+
+A few moments later we walked slowly back together through the car and
+took seats facing one another.
+
+Between us sat the hound-dog, a prey to melancholy unutterable.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted
+civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open
+boat containing--
+
+    One light steel cage,
+    One rifle and ammunition,
+    One stenographer,
+    Three ounces rosium oxide,
+    One hound-dog,
+    Two valises.
+
+A playful wave slopped over the bow and I lost count; but the pretty
+stenographer made the inventory, while I resumed the oars, and the dog
+punctured the primeval silence with staccato yelps.
+
+A few minutes later everything and everybody was accounted for; the
+sky was blue and the palms waved, and several species of dicky-birds
+tuned up as I pulled with powerful strokes out into the sunny waters
+of Little Sprite Lake, now within a few miles of my journey's end.
+
+From ponds hidden in the marshes herons rose in lazily laborious
+flight, flapping low across the water; high in the cypress yellow-eyed
+ospreys bent crested heads to watch our progress; sun-baked
+alligators, lying heavily in the shoreward sedge, slid open, glassy
+eyes as we passed.
+
+"Even the 'gators make eyes at you," I said, resting on my oars.
+
+We were on terms of badinage.
+
+"Who was it who shed crocodile tears at the prospect of shipping me
+North?" she inquired.
+
+"Speaking of tears," I observed, "somebody is likely to shed a number
+when Professor Farrago is picked up."
+
+"Pooh!" she said, and snapped her pretty, sun-tanned fingers; and I
+resumed the oars in time to avoid shipwreck on a large mud-bar.
+
+She reclined in the stern, serenely occupied with the view, now and
+then caressing the discouraged dog, now and then patting her hair
+where the wind had loosened a bright strand.
+
+"If Professor Farrago didn't expect a woman stenographer," she said,
+abruptly, "why did he instruct you to bring a complete outfit of
+woman's clothing?"
+
+"I don't know," I said, tartly.
+
+"But you bought them. Are they for a young woman or an old woman?"
+
+"I don't know; I sent a messenger to a department store. I don't know
+what he bought."
+
+"Didn't you look them over?"
+
+"No. Why? I should have been no wiser. I fancy they're all right,
+because the bill was eighteen hundred dollars--"
+
+The pretty stenographer sat up abruptly.
+
+"Is that much?" I asked, uneasily. "I've always heard women's clothing
+was expensive. Wasn't it enough? I told the boy to order the
+best;--Professor Farrago always requires the very best scientific
+instruments, and--I listed the clothes as scientific accessories--that
+being the object of this expedition--_What_ are you laughing at?"
+
+When it pleased her to recover her gravity she announced her desire to
+inspect and repack the clothing; but I refused.
+
+"They're for Professor Farrago," I said. "I don't know what he wants
+of them. I don't suppose he intends to wear 'em and caper about the
+jungle, but they're his. I got them because he told me to. I bought a
+cage, too, to fit myself, but I don't suppose he means to put me in
+it. Perhaps," I added, "he may invite you into it."
+
+"Let me refold the gowns," she pleaded, persuasively. "What does a
+clumsy man know about packing such clothing as that? If you don't,
+they'll be ruined. It's a shame to drag those boxes about through mud
+and water!"
+
+So we made a landing, and lifted out and unlocked the boxes. All I
+could see inside were mounds of lace and ribbons, and with a vague
+idea that Miss Barrison needed no assistance I returned to the boat
+and sat down to smoke until she was ready.
+
+When she summoned me her face was flushed and her eyes bright.
+
+"Those are certainly the most beautiful things!" she said, softly.
+"Why, it is like a bride's trousseau--absolutely complete--all except
+the bridal gown--"
+
+"Isn't there a dress there?" I exclaimed, in alarm.
+
+"No--not a day-dress."
+
+"Night-dresses!" I shrieked. "He doesn't want women's night-dresses!
+He's a bachelor! Good Heavens! I've done it this time!"
+
+"But--but who is to wear them?" she asked.
+
+"How do I know? I don't know anything; I can only presume that he
+doesn't intend to open a department store in the Everglades. And if
+any lady is to wear garments in his vicinity, I assume that those
+garments are to be anything except diaphanous!... Please take your
+seat in the boat, Miss Barrison. I want to row and think."
+
+I had had my fill of exercise and thought when, about four o'clock in
+the afternoon, Miss Barrison directed my attention to a point of palms
+jutting out into the water about a mile to the southward.
+
+"That's Farrago!" I exclaimed, catching sight of a United States flag
+floating majestically from a bamboo-pole. "Give me the megaphone, if
+you please."
+
+She handed me the instrument; I hailed the shore; and presently a man
+appeared under the palms at the water's edge.
+
+"Hello!" I roared, trying to inject cheerfulness into the hollow
+bellow. "How are you, professor?"
+
+The answer came distinctly across the water:
+
+"_Who_ is that with you?"
+
+My lips were buried in the megaphone; I strove to speak; I only
+produced a ghastly, chuckling sound.
+
+"Of course you expect to tell the truth," observed the pretty
+stenographer, quietly.
+
+I removed my lips from the megaphone and looked around at her. She
+returned my gaze with a disturbing smile.
+
+"I want to mitigate the blow," I said, hoarsely. "Tell me how."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she said, sweetly.
+
+"Well, _I_ do!" I fairly barked, and seizing the megaphone again, I
+set it to my lips and roared, "My fiancée!"
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Miss Barrison, in consternation, "I thought
+you were going to tell the truth!"
+
+"Don't do that or you'll upset us," I snapped--"I'm telling the truth;
+I've engaged myself to you; I did it mentally before I bellowed."
+
+"But--"
+
+"You know as well as I do what engagements mean," I said, picking up
+the oars and digging them deep in the blue water.
+
+She assented uncertainly.
+
+A few minutes more of vigorous rowing brought us to a muddy landing
+under a cluster of tall palmettos, where a gasoline launch lay.
+Professor Farrago came down to the shore as I landed, and I walked
+ahead to meet him. He was the maddest man I ever saw. But I was his
+match, for I was desperate.
+
+"What the devil--" he began, under his breath.
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, deliberately. "An engaged woman is practically
+married already, because marriages are made in heaven."
+
+"Good Lord!" he gasped, "are you mad, Gilland? I sent for a
+stenographer--"
+
+"Miss Barrison is a stenographer," I said, calmly; and before he could
+recover I had presented him, and left them face to face, washing my
+hands of the whole affair.
+
+Unloading the boat and carrying the luggage up under the palms, I
+heard her saying:
+
+"No, I am not in the least afraid of snakes, and I am quite ready to
+begin my duties."
+
+And he: "Mr. Gilland is a young man who--er--lacks practical
+experience."
+
+And she: "Mr. Gilland has been most thoughtful for my comfort. The
+journey has been perfectly heavenly."
+
+And he, clumsily: "Ahem!--the--er--celestial aspect of your journey
+has--er--doubtless been colored by--er--the prospect of
+your--er--approaching nuptials--"
+
+She, hastily: "Oh, I do not think so, professor."
+
+"Idiot!" I muttered, dragging the dog to the shore, where his yelps
+brought the professor hurrying.
+
+"Is _that_ the dog?" he inquired, adjusting his spectacles.
+
+"That's the dog," I said. "He's full of points, you see?"
+
+"Oh," mused the professor; "I thought he was full of--" He hesitated,
+inspecting the animal, who, nose to the ground, stood investigating a
+smell of some sort.
+
+"See," I said, with enthusiasm, "he's found a scent; he's trailing it
+already! Now he's rolling on it!"
+
+"He's rolling on one of our concentrated food lozenges," said the
+professor, dryly. "Tie him up, Mr. Gilland, and ask Mrs. Gilland to
+come up to camp. Your room is ready."
+
+"Rooms," I corrected; "she isn't Mrs. Gilland yet," I added, with a
+forced smile.
+
+"But you're practically married," observed the professor, "as you
+pointed out to me. And if she's practically Mrs. Gilland, why not say
+so?"
+
+"Don't, all the same," I snarled.
+
+"But marriages are made in--"
+
+I cast a desperate eye upon him.
+
+From that moment, whenever we were alone together, he made a target of
+me. I never had supposed him humorously vindictive; he was, and his
+apparently innocent mistakes almost turned my hair gray.
+
+But to Miss Barrison he was kind and courteous, and for a time
+over-serious. Observing him, I could never detect the slightest
+symptom of dislike for her sex--a failing which common rumor had
+always credited him with to the verge of absolute rudeness.
+
+On the contrary, it was perfectly plain to anybody that he liked her.
+There was in his manner towards her a mixture of business formality
+and the deferential attitude of a gentleman.
+
+We were seated, just before sunset, outside of the hut built of
+palmetto logs, when Professor Farrago, addressing us both, began the
+explanation of our future duties.
+
+Miss Barrison, it appeared, was to note everything said by himself,
+making several shorthand copies by evening. In other words, she was to
+report every scrap of conversation she heard while in the Everglades.
+And she nodded intelligently as he finished, and drew pad and pencil
+from the pocket of her walking-skirt, jotting down his instructions as
+a beginning. I could see that he was pleased.
+
+"The reason I do this," he said, "is because I do not wish to hide
+anything that transpires while we are on this expedition. Only the
+most scrupulously minute record can satisfy me; no details are too
+small to merit record; I demand and I court from my fellow-scientists
+and from the public the fullest investigation."
+
+He smiled slightly, turning towards me.
+
+"You know, Mr. Gilland, how dangerous to the reputation of a
+scientific man is any line of investigation into the unusual. If a man
+once is even suspected of charlatanism, of sensationalism, of turning
+his attention to any phenomena not strictly within the proper pale of
+scientific investigation, that man is doomed to ridicule; his
+profession disowns him; he becomes a man without honor, without
+authority. Is it not so?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"Therefore," he resumed, thoughtfully, "as I do most firmly believe in
+the course I am now pursuing, whether I succeed or fail I desire a
+true and minute record made, hiding nothing of what may be said or
+done. A stenographer alone can give this to the world, while I can
+only supplement it with a description of events--if I live to
+transcribe them."
+
+Sunk in profound reverie he sat there silent under the great, smooth
+palm-tree--a venerable figure in his yellow dressing-gown and carpet
+slippers. Seated side by side, we waited, a trifle awed. I could hear
+the soft breathing of the pretty stenographer beside me.
+
+"First of all," said Professor Farrago, looking up, "I must be able to
+trust those who are here to aid me."
+
+"I--I will be faithful," said the girl, in a low voice.
+
+"I do not doubt you, my child," he said; "nor you, Gilland. And so I
+am going to tell you this much now--more, I hope, later."
+
+And he sat up straight, lifting an impressive forefinger.
+
+"Mr. Rowan, lately an officer of our Coast Survey, wrote me a letter
+from the Holland House in New York--a letter so strange that, on
+reading it, I immediately repaired to his hotel, where for hours we
+talked together.
+
+"The result of that conference is this expedition.
+
+"I have now been here two months, and I am satisfied of certain facts.
+First, there do exist in this unexplored wilderness certain forms of
+life which are solid and palpable, but transparent and practically
+invisible. Second, these living creatures belong to the animal
+kingdom, are warm-blooded vertebrates, possess powers of locomotion,
+but whether that of flight I am not certain. Third, they appear to
+possess such senses as we enjoy--smell, touch, sight, hearing, and no
+doubt the sense of taste. Fourth, their skin is smooth to the touch,
+and the temperature of the epidermis appears to approximate that of a
+normal human being. Fifth and last, whether bipeds or quadrupeds I do
+not know, though all evidence appears to confirm my theory that they
+walk erect. One pair of their limbs appear to terminate in a sort of
+foot--like a delicately shaped human foot, except that there appear to
+be no toes. The other pair of limbs terminate in something that, from
+the single instance I experienced, seemed to resemble soft but firm
+antennæ or, perhaps, digitated palpi--"
+
+"Feelers!" I blurted out.
+
+"I don't know, but I think so. Once, when I was standing in the
+forest, perfectly aware that creatures I could not see had stealthily
+surrounded me, the tension was brought to a crisis when over my face,
+from cheek to chin, stole a soft something, brushing the skin as
+delicately as a child's fingers might brush it."
+
+"Good Lord!" I breathed.
+
+A care-worn smile crept into his eyes. "A test for nerves, you think,
+Mr. Gilland? I agree with you. Nobody fears what anybody can see."
+
+There came the slightest movement beside me.
+
+"Are you trembling?" I asked, turning.
+
+"I was writing," she replied, steadily. "Did my elbow touch you?"
+
+"By-the-way," said Professor Farrago, "I fear I forgot to congratulate
+you upon your choice of a stenographer, Mr. Gilland."
+
+A rosy light stole over her pale face.
+
+"Am I to record that too?" she asked, raising her blue eyes.
+
+"Certainly," he replied, gravely.
+
+"But, professor," I began, a prey to increasing excitement, "do you
+propose to attempt the capture of one of these animals?"
+
+"That is what the cage is for," he said. "I supposed you had guessed
+that."
+
+"I had," murmured the pretty stenographer.
+
+"I do not doubt it," said Professor Farrago, gravely.
+
+"What are the chemicals for--and the tank and hose attachment?"
+
+"Think, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"I can't; I'm almost stunned by what you tell me."
+
+He laughed. "The rosium oxide and salts of strontium are to be dumped
+into the tank together. They'll effervesce, of course."
+
+"Of course," I muttered.
+
+"And I can throw a rose-colored spray over any object by the hose
+attachment, can't I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I tried it on a transparent jelly-fish and it became perfectly
+visible and of a beautiful rose-color: and I tried it on rock-crystal,
+and on glass, and on pure gelatine, and all became suffused with a
+delicate pink glow, which lasted for hours or minutes according to the
+substance.... Now you understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes; you want to see what sort of creature you have to deal with."
+
+"Exactly; so when I've trapped it I am going to spray it." He turned
+half humorously towards the stenographer: "I fancy you understood long
+before Mr. Gilland did."
+
+"I don't think so," she said, with a sidelong lifting of the heavy
+lashes; and I caught the color of her eyes for a second.
+
+"You see how Miss Barrison spares your feelings," observed Professor
+Farrago, dryly. "She owes you little gratitude for bringing her here,
+yet she proves a generous victim."
+
+"Oh, I am very grateful for this rarest of chances!" she said, shyly.
+"To be among the first in the world to discover such wonders ought to
+make me very grateful to the man who gave me the opportunity."
+
+"Do you mean Mr. Gilland?" asked the professor, laughing.
+
+I had never before seen Professor Farrago laugh such a care-free
+laugh; I had never suspected him of harboring even an embryo of the
+social graces. Dry as dust, sapless as steel, precise as the magnetic
+needle, he had hitherto been to me the mummified embodiment of science
+militant. Now, in the guise of a perfectly human and genial old
+gentleman, I scarcely recognized my superior of the Bronx Park
+society. And as a woman-hater he was a miserable failure.
+
+"Heavens," I thought to myself, "am I becoming jealous of my revered
+professor's social success with a stray stenographer?" I felt mean,
+and I probably looked it, and I was glad that telepathy did not permit
+Miss Barrison to record my secret and unworthy ruminations.
+
+The professor was saying: "These transparent creatures break off
+berries and fruits and branches; I have seen a flower, too, plucked
+from its stem by invisible digits and borne swiftly through the
+forest--only the flower visible, apparently speeding through the air
+and out of sight among the thickets.
+
+"I have found the footprints that I described to you, usually on the
+edge of a stream or in the soft loam along some forest lake or lost
+lagoon.
+
+"Again and again I have been conscious in the forest that unseen eyes
+were fixed on me, that unseen shapes were following me. Never but that
+one time did these invisible creatures close in around me and venture
+to touch me.
+
+"They may be weak; their structure may be frail, and they may be
+incapable of violence or harm, but the depth of the footprints
+indicates a weight of at least one hundred and thirty pounds, and it
+certainly requires some muscular strength to break off a branch of
+wild guavas."
+
+He bent his noble head, thoughtfully regarding the design on his
+slippers.
+
+"What was the rifle for?" I asked.
+
+"Defence, not aggression," he said, simply.
+
+"And the camera?"
+
+"A camera record is necessary in these days of bad artists."
+
+I hesitated, glancing at Miss Barrison. She was still writing, her
+pretty head bent over the pad in her lap.
+
+"And the clothing?" I asked, carelessly.
+
+"Did you get it?" he demanded.
+
+"Of course--" I glanced at Miss Barrison. "There's no use writing down
+everything, is there?"
+
+"Everything must be recorded," said Professor Farrago, inflexibly.
+"What clothing did you buy?"
+
+"I forgot the gown," I said, getting red about the ears.
+
+"Forgot the gown!" he repeated.
+
+"Yes--one kind of gown--the day kind. I--I got the other kind."
+
+He was annoyed; so was I. After a moment he got up, and crossing to
+the log cabin, opened one of the boxes of apparel.
+
+"Is it what you wanted?" I inquired.
+
+"Y-es, I presume so," he replied, visibly perplexed.
+
+"It's the best to be had," said I.
+
+"That's quite right," he said, musingly. "We use only the best of
+everything at Bronx Park. It is traditional with us, you know."
+
+Curiosity pushed me. "Well, what on earth is it for?" I broke out.
+
+He looked at me gravely over the tops of his spectacles--a striking
+and inspiring figure in his yellow flannel dressing-gown and
+slippers.
+
+"I shall tell you some day--perhaps," he said, mildly. "Good-night,
+Miss Barrison; good-night, Mr. Gilland. You will find extra blankets
+on your bunk--"
+
+"What!" I cried.
+
+"Bunks," he said, and shut the door.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+"There is something weird about this whole proceeding," I observed to
+the pretty stenographer next morning.
+
+"These pies will be weird if you don't stop talking to me," she said,
+opening the doors of Professor Farrago's portable camping-oven and
+peeping in at the fragrant pastry.
+
+The professor had gone off somewhere into the woods early that
+morning. As he was not in the habit of talking to himself, the
+services of Miss Barrison were not required. Before he started,
+however, he came to her with a request for a dozen pies, the
+construction of which he asked if she understood. She had been to
+cooking-school in more prosperous days, and she mentioned it; so at
+his earnest solicitation she undertook to bake for him twelve
+apple-pies; and she was now attempting it, assisted by advice from me.
+
+"Are they burned?" I asked, sniffing the air.
+
+"No, they are not burned, Mr. Gilland, but my finger is," she
+retorted, stepping back to examine the damage.
+
+I offered sympathy and witch-hazel, but she would have none of my
+offerings, and presently returned to her pies.
+
+"We can't eat all that pastry," I protested.
+
+"Professor Farrago said they were not for us to eat," she said,
+dusting each pie with powdered sugar.
+
+"Well, what are they for? The dog? Or are they simply objets d'art to
+adorn the shanty--"
+
+"You annoy me," she said.
+
+"The pies annoy me; won't you tell me what they're for?"
+
+"I have a pretty fair idea what they're for," she observed, tossing
+her head. "Haven't you?"
+
+"No. What?"
+
+"These pies are for bait."
+
+"To bait hooks with?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Hooks! No, you silly man. They're for baiting the cage. He means to
+trap these transparent creatures in a cage baited with pie."
+
+She laughed scornfully; inserted the burned tip of her finger in her
+mouth and stood looking at me defiantly like a flushed and bright-eyed
+school-girl.
+
+"You think you're teasing me," she said; "but you do not realize what
+a singularly slow-minded young man you are."
+
+I stopped laughing. "How did you come to the conclusion that pies were
+to be used for such a purpose?" I asked.
+
+"I deduce," she observed, with an airy wave of her disengaged hand.
+
+"Your deductions are weird--like everything else in this vicinity.
+Pies to catch invisible monsters? Pooh!"
+
+"You're not particularly complimentary, are you?" she said.
+
+"Not particularly; but I could be, with you for my inspiration. I
+could even be enthusiastic--"
+
+"About my pies?"
+
+"No--about your eyes."
+
+"You are very frivolous--for a scientist," she said, scornfully;
+"please subdue your enthusiasm and bring me some wood. This fire is
+almost out."
+
+When I had brought the wood, she presented me with a pail of hot water
+and pointed at the dishes on the breakfast-table.
+
+"Never!" I cried, revolted.
+
+"Then I suppose I must do them--"
+
+She looked pensively at her scorched finger-tip, and, pursing up her
+red lips, blew a gentle breath to cool it.
+
+"I'll do the dishes," I said.
+
+Splashing and slushing the cups and saucers about in the hot water, I
+reflected upon the events of the last few days. The dog, stupefied by
+unwonted abundance of food, lay in the sunshine, sleeping the sleep of
+repletion; the pretty stenographer, all rosy from her culinary
+exertions, was removing the pies and setting them in neat rows to
+cool.
+
+"There," she said, with a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you....
+You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also
+expected to do general housework."
+
+"I didn't engage you," I said, maliciously; "you engaged me, you
+know."
+
+She regarded me disdainfully, nose uptilted.
+
+"How thoroughly disagreeable you can be!" she said. "Dry your own
+dishes. I'm going for a stroll."
+
+"May I join--"
+
+"You may _not_! I shall go so far that you cannot possibly discover
+me."
+
+I watched her forestward progress; she sauntered for about thirty
+yards along the lake and presently sat down in plain sight under a
+huge live-oak.
+
+A few moments later I had completed my task as general bottle-washer,
+and I cast about for something to occupy me.
+
+First I approached and politely caressed the satiated dog. He woke up,
+regarded me with dully meditative eyes, yawned, and went to sleep
+again. Never a flop of tail to indicate gratitude for blandishments,
+never the faintest symptom of canine appreciation.
+
+Chilled by my reception, I moused about for a while, poking into boxes
+and bundles; then raised my head and inspected the landscape. Through
+the vista of trees the pink shirt-waist of the pretty stenographer
+glimmered like a rose blooming in the wilderness.
+
+From whatever point I viewed the prospect that pink spot seemed to
+intrude; I turned my back and examined the jungle, but there it was
+repeated in a hundred pink blossoms among the massed thickets; I
+looked up into the tree-tops, where pink mosses spotted the palms; I
+looked out over the lake, and I saw it in my mind's eye pinker than
+ever. It was certainly a case of pink-eye.
+
+"I'll go for a stroll, too; it's a free country," I muttered.
+
+After I had strolled in a complete circle I found myself within three
+feet of a pink shirt-waist.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said; "I had no inten--"
+
+"I thought you were never coming," she said, amiably.
+
+"How is your finger?" I asked.
+
+She held it up. I took it gingerly; it was smooth and faintly rosy at
+the tip.
+
+"Does it hurt?" I inquired.
+
+"Dreadfully. Your hands feel so cool--"
+
+After a silence she said, "Thank you, that has cooled the burning."
+
+"I am determined," said I, "to expel the fire from your finger if it
+takes hours and hours." And I seated myself with that intention.
+
+For a while she talked, making innocent observations concerning the
+tropical foliage surrounding us. Then silence crept in between us,
+accentuated by the brooding stillness of the forest.
+
+"I am afraid your hands are growing tired," she said, considerately.
+
+I denied it.
+
+Through the vista of palms we could see the lake, blue as a violet,
+sparkling with silvery sunshine. In the intense quiet the splash of
+leaping mullet sounded distinctly.
+
+Once a tall crane stalked into view among the sedges; once an unseen
+alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the
+stillness of the wilderness grew more intense.
+
+We had been sitting there for a long while without exchanging a word,
+dreamily watching the ripple of the azure water, when all at once
+there came a scurrying patter of feet through the forest, and, looking
+up, I beheld the hound-dog, tail between his legs, bearing down on us
+at lightning speed. I rose instantly.
+
+"What is the matter with the dog?" cried the pretty stenographer. "Is
+he going mad, Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"Something has scared him," I exclaimed, as the dog, eyes like lighted
+candles, rushed frantically between my legs and buried his head in
+Miss Barrison's lap.
+
+"Poor doggy!" she said, smoothing the collapsed pup; "poor, p-oor
+little beast! Did anything scare him? Tell aunty all about it."
+
+When a dog flees _without yelping_ he's a badly frightened creature. I
+instinctively started back towards the camp whence the beast had fled,
+and before I had taken a dozen steps Miss Barrison was beside me,
+carrying the dog in her arms.
+
+"I've an idea," she said, under her breath.
+
+"What?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the camp.
+
+"It's this: I'll wager that we find those pies gone!"
+
+"Pies gone?" I repeated, perplexed; "what makes you think--"
+
+"They _are_ gone!" she exclaimed. "Look!"
+
+I gaped stupidly at the rough pine table where the pies had stood in
+three neat rows of four each. And then, in a moment, the purport of
+this robbery flashed upon my senses.
+
+"The transparent creatures!" I gasped.
+
+"Hush!" she whispered, clinging to the trembling dog in her arms.
+
+I listened. I could hear nothing, see nothing, yet slowly I became
+convinced of the presence of something unseen--something in the forest
+close by, watching us out of invisible eyes.
+
+A chill, settling along my spine, crept upward to my scalp, until
+every separate hair wiggled to the roots. Miss Barrison was pale, but
+perfectly calm and self-possessed.
+
+"Let us go in-doors," I said, as steadily as I could.
+
+"Very well," she replied.
+
+I held the door open; she entered with the dog; I followed, closing
+and barring the door, and then took my station at the window, rifle in
+hand.
+
+There was not a sound in the forest. Miss Barrison laid the dog on the
+floor and quietly picked up her pad and pencil. Presently she was deep
+in a report of the phenomena, her pencil flying, leaf after leaf from
+the pad fluttering to the floor.
+
+Nor did I at the window change my position of scared alertness, until
+I was aware of her hand gently touching my elbow to attract my
+attention, and her soft voice at my ear--
+
+"You don't suppose by any chance that the dog ate those pies?"
+
+I collected my tumultuous thoughts and turned to stare at the dog.
+
+"Twelve pies, twelve inches each in diameter," she reflected,
+musingly. "One dog, twenty inches in diameter. How many times will the
+pies go into the dog? Let me see." She made a few figures on her pad,
+thought awhile, produced a tape-measure from her pocket, and, kneeling
+down, measured the dog.
+
+"No," she said, looking up at me, "he couldn't contain them."
+
+Inspired by her coolness and perfect composure, I set the rifle in the
+corner and opened the door. Sunlight fell in bars through the quiet
+woods; nothing stirred on land or water save the great, yellow-striped
+butterflies that fluttered and soared and floated above the flowering
+thickets bordering the jungle.
+
+The heat became intense; Miss Barrison went to her room to change her
+gown for a lighter one; I sat down under a live-oak, eyes and ears
+strained for any sign of our invisible neighbors.
+
+When she emerged in the lightest and filmiest of summer gowns, she
+brought the camera with her; and for a while we took pictures of each
+other, until we had used up all but one film.
+
+Desiring to possess a picture of Miss Barrison and myself seated
+together, I tied a string to the shutter-lever and attached the other
+end of the string to the dog, who had resumed his interrupted
+slumbers. At my whistle he jumped up nervously, snapping the lever,
+and the picture was taken.
+
+With such innocent and harmless pastime we whiled away the afternoon.
+She made twelve more apple-pies. I mounted guard over them. And we
+were just beginning to feel a trifle uneasy about Professor Farrago,
+when he appeared, tramping sturdily through the forest, green umbrella
+and butterfly-net under one arm, shot-gun and cyanide-jar under the
+other, and his breast all criss-crossed with straps, from which
+dangled field-glasses, collecting-boxes, and botanizing-tins--an
+inspiring figure indeed--the embodied symbol of science indomitable,
+triumphant!
+
+We hailed him with three guilty cheers; the dog woke up with a
+perfunctory bark--the first sound I had heard from him since he yelped
+his disapproval of me on the lagoon.
+
+Miss Barrison produced three bowls full of boiling water and dropped
+three pellets of concentrated soup-meat into them, while I prepared
+coffee. And in a few moments our simple dinner was ready--the red
+ants had been dusted from the biscuits, the spiders chased off the
+baked beans, the scorpions shaken from the napkins, and we sat down at
+the rough, improvised table under the palms.
+
+The professor gave us a brief but modest account of his short tour of
+exploration. He had brought back a new species of orchid, several
+undescribed beetles, and a pocketful of coontie seed. He appeared,
+however, to be tired and singularly depressed, and presently we
+learned why.
+
+It seemed that he had gone straight to that section of the forest
+where he had hitherto always found signs of the transparent and
+invisible creatures which he had determined to capture, and he had not
+found a single trace of them.
+
+"It alarms me," he said, gravely. "If they have deserted this region,
+it might take a lifetime to locate them again in this wilderness."
+
+Then, very quietly, sinking her voice instinctively, as though the
+unseen might be at our very elbows listening, Miss Barrison recounted
+the curious adventure which had befallen the dog and the first batch
+of apple-pies.
+
+With visible and increasing excitement the professor listened until
+the very end. Then he struck the table with clinched fist--a
+resounding blow which set the concentrated soup dancing in the bowls
+and scattered the biscuits and the industrious red ants in every
+direction.
+
+"Eureka!" he whispered. "Miss Barrison, your deduction was not only
+perfectly reasonable, but brilliant. You are right; the pies are for
+that very purpose. I conceived the idea when I first came here. Again
+and again the pies that my guide made out of dried apples disappeared
+in a most astonishing and mysterious manner when left to cool. At
+length I determined to watch them every second; and did so, with the
+result that late one afternoon I was amazed to see a pie slowly rise
+from the table and move swiftly away through the air about four feet
+above the ground, finally disappearing into a tangle of jasmine and
+grape-vine.
+
+"The apparently automatic flight of that pie solved the problem; these
+transparent creatures cannot resist that delicacy. Therefore I decided
+to bait the cage for them this very night--Look! What's the matter
+with that dog?"
+
+The dog suddenly bounded into the air, alighted on all fours, ears,
+eyes, and muzzle concentrated on a point directly behind us.
+
+"Good gracious! The pies!" faltered Miss Barrison, half rising from
+her seat; but the dog rushed madly into her skirts, scrambling for
+protection, and she fell back almost into my arms.
+
+Clasping her tightly, I looked over my shoulder; the last pie was
+snatched from the table before my eyes and I saw it borne swiftly away
+by something unseen, straight into the deepening shadows of the
+forest.
+
+The professor was singularly calm, even slightly ironical, as he
+turned to me, saying:
+
+"Perhaps if you relinquish Miss Barrison she may be able to free
+herself from that dog."
+
+I did so immediately, and she deposited the cowering dog in my arms.
+Her face had suddenly become pink.
+
+I passed the dog on to Professor Farrago, dumping it viciously into
+his lap--a proceeding which struck me as resembling a pastime of
+extreme youth known as "button, button, who's got the button?"
+
+The professor examined the animal gravely, feeling its pulse, counting
+its respirations, and finally inserting a tentative finger in an
+attempt to examine its tongue. The dog bit him.
+
+"Ouch! It's a clear case of fright," he said, gravely. "I wanted a dog
+to aid me in trailing these remarkable creatures, but I think this dog
+of yours is useless, Gilland."
+
+"It's given us warning of the creatures' presence twice already," I
+argued.
+
+"Poor little thing," said Miss Barrison, softly; "I don't know why,
+but I love that dog.... He has eyes like yours, Mr. Gilland--"
+
+Exasperated, I rose from the table. "He's got eyes like holes burned
+in a blanket!" I said. "And if ever a flicker of intelligence lighted
+them I have failed to observe it."
+
+The professor regarded me dreamily. "We ought to have more pies," he
+observed. "Perhaps if you carried the oven into the shanty--"
+
+"Certainly," said Miss Barrison; "we can lock the door while I make
+twelve more pies."
+
+I carried the portable camping-oven into the cabin, connected the
+patent asbestos chimney-pipes, and lighted the fire. And in a few
+minutes Miss Barrison, sleeves rolled up and pink apron pinned under
+her chin, was busily engaged in rolling pie-crust, while Professor
+Farrago measured out spices and set the dried apples to soak.
+
+The swift Southern twilight had already veiled the forest as I
+stepped out of the cabin to smoke a cigar and promenade a bit and
+cogitate. A last trace of color lingering in the west faded out as I
+looked; the gray glimmer deepened into darkness, through which the
+white lake vapors floated in thin, wavering strata across the water.
+
+For a while the frog's symphony dominated all other sounds, then
+lagoon and forest and cypress branch awoke; and through the steadily
+sustained tumult of woodland voices I could hear the dry bark of the
+fox-squirrel, the whistle of the raccoon, ducks softly quacking or
+whimpering as they prepared for sleep among the reeds, the soft
+booming of bitterns, the clattering gossip of the heronry, the
+Southern whippoorwill's incessant call.
+
+At regular intervals the howling note of a lone heron echoed the
+strident screech of a crimson-crested crane; the horned owl's savage
+hunting-cry haunted the night, now near, now floating from infinite
+distances.
+
+And after a while I became aware of a nearer sound, low-pitched but
+ceaseless--the hum of thousands of lesser living creatures blending to
+a steady monotone.
+
+Then the theatrical moon came up through filmy draperies of waving
+Spanish moss thin as cobwebs; and far in the wilderness a cougar fell
+a-crying and coughing like a little child with a bad cold.
+
+I went in after that. Miss Barrison was sitting before the oven, knees
+gathered in her clasped hands, languidly studying the fire. She looked
+up as I appeared, opened the oven-doors, sniffed the aroma, and
+resumed her attitude of contented indifference.
+
+"Where is the professor?" I asked.
+
+"He has retired. He's been talking in his sleep at moments."
+
+"Better take it down; that's what you're here for," I observed,
+closing and holding the outside door. "Ugh! there's a chill in the
+air. The dew is pelting down from the pines like a steady fall of
+rain."
+
+"You will get fever if you roam about at night," she said. "Mercy!
+your coat is soaking. Sit here by the fire."
+
+So I pulled up a bench and sat down beside her like the traditional
+spider.
+
+"Miss Muffitt," I said, "don't let me frighten you away--"
+
+"I was going anyhow--"
+
+"Please don't."
+
+"Why?" she demanded, reseating herself.
+
+"Because I like to sit beside you," I said, truthfully.
+
+"Your avowal is startling and not to be substantiated by facts," she
+remarked, resting her chin on one hand and gazing into the fire.
+
+"You mean because I went for a stroll by moonlight? I did that because
+you always seem to make fun of me as soon as the professor joins us."
+
+"Make fun of you? You surely don't expect me to make eyes at you!"
+
+There was a silence; I toasted my shins, thoughtfully.
+
+"How is your burned finger?" I asked.
+
+She lifted it for my inspection, and I began a protracted examination.
+
+"What would you prescribe?" she inquired, with an absent-minded glance
+at the professor's closed door.
+
+"I don't know; perhaps a slight but firm pressure of the
+finger-tips--"
+
+"You tried that this afternoon."
+
+"But the dog interrupted us--"
+
+"Interrupted _you_. Besides--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't think you ought to," she said.
+
+Sitting there before the oven, side by side, hand innocently clasped
+in hand, we heard the drumming of the dew on the roof, the night-wind
+stirring the palms, the muffled snoring of the professor, the faint
+whisper and crackle of the fire.
+
+A single candle burned brightly, piling our shadows together on the
+wall behind us; moonlight silvered the window-panes, over which
+crawled multitudes of soft-winged moths, attracted by the candle
+within.
+
+"See their tiny eyes glow!" she whispered. "How their wings quiver!
+And all for a candle-flame! Alas! alas! fire is the undoing of us
+all."
+
+She leaned forward, resting as though buried in reverie. After a while
+she extended one foot a trifle and, with the point of her shoe,
+carefully unlatched the oven-door. As it swung outward a delicious
+fragrance filled the room.
+
+"They're done," she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. "Help me to
+lift them out."
+
+Together we arranged the delicious pastry in rows on the bench to
+cool. I opened the door for a few minutes, then closed and bolted it
+again.
+
+"Do you suppose those transparent creatures will smell the odor and
+come around the cabin?" she suggested, wiping her fingers on her
+handkerchief.
+
+I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled,
+some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some
+snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peacock-blue
+edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to
+the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to
+the glass.
+
+"I don't suppose you know that the antennæ of that silvery-winged moth
+are distinctly pectinate," I said.
+
+"Of course I do," she said. "I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard
+College."
+
+"What!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "You've been through Barnard? You
+are a Doctor of Entomology?"
+
+"It was my undoing," she said. "The department was abolished the year
+I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my
+own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to
+self-sustenance."
+
+She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.
+
+"I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose
+I'd flirt with you if I was?"
+
+She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem
+of Andrew Lang:
+
+    "Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel,
+     But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal."
+
+Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent--I don't
+know why.
+
+The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a
+saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.
+
+Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left
+the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.
+
+"That's curious," I said.
+
+"What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good
+gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?"
+
+"I saw nothing," I said, disturbed. "Listen!"
+
+A soft sound against the glass, as though invisible fingers were
+feeling the pane--a gentle rubbing--then a tap-tap, all but inaudible.
+
+"Is it a bird? Can you see?" she whispered.
+
+The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the
+pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there.
+
+We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the
+glass outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and
+carried them into my room.
+
+Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand,
+and whispering, "Good-night! A demain, monsieur!" slipped into her
+room and softly closed the door.
+
+And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle
+resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I
+dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed
+to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other,
+eating slice after slice of apple-pie.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Dawn came--the dawn of a day that I am destined never to forget. Long,
+rosy streamers of light broke through the forest, shaking, quivering,
+like unstable beams from celestial search-lights. Mist floated upward
+from marsh and lake; and through it the spectral palms loomed,
+drooping fronds embroidered with dew.
+
+For a while the ringing outburst of bird music dominated all; but it
+soon ceased with dropping notes from the crimson cardinals repeated in
+lengthening minor intervals; and then the spell of silence returned,
+broken only by the faint splash of mullet, mocking the sun with
+sinuous, silver flashes.
+
+"Good-morning," said a low voice from the door as I stood encouraging
+the camp-fire with splinter wood and dead palmetto fans.
+
+Fresh and sweet from her toilet as a dew-drenched rose, Miss Barrison
+stood there sniffing the morning air daintily, thoroughly.
+
+"Too much perfume," she said--"too much like ylang-ylang in a
+department-store. Central Park smells sweeter on an April morning."
+
+"Are you criticising the wild jasmine?" I asked.
+
+"I'm criticising an exotic smell. Am I not permitted to comment on the
+tropics?"
+
+Fishing out a cedar log from the lumber-stack, I fell to chopping it
+vigorously. The axe-strokes made a cheerful racket through the woods.
+
+"Did you hear anything last night after you retired?" I asked.
+
+"Something was at my window--something that thumped softly and seemed
+to be feeling all over the glass. To tell you the truth, I was silly
+enough to remain dressed all night."
+
+"You don't look it," I said.
+
+"Oh, when daylight came I had a chance," she added, laughing.
+
+"All the same," said I, leaning on the axe and watching her, "you are
+about the coolest and pluckiest woman I ever knew."
+
+"We were all in the same fix," she said, modestly.
+
+"No, we were not. Now I'll tell you the truth--my hair stood up the
+greater part of the night. You are looking upon a poltroon, Miss
+Barrison."
+
+"Then there was something at your window, too?"
+
+"Something? A dozen! They were monkeying with the sashes and panes all
+night long, and I imagined that I could hear them breathing--as though
+from effort of intense eagerness. Ouch! I came as near losing my nerve
+as I care to. I came within an ace of hurling those cursed pies
+through the window at them. I'd bolt to-day if I wasn't afraid to play
+the coward."
+
+"Most people are brave for that reason," she said.
+
+The dog, who had slept under my bunk, and who had contributed to my
+entertainment by sighing and moaning all night, now appeared ready for
+business--business in his case being the operation of feeding. I
+presented him with a concentrated tablet, which he cautiously
+investigated and then rolled on.
+
+"Nice testimonial for the people who concocted it," I said, in
+disgust. "I wish I had an egg."
+
+"There are some concentrated egg tablets in the shanty," said Miss
+Barrison; but the idea was not attractive.
+
+"I refuse to fry a pill for breakfast," I said, sullenly, and set the
+coffee-pot on the coals.
+
+In spite of the dewy beauty of the morning, breakfast was not a
+cheerful function. Professor Farrago appeared, clad in sun-helmet and
+khaki. I had seldom seen him depressed; but he was now, and his very
+efforts to disguise it only emphasized his visible anxiety.
+
+His preparations for the day, too, had an ominous aspect to me. He
+gave his orders and we obeyed, instinctively suppressing questions.
+First, he and I transported all personal luggage of the company to the
+big electric launch--Miss Barrison's effects, his, and my own. His
+private papers, the stenographic reports, and all memoranda were tied
+up together and carried aboard.
+
+Then, to my surprise, two weeks' concentrated rations for two and
+mineral water sufficient for the same period were stowed away aboard
+the launch. Several times he asked me whether I knew how to run the
+boat, and I assured him that I did.
+
+In a short time nothing was left ashore except the bare furnishings of
+the cabin, the female wearing-apparel, the steel cage and chemicals
+which I had brought, and the twelve apple-pies--the latter under lock
+and key in my room.
+
+As the preparations came to an end, the professor's gentle melancholy
+seemed to deepen. Once I ventured to ask him if he was indisposed, and
+he replied that he had never felt in better physical condition.
+
+Presently he bade me fetch the pies; and I brought them, and, at a
+sign from him, placed them inside the steel cage, closing and locking
+the door.
+
+"I believe," he said, glancing from Miss Barrison to me, and from me
+to the dog--"I believe that we are ready to start."
+
+He went to the cabin and locked the door on the outside, pocketing the
+key.
+
+Then he backed up to the steel cage, stooped and lifted his end as I
+lifted mine, and together we started off through the forest, bearing
+the cage between us as porters carry a heavy piece of luggage.
+
+Miss Barrison came next, carrying the trousseau, the tank, hose, and
+chemicals; and the dog followed her--probably not from affection for
+us, but because he was afraid to be left alone.
+
+We walked in silence, the professor and I keeping an instinctive
+lookout for snakes; but we encountered nothing of that sort. On every
+side, touching our shoulders, crowded the closely woven and
+impenetrable tangle of the jungle; and we threaded it along a narrow
+path which he, no doubt, had cut, for the machete marks were still
+fresh, and the blazes on hickory, live-oak, and palm were all wet with
+dripping sap, and swarming with eager, brilliant butterflies.
+
+At times across our course flowed shallow, rapid streams of water,
+clear as crystal, and most alluring to the thirsty.
+
+"There's fever in every drop," said the professor, as I mentioned my
+thirst; "take the bottled water if you mean to stay a little longer."
+
+"Stay where?" I asked.
+
+"On earth," he replied, tersely; and we marched on.
+
+The beauty of the tropics is marred somewhat for me; under all the
+fresh splendor of color death lurks in brilliant tints. Where painted
+fruit hangs temptingly, where great, silky blossoms exhale alluring
+scent, where the elaps coils inlaid with scarlet, black, and saffron,
+where in the shadow of a palmetto frond a succession of velvety black
+diamonds mark the rattler's swollen length, there death is; and his
+invisible consort, horror, creeps where the snake whose mouth is lined
+with white creeps--where the tarantula squats, hairy, motionless;
+where a bit of living enamel fringed with orange undulates along a
+mossy log.
+
+Thinking of these things, and watchful lest, unawares, terror unfold
+from some blossoming and leafy covert, I scarcely noticed the beauty
+of the glade we had entered--a long oval, cross-barred with sunshine
+which fell on hedges of scrub-palmetto, chin high, interlaced with
+golden blossoms of the jasmine. And all around, like pillars
+supporting a high green canopy above a throne, towered the silvery
+stems of palms fretted with pale, rose-tinted lichens and hung with
+draperies of grape-vine.
+
+"This is the place," said Professor Farrago.
+
+His quiet, passionless voice sounded strange to me; his words seemed
+strange, too, each one heavily weighted with hidden meaning.
+
+We set the cage on the ground; he unlocked and opened the steel-barred
+door, and, kneeling, carefully arranged the pies along the centre of
+the cage.
+
+"I have a curious presentiment," he said, "that I shall not come out
+of this experiment unscathed."
+
+"Don't, for Heaven's sake, say that!" I broke out, my nerves on edge
+again.
+
+"Why not?" he asked, surprised. "I am not afraid."
+
+"Not afraid to die?" I demanded, exasperated.
+
+"Who spoke of dying?" he inquired, mildly. "What I said was that I do
+not expect to come out of this affair unscathed."
+
+I did not comprehend his meaning, but I understood the reproof
+conveyed.
+
+He closed and locked the cage door again and came towards us,
+balancing the key across the palm of his hand.
+
+Miss Barrison had seated herself on the leaves; I stood back as the
+professor sat down beside her; then, at a gesture from him, took the
+place he indicated on his left.
+
+"Before we begin," he said, calmly, "there are several things you
+ought to know and which I have not yet told you. The first concerns
+the feminine wearing apparel which Mr. Gilland brought me."
+
+He turned to Miss Barrison and asked her whether she had brought a
+complete outfit, and she opened the bundle on her knees and handed it
+to him.
+
+"I cannot," he said, "delicately explain in so many words what use I
+expect to make of this apparel. Nor do I yet know whether I shall have
+any use at all for it. That can only be a theoretical speculation
+until, within a few more hours, my theory is proven or disproven--and,"
+he said, suddenly turning on me, "my theory concerning these invisible
+creatures is the most extraordinary and audacious theory ever
+entertained by man since Columbus presumed that there must lie
+somewhere a hidden continent which nobody had ever seen."
+
+He passed his hand over his protruding forehead, lost for a moment in
+deepest reflection. Then, "Have you ever heard of the Sphyx?" he
+asked.
+
+"It seems to me that Ponce de Leon wrote of something--" I began,
+hesitating.
+
+"Yes, the famous lines in the third volume which have set so many wise
+men guessing. You recall them:
+
+"'_And there, alas! within sound of the Fountain of Youth whose waters
+tint the skin till the whole body glows softly like the petal of a
+rose--there, alas! in the new world already blooming_, THE ETERNAL
+ENIGMA _I beheld, in the flesh living; yet it faded even as I looked,
+although I swear it lived and breathed. This is the Sphyx_.'"
+
+A silence; then I said, "Those lines are meaningless to me."
+
+"Not to me," said Miss Barrison, softly.
+
+The professor looked at her. "Ah, child! Ever subtler, ever surer--the
+Eternal Enigma is no enigma to you."
+
+"What is the Sphyx?" I asked.
+
+"Have you read De Soto? Or Goya?"
+
+"Yes, both. I remember now that De Soto records the Syachas legend of
+the Sphyx--something about a goddess--"
+
+"Not a goddess," said Miss Barrison, her lips touched with a smile.
+
+"Sometimes," said the professor, gently. "And Goya said:
+
+"'_It has come to my ears while in the lands of the Syachas that the
+Sphyx surely lives, as bolder and more curious men than I may, God
+willing, prove to the world hereafter_.'"
+
+"But what is the Sphyx?" I insisted.
+
+"For centuries wise men and savants have asked each other that
+question. I have answered it for myself; I am now to prove it, I
+trust."
+
+His face darkened, and again and again he stroked his heavy brow.
+
+"If anything occurs," he said, taking my hand in his left and Miss
+Barrison's hand in his right, "promise me to obey my wishes. Will
+you?"
+
+"Yes," we said, together.
+
+"If I lose my life, or--or disappear, promise me on your honor to get
+to the electric launch as soon as possible and make all speed
+northward, placing my private papers, the reports of Miss Barrison,
+and your own reports in the hands of the authorities in Bronx Park.
+Don't attempt to aid me; don't delay to search for me. Do you
+promise?"
+
+"Yes," we breathed together.
+
+He looked at us solemnly. "If you fail me, you betray me," he said.
+
+We swore obedience.
+
+"Then let us begin," he said, and he rose and went to the steel cage.
+Unlocking the door, he flung it wide and stepped inside, leaving the
+cage door open.
+
+"The moment a single pie is disturbed," he said to me, "I shall close
+the steel door from the inside, and you and Miss Barrison will then
+dump the rosium oxide and the strontium into the tank, clap on the
+lid, turn the nozzle of the hose on the cage, and spray it
+thoroughly. Whatever is invisible in the cage will become visible and
+of a faint rose color. And when the trapped creature becomes visible,
+hold yourselves ready to aid me as long as I am able to give you
+orders. After that either all will go well or all will go otherwise,
+and you must run for the launch." He seated himself in the cage near
+the open door.
+
+I placed the steel tank near the cage, uncoiled the hose attachment,
+unscrewed the top, and dumped in the salts of strontium. Miss Barrison
+unwrapped the bottle of rosium oxide and loosened the cork. We
+examined this pearl-and-pink powder and shook it up so that it might
+run out quickly. Then Miss Barrison sat down, and presently became
+absorbed in a stenographic report of the proceedings up to date.
+
+When Miss Barrison finished her report she handed me the bundle of
+papers. I stowed them away in my wallet, and we sat down together
+beside the tank.
+
+Inside the cage Professor Farrago was seated, his spectacled eyes
+fixed on the row of pies. For a while, although realizing perfectly
+that our quarry was transparent and invisible, we unconsciously
+strained our eyes in quest of something stirring in the forest.
+
+"I should think," said I, in a low voice, "that the odor of the pies
+might draw at least one out of the odd dozen that came rubbing up
+against my window last night."
+
+"Hush! Listen!" she breathed. But we heard nothing save the snoring of
+the overfed dog at our feet.
+
+"He'll give us ample notice by butting into Miss Barrison's skirts," I
+observed. "No need of our watching, professor."
+
+The professor nodded. Presently he removed his spectacles and lay back
+against the bars, closing his eyes.
+
+At first the forest silence seemed cheerful there in the flecked
+sunlight. The spotted wood-gnats gyrated merrily, chased by
+dragon-flies; the shy wood-birds hopped from branch to twig, peering
+at us in friendly inquiry; a lithe, gray squirrel, plumy tail
+undulating, rambled serenely around the cage, sniffing at the pastry
+within.
+
+Suddenly, without apparent reason, the squirrel sprang to a
+tree-trunk, hung a moment on the bark, quivering all over, then dashed
+away into the jungle.
+
+"Why did he act like that?" whispered Miss Barrison. And, after a
+moment: "How still it is! Where have the birds gone?"
+
+In the ominous silence the dog began to whimper in his sleep and his
+hind legs kicked convulsively.
+
+"He's dreaming--" I began.
+
+The words were almost driven down my throat by the dog, who, without a
+yelp of warning, hurled himself at Miss Barrison and alighted on my
+chest, fore paws around my neck.
+
+I cast him scornfully from me, but he scrambled back, digging like a
+mole to get under us.
+
+"The transparent creatures!" whispered Miss Barrison. "Look! See that
+pie move!"
+
+I sprang to my feet just as the professor, jamming on his spectacles,
+leaned forward and slammed the cage door.
+
+"I've got one!" he shouted, frantically. "There's one in the cage!
+Turn on that hose!"
+
+"Wait a second," said Miss Barrison, calmly, uncorking the bottle and
+pouring a pearly stream of rosium oxide into the tank. "Quick! It's
+fizzing! Screw on the top!"
+
+In a second I had screwed the top fast, seized the hose, and directed
+a hissing cloud of vapor through the cage bars.
+
+For a moment nothing was heard save the whistling rush of the perfumed
+spray escaping; a delicious odor of roses filled the air. Then,
+slowly, there in the sunshine, a misty something grew in the cage--a
+glistening, pearl-tinted phantom, imperceptibly taking shape in
+space--vague at first as a shred of lake vapor, then lengthening,
+rounding into flowing form, clearer, clearer.
+
+"The Sphyx!" gasped the professor. "In the name of Heaven, play that
+hose!"
+
+As he spoke the treacherous hose burst. A showery pillar of
+rose-colored vapor enveloped everything. Through the thickening fog
+for one brief instant a human form appeared like magic--a woman's
+form, flawless, exquisite as a statue, pure as marble. Then the
+swimming vapor buried it, cage, pies, and all.
+
+We ran frantically around, the cage in the obscurity, appealing for
+instructions and feeling for the bars. Once the professor's muffled
+voice was heard demanding the wearing apparel, and I groped about and
+found it and stuffed it through the bars of the cage.
+
+"Do you need help?" I shouted. There was no response. Staring around
+through the thickening vapor of rosium rolling in clouds from the
+overturned tank, I heard Miss Barrison's voice calling:
+
+"I can't move! A transparent lady is holding me!"
+
+Blindly I rushed about, arms outstretched, and the next moment struck
+the door of the cage so hard that the impact almost knocked me
+senseless. Clutching it to steady myself, it suddenly flew open. A
+rush of partly visible creatures passed me like a burst of pink
+flames, and in the midst, borne swiftly away on the crest of the
+outrush, the professor passed like a bolt shot from a catapult; and
+his last cry came wafted back to me from the forest as I swayed there,
+drunk with the stupefying perfume: "Don't worry! I'm all right!"
+
+I staggered out into the clearer air towards a figure seen dimly
+through swirling vapor.
+
+"Are you hurt?" I stammered, clasping Miss Barrison in my arms.
+
+"No--oh no," she said, wringing her hands. "But the professor! I saw
+him! I could not scream; I could not move! _They_ had him!"
+
+"I saw him too," I groaned. "There was not one trace of terror on his
+face. He was actually smiling."
+
+Overcome at the sublime courage of the man, we wept in each other's
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+True to our promise to Professor Farrago, we made the best of our way
+northward; and it was not a difficult journey by any means, the voyage
+in the launch across Okeechobee being perfectly simple and the trail
+to the nearest railroad station but a few easy miles from the
+landing-place.
+
+Shocking as had been our experience, dreadful as was the calamity
+which had not only robbed me of a life-long friend, but had also
+bereaved the entire scientific world, I could not seem to feel that
+desperate and hopeless grief which the natural decease of a close
+friend might warrant. No; there remained a vague expectancy which so
+dominated my sorrow that at moments I became hopeful--nay, sanguine,
+that I should one day again behold my beloved superior in the flesh.
+There was something so happy in his last smile, something so artlessly
+pleased, that I was certain no fear of impending dissolution worried
+him as he disappeared into the uncharted depth of the unknown
+Everglades.
+
+I think Miss Barrison agreed with me, too. She appeared to be more or
+less dazed, which was, of course, quite natural; and during our return
+voyage across Okeechobee and through the lagoons and forests beyond
+she was very silent.
+
+When we reached the railroad at Portulacca, a thrifty lemon-growing
+ranch on the Volusia and Chinkapin Railway, the first thing I did was
+to present my dog to the station-agent--but I was obliged to give him
+five dollars before he consented to accept the dog.
+
+However, Miss Barrison interviewed the station-master's wife, a
+kindly, pitiful soul, who promised to be a good mistress to the
+creature. We both felt better after that was off our minds; we felt
+better still when the north-bound train rolled leisurely into the
+white glare of Portulacca, and presently rolled out again, quite as
+leisurely, bound, thank Heaven, for that abused aggregation of sinful
+boroughs called New York.
+
+Except for one young man whom I encountered in the smoker, we had the
+train to ourselves, a circumstance which, curiously enough, appeared
+to increase Miss Barrison's depression, and my own as a natural
+sequence. The circumstances of the taking off of Professor Farrago
+appeared to engross her thoughts so completely that it made me uneasy
+during our trip out from Little Sprite--in fact it was growing plainer
+to me every hour that in her brief acquaintance with that
+distinguished scientist she had become personally attached to him to
+an extent that began to worry me. Her personal indignation at the
+caged Sphyx flared out at unexpected intervals, and there could be no
+doubt that her unhappiness and resentment were becoming morbid.
+
+I spent an hour or two in the smoking compartment, tenanted only by a
+single passenger and myself. He was an agreeable young man, although,
+in the natural acquaintanceship that we struck up, I regretted to
+learn that he was a writer of popular fiction, returning from Fort
+Worth, where he had been for the sole purpose of composing a poem on
+Florida.
+
+I have always, in common with other mentally balanced savants,
+despised writers of fiction. All scientists harbor a natural antipathy
+to romance in any form, and that antipathy becomes a deep horror if
+fiction dares to deal flippantly with the exact sciences, or if some
+degraded intellect assumes the warrantless liberty of using natural
+history as the vehicle for silly tales.
+
+Never but once had I been tempted to romance in any form; never but
+once had sentiment interfered with a passionless transfer of
+scientific notes to the sanctuary of the unvarnished note-book or the
+cloister of the juiceless monograph. Nor have I the slightest approach
+to that superficial and doubtful quality known as literary skill.
+Once, however, as I sat alone in the middle of the floor, classifying
+my isopods, I was not only astonished but totally unprepared to find
+myself repeating aloud a verse that I myself had unconsciously
+fashioned:
+
+    "An isopod
+     Is a work of God."
+
+Never before in all my life had I made a rhyme; and it worried me for
+weeks, ringing in my brain day and night, confusing me, interfering
+with my thoughts.
+
+I said as much to the young man, who only laughed good-naturedly and
+replied that it was the Creator's purpose to limit certain intellects,
+nobody knows why, and that it was apparent that mine had not escaped.
+
+"There's one thing, however," he said, "that might be of some interest
+to you and come within the circumscribed scope of your intelligence."
+
+"And what is that?" I asked, tartly.
+
+"A scientific experience of mine," he said, with a careless laugh.
+"It's so much stranger than fiction that even Professor Bruce
+Stoddard, of Columbia, hesitated to credit it."
+
+I looked at the young fellow suspiciously. His bland smile disarmed
+me, but I did not invite him to relate his experience, although he
+apparently needed only that encouragement to begin.
+
+"Now, if I could tell it exactly as it occurred," he observed, "and a
+stenographer could take it down, word for word, exactly as I relate
+it--"
+
+"It would give me great pleasure to do so," said a quiet voice at the
+door. We rose at once, removing the cigars from our lips; but Miss
+Barrison bade us continue smoking, and at a gesture from her we
+resumed our seats after she had installed herself by the window.
+
+"Really," she said, looking coldly at me, "I couldn't endure the
+solitude any longer. Isn't there anything to do on this tiresome
+train?"
+
+"If you had your pad and pencil," I began, maliciously, "you might
+take down a matter of interest--"
+
+She looked frankly at the young man, who laughed in that pleasant,
+good-tempered manner of his, and offered to tell us of his alleged
+scientific experience if we thought it might amuse us sufficiently to
+vary the dull monotony of the journey north.
+
+"Is it fiction?" I asked, point-blank.
+
+"It is absolute truth," he replied.
+
+I rose and went off to find pad and pencil. When I returned Miss
+Barrison was laughing at a story which the young man had just
+finished.
+
+"But," he ended, gravely, "I have practically decided to renounce
+fiction as a means of livelihood and confine myself to simple,
+uninteresting statistics and facts."
+
+"I am very glad to hear you say that," I exclaimed, warmly. He bowed,
+looked at Miss Barrison, and asked her when he might begin his story.
+
+"Whenever you are ready," replied Miss Barrison, smiling in a manner
+which I had not observed since the disappearance of Professor Farrago.
+I'll admit that the young fellow was superficially attractive.
+
+"Well, then," he began, modestly, "having no technical ability
+concerning the affair in question, and having no knowledge of either
+comparative anatomy or zoology, I am perhaps unfitted to tell this
+story. But the story is true; the episode occurred under my own
+eyes--within a few hours' sail of the Battery. And as I was one of the
+first persons to verify what has long been a theory among scientists,
+and, moreover, as the result of Professor Holroyd's discovery is to
+be placed on exhibition in Madison Square Garden on the 20th of next
+month, I have decided to tell you, as simply as I am able, exactly
+what occurred.
+
+"I first told the story on April 1, 1903, to the editors of the _North
+American Review_, _The Popular Science Monthly_, the _Scientific
+American_, _Nature_, _Outing_, and the _Fossiliferous Magazine_. All
+these gentlemen rejected it; some curtly informing me that fiction had
+no place in their columns. When I attempted to explain that it was not
+fiction, the editors of these periodicals either maintained a
+contemptuous silence, or bluntly notified me that my literary services
+and opinions were not desired. But finally, when several publishers
+offered to take the story as fiction, I cut short all negotiations and
+decided to publish it myself. Where I am known at all, it is my
+misfortune to be known as a writer of fiction. This makes it
+impossible for me to receive a hearing from a scientific audience. I
+regret it bitterly, because now, when it is too late, I am prepared to
+prove certain scientific matters of interest, and to produce the
+proofs. In this case, however, I am fortunate, for nobody can dispute
+the existence of a thing when the bodily proof is exhibited as
+evidence.
+
+"This is the story; and if I tell it as I write fiction, it is because
+I do not know how to tell it otherwise.
+
+"I was walking along the beach below Pine Inlet, on the south shore of
+Long Island. The railroad and telegraph station is at West Oyster Bay.
+Everybody who has travelled on the Long Island Railroad knows the
+station, but few, perhaps, know Pine Inlet. Duck-shooters, of course,
+are familiar with it; but as there are no hotels there, and nothing
+to see except salt meadow, salt creek, and a strip of dune and sand,
+the summer-squatting public may probably be unaware of its existence.
+The local name for the place is Pine Inlet; the maps give its name as
+Sand Point, I believe, but anybody at West Oyster Bay can direct you
+to it. Captain McPeek, who keeps the West Oyster Bay House, drives
+duck-shooters there in winter. It lies five miles southeast from West
+Oyster Bay.
+
+"I had walked over that afternoon from Captain McPeek's. There was a
+reason for my going to Pine Inlet--it embarrasses me to explain it,
+but the truth is I meditated writing an ode to the ocean. It was out
+of the question to write it in West Oyster Bay, with the whistle of
+locomotives in my ears. I knew that Pine Inlet was one of the
+loneliest places on the Atlantic coast; it is out of sight of
+everything except leagues of gray ocean. Rarely one might make out
+fishing-smacks drifting across the horizon. Summer squatters never
+visited it; sportsmen shunned it, except in winter. Therefore, as I
+was about to do a bit of poetry, I thought that Pine Inlet was the
+spot for the deed. So I went there.
+
+"As I was strolling along the beach, biting my pencil reflectively,
+tremendously impressed by the solitude and the solemn thunder of the
+surf, a thought occurred to me--how unpleasant it would be if I
+suddenly stumbled on a summer boarder. As this joyless impossibility
+flitted across my mind, I rounded a bleak sand-dune.
+
+"A girl stood directly in my path.
+
+"She stared at me as though I had just crawled up out of the sea to
+bite her. I don't know what my own expression resembled, but I have
+been given to understand it was idiotic.
+
+"Now I perceived, after a few moments, that the young lady was
+frightened, and I knew I ought to say something civil. So I said, 'Are
+there many mosquitoes here?'
+
+"'No,' she replied, with a slight quiver in her voice; 'I have only
+seen one, and it was biting somebody else.'
+
+"The conversation seemed so futile, and the young lady appeared to be
+more nervous than before. I had an impulse to say, 'Do not run; I have
+breakfasted,' for she seemed to be meditating a flight into the
+breakers. What I did say was: 'I did not know anybody was here. I do
+not intend to intrude. I come from Captain McPeek's, and I am writing
+an ode to the ocean.' After I had said this it seemed to ring in my
+ears like, 'I come from Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful
+James.'
+
+"I glanced timidly at her.
+
+"'She's thinking of the same thing,' said I to myself.
+
+"However, the young lady seemed to be a trifle reassured. I noticed
+she drew a sigh of relief and looked at my shoes. She looked so long
+that it made me suspicious, and I also examined my shoes. They seemed
+to be in a fair state of repair.
+
+"'I--I am sorry,' she said, 'but would you mind not walking on the
+beach?'
+
+"This was sudden. I had intended to retire and leave the beach to her,
+but I did not fancy being driven away so abruptly.
+
+"'Dear me!' she cried; 'you don't understand. I do not--I would not
+think for a moment of asking you to leave Pine Inlet. I merely
+ventured to request you to walk on the dunes. I am so afraid that your
+footprints may obliterate the impressions that my father is studying.'
+
+"'Oh!' said I, looking about me as though I had been caught in the
+middle of a flower-bed; 'really I did not notice any impressions.
+Impressions of what?'
+
+"'I don't know,' she said, smiling a little at my awkward pose. 'If
+you step this way in a straight line you can do no damage.'
+
+"I did as she bade me. I suppose my movements resembled the gait of a
+wet peacock. Possibly they recalled the delicate manoeuvres of the
+kangaroo. Anyway, she laughed.
+
+"This seriously annoyed me. I had been at a disadvantage; I walk well
+enough when let alone.
+
+"'You can scarcely expect,' said I, 'that a man absorbed in his own
+ideas could notice impressions on the sand. I trust I have obliterated
+nothing.'
+
+"As I said this I looked back at the long line of footprints
+stretching away in prospective across the sand. They were my own. How
+large they looked! Was that what she was laughing at?
+
+"'I wish to explain,' she said, gravely, looking at the point of her
+parasol. 'I am very sorry to be obliged to warn you--to ask you to
+forego the pleasure of strolling on a beach that does not belong to
+me. Perhaps,' she continued, in sudden alarm, 'perhaps this beach
+belongs to you?'
+
+"'The beach? Oh no,' I said.
+
+"'But--but you were going to write poems about it?'
+
+"'Only one--and that does not necessitate owning the beach. I have
+observed,' said I, frankly, 'that the people who own nothing write
+many poems about it.'
+
+"She looked at me seriously.
+
+"'I write many poems,' I added.
+
+"She laughed doubtfully.
+
+"'Would you rather I went away?' I asked, politely. 'My family is
+respectable,' I added; and I told her my name.
+
+"'Oh! Then you wrote _Culled Cowslips_ and _Faded Fig-Leaves_ and you
+imitate Maeterlinck, and you--Oh, I know lots of people that you
+know;' she cried, with every symptom of relief; 'and you know my
+brother.'
+
+"'I am the author,' said I, coldly, 'of _Culled Cowslips_, but _Faded
+Fig-Leaves_ was an earlier work, which I no longer recognize, and I
+should be grateful to you if you would be kind enough to deny that I
+ever imitated Maeterlinck. Possibly,' I added, 'he imitates me.'
+
+"She was very quiet, and I saw she was sorry.
+
+"'Never mind,' I said, magnanimously, 'you probably are not familiar
+with modern literature. If I knew your name I should ask permission to
+present myself.'
+
+"'Why, I am Daisy Holroyd,' she said.
+
+"'What! Jack Holroyd's little sister?'
+
+"'Little?' she cried.
+
+"'I didn't mean that,' said I. 'You know that your brother and I were
+great friends in Paris--'
+
+"'I know,' she said, significantly.
+
+"'Ahem! Of course,' I said, 'Jack and I were inseparable--'
+
+"'Except when shut in separate cells,' said Miss Holroyd, coldly.
+
+"This unfeeling allusion to the unfortunate termination of a
+Latin-Quarter celebration hurt me.
+
+"'The police,' said I, 'were too officious.'
+
+"'So Jack says,' replied Miss Holroyd, demurely.
+
+"We had unconsciously moved on along the sand-hills, side by side, as
+we spoke.
+
+"'To think,' I repeated, 'that I should meet Jack's little--'
+
+"'Please,' she said, 'you are only three years my senior.'
+
+"She opened the sunshade and tipped it over one shoulder. It was
+white, and had spots and posies on it.
+
+"'Jack sends us every new book you write,' she observed. 'I do not
+approve of some things you write.'
+
+"'Modern school,' I mumbled.
+
+"'That is no excuse,' she said, severely; 'Anthony Trollope didn't do
+it.'
+
+"The foam spume from the breakers was drifting across the dunes, and
+the little tip-up snipe ran along the beach and teetered and whistled
+and spread their white-barred wings for a low, straight flight across
+the shingle, only to tip and run and sail on again. The salt sea-wind
+whistled and curled through the crested waves, blowing in perfumed
+puffs across thickets of sweet bay and cedar. As we passed through the
+crackling juicy-stemmed marsh-weed myriads of fiddler crabs raised
+their fore-claws in warning and backed away, rustling, through the
+reeds, aggressive, protesting.
+
+"'Like millions of pygmy Ajaxes defying the lightning,' I said.
+
+"Miss Holroyd laughed.
+
+"'Now I never imagined that authors were clever except in print,' she
+said.
+
+"She was a most extraordinary girl.
+
+"'I suppose,' she observed, after a moment's silence--'I suppose I am
+taking you to my father.'
+
+"'Delighted!' I mumbled. 'H'm! I had the honor of meeting Professor
+Holroyd in Paris.'
+
+"'Yes; he bailed you and Jack out,' said Miss Holroyd, serenely.
+
+"The silence was too painful to last.
+
+"'Captain McPeek is an interesting man,' I said. I spoke more loudly
+than I intended. I may have been nervous.
+
+"'Yes,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'but he has a most singular hotel clerk.'
+
+"'You mean Mr. Frisby?'
+
+"'I do.'
+
+"'Yes,' I admitted, 'Mr. Frisby is queer. He was once a bill-poster.'
+
+"'I know it!' exclaimed Daisy Holroyd, with some heat. 'He ruins
+landscapes whenever he has an opportunity. Do you know that he has a
+passion for bill-posting? He has; he posts bills for the pure pleasure
+of it, just as you play golf, or tennis, or squash.'
+
+"'But he's a hotel clerk now,' I said; 'nobody employs him to post
+bills.'
+
+"'I know it! He does it all by himself for the pure pleasure of it.
+Papa has engaged him to come down here for two weeks, and I dread it,'
+said the girl.
+
+"What Professor Holroyd might want of Frisby I had not the faintest
+notion. I suppose Miss Holroyd noticed the bewilderment in my face,
+for she laughed and nodded her head twice.
+
+"'Not only Mr. Frisby, but Captain McPeek also,' she said.
+
+"'You don't mean to say that Captain McPeek is going to close his
+hotel!' I exclaimed.
+
+"My trunk was there. It contained guarantees of my respectability.
+
+"'Oh no; his wife will keep it open,' replied the girl. 'Look! you can
+see papa now. He's digging.'
+
+"'Where?' I blurted out.
+
+"I remembered Professor Holroyd as a prim, spectacled gentleman, with
+close-cut, snowy beard and a clerical allure. The man I saw digging
+wore green goggles, a jersey, a battered sou'wester, and hip-boots of
+rubber. He was delving in the muck of the salt meadow, his face
+streaming with perspiration, his boots and jersey splashed with
+unpleasant-looking mud. He glanced up as we approached, shading his
+eyes with a sunburned hand.
+
+"'Papa, dear,' said Miss Holroyd, 'here is Jack's friend, whom you
+bailed out of Mazas.'
+
+"The introduction was startling. I turned crimson with mortification.
+The professor was very decent about it; he called me by name at once.
+Then he looked at his spade. It was clear he considered me a nuisance
+and wished to go on with his digging.
+
+"'I suppose,' he said, 'you are still writing?'
+
+"'A little,' I replied, trying not to speak sarcastically. My output
+had rivalled that of 'The Duchess'--in quantity, I mean.
+
+"'I seldom read--fiction,' he said, looking restlessly at the hole in
+the ground.
+
+"Miss Holroyd came to my rescue.
+
+"'That was a charming story you wrote last,' she said. 'Papa should
+read it--you should, papa; it's all about a fossil.'
+
+"We both looked narrowly at Miss Holroyd. Her smile was guileless.
+
+"'Fossils!' repeated the professor. 'Do you care for fossils?'
+
+"'Very much,' said I.
+
+"Now I am not perfectly sure what my object was in lying. I looked at
+Daisy Holroyd's dark-fringed eyes. They were very grave.
+
+"'Fossils,' said I, 'are my hobby.'
+
+"I think Miss Holroyd winced a little at this. I did not care. I went
+on:
+
+"'I have seldom had the opportunity to study the subject, but, as a
+boy, I collected flint arrow-heads--"
+
+"'Flint arrow-heads!' said the professor coldly.
+
+"'Yes; they were the nearest things to fossils obtainable,' I replied,
+marvelling at my own mendacity.
+
+"The professor looked into the hole. I also looked. I could see
+nothing in it. 'He's digging for fossils,' thought I to myself.
+
+"'Perhaps,' said the professor, cautiously, 'you might wish to aid me
+in a little research--that is to say, if you have an inclination for
+fossils.' The double-entendre was not lost upon me.
+
+"'I have read all your books so eagerly,' said I, 'that to join you,
+to be of service to you in any research, however difficult and
+trying, would be an honor and a privilege that I never dared to hope
+for.'
+
+"'That,' thought I to myself, 'will do its own work.'
+
+"But the professor was still suspicious. How could he help it, when he
+remembered Jack's escapades, in which my name was always blended!
+Doubtless he was satisfied that my influence on Jack was evil. The
+contrary was the case, too.
+
+"'Fossils,' he said, worrying the edge of the excavation with his
+spade--'fossils are not things to be lightly considered.'
+
+"'No, indeed!' I protested.
+
+"'Fossils are the most interesting as well as puzzling things in the
+world,' said he.
+
+"'They are!' I cried, enthusiastically.
+
+"'But I am not looking for fossils,' observed the professor, mildly.
+
+"This was a facer. I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She bit her lip and
+fixed her eyes on the sea. Her eyes were wonderful eyes.
+
+"'Did you think I was digging for fossils in a salt meadow?' queried
+the professor. 'You can have read very little about the subject. I am
+digging for something quite different.'
+
+"I was silent. I knew that my face was flushed. I longed to say,
+'Well, what the devil are you digging for?' but I only stared into the
+hole as though hypnotized.
+
+"'Captain McPeek and Frisby ought to be here,' he said, looking first
+at Daisy and then across the meadows.
+
+"I ached to ask him why he had subpoenaed Captain McPeek and Frisby.
+
+"'They are coming,' said Daisy, shading her eyes. 'Do you see the
+speck on the meadows?'
+
+"'It may be a mud-hen,' said the professor.
+
+"'Miss Holroyd is right,' I said. 'A wagon and team and two men are
+coming from the north. There's a dog beside the wagon--it's that
+miserable yellow dog of Frisby's.'
+
+"'Good gracious!' cried the professor, 'you don't mean to tell me that
+you see all that at such a distance?'
+
+"'Why not?' I said.
+
+"'I see nothing,' he insisted.
+
+"'You will see that I'm right, presently,' I laughed.
+
+"The professor removed his blue goggles and rubbed them, glancing
+obliquely at me.
+
+"'Haven't you heard what extraordinary eyesight duck-shooters have?'
+said his daughter, looking back at her father. 'Jack says that he can
+tell exactly what kind of a duck is flying before most people could
+see anything at all in the sky.'
+
+"'It's true,' I said; 'it comes to anybody, I fancy, who has had
+practice.'
+
+"The professor regarded me with a new interest. There was inspiration
+in his eyes. He turned towards the ocean. For a long time he stared at
+the tossing waves on the beach, then he looked far out to where the
+horizon met the sea.
+
+"'Are there any ducks out there?' he asked, at last.
+
+"'Yes,' said I, scanning the sea, 'there are.'
+
+"He produced a pair of binoculars from his coat-tail pocket, adjusted
+them, and raised them to his eyes.
+
+"'H'm! What sort of ducks?'
+
+"I looked more carefully, holding both hands over my forehead.
+
+"'Surf-ducks and widgeon. There is one bufflehead among them--no, two;
+the rest are coots,' I replied.
+
+"'This,' cried the professor, 'is most astonishing. I have good eyes,
+but I can't see a blessed thing without these binoculars!'
+
+"'It's not extraordinary,' said I; 'the surf-ducks and coots any
+novice might recognize; the widgeon and buffleheads I should not have
+been able to name unless they had risen from the water. It is easy to
+tell any duck when it is flying, even though it looks no bigger than a
+black pin-point.'
+
+"But the professor insisted that it was marvellous, and he said that I
+might render him invaluable service if I would consent to come and
+camp at Pine Inlet for a few weeks.
+
+"I looked at his daughter, but she turned her back. Her back was
+beautifully moulded. Her gown fitted also.
+
+"'Camp out here?' I repeated, pretending to be unpleasantly surprised.
+
+"'I do not think he would care to,' said Miss Holroyd, without
+turning.
+
+"I had not expected that.
+
+"'Above all things,' said I, in a clear, pleasant voice, 'I like to
+camp out.'
+
+"She said nothing.
+
+"'It is not exactly camping,' said the professor. 'Come, you shall see
+our conservatory. Daisy, come, dear! You must put on a heavier frock;
+it is getting towards sundown.'
+
+"At that moment, over a near dune, two horses' heads appeared,
+followed by two human heads, then a wagon, then a yellow dog.
+
+"I turned triumphantly to the professor.
+
+"'You are the very man I want,' he muttered--'the very man--the very
+man.'
+
+"I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She returned my glance with a defiant
+little smile.
+
+"'Waal,' said Captain McPeek, driving up, 'here we be! Git out,
+Frisby.'
+
+"Frisby, fat, nervous, and sentimental, hopped out of the cart.
+
+"'Come,' said the professor, impatiently moving across the dunes. I
+walked with Daisy Holroyd. McPeek and Frisby followed. The yellow dog
+walked by himself.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+"The sun was dipping into the sea as we trudged across the meadows
+towards a high, dome-shaped dune covered with cedars and thickets of
+sweet bay. I saw no sign of habitation among the sand-hills. Far as
+the eye could reach, nothing broke the gray line of sea and sky save
+the squat dunes crowned with stunted cedars.
+
+"Then, as we rounded the base of the dune, we almost walked into the
+door of a house. My amazement amused Miss Holroyd, and I noticed also
+a touch of malice in her pretty eyes. But she said nothing, following
+her father into the house, with the slightest possible gesture to me.
+Was it invitation or was it menace?
+
+"The house was merely a light wooden frame, covered with some
+waterproof stuff that looked like a mixture of rubber and tar. Over
+this--in fact, over the whole roof--was pitched an awning of heavy
+sail-cloth. I noticed that the house was anchored to the sand by
+chains, already rusted red. But this one-storied house was not the
+only building nestling in the south shelter of the big dune. A hundred
+feet away stood another structure--long, low, also built of wood. It
+had rows on rows of round port-holes on every side. The ports were
+fitted with heavy glass, hinged to swing open if necessary. A single,
+big double door occupied the front.
+
+"Behind this long, low building was still another, a mere shed. Smoke
+rose from the sheet-iron chimney. There was somebody moving about
+inside the open door.
+
+"As I stood gaping at this mushroom hamlet the professor appeared at
+the door and asked me to enter. I stepped in at once.
+
+"The house was much larger than I had imagined. A straight hallway ran
+through the centre from east to west. On either side of this hallway
+were rooms, the doors swinging wide open. I counted three doors on
+each side; the three on the south appeared to be bedrooms.
+
+"The professor ushered me into a room on the north side, where I found
+Captain McPeek and Frisby sitting at a table, upon which were drawings
+and sketches of articulated animals and fishes.
+
+"'You see, McPeek,' said the professor, 'we only wanted one more man,
+and I think I've got him--Haven't I?' turning eagerly to me.
+
+"'Why, yes,' I said, laughing; 'this is delightful. Am I invited to
+stay here?'
+
+"'Your bedroom is the third on the south side; everything is ready.
+McPeek, you can bring his trunk to-morrow, can't you?' demanded the
+professor.
+
+"The red-faced captain nodded, and shifted a quid.
+
+"'Then it's all settled,' said the professor, and he drew a sigh of
+satisfaction. 'You see,' he said, turning to me, 'I was at my wit's
+end to know whom to trust. I never thought of you. Jack's out in
+China, and I didn't dare trust anybody in my own profession. All you
+care about is writing verses and stories, isn't it?'
+
+"'I like to shoot,' I replied, mildly.
+
+"'Just the thing!' he cried, beaming at us all in turn. 'Now I can see
+no reason why we should not progress rapidly. McPeek, you and Frisby
+must get those boxes up here before dark. Dinner will be ready before
+you have finished unloading. Dick, you will wish to go to your room
+first.'
+
+"My name isn't Dick, but he spoke so kindly, and beamed upon me in
+such a fatherly manner, that I let it go. I had occasion to correct
+him afterwards, several times, but he always forgot the next minute.
+He calls me Dick to this day.
+
+"It was dark when Professor Holroyd, his daughter, and I sat down to
+dinner. The room was the same in which I had noticed the drawings of
+beast and bird, but the round table had been extended into an oval,
+and neatly spread with dainty linen and silver.
+
+"A fresh-cheeked Swedish girl appeared from a farther room, bearing
+the soup. The professor ladled it out, still beaming.
+
+"'Now, this is very delightful--isn't it, Daisy?' he said.
+
+"'Very,' said Miss Holroyd, with a tinge of irony.
+
+"'Very,' I repeated, heartily.
+
+"'I suppose,' said the professor, nodding mysteriously at his
+daughter, 'that Dick knows nothing of what we're about down here?'
+
+"'I suppose,' said Miss Holroyd, 'that he thinks we are digging for
+fossils.'
+
+"I looked at my plate. She might have spared me that.
+
+"'Well, well,' said her father, smiling to himself, 'he shall know
+everything by morning. You'll be astonished, Dick, my boy.'
+
+"'His name isn't Dick,' corrected Daisy.
+
+"The professor said, 'Isn't it?' in an absent-minded way, and relapsed
+into contemplation of my necktie.
+
+"I asked Miss Holroyd a few questions about Jack, and was informed
+that he had given up law and entered the consular service--as what, I
+did not dare ask, for I know what our consular service is.
+
+"'In China,' said Daisy.
+
+"'Choo Choo is the name of the city,' added her father, proudly; 'it's
+the terminus of the new trans-Siberian railway.'
+
+"'It's on the Pong Ping,' said Daisy.
+
+"'He's vice-consul,' added the professor, triumphantly.
+
+"'He'll make a good one,' I observed. I knew Jack. I pitied his
+consul.
+
+"So we chatted on about my old playmate, until Freda, the red-cheeked
+maid, brought coffee, and the professor lighted a cigar, with a little
+bow to his daughter.
+
+"'Of course, you don't smoke,' she said to me, with a glimmer of
+malice in her eyes.
+
+"'He mustn't,' interposed the professor, hastily; 'it will make his
+hand tremble.'
+
+"'No, it won't,' said I, laughing; 'but my hand will shake if I don't
+smoke. Are you going to employ me as a draughtsman?'
+
+"'You'll know to-morrow,' he chuckled, with a mysterious smile at his
+daughter. 'Daisy, give him my best cigars--put the box here on the
+table. We can't afford to have his hand tremble.'
+
+"Miss Holroyd rose and crossed the hallway to her father's room,
+returning presently with a box of promising-looking cigars.
+
+"'I don't think he knows what is good for him,' she said. 'He should
+smoke only one every day.'
+
+"It was hard to bear. I am not vindictive, but I decided to treasure
+up a few of Miss Holroyd's gentle taunts. My intimacy with her brother
+was certainly a disadvantage to me now. Jack had apparently been
+talking too much, and his sister appeared to be thoroughly acquainted
+with my past. It was a disadvantage. I remembered her vaguely as a
+girl with long braids, who used to come on Sundays with her father and
+take tea with us in our rooms. Then she went to Germany to school, and
+Jack and I employed our Sunday evenings otherwise. It is true that I
+regarded her weekly visits as a species of infliction, but I did not
+think I ever showed it.
+
+"'It is strange,' said I, 'that you did not recognize me at once, Miss
+Holroyd. Have I changed so greatly in five years?'
+
+"'You wore a pointed French beard in Paris,' she said--'a very downy
+one. And you never stayed to tea but twice, and then you only spoke
+once.'
+
+"'Oh!' said I, blankly. 'What did I say?'
+
+"'You asked me if I liked plums,' said Daisy, bursting into an
+irresistible ripple of laughter.
+
+"I saw that I must have made the same sort of an ass of myself that
+most boys of eighteen do.
+
+"It was too bad. I never thought about the future in those days. Who
+could have imagined that little Daisy Holroyd would have grown up into
+this bewildering young lady? It was really too bad. Presently the
+professor retired to his room, carrying with him an armful of
+drawings, and bidding us not to sit up late. When he closed his door
+Miss Holroyd turned to me.
+
+"'Papa will work over those drawings until midnight,' she said, with a
+despairing smile.
+
+"'It isn't good for him,' I said. 'What are the drawings?'
+
+"'You may know to-morrow,' she answered, leaning forward on the table
+and shading her face with one hand. 'Tell me about yourself and Jack
+in Paris.'
+
+"I looked at her suspiciously.
+
+"'What! There isn't much to tell. We studied. Jack went to the law
+school, and I attended--er--oh, all sorts of schools.'
+
+"'Did you? Surely you gave yourself a little recreation occasionally?'
+
+"'Occasionally,' I nodded.
+
+"'I am afraid you and Jack studied too hard.'
+
+"'That may be,' said I, looking meek.
+
+"'Especially about fossils.'
+
+"I couldn't stand that.
+
+"'Miss Holroyd,' I said, 'I do care for fossils. You may think that I
+am a humbug, but I have a perfect mania for fossils--now.'
+
+"'Since when?'
+
+"'About an hour ago,' I said, airily. Out of the corner of my eye I
+saw that she had flushed up. It pleased me.
+
+"'You will soon tire of the experiment,' she said, with a dangerous
+smile.
+
+"'Oh, I may,' I replied, indifferently.
+
+"She drew back. The movement was scarcely perceptible, but I noticed
+it, and she knew I did.
+
+"The atmosphere was vaguely hostile. One feels such mental conditions
+and changes instantly. I picked up a chess-board, opened it, set up
+the pieces with elaborate care, and began to move, first the white,
+then the black. Miss Holroyd watched me coldly at first, but after a
+dozen moves she became interested and leaned a shade nearer. I moved a
+black pawn forward.
+
+"'Why do you do that?' said Daisy.
+
+"'Because,' said I, 'the white queen threatens the pawn.'
+
+"'It was an aggressive move,' she insisted.
+
+"'Purely defensive,' I said. 'If her white highness will let the pawn
+alone, the pawn will let the queen alone.'
+
+"Miss Holroyd rested her chin on her wrist and gazed steadily at the
+board. She was flushing furiously, but she held her ground.
+
+"'If the white queen doesn't block that pawn, the pawn may become
+dangerous,' she said, coldly.
+
+"I laughed, and closed up the board with a snap.
+
+"'True,' I said, 'it might even take the queen.' After a moment's
+silence I asked, 'What would you do in that case, Miss Holroyd?'
+
+"'I should resign,' she said, serenely; then, realizing what she had
+said, she lost her self-possession for a second, and cried: 'No,
+indeed! I should fight to the bitter end! I mean--'
+
+"'What?' I asked, lingering over my revenge.
+
+"'I mean,' she said, slowly, 'that your black pawn would never have
+the chance--never! I should take it immediately.'
+
+"'I believe you would,' said I, smiling; 'so we'll call the game
+yours, and--the pawn captured.'
+
+"'I don't want it,' she exclaimed. 'A pawn is worthless.'
+
+"'Except when it's in the king row.'
+
+"'Chess is most interesting,' she observed, sedately. She had
+completely recovered her self-possession. Still I saw that she now had
+a certain respect for my defensive powers. It was very soothing to me.
+
+"'You know,' said I, gravely, 'that I am fonder of Jack than of
+anybody. That's the reason we never write each other, except to borrow
+things. I am afraid that when I was a young cub in France I was not an
+attractive personality.'
+
+"'On the contrary,' said Daisy, smiling, 'I thought you were very big
+and very perfect. I had illusions. I wept often when I went home and
+remembered that you never took the trouble to speak to me but once.'
+
+"'I was a cub,' I said--'not selfish and brutal, but I didn't
+understand school-girls. I never had any sisters, and I didn't know
+what to say to very young girls. If I had imagined that you felt
+hurt--'
+
+"'Oh, I did--five years ago. Afterwards I laughed at the whole thing.'
+
+"'Laughed?' I repeated, vaguely disappointed.
+
+"'Why, of course. I was very easily hurt when I was a child. I think I
+have outgrown it.'
+
+"The soft curve of her sensitive mouth contradicted her.
+
+"'Will you forgive me now?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes. I had forgotten the whole thing until I met you an hour or so
+ago.'
+
+"There was something that had a ring not entirely genuine in this
+speech. I noticed it, but forgot it the next moment.
+
+"Presently she rose, touched her hair with the tip of one finger, and
+walked to the door.
+
+"'Good-night,' she said.
+
+"'Good-night,' said I, opening the door for her to pass.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+"The sea was a sheet of silver tinged with pink. The tremendous arch
+of the sky was all shimmering and glimmering with the promise of the
+sun. Already the mist above, flecked with clustered clouds, flushed
+with rose color and dull gold. I heard the low splash of the waves
+breaking and curling across the beach. A wandering breeze, fresh and
+fragrant, blew the curtains of my window. There was the scent of sweet
+bay in the room, and everywhere the subtle, nameless perfume of the
+sea.
+
+"When at last I stood upon the shore, the air and sea were all
+a-glimmer in a rosy light, deepening to crimson in the zenith. Along
+the beach I saw a little cove, shelving and all a-shine, where shallow
+waves washed with a mellow sound. Fine as dusted gold the shingle
+glowed, and the thin film of water rose, receded, crept up again a
+little higher, and again flowed back, with the low hiss of snowy foam
+and gilded bubbles breaking.
+
+"I stood a little while quiet, my eyes upon the water, the invitation
+of the ocean in my ears, vague and sweet as the murmur of a shell.
+Then I looked at my bathing-suit and towels.
+
+"'In we go!' said I, aloud. A second later the prophecy was
+fulfilled.
+
+"I swam far out to sea, and as I swam the waters all around me turned
+to gold. The sun had risen.
+
+"There is a fragrance in the sea at dawn that none can name.
+Whitethorn a-bloom in May, sedges a-sway, and scented rushes rustling
+in an inland wind recall the sea to me--I can't say why.
+
+"Far out at sea I raised myself, swung around, dived, and set out
+again for shore, striking strong strokes until the necked foam flew.
+And when at last I shot through the breakers, I laughed aloud and
+sprang upon the beach, breathless and happy. Then from the ocean came
+another cry, clear, joyous, and a white arm rose in the air.
+
+"She came drifting in with the waves like a white sea-sprite, laughing
+at me, and I plunged into the breakers again to join her.
+
+"Side by side we swam along the coast, just outside the breakers,
+until in the next cove we saw the flutter of her maid's cap-strings.
+
+"'I will beat you to breakfast!' she cried, as I rested, watching her
+glide up along the beach.
+
+"'Done!' said I--'for a sea-shell!'
+
+"'Done!' she called, across the water.
+
+"I made good speed along the shore, and I was not long in dressing,
+but when I entered the dining-room she was there, demure, smiling,
+exquisite in her cool, white frock.
+
+"'The sea-shell is yours,' said I. 'I hope I can find one with a pearl
+in it.'
+
+"The professor hurried in before she could reply. He greeted me very
+cordially, but there was an abstracted air about him, and he called me
+Dick until I recognized that remonstrance was useless. He was not
+long over his coffee and rolls.
+
+"'McPeek and Frisby will return with the last load, including your
+trunk, by early afternoon,' he said, rising and picking up his bundle
+of drawings. 'I haven't time to explain to you what we are doing,
+Dick, but Daisy will take you about and instruct you. She will give
+you the rifle standing in my room--it's a good Winchester. I have sent
+for an 'Express' for you, big enough to knock over any elephant in
+India. Daisy, take him through the sheds and tell him everything.
+Luncheon is at noon. Do you usually take luncheon, Dick?'
+
+"'When I am permitted,' I smiled.
+
+"'Well,' said the professor, doubtfully, 'you mustn't come back here
+for it. Freda can take you what you want. Is your hand unsteady after
+eating?'
+
+"'Why, papa!' said Daisy. 'Do you intend to starve him?'
+
+"We all laughed.
+
+"The professor tucked his drawings into a capacious pocket, pulled his
+sea-boots up to his hips, seized a spade, and left, nodding to us as
+though he were thinking of something else.
+
+"We went to the door and watched him across the salt meadows until the
+distant sand-dune hid him.
+
+"'Come,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'I am going to take you to the shop.'
+
+"She put on a broad-brimmed straw hat, a distractingly pretty
+combination of filmy cool stuffs, and led the way to the long, low
+structure that I had noticed the evening before.
+
+"The interior was lighted by the numberless little port-holes, and I
+could see everything plainly. I acknowledge I was nonplussed by what I
+did see.
+
+"In the centre of the shed, which must have been at least a hundred
+feet long, stood what I thought at first was the skeleton of an
+enormous whale. After a moment's silent contemplation of the thing I
+saw that it could not be a whale, for the frames of two gigantic,
+batlike wings rose from each shoulder. Also I noticed that the animal
+possessed legs--four of them--with most unpleasant-looking webbed
+claws fully eight feet long. The bony framework of the head, too,
+resembled something between a crocodile and a monstrous
+snapping-turtle. The walls of the shanty were hung with drawings and
+blue prints. A man dressed in white linen was tinkering with the
+vertebrae of the lizard-like tail.
+
+"'Where on earth did such a reptile come from?' I asked at length.
+
+"'Oh, it's not real!' said Daisy, scornfully; 'it's papier-maché.'
+
+"'I see,' said I; 'a stage prop.'
+
+"'A what?' asked Daisy, in hurt astonishment.
+
+"'Why, a--a sort of Siegfried dragon--a what's-his-name--er, Pfafner,
+or Peffer, or--'
+
+"'If my father heard you say such things he would dislike you,' said
+Daisy. She looked grieved, and moved towards the door. I
+apologized--for what, I knew not--and we became reconciled. She ran
+into her father's room and brought me the rifle, a very good
+Winchester. She also gave me a cartridge-belt, full.
+
+"'Now,' she smiled, 'I shall take you to your observatory, and when we
+arrive you are to begin your duty at once.'
+
+"'And that duty?' I ventured, shouldering the rifle.
+
+"'That duty is to watch the ocean. I shall then explain the whole
+affair--but you mustn't look at me while I speak; you must watch the
+sea.'
+
+"'This,' said I, 'is hardship. I had rather go without the luncheon.'
+
+"I do not think she was offended at my speech; still she frowned for
+almost three seconds.
+
+"We passed through acres of sweet bay and spear grass, sometimes
+skirting thickets of twisted cedars, sometimes walking in the full
+glare of the morning sun, sinking into shifting sand where
+sun-scorched shells crackled under our feet, and sun-browned sea-weed
+glistened, bronzed and iridescent. Then, as we climbed a little hill,
+the sea-wind freshened in our faces, and lo! the ocean lay below us,
+far-stretching as the eye could reach, glittering, magnificent.
+
+"Daisy sat down flat on the sand. It takes a clever girl to do that
+and retain the respectful deference due her from men. It takes a
+graceful girl to accomplish it triumphantly when a man is looking.
+
+"'You must sit beside me,' she said--as though it would prove irksome
+to me.
+
+"'Now,' she continued, 'you must watch the water while I am talking.'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'Why don't you do it, then?' she asked.
+
+"I succeeded in wrenching my head towards the ocean, although I felt
+sure it would swing gradually round again in spite of me.
+
+"'To begin with,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'there's a thing in that ocean
+that would astonish you if you saw it. Turn your head!'
+
+"'I am,' I said, meekly.
+
+"'Did you hear what I said?'
+
+"'Yes--er--a thing in the ocean that's going to astonish me.' Visions
+of mermaids rose before me.
+
+"'The thing,' said Daisy, 'is a thermosaurus!'
+
+"I nodded vaguely, as though anticipating a delightful introduction to
+a nautical friend.
+
+"'You don't seem astonished,' she said, reproachfully.
+
+"'Why should I be?' I asked.
+
+"'Please turn your eyes towards the water. Suppose a thermosaurus
+should look out of the waves!'
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'in that case the pleasure would be mutual.'
+
+"She frowned and bit her upper lip.
+
+"'Do you know what a thermosaurus is?' she asked.
+
+"'If I am to guess,' said I, 'I guess it's a jelly-fish.'
+
+"'It's that big, ugly, horrible creature that I showed you in the
+shed!' cried Daisy, impatiently.
+
+"'Eh!' I stammered.
+
+"'Not papier-maché, either,' she continued, excitedly; 'it's a real
+one.'
+
+"This was pleasant news. I glanced instinctively at my rifle and then
+at the ocean.
+
+"'Well,' said I at last, 'it strikes me that you and I resemble a pair
+of Andromedas waiting to be swallowed. This rifle won't stop a beast,
+a live beast, like that Nibelungen dragon of yours.'
+
+"'Yes, it will,' she said; 'it's not an ordinary rifle.'
+
+"Then, for the first time, I noticed, just below the magazine, a
+cylindrical attachment that was strange to me.
+
+"'Now, if you will watch the sea very carefully, and will promise not
+to look at me,' said Daisy, 'I will try to explain.'
+
+"She did not wait for me to promise, but went on eagerly, a sparkle of
+excitement in her blue eyes:
+
+"'You know, of all the fossil remains of the great batlike and
+lizard-like creatures that inhabited the earth ages and ages ago, the
+bones of the gigantic saurians are the most interesting. I think they
+used to splash about the water and fly over the land during the
+carboniferous period; anyway, it doesn't matter. Of course you have
+seen pictures of reconstructed creatures such as the ichthyosaurus,
+the plesiosaurus, the anthracosaurus, and the thermosaurus?'
+
+"I nodded, trying to keep my eyes from hers.
+
+"'And you know that the remains of the thermosaurus were first
+discovered and reconstructed by papa?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I. There was no use in saying no.
+
+"'I am glad you do. Now, papa has proved that this creature lived
+entirely in the Gulf Stream, emerging for occasional flights across an
+ocean or two. Can you imagine how he proved it?'
+
+"'No,' said I, resolutely pointing my nose at the ocean.
+
+"'He proved it by a minute examination of the microscopical shells
+found among the ribs of the thermosaurus. These shells contained
+little creatures that live only in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
+They were the food of the thermosaurus.'
+
+"'It was rather slender rations for a thing like that, wasn't it? Did
+he ever swallow bigger food--er--men?'
+
+"'Oh yes. Tons of fossil bones from prehistoric men are also found in
+the interior of the thermosaurus.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'you, at least, had better go back to Captain
+McPeek's--'
+
+"'Please turn around; don't be so foolish. I didn't say there was a
+live thermosaurus in the water, did I?'
+
+"'Isn't there?'
+
+"'Why, no!'
+
+"My relief was genuine, but I thought of the rifle and looked
+suspiciously out to sea.
+
+"'What's the Winchester for?' I asked.
+
+"'Listen, and I will explain. Papa has found out--how, I do not
+exactly understand--that there is in the waters of the Gulf Stream the
+body of a thermosaurus. The creature must have been alive within a
+year or so. The impenetrable scale-armor that covers its body has, as
+far as papa knows, prevented its disintegration. We know that it is
+there still, or was there within a few months. Papa has reports and
+sworn depositions from steamer captains and seamen from a dozen
+different vessels, all corroborating one another in essential details.
+These stories, of course, get into the newspapers--sea-serpent
+stories--but papa knows that they confirm his theory that the huge
+body of this reptile is swinging along somewhere in the Gulf Stream.'
+
+"She opened her sunshade and held it over her. I noticed that she
+deigned to give me the benefit of about one-eighth of it.
+
+"'Your duty with that rifle is this: if we are fortunate enough to see
+the body of the thermosaurus come floating by, you are to take good
+aim and fire--fire rapidly every bullet in the magazine; then reload
+and fire again, and reload and fire as long as you have any cartridges
+left.'
+
+"'A self-feeding Maxim is what I should have,' I said, with gentle
+sarcasm. 'Well, and suppose I make a sieve of this big lizard?'
+
+"'Do you see these rings in the sand?' she asked.
+
+"Sure enough, somebody had driven heavy piles deep into the sand all
+around us, and to the tops of these piles were attached steel rings,
+half buried under the spear-grass. We sat almost exactly in the centre
+of a circle of these rings.
+
+"'The reason is this,' said Daisy; 'every bullet in your cartridges is
+steel-tipped and armor-piercing. To the base of each bullet is
+attached a thin wire of pallium. Pallium is that new metal, a thread
+of which, drawn out into finest wire, will hold a ton of iron
+suspended. Every bullet is fitted with minute coils of miles of this
+wire. When the bullet leaves the rifle it spins out this wire as a
+shot from a life-saver's mortar spins out and carries the life-line to
+a wrecked ship. The end of each coil of wire is attached to that
+cylinder under the magazine of your rifle. As soon as the shell is
+automatically ejected this wire flies out also. A bit of scarlet tape
+is fixed to the end, so that it will be easy to pick up. There is also
+a snap-clasp on the end, and this clasp fits those rings that you see
+in the sand. Now, when you begin firing, it is my duty to run and pick
+up the wire ends and attach them to the rings. Then, you see, we have
+the body of the thermosaurus full of bullets, every bullet anchored to
+the shore by tiny wires, each of which could easily hold a ton's
+strain.'
+
+"I looked at her in amazement.
+
+"'Then,' she added, calmly, 'we have captured the thermosaurus.'
+
+"'Your father,' said I, at length, 'must have spent years of labor
+over this preparation.'
+
+"'It is the work of a lifetime,' she said, simply.
+
+"My face, I suppose, showed my misgivings.
+
+"'It must not fail,' she added.
+
+"'But--but we are nowhere near the Gulf Stream,' I ventured.
+
+"Her face brightened, and she frankly held the sunshade over us both.
+
+"'Ah, you don't know,' she said, 'what else papa has discovered. Would
+you believe that he has found a loop in the Gulf Stream--a genuine
+loop--that swings in here just outside of the breakers below? It is
+true! Everybody on Long Island knows that there is a warm current off
+the coast, but nobody imagined it was merely a sort of backwater from
+the Gulf Stream that formed a great circular mill-race around the cone
+of a subterranean volcano, and rejoined the Gulf Stream off Cape
+Albatross. But it is! That is why papa bought a yacht three years ago
+and sailed about for two years so mysteriously. Oh, I did want to go
+with him so much!'
+
+"'This,' said I, 'is most astonishing.'
+
+"She leaned enthusiastically towards me, her lovely face aglow.
+
+"'Isn't it?' she said; 'and to think that you and papa and I are the
+only people in the whole world who know this!'
+
+"To be included in such a triology was very delightful.
+
+"'Papa is writing the whole thing--I mean about the currents. He also
+has in preparation sixteen volumes on the thermosaurus. He said this
+morning that he was going to ask you to write the story first for some
+scientific magazine. He is certain that Professor Bruce Stoddard, of
+Columbia, will write the pamphlets necessary. This will give papa time
+to attend to the sixteen-volume work, which he expects to finish in
+three years.'
+
+"'Let us first,' said I, laughing, 'catch our thermosaurus.'
+
+"'We must not fail,' she said, wistfully.
+
+"'We shall not fail,' I said, 'for I promise to sit on this sand-hill
+as long as I live--until a thermosaurus appears--if that is your wish,
+Miss Holroyd.'
+
+"Our eyes met for an instant. She did not chide me, either, for not
+looking at the ocean. Her eyes were bluer, anyway.
+
+"'I suppose,' she said, bending her head and absently pouring sand
+between her fingers--'I suppose you think me a blue-stocking, or
+something odious?'
+
+"'Not exactly,' I said. There was an emphasis in my voice that made
+her color. After a moment she laid the sunshade down, still open.
+
+"'May I hold it?' I asked.
+
+"She nodded almost imperceptibly.
+
+"The ocean had turned a deep marine blue, verging on purple, that
+heralded a scorching afternoon. The wind died away; the odor of cedar
+and sweet-bay hung heavy in the air.
+
+"In the sand at our feet an iridescent flower-beetle crawled, its
+metallic green-and-blue wings burning like a spark. Great gnats, with
+filmy, glittering wings, danced aimlessly above the young golden-rod;
+burnished crickets, inquisitive, timid, ran from under chips of
+driftwood, waved their antennæ at us, and ran back again. One by one
+the marbled tiger-beetles tumbled at our feet, dazed from the exertion
+of an aërial flight, then scrambled and ran a little way, or darted
+into the wire grass, where great, brilliant spiders eyed them askance
+from their gossamer hammocks.
+
+"Far out at sea the white gulls floated and drifted on the water, or
+sailed up into the air to flap lazily for a moment and settle back
+among the waves. Strings of black surf-ducks passed, their strong
+wings tipping the surface of the water; single wandering coots whirled
+from the breakers into lonely flight towards the horizon.
+
+"We lay and watched the little ring-necks running along the water's
+edge, now backing away from the incoming tide, now boldly wading after
+the undertow. The harmony of silence, the deep perfume, the mystery of
+waiting for that something that all await--what is it? love? death? or
+only the miracle of another morrow?--troubled me with vague
+restlessness. As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a
+shadow, an the shadow is sadness.
+
+"And so the morning wore away until Freda came with a cool-looking
+hamper. Then delicious cold fowl and lettuce sandwiches and champagne
+cup set our tongues wagging as only very young tongues can wag. Daisy
+went back with Freda after luncheon, leaving me a case of cigars, with
+a bantering smile. I dozed, half awake, keeping a partly closed eye on
+the ocean, where a faint gray streak showed plainly amid the azure
+water all around. That was the Gulf Stream loop.
+
+"About four o'clock Frisby appeared with a bamboo shelter-tent, for
+which I was unaffectedly grateful.
+
+"After he had erected it over me he stopped to chat a bit, but the
+conversation bored me, for he could talk of nothing but bill-posting.
+
+"'You wouldn't ruin the landscape here, would you?' I asked.
+
+"'Ruin it!' repeated Frisby, nervously. 'It's ruined now; there ain't
+a place to stick a bill.'
+
+"'The snipe stick bills--in the sand,' I said, flippantly.
+
+"There was no humor about Frisby. 'Do they?' he asked.
+
+"I moved with a certain impatience.
+
+"'Bills,' said Frisby, 'give spice an' variety to nature. They break
+the monotony of the everlastin' green and what-you-may-call-its.'
+
+"I glared at him.
+
+"'Bills,' he continued, 'are not easy to stick, lemme tell you, sir.
+Sign-paintin's a soft snap when it comes to bill-stickin'. Now, I
+guess I've stuck more bills onto New York State than ennybody.'
+
+"'Have you?' I said, angrily.
+
+"'Yes, siree! I always pick out the purtiest spots--kinder filled
+chuck full of woods and brooks and things; then I h'ist my paste-pot
+onto a rock, and I slather that rock with gum, and whoop she goes!'
+
+"'Whoop what goes?'
+
+"'The bill. I paste her onto the rock, with one swipe of the brush for
+the edges and a back-handed swipe for the finish--except when a bill
+is folded in two halves.'
+
+"'And what do you do then?' I asked, disgusted.
+
+"'Swipe twice,' said Frisby, with enthusiasm.
+
+"'And you don't think it injures the landscape?'
+
+"'Injures it!' he exclaimed, convinced that I was attempting to joke.
+
+"I looked wearily out to sea. He also looked at the water and sighed
+sentimentally.
+
+"'Floatin' buoys with bills onto 'em is a idea of mine,' he observed.
+'That damn ocean is monotonous, ain't it?'
+
+"I don't know what I might have done to Frisby--the rifle was so
+convenient--if his mean yellow dog had not waddled up at this
+juncture.
+
+"'Hi, Davy, sic 'em!' said Frisby, expectorating upon a clam-shell and
+hurling it seaward. The cur watched the flight of the shell
+apathetically, then squatted in the sand and looked at his master.
+
+"'Kinder lost his spirit,' said Frisby, 'ain't he? I once stuck a bill
+onto Davy, an' it come off, an' the paste sorter sickened him. He was
+hell on rats--once!'
+
+"After a moment or two Frisby took himself off, whistling cheerfully
+to Davy, who followed him when he was ready. The rifle burned in my
+fingers.
+
+"It was nearly six o'clock when the professor appeared, spade on
+shoulder, boots smeared with mud.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'nothing to report, Dick, my boy?'
+
+"'Nothing, professor.'
+
+"He wiped his shining face with his handkerchief and stared at the
+water.
+
+"'My calculations lead me to believe,' he said, 'that our prize may be
+due any day now. This theory I base upon the result of the report from
+the last sea-captain I saw. I cannot understand why some of these
+captains did not take the carcass in tow. They all say that they
+tried, but that the body sank before they could come within half a
+mile. The truth is, probably, that they did not stir a foot from their
+course to examine the thing.'
+
+"'Have you ever cruised about for it?' I ventured.
+
+"'For two years,' he said, grimly. 'It's no use; it's accident when a
+ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from
+where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They
+think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are
+teeming with sea-serpent fol-de-rol.'
+
+"'Are you sure,' I asked, 'that it will swing into the coast on this
+Gulf Stream loop?'
+
+"'I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with a
+dead right-whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last
+summer.'
+
+"'I think I did,' said I, with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned
+the air for miles around.
+
+"'But,' I continued, 'suppose it comes in the night?'
+
+"He laughed.
+
+"'There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too, the
+current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise would
+strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not
+experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs
+across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that
+anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be
+carried so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the
+carcass could float again into deep water. There are chances of its
+stranding indefinitely, too, but I don't care to take those chances.
+That is why I have stationed you here, Dick.'
+
+"He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself.
+
+"'There is another question I want to ask,' I said, 'if you don't
+mind.'
+
+"'Of course not!' he said, warmly.
+
+"'What are you digging for?'
+
+"'Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself
+with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don't know a better
+exercise. Do you?'
+
+"'I suppose not,' I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered
+whether he'd mention fossils.
+
+"'Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-maché thermosaurus?'
+he asked.
+
+"I shook my head.
+
+"'We constructed that from measurements I took from the fossil remains
+of the thermosaurus in the Metropolitan Museum. Professor Bruce
+Stoddard made the drawings. We set it up here, all ready to receive
+the skin of the carcass that I am expecting.'
+
+"We had started towards home, walking slowly across the darkening
+dunes, shoulder to shoulder. The sand was deep, and walking was not
+easy.
+
+"'I wish,' said I at last, 'that I knew why Miss Holroyd asked me not
+to walk on the beach. It's much less fatiguing.'
+
+"'That,' said the professor, 'is a matter that I intend to discuss
+with you to-night.' He spoke gravely, almost sadly. I felt that
+something of unparalleled importance was soon to be revealed. So I
+kept very quiet, watching the ocean out of the corners of my eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+"Dinner was ended. Daisy Holroyd lighted her father's pipe for him,
+and insisted on my smoking as much as I pleased. Then she sat down,
+and folded her hands like a good little girl, waiting for her father
+to make the revelation which I felt in my bones must be something out
+of the ordinary.
+
+"The professor smoked for a while, gazing meditatively at his
+daughter; then, fixing his gray eyes on me, he said:
+
+"'Have you ever heard of the kree--that Australian bird, half parrot,
+half hawk, that destroys so many sheep in New South Wales?'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'The kree kills a sheep by alighting on its back and tearing away the
+flesh with its hooked beak until a vital part is reached. You know
+that? Well, it has been discovered that the kree had prehistoric
+prototypes. These birds were enormous creatures, who preyed upon
+mammoths and mastodons, and even upon the great saurians. It has been
+conclusively proved that a few saurians have been killed by the
+ancestors of the kree, but the favorite food of these birds was
+undoubtedly the thermosaurus. It is believed that the birds attacked
+the eyes of the thermosaurus, and when, as was its habit, the mammoth
+creature turned on its back to claw them, they fell upon the thinner
+scales of its stomach armor and finally killed it. This, of course, is
+a theory, but we have almost absolute proofs of its correctness. Now,
+these two birds are known among scientists as the ekaf-bird and the
+ool-yllik. The names are Australian, in which country most of their
+remains have been unearthed. They lived during the Carboniferous
+period. Now, it is not generally known, but the fact is, that in 1801
+Captain Ransom, of the British exploring vessel _Gull_, purchased from
+the natives of Tasmania the skin of an ekaf-bird that could not have
+been killed more than twenty-four hours previous to its sale. I saw
+this skin in the British Museum. It was labelled, "Unknown bird,
+probably extinct." It took me exactly a week to satisfy myself that it
+was actually the skin of an ekaf-bird. But that is not all, Dick,'
+continued the professor, excitedly. 'In 1854 Admiral Stuart, of our
+own navy, saw the carcass of a strange, gigantic bird floating along
+the southern coast of Australia. Sharks were after it, and before a
+boat could be lowered these miserable fish got it. But the good old
+admiral secured a few feathers and sent them to the Smithsonian. I saw
+them. They were not even labelled, but I knew that they were feathers
+from the ekaf-bird or its near relative, the ool-yllik.'
+
+"I had grown so interested that I had leaned far across the table.
+Daisy, too, bent forward. It was only when the professor paused for a
+moment that I noticed how close together our heads were--Daisy's and
+mine. I don't think she realized it. She did not move.
+
+"'Now comes the important part of this long discourse,' said the
+professor, smiling at our eagerness. "'Ever since the carcass of our
+derelict thermosaurus was first noticed, every captain who has seen it
+has also reported the presence of one or more gigantic birds in the
+neighborhood. These birds, at a great distance, appeared to be
+hovering over the carcass, but on the approach of a vessel they
+disappeared. Even in mid-ocean they were observed. When I heard about
+it I was puzzled. A month later I was satisfied that neither the
+ekaf-bird nor the ool-yllik was extinct. Last Monday I knew that I was
+right. I found forty-eight distinct impressions of the huge,
+seven-toed claw of the ekaf-bird on the beach here at Pine Inlet. You
+may imagine my excitement. I succeeded in digging up enough wet sand
+around one of these impressions to preserve its form. I managed to get
+it into a soap-box, and now it is there in my shop. The tide rose too
+rapidly for me to save the other footprints.'
+
+"I shuddered at the possibility of a clumsy misstep on my part
+obliterating the impression of an ool-yllik.
+
+"'That is the reason that my daughter warned you off the beach,' he
+said, mildly.
+
+"'Hanging would have been too good for the vandal who destroyed such
+priceless prizes,' I cried out, in self-reproach.
+
+"Daisy Holroyd turned a flushed face to mine and impulsively laid her
+hand on my sleeve.
+
+"'How could you know?' she said.
+
+"'It's all right now,' said her father, emphasizing each word with a
+gentle tap of his pipe-bowl on the table-edge; 'don't be hard on
+yourself, Dick. You'll do yeoman's service yet.'
+
+"It was nearly midnight, and still we chatted on about the
+thermosaurus, the ekaf-bird, and the ool-yllik, eagerly discussing the
+probability of the great reptile's carcass being in the vicinity. That
+alone seemed to explain the presence of these prehistoric birds at
+Pine Inlet.
+
+"'Do they ever attack human beings?' I asked.
+
+"The professor looked startled.
+
+"'Gracious!' he exclaimed, 'I never thought of that. And Daisy running
+about out-of-doors! Dear me! It takes a scientist to be an unnatural
+parent!'
+
+"His alarm was half real, half assumed; but, all the same, he glanced
+gravely at us both, shaking his handsome head, absorbed in thought.
+Daisy herself looked a little doubtful. As for me, my sensations were
+distinctly queer.
+
+"'It is true,' said the professor, frowning at the wall, 'that human
+remains have been found associated with the bones of the ekaf-bird--I
+don't know how intimately. It is a matter to be taken into most
+serious consideration.'
+
+"'The problem can be solved,' said I, 'in several ways. One is, to
+keep Miss Holroyd in the house--'
+
+"'I shall not stay in,' cried Daisy, indignantly.
+
+"We all laughed, and her father assured her that she should not be
+abused.
+
+"'Even if I did stay in,' she said, 'one of these birds might alight
+on Master Dick.'
+
+"She looked saucily at me as she spoke, but turned crimson when her
+father observed, quietly, 'You don't seem to think of me, Daisy!'
+
+"'Of course I do,' she said, getting up and putting both arms around
+her father's neck; 'but Dick--as--as you call him--is so helpless and
+timid.'
+
+"My blissful smile froze on my lips.
+
+"'Timid!' I repeated.
+
+"She came back to the table, making me a mocking reverence.
+
+"'Do you think I am to be laughed at with impunity?' she said.
+
+"'What are your other plans, Dick?' asked the professor. 'Daisy, let
+him alone, you little tease!'
+
+"'One is, to haul a lot of cast-iron boilers along the dunes,' I said.
+'If these birds come when the carcass floats in, and if they seem
+disposed to trouble us, we could crawl into the boilers and be safe.'
+
+"'Why, that is really brilliant!' cried Daisy.
+
+"'Be quiet, my child. Dick, the plan is sound and sensible and
+perfectly practical. McPeek and Frisby shall go for a dozen loads of
+boilers to-morrow.'
+
+"'It will spoil the beauty of the landscape,' said Daisy, with a
+taunting nod to me.
+
+"'And Frisby will probably attempt to cover them with bill-posters,' I
+added, laughing.
+
+"'That,' said Daisy, 'I shall prevent, even at the cost of his life.'
+And she stood up, looking very determined.
+
+"'Children, children,' protested the professor, 'go to bed--you bother
+me.'
+
+"Then I turned deliberately to Miss Holroyd.
+
+"'Good-night, Daisy,' I said.
+
+"'Good-night, Dick,' she said, very gently.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+"The week passed quickly for me, leaving but few definite impressions.
+As I look back to it now I can see the long stretch of beach burning
+in the fierce sunlight, the endless meadows, with the glimmer of water
+in the distance, the dunes, the twisted cedars, the leagues of
+scintillating ocean, rocking, rocking, always rocking. In the starlit
+nights the curlew came in from the sand-bars by twos and threes; I
+could hear their querulous call as I lay in bed thinking. All day long
+the little ring-necks whistled from the shore. The plover answered
+them from distant, lonely inland pools. The great white gulls drifted
+like feathers upon the sea.
+
+"One morning towards the end of the week, I, strolling along the
+dunes, came upon Frisby. He was bill-posting. I caught him red-handed.
+
+"'This,' said I, 'must stop. Do you understand, Mr. Frisby?'
+
+"He stepped back from his work, laying his head on one side,
+considering first me, then the bill that he had pasted on one of our
+big boilers.
+
+"'Don't you like the color?' he asked. 'It goes well on them black
+boilers.'
+
+"'Color! No, I don't like the color, either. Can't you understand that
+there are some people in the world who object to seeing
+patent-medicine advertisements scattered over a landscape?'
+
+"'Hey?' he said, perplexed.
+
+"'Will you kindly remove that advertisement?' I persisted.
+
+"'Too late,' said Frisby; 'it's sot.'
+
+"I was too disgusted to speak, but my disgust turned to anger when I
+perceived that, as far as the eye could reach, our boilers, lying from
+three to four hundred feet apart, were ablaze with yellow-and-red
+posters extolling the 'Eureka Liver Pill Company.'
+
+"'It don't cost 'em nothin',' said Frisby, cheerfully; 'I done it fur
+the fun of it. Purty, ain't it?'
+
+"'They are Professor Holroyd's boilers,' I said, subduing a desire to
+beat Frisby with my telescope. 'Wait until Miss Holroyd sees this
+work.'
+
+"'Don't she like yeller and red?' he demanded, anxiously.
+
+"'You'll find out,' said I.
+
+"Frisby gaped at his handiwork and then at his yellow dog. After a
+moment he mechanically spat on a clam-shell and requested Davy to
+'sic' it.
+
+"'Can't you comprehend that you have ruined our pleasure in the
+landscape?' I asked, more mildly.
+
+"'I've got some green bills,' said Frisby; 'I kin stick 'em over the
+yeller ones--'
+
+"'Confound it,' said I, 'it isn't the color!'
+
+"'Then,' observed Frisby, 'you don't like them pills. I've got some
+bills of the "Cropper Automobile" and a few of "Bagley, the Gents'
+Tailor"--'
+
+"'Frisby,' said I, 'use them all--paste the whole collection over your
+dog and yourself--then walk off the cliff.'
+
+"He sullenly unfolded a green poster, swabbed the boiler with paste,
+laid the upper section of the bill upon it, and plastered the whole
+bill down with a thwack of his brush. As I walked away I heard him
+muttering.
+
+"Next day Daisy was so horrified that I promised to give Frisby an
+ultimatum. I found him with Freda, gazing sentimentally at his work,
+and I sent him back to the shop in a hurry, telling Freda at the same
+time that she could spend her leisure in providing Mr. Frisby with
+sand, soap, and a scrubbing-brush. Then I walked on to my post of
+observation.
+
+"I watched until sunset. Daisy came with her father to hear my report,
+but there was nothing to tell, and we three walked slowly back to the
+house.
+
+"In the evenings the professor worked on his volumes, the click of his
+type-writer sounding faintly behind his closed door. Daisy and I
+played chess sometimes; sometimes we played hearts. I don't remember
+that we ever finished a game of either--we talked too much.
+
+"Our discussions covered every topic of interest: we argued upon
+politics; we skimmed over literature and music; we settled
+international differences; we spoke vaguely of human brotherhood. I
+say we slighted no subject of interest--I am wrong; we never spoke of
+love.
+
+"Now, love is a matter of interest to ten people out of ten. Why it
+was that it did not appear to interest us is as interesting a question
+as love itself. We were young, alert, enthusiastic, inquiring. We
+eagerly absorbed theories concerning any curious phenomena in nature,
+as intellectual cocktails to stimulate discussion. And yet we did not
+discuss love. I do not say that we avoided it. No; the subject was
+too completely ignored for even that. And yet we found it very
+difficult to pass an hour separated. The professor noticed this, and
+laughed at us. We were not even embarrassed.
+
+"Sunday passed in pious contemplation of the ocean. Daisy read a
+little in her prayer-book, and the professor threw a cloth over his
+type-writer and strolled up and down the sands. He may have been lost
+in devout abstraction; he may have been looking for footprints. As for
+me, my mind was very serene, and I was more than happy. Daisy read to
+me a little for my soul's sake, and the professor came up and said
+something cheerful. He also examined the magazine of my Winchester.
+
+"That night, too, Daisy took her guitar to the sands and sang one or
+two Basque hymns. Unlike us, the Basques do not take their pleasures
+sadly. One of their pleasures is evidently religion.
+
+"The big moon came up over the dunes and stared at the sea until the
+surface of every wave trembled with radiance. A sudden stillness fell
+across the world; the wind died out; the foam ran noiselessly across
+the beach; the cricket's rune was stilled.
+
+"I leaned back, dropping one hand upon the sand. It touched another
+hand, soft and cool.
+
+"After a while the other hand moved slightly, and I found that my own
+had closed above it. Presently one finger stirred a little--only a
+little--for our fingers were interlocked.
+
+"On the shore the foam-froth bubbled and winked and glimmered in the
+moonlight. A star fell from the zenith, showering the night with
+incandescent dust.
+
+"If our fingers lay interlaced beside us, her eyes were calm and
+serene as always, wide open, fixed upon the depths of a dark sky. And
+when her father rose and spoke to us, she did not withdraw her hand.
+
+"'Is it late?' she asked, dreamily.
+
+"'It is midnight, little daughter.'
+
+"I stood up, still holding her hand, and aided her to rise. And when,
+at the door, I said good-night, she turned and looked at me for a
+little while in silence, then passed into her room slowly, with head
+still turned towards me.
+
+"All night long I dreamed of her; and when the east whitened, I sprang
+up, the thunder of the ocean in my ears, the strong sea-wind blowing
+into the open window.
+
+"'She's asleep,' I thought, and I leaned from the window and peered
+out into the east.
+
+"The sea called to me, tossing its thousand arms; the soaring gulls,
+dipping, rising, wheeling above the sandbar, screamed and clamored for
+a playmate. I slipped into my bathing-suit, dropped from the window
+upon the soft sand, and in a moment had plunged head foremost into the
+surf, swimming beneath the waves towards the open sea.
+
+"Under the tossing ocean the voice of the waters was in my ears--a
+low, sweet voice, intimate, mysterious. Through singing foam and
+broad, green, glassy depths, by whispering sandy channels atrail with
+sea-weed, and on, on, out into the vague, cool sea, I sped, rising to
+the top, sinking, gliding. Then at last I flung myself out of water,
+hands raised, and the clamor of the gulls filled my ears.
+
+"As I lay, breathing fast, drifting on the sea, far out beyond the
+gulls I saw a flash of white, and an arm was lifted, signalling me.
+
+"'Daisy!' I called.
+
+"A clear hail came across the water, distinct on the sea-wind, and at
+the same instant we raised our hands and moved towards each other.
+
+"How we laughed as we met in the sea! The white dawn came up out of
+the depths, the zenith turned to rose and ashes.
+
+"And with the dawn came the wind--a great sea-wind, fresh, aromatic,
+that hurled our voices back into our throats and lifted the sheeted
+spray above our heads. Every wave, crowned with mist, caught us in a
+cool embrace, cradled us, and slipped away, only to leave us to
+another wave, higher, stronger, crested with opalescent glory,
+breathing incense.
+
+"We turned together up the coast, swimming lightly side by side, but
+our words were caught up by the winds and whirled into the sky.
+
+"We looked up at the driving clouds; we looked out upon the pallid
+waste of waters, but it was into each other's eyes we looked,
+wondering, wistful, questioning the reason of sky and sea And there in
+each other's eyes we read the mystery, and we knew that earth and sky
+and sea were created for us alone.
+
+"Drifting on by distant sands and dunes, her white fingers touching
+mine, we spoke, keying our tones to the wind's vast harmony. And we
+spoke of love.
+
+"Gray and wide as the limitless span of the sky and the sea, the winds
+gathered from the world's ends to bear us on; but they were not
+familiar winds; for now, along the coast, the breakers curled and
+showed a million fangs, and the ocean stirred to its depths, uneasy,
+ominous, and the menace of its murmur drew us closer as we moved.
+
+"Where the dull thunder and the tossing spray warned us from sunken
+reefs, we heard the harsh challenges of gulls; where the pallid surf
+twisted in yellow coils of spume above the bar, the singing sands
+murmured of treachery and secrets of lost souls agasp in the throes of
+silent undertows.
+
+"But there was a little stretch of beach glimmering through the
+mountains of water, and towards this we turned, side by side. Around
+us the water grew warmer; the breath of the following waves moistened
+our cheeks; the water itself grew gray and strange about us.
+
+"'We have come too far,' I said; but she only answered:
+
+"'Faster, faster! I am afraid!' The water was almost hot now; its
+aromatic odor filled our lungs.
+
+"'The Gulf loop!' I muttered. 'Daisy, shall I help you?'
+
+"'No. Swim--close by me! Oh-h! Dick--'
+
+"Her startled cry was echoed by another--a shrill scream, unutterably
+horrible--and a great bird flapped from the beach, splashing and
+beating its pinions across the water with a thundering noise.
+
+"Out across the waves it blundered, rising little by little from the
+water, and now, to my horror, I saw another monstrous bird swinging in
+the air above it, squealing as it turned on its vast wings. Before I
+could speak we touched the beach, and I half lifted her to the shore.
+
+"'Quick!' I repeated. 'We must not wait.'
+
+"Her eyes were dark with fear, but she rested a hand on my shoulder,
+and we crept up among the dune-grasses and sank down by the point of
+sand where the rough shelter stood, surrounded by the iron-ringed
+piles.
+
+"She lay there, breathing fast and deep, dripping with spray. I had no
+power of speech left, but when I rose wearily to my knees and looked
+out upon the water my blood ran cold. Above the ocean, on the breast
+of the roaring wind, three enormous birds sailed, turning and wheeling
+among one another; and below, drifting with the gray stream of the
+Gulf loop, a colossal bulk lay half submerged--a gigantic lizard,
+floating belly upward.
+
+"Then Daisy crept kneeling to my side and touched me, trembling from
+head to foot.
+
+"'I know,' I muttered. 'I must run back for the rifle.'
+
+"'And--and leave me?'
+
+"I took her by the hand, and we dragged ourselves through the
+wire-grass to the open end of a boiler lying in the sand.
+
+"She crept in on her hands and knees, and called to me to follow.
+
+"'You are safe now,' I cried. 'I must go back for the rifle.'
+
+"'The birds may--may attack you.'
+
+"'If they do I can get into one of the other boilers,' I said. 'Daisy,
+you must not venture out until I come back. You won't, will you?'
+
+"'No-o,' she whispered, doubtfully.
+
+"'Then--good-bye.'
+
+"'Good-bye,' she answered, but her voice was very small and still.
+
+"'Good-bye,' I said again. I was kneeling at the mouth of the big
+iron tunnel; it was dark inside and I could not see her, but, before I
+was conscious of it, her arms were around my neck and we had kissed
+each other.
+
+"I don't remember how I went away. When I came to my proper senses I
+was swimming along the coast at full speed, and over my head wheeled
+one of the birds, screaming at every turn.
+
+"The intoxication of that innocent embrace, the close impress of her
+arms around my neck, gave me a strength and recklessness that neither
+fear nor fatigue could subdue. The bird above me did not even frighten
+me. I watched it over my shoulder, swimming strongly, with the tide
+now aiding me, now stemming my course; but I saw the shore passing
+quickly, and my strength increased, and I shouted when I came in sight
+of the house, and scrambled up on the sand, dripping and excited.
+There was nobody in sight, and I gave a last glance up into the air
+where the bird wheeled, still screeching, and hastened into the house.
+Freda stared at me in amazement as I seized the rifle and shouted for
+the professor.
+
+"'He has just gone to town, with Captain McPeek in his wagon,'
+stammered Freda.
+
+"'What!' I cried. 'Does he know where his daughter is?'
+
+"'Miss Holroyd is asleep--not?' gasped Freda.
+
+"'Where's Frisby?' I cried, impatiently.
+
+"'Yimmie?' quavered Freda.
+
+"'Yes, Jimmie; isn't there anybody here? Good Heavens! where's that
+man in the shop?'
+
+"'He also iss gone,' said Freda, shedding tears, 'to buy papier-maché.
+Yimmie, he iss gone to post bills.'
+
+"I waited to hear no more, but swung my rifle over my shoulder, and,
+hanging the cartridge-belt across my chest, hurried out and up the
+beach. The bird was not in sight.
+
+"I had been running for perhaps a minute when, far up on the dunes, I
+saw a yellow dog rush madly through a clump of sweet-bay, and at the
+same moment a bird soared past, rose, and hung hovering just above the
+thicket. Suddenly the bird swooped; there was a shriek and a yelp from
+the cur, but the bird gripped it in one claw and beat its wings upon
+the sand, striving to rise. Then I saw Frisby--paste, bucket, and
+brush raised--fall upon the bird, yelling lustily. The fierce creature
+relaxed its talons, and the dog rushed on, squeaking with terror. The
+bird turned on Frisby and sent him sprawling on his face, a sticky
+mass of paste and sand. But this did not end the struggle. The bird,
+croaking horridly, flew at the prostrate bill-poster, and the sand
+whirled into a pillar above its terrible wings. Scarcely knowing what
+I was about, I raised my rifle and fired twice. A scream echoed each
+shot, and the bird rose heavily in a shower of sand; but two bullets
+were embedded in that mass of foul feathers, and I saw the wires and
+scarlet tape uncoiling on the sand at my feet. In an instant I seized
+them and passed the ends around a cedar-tree, hooking the clasps
+tight. Then I cast one swift glance upward, where the bird wheeled,
+screeching, anchored like a kite to the pallium wires; and I hurried
+on across the dunes, the shells cutting my feet and the bushes tearing
+my wet swimming-suit, until I dripped with blood from shoulder to
+ankle. Out in the ocean the carcass of the thermosaurus floated, claws
+outspread, belly glistening in the gray light, and over him circled
+two birds. As I reached the shelter I knelt and fired into the mass of
+scales, and at my first shot a horrible thing occurred--the
+lizard-like head writhed, the slitted yellow eyes sliding open from
+the film that covered them. A shudder passed across the undulating
+body, the great scaled belly heaved, and one leg feebly clawed at the
+air.
+
+"The thing was still alive!
+
+"Crushing back the horror that almost paralyzed my hands, I planted
+shot after shot into the quivering reptile, while it writhed and
+clawed, striving to turn over and dive; and at each shot the black
+blood spurted in long, slim jets across the water. And now Daisy was
+at my side, pale and determined, swiftly clasping each tape-marked
+wire to the iron rings in the circle around us. Twice I filled the
+magazine from my belt, and twice I poured streams of steel-tipped
+bullets into the scaled mass, twisting and shuddering on the sea.
+Suddenly the birds steered towards us. I felt the wind from their vast
+wings. I saw the feathers erect, vibrating. I saw the spread claws
+outstretched, and I struck furiously at them, crying to Daisy to run
+into the iron shelter. Backing, swinging my clubbed rifle, I
+retreated, but I tripped across one of the taut pallium wires, and in
+an instant the hideous birds were on me, and the bone in my forearm
+snapped like a pipe-stem at a blow from their wings. Twice I struggled
+to my knees, blinded with blood, confused, almost fainting; then I
+fell again, rolling into the mouth of the iron boiler.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"When I struggled back to consciousness Daisy knelt silently beside
+me, while Captain McPeek and Professor Holroyd bound up my shattered
+arm, talking excitedly. The pain made me faint and dizzy. I tried to
+speak and could not. At last they got me to my feet and into the
+wagon, and Daisy came, too, and crouched beside me, wrapped in
+oilskins to her eyes. Fatigue, lack of food, and excitement had
+combined with wounds and broken bones to extinguish the last atom of
+strength in my body; but my mind was clear enough to understand that
+the trouble was over and the thermosaurus safe.
+
+"I heard McPeek say that one of the birds that I had anchored to a
+cedar-tree had torn loose from the bullets and had winged its way
+heavily out to sea. The professor answered: 'Yes, the ekaf-bird; the
+others were ool-ylliks. I'd have given my right arm to have secured
+them.' Then for a time I heard no more; but the jolting of the wagon
+over the dunes roused me to keenest pain, and I held out my right hand
+to Daisy. She clasped it in both of hers, and kissed it again and
+again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There is little more to add, I think. Professor Bruce Stoddard's
+scientific pamphlet will be published soon, to be followed by
+Professor Holroyd's sixteen volumes. In a few days the stuffed and
+mounted thermosaurus will be placed on free public exhibition in the
+arena of Madison Square Garden, the only building in the city large
+enough to contain the body of this immense winged reptile."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young man hesitated, looking long and earnestly at Miss Barrison.
+
+"Did you marry her?" she asked, softly.
+
+"You wouldn't believe it," said the young man, earnestly--"you
+wouldn't believe it, after all that happened, if I should tell you
+that she married Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia--would you?"
+
+"Yes, I would," said Miss Barrison. "You never can tell what a girl
+will do."
+
+"That story of yours," I said, "is to me the most wonderful and
+valuable contribution to nature study that it has ever been my fortune
+to listen to. You are fitted to write; it is your sacred mission to
+produce. Are you going to?"
+
+"I am writing," said the young man, quietly, "a nature book. Sir Peter
+Grebe's magnificent monograph on the speckled titmouse inspired me.
+But nature study is not what I have chosen as my life's mission."
+
+He looked dreamily across at Miss Barrison. "No, not natural
+phenomena," he repeated, "but unnatural phenomena. What Professor
+Hyssop has done for Columbia, I shall attempt to do for Harvard. In
+fact, I have already accepted the chair of Psychical Phenomena at
+Cambridge."
+
+I gazed upon him with intense respect.
+
+"A personal experience revealed to me my life's work," he, went on,
+thoughtfully stroking his blond mustache. "If Miss Barrison would care
+to hear it--"
+
+"Please tell it," she said, sweetly.
+
+"I shall have to relate it clothed in that artificial garb known as
+literary style," he explained, deprecatingly.
+
+"It doesn't matter," I said, "I never noticed any style at all in your
+story of the thermosaurus."
+
+He smiled gratefully, and passed his hand over his face; a far-away
+expression came into his eyes, and he slowly began, hesitating, as
+though talking to himself:
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+"It was high noon in the city of Antwerp. From slender steeples
+floated the mellow music of the Flemish bells, and in the spire of the
+great cathedral across the square the cracked chimes clashed discords
+until my ears ached.
+
+"When the fiend in the cathedral had jerked the last tuneless clang
+from the chimes, I removed my fingers from my ears and sat down at one
+of the iron tables in the court. A waiter, with his face shaved blue,
+brought me a bottle of Rhine wine, a tumbler of cracked ice, and a
+siphon.
+
+"'Does monsieur desire anything else?' he inquired.
+
+"'Yes--the head of the cathedral bell-ringer; bring it with vinegar
+and potatoes,' I said, bitterly. Then I began to ponder on my
+great-aunt and the Crimson Diamond.
+
+"The white walls of the Hôtel St. Antoine rose in a rectangle around
+the sunny court, casting long shadows across the basin of the
+fountain. The strip of blue overhead was cloudless. Sparrows twittered
+under the eaves the yellow awnings fluttered, the flowers swayed in
+the summer breeze, and the jet of the fountain splashed among the
+water-plants. On the sunny side of the piazza the tables were vacant;
+on the shady side I was lazily aware that the tables behind me were
+occupied, but I was indifferent as to their occupants, partly because
+I shunned all tourists, partly because I was thinking of my
+great-aunt.
+
+"Most old ladies are eccentric, but there is a limit, and my
+great-aunt had overstepped it. I had believed her to be wealthy--she
+died bankrupt. Still, I knew there was one thing she did possess, and
+that was the famous Crimson Diamond. Now, of course, you know who my
+great-aunt was.
+
+"Excepting the Koh-i-noor and the Regent, this enormous and unique
+stone was, as everybody knows, the most valuable gem in existence. Any
+ordinary person would have placed that diamond in a safe-deposit. My
+great-aunt did nothing of the kind. She kept it in a small velvet bag,
+which she carried about her neck. She never took it off, but wore it
+dangling openly on her heavy silk gown.
+
+"In this same bag she also carried dried catnip-leaves, of which she
+was inordinately fond. Nobody but myself, her only living relative,
+knew that the Crimson Diamond lay among the sprigs of catnip in the
+little velvet bag.
+
+"'Harold,' she would say, 'do you think I'm a fool? If I place the
+Crimson Diamond in any safe-deposit vault in New York, somebody will
+steal it, sooner or later.' Then she would nibble a sprig of catnip
+and peer cunningly at me. I loathed the odor of catnip and she knew
+it. I also loathed cats. This also she knew, and of course surrounded
+herself with a dozen. Poor old lady! One day she was found dead in her
+bed in her apartments at the Waldorf. The doctor said she died from
+natural causes. The only other occupant of her sleeping-room was a
+cat. The cat fled when we broke open the door, and I heard that she
+was received and cherished by some eccentric people in a neighboring
+apartment.
+
+"Now, although my great-aunt's death was due to purely natural causes,
+there was one very startling and disagreeable feature of the case. The
+velvet bag containing the Crimson Diamond had disappeared. Every inch
+of the apartment was searched, the floors torn up, the walls
+dismantled, but the Crimson Diamond had vanished. Chief of Police
+Conlon detailed four of his best men on the case, and, as I had
+nothing better to do, I enrolled myself as a volunteer. I also offered
+$25,000 reward for the recovery of the gem. All New York was agog.
+
+"The case seemed hopeless enough, although there were five of us after
+the thief. McFarlane was in London, and had been for a month, but
+Scotland Yard could give him no help, and the last I heard of him he
+was roaming through Surrey after a man with a white spot in his hair.
+Harrison had gone to Paris. He kept writing me that clews were plenty
+and the scent hot, but as Dennet, in Berlin, and Clancy, in Vienna,
+wrote me the same thing, I began to doubt these gentlemen's ability.
+
+"'You say,' I answered Harrison, 'that the fellow is a Frenchman, and
+that he is now concealed in Paris; but Dennet writes me by the same
+mail that the thief is undoubtedly a German, and was seen yesterday in
+Berlin. To-day I received a letter from Clancy, assuring me that
+Vienna holds the culprit, and that he is an Austrian from Trieste.
+Now, for Heaven's sake,' I ended, 'let me alone and stop writing me
+letters until you have something to write about.'
+
+"The night-clerk at the Waldorf had furnished us with our first clew.
+On the night of my aunt's death he had seen a tall, grave-faced man
+hurriedly leave the hotel. As the man passed the desk he removed his
+hat and mopped his forehead, and the night-clerk noticed that in the
+middle of his head there was a patch of hair as white as snow.
+
+"We worked this clew for all it was worth, and, a month later, I
+received a cable despatch from Paris, saying that a man answering to
+the description of the Waldorf suspect had offered an enormous crimson
+diamond for sale to a jeweller in the Palais Royal. Unfortunately the
+fellow took fright and disappeared before the jeweller could send for
+the police, and since that time McFarlane in London, Harrison in
+Paris, Dennet in Berlin, and Clancy in Vienna had been chasing men
+with white patches on their hair until no gray-headed patriarch in
+Europe was free from suspicion. I myself had sleuthed it through
+England, France, Holland, and Belgium, and now I found myself in
+Antwerp at the Hôtel St. Antoine, without a clew that promised
+anything except another outrage on some respectable white-haired
+citizen. The case seemed hopeless enough, unless the thief tried again
+to sell the gem. Here was our only hope, for, unless he cut the stone
+into smaller ones, he had no more chance of selling it than he would
+have had if he had stolen the Venus of Milo and peddled her about the
+Rue de Seine. Even were he to cut up the stone, no respectable gem
+collector or jeweller would buy a crimson diamond without first
+notifying me; for although a few red stones are known to collectors,
+the color of the Crimson Diamond was absolutely unique, and there was
+little probability of an honest mistake.
+
+"Thinking of all these things, I sat sipping my Rhine wine in the
+shadow of the yellow awnings. A large white cat came sauntering by and
+stopped in front of me to perform her toilet, until I wished she would
+go away. After a while she sat up, licked her whiskers, yawned once or
+twice, and was about to stroll on, when, catching sight of me, she
+stopped short and looked me squarely in the face. I returned the
+attention with a scowl, because I wished to discourage any advances
+towards social intercourse which she might contemplate; but after a
+while her steady gaze disconcerted me, and I turned to my Rhine wine.
+A few minutes later I looked up again. The cat was still eying me.
+
+"'Now what the devil is the matter with the animal,' I muttered; 'does
+she recognize in me a relative?'
+
+"'Perhaps,' observed a man at the next table.
+
+"'What do you mean by that?' I demanded.
+
+"'What I say,' replied the man at the next table.
+
+"I looked him full in the face. He was old and bald and appeared
+weak-minded. His age protected his impudence. I turned my back on him.
+Then my eyes fell on the cat again. She was still gazing earnestly at
+me.
+
+"Disgusted that she should take such pointed public notice of me, I
+wondered whether other people saw it; I wondered whether there was
+anything peculiar in my own personal appearance. How hard the creature
+stared! It was most embarrassing.
+
+"'What has got into that cat?' I thought. 'It's sheer impudence. It's
+an intrusion, and I won't stand it!' The cat did not move. I tried to
+stare her out of countenance. It was useless. There was aggressive
+inquiry in her yellow eyes. A sensation of uneasiness began to steal
+over me--a sensation of embarrassment not unmixed with awe. All cats
+looked alike to me, and yet there was something about this one that
+bothered me--something that I could not explain to myself, but which
+began to occupy me.
+
+"She looked familiar--this Antwerp cat. An odd sense of having seen
+her before, of having been well acquainted with her in former years,
+slowly settled in my mind, and, although I could never remember the
+time when I had not detested cats, I was almost convinced that my
+relations with this Antwerp tabby had once been intimate if not
+cordial. I looked more closely at the animal. Then an idea struck
+me--an idea which persisted and took definite shape in spite of me. I
+strove to escape from it, to evade it, to stifle and smother it; an
+inward struggle ensued which brought the perspiration in beads upon my
+cheeks--a struggle short, sharp, decisive. It was useless--useless to
+try to put it from me--this idea so wretchedly bizarre, so grotesque
+and fantastic, so utterly inane--it was useless to deny that the cat
+bore a distinct resemblance to my great-aunt!
+
+"I gazed at her in horror. What enormous eyes the creature had!
+
+"'Blood is thicker than water,' said the man at the next table.
+
+"'What does he mean by that?' I muttered, angrily, swallowing a
+tumbler of Rhine wine and seltzer. But I did not turn. What was the
+use?
+
+"'Chattering old imbecile,' I added to myself, and struck a match, for
+my cigar was out; but, as I raised the match to relight it, I
+encountered the cat's eyes again. I could not enjoy my cigar with the
+animal staring at me, but I was justly indignant, and I did not intend
+to be routed. 'The idea! Forced to leave for a cat!' I sneered. 'We
+will see who will be the one to go!' I tried to give her a jet of
+seltzer from the siphon, but the bottle was too nearly empty to carry
+far. Then I attempted to lure her nearer, calling her in French,
+German, and English, but she did not stir. I did not know the Flemish
+for 'cat.'
+
+"'She's got a name, and won't come,' I thought. 'Now, what under the
+sun can I call her?'
+
+"'Aunty,' suggested the man at the next table.
+
+"I sat perfectly still. Could that man have answered my thoughts?--for
+I had not spoken aloud. Of course not--it was a coincidence--but a
+very disgusting one.
+
+"'Aunty,' I repeated, mechanically, 'aunty, aunty--good gracious, how
+horribly human that cat looks!' Then, somehow or other, Shakespeare's
+words crept into my head and I found myself repeating: 'The soul of my
+grandam might haply inhabit a bird; the soul of--nonsense!' I
+growled--'it isn't printed correctly! One might possibly say, speaking
+in poetical metaphor, that the soul of a bird might haply inhabit
+one's grandam--' I stopped short, flushing painfully. 'What awful
+rot!' I murmured, and lighted another cigar. The cat was still
+staring; the cigar went out. I grew more and more nervous. 'What rot!'
+I repeated. 'Pythagoras must have been an ass, but I do believe there
+are plenty of asses alive to-day who swallow that sort of thing.'
+
+"'Who knows?' sighed the man at the next table, and I sprang to my
+feet and wheeled about. But I only caught a glimpse of a pair of
+frayed coat-tails and a bald head vanishing into the dining-room. I
+sat down again, thoroughly indignant. A moment later the cat got up
+and went away.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+"Daylight was fading in the city of Antwerp. Down into the sea sank
+the sun, tinting the vast horizon with flakes of crimson, and touching
+with rich deep undertones the tossing waters of the Scheldt. Its glow
+fell like a rosy mantle over red-tiled roofs and meadows; and through
+the haze the spires of twenty churches pierced the air like sharp,
+gilded flames. To the west and south the green plains, over which the
+Spanish armies tramped so long ago, stretched away until they met the
+sky; the enchantment of the after-glow had turned old Antwerp into
+fairy-land; and sea and sky and plain were beautiful and vague as the
+night-mists floating in the moats below.
+
+"Along the sea-wall from the Rubens Gate all Antwerp strolled, and
+chattered, and flirted, and sipped their Flemish wines from slender
+Flemish glasses, or gossiped over krugs of foaming beer.
+
+"From the Scheldt came the cries of sailors, the creaking of cordage,
+and the puff! puff! of the ferry-boats. On the bastions of the
+fortress opposite, a bugler was standing. Twice the mellow notes of
+the bugle came faintly over the water, then a great gun thundered from
+the ramparts, and the Belgian flag fluttered along the lanyards to the
+ground.
+
+"I leaned listlessly on the sea-wall and looked down at the Scheldt
+below. A battery of artillery was embarking for the fortress. The
+tublike transport lay hissing and whistling in the slip, and the
+stamping of horses, the rumbling of gun and caisson, and the sharp
+cries of the officers came plainly to the ear.
+
+"When the last caisson was aboard and stowed, and the last trooper had
+sprung jingling to the deck, the transport puffed out into the
+Scheldt, and I turned away through the throng of promenaders; and
+found a little table on the terrace, just outside of the pretty café.
+And as I sat down I became aware of a girl at the next table--a girl
+all in white--the most ravishingly and distractingly pretty girl that
+I had ever seen. In the agitation of the moment I forgot my name, my
+fortune, my aunt, and the Crimson Diamond--all these I forgot in a
+purely human impulse to see clearly; and to that end I removed my
+monocle from my left eye. Some moments later I came to myself and
+feebly replaced it. It was too late; the mischief was done. I was not
+aware at first of the exact state of my feelings--for I had never been
+in love more than three or four times in all my life--but I did know
+that at her request I would have been proud to stand on my head, or
+turn a flip-flap into the Scheldt.
+
+"I did not stare at her, but I managed to see her most of the time
+when her eyes were in another direction. I found myself drinking
+something which a waiter brought, presumably upon an order which I did
+not remember having given. Later I noticed that it was a loathsome
+drink which the Belgians call 'American grog,' but I swallowed it and
+lighted a cigarette. As the fragrant cloud rose in the air, a voice,
+which I recognized with a chill, broke, into my dream of enchantment.
+Could _he_ have been there all the while--there sitting beside that
+vision in white? His hat was off, and the ocean-breezes whispered
+about his bald head. His frayed coat-tails were folded carefully over
+his knees, and between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he
+balanced a bad cigar. He looked at me in a mildly cheerful way, and
+said, 'I know now.'
+
+"'Know what?' I asked, thinking it better to humor him, for I was
+convinced that he was mad.
+
+"'I know why cats bite.'
+
+"This was startling. I hadn't an idea what to say.
+
+"'I know why,' he repeated; 'can you guess why?' There was a covert
+tone of triumph in his voice and he smiled encouragement. 'Come, try
+and guess,' he urged.
+
+"I told him that I was unequal to problems.
+
+"'Listen, young man,' he continued, folding his coat-tails closely
+about his legs--'try to reason it out: why should cats bite? Don't you
+know? I do.'
+
+"He looked at me anxiously.
+
+"'You take no interest in this problem?' he demanded.
+
+"'Oh yes.'
+
+"'Then why do you not ask me why?' he said, looking vaguely
+disappointed.
+
+"'Well,' I said, in desperation, 'why do cats bite?--hang it all!' I
+thought, 'it's like a burned-cork show, and I'm Mr. Bones and he's
+Tambo!'
+
+"Then he smiled gently. 'Young man,' he said, 'cats bite because they
+feed on catnip. I have reasoned it out.'
+
+"I stared at him in blank astonishment. Was this benevolent-looking
+old party poking fun at me? Was he paying me up for the morning's
+snub? Was he a malignant and revengeful old party, or was he merely
+feeble-minded? Who might he be? What was he doing here in
+Antwerp--what was he doing now?--for the bald one had turned
+familiarly to the beautiful girl in white.
+
+"'Wilhelmina,' he said, 'do you feel chilly?' The girl shook her head.
+
+"'Not in the least, papa.'
+
+"'Her father!' I thought--'her father!' Thank God she did not say
+'popper'!
+
+"'I have been to the Zoo to-day,' announced the bald one, turning
+towards me.
+
+"'Ah, indeed,' I observed; 'er--I trust you enjoyed it.'
+
+"'I have been contemplating the apes,' he continued, dreamily. 'Yes,
+contemplating the apes.'
+
+"I tried to look interested.
+
+"'Yes, the apes,' he murmured, fixing his mild eyes on me. Then he
+leaned towards me confidentially and whispered, 'Can you tell me what
+a monkey thinks?'
+
+"'I cannot,' I replied, sharply.
+
+"'Ah,' he sighed, sinking back in his chair, and patting the slender
+hand of the girl beside him--'ah, who can tell what a monkey thinks?'
+His gentle face lulled my suspicions, and I replied, very gravely:
+
+"'Who can tell whether they think at all?'
+
+"'True, true! Who can tell whether they think at all; and if they do
+think, ah! who can tell what they think?'
+
+"'But,' I began, 'if you can't tell whether they think at all, what's
+the use of trying to conjecture what they _would_ think if they _did_
+think?'
+
+"He raised his hand in deprecation. 'Ah, it is exactly that which is
+of such absorbing interest--exactly that! It is the abstruseness of
+the proposition which stimulates research--which stirs profoundly the
+brain of the thinking world. The question is of vital and instant
+importance. Possibly you have already formed an opinion.'
+
+"I admitted that I had thought but little on the subject.
+
+"'I doubt,' he continued, swathing his knees in his coat-tails--'I
+doubt whether you have given much attention to the subject lately
+discussed by the Boston Dodo Society of Pythagorean Research.'
+
+"'I am not sure,' I said, politely, 'that I recall that particular
+discussion. May I ask what was the question brought up?'
+
+"'The Felis domestica question.'
+
+"'Ah, that must indeed be interesting! And--er--what may be the Felis
+do--do--'
+
+"'Domestica--not dodo. Felis domestica, the common or garden cat.'
+
+"'Indeed,' I murmured.
+
+"'You are not listening,' he said.
+
+"I only half heard him. I could not turn my eyes from his daughter's
+face.
+
+"'Cat!' shouted the bald one, and I almost leaped from my chair. 'Are
+you deaf?' he inquired, sympathetically.
+
+"'No--oh no!' I replied, coloring with confusion; 'you were--pardon
+me--you were--er--speaking of the dodo. Extraordinary bird that--'
+
+"'I was not discussing the dodo,' he sighed. 'I was speaking of cats.'
+
+"'Of course,' I said.
+
+"'The question is,' he continued, twisting his frayed coat-tails into
+a sort of rope--'the question is, how are we to ameliorate the present
+condition and social status of our domestic cats?'
+
+"'Feed 'em,' I suggested.
+
+"He raised both hands. They were eloquent with patient expostulation.
+'I mean their spiritual condition,' he said.
+
+"I nodded, but my eyes reverted to that exquisite face. She sat
+silent, her eyes fixed on the waning flecks of color in the western
+sky.
+
+"'Yes,' repeated the bald one, 'the spiritual welfare of our domestic
+cats.'
+
+"'Toms and tabbies?' I murmured.
+
+"'Exactly,' he said, tying a large knot in his coat-tails.
+
+"'You will ruin your coat,' I observed.
+
+"'Papa!' exclaimed the girl, turning in dismay, as that gentleman gave
+a guilty start, 'stop it at once!'
+
+"He smiled apologetically and made a feeble attempt to conceal his
+coat-tails.
+
+"'My dear,' he said, with gentle deprecation, 'I am so
+absent-minded--I always do it in the heat of argument.'
+
+"The girl rose, and, bending over her untidy parent, deftly untied the
+knot in his flapping coat. When he was disentangled, she sat down and
+said, with a ghost of a smile, 'He is so very absent-minded.'
+
+"'Your father is evidently a great student,' I ventured, pleasantly.
+How I pitied her, tied to this old lunatic!
+
+"'Yes, he is a great student,' she said, quietly.
+
+"'I am,' he murmured; 'that's what makes me so absent-minded. I often
+go to bed and forget to sleep.' Then, looking at me, he asked me my
+name, adding, with a bow, that his name was P. Royal Wyeth, Professor
+of Pythagorean Research and Abstruse Paradox.
+
+"'My first name is Penny--named after Professor Penny, of Harvard,' he
+said; 'but I seldom use my first name in connection with my second, as
+the combination suggests a household remedy of penetrating odor.'
+
+"'My name is Kensett,' I said, 'Harold Kensett, of New York.'
+
+"'Student?'
+
+"'Er--a little.'
+
+"'Student of diamonds?'
+
+"I smiled. 'Oh, I see you know who my great-aunt was,' I said.
+
+"'I know her,' he said.
+
+"'Ah--perhaps you are unaware that my great-aunt is not now living.'
+
+"'I know her,' he repeated, obstinately.
+
+"I bowed. What a crank he was!
+
+"'What do you study? You don't fiddle away all your time, do you?' he
+asked.
+
+"Now that was just what I did, but I was not pleased to have Miss
+Wyeth know it. Although my time was chiefly spent in killing time, I
+had once, in a fit of energy, succeeded in writing some verses 'To a
+Tomtit,' so I evaded a humiliating confession by saying that I had
+done a little work in ornithology.
+
+"'Good!' cried the professor, beaming all over. 'I knew you were a
+fellow-scientist. Possibly you are a brother-member of the Boston
+Dodo Society of Pythagorean Research. Are you a dodo?'
+
+"I shook my head. 'No, I am not a dodo.'
+
+"'Only a jay?'
+
+"'A--what?' I said, angrily.
+
+"'A jay. We call the members of the Junior Ornithological Jay Society
+of New York, jays, just as we refer to ourselves as dodos. Are you not
+even a jay?'
+
+"'I am not,' I said, watching him suspiciously.
+
+"'I must convert you, I see,' said the professor, smiling.
+
+"'I'm afraid I do not approve of Pythagorean research,' I began, but
+the beautiful Miss Wyeth turned to me very seriously, and, looking me
+frankly in the eyes, said:
+
+"'I trust you will be open to conviction.'
+
+"'Good Lord!' I thought. 'Can she be another lunatic?' I looked at her
+steadily. What a little beauty she was! She also, then, belonged to
+the Pythagoreans--a sect I despised. Everybody knows all about the
+Pythagorean craze, its rise in Boston, its rapid spread, and its
+subsequent consolidation with mental and Christian science, theosophy,
+hypnotism, the Salvation Army, the Shakers, the Dunkards, and the
+mind-cure cult, upon a business basis. I had hitherto regarded all
+Pythagoreans with the same scornful indifference which I accorded to
+the faith-curists; being a member of no particular church, I was
+scarcely prepared to take any of them seriously. Least of all did I
+approve of the 'business basis,' and I looked very much askance indeed
+at the 'Scientific and Religious Trust Company,' duly incorporated and
+generally known as the Pythagorean Trust, which, consolidating with
+mind-curists, faith-curists, and other flourishing salvation
+syndicates, actually claimed a place among ordinary trusts, and at the
+same time pretended to a control over man's future life. No, I could
+never listen--I was ashamed of even entertaining the notion, and I
+shook my head.
+
+"'No, Miss Wyeth, I am afraid I do not care to listen to any reasoning
+on this subject.'
+
+"'Don't you believe in Pythagoras?' demanded the professor, subduing
+his excitement with difficulty, and adding another knot to his
+coat-tails.
+
+"'No,' I said, 'I do not.'
+
+"'How do you know you don't?' inquired the professor.
+
+"'Because,' I said, firmly, 'it is nonsense to say that the soul of a
+human being can inhabit a hen!'
+
+"'Put it in a more simplified form!' insisted the professor. 'Do you
+believe that the soul of a hen can inhabit a human being?'
+
+"'No, I don't!'
+
+"'Did you ever hear of a hen-pecked man?' cried the professor, his
+voice ending in a shout.
+
+"I nodded, intensely annoyed.
+
+"'Will you listen to reason, then?' he continued, eagerly.
+
+"'No,' I began, but I caught Miss Wyeth's blue eyes fixed on mine with
+an expression so sad, so sweetly appealing, that I faltered.
+
+"'Yes, I will listen,' I said, faintly.
+
+"'Will you become my pupil?' insisted the professor.
+
+"I was shocked to find myself wavering, but my eyes were looking into
+hers, and I could not disobey what I read there. The longer I looked
+the greater inclination I felt to waver. I saw that I was going to
+give in, and, strangest of all, my conscience did not trouble me. I
+felt it coming--a sort of mild exhilaration took possession of me. For
+the first time in my life I became reckless--I even gloried in my
+recklessness.
+
+"'Yes, yes,' I cried, leaning eagerly across the table, 'I shall be
+glad--delighted! Will you take me as your pupil?' My single eye-glass
+fell from its position unheeded. 'Take me! Oh, will you take me?' I
+cried. Instead of answering, the professor blinked rapidly at me for a
+moment. I imagined his eyes had grown bigger, and were assuming a
+greenish tinge. The corners of his mouth began to quiver, emitting
+queer, caressing little noises, and he rapidly added knot after knot
+to his twitching coat-tails. Suddenly he bent forward across the table
+until his nose almost touched mine. The pupils of his eyes expanded,
+the iris assuming a beautiful, changing, golden-green tinge, and his
+coat-tails switched violently. Then he began to mew.
+
+"I strove to rouse myself from my paralysis--I tried to shrink back,
+for I felt the end of his cold nose touch mine. I could not move. The
+cry of terror died in my straining throat, my hands tightened
+convulsively; I was incapable of speech or motion. At the same time my
+brain became wonderfully clear. I began to remember everything that
+had ever happened to me--everything that I had ever done or said. I
+even remembered things that I had neither done nor said; I recalled
+distinctly much that had never happened. How fresh and strong my
+memory! The past was like a mirror, crystal clear, and there, in
+glorious tints and hues, the scenes of my childhood grew and glowed
+and faded, and gave place to newer and more splendid scenes. For a
+moment the episode of the cat at the Hôtel St. Antoine flashed across
+my mind. When it vanished a chilly stupor slowly clouded my brain; the
+scenes, the memories, the brilliant colors, faded, leaving me
+enveloped in a gray vapor, through which the two great eyes of the
+professor twinkled with a murky light. A peculiar longing stirred
+me--a strange yearning for something, I knew not what--but, oh! how I
+longed and yearned for it! Slowly this indefinite, incomprehensible
+longing became a living pain. Ah, how I suffered, and how the vapors
+seemed to crowd around me! Then, as at a great distance, I heard her
+voice, sweet, imperative:
+
+"'Mew!' she said.
+
+"For a moment I seemed to see the interior of my own skull, lighted as
+by a flash of fire; the rolling eyeballs, veined in scarlet, the
+glistening muscles quivering along the jaw, the humid masses of the
+convoluted brain; then awful darkness--a darkness almost tangible--an
+utter blackness, through which now seemed to creep a thin, silver
+thread, like a river crawling across a world--like a thought gliding
+to the brain--like a song, a thin, sharp song which some distant voice
+was singing--which I was singing.
+
+"And I knew that I was mewing!
+
+"I threw myself back in my chair and mewed with all my heart. Oh, that
+heavy load which was lifted from my breast! How good, how satisfying
+it was to mew! And how I did miaul and yowl!
+
+"I gave myself up to it, heart and soul; my whole being thrilled with
+the passionate outpourings of a spirit freed. My voice trembled in the
+upper bars of a feline love-song, quavered, descended, swelling again
+into an intimation that I brooked no rival, and ended with a
+magnificent crescendo.
+
+"I finished, somewhat abashed, and glanced askance at the professor
+and his daughter, but the one sat nonchalantly disentangling his
+coat-tails, and the other was apparently absorbed in the distant
+landscape. Evidently they did not consider me ridiculous. Flushing
+painfully, I turned in my chair to see how my grewsome solo had
+affected the people on the terrace. Nobody even looked at me. This,
+however, gave me little comfort, for, as I began to realize what I had
+done, my mortification and rage knew no bounds. I was ready to die of
+shame. What on earth had induced me to mew? I looked wildly about for
+escape--I would leap up--rush home to bury my burning face in my
+pillows, and, later, in the friendly cabin of a homeward-bound
+steamer. I would fly--fly at once! Woe to the man who blocked my way!
+I started to my feet, but at that moment I caught Miss Wyeth's eyes
+fixed on mine.
+
+"'Don't go,' she said.
+
+"What in Heaven's name lay in those blue eyes? I slowly sank back into
+my chair.
+
+"Then the professor spoke: 'Wilhelmina, I have just received a
+despatch.'
+
+"'Where from, papa?'
+
+"'From India. I'm going at once.'
+
+"She nodded her head, without turning her eyes from the sea. 'Is it
+important, papa?'
+
+"'I should say so. The cashier of the local trust has compromised an
+astral body, and has squandered on her all our funds, including a lot
+of first mortgages on Nirvana. I suppose he's been dabbling in futures
+and is short in his accounts. I sha'n't be gone long.'
+
+"'Then, good-night, papa,' she said, kissing him; 'try to be back by
+eleven.' I sat stupidly staring at them.
+
+"'Oh, it's only to Bombay--I sha'n't go to Thibet
+to-night--good-night, my dear,' said the professor.
+
+"Then a singular thing occurred. The professor had at last succeeded
+in disentangling his coat-tails, and now, jamming his hat over his
+ears, and waving his arms with a batlike motion, he climbed upon the
+seat of his chair and ejaculated the word 'Presto!' Then I found my
+voice.
+
+"'Stop him!' I cried, in terror.
+
+"'Presto! Presto!' shouted the professor, balancing himself on the
+edge of his chair and waving his arms majestically, as if preparing
+for a sudden flight across the Scheldt; and, firmly convinced that he
+not only meditated it, but was perfectly capable of attempting it, I
+covered my eyes with my hands.
+
+"'Are you ill, Mr. Kensett?' asked the girl, quietly.
+
+"I raised my head indignantly. 'Not at all, Miss Wyeth, only I'll bid
+you good-evening, for this is the nineteenth century, and I'm a
+Christian.'
+
+"'So am I,' she said. 'So is my father.'
+
+"'The devil he is,' I thought.
+
+"Her next words made me jump.
+
+"'Please do not be profane, Mr. Kensett.'
+
+"How did she know I was profane? I had not spoken a word! Could it be
+possible she was able to read my thoughts? This was too much, and I
+rose.
+
+"'I have the honor to bid you good-evening,' I began, and reluctantly
+turned to include the professor, expecting to see that gentleman
+balancing himself on his chair. The professor's chair was empty.
+
+"'Oh,' said the girl, smiling, 'my father has gone.'
+
+"'Gone! Where?'
+
+"'To--to India, I believe.'
+
+"I sank helplessly into my own chair.
+
+"'I do not think he will stay very long--he promised to return by
+eleven,' she said, timidly.
+
+"I tried to realize the purport of it all. 'Gone to India? Gone! How?
+On a broomstick? Good Heavens,' I murmured, 'am I insane?'
+
+"'Perfectly,' she said, 'and I am tired; you may take me back to the
+hotel.'
+
+"I scarcely heard her; I was feebly attempting to gather up my numbed
+wits. Slowly I began to comprehend the situation, to review the
+startling and humiliating events of the day. At noon, in the court of
+the Hôtel St. Antoine, I had been annoyed by a man and a cat. I had
+retired to my own room and had slept until dinner. In the evening I
+met two tourists on the sea-wall promenade. I had been beguiled into
+conversation--yes, into intimacy with these two tourists! I had had
+the intention of embracing the faith of Pythagoras! Then I had mewed
+like a cat with all the strength of my lungs. Now the male tourist
+vanishes--and leaves me in charge of the female tourist, alone and at
+night in a strange city! And now the female tourist proposes that I
+take her home!
+
+"With a remnant of self-possession I groped for my eye-glass, seized
+it, screwed it firmly into my eye, and looked long and earnestly at
+the girl. As I looked, my eyes softened, my monacle dropped, and I
+forgot everything in the beauty and purity of the face before me. My
+heart began to beat against my stiff, white waistcoat. Had I
+dared--yes, dared to think of this wondrous little beauty as a female
+tourist? Her pale, sweet face, turned towards the sea, seemed to cast
+a spell upon the night. How loud my heart was beating! The yellow moon
+floated, half dipping in the sea, flooding land and water with
+enchanted lights. Wind and wave seemed to feel the spell of her eyes,
+for the breeze died away, the heaving Scheldt tossed noiselessly, and
+the dark Dutch luggers swung idly on the tide with every sail adroop.
+
+"A sudden hush fell over land and water, the voices on the promenade
+were stilled; little by little the shadowy throng, the terrace, the
+sea itself vanished, and I only saw her face, shadowed against the
+moon.
+
+"It seemed as if I had drifted miles above the earth, through all
+space and eternity, and there was naught between me and high heaven
+but that white face. Ah, how I loved her! I knew it--I never doubted
+it. Could years of passionate adoration touch her heart--her little
+heart, now beating so calmly with no thought of love to startle it
+from its quiet and send it fluttering against the gentle breast? In
+her lap her clasped hands tightened--her eyelids drooped as though
+some pleasant thought was passing. I saw the color dye her temples, I
+saw the blue eyes turn, half frightened, to my own, I saw--and I knew
+she had read my thoughts. Then we both rose, side by side, and she was
+weeping softly, yet for my life I dared not speak. She turned away,
+touching her eyes with a bit of lace, and I sprang to her side and
+offered her my arm.
+
+"'You cannot go back alone,' I said.
+
+"She did not take my arm.
+
+"'Do you hate me, Miss Wyeth?'
+
+"'I am very tired,' she said; 'I must go home.'
+
+"'You cannot go alone.'
+
+"'I do not care to accept your escort.'
+
+"'Then--you send me away?'
+
+"'No,' she said, in a hard voice. 'You can come if you like.' So I
+humbly attended her to the Hôtel St. Antoine.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+"As we reached the Place Verte and turned into the court of the hotel,
+the sound of the midnight bells swept over the city, and a horse-car
+jingled slowly by on its last trip to the railroad station.
+
+"We passed the fountain, bubbling and splashing in the moonlit court,
+and, crossing the square, entered the southern wing of the hotel. At
+the foot of the stairway she leaned for an instant against the
+banisters.
+
+"'I am afraid we have walked too fast,' I said.
+
+"She turned to me coldly. 'No--conventionalities must be observed. You
+were quite right in escaping as soon as possible.'
+
+"'But,' I protested, 'I assure you--'
+
+"She gave a little movement of impatience. 'Don't,' she said, 'you
+tire me--conventionalities tire me. Be satisfied--nobody has seen
+you.'
+
+"'You are cruel,' I said, in a low voice--'what do you think I care
+for conventionalities?'
+
+"'You care everything--you care what people think, and you try to do
+what they say is good form. You never did such an original thing in
+your life as you have just done.'
+
+"'You read my thoughts,' I exclaimed, bitterly. 'It is not fair--'
+
+"'Fair or not, I know what you consider me--ill-bred, common, pleased
+with any sort of attention. Oh! why should I waste one word--one
+thought on you?'
+
+"'Miss Wyeth--' I began, but she interrupted me.
+
+"'Would you dare tell me what you think of me?--Would you dare tell me
+what you think of my father?'
+
+"I was silent. She turned and mounted two steps of the stairway, then
+faced me again.
+
+"'Do you think it was for my own pleasure that I permitted myself to
+be left alone with you? Do you imagine that I am flattered by your
+attention?--do you venture to think I ever could be? How dared you
+think what you did think there on the sea-wall?'
+
+"'I cannot help my thoughts!' I replied.
+
+"'You turned on me like a tiger when you awoke from your trance. Do
+you really suppose that you mewed? Are you not aware that my father
+hypnotized you?'
+
+"'No--I did not know it,' I said. The hot blood tingled in my
+finger-tips, and I looked angrily at her.
+
+"'Why do you imagine that I waste my time on you?' she said. 'Your
+vanity has answered that question--now let your intelligence answer
+it. I am a Pythagorean; I have been chosen to bring in a convert, and
+you were the convert selected for me by the Mahatmas of the
+Consolidated Trust Company. I have followed you from New York to
+Antwerp, as I was bidden, but now my courage fails, and I shrink from
+fulfilling my mission, knowing you to be the type of man you are. If I
+could give it up--if I could only go away--never, never again to see
+you! Ah, I fear they will not permit it!--until my mission is
+accomplished. Why was I chosen--I, with a woman's heart and a woman's
+pride. I--I hate you!'
+
+"'I love you,' I said, slowly.
+
+"She paled and looked away.
+
+"'Answer me,' I said.
+
+"Her wide, blue eyes turned back again, and I held them with mine. At
+last she slowly drew a long-stemmed rose from the bunch at her belt,
+turned, and mounted the shadowy staircase. For a moment I thought I
+saw her pause on the landing above, but the moonlight was uncertain.
+After waiting for a long time in vain, I moved away, and in going
+raised my hand to my face, but I stopped short, and my heart stopped
+too, for a moment. In my hand I held a long-stemmed rose.
+
+"With my brain in a whirl I crept across the court and mounted the
+stairs to my room. Hour after hour I walked the floor, slowly at
+first, then more rapidly, but it brought no calm to the fierce tumult
+of my thoughts, and at last I dropped into a chair before the empty
+fireplace, burying my head in my hands.
+
+"Uncertain, shocked, and deadly weary, I tried to think--I strove to
+bring order out of the chaos in my brain, but I only sat staring at
+the long-stemmed rose. Slowly I began to take a vague pleasure in its
+heavy perfume, and once I crushed a leaf between my palms, and,
+bending over, drank in the fragrance.
+
+"Twice my lamp flickered and went out, and twice, treading softly, I
+crossed the room to relight it. Twice I threw open the door, thinking
+that I heard some sound without. How close the air was!--how heavy and
+hot! And what was that strange, subtle odor which had insensibly
+filled the room? It grew stronger and more penetrating, and I began
+to dislike it, and to escape it I buried my nose in the half-opened
+rose. Horror! The odor came from the rose--and the rose itself was no
+longer a rose--not even a flower now--it was only a bunch of catnip;
+and I dashed it to the floor and ground it under my heel.
+
+"'Mountebank!' I cried, in a rage. My anger grew cold--and I shivered,
+drawn perforce to the curtained window. Something was there, outside.
+I could not hear it, for it made no sound, but I knew it was there,
+watching me. What was it? The damp hair stirred on my head. I touched
+the heavy curtains. Whatever was outside them sprang up, tore at the
+window, and then rushed away.
+
+"Feeling very shaky, I crept to the window, opened it, and leaned out.
+The night was calm. I heard the fountain splashing in the moonlight
+and the sea-winds soughing through the palms. Then I closed the window
+and turned back into the room; and as I stood there a sudden breeze,
+which could not have come from without, blew sharply in my face,
+extinguishing the candle and sending the long curtains bellying out
+into the room. The lamp on the table flashed and smoked and sputtered;
+the room was littered with flying papers and catnip leaves. Then the
+strange wind died away, and somewhere in the night a cat snarled.
+
+"I turned desperately to my trunk and flung it open. Into it I threw
+everything I owned, pell-mell, closed the lid, locked it, and, seizing
+my mackintosh and travelling-bag, ran down the stairs, crossed the
+court, and entered the night-office of the hotel. There I called up
+the sleepy clerk, settled my reckoning, and sent a porter for a cab.
+
+"'Now,' I said, 'what time does the next train leave?'
+
+"'The next train for where?'
+
+"'Anywhere!'
+
+"The clerk locked the safe, and, carefully keeping the desk between
+himself and me, motioned the office-boy to look at the time-tables.
+
+"'Next train, 2.10. Brussels--Paris,' read the boy.
+
+"At that moment the cab rattled up by the curbstone, and I sprang in
+while the porter tossed my traps on top. Away we bumped over the stony
+pavement, past street after street lighted dimly by tall gas-lamps,
+and alley after alley brilliant with the glare of villanous all-night
+café-concerts, and then, turning, we rumbled past the Circus and the
+Eldorado, and at last stopped with a jolt before the Brussels station.
+
+"I had not a moment to lose. 'Paris!' I cried--'first-class!' and,
+pocketing the book of coupons, hurried across the platform to where
+the Brussels train lay. A guard came running up, flung open the door
+of a first-class carriage, slammed and locked it after I had jumped
+in, and the long train glided from the arched station out into the
+starlit morning.
+
+"I was all alone in the compartment. The wretched lamp in the roof
+flickered dimly, scarcely lighting the stuffy box. I could not see to
+read my time-table, so I wrapped my legs in the travelling-rug and lay
+back, staring out into the misty morning. Trees, walls,
+telegraph-poles flashed past, and the cinders drove in showers against
+the rattling windows. I slept at times, fitfully, and once, springing
+up, peered sharply at the opposite seat, possessed with the idea that
+somebody was there.
+
+"When the train reached Brussels I was sound asleep, and the guard
+awoke me with difficulty.
+
+"'Breakfast, sir?' he asked.
+
+"'Anything,' I sighed, and stepped out to the platform, rubbing my
+legs and shivering. The other passengers were already breakfasting in
+the station café, and I joined them and managed to swallow a cup of
+coffee and a roll.
+
+"The morning broke gray and cloudy, and I bundled myself into my
+mackintosh for a tramp along the platform. Up and down I stamped,
+puffing a cigar, and digging my hands deep in my pockets, while the
+other passengers huddled into the warmer compartments of the train or
+stood watching the luggage being lifted into the forward
+mail-carriage. The wait was very long; the hands of the great clock
+pointed to six, and still the train lay motionless along the platform.
+I approached a guard and asked him whether anything was wrong.
+
+"'Accident on the line,' he replied; 'monsieur had better go to his
+compartment and try to sleep, for we may be delayed until noon.'
+
+"I followed the guard's advice, and, crawling into my corner, wrapped
+myself in the rug and lay back watching the rain-drops spattering
+along the window-sill. At noon the train had not moved, and I lunched
+in the compartment. At four o'clock in the afternoon the
+station-master came hurrying along the platform, crying, 'Montez!
+montez! messieurs, s'il vous plaît'--and the train steamed out of the
+station and whirled away through the flat, treeless Belgian plains. At
+times I dozed, but the shaking of the car always awoke me, and I would
+sit blinking out at the endless stretch of plain, until a sudden
+flurry of rain blotted the landscape from my eyes. At last a long,
+shrill whistle from the engine, a jolt, a series of bumps, and an
+apparition of red trousers and bayonets warned me that we had arrived
+at the French frontier. I turned out with the others, and opened my
+valise for inspection, but the customs officials merely chalked it,
+without examination, and I hurried back to my compartment amid the
+shouting of guards and the clanging of station bells. Again I found
+that I was alone in the compartment, so I smoked a cigarette, thanked
+Heaven, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
+
+"How long I slept I do not know, but when I awoke the train was
+roaring through a tunnel. When again it flashed out into the open
+country I peered through the grimy, rain-stained window and saw that
+the storm had ceased and stars were twinkling in the sky. I stretched
+my legs, yawned, pushed my travelling-cap back from my forehead, and,
+stumbling to my feet, walked up and down the compartment until my
+cramped muscles were relieved. Then I sat down again, and, lighting a
+cigar, puffed great rings and clouds of fragrant smoke across the
+aisle.
+
+"The train was flying; the cars lurched and shook, and the windows
+rattled accompaniment to the creaking panels. The smoke from my cigar
+dimmed the lamp in the ceiling and hid the opposite seat from view.
+How it curled and writhed in the corners, now eddying upward, now
+floating across the aisle like a veil! I lounged back in my cushioned
+seat, watching it with interest. What queer shapes it took! How thick
+it was becoming!--how strangely luminous! Now it had filled the whole
+compartment, puff after puff crowding upward, waving, wavering,
+clouding the windows, and blotting the lamp from sight. It was most
+interesting. I had never before smoked such a cigar. What an
+extraordinary brand! I examined the end, flicking the ashes away. The
+cigar was out. Fumbling for a match to relight it, my eyes fell on the
+drifting smoke-curtain which swayed across the corner opposite. It
+seemed almost tangible. How like a real curtain it hung, gray,
+impenetrable! A man might hide behind it. Then an idea came into my
+head, and it persisted until my uneasiness amounted to a vague terror.
+I tried to fight it off--I strove to resist--but the conviction slowly
+settled upon me that something was behind that smoke-veil--something
+which had entered the compartment while I slept.
+
+"'It can't be,' I muttered, my eyes fixed on the misty drapery; 'the
+train has not stopped.'
+
+"The car creaked and trembled. I sprang to my feet and swept my arm
+through the veil of smoke. Then my hair rose on my head. For my hand
+touched another hand, and my eyes had met two other eyes.
+
+"I heard a voice in the gloom, low and sweet, calling me by name; I
+saw the eyes again, tender and blue; soft fingers touched my own.
+
+"'Are you afraid?' she said.
+
+"My heart began to beat again, and my face warmed with returning
+blood.
+
+"'It is only I,' she said, gently.
+
+"I seemed to hear my own voice speaking as if at a great distance,
+'You here--alone?'
+
+"'How cruel of you!' she faltered; 'I am not alone.' At the same
+instant my eyes fell upon the professor, calmly seated by the farther
+window. His hands were thrust into the folds of a corded and tasselled
+dressing-gown, from beneath which peeped two enormous feet encased in
+carpet slippers. Upon his head towered a yellow night-cap. He did not
+pay the slightest attention to either me or his daughter, and, except
+for the lighted cigar which he kept shifting between his lips, he
+might have been taken for a wax dummy.
+
+"Then I began to speak, feebly, hesitating like a child.
+
+"'How did you come into this compartment? You--you do not possess
+wings, I suppose? You could not have been here all the time. Will you
+explain--explain to me? See, I ask you very humbly, for I do not
+understand. This is the nineteenth century, and these things don't fit
+in. I'm wearing a Dunlap hat--I've got a copy of the New York _Herald_
+in my bag--President Roosevelt is alive, and everything is so very
+unromantic in the world! Is this real magic? Perhaps I'm filled with
+hallucinations. Perhaps I'm asleep and dreaming. Perhaps you are not
+really here--nor I--nor anybody, nor anything!'
+
+"The train plunged into a tunnel, and when again it dashed out from
+the other end the cold wind blew furiously in my face from the farther
+window. It was wide open; the professor was gone.
+
+"'Papa has changed to another compartment,' she said, quietly. 'I
+think perhaps you were beginning to bore him.'
+
+"Her eyes met mine and she smiled.
+
+"'Are you very much bewildered?'
+
+"I looked at her in silence. She sat very quietly, her hands clasped
+above her knee, her curly hair glittering to her girdle. A long robe,
+almost silvery in the twilight, clung to her young figure; her bare
+feet were thrust deep into a pair of shimmering Eastern slippers.
+
+"'When you fled,' she sighed, 'I was asleep and there was no time to
+lose. I barely had a moment to go to Bombay, to find papa, and return
+in time to join you. This is an East-Indian costume.'
+
+"Still I was silent.
+
+"'Are you shocked?' she asked, simply.
+
+"'No,' I replied, in a dull voice, 'I'm past that.'
+
+"'You are very rude,' she said, with the tears starting to her eyes.
+
+"'I do not mean to be. I only wish to go away--away somewhere and find
+out what my name is.'
+
+"'Your name is Harold Kensett.'
+
+"'Are you sure?' I asked, eagerly.
+
+"'Yes--what troubles you?'
+
+"'Is everything plain to you? Are you a sort of prophet and
+second-sight medium? Is nothing hidden from you?' I asked.
+
+"'Nothing,' she faltered. My head ached and I clasped it in my hand.
+
+"A sudden change came over her. 'I am human--believe me!' she said,
+with piteous eagerness. 'Indeed, I do not seem strange to those who
+understand. You wonder, because you left me at midnight in Antwerp and
+you wake to find me here. If, because I find myself reincarnated,
+endowed with senses and capabilities which few at present possess--if
+I am so made, why should it seem strange? It is all so natural to me.
+If I appear to you--'
+
+"'Appear?'
+
+"'Yes--'
+
+"'Wilhelmina!' I cried; 'can you vanish?'
+
+"'Yes,' she murmured; 'does it seem to you unmaidenly?'
+
+"'Great Heaven!' I groaned.
+
+"'Don't!' she cried, with tears in her voice--'oh, please don't! Help
+me to bear it! If you only knew how awful it is to be different from
+other girls--how mortifying it is to me to be able to vanish--oh, how
+I hate and detest it all!'
+
+"'Don't cry,' I said, looking at her pityingly.
+
+"'Oh, dear me!' she sobbed. 'You shudder at the sight of me because I
+can vanish.'
+
+"'I don't!' I cried.
+
+"'Yes, you do! You abhor me--you shrink away! Oh, why did I ever see
+you?--why did you ever come into my life?--what have I done in ages
+past, that now, reborn, I suffer cruelly--cruelly?'
+
+"'What do you mean?' I whispered. My voice trembled with happiness.
+
+"'I?--nothing; but you think me a fabled monster.'
+
+"'Wilhelmina--my sweet Wilhelmina,' I said, 'I don't think you a
+fabled monster. I love you; see--see--I am at your feet; listen to me,
+my darling--'
+
+"She turned her blue eyes to mine. I saw tears sparkling on the curved
+lashes.
+
+"'Wilhelmina, I love you,' I said again.
+
+"Slowly she raised her hands to my head and held it a moment, looking
+at me strangely. Then her face grew nearer to my own, her glittering
+hair fell over my shoulders, her lips rested on mine.
+
+"In that long, sweet kiss the beating of her heart answered mine, and
+I learned a thousand truths, wonderful, mysterious, splendid; but when
+our lips fell apart, the memory of what I learned departed also.
+
+"'It was so very simple and beautiful,' she sighed, 'and I--I never
+saw it. But the Mahatmas knew--ah, they knew that my mission could
+only be accomplished through love.'
+
+"'And it is,' I whispered, 'for you shall teach me--me, your husband.'
+
+"'And--and you will not be impatient? You will try to believe?'
+
+"'I will believe what you tell me, my sweetheart.'
+
+"'Even about--cats?'
+
+"Before I could reply the farther window opened and a yellow
+night-cap, followed by the professor, entered from somewhere without.
+Wilhelmina sank back on her sofa, but the professor needed not to be
+told, and we both knew he was already busily reading our thoughts.
+
+"For a moment there was dead silence--long enough for the professor to
+grasp the full significance of what had passed. Then he uttered a
+single exclamation, 'Oh!'
+
+"After a while, however, he looked at me for the first time that
+evening, saying, 'Congratulate you, Mr. Kensett, I'm sure,' tied
+several knots in the cord of his dressing-gown, lighted a cigar, and
+paid no further attention to either of us. Some moments later he
+opened the window again and disappeared. I looked across the aisle at
+Wilhelmina.
+
+"'You may come over beside me,' she said, shyly.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+"It was nearly ten o'clock and our train was rapidly approaching
+Paris. We passed village after village wrapped in mist, station after
+station hung with twinkling red and blue and yellow lanterns, then
+sped on again with the echo of the switch-bells ringing in our ears.
+
+"When at length the train slowed up and stopped, I opened the window
+and looked out upon a long, wet platform, shining under the electric
+lights.
+
+"A guard came running by, throwing open the doors of each compartment,
+and crying, 'Paris next! Tickets, if you please.'
+
+"I handed him my book of coupons, from which he tore several and
+handed it back. Then he lifted his lantern and peered into the
+compartment, saying, 'Is monsieur alone?'
+
+"I turned to Wilhelmina.
+
+"'He wants your ticket--give it to me.'
+
+"'What's that?' demanded the guard.
+
+"I looked anxiously at Wilhelmina.
+
+"'If your father has the tickets--' I began, but was interrupted by
+the guard, who snapped:
+
+"'Monsieur will give himself the trouble to remember that I do not
+understand English.'
+
+"'Keep quiet!' I said, sharply, in French. 'I am not speaking to
+you.'
+
+"The guard stared stupidly at me, then, at my luggage, and finally,
+entering the car, knelt down and peered under the seats. Presently he
+got up, very red in the face, and went out slamming the door. He had
+not paid the slightest attention to Wilhelmina, but I distinctly heard
+him say, 'Only Englishmen and idiots talk to themselves!'
+
+"'Wilhelmina,' I faltered, 'do you mean to say that that guard could
+not see you?'
+
+"She began to look so serious again that I merely added, 'Never mind,
+I don't care whether you are invisible or not, dearest.'
+
+"'I am not invisible to you,' she said; 'why should you care?'
+
+"A great noise of bells and whistles drowned our voices, and, amid the
+whirring of switch-bells, the hissing of steam, and the cries of
+'Paris! All out!' our train glided into the station.
+
+"It was the professor who opened the door of our carriage. There he
+stood, calmly adjusting his yellow night-cap and drawing his
+dressing-gown closer with the corded tassels.
+
+"'Where have you been?' I asked.
+
+"'On the engine.'
+
+"'_In_ the engine, I suppose you mean,' I said.
+
+"'No, I don't; I mean _on_ the engine--on the pilot. It was very
+refreshing. Where are we going now?'
+
+"'Do you know Paris?' asked Wilhelmina, turning to me.
+
+"'Yes. I think your father had better take you to the Hôtel Normandie
+on the Rue de l'Échelle--'
+
+"'But you must stay there, too!'
+
+"'Of course--if you wish--'
+
+"She laughed nervously.
+
+"'Don't you see that my father and I could not take rooms--now? You
+must engage three rooms for yourself.'
+
+"'Why?' I asked, stupidly.
+
+"'Oh, dear--why, because we are invisible.'
+
+"I tried to repress a shudder. The professor gave Wilhelmina his arm,
+and, as I studied his ensemble, I thanked Heaven that he was
+invisible.
+
+"At the gate of the station I hailed a four-seated cab, and we rattled
+away through the stony streets, brilliant with gas-jets, and in a few
+moments rolled smoothly across the Avenue de l'Opéra, turned into the
+Rue de l'Échelle, and stopped. A bright little page, all over buttons,
+came out, took my luggage, and preceded us into the hallway.
+
+"I, with Wilhelmina on my arm and the professor shuffling along beside
+me, walked over to the desk.
+
+"'Room?' said the clerk. 'We have a very desirable room on the second,
+fronting the Rue St. Honoré--'
+
+"'But we--that is, I want three rooms--three separate rooms!' I said.
+
+"The clerk scratched his chin. 'Monsieur is expecting friends?'
+
+"'Say yes,' whispered Wilhelmina, with a suspicion of laughter in her
+voice.
+
+"'Yes,' I repeated, feebly.
+
+"'Gentlemen, of course?' said the clerk, looking at me narrowly.
+
+"'One lady.'
+
+"'Married, of course?'
+
+"'What's that to you?' I said, sharply. 'What do you mean by speaking
+to us--'
+
+"'Us!'
+
+"'I mean to me,' I said, badly rattled; 'give me the rooms and let me
+get to bed, will you?'
+
+"'Monsieur will remember,' said the clerk, coldly, 'that this is an
+old and respectable hotel.'
+
+"'I know it,' I said, smothering my rage.
+
+"The clerk eyed me suspiciously.
+
+"'Front!' he called, with irritating deliberation. 'Show this
+gentleman to apartment ten.'
+
+"'How many rooms are there!' I demanded.
+
+"'Three sleeping-rooms and a parlor.'
+
+"'I will take it,' I said, with composure.
+
+"'On probation,' muttered the clerk, insolently.
+
+"Swallowing the insult, I followed the bell-boy up the stairs, keeping
+between him and Wilhelmina, for I dreaded to see him walk through her
+as if she were thin air. A trim maid rose to meet us and conducted us
+through a hallway into a large apartment. She threw open all the
+bedroom-doors and said, 'Will monsieur have the goodness to choose?'
+
+"'Which will you take,' I began, turning to Wilhelmina.
+
+"'I? Monsieur!' cried the startled maid.
+
+"That completely upset me. 'Here,' I muttered, slipping some silver
+into her hand; 'now, for the love of Heaven, run away!'
+
+"When she had vanished with a doubtful 'Merci, monsieur!' I handed the
+professor the keys and asked him to settle the thing with Wilhelmina.
+
+"Wilhelmina took the corner room, the professor rambled into the next
+one, and I said good-night and crept wearily into my own chamber. I
+sat down and tried to think. A great feeling of fatigue weighted my
+spirits.
+
+"'I can think better with my clothes off,' I said, and slipped the
+coat from my shoulders. How tired I was! 'I can think better in bed,'
+I muttered, flinging my cravat on the dresser and tossing my
+shirt-studs after it. I was certainly very tired. 'Now,' I yawned,
+grasping the pillow and drawing it under my head--'now I can think a
+bit.' But before my head fell on the pillow sleep closed my eyes.
+
+"I began to dream at once. It seemed as though my eyes were wide open
+and the professor was standing beside my bed.
+
+"'Young man,' he said, 'you've won my daughter and you must pay the
+piper!'
+
+"'What piper?' I said.
+
+"'The Pied Piper of Hamelin, I don't think,' replied the professor,
+vulgarly, and before I could realize what he was doing he had drawn a
+reed pipe from his dressing-gown and was playing a strangely annoying
+air. Then an awful thing occurred. Cats began to troop into the room,
+cats by the hundred--toms and tabbies, gray, yellow, Maltese, Persian,
+Manx--all purring and all marching round and round, rubbing against
+the furniture, the professor, and even against me. I struggled with
+the nightmare.
+
+"'Take them away!' I tried to gasp.
+
+"'Nonsense!' he said; 'here is an old friend.'
+
+"I saw the white tabby cat of the Hôtel St. Antoine.
+
+"'An old friend,' he repeated, and played a dismal melody on his
+reed.
+
+"I saw Wilhelmina enter the room, lift the white tabby in her arms,
+and bring her to my side.
+
+"'Shake hands with him,' she commanded.
+
+"To my horror the tabby deliberately extended a paw and tapped me on
+the knuckles.
+
+"'Oh!' I cried, in agony; 'this is a horrible dream! Why, oh, why
+can't I wake!'
+
+"'Yes,' she said, dropping the cat, 'it is partly a dream, but some of
+it is real. Remember what I say, my darling; you are to go to-morrow
+morning and meet the twelve-o'clock train from Antwerp at the Gare du
+Nord. Papa and I are coming to Paris on that train. Don't you know
+that we are not really here now, you silly boy? Good-night, then. I
+shall be very glad to see you.'
+
+"I saw her glide from the room, followed by the professor, playing a
+gay quick-step, to which the cats danced two and two.
+
+"'Good-night, sir,' said each cat as it passed my bed; and I dreamed
+no more.
+
+"When I awoke, the room, the bed had vanished; I was in the street,
+walking rapidly; the sun shone down on the broad, white pavements of
+Paris, and the streams of busy life flowed past me on either side. How
+swiftly I was walking! Where the devil was I going? Surely I had
+business somewhere that needed immediate attention. I tried to
+remember when I had awakened, but I could not. I wondered where I had
+dressed myself; I had apparently taken great pains with my toilet, for
+I was immaculate, monocle and all, even down to a long-stemmed rose
+nestling in my button-hole. I knew Paris and recognized the streets
+through which I was hurrying. Where could I be going? What was my
+hurry? I glanced at my watch and found I had not a moment to lose.
+Then, as the bells of the city rang out mid-day, I hastened into the
+railroad station on the Rue Lafayette and walked out to the platform.
+And as I looked down the glittering track, around the distant curve
+shot a locomotive followed by a long line of cars. Nearer and nearer
+it came, while the station-gongs sounded and the switch-bells began
+ringing all along the track.
+
+"'Antwerp express!' cried the sous-chef de gare, and as the train
+slipped along the tiled platform I sprang upon the steps of a
+first-class carriage and threw open the door.
+
+"'How do you do, Mr. Kensett?' said Wilhelmina Wyeth, springing
+lightly to the platform. 'Really it is very nice of you to come to the
+train.' At the same moment a bald, mild-eyed gentleman emerged from
+the depths of the same compartment, carrying a large, covered basket.
+
+"'How are you, Kensett?' he said. 'Glad to see you again. Rather warm
+in that compartment--no, I will not trust this basket to an
+expressman; give Wilhelmina your arm and I'll follow. We go to the
+Normandie, I believe?'
+
+"All the morning I had Wilhelmina to myself, and at dinner I sat
+beside her, with the professor opposite. The latter was cheerful
+enough, but he nearly ruined my appetite, for he smelled strongly of
+catnip. After dinner he became restless and fidgeted about in his
+chair until coffee was brought, and we went up to the parlor of our
+apartment. Here his restlessness increased to such an extent that I
+ventured to ask him if he was in good health.
+
+"'It's that basket--the covered basket which I have in the next room,'
+he said.
+
+"'What's the trouble with the basket?' I asked.
+
+"'The basket's all right--but the contents worry me.'
+
+"'May I inquire what the contents are?' I ventured.
+
+"The professor rose.
+
+"'Yes,' he said, 'you may inquire of my daughter.' He left the room,
+but reappeared shortly, carrying a saucer of milk.
+
+"I watched him enter the next room, which was mine.
+
+"'What on earth is he taking that into my room for?' I asked
+Wilhelmina. 'I don't keep cats.'
+
+"'But you will,' she said.
+
+"'I? Never!'
+
+"'You will if I ask you to.'
+
+"'But--but you won't ask me.'
+
+"'But I do.'
+
+"'Wilhelmina!'
+
+"'Harold!'
+
+"'I detest cats.'
+
+"'You must not.'
+
+"'I can't help it.'
+
+"'You will when I ask it. Have I not given myself to you? Will you not
+make a little sacrifice for me?'
+
+"'I don't understand--'
+
+"'Would you refuse my first request?'
+
+"'No,' I said, miserably, 'I will keep dozens of cats--'
+
+"'I do not ask that; I only wish you to keep one.'
+
+"'Was that what your father had in that basket?' I asked,
+suspiciously.
+
+"'Yes, the basket came from Antwerp.'
+
+"'What! The white Antwerp cat!' I cried.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'And you ask me to keep that cat? Oh, Wilhelmina!'
+
+"'Listen!' she said. 'I have a long story to tell you; come nearer,
+close to me. You say you love me?'
+
+"I bent and kissed her.
+
+"'Then I shall put you to the proof,' she murmured.
+
+"'Prove me!'
+
+"'Listen. That cat is the same cat that ran out of the apartment in
+the Waldorf when your great-aunt ceased to exist--in human shape. My
+father and myself, having received word from the Mahatmas of the Trust
+Company, sheltered and cherished the cat. We were ordered by the
+Mahatmas to convert you. The task was appalling--but there is no such
+thing as refusing a command, and we laid our plans. That man with a
+white spot in his hair was my father--'
+
+"'What! Your father is bald.'
+
+"'He wore a wig then. The white spot came from dropping chemicals on
+the wig while experimenting with a substance which you could not
+comprehend.'
+
+"'Then--then that clew was useless; but who could have taken the
+Crimson Diamond? And who was the man with the white spot on his head
+who tried to sell the stone in Paris?'
+
+"'That was my father.'
+
+"'He--he--st--took the Crimson Diamond!' I cried, aghast.
+
+"'Yes and no. That was only a paste stone that he had in Paris. It
+was to draw you over here. He had the real Crimson Diamond also.'
+
+"'Your father?'
+
+"'Yes. He has it in the next room now. Can you not see how it
+disappeared, Harold? Why, the cat swallowed it!'
+
+"'Do you mean to say that the white tabby swallowed the Crimson
+Diamond?'
+
+"'By mistake. She tried to get it out of the velvet bag, and, as the
+bag was also full of catnip, she could not resist a mouthful, and
+unfortunately just then you broke in the door and so startled the cat
+that she swallowed the Crimson Diamond.'
+
+"There was a painful pause. At last I said:
+
+"'Wilhelmina, as you are able to vanish, I suppose you also are able
+to converse with cats.'
+
+"'I am,' she replied, trying to keep back the tears of mortification.
+
+"'And that cat told you this?'
+
+"'She did.'
+
+"'And my Crimson Diamond is inside that cat?'
+
+"'It is.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, firmly, 'I am going to chloroform the cat.'
+
+"'Harold!' she cried, in terror, 'that cat is your great-aunt!'
+
+"I don't know to this day how I stood the shock of that announcement,
+or how I managed to listen while Wilhelmina tried to explain the
+transmigration theory, but it was all Chinese to me. I only knew that
+I was a blood relation of a cat, and the thought nearly drove me mad.
+
+"'Try, my darling, try to love her,' whispered Wilhelmina; 'she must
+be very precious to you--'
+
+"'Yes, with my diamond inside her,' I replied, faintly.
+
+"'You must not neglect her,' said Wilhelmina.
+
+"'Oh no, I'll always have my eye on her--I mean I will surround her
+with luxury--er, milk and bones and catnip and books--er--does she
+read?'
+
+"'Not the books that human beings read. Now, go and speak to your
+aunt, Harold.'
+
+"'Eh! How the deuce--'
+
+"'Go; for my sake try to be cordial.'
+
+"She rose and led me unresistingly to the door of my room.
+
+"'Good Heavens!' I groaned; 'this is awful.'
+
+"'Courage, my darling!' she whispered. 'Be brave for love of me.'
+
+"I drew her to me and kissed her. Beads of cold perspiration started
+in the roots of my hair, but I clenched my teeth and entered the room
+alone. The room was dark and I stood silent, not knowing where to
+turn, fearful lest I step on my aunt! Then, through the dreary
+silence, I called, 'Aunty!'
+
+"A faint noise broke upon my ear, and my heart grew sick, but I strode
+into the darkness, calling, hoarsely:
+
+"'Aunt Tabby! It is your nephew!'
+
+"Again the faint sound. Something was stirring there among the
+shadows--a shape moving softly along the wall, a shade which glided by
+me, paused, wavered, and darted under the bed. Then I threw myself on
+the floor, profoundly moved, begging, imploring my aunt to come to
+me.
+
+"'Aunty! Aunty!' I murmured. 'Your nephew is waiting to take you to
+his heart!'
+
+"At last I saw my great-aunt's eyes shining in the dark."
+
+The young man's voice grew hushed and solemn, and he lifted his hand
+in silence:
+
+"Close the door. That meeting is not for the eyes of the world! Close
+the door upon that sacred scene where great-aunt and nephew are united
+at last."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long pause followed; deep emotion was visible in Miss Barrison's
+sensitive face. She said:
+
+"Then--you are married?"
+
+"No," replied Mr. Kensett, in a mortified voice.
+
+"Why not?" I asked, amazed.
+
+"Because," he said, "although my fiancée was prepared to accept a cat
+as her great-aunt, she could not endure the complications that
+followed."
+
+"What complications?" inquired Miss Barrison.
+
+The young man sighed profoundly, shaking his head.
+
+"My great-aunt had kittens," he said, softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tremendous scientific importance of these experiences excited me
+beyond measure. The simplicity of the narrative, the elaborate
+attention to corroborative detail, all bore irresistible testimony to
+the truth of these accounts of phenomena vitally important to the
+entire world of science.
+
+We all dined together that night--a little earnest company of
+knowledge-seekers in the vast wilderness of the unexplored; and we
+lingered long in the dining-car, propounding questions, advancing
+theories, speculating upon possibilities of most intense interest.
+Never before had I known a man whose relatives were cats and kittens,
+but he did not appear to share my enthusiasm in the matter.
+
+"You see," he said, looking at Miss Barrison, "it may be interesting
+from a purely scientific point of view, but it has already proved a
+bar to my marrying."
+
+"Were the kittens black?" I inquired.
+
+"No," he said, "my aunt drew the color-line, I am proud to say."
+
+"I don't see," said Miss Barrison, "why the fact that your great-aunt
+is a cat should prevent you from marrying."
+
+"It wouldn't prevent _me_!" said the young man, quickly.
+
+"Nor me," mused Miss Barrison--"if I were really in love."
+
+Meanwhile I had been very busy thinking about Professor Farrago, and,
+coming to an interesting theory, advanced it.
+
+"If," I began, "he marries one of those transparent ladies, what about
+the children?"
+
+"Some would be, no doubt, transparent," said Kensett.
+
+"They might be only translucent," suggested Miss Barrison.
+
+"Or partially opaque," I ventured. "But it's a risky marriage--not to
+be able to see what one's wife is about--"
+
+"That is a silly reflection on women," said Miss Barrison, quietly.
+"Besides, a girl need not be transparent to conceal what she's
+doing."
+
+This observation seemed to end our postprandial and tripartite
+conference; Miss Barrison retired to her stateroom presently; after a
+last cigar, smoked almost in silence, the young man and I bade each
+other a civil good-night and retired to our respective berths.
+
+I think it was at Richmond, Virginia, that I was awakened by the negro
+porter shaking me very gently and repeating, in a pleasant, monotonous
+voice: "Teleg'am foh you, suh! Teleg'am foh Mistuh Gilland, suh. 'Done
+call you 'lev'm times sense breakfass, suh! Las' call foh luncheon,
+suh. Teleg'am foh--"
+
+"Heavens!" I muttered, sitting up in my bunk, "is it as late as that!
+Where are we?" I slid up the window-shade and sat blinking at a flood
+of sunshine.
+
+"Telegram?" I said, yawning and rubbing my eyes. "Let me have it. All
+right, I'll be out presently. Shut that curtain! I don't want the
+entire car to criticise my pink pajamas!"
+
+"Ain' nobody in de cyar, 'scusin yo'se'f, suh," grinned the porter,
+retiring.
+
+I heard him, but did not comprehend, sitting there sleepily unfolding
+the scrawled telegram. Suddenly my eyes flew wide open; I scanned the
+despatch with stunned incredulity:
+
+
+              "ATLANTA, GEORGIA.
+
+    "We couldn't help it. Love at first sight. Married this
+    morning in Atlanta. Wildly happy. Forgive. Wire blessing.
+
+          "(Signed) HAROLD KENSETT,
+          "HELEN BARRISON KENSETT."
+
+"Porter!" I shouted. "Porter! Help!"
+
+There was no response.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" I groaned, and rolled over, burying my head in the
+blankets; for I understood at last that Science, the most jealous,
+most exacting of mistresses, could never brook a rival.
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                      |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Page  86: beautful replaced with beautiful                   |
+    | Page 180: Magazin replaced with Magazine                     |
+    | Page 206: sun-sorched replaced with sun-scorched             |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's In Search of the Unknown, by Robert W. Chambers
+
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's In Search of the Unknown, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In Search of the Unknown
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: June 23, 2006 [EBook #18668]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/cover.jpg" width="45%" alt="Book Cover" /><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation matches the original document.</p>
+<p class="noin">A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text.<br />
+For a complete list, please see the <a href="#TN">bottom of this document</a>.</p>
+<p class="noin">A Table of Contents has been added for the convenience of the reader.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="45%" alt="She Started Toward the Door" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">SHE STARTED TOWARD THE DOOR</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h1>
+IN SEARCH OF THE<br />
+UNKNOWN</h1>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</h2>
+
+<h4>AUTHOR OF "THE MAIDS OF PARADISE" "THE MAID-AT-ARMS"<br />
+"CARDIGAN" "THE CONSPIRATORS" ETC.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/deco.png" alt="publisher's deco" /><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>NEW YORK AND LONDON<br />
+HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br />
+1904</h5>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>Copyright, 1904, by <span class="sc">Robert W. Chambers</span>.</h5>
+
+<h6><i>All rights reserved.</i><br />
+Published June, 1904.</h6>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="30%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td><h3>Contents</h3></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td width="100%"><a href="#I">Chapter I</a><br />
+    <a href="#II">Chapter II</a><br />
+    <a href="#III">Chapter III</a><br />
+    <a href="#IV">Chapter IV</a><br />
+    <a href="#V">Chapter V</a><br />
+    <a href="#VI">Chapter VI</a><br />
+    <a href="#VII">Chapter VII</a><br />
+    <a href="#VIII">Chapter VIII</a><br />
+    <a href="#IX">Chapter IX</a><br />
+    <a href="#X">Chapter X</a><br />
+    <a href="#XI">Chapter XI</a><br />
+    <a href="#XII">Chapter XII</a><br />
+    <a href="#XIII">Chapter XIII</a><br />
+    <a href="#XIV">Chapter XIV</a><br />
+    <a href="#XV">Chapter XV</a><br />
+    <a href="#XVI">Chapter XVI</a><br />
+    <a href="#XVII">Chapter XVII</a><br />
+    <a href="#XVIII">Chapter XVIII</a><br />
+    <a href="#XIX">Chapter XIX</a><br />
+    <a href="#XX">Chapter XX</a><br />
+    <a href="#XXI">Chapter XXI</a><br />
+    <a href="#XXII">Chapter XXII</a><br />
+    <a href="#XXIII">Chapter XXIII</a><br />
+    <a href="#XXIV">Chapter XXIV</a><br />
+    <a href="#XXV">Chapter XXV</a><br />
+  </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>TO<br />
+MY FRIEND<br />
+E. LE GRAND BEERS</h4>
+
+<div class="block1"><p><span class="sc">My dear Le Grand,</span>&mdash;You and I were early drawn
+together by a common love of nature. Your researches into the
+natural history of the tree-toad, your observations upon the
+mud-turtles of Providence Township, your experiments with the
+fresh-water lobster, all stimulated my enthusiasm in a
+scientific direction, which has crystallized in this helpful
+little book, dedicated to you.</p>
+
+<p>Pray accept it as an insignificant payment on account for all
+I owe to you.</p>
+
+<p class="right sc">The Author.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>PREFACE</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>It appears to the writer that there is urgent need of more "nature
+books"&mdash;books that are scraped clear of fiction and which display only
+the carefully articulated skeleton of fact. Hence this little volume,
+presented with some hesitation and more modesty. Various chapters
+have, at intervals, appeared in the pages of various publications. The
+continued narrative is now published for the first time; and the
+writer trusts that it may inspire enthusiasm for natural and
+scientific research, and inculcate a passion for accurate observation
+among the young.</p>
+
+<p class="right sc">The Author.</p>
+
+<p><i>April 1, 1904.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Where the slanting forest eaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shingled tight with greenest leaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweep the scented meadow-sedge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let us snoop along the edge;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let us pry in hidden nooks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Laden with our nature books,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scaring birds with happy cries,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chloroforming butterflies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rooting up each woodland plant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pinning beetle, fly, and ant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So we may identify<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What we've ruined, by-and-by.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="I" id="I"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span><br />
+
+<h2>IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<h3>I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>Because it all seems so improbable&mdash;so horribly impossible to me now,
+sitting here safe and sane in my own library&mdash;I hesitate to record an
+episode which already appears to me less horrible than grotesque. Yet,
+unless this story is written now, I know I shall never have the
+courage to tell the truth about the matter&mdash;not from fear of ridicule,
+but because I myself shall soon cease to credit what I now know to be
+true. Yet scarcely a month has elapsed since I heard the stealthy
+purring of what I believed to be the shoaling undertow&mdash;scarcely a
+month ago, with my own eyes, I saw that which, even now, I am
+beginning to believe never existed. As for the harbor-master&mdash;and the
+blow I am now striking at the old order of things&mdash;But of that I shall
+not speak now, or later; I shall try to tell the story simply and
+truthfully, and let my friends testify as to my probity and the
+publishers of this book corroborate them.</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of February I resigned my position under the government
+and left Washington to accept an offer from Professor Farrago&mdash;whose
+name he kindly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>permits me to use&mdash;and on the first day of April I
+entered upon my new and congenial duties as general superintendent of
+the water-fowl department connected with the Zoological Gardens then
+in course of erection at Bronx Park, New York.</p>
+
+<p>For a week I followed the routine, examining the new foundations,
+studying the architect's plans, following the surveyors through the
+Bronx thickets, suggesting arrangements for water-courses and pools
+destined to be included in the enclosures for swans, geese, pelicans,
+herons, and such of the waders and swimmers as we might expect to
+acclimate in Bronx Park.</p>
+
+<p>It was at that time the policy of the trustees and officers of the
+Zoological Gardens neither to employ collectors nor to send out
+expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided to depend upon
+voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in
+dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services
+as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers,
+snarers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at
+exorbitant rates.</p>
+
+<p>To the proprietors of five-legged kittens, mangy lynxes, moth-eaten
+coyotes, and dancing bears I returned courteous but uncompromising
+refusals&mdash;of course, first submitting all such letters, together with
+my replies, to Professor Farrago.</p>
+
+<p>One day towards the end of May, however, just as I was leaving Bronx
+Park to return to town, Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department,
+called out to me that Professor Farrago wanted to see me a moment; so
+I put my pipe into my pocket again and retraced my steps to the
+temporary, wooden building occupied by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>Professor Farrago, general
+superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. The professor, who was
+sitting at his desk before a pile of letters and replies submitted for
+approval by me, pushed his glasses down and looked over them at me
+with a whimsical smile that suggested amusement, impatience,
+annoyance, and perhaps a faint trace of apology.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, here's a letter," he said, with a deliberate gesture towards a
+sheet of paper impaled on a file&mdash;"a letter that I suppose you
+remember." He disengaged the sheet of paper and handed it to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," I replied, with a shrug; "of course the man is
+mistaken&mdash;or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or what?" demanded Professor Farrago, tranquilly, wiping his glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Or a liar," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence he leaned back in his chair and bade me read the
+letter to him again, and I did so with a contemptuous tolerance for
+the writer, who must have been either a very innocent victim or a very
+stupid swindler. I said as much to Professor Farrago, but, to my
+surprise, he appeared to waver.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he said, with his near-sighted, embarrassed smile, "that
+nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a thousand would throw that letter
+aside and condemn the writer as a liar or a fool?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my opinion," said I, "he's one or the other."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't&mdash;in mine," said the professor, placidly.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" I exclaimed. "Here is a man living all alone on a strip of
+rock and sand between the wilderness and the sea, who wants you to
+send somebody to take charge of a bird that doesn't exist!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>"How do you know," asked Professor Farrago, "that the bird in question
+does not exist?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is generally accepted," I replied, sarcastically, "that the great
+auk has been extinct for years. Therefore I may be pardoned for
+doubting that our correspondent possesses a pair of them alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you young fellows," said the professor, smiling wearily, "you
+embark on a theory for destinations that don't exist."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned back in his chair, his amused eyes searching space for the
+imagery that made him smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of Heaven and a
+stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to&mdash;do you?"</p>
+
+<p>Rather red in the face, I said: "Don't you believe the great auk to be
+extinct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Audubon saw the great auk."</p>
+
+<p>"Who has seen a single specimen since?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody&mdash;except our correspondent here," he replied, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>I laughed, too, considering the interview at an end, but the professor
+went on, coolly:</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever it is that our correspondent has&mdash;and I am daring to believe
+that it <i>is</i> the great auk itself&mdash;I want you to secure it for the
+society."</p>
+
+<p>When my astonishment subsided my first conscious sentiment was one of
+pity. Clearly, Professor Farrago was on the verge of dotage&mdash;ah, what
+a loss to the world!</p>
+
+<p>I believe now that Professor Farrago perfectly interpreted my
+thoughts, but he betrayed neither resentment nor impatience. I drew a
+chair up beside his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>desk&mdash;there was nothing to do but to obey, and
+this fool's errand was none of my conceiving.</p>
+
+<p>Together we made out a list of articles necessary for me and itemized
+the expenses I might incur, and I set a date for my return, allowing
+no margin for a successful termination to the expedition.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that," said the professor. "What I want you to do is to
+get those birds here safely. Now, how many men will you take?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," I replied, bluntly; "it's a useless expense, unless there is
+something to bring back. If there is I'll wire you, you may be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Professor Farrago, good-humoredly, "you shall have
+all the assistance you may require. Can you leave to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman was certainly prompt. I nodded, half-sulkily, aware
+of his amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"So," I said, picking up my hat, "I am to start north to find a place
+called Black Harbor, where there is a man named Halyard who possesses,
+among other household utensils, two extinct great auks&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>We were both laughing by this time. I asked him why on earth he
+credited the assertion of a man he had never before heard of.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he replied, with the same half-apologetic, half-humorous
+smile, "it is instinct. I feel, somehow, that this man Halyard <i>has</i>
+got an auk&mdash;perhaps two. I can't get away from the idea that we are on
+the eve of acquiring the rarest of living creatures. It's odd for a
+scientist to talk as I do; doubtless you're shocked&mdash;admit it, now!"</p>
+
+<p>But I was not shocked; on the contrary, I was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>conscious that the same
+strange hope that Professor Farrago cherished was beginning, in spite
+of me, to stir my pulses, too.</p>
+
+<p>"If he has&mdash;" I began, then stopped.</p>
+
+<p>The professor and I looked hard at each other in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said, encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>But I had nothing more to say, for the prospect of beholding with my
+own eyes a living specimen of the great auk produced a series of
+conflicting emotions within me which rendered speech profanely
+superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>As I took my leave Professor Farrago came to the door of the
+temporary, wooden office and handed me the letter written by the man
+Halyard. I folded it and put it into my pocket, as Halyard might
+require it for my own identification.</p>
+
+<p>"How much does he want for the pair?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand dollars. Don't demur&mdash;if the birds are really&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," I said, hastily, not daring to hope too much.</p>
+
+<p>"One thing more," said Professor Farrago, gravely; "you know, in that
+last paragraph of his letter, Halyard speaks of something else in the
+way of specimens&mdash;an undiscovered species of amphibious biped&mdash;just
+read that paragraph again, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>I drew the letter from my pocket and read as he directed:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"When you have seen the two living specimens of the great auk,
+and have satisfied yourself that I tell the truth, you may be
+wise enough to listen without prejudice to a statement I shall
+make concerning the existence of the strangest creature ever
+fashioned. I will merely say, at this time, that the creature
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>referred to is an amphibious biped and inhabits the ocean near
+this coast. More I cannot say, for I personally have not seen
+the animal, but I have a witness who has, and there are many
+who affirm that they have seen the creature. You will
+naturally say that my statement amounts to nothing; but when
+your representative arrives, if he be free from prejudice, I
+expect his reports to you concerning this sea-biped will
+confirm the solemn statements of a witness I <i>know</i> to be
+unimpeachable.</p>
+
+<p class="right">"Yours truly,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <span class="sc">Burton Halyard.</span></p>
+
+<p class="sc">"Black Harbor."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, after a moment's thought, "here goes for the
+wild-goose chase."</p>
+
+<p>"Wild auk, you mean," said Professor Farrago, shaking hands with me.
+"You will start to-night, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but Heaven knows how I'm ever going to land in this man
+Halyard's door-yard. Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>"About that sea-biped&mdash;" began Professor Farrago, shyly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't!" I said; "I can swallow the auks, feathers and claws, but
+if this fellow Halyard is hinting he's seen an amphibious creature
+resembling a man&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Or a woman," said the professor, cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>I retired, disgusted, my faith shaken in the mental vigor of Professor
+Farrago.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="II" id="II"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>The three days' voyage by boat and rail was irksome. I bought my kit
+at Sainte Croix, on the Central Pacific Railroad, and on June 1st I
+began the last stage of my journey <i>via</i> the Sainte Isole broad-gauge,
+arriving in the wilderness by daylight. A tedious forced march by
+blazed trail, freshly spotted on the wrong side, of course, brought me
+to the northern terminus of the rusty, narrow-gauge lumber railway
+which runs from the heart of the hushed pine wilderness to the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Already a long train of battered flat-cars, piled with sluice-props
+and roughly hewn sleepers, was moving slowly off into the brooding
+forest gloom, when I came in sight of the track; but I developed a
+gratifying and unexpected burst of speed, shouting all the while. The
+train stopped; I swung myself aboard the last car, where a pleasant
+young fellow was sitting on the rear brake, chewing spruce and reading
+a letter.</p>
+
+<p>"Come aboard, sir," he said, looking up with a smile; "I guess you're
+the man in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm looking for a man named Halyard," I said, dropping rifle and
+knapsack on the fresh-cut, fragrant pile of pine. "Are you Halyard?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm Francis Lee, bossing the mica pit at Port-of-Waves," he
+replied, "but this letter is from Halyard, asking me to look out for a
+man in a hurry from Bronx Park, New York."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>"I'm that man," said I, filling my pipe and offering him a share of
+the weed of peace, and we sat side by side smoking very amiably, until
+a signal from the locomotive sent him forward and I was left alone,
+lounging at ease, head pillowed on both arms, watching the blue sky
+flying through the branches overhead.</p>
+
+<p>Long before we came in sight of the ocean I smelled it; the fresh,
+salt aroma stole into my senses, drowsy with the heated odor of pine
+and hemlock, and I sat up, peering ahead into the dusky sea of pines.</p>
+
+<p>Fresher and fresher came the wind from the sea, in puffs, in mild,
+sweet breezes, in steady, freshening currents, blowing the feathery
+crowns of the pines, setting the balsam's blue tufts rocking.</p>
+
+<p>Lee wandered back over the long line of flats, balancing himself
+nonchalantly as the cars swung around a sharp curve, where water
+dripped from a newly propped sluice that suddenly emerged from the
+depths of the forest to run parallel to the railroad track.</p>
+
+<p>"Built it this spring," he said, surveying his handiwork, which seemed
+to undulate as the cars swept past. "It runs to the cove&mdash;or ought
+to&mdash;" He stopped abruptly with a thoughtful glance at me.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're going over to Halyard's?" he continued, as though answering
+a question asked by himself.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You've never been there&mdash;of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "and I'm not likely to go again."</p>
+
+<p>I would have told him why I was going if I had not already begun to
+feel ashamed of my idiotic errand.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you're going to look at those birds of his," continued Lee,
+placidly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>"I guess I am," I said, sulkily, glancing askance to see whether he
+was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>But he only asked me, quite seriously, whether a great auk was really
+a very rare bird; and I told him that the last one ever seen had been
+found dead off Labrador in January, 1870. Then I asked him whether
+these birds of Halyard's were really great auks, and he replied,
+somewhat indifferently, that he supposed they were&mdash;at least, nobody
+had ever before seen such birds near Port-of-Waves.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something else," he said, running, a pine-sliver through his
+pipe-stem&mdash;"something that interests us all here more than auks, big
+or little. I suppose I might as well speak of it, as you are bound to
+hear about it sooner or later."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, and I could see that he was embarrassed, searching for
+the exact words to convey his meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"If," said I, "you have anything in this region more important to
+science than the great auk, I should be very glad to know about it."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there was the faintest tinge of sarcasm in my voice, for he
+shot a sharp glance at me and then turned slightly. After a moment,
+however, he put his pipe into his pocket, laid hold of the brake with
+both hands, vaulted to his perch aloft, and glanced down at me.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear of the harbor-master?" he asked, maliciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Which harbor-master?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll know before long," he observed, with a satisfied glance into
+perspective.</p>
+
+<p>This rather extraordinary observation puzzled me. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>I waited for him to
+resume, and, as he did not, I asked him what he meant.</p>
+
+<p>"If I knew," he said, "I'd tell you. But, come to think of it, I'd be
+a fool to go into details with a scientific man. You'll hear about the
+harbor-master&mdash;perhaps you will see the harbor-master. In that event I
+should be glad to converse with you on the subject."</p>
+
+<p>I could not help laughing at his prim and precise manner, and, after a
+moment, he also laughed, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"It hurts a man's vanity to know he knows a thing that somebody else
+knows he doesn't know. I'm damned if I say another word about the
+harbor-master until you've been to Halyard's!"</p>
+
+<p>"A harbor-master," I persisted, "is an official who superintends the
+mooring of ships&mdash;isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>But he refused to be tempted into conversation, and we lounged
+silently on the lumber until a long, thin whistle from the locomotive
+and a rush of stinging salt-wind brought us to our feet. Through the
+trees I could see the bluish-black ocean, stretching out beyond black
+headlands to meet the clouds; a great wind was roaring among the trees
+as the train slowly came to a stand-still on the edge of the primeval
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>Lee jumped to the ground and aided me with my rifle and pack, and then
+the train began to back away along a curved side-track which, Lee
+said, led to the mica-pit and company stores.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what will you do?" he asked, pleasantly. "I can give you a good
+dinner and a decent bed to-night if you like&mdash;and I'm sure Mrs. Lee
+would be very glad to have you stop with us as long as you choose."</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him, but said that I was anxious to reach <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>Halyard's before
+dark, and he very kindly led me along the cliffs and pointed out the
+path.</p>
+
+<p>"This man Halyard," he said, "is an invalid. He lives at a cove called
+Black Harbor, and all his truck goes through to him over the company's
+road. We receive it here, and send a pack-mule through once a month.
+I've met him; he's a bad-tempered hypochondriac, a cynic at heart, and
+a man whose word is never doubted. If he says he has a great auk, you
+may be satisfied he has."</p>
+
+<p>My heart was beating with excitement at the prospect; I looked out
+across the wooded headlands and tangled stretches of dune and hollow,
+trying to realize what it might mean to me, to Professor Farrago, to
+the world, if I should lead back to New York a live auk.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a crank," said Lee; "frankly, I don't like him. If you find it
+unpleasant there, come back to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Does Halyard live alone?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;except for a professional trained nurse&mdash;poor thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"A man?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Lee, disgustedly.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he gave me a peculiar glance; hesitated, and finally said:
+"Ask Halyard to tell you about his nurse and&mdash;the harbor-master.
+Good-bye&mdash;I'm due at the quarry. Come and stay with us whenever you
+care to; you will find a welcome at Port-of-Waves."</p>
+
+<p>We shook hands and parted on the cliff, he turning back into the
+forest along the railway, I starting northward, pack slung, rifle over
+my shoulder. Once I met a group of quarrymen, faces burned brick-red,
+scarred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>hands swinging as they walked. And, as I passed them with a
+nod, turning, I saw that they also had turned to look after me, and I
+caught a word or two of their conversation, whirled back to me on the
+sea-wind.</p>
+
+<p>They were speaking of the harbor-master.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="III" id="III"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>Towards sunset I came out on a sheer granite cliff where the sea-birds
+were whirling and clamoring, and the great breakers dashed, rolling in
+double-thundered reverberations on the sun-dyed, crimson sands below
+the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Across the half-moon of beach towered another cliff, and, behind this,
+I saw a column of smoke rising in the still air. It certainly came
+from Halyard's chimney, although the opposite cliff prevented me from
+seeing the house itself.</p>
+
+<p>I rested a moment to refill my pipe, then resumed rifle and pack, and
+cautiously started to skirt the cliffs. I had descended half-way
+towards the beech, and was examining the cliff opposite, when
+something on the very top of the rock arrested my attention&mdash;a man
+darkly outlined against the sky. The next moment, however, I knew it
+could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of
+the cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before I
+could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf&mdash;or, at
+least, it seemed to&mdash;but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so
+unexpectedly, that I was not sure I had seen anything at all.</p>
+
+<p>However, I was curious enough to climb the cliff on the land side and
+make my way towards the spot where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>I imagined I saw the man. Of
+course, there was nothing there&mdash;not a trace of a human being, I mean.
+Something <i>had</i> been there&mdash;a sea-otter, possibly&mdash;for the remains of
+a freshly killed fish lay on the rock, eaten to the back-bone and
+tail.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment, below me, I saw the house, a freshly painted, trim,
+flimsy structure, modern, and very much out of harmony with the
+splendid savagery surrounding it. It struck a nasty, cheap note in the
+noble, gray monotony of headland and sea.</p>
+
+<p>The descent was easy enough. I crossed the crescent beach, hard as
+pink marble, and found a little trodden path among the rocks, that led
+to the front porch of the house.</p>
+
+<p>There were two people on the porch&mdash;I heard their voices before I saw
+them&mdash;and when I set my foot upon the wooden steps, I saw one of them,
+a woman, rise from her chair and step hastily towards me.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back!" cried the other, a man with a smooth-shaven, deeply lined
+face, and a pair of angry, blue eyes; and the woman stepped back
+quietly, acknowledging my lifted hat with a silent inclination.</p>
+
+<p>The man, who was reclining in an invalid's rolling-chair, clapped both
+large, pale hands to the wheels and pushed himself out along the
+porch. He had shawls pinned about him, an untidy, drab-colored hat on
+his head, and, when he looked down at me, he scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"I know who you are," he said, in his acid voice; "you're one of the
+Zoological men from Bronx Park. You look like it, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"It is easy to recognize you from your reputation," I replied,
+irritated at his discourtesy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>"Really," he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh, "I'm
+obliged for your frankness. You're after my great auks, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing else would have tempted me into this place," I replied,
+sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven for that," he said. "Sit down a moment; you've
+interrupted us." Then, turning to the young woman, who wore the neat
+gown and tiny cap of a professional nurse, he bade her resume what she
+had been saying. She did so, with deprecating glance at me, which made
+the old man sneer again.</p>
+
+<p>"It happened so suddenly," she said, in her low voice, "that I had no
+chance to get back. The boat was drifting in the cove; I sat in the
+stern, reading, both oars shipped, and the tiller swinging. Then I
+heard a scratching under the boat, but thought it might be
+sea-weed&mdash;and, next moment, came those soft thumpings, like the sound
+of a big fish rubbing its nose against a float."</p>
+
+<p>Halyard clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl in
+grim displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you know enough to be frightened?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not then," she said, coloring faintly; "but when, after a few
+moments, I looked up and saw the harbor-master running up and down the
+beach, I was horribly frightened."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" said Halyard, sarcastically; "it was about time." Then,
+turning to me, he rasped out: "And that young lady was obliged to row
+all the way to Port-of-Waves and call to Lee's quarrymen to take her
+boat in."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>Completely mystified, I looked from Halyard to the girl, not in the
+least comprehending what all this meant.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," said Halyard, ungraciously, which curt phrase was
+apparently the usual dismissal for the nurse.</p>
+
+<p>She rose, and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, stepping
+noiselessly into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"I want beef-tea!" bawled Halyard after her; then he gave me an
+unamiable glance.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a well-bred man," he sneered; "I'm a Harvard graduate, too, but
+I live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like."</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly are not reticent," I said, disgusted.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I be?" he rasped; "I pay that young woman for my
+irritability; it's a bargain between us."</p>
+
+<p>"In your domestic affairs," I said, "there is nothing that interests
+me. I came to see those auks."</p>
+
+<p>"You probably believe them to be razor-billed auks," he said,
+contemptuously. "But they're not; they're great auks."</p>
+
+<p>I suggested that he permit me to examine them, and he replied,
+indifferently, that they were in a pen in his backyard, and that I was
+free to step around the house when I cared to.</p>
+
+<p>I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda, and hastened off with mixed
+emotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in his
+senses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, I
+argued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin to
+a penguin in that pen.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupor of amazement when I
+came to the wire-covered enclosure. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>Not only were there two great
+auks in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on their
+sea-weed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two newly
+hatched chicks, all bill and feet, which nestled sedately at the edge
+of a puddle of salt-water, where some small fish were swimming.</p>
+
+<p>For a while excitement blinded, nay, deafened me. I tried to realize
+that I was gazing upon the last individuals of an all but extinct
+race&mdash;the sole survivors of the gigantic auk, which, for thirty years,
+has been accounted an extinct creature.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that I did not move muscle nor limb until the sun had gone
+down and the crowding darkness blurred my straining eyes and blotted
+the great, silent, bright-eyed birds from sight.</p>
+
+<p>Even then I could not tear myself away from the enclosure; I listened
+to the strange, drowsy note of the male bird, the fainter responses of
+the female, the thin plaints of the chicks, huddling under her breast;
+I heard their flipper-like, embryotic wings beating sleepily as the
+birds stretched and yawned their beaks and clacked them, preparing for
+slumber.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please," came a soft voice from the door, "Mr. Halyard awaits
+your company to dinner."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="IV" id="IV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>I dined well&mdash;or, rather, I might have enjoyed my dinner if Mr.
+Halyard had been eliminated; and the feast consisted exclusively of a
+joint of beef, the pretty nurse, and myself. She was exceedingly
+attractive&mdash;with a disturbing fashion of lowering her head and raising
+her dark eyes when spoken to.</p>
+
+<p>As for Halyard, he was unspeakable, bundled up in his snuffy shawls,
+and making uncouth noises over his gruel. But it is only just to say
+that his table was worth sitting down to and his wine was sound as a
+bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yah!" he snapped, "I'm sick of this cursed soup&mdash;and I'll trouble you
+to fill my glass&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is dangerous for you to touch claret," said the pretty nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"I might as well die at dinner as anywhere," he observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said I, cheerfully passing the decanter, but he did not
+appear overpleased with the attention.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't smoke, either," he snarled, hitching the shawls around until
+he looked like Richard the Third.</p>
+
+<p>However, he was good enough to shove a box of cigars at me, and I took
+one and stood up, as the pretty nurse slipped past and vanished into
+the little parlor beyond.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>We sat there for a while without speaking. He picked irritably at the
+bread-crumbs on the cloth, never glancing in my direction; and I,
+tired from my long foot-tour, lay back in my chair, silently
+appreciating one of the best cigars I ever smoked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he rasped out at length, "what do you think of my auks&mdash;and my
+veracity?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him that both were unimpeachable.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't they call me a swindler down there at your museum?" he
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>I admitted that I had heard the term applied. Then I made a clean
+breast of the matter, telling him that it was I who had doubted; that
+my chief, Professor Farrago, had sent me against my will, and that I
+was ready and glad to admit that he, Mr. Halyard, was a benefactor of
+the human race.</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh!" he said. "What good does a confounded wobbly, bandy-toed bird
+do to the human race?"</p>
+
+<p>But he was pleased, nevertheless; and presently he asked me, not
+unamiably, to punish his claret again.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm done for," he said; "good things to eat and drink are no good to
+me. Some day I'll get mad enough to have a fit, and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused to yawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he continued, "that little nurse of mine will drink up my
+claret and go back to civilization, where people are polite."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow or other, in spite of the fact that Halyard was an old pig,
+what he said touched me. There was certainly not much left in life for
+him&mdash;as he regarded life.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to leave her this house," he said, arranging <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>his shawls.
+"She doesn't know it. I'm going to leave her my money, too. She
+doesn't know that. Good Lord! What kind of a woman can she be to stand
+my bad temper for a few dollars a month!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said I, "that it's partly because she's poor, partly
+because she's sorry for you."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up with a ghastly smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You think she really is sorry?"</p>
+
+<p>Before I could answer he went on: "I'm no mawkish sentimentalist, and
+I won't allow anybody to be sorry for me&mdash;do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not sorry for you!" I said, hastily, and, for the first time
+since I had seen him, he laughed heartily, without a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>We both seemed to feel better after that; I drank his wine and smoked
+his cigars, and he appeared to take a certain grim pleasure in
+watching me.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no fool like a young fool," he observed, presently.</p>
+
+<p>As I had no doubt he referred to me, I paid him no attention.</p>
+
+<p>After fidgeting with his shawls, he gave me an oblique scowl and asked
+me my age.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-four," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Sort of a tadpole, aren't you?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>As I took no offence, he repeated the remark.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come," said I, "there's no use in trying to irritate me. I see
+through you; a row acts like a cocktail on you&mdash;but you'll have to
+stick to gruel in my company."</p>
+
+<p>"I call that impudence!" he rasped out, wrathfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care what you call it," I replied, undisturbed, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>"I am not
+going to be worried by you. Anyway," I ended, "it is my opinion that
+you could be very good company if you chose."</p>
+
+<p>The proposition appeared to take his breath away&mdash;at least, he said
+nothing more; and I finished my cigar in peace and tossed the stump
+into a saucer.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said I, "what price do you set upon your birds, Mr. Halyard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand dollars," he snapped, with an evil smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You will receive a certified check when the birds are delivered," I
+said, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say you agree to that outrageous bargain&mdash;and I
+won't take a cent less, either&mdash;Good Lord!&mdash;haven't you any spirit
+left?" he cried, half rising from his pile of shawls.</p>
+
+<p>His piteous eagerness for a dispute sent me into laughter impossible
+to control, and he eyed me, mouth open, animosity rising visibly.</p>
+
+<p>Then he seized the wheels of his invalid chair and trundled away, too
+mad to speak; and I strolled out into the parlor, still laughing.</p>
+
+<p>The pretty nurse was there, sewing under a hanging lamp.</p>
+
+<p>"If I am not indiscreet&mdash;" I began.</p>
+
+<p>"Indiscretion is the better part of valor," said she, dropping her
+head but raising her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated.</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless," said I, "you are hemming a 'kerchief."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless I am not," she said; "this is a night-cap for Mr.
+Halyard."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>A mental vision of Halyard in a night-cap, very mad, nearly set me
+laughing again.</p>
+
+<p>"Like the King of Yvetot, he wears his crown in bed," I said,
+flippantly.</p>
+
+<p>"The King of Yvetot might have made that remark," she observed,
+re-threading her needle.</p>
+
+<p>It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man's
+ears feel.</p>
+
+<p>To cool them, I strolled out to the porch; and, after a while, the
+pretty nurse came out, too, and sat down in a chair not far away. She
+probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with.</p>
+
+<p>"I have so little company&mdash;it is a great relief to see somebody from
+the world," she said. "If you can be agreeable, I wish you would."</p>
+
+<p>The idea that she had come out to see me was so agreeable that I
+remained speechless until she said: "Do tell me what people are doing
+in New York."</p>
+
+<p>So I seated myself on the steps and talked about the portion of the
+world inhabited by me, while she sat sewing in the dull light that
+straggled out from the parlor windows.</p>
+
+<p>She had a certain coquetry of her own, using the usual methods with an
+individuality that was certainly fetching. For instance, when she lost
+her needle&mdash;and, another time, when we both, on hands and knees,
+hunted for her thimble.</p>
+
+<p>However, directions for these pastimes may be found in contemporary
+classics.</p>
+
+<p>I was as entertaining as I could be&mdash;perhaps not quite as entertaining
+as a young man usually thinks he is. However, we got on very well
+together until I asked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>her tenderly who the harbor-master might be,
+whom they all discussed so mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not care to speak about it," she said, with a primness of which
+I had not suspected her capable.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I could scarcely pursue the subject after that&mdash;and, indeed,
+I did not intend to&mdash;so I began to tell her how I fancied I had seen a
+man on the cliff that afternoon, and how the creature slid over the
+sheer rock like a snake.</p>
+
+<p>To my amazement, she asked me to kindly discontinue the account of my
+adventures, in an icy tone, which left no room for protest.</p>
+
+<p>"It was only a sea-otter," I tried to explain, thinking perhaps she
+did not care for snake stories.</p>
+
+<p>But the explanation did not appear to interest her, and I was
+mortified to observe that my impression upon her was anything but
+pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't seem to like me and my stories," thought I, "but she is
+too young, perhaps, to appreciate them."</p>
+
+<p>So I forgave her&mdash;for she was even prettier than I had thought her at
+first&mdash;and I took my leave, saying that Mr. Halyard would doubtless
+direct me to my room.</p>
+
+<p>Halyard was in his library, cleaning a revolver, when I entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Your room is next to mine," he said; "pleasant dreams, and kindly
+refrain from snoring."</p>
+
+<p>"May I venture an absurd hope that you will do the same!" I replied,
+politely.</p>
+
+<p>That maddened him, so I hastily withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>I had been asleep for at least two hours when a movement by my bedside
+and a light in my eyes awakened me. I sat bolt upright in bed,
+blinking at Halyard, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>who, clad in a dressing-gown and wearing a
+night-cap, had wheeled himself into my room with one hand, while with
+the other he solemnly waved a candle over my head.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so cursed lonely," he said&mdash;"come, there's a good fellow&mdash;talk to
+me in your own original, impudent way."</p>
+
+<p>I objected strenuously, but he looked so worn and thin, so lonely and
+bad-tempered, so lovelessly grotesque, that I got out of bed and
+passed a spongeful of cold water over my head.</p>
+
+<p>Then I returned to bed and propped the pillows up for a back-rest,
+ready to quarrel with him if it might bring some little pleasure into
+his morbid existence.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, amiably, "I'm too worried to quarrel, but I'm much
+obliged for your kindly offer. I want to tell you something."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" I asked, suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to ask you if you ever saw a man with gills like a fish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gills?" I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, gills! Did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied, angrily, "and neither did you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I never did," he said, in a curiously placid voice, "but there's
+a man with gills like a fish who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you
+needn't look that way&mdash;nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I
+tell you that there's a man&mdash;or a thing that looks like a man&mdash;as big
+as you are, too&mdash;all slate-colored&mdash;with nasty red gills like a
+fish!&mdash;and I've a witness to prove what I say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" I asked, sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>"The witness? My nurse."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! She saw a slate-colored man with gills?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Mica Quarry
+Company at Port-of-Waves. So have a dozen men who work in the quarry.
+Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and anybody
+can tell you about the harbor-master."</p>
+
+<p>"The harbor-master!" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a
+man&mdash;and&mdash;by Heaven! <i>is</i> a man&mdash;that's the harbor-master. Ask any
+quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their
+boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of
+every cat-boat in the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he
+saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday!
+Ask anybody along the coast what sort of a thing moves about the
+cliffs like a man and slides over them into the sea like an otter&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it do that!" I burst out.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, did you? Well, <i>what was it?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Something kept me silent, although a dozen explanations flew to my
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>After a pause, Halyard said: "You saw the harbor-master, that's what
+you saw!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him without a word.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mistake me," he said, pettishly; "I don't think that the
+harbor-master is a spirit or a sprite or a hobgoblin, or any sort of
+damned rot. Neither do I believe it to be an optical illusion."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think it is?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's a man&mdash;I think it's a branch of the human race&mdash;that's
+what I think. Let me tell you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>something: the deepest spot in the
+Atlantic Ocean is a trifle over five miles deep&mdash;and I suppose you
+know that this place lies only about a quarter of a mile off this
+headland. The British exploring vessel, <i>Gull</i>, Captain Marotte,
+discovered and sounded it, I believe. Anyway, it's there, and it's my
+belief that the profound depths are inhabited by the remnants of the
+last race of amphibious human beings!"</p>
+
+<p>This was childish; I did not bother to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Believe it or not, as you will," he said, angrily; "one thing I know,
+and that is this: the harbor-master has taken to hanging around my
+cove, and he is attracted by my nurse! I won't have it! I'll blow his
+fishy gills out of his head if I ever get a shot at him! I don't care
+whether it's homicide or not&mdash;anyway, it's a new kind of murder and it
+attracts me!"</p>
+
+<p>I gazed at him incredulously, but he was working himself into a
+passion, and I did not choose to say what I thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, this slate-colored thing with gills goes purring and grinning
+and spitting about after my nurse&mdash;when she walks, when she rows, when
+she sits on the beach! Gad! It drives me nearly frantic. I won't
+tolerate it, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said I, "I wouldn't either." And I rolled over in bed convulsed
+with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment I heard my door slam. I smothered my mirth and rose to
+close the window, for the land-wind blew cold from the forest, and a
+drizzle was sweeping the carpet as far as my bed.</p>
+
+<p>That luminous glare which sometimes lingers after the stars go out,
+threw a trembling, nebulous radiance over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>sand and cove. I heard the
+seething currents under the breakers' softened thunder&mdash;louder than I
+ever heard it. Then, as I closed my window, lingering for a last look
+at the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle-deep, in the surf,
+all alone there in the night. But&mdash;was it a man? For the figure
+suddenly began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle,
+waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window
+again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the
+chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the
+coast&mdash;I heard nothing save the purring of bubbles on seething sands.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="V" id="V"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>It took me a week to perfect my arrangements for transporting the
+great auks, by water, to Port-of-Waves, where a lumber schooner was to
+be sent from Petite Sainte Isole, chartered by me for a voyage to New
+York.</p>
+
+<p>I had constructed a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to
+squat until they arrived at Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor
+Farrago were brief. One merely said "Victory!" Another explained that
+I wanted no assistance; and a third read: "Schooner chartered. Arrive
+New York July 1st. Send furniture-van to foot of Bluff Street."</p>
+
+<p>My week as a guest of Mr. Halyard proved interesting. I wrangled with
+that invalid to his heart's content, I worked all day on my osier
+cage, I hunted the thimble in the moonlight with the pretty nurse. We
+sometimes found it.</p>
+
+<p>As for the thing they called the harbor-master, I saw it a dozen
+times, but always either at night or so far away and so close to the
+sea that of course no trace of it remained when I reached the spot,
+rifle in hand.</p>
+
+<p>I had quite made up my mind that the so-called harbor-master was a
+demented darky&mdash;wandered from, Heaven knows where&mdash;perhaps shipwrecked
+and gone mad from his sufferings. Still, it was far from pleasant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>to
+know that the creature was strongly attracted by the pretty nurse.</p>
+
+<p>She, however, persisted in regarding the harbor-master as a
+sea-creature; she earnestly affirmed that it had gills, like a fish's
+gills, that it had a soft, fleshy hole for a mouth, and its eyes were
+luminous and lidless and fixed.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," she said, with a shudder, "it's all slate color, like a
+porpoise, and it looks as wet as a sheet of india-rubber in a
+dissecting-room."</p>
+
+<p>The day before I was to set sail with my auks in a cat-boat bound for
+Port-of-Waves, Halyard trundled up to me in his chair and announced
+his intention of going with me.</p>
+
+<p>"Going where?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To Port-of-Waves and then to New York," he replied, tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p>I was doubtful, and my lack of cordiality hurt his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course, if you need the sea-voyage&mdash;" I began.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't; I need you," he said, savagely; "I need the stimulus of our
+daily quarrel. I never disagreed so pleasantly with anybody in my
+life; it agrees with me; I am a hundred per cent. better than I was
+last week."</p>
+
+<p>I was inclined to resent this, but something in the deep-lined face of
+the invalid softened me. Besides, I had taken a hearty liking to the
+old pig.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want any mawkish sentiment about it," he said, observing me
+closely; "I won't permit anybody to feel sorry for me&mdash;do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll trouble you to use a different tone in addressing me," I
+replied, hotly; "I'll feel sorry for you if I choose <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>to!" And our
+usual quarrel proceeded, to his deep satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>By six o'clock next evening I had Halyard's luggage stowed away in the
+cat-boat, and the pretty nurse's effects corded down, with the newly
+hatched auk-chicks in a hat-box on top. She and I placed the osier
+cage aboard, securing it firmly, and then, throwing tablecloths over
+the auks' heads, we led those simple and dignified birds down the path
+and across the plank at the little wooden pier. Together we locked up
+the house, while Halyard stormed at us both and wheeled himself
+furiously up and down the beach below. At the last moment she forgot
+her thimble. But we found it, I forget where.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" shouted Halyard, waving his shawls furiously; "what the
+devil are you about up there?"</p>
+
+<p>He received our explanation with a sniff, and we trundled him aboard
+without further ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't run me across the plank like a steamer trunk!" he shouted, as I
+shot him dexterously into the cock-pit. But the wind was dying away,
+and I had no time to dispute with him then.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting above the pine-clad ridge as our sail flapped and
+partly filled, and I cast off, and began a long tack, east by south,
+to avoid the spouting rocks on our starboard bow.</p>
+
+<p>The sea-birds rose in clouds as we swung across the shoal, the black
+surf-ducks scuttered out to sea, the gulls tossed their sun-tipped
+wings in the ocean, riding the rollers like bits of froth.</p>
+
+<p>Already we were sailing slowly out across that great hole in the
+ocean, five miles deep, the most profound <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>sounding ever taken in the
+Atlantic. The presence of great heights or great depths, seen or
+unseen, always impresses the human mind&mdash;perhaps oppresses it. We were
+very silent; the sunlight stain on cliff and beach deepened to
+crimson, then faded into sombre purple bloom that lingered long after
+the rose-tint died out in the zenith.</p>
+
+<p>Our progress was slow; at times, although the sail filled with the
+rising land breeze, we scarcely seemed to move at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said the pretty nurse, "we couldn't be aground in the
+deepest hole in the Atlantic."</p>
+
+<p>"Scarcely," said Halyard, sarcastically, "unless we're grounded on a
+whale."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that soft thumping?" I asked. "Have we run afoul of a barrel
+or log?"</p>
+
+<p>It was almost too dark to see, but I leaned over the rail and swept
+the water with my hand.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly something smooth glided under it, like the back of a great
+fish, and I jerked my hand back to the tiller. At the same moment the
+whole surface of the water seemed to begin to purr, with a sound like
+the breaking of froth in a champagne-glass.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with you?" asked Halyard, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"A fish came up under my hand," I said; "a porpoise or something&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a low cry, the pretty nurse clasped my arm in both her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" she whispered. "It's purring around the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil's purring?" shouted Halyard. "I won't have anything
+purring around me!"</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, to my amazement, I saw that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>boat had stopped
+entirely, although the sail was full and the small pennant fluttered
+from the mast-head. Something, too, was tugging at the rudder,
+twisting and jerking it until the tiller strained and creaked in my
+hand. All at once it snapped; the tiller swung useless and the boat
+whirled around, heeling in the stiffening wind, and drove shoreward.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that I, ducking to escape the boom, caught a glimpse of
+something ahead&mdash;something that a sudden wave seemed to toss on deck
+and leave there, wet and flapping&mdash;a man with round, fixed, fishy
+eyes, and soft, slaty skin.</p>
+
+<p>But the horror of the thing were the two gills that swelled and
+relaxed spasmodically, emitting a rasping, purring sound&mdash;two gasping,
+blood-red gills, all fluted and scolloped and distended.</p>
+
+<p>Frozen with amazement and repugnance, I stared at the creature; I felt
+the hair stirring on my head and the icy sweat on my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the harbor-master!" screamed Halyard.</p>
+
+<p>The harbor-master had gathered himself into a wet lump, squatting
+motionless in the bows under the mast; his lidless eyes were
+phosphorescent, like the eyes of living codfish. After a while I felt
+that either fright or disgust was going to strangle me where I sat,
+but it was only the arms of the pretty nurse clasped around me in a
+frenzy of terror.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a fire-arm aboard that we could get at. Halyard's hand
+crept backward where a steel-shod boat-hook lay, and I also made a
+clutch at it. The next moment I had it in my hand, and staggered
+forward, but the boat was already tumbling shoreward among the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>breakers, and the next I knew the harbor-master ran at me like a
+colossal rat, just as the boat rolled over and over through the surf,
+spilling freight and passengers among the sea-weed-covered rocks.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to myself I was thrashing about knee-deep in a rocky pool,
+blinded by the water and half suffocated, while under my feet, like a
+stranded porpoise, the harbor-master made the water boil in his
+efforts to upset me. But his limbs seemed soft and boneless; he had no
+nails, no teeth, and he bounced and thumped and flapped and splashed
+like a fish, while I rained blows on him with the boat-hook that
+sounded like blows on a football. And all the while his gills were
+blowing out and frothing, and purring, and his lidless eyes looked
+into mine, until, nauseated and trembling, I dragged myself back to
+the beach, where already the pretty nurse alternately wrung her hands
+and her petticoats in ornamental despair.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the cove, Halyard was bobbing up and down, afloat in his
+invalid's chair, trying to steer shoreward. He was the maddest man I
+ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you killed that rubber-headed thing yet?" he roared.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't kill it," I shouted, breathlessly. "I might as well try to
+kill a football!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you punch a hole in it?" he bawled. "If I can only get at
+him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His words were drowned in a thunderous splashing, a roar of great,
+broad flippers beating the sea, and I saw the gigantic forms of my two
+great auks, followed by their chicks, blundering past in a shower of
+spray, driving headlong out into the ocean.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>"Oh, Lord!" I said. "I can't stand that," and, for the first time in
+my life, I fainted peacefully&mdash;and appropriately&mdash;at the feet of the
+pretty nurse.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>It is within the range of possibility that this story may be doubted.
+It doesn't matter; nothing can add to the despair of a man who has
+lost two great auks.</p>
+
+<p>As for Halyard, nothing affects him&mdash;except his involuntary sea-bath,
+and that did him so much good that he writes me from the South that
+he's going on a walking-tour through Switzerland&mdash;if I'll join him. I
+might have joined him if he had not married the pretty nurse. I wonder
+whether&mdash;But, of course, this is no place for speculation.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the harbor-master, you may believe it or not, as you
+choose. But if you hear of any great auks being found, kindly throw a
+table-cloth over their heads and notify the authorities at the new
+Zoological Gardens in Bronx Park, New York. The reward is ten thousand
+dollars.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="VI" id="VI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>Before I proceed any further, common decency requires me to reassure
+my readers concerning my intentions, which, Heaven knows, are far from
+flippant.</p>
+
+<p>To separate fact from fancy has always been difficult for me, but now
+that I have had the honor to be chosen secretary of the Zoological
+Gardens in Bronx Park, I realize keenly that unless I give up writing
+fiction nobody will believe what I write about science. Therefore it
+is to a serious and unimaginative public that I shall hereafter
+address myself; and I do it in the modest confidence that I shall
+neither be distrusted nor doubted, although unfortunately I still
+write in that irrational style which suggests covert frivolity, and
+for which I am undergoing a course of treatment in English literature
+at Columbia College. Now, having promised to avoid originality and
+confine myself to facts, I shall tell what I have to tell concerning
+the dingue, the mammoth, and&mdash;something else.</p>
+
+<p>For some weeks it had been rumored that Professor Farrago, president
+of the Bronx Park Zoological Society, would resign, to accept an
+enormous salary as manager of Barnum &amp; Bailey's circus. He was now
+with the circus in London, and had promised to cable his decision
+before the day was over.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>I hoped he would decide to remain with us. I was his secretary and
+particular favorite, and I viewed, without enthusiasm, the advent of a
+new president, who might shake us all out of our congenial and
+carefully excavated ruts. However, it was plain that the trustees of
+the society expected the resignation of Professor Farrago, for they
+had been in secret session all day, considering the names of possible
+candidates to fill Professor Farrago's large, old-fashioned shoes.
+These preparations worried me, for I could scarcely expect another
+chief as kind and considerate as Professor Leonidas Farrago.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon in June I left my office in the Administration Building
+in Bronx Park and strolled out under the trees for a breath of air.
+But the heat of the sun soon drove me to seek shelter under a little
+square arbor, a shady retreat covered with purple wistaria and
+honeysuckle. As I entered the arbor I noticed that there were three
+other people seated there&mdash;an elderly lady with masculine features and
+short hair, a younger lady sitting beside her, and, farther away, a
+rough-looking young man reading a book.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I had an indistinct impression of having met the elder
+lady somewhere, and under circumstances not entirely agreeable, but
+beyond a stony and indifferent glance she paid no attention to me. As
+for the younger lady, she did not look at me at all. She was very
+young, with pretty eyes, a mass of silky brown hair, and a skin as
+fresh as a rose which had just been rained on.</p>
+
+<p>With that delicacy peculiar to lonely scientific bachelors, I modestly
+sat down beside the rough young man, although there was more room
+beside the younger <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>lady. "Some lazy loafer reading a penny dreadful,"
+I thought, glancing at him, then at the title of his book. Hearing me
+beside him, he turned around and blinked over his shabby shoulder, and
+the movement uncovered the page he had been silently conning. The
+volume in his hands was Darwin's famous monograph on the monodactyl.</p>
+
+<p>He noticed the astonishment on my face and smiled uneasily, shifting
+the short clay pipe in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess," he observed, "that this here book is too much for me,
+mister."</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather technical," I replied, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, in vague admiration; "it's fierce, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>After a silence I asked him if he would tell me why he had chosen
+Darwin as a literary pastime.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, placidly, "I was tryin' to read about annermals, but
+I'm up against a word-slinger this time all right. Now here's a
+gum-twister," and he painfully spelled out m-o-n-o-d-a-c-t-y-l,
+breathing hard all the while.</p>
+
+<p>"Monodactyl," I said, "means a single-toed creature."</p>
+
+<p>He turned the page with alacrity. "Is that the beast he's talkin'
+about?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The illustration he pointed out was a wood-cut representing Darwin's
+reconstruction of the dingue from the fossil bones in the British
+Museum. It was a well-executed wood-cut, showing a dingue in the
+foreground and, to give scale, a mammoth in the middle distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied, "that is the dingue."</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen one," he observed, calmly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>I smiled and explained that the dingue had been extinct for some
+thousands of years.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I guess not," he replied, with cool optimism. Then he placed a
+grimy forefinger on the mammoth.</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen them things, too," he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>Again I patiently pointed out his error, and suggested that he
+referred to the elephant.</p>
+
+<p>"Elephant be blowed!" he replied, scornfully. "I guess I know what I
+seen. An' I seen that there thing you call a dingue, too."</p>
+
+<p>Not wishing to prolong a futile discussion, I remained silent. After a
+moment he wheeled around, removing his pipe from his hard mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear tell of Graham's Glacier?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," I replied, astonished; "it's the southernmost glacier in
+British America."</p>
+
+<p>"Right," he said. "And did you ever hear tell of the Hudson Mountings,
+mister?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"What's behind 'em?" he snapped out.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows," I answered. "They are considered impassable."</p>
+
+<p>"They ain't, though," he said, doggedly; "I've been behind 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Really!" I replied, tiring of his yarn.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-as, reely," he repeated, sullenly. Then he began to fumble and
+search through the pages of his book until he found what he wanted.
+"Mister," he said, "jest read that out loud, please."</p>
+
+<p>The passage he indicated was the famous chapter beginning:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"Is the mammoth extinct? Is the dingue extinct? Probably. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+yet the aborigines of British America maintain the contrary.
+Probably both the mammoth and the dingue are extinct; but
+until expeditions have penetrated and explored not only the
+unknown region in Alaska but also that hidden table-land
+beyond the Graham Glacier and the Hudson Mountains, it will
+not be possible to definitely announce the total extinction of
+either the mammoth or the dingue."</p></div>
+
+<p>When I had read it, slowly, for his benefit, he brought his hand down
+smartly on one knee and nodded rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mister," he said, "that gent knows a thing or two, and don't you
+forgit it!" Then he demanded, abruptly, how I knew he hadn't been
+behind the Graham Glacier.</p>
+
+<p>I explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks!" he said; "there's a road five miles wide inter that there
+table-land. Mister, I ain't been in New York long; I come inter port a
+week ago on the <i>Arctic Belle</i>, whaler. I was in the Hudson range when
+that there Graham Glacier bust up&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you know it?" he asked. "Well, mebbe it ain't in the papers,
+but it busted all right&mdash;blowed up by a earthquake an' volcano
+combine. An', mister, it was oreful. My, how I did run!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to tell me that some convulsion of the earth has
+shattered the Graham Glacier?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Convulsions? Ya-as, an' fits, too," he said, sulkily. "The hull blame
+thing dropped inter a hole. An' say, mister, home an' mother is good
+enough fur me now."</p>
+
+<p>I stared at him stupidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Once," he said, "I ketched pelts fur them sharps at Hudson Bay, like
+any yaller husky, but the things I seen arter that convulsion-fit&mdash;the
+<i>things I seen behind the</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span><i>Hudson Mountings</i>&mdash;don't make me hanker
+arter no life on the pe-rarie wild, lemme tell yer. I may be a Mother
+Carey chicken, but this chicken has got enough."</p>
+
+<p>After a long silence I picked up his book again and pointed at the
+picture of the mammoth.</p>
+
+<p>"What color is it?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Kinder red an' brown," he answered, promptly. "It's woolly, too."</p>
+
+<p>Astounded, I pointed to the dingue.</p>
+
+<p>"One-toed," he said, quickly; "makes a noise like a bell when
+scutterin' about."</p>
+
+<p>Intensely excited, I laid my hand on his arm. "My society will give
+you a thousand dollars," I said, "if you pilot me inside the Hudson
+table-land and show me either a mammoth or a dingue!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked me calmly in the eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Mister," he said, slowly, "have you got a million for to squander on
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he went on, "it wouldn't be enough. Home an' mother suits
+me now."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up his book and rose. In vain I asked his name and address;
+in vain I begged him to dine with me&mdash;to become my honored guest.</p>
+
+<p>"Nit," he said, shortly, and shambled off down the path.</p>
+
+<p>But I was not going to lose him like that. I rose and deliberately
+started to stalk him. It was easy. He shuffled along, pulling on his
+pipe, and I after him.</p>
+
+<p>It was growing a little dark, although the sun still reddened the tops
+of the maples. Afraid of losing him in the falling dusk, I once more
+approached him and laid my hand upon his ragged sleeve.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>"Look here," he cried, wheeling about, "I want you to quit follerin'
+me. Don't I tell you money can't make me go back to them mountings!"
+And as I attempted to speak, he suddenly tore off his cap and pointed
+to his head. His hair was white as snow.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what come of monkeyin' inter your cursed mountings," he
+shouted, fiercely. "There's things in there what no Christian oughter
+see. Lemme alone er I'll bust yer."</p>
+
+<p>He shambled on, doubled fists swinging by his side. The next moment,
+setting my teeth obstinately, I followed him and caught him by the
+park gate. At my hail he whirled around with a snarl, but I grabbed
+him by the throat and backed him violently against the park wall.</p>
+
+<p>"You invaluable ruffian," I said, "now you listen to me. I live in
+that big stone building, and I'll give you a thousand dollars to take
+me behind the Graham Glacier. Think it over and call on me when you
+are in a pleasanter frame of mind. If you don't come by noon to-morrow
+I'll go to the Graham Glacier without you."</p>
+
+<p>He was attempting to kick me all the time, but I managed to avoid him,
+and when I had finished I gave him a shove which almost loosened his
+spinal column. He went reeling out across the sidewalk, and when he
+had recovered his breath and his balance he danced with displeasure
+and displayed a vocabulary that astonished me. However, he kept his
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>As I turned back into the park, satisfied that he would not follow,
+the first person I saw was the elderly, stony-faced lady of the
+wistaria arbor advancing on tiptoe. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>Behind her came the younger lady
+with cheeks like a rose that had been rained on.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly it occurred to me that they had followed us, and at the same
+moment I knew who the stony-faced lady was. Angry, but polite, I
+lifted my hat and saluted her, and she, probably furious at having
+been caught tip-toeing after me, cut me dead. The younger lady passed
+me with face averted, but even in the dusk I could see the tip of one
+little ear turn scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>Walking on hurriedly, I entered the Administration Building, and found
+Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department, preparing to leave.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you do it," I said, sharply; "I've got exciting news."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only going to the theatre," he replied. "It's a good show&mdash;Adam
+and Eve; there's a snake in it, you know. It's in my line."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," I said; and I told him briefly what had occurred in
+the arbor.</p>
+
+<p>"But that's not all," I continued, savagely. "Those women followed us,
+and who do you think one of them turned out to be? Well, it was
+Professor Smawl, of Barnard College, and I'll bet every pair of boots
+I own that she starts for the Graham Glacier within a week. Idiot that
+I was!" I exclaimed, smiting my head with both hands. "I never
+recognized her until I saw her tip-toeing and craning her neck to
+listen. Now she knows about the glacier; she heard every word that
+young ruffian said, and she'll go to the glacier if it's only to
+forestall me."</p>
+
+<p>Professor Lesard looked anxious. He knew that Miss Smawl, professor of
+natural history at Barnard College, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>had long desired an appointment
+at the Bronx Park gardens. It was even said she had a chance of
+succeeding Professor Farrago as president, but that, of course, must
+have been a joke. However, she haunted the gardens, annoying the
+keepers by persistently poking the animals with her umbrella. On one
+occasion she sent us word that she desired to enter the tigers'
+enclosure for the purpose of making experiments in hypnotism.
+Professor Farrago was absent, but I took it upon myself to send back
+word that I feared the tigers might injure her. The miserable small
+boy who took my message informed her that I was afraid she might
+injure the tigers, and the unpleasant incident almost cost me my
+position.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite convinced," said I to Professor Lesard, "that Miss Smawl
+is perfectly capable of abusing the information she overheard, and of
+starting herself to explore a region that, by all the laws of decency,
+justice, and prior claim, belongs to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Lesard, with a peculiar laugh, "it's not certain whether
+you can go at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Professor Farrago will authorize me," I said, confidently.</p>
+
+<p>"Professor Farrago has resigned," said Lesard. It was a bolt from a
+clear sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens!" I blurted out. "What will become of the rest of us,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he replied. "The trustees are holding a meeting over
+in the Administration Building to elect a new president for us. It
+depends on the new president what becomes of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Lesard," I said, hoarsely, "you don't suppose that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>they could
+possibly elect Miss Smawl as our president, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me askance and bit his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be in a nice position, wouldn't I?" said I, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady would probably make you walk the plank for that tiger
+business," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"But I didn't do it," I protested, with sickly eagerness. "Besides, I
+explained to her&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He said nothing, and I stared at him, appalled by the possibility of
+reporting to Professor Smawl for instructions next morning.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, Lesard," I said, nervously, "I wish you would step over to
+the Administration Building and ask the trustees if I may prepare for
+this expedition. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at me sympathetically. It was quite natural for me to wish
+to secure my position before the new president was elected&mdash;especially
+as there was a chance of the new president being Miss Smawl.</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite right," he said; "the Graham Glacier would be the
+safest place for you if our next president is to be the Lady of the
+Tigers." And he started across the park puffing his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down on the doorstep to wait for his return, not at all charmed
+with the prospect. It made me furious, too, to see my ambition nipped
+with the frost of a possible veto from Miss Smawl.</p>
+
+<p>"If she is elected," thought I, "there is nothing for me but to
+resign&mdash;to avoid the inconvenience of being shown the door. Oh, I wish
+I had allowed her to hypnotize the tigers!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>Thoughts of crime flitted through my mind. Miss Smawl would not remain
+president&mdash;or anything else very long&mdash;if she persisted in her desire
+for the tigers. And then when she called for help I would pretend not
+to hear.</p>
+
+<p>Aroused from criminal meditation by the return of Professor Lesard, I
+jumped up and peered into his perplexed eyes. "They've elected a
+president," he said, "but they won't tell us who the president is
+until to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think&mdash;" I stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But I know this: the new president sanctions the
+expedition to the Graham Glacier, and directs you to choose an
+assistant and begin preparations for four people."</p>
+
+<p>Overjoyed, I seized his hand and said, "Hurray!" in a voice weak with
+emotion. "The old dragon isn't elected this time," I added,
+triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"By-the-way," he said, "who was the other dragon with her in the park
+this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>I described her in a more modulated voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" observed Professor Lesard, "that must be her assistant,
+Professor Dorothy Van Twiller! She's the prettiest blue-stocking in
+town."</p>
+
+<p>With this curious remark my confr&egrave;re followed me into my room and
+wrote down the list of articles I dictated to him. The list included a
+complete camping equipment for myself and three other men.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I one of those other men?" inquired Lesard, with an unhappy smile.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could reply my door was shoved open and a figure appeared at
+the threshold, cap in hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>"What do you want?" I asked, sternly; but my heart was beating high
+with triumph.</p>
+
+<p>The figure shuffled; then came a subdued voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Mister, I guess I'll go back to the Graham Glacier along with you.
+I'm Billy Spike, an' it kinder scares me to go back to them Hudson
+Mountains, but somehow, mister, when you choked me and kinder walked
+me off on my ear, why, mister, I kinder took to you like."</p>
+
+<p>There was absolute silence for a minute; then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"So if you go, I guess I'll go, too, mister."</p>
+
+<p>"For a thousand dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fur nawthin'," he muttered&mdash;"or what you like."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Billy," I said, briskly; "just look over those rifles and
+ammunition and see that everything's sound."</p>
+
+<p>He slowly lifted his tough young face and gave me a doglike glance.
+They were hard eyes, but there was gratitude in them.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get your throat slit," whispered Lesard.</p>
+
+<p>"Not while Billy's with me," I replied, cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>Late that night, as I was preparing for pleasant dreams, a knock came
+on my door and a telegraph-messenger handed me a note, which I read,
+shivering in my bare feet, although the thermometer marked eighty
+Fahrenheit:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"You will immediately leave for the Hudson Mountains via
+Wellman Bay, Labrador, there to await further instructions.
+Equipment for yourself and one assistant will include
+following articles" [here began a list of camping utensils,
+scientific paraphernalia, and provisions]. "The steamer
+<i>Penguin</i> sails at five o'clock to-morrow morning. Kindly find
+yourself on board at that hour. Any excuse for not complying
+with these orders will be accepted as your resignation.</p>
+
+<p class="right">"<span class="sc" style="margin-right: 2em;">Susan Smawl,</span><br />
+"President Bronx Zoological Society."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>"Lesard!" I shouted, trembling with fury.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared at his door, chastely draped in pajamas; and he read the
+insolent letter with terrified alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do&mdash;resign?" he asked, much frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Do!" I snarled, grinding my teeth; "I'm going&mdash;that's what I'm going
+to do!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but you can't get ready and catch that steamer, too," he
+stammered.</p>
+
+<p>He did not know me.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="VII" id="VII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>And so it came about that one calm evening towards the end of June,
+William Spike and I went into camp under the southerly shelter of that
+vast granite wall called the Hudson Mountains, there to await the
+promised "further instructions."</p>
+
+<p>It had been a tiresome trip by steamer to Anticosti, from there by
+schooner to Widgeon Bay, then down the coast and up the Cape Clear
+River to Port Porpoise. There we bought three pack-mules and started
+due north on the Great Fur Trail. The second day out we passed Fort
+Bois&eacute;, the last outpost of civilization, and on the sixth day we were
+travelling eastward under the granite mountain parapets.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of the sixth day out from Fort Bois&eacute; we went into camp
+for the last time before entering the unknown land.</p>
+
+<p>I could see it already through my field-glasses, and while William was
+building the fire I climbed up among the rocks above and sat down,
+glasses levelled, to study the prospect.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing either extraordinary or forbidding in the landscape
+which stretched out beyond; to the right the solid palisade of granite
+cut off the view; to the left the palisade continued, an endless
+barrier of sheer cliffs crowned with pine and hemlock. But the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>interesting section of the landscape lay almost directly in front of
+me&mdash;a rent in the mountain-wall through which appeared to run a level,
+arid plain, miles wide, and as smooth and even as a highroad.</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt concerning the significance of that rent in
+the solid mountain-wall; and, moreover, it was exactly as William
+Spike had described it. However, I called to him and he came up from
+the smoky camp-fire, axe on shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Yep," he said, squatting beside me; "the Graham Glacier used to
+meander through that there hole, but somethin' went wrong with the
+earth's in'ards an' there was a bust-up."</p>
+
+<p>"And you saw it, William?" I said, with a sigh of envy.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey? Seen it? Sure I seen it! I was to Spoutin' Springs, twenty mile
+west, with a bale o' blue fox an' otter pelt. Fust I knew them geysers
+begun for to groan egregious like, an' I seen the caribou gallopin'
+hell-bent south. 'This climate,' sez I, 'is too bracin' for me,' so I
+struck a back trail an' landed onto a hill. Then them geysers blowed
+up, one arter the next, an' I heard somethin' kinder cave in between
+here an' China. I disremember things what happened. Somethin' throwed
+me down, but I couldn't stay there, for the blamed ground was runnin'
+like a river&mdash;all wavy-like, an' the sky hit me on the back o' me
+head."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" I urged, in that new excitement which every repetition of
+the story revived. I had heard it all twenty times since we left New
+York, but mere repetition could not apparently satisfy me.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," continued William, "the whole world kinder <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>went off like a
+fire-cracker, an' I come too, an' ran like&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said I, cutting him short, for I had become wearied of the
+invariable profanity which lent a lurid ending to his narrative.</p>
+
+<p>"After that," I continued, "you went through the rent in the
+mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure."</p>
+
+<p>"And you saw a dingue and a creature that resembled a mammoth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," he repeated, sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"And you saw something else?" I always asked this question; it
+fascinated me to see the sullen fright flicker in William's eyes, and
+the mechanical backward glance, as though what he had seen might still
+be behind him.</p>
+
+<p>He had never answered this third question but once, and that time he
+fairly snarled in my face as he growled: "I seen what no Christian
+oughter see."</p>
+
+<p>So when I repeated: "And you saw something else, William?" he gave me
+a wicked, frightened leer, and shuffled off to feed the mules.
+Flattery, entreaties, threats left him unmoved; he never told me what
+the third thing was that he had seen behind the Hudson Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>William had retired to mix up with his mules; I resumed my binoculars
+and my silent inspection of the great, smooth path left by the Graham
+Glacier when something or other exploded that vast mass of ice into
+vapor.</p>
+
+<p>The arid plain wound out from the unknown country like a river, and I
+thought then, and think now, that when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>the glacier was blown into
+vapor the vapor descended in the most terrific rain the world has ever
+seen, and poured through the newly blasted mountain-gateway, sweeping
+the earth to bed-rock. To corroborate this theory, miles to the
+southward I could see the d&eacute;bris winding out across the land towards
+Wellman Bay, but as the terminal moraine of the vanished glacier
+formerly ended there I could not be certain that my theory was
+correct. Owing to the formation of the mountains I could not see more
+than half a mile into the unknown country. What I could see appeared
+to be nothing but the continuation of the glacier's path, scored out
+by the cloud-burst, and swept as smooth as a floor.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting there, my heart beating heavily with excitement, I looked
+through the evening glow at the endless, pine-crowned mountain-wall
+with its giant's gateway pierced for me! And I thought of all the
+explorers and the unknown heroes&mdash;trappers, Indians, humble
+naturalists, perhaps&mdash;who had attempted to scale that sheer barricade
+and had died there or failed, beaten back from those eternal cliffs.
+Eternal? No! For the Eternal Himself had struck the rock, and it had
+sprung asunder, thundering obedience.</p>
+
+<p>In the still evening air the smoke from the fire below mounted in a
+straight, slender pillar, like the smoke from those ancient altars
+builded before the first blood had been shed on earth.</p>
+
+<p>The evening wind stirred the pines; a tiny spring brook made thin
+harmony among the rocks; a murmur came from the quiet camp. It was
+William adjuring his mules. In the deepening twilight I descended the
+hillock, stepping cautiously among the rocks.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>Then, suddenly, as I stood outside the reddening ring of firelight,
+far in the depths of the unknown country, far behind the
+mountain-wall, a sound grew on the quiet air. William heard it and
+turned his face to the mountains. The sound faded to a vibration which
+was felt, not heard. Then once more I began to divine a vibration in
+the air, gathering in distant volume until it became a sound, lasting
+the space of a spoken word, fading to vibration, then silence.</p>
+
+<p>Was it a cry?</p>
+
+<p>I looked at William inquiringly. He had quietly fainted away.</p>
+
+<p>I got him to the little brook and poked his head into the icy water,
+and after a while he sat up pluckily.</p>
+
+<p>To an indignant question he replied: "Naw, I ain't a-cussin' you.
+Lemme be or I'll have fits."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it that sound that scared you?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-as," he replied with a dauntless shiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it the voice of the mammoth?" I persisted, excitedly. "Speak,
+William, or I'll drag you about and kick you!"</p>
+
+<p>He replied that it was neither a mammoth nor a dingue, and added a
+strong request for privacy, which I was obliged to grant, as I could
+not torture another word out of him.</p>
+
+<p>I slept little that night; the exciting proximity of the unknown land
+was too much for me. But although I lay awake for hours, I heard
+nothing except the tinkle of water among the rocks and the plover
+calling from some hidden marsh. At daybreak I shot a ptarmigan which
+had walked into camp, and the shot set the echoes yelling among the
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>William, sullen and heavy-eyed, dressed the bird, and we broiled it
+for breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Neither he nor I alluded to the sound we had heard the night before;
+he boiled water and cleaned up the mess-kit, and I pottered about
+among the rocks for another ptarmigan. Wearying of this, presently, I
+returned to the mules and William, and sat down for a smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"It strikes me," I said, "that our instructions to 'await further
+orders' are idiotic. How are we to receive 'further orders' here?"</p>
+
+<p>William did not know.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't suppose," said I, in sudden disgust, "that Miss Smawl
+believes there is a summer hotel and daily mail service in the Hudson
+Mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>William thought perhaps she did suppose something of the sort.</p>
+
+<p>It irritated me beyond measure to find myself at last on the very
+border of the unknown country, and yet checked, held back, by the
+irresponsible orders of a maiden lady named Smawl. However, my salary
+depended upon the whim of that maiden lady, and although I fussed and
+fumed and glared at the mountains through my glasses, I realized that
+I could not stir without the permission of Miss Smawl. At times this
+grotesque situation became almost unbearable, and I often went away by
+myself and indulged in fantasies, firing my gun off and pretending I
+had hit Miss Smawl by mistake. At such moments I would imagine I was
+free at last to plunge into the strange country, and I would squat on
+a rock and dream of bagging my first mammoth.</p>
+
+<p>The time passed heavily; the tension increased with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>each new day. I
+shot ptarmigan and kept our table supplied with brook-trout. William
+chopped wood, conversed with his mules, and cooked very badly.</p>
+
+<p>"See here," I said, one morning; "we have been in camp a week to-day,
+and I can't stand your cooking another minute!"</p>
+
+<p>William, who was washing a saucepan, looked up and begged me
+sarcastically to accept the <i>cordon bleu</i>. But I know only how to cook
+eggs, and there were no eggs within some hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>To get the flavor of the breakfast out of my mouth I walked up to my
+favorite hillock and sat down for a smoke. The next moment, however, I
+was on my feet, cheering excitedly and shouting for William.</p>
+
+<p>"Here come 'further instructions' at last!" I cried, pointing to the
+southward, where two dots on the grassy plain were imperceptibly
+moving in our direction.</p>
+
+<p>"People on mules," said William, without enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"They must be messengers for us!" I cried, in chaste joy. "Three
+cheers for the northward trail, William, and the mischief take
+Miss&mdash;Well, never mind now," I added.</p>
+
+<p>"On them approachin' mules," observed William, "there is wimmen."</p>
+
+<p>I stared at him for a second, then attempted to strike him. He dodged
+wearily and repeated his incredible remark: "Ya-as, there
+is&mdash;wimmen&mdash;two female ladies onto them there mules."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring me my glasses!" I said, hoarsely; "bring me those glasses,
+William, because I shall destroy you if you don't!"</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat awed by my calm fury, he hastened back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>to camp and returned
+with the binoculars. It was a breathless moment. I adjusted the lenses
+with a steady hand and raised them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, of all unexpected sights my fate may reserve for me in the
+future, I trust&mdash;nay, I know&mdash;that none can ever prove as unwelcome as
+the sight I perceived through my binoculars. For upon the backs of
+those distant mules were two women, and the first one was Miss Smawl!</p>
+
+<p>Upon her head she wore a helmet, from which fluttered a green veil.
+Otherwise she was clothed in tweeds; and at moments she beat upon her
+mule with a thick umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>Surfeited with the sickening spectacle, I sat down on a rock and tried
+to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"I told yer so," observed William; but I was too tired to attack him.</p>
+
+<p>When the caravan rode into camp I was myself again, smilingly prepared
+for the worst, and I advanced, cap in hand, followed furtively by
+William.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome," I said, violently injecting joy into my voice. "Welcome,
+Professor Smawl, to the Hudson Mountains!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly take my mule," she said, climbing down to mother earth.</p>
+
+<p>"William," I said, with dignity, "take the lady's mule."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Smawl gave me a stolid glance, then made directly for the
+camp-fire, where a kettle of game-broth simmered over the coals. The
+last I saw of her she was smelling of it, and I turned my back and
+advanced towards the second lady pilgrim, prepared to be civil until
+snubbed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>Now, it is quite certain that never before had William Spike or I
+beheld so much feminine loveliness in one human body on the back of a
+mule. She was clad in the daintiest of shooting-kilts, yet there was
+nothing mannish about her except the way she rode the mule, and that
+only accentuated her adorable femininity.</p>
+
+<p>I remembered what Professor Lesard had said about blue stockings&mdash;but
+Miss Dorothy Van Twiller's were gray, turned over at the tops, and
+disappearing into canvas spats buckled across a pair of slim
+shooting-boots.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome," said I, attempting to restrain a too violent cordiality.
+"Welcome, Professor Van Twiller, to the Hudson Mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she replied, accepting my assistance very sweetly; "it is
+a pleasure to meet a human being again."</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at Miss Smawl. She was eating game-broth, but she resembled
+a human being in a general way.</p>
+
+<p>"I should very much like to wash my hands," said Professor Van
+Twiller, drawing the buckskin gloves from her slim fingers.</p>
+
+<p>I brought towels and soap and conducted her to the brook.</p>
+
+<p>She called to Professor Smawl to join her, and her voice was
+crystalline; Professor Smawl declined, and her voice was batrachian.</p>
+
+<p>"She is so hungry!" observed Miss Van Twiller. "I am very thankful we
+are here at last, for we've had a horrid time. You see, we neither of
+us know how to cook."</p>
+
+<p>I wondered what they would say to William's cooking, but I held my
+peace and retired, leaving the little brook to mirror the sweetest
+face that was ever bathed in water.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>That afternoon our expedition, in two sections, moved forward. The
+first section comprised myself and all the mules; the second section
+was commanded by Professor Smawl, followed by Professor Van Twiller,
+armed with a tiny shot-gun. William, loaded down with the ladies'
+toilet articles, skulked in the rear. I say skulked; there was no
+other word for it.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're a guide, are you?" observed Professor Smawl when William,
+cap in hand, had approached her with well-meant advice. "The woods are
+full of lazy guides. Pick up those Gladstone bags! I'll do the guiding
+for this expedition."</p>
+
+<p>Made cautious by William's humiliation, I associated with the mules
+exclusively. Nevertheless, Professor Smawl had her hard eyes on me,
+and I realized she meant mischief.</p>
+
+<p>The encounter took place just as I, driving the five mules, entered
+the great mountain gateway, thrilled with anticipation which almost
+amounted to foreboding. As I was about to set foot across the
+imaginary frontier which divided the world from the unknown land,
+Professor Smawl hailed me and I halted until she came up.</p>
+
+<p>"As commander of this expedition," she said, somewhat out of breath,
+"I desire to be the first living <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>creature who has ever set foot
+behind the Graham Glacier. Kindly step aside, young sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," said I, rigid with disappointment, "my guide, William Spike,
+entered that unknown land a year ago."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>says</i> he did," sneered Professor Smawl.</p>
+
+<p>"As you like," I replied; "but it is scarcely generous to forestall
+the person whose stupidity gave you the clew to this unexplored
+region."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean yourself?" she asked, with a stony stare.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said I, firmly.</p>
+
+<p>Her little, hard eyes grew harder, and she clutched her umbrella until
+the steel ribs crackled.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," she said, insolently; "if I could have gotten rid of you
+I should have done so the day I was appointed president. But Professor
+Farrago refused to resign unless your position was assured, subject,
+of course, to your good behavior. Frankly, I don't like you, and I
+consider your views on science ridiculous, and if an opportunity
+presents itself I will be most happy to request your resignation.
+Kindly collect your mules and follow me."</p>
+
+<p>Mortified beyond measure, I collected my mules and followed my
+president into the strange country behind the Hudson Mountains&mdash;I who
+had aspired to lead, compelled to follow in the rear, driving mules.</p>
+
+<p>The journey was monotonous at first, but we shortly ascended a ridge
+from which we could see, stretching out below us, the wilderness
+where, save the feet of William Spike, no human feet had passed.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, tingling with enthusiasm, I forgot my chagrin, I forgot the
+gross injustice, I forgot my mules. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>"Excelsior!" I cried, running up
+and down the ridge in uncontrollable excitement at the sublime
+spectacle of forest, mountain, and valley all set with little lakes.</p>
+
+<p>"Excelsior!" repeated an excited voice at my side, and Professor Van
+Twiller sprang to the ridge beside me, her eyes bright as stars.</p>
+
+<p>Exalted, inspired by the mysterious beauty of the view, we clasped
+hands and ran up and down the grassy ridge.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," said Professor Smawl, coldly, as we raced about like a
+pair of distracted kittens. The chilling voice broke the spell; I
+dropped Professor Van Twiller's hand and sat down on a bowlder, aching
+with wrath.</p>
+
+<p>Late that afternoon we halted beside a tiny lake, deep in the unknown
+wilderness, where purple and scarlet bergamot choked the shores and
+the spruce-partridge strutted fearlessly under our very feet. Here we
+pitched our two tents. The afternoon sun slanted through the pines;
+the lake glittered; acres of golden brake perfumed the forest silence,
+broken only at rare intervals by the distant thunder of a partridge
+drumming.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Smawl ate heavily and retired to her tent to lie torpid
+until evening. William drove the unloaded mules into an intervale full
+of sun-cured, fragrant grasses; I sat down beside Professor Van
+Twiller.</p>
+
+<p>The wilderness is electric. Once within the influence of its currents,
+human beings become positively or negatively charged, violently
+attracting or repelling each other.</p>
+
+<p>"There is something the matter with this air," said Professor Van
+Twiller. "It makes me feel as though <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>I were desperately enamoured of
+the entire human race."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned back against a pine, smiling vaguely, and crossing one knee
+over the other.</p>
+
+<p>Now I am not bold by temperament, and, normally, I fear ladies.
+Therefore it surprised me to hear myself begin a frivolous <i>causerie</i>,
+replying to her pretty epigrams with epigrams of my own, advancing to
+the borderland of badinage, fearlessly conducting her and myself over
+that delicate frontier to meet upon the terrain of undisguised
+flirtation.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear that she was out for a holiday. The seriousness and
+restraints of twenty-two years she had left behind her in the
+civilized world, and now, with a shrug of her young shoulders, she
+unloosened her burden of reticence, dignity, and responsibility and
+let the whole load fall with a discreet thud.</p>
+
+<p>"Even hares go mad in March," she said, seriously. "I know you intend
+to flirt with me&mdash;and I don't care. Anyway, there's nothing else to
+do, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose," said I, solemnly, "I should take you behind that big tree
+and attempt to kiss you!"</p>
+
+<p>The prospect did not appear to appall her, so I looked around with
+that sneaking yet conciliatory caution peculiar to young men who are
+novices in the art. Before I had satisfied myself that neither William
+nor the mules were observing us, Professor Van Twiller rose to her
+feet and took a short step backward.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's set traps for a dingue," she said, "will you?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the big tree, undecided. "Come on," she said; "I'll show
+you how." And away we went into the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>woods, she leading, her kilts
+flashing through the golden half-light.</p>
+
+<p>Now I had not the faintest notion how to trap the dingue, but
+Professor Van Twiller asserted that it formerly fed on the tender tips
+of the spruce, quoting Darwin as her authority.</p>
+
+<p>So we gathered a bushel of spruce-tips, piled them on the bank of a
+little stream, then built a miniature stockade around the bait, a foot
+high. I roofed this with hemlock, then laboriously whittled out and
+adjusted a swinging shutter for the entrance, setting it on springy
+twigs.</p>
+
+<p>"The dingue, you know, was supposed to live in the water," she said,
+kneeling beside me over our trap.</p>
+
+<p>I took her little hand and thanked her for the information.</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless," she said, enthusiastically, "a dingue will come out of
+the lake to-night to feed on our spruce-tips. Then," she added, "we've
+got him."</p>
+
+<p>"True!" I said, earnestly, and pressed her fingers very gently.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was turned a little away; I don't remember what she said; I
+don't remember that she said anything. A faint rose-tint stole over
+her cheek. A few moments later she said: "You must not do that again."</p>
+
+<p>It was quite late when we strolled back to camp. Long before we came
+in sight of the twin tents we heard a deep voice bawling our names. It
+was Professor Smawl, and she pounced upon Dorothy and drove her
+ignominiously into the tent.</p>
+
+<p>"As for you," she said, in hollow tones, "you may <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>explain your
+conduct at once, or place your resignation at my disposal."</p>
+
+<p>But somehow or other I appeared to be temporarily lost to shame, and I
+only smiled at my infuriated president, and entered my own tent with a
+step that was distinctly frolicsome.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy," said I to William Spike, who regarded me morosely from the
+depths of the tent, "I'm going out to bag a mammoth to-morrow, so
+kindly clean my elephant-gun and bring an axe to chop out the tusks."</p>
+
+<p>That night Professor Smawl complained bitterly of the cooking, but as
+neither Dorothy nor I knew how to improve it, she revenged herself on
+us by eating everything on the table and retiring to bed, taking
+Dorothy with her.</p>
+
+<p>I could not sleep very well; the mosquitoes were intrusive, and
+Professor Smawl dreamed she was a pack of wolves and yelped in her
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Bird, ain't she?" said William, roused from slumber by her weird
+noises.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy, much frightened, crawled out of her tent, where her
+blanket-mate still dreamed dyspeptically, and William and I made her
+comfortable by the camp-fire.</p>
+
+<p>It takes a pretty girl to look pretty half asleep in a blanket.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure you are quite well?" I asked her.</p>
+
+<p>To make sure, I tested her pulse. For an hour it varied more or less,
+but without alarming either of us. Then she went back to bed and I sat
+alone by the camp-fire.</p>
+
+<p>Towards midnight I suddenly began to feel that strange, distant
+vibration that I had once before felt. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>As before, the vibration grew
+on the still air, increasing in volume until it became a sound, then
+died out into silence.</p>
+
+<p>I rose and stole into my tent.</p>
+
+<p>William, white as death, lay in his corner, weeping in his sleep.</p>
+
+<p>I roused him remorselessly, and he sat up scowling, but refused to
+tell me what he had been dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it about that third thing you saw&mdash;" I began. But he snarled up
+at me like a startled animal, and I was obliged to go to bed and toss
+about and speculate.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning it rained. Dorothy and I visited our dingue-trap but
+found nothing in it. We were inclined, however, to stay out in the
+rain behind a big tree, but Professor Smawl vetoed that proposition
+and sent me off to supply the larder with fresh meat.</p>
+
+<p>I returned, mad and wet, with a dozen partridges and a white
+hare&mdash;brown at that season&mdash;and William cooked them vilely.</p>
+
+<p>"I can taste the feathers!" said Professor Smawl, indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no accounting for taste," I said, with a polite gesture of
+deprecation; "personally, I find feathers unpalatable."</p>
+
+<p>"You may hand in your resignation this evening!" cried Professor
+Smawl, in hollow tones of passion.</p>
+
+<p>I passed her the pancakes with a cheerful smile, and flippantly
+pressed the hand next me. Unexpectedly it proved to be William's
+sticky fist, and Dorothy and I laughed until her tears ran into
+Professor Smawl's coffee-cup&mdash;an accident which kindled her wrath to
+red heat, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>and she requested my resignation five times during the
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>The next day it rained again, more or less. Professor Smawl complained
+of the cooking, demanded my resignation, and finally marched out to
+explore, lugging the reluctant William with her. Dorothy and I sat
+down behind the largest tree we could find.</p>
+
+<p>I don't remember what we were saying when a peculiar sound interrupted
+us, and we listened earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a bell in the woods, ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong!&mdash;a
+low, mellow, golden harmony, coming nearer, then stopping.</p>
+
+<p>I clasped Dorothy in my arms in my excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the note of the dingue!" I whispered, "and that explains its
+name, handed down from remote ages along with the names of the
+behemoth and the coney. It was because of its bell-like cry that it
+was named! Darling!" I cried, forgetting our short acquaintance, "we
+have made a discovery that the whole world will ring with!"</p>
+
+<p>Hand in hand we tiptoed through the forest to our trap. There was
+something in it that took fright at our approach and rushed
+panic-stricken round and round the interior of the trap, uttering its
+alarm-note, which sounded like the jangling of a whole string of
+bells.</p>
+
+<p>I seized the strangely beautiful creature; it neither attempted to
+bite nor scratch, but crouched in my arms, trembling and eying me.</p>
+
+<p>Delighted with the lovely, tame animal, we bore it tenderly back to
+the camp and placed it on my blanket. Hand in hand we stood before it,
+awed by the sight of this beast, so long believed to be extinct.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>"It is too good to be true," sighed Dorothy, clasping her white hands
+under her chin and gazing at the dingue in rapture.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I, solemnly, "you and I, my child, are face to face with
+the fabled dingue&mdash;<i>Dingus solitarius</i>! Let us continue to gaze at it,
+reverently, prayerfully, humbly&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy yawned&mdash;probably with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>We were still mutely adoring the dingue when Professor Smawl burst
+into the tent at a hand-gallop, bawling hoarsely for her kodak and
+note-book.</p>
+
+<p>Dorothy seized her triumphantly by the arm and pointed at the dingue,
+which appeared to be frightened to death.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Professor Smawl, scornfully; "<i>that</i> a dingue? Rubbish!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," I said, firmly, "it is a dingue! It's a monodactyl! See! It
+has but a single toe!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh!" she retorted; "it's got four!"</p>
+
+<p>"Four!" I repeated, blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; one on each foot!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," I said; "you didn't suppose a monodactyl meant a beast
+with one leg and one toe!"</p>
+
+<p>But she laughed hatefully and declared it was a woodchuck.</p>
+
+<p>We squabbled for a while until I saw the significance of her attitude.
+The unfortunate woman wished to find a dingue first and be accredited
+with the discovery.</p>
+
+<p>I lifted the dingue in both hands and shook the creature gently, until
+the chiming ding-dong of its protestations filled our ears like sweet
+bells jangled out of tune.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>Pale with rage at this final proof of the dingue's identity, she
+seized her camera and note-book.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't any time to waste over that musical woodchuck!" she
+shouted, and bounced out of the tent.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you discovered, dear?" cried Dorothy, running after her.</p>
+
+<p>"A mammoth!" bawled Professor Smawl, triumphantly; "and I'm going to
+photograph him!"</p>
+
+<p>Neither Dorothy nor I believed her. We watched the flight of the
+infatuated woman in silence.</p>
+
+<p>And now, at last, the tragic shadow falls over my paper as I write. I
+was never passionately attached to Professor Smawl, yet I would gladly
+refrain from chronicling the episode that must follow if, as I have
+hitherto attempted, I succeed in sticking to the unornamented truth.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that neither Dorothy nor I believed her. I don't know why,
+unless it was that we had not yet made up our minds to believe that
+the mammoth still existed on earth. So, when Professor Smawl
+disappeared in the forest, scuttling through the underbrush like a
+demoralized hen, we viewed her flight with unconcern. There was a
+large tree in the neighborhood&mdash;a pleasant shelter in case of rain. So
+we sat down behind it, although the sun was shining fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of those peaceful afternoons in the wilderness when the
+whole forest dreams, and the shadows are asleep and every little
+leaflet takes a nap. Under the still tree-tops the dappled sunlight,
+motionless, soaked the sod; the forest-flies no longer whirled in
+circles, but sat sunning their wings on slender twig-tips.</p>
+
+<p>The heat was sweet and spicy; the sun drew out the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>delicate essence
+of gum and sap, warming volatile juices until they exhaled through the
+aromatic bark.</p>
+
+<p>The sun went down into the wilderness; the forest stirred in its
+sleep; a fish splashed in the lake. The spell was broken. Presently
+the wind began to rise somewhere far away in the unknown land. I heard
+it coming, nearer, nearer&mdash;a brisk wind that grew heavier and blew
+harder as it neared us&mdash;a gale that swept distant branches&mdash;a furious
+gale that set limbs clashing and cracking, nearer and nearer. Crack!
+and the gale grew to a hurricane, trampling trees like dead twigs!
+Crack! Crackle! Crash! Crash!</p>
+
+<p><i>Was it the wind?</i></p>
+
+<p>With the roaring in my ears I sprang up, staring into the forest
+vista, and at the same instant, out of the crashing forest, sped
+Professor Smawl, skirts tucked up, thin legs flying like
+bicycle-spokes. I shouted, but the crashing drowned my voice. Then all
+at once the solid earth began to shake, and with the rush and roar of
+a tornado a gigantic living thing burst out of the forest before our
+eyes&mdash;a vast shadowy bulk that rocked and rolled along, mowing down
+trees in its course.</p>
+
+<p>Two great crescents of ivory curved from its head; its back swept
+through the tossing tree-tops. Once it bellowed like a gun fired from
+a high bastion.</p>
+
+<p>The apparition passed with the noise of thunder rolling on towards the
+ends of the earth. Crack! crash! went the trees, the tempest swept
+away in a rolling volley of reports, distant, more distant, until,
+long after the tumult had deadened, then ceased, the stunned forest
+echoed with the fall of mangled branches slowly dropping.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>That evening an agitated young couple sat close together in the
+deserted camp, calling timidly at intervals for Professor Smawl and
+William Spike. I say timidly, because it is correct; we did not care
+to have a mammoth respond to our calls. The lurking echoes across the
+lake answered our cries; the full moon came up over the forest to look
+at us. We were not much to look at. Dorothy was moistening my shoulder
+with unfeigned tears, and I, afraid to light the fire, sat hunched up
+under the common blanket, wildly examining the darkness around us.</p>
+
+<p>Chilled to the spinal marrow, I watched the gray lights whiten in the
+east. A single bird awoke in the wilderness. I saw the nearer trees
+looming in the mist, and the silver fog rolling on the lake.</p>
+
+<p>All night long the darkness had vibrated with the strange monotone
+which I had heard the first night, camping at the gate of the unknown
+land. My brain seemed to echo that subtle harmony which rings in the
+auricular labyrinth after sound has ceased.</p>
+
+<p>There are ghosts of sound which return to haunt long after sound is
+dead. It was these voiceless spectres of a voice long dead that
+stirred the transparent silence, intoning toneless tones.</p>
+
+<p>I think I make myself clear.</p>
+
+<p>It was an uncanny night; morning whitened the east; gray daylight
+stole into the woods, blotting the shadows to paler tints. It was
+nearly mid-day before the sun became visible through the fine-spun web
+of mist&mdash;a pale spot of gilt in the zenith.</p>
+
+<p>By this pallid light I labored to strike the two empty tents, gather
+up our equipments and pack them on our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>five mules. Dorothy aided me
+bravely, whimpering when I spoke of Professor Smawl and William Spike,
+but abating nothing of her industry until we had the mules loaded and
+I was ready to drive them, Heaven knows whither.</p>
+
+<p>"Where shall we go?" quavered Dorothy, sitting on a log with the
+dingue in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>One thing was certain; this mammoth-ridden land was no place for
+women, and I told her so.</p>
+
+<p>We placed the dingue in a basket and tied it around the leading mule's
+neck. Immediately the dingue, alarmed, began dingling like a cow-bell.
+It acted like a charm on the other mules, and they gravely filed off
+after their leader, following the bell. Dorothy and I, hand in hand,
+brought up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget that scene in the forest&mdash;the gray arch of the
+heavens swimming in mist through which the sun peered shiftily, the
+tall pines wavering through the fog, the preoccupied mules marching
+single file, the foggy bell-note of the gentle dingue in its swinging
+basket, and Dorothy, limp kilts dripping with dew, plodding through
+the white dusk.</p>
+
+<p>We followed the terrible tornado-path which the mammoth had left in
+its wake, but there were no traces of its human victims&mdash;neither one
+jot of Professor Smawl nor one solitary tittle of William Spike.</p>
+
+<p>And now I would be glad to end this chapter if I could; I would gladly
+leave myself as I was, there in the misty forest, with an arm
+encircling the slender body of my little companion, and the mules
+moving in a monotonous line, and the dingue discreetly jingling&mdash;but
+again that menacing shadow falls across my page, and truth bids <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>me
+tell all, and I, the slave of accuracy, must remember my vows as the
+dauntless disciple of truth.</p>
+
+<p>Towards sunset&mdash;or that pale parody of sunset which set the forest
+swimming in a ghastly, colorless haze&mdash;the mammoth's trail of ruin
+brought us suddenly out of the trees to the shore of a great sheet of
+water.</p>
+
+<p>It was a desolate spot; northward a chaos of sombre peaks rose, piled
+up like thunder-clouds along the horizon; east and south the darkening
+wilderness spread like a pall. Westward, crawling out into the mist
+from our very feet, the gray waste of water moved under the dull sky,
+and flat waves slapped the squatting rocks, heavy with slime.</p>
+
+<p>And now I understood why the trail of the mammoth continued straight
+into the lake, for on either hand black, filthy tamarack swamps lay
+under ghostly sheets of mist. I strove to creep out into the bog,
+seeking a footing, but the swamp quaked and the smooth surface
+trembled like jelly in a bowl. A stick thrust into the slime sank into
+unknown depths.</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely alarmed, I gained the firm land again and looked around,
+believing there was no road open but the desolate trail we had
+traversed. But I was in error; already the leading mule was wading out
+into the water, and the others, one by one, followed.</p>
+
+<p>How wide the lake might be we could not tell, because the band of fog
+hung across the water like a curtain. Yet out into this flat, shallow
+void our mules went steadily, slop! slop! slop! in single file.
+Already they were growing indistinct in the fog, so I bade Dorothy
+hasten and take off her shoes and stockings.</p>
+
+<p>She was ready before I was, I having to unlace my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>shooting-boots, and
+she stepped out into the water, kilts fluttering, moving her white
+feet cautiously. In a moment I was beside her, and we waded forward,
+sounding the shallow water with our poles.</p>
+
+<p>When the water had risen to Dorothy's knees I hesitated, alarmed. But
+when we attempted to retrace our steps we could not find the shore
+again, for the blank mist shrouded everything, and the water deepened
+at every step.</p>
+
+<p>I halted and listened for the mules. Far away in the fog I heard a
+dull splashing, receding as I listened. After a while all sound died
+away, and a slow horror stole over me&mdash;a horror that froze the little
+net-work of veins in every limb. A step to the right and the water
+rose to my knees; a step to the left and the cold, thin circle of the
+flood chilled my breast. Suddenly Dorothy screamed, and the next
+moment a far cry answered&mdash;a far, sweet cry that seemed to come from
+the sky, like the rushing harmony of the world's swift winds. Then the
+curtain of fog before us lighted up from behind; shadows moved on the
+misty screen, outlines of trees and grassy shores, and tiny birds
+flying. Thrown on the vapory curtain, in silhouette, a man and a woman
+passed under the lovely trees, arms about each other's necks; near
+them the shadows of five mules grazed peacefully; a dingue gambolled
+close by.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a mirage!" I muttered, but my voice made no sound. Slowly the
+light behind the fog died out; the vapor around us turned to rose,
+then dissolved, while mile on mile of a limitless sea spread away
+till, like a quick line pencilled at a stroke, the horizon cut sky and
+sea in half, and before us lay an ocean from which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>towered a mountain
+of snow&mdash;or a gigantic berg of milky ice&mdash;for it was moving.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens," I shrieked; "it is alive!"</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of my crazed cry the mountain of snow became a pillar,
+towering to the clouds, and a wave of golden glory drenched the figure
+to its knees! Figure? Yes&mdash;for a colossal arm shot across the sky,
+then curved back in exquisite grace to a head of awful beauty&mdash;a
+woman's head, with eyes like the blue lake of heaven&mdash;ay, a woman's
+splendid form, upright from the sky to the earth, knee-deep in the
+sea. The evening clouds drifted across her brow; her shimmering hair
+lighted the world beneath with sunset. Then, shading her white brow
+with one hand, she bent, and with the other hand dipped in the sea,
+she sent a wave rolling at us. Straight out of the horizon it sped&mdash;a
+ripple that grew to a wave, then to a furious breaker which caught us
+up in a whirl of foam, bearing us onward, faster, faster, swiftly
+flying through leagues of spray until consciousness ceased and all was
+blank.</p>
+
+<p>Yet ere my senses fled I heard again that strange cry&mdash;that sweet,
+thrilling harmony rushing out over the foaming waters, filling earth
+and sky with its soundless vibrations.</p>
+
+<p>And I knew it was the hail of the Spirit of the North warning us back
+to life again.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>Looking back, now, over the days that passed before we staggered into
+the Hudson Bay outpost at Gravel Cove, I am inclined to believe that
+neither Dorothy nor I were clothed entirely in our proper minds&mdash;or,
+if we were, our minds, no doubt, must have been in the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>condition
+as our clothing. I remember shooting ptarmigan, and that we ate them;
+flashes of memory recall the steady downpour of rain through the
+endless twilight of shaggy forests; dim days on the foggy tundra,
+mud-holes from which the wild ducks rose in thousands; then the
+stunted hemlocks, then the forest again. And I do not even recall the
+moment when, at last, stumbling into the smooth path left by the
+Graham Glacier, we crawled through the mountain-wall, out of the
+unknown land, and once more into a world protected by the Lord
+Almighty.</p>
+
+<p>A hunting-party of Elbon Indians brought us in to the post, and
+everybody was most kind&mdash;that I remember, just before going into
+several weeks of unpleasant delirium mercifully mitigated with
+unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough, Professor Van Twiller was not very much battered,
+physically, for I had carried her for days, pickaback. But the awful
+experience had produced a shock which resulted in a nervous condition
+that lasted so long after she returned to New York that the wealthy
+and eminent specialist who attended her insisted upon taking her to
+the Riviera and marrying her. I sometimes wonder&mdash;but, as I have said,
+such reflections have no place in these austere pages.</p>
+
+<p>However, anybody, I fancy, is at liberty to speculate upon the fate of
+the late Professor Smawl and William Spike, and upon the mules and the
+gentle dingue. Personally, I am convinced that the suggestive
+silhouettes I saw on that ghastly curtain of fog were cast by
+beatified beings in some earthly paradise&mdash;a mirage of bliss of which
+we caught but the colorless shadow-shapes floating 'twixt sea and
+sky.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>At all events, neither Professor Smawl nor her William Spike ever
+returned; no exploring expedition has found a trace of mule or lady,
+of William or the dingue. The new expedition to be organized by
+Barnard College may penetrate still farther. I suppose that, when the
+time comes, I shall be expected to volunteer. But Professor Van
+Twiller is married, and William and Professor Smawl ought to be, and
+altogether, considering the mammoth and that gigantic and splendid
+apparition that bent from the zenith to the ocean and sent a
+tidal-wave rolling from the palm of one white hand&mdash;I say, taking all
+these various matters under consideration, I think I shall decide to
+remain in New York and continue writing for the scientific
+periodicals. Besides, the mortifying experience at the Paris
+Exposition has dampened even my perennially youthful enthusiasm. And
+as for the late expedition to Florida, Heaven knows I am ready to
+repeat it&mdash;nay, I am already forming a plan for the rescue&mdash;but though
+I am prepared to encounter any danger for the sake of my beloved
+superior, Professor Farrago, I do not feel inclined to commit
+indiscretions in order to pry into secrets which, as I regard it,
+concern Professor Smawl and William Spike alone.</p>
+
+<p>But all this is, in a measure, premature. What I now have to relate is
+the recital of an eye-witness to that most astonishing scandal which
+occurred during the recent exposition in Paris.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="IX" id="IX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>When the delegates were appointed to the International Scientific
+Congress at the Paris Exposition of 1900, how little did anybody
+imagine that the great conference would end in the most gigantic
+scandal that ever stirred two continents?</p>
+
+<p>Yet, had it not been for the pair of American newspapers published in
+Paris, this scandal would never have been aired, for the continental
+press is so well muzzled that when it bites its teeth merely meet in
+the empty atmosphere with a discreet snap.</p>
+
+<p>But to the Yankee nothing excepting the Monroe Doctrine is sacred, and
+the unsopped watch-dogs of the press bite right and left, unmuzzled.
+The biter bites&mdash;it is his profession&mdash;and that ends the affair; the
+bitee is bitten, and, in the deplorable argot of the hour, "it is up
+to him."</p>
+
+<p>So now that the scandal has been well aired and hung out to dry in the
+teeth of decency and the four winds, and as all the details have been
+cheerfully and grossly exaggerated, it is, perhaps, the proper moment
+for the truth to be written by the only person whose knowledge of all
+the facts in the affair entitles him to speak for himself as well as
+for those honorable ladies and gentlemen whose names and titles have
+been so mercilessly criticised.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>These, then, are the simple facts:</p>
+
+<p>The International Scientific Congress, now adjourned <i>sine die</i>, met
+at nine o'clock in the morning, May 3, 1900, in the Tasmanian Pavilion
+of the Paris Exposition. There were present the most famous scientists
+of Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, and the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco presided.</p>
+
+<p>It is not necessary, now, to repeat the details of that preliminary
+meeting. It is sufficient to say that committees representing the
+various known sciences were named and appointed by the Prince of
+Monaco, who had been unanimously elected permanent chairman of the
+conference. It is the composition of a single committee that concerns
+us now, and that committee, representing the science which treats of
+bird life, was made up as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Chairman&mdash;His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco. Members&mdash;Sir
+Peter Grebe, Great Britain; Baron de Becasse, France; his Royal
+Highness King Christian, of Finland; the Countess d'Alzette, of
+Belgium; and I, from the United States, representing the Smithsonian
+Institution and the Bronx Park Zoological Society of New York.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was the composition of that now notorious ornithological
+committee, a modest, earnest, self-effacing little band of workers,
+bound together&mdash;in the beginning&mdash;by those ties of mutual respect and
+esteem which unite all laborers in the vineyard of science.</p>
+
+<p>From the first meeting of our committee, science, the great leveller,
+left no artificial barriers of rank or title <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>standing between us. We
+were enthusiasts in our love for ornithology; we found new inspiration
+in the democracy of our common interests.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I chatted with my fellows, feeling no restraint myself and
+perceiving none. The King of Finland and I discussed his latest
+monograph on the speckled titmouse, and I was glad to agree with the
+King in all his theories concerning the nesting habits of that
+important bird.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Peter Grebe, a large, red gentleman in tweeds, read us some notes
+he had made on the domestic hen and her reasons for running ahead of a
+horse and wagon instead of stepping aside to let the disturbing
+vehicle pass.</p>
+
+<p>The Crown-Prince of Monaco took issue with Sir Peter; so did the Baron
+de Becasse; and we were entertained by a friendly and marvellously
+interesting three-cornered dispute, shared in by three of the most
+profound thinkers of the century.</p>
+
+<p>I shall never forget the brilliancy of that argument, nor the modest,
+good-humored retorts which gave us all a glimpse into depths of
+erudition which impressed us profoundly and set the seal on the bonds
+which held us so closely together.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, that the seal should ever have been broken! Alas, that the
+glittering apple of discord should have been flung into our
+midst!&mdash;no, not flung, but gently rolled under our noses by the gloved
+fingers of the lovely Countess d'Alzette.</p>
+
+<p>"Messieurs," said the fair Countess, when all present, excepting she
+and I, had touched upon or indicated the subjects which they had
+prepared to present to the congress&mdash;"messieurs mes confr&egrave;res, I have
+been requested <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>by our distinguished chairman, the Crown-Prince of
+Monaco, to submit to your judgment the subject which, by favor of the
+King of the Belgians, I have prepared to present to the International
+Scientific Congress."</p>
+
+<p>She made a pretty courtesy as she named her own sovereign, and we all
+rose out of respect to that most austere and moral ruler the King of
+Belgium.</p>
+
+<p>"But," she said, with a charming smile of depreciation, "I am very,
+very much afraid that the subject which I have chosen may not meet
+with your approval, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>She stood there in her dainty Parisian gown and bonnet, shaking her
+pretty head uncertainly, a smile on her lips, her small, gloved
+fingers interlocked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know how dreadful it would be if this great congress should be
+compelled to listen to any hoax like that which Monsieur de Rougemont
+imposed on the British Royal Society," she said, gravely; "and because
+the subject of my paper is as strange as the strangest phenomenon
+alleged to have been noted by Monsieur de Rougemont, I hesitate&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at the silent listeners around her. Sir Peter's red face
+had hardened; the King of Finland frowned slightly; the Crown-Prince
+of Monaco and Baron de Becasse wore anxious smiles. But when her
+violet eyes met mine I gave her a glance of encouragement, and that
+glance, I am forced to confess, was not dictated by scientific
+approval, but by something that never entirely dries up in the
+mustiest and dustiest of savants&mdash;the old Adam implanted in us all.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I knew perfectly well what her subject must be; so did every man
+present. For it was no secret that his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>Majesty of Belgium had been
+swindled by some natives in Tasmania, and had paid a very large sum of
+money for a skin of that gigantic bird, the ux, which has been so
+often reported to exist among the inaccessible peaks of the Tasmanian
+Mountains. Needless, perhaps, to say that the skin proved a fraud,
+being nothing more than a Barnum contrivance made up out of the skins
+of a dozen ostriches and cassowaries, and most cleverly put together
+by Chinese workmen; at least, such was the report made on it by Sir
+Peter Grebe, who had been sent by the British Society to Antwerp to
+examine the acquisition. Needless, also, perhaps, to say that King
+Leopold, of Belgium, stoutly maintained that the skin of the ux was
+genuine from beak to claw.</p>
+
+<p>For six months there had been a most serious difference of opinion
+among European ornithologists concerning the famous ux in the Antwerp
+Museum; and this difference had promised to result in an open quarrel
+between a few Belgian savants on one side and-all Europe and Great
+Britain on the other.</p>
+
+<p>Scientists have a deep&mdash;rooted horror of anything that touches on
+charlatanism; the taint of trickery not only alarms them, but drives
+them away from any suspicious subject, and usually ruins,
+scientifically speaking, the person who has introduced the subject for
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, it took no little courage for the Countess d'Alzette to
+touch, with her dainty gloves, a subject which every scientist in
+Europe, with scarcely an exception, had pronounced fraudulent and
+unworthy of investigation. And to bring it before the great
+International Congress required more courage still; for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>person
+who could face, in executive session, the most brilliant intellects in
+the world, and openly profess faith in a Barnumized bird skin, either
+had no scientific reputation to lose or was possessed of a bravery far
+above that of the savants who composed the audience.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when the pretty Countess caught a flash of encouragement in my
+glance she turned rosy with gratification and surprise. Clearly, she
+had not expected to find a single ally in the entire congress. Her
+quick smile of gratitude touched me, and made me ashamed, too, for I
+had encouraged her out of the pure love of mischief, hoping to hear
+the whole matter threshed before the congress and so have it settled
+once for all. It was a thoughtless thing to do on my part. I should
+have remembered the consequences to the Countess if it were proven
+that she had been championing a fraud. The ruffled dignity of the
+congress would never forgive her; her scientific career would
+practically be at an end, because her theories and observations could
+no longer command respect or even the attention of those who knew that
+she herself had once been deceived by a palpable fraud.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her guiltily, already ashamed of myself for encouraging
+her to her destruction. How lovely and innocent she appeared, standing
+there reading her notes in a low, clear voice, fresh as a child's,
+with now and then a delicious upward sweep of her long, dark lashes.</p>
+
+<p>With a start I came to my senses and bestowed a pinch on myself. This
+was neither the time nor the place to sentimentalize over a girlish
+beauty whose small, Parisian head was crammed full of foolish, brave
+theories <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>concerning an imposition which her aged sovereign had been
+unable to detect.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the gathering frown on the King of Finland's dark face; I saw
+Sir Peter Grebe grow redder and redder, and press his thick lips
+together to control the angry "Bosh!" which need not have been uttered
+to have been understood. The Baron de Becasse wore a painfully neutral
+smile, which froze his face into a quaint gargoyle; the Crown-Prince
+of Monaco looked at his polished fingernails with a startled yet
+abstracted resignation. Clearly the young Countess had not a
+sympathizer in the committee.</p>
+
+<p>Something&mdash;perhaps it was the latent chivalry which exists imbedded in
+us all, perhaps it was pity, perhaps a glimmering dawn of belief in
+the ux skin&mdash;set my thoughts working very quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The Countess d'Alzette finished her notes, then glanced around with a
+deprecating smile, which died out on her lips when she perceived the
+silent and stony hostility of her fellow-scientists. A quick
+expression of alarm came into her lovely eyes. Would they vote against
+giving her a hearing before the congress? It required a unanimous vote
+to reject a subject. She turned her eyes on me.</p>
+
+<p>I rose, red as fire, my head humming with a chaos of ideas all
+disordered and vague, yet whirling along in a single, resistless
+current. I had come to the congress prepared to deliver a monograph on
+the great auk; but now the subject went overboard as the birds
+themselves had, and I found myself pleading with the committee to give
+the Countess a hearing on the ux.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" I exclaimed, warmly. "It is established <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>beyond question
+that the ux does exist in Tasmania. Wallace saw several uxen, through
+his telescope, walking about upon the inaccessible heights of the
+Tasmanian Mountains. Darwin acknowledged that the bird exists;
+Professor Farrago has published a pamphlet containing an accumulation
+of all data bearing upon the ux. Why should not Madame la Comtesse be
+heard by the entire congress?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Sir Peter Grebe.</p>
+
+<p>"Have <i>you</i> seen this alleged bird skin in the Antwerp Museum?" he
+asked, perspiring with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have," said I. "It has been patched up, but how are we to know
+that the skin did not require patching? I have not found that ostrich
+skin has been used. It is true that the Tasmanians may have shot the
+bird to pieces and mended the skin with bits of cassowary hide here
+and there. But the greater part of the skin, and the beak and claws,
+are, in my estimation, well worth the serious attention of savants. To
+pronounce them fraudulent is, in my opinion, rash and premature."</p>
+
+<p>I mopped my brow; I was in for it now. I had thrown in my reputation
+with the reputation of the Countess.</p>
+
+<p>The displeasure and astonishment of my confr&egrave;res was unmistakable. In
+the midst of a strained silence I moved that a vote be taken upon the
+advisability of a hearing before the congress on the subject of the
+ux. After a pause the young Countess, pale and determined, seconded my
+motion. The result of the balloting was a foregone conclusion; the
+Countess had one vote&mdash;she herself refraining from voting&mdash;and the
+subject was entered on the committee-book as acceptable and a date set
+for the hearing before the International Congress.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>The effect of this vote on our little committee was most marked.
+Constraint took the place of cordiality, polite reserve replaced that
+guileless and open-hearted courtesy with which our proceedings had
+begun.</p>
+
+<p>With icy politeness, the Crown-Prince of Monaco asked me to state the
+subject of the paper I proposed to read before the congress, and I
+replied quietly that, as I was partly responsible for advocating the
+discussion of the ux, I proposed to associate myself with the Countess
+d'Alzette in that matter&mdash;if Madame la Comtesse would accept the offer
+of a brother savant.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I will," she said, impulsively, her blue eyes soft with
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," observed Sir Peter Grebe, swallowing his indignation and
+waddling off towards the door; "I shall resign my position on this
+committee&mdash;yes, I will, I tell you!"&mdash;as the King of Finland laid a
+fatherly hand on Sir Peter's sleeve&mdash;"I'll not be made responsible for
+this damn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He choked, sputtered, then bowed to the horrified Countess, asking
+pardon, and declaring that he yielded to nobody in respect for the
+gentler sex. And he retired with the Baron de Becasse.</p>
+
+<p>But out in the hallway I heard him explode. "Confound it! This is no
+place for petticoats, Baron! And as for that Yankee ornithologist,
+he's hung himself with the Countess's corset&mdash;string&mdash;yes, he has!
+Don't tell me, Baron! The young idiot was all right until the Countess
+looked at him, I tell you. Gad! how she crumpled him up with those
+blue eyes of hers! What the devil do women come into such committees
+for? Eh? It's an outrage, I tell you! Why, the whole world will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>jeer
+at us if we sit and listen to her monograph on that fraudulent bird!"</p>
+
+<p>The young Countess, who was writing near the window, could not have
+heard this outburst; but I heard it, and so did King Christian and the
+Crown-Prince of Monaco.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord," thought I, "the Countess and I are in the frying-pan this
+time. I'll do what I can to keep us both out of the fire."</p>
+
+<p>When the King and the Crown-Prince had made their adieux to the
+Countess, and she had responded, pale and serious, they came over to
+where I was standing, looking out on the Seine.</p>
+
+<p>"Though we must differ from you," said the King, kindly, "we wish you
+all success in this dangerous undertaking."</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a young man to risk a reputation already established,"
+remarked the Crown-Prince, then added: "You are braver than I.
+Ridicule is a barrier to all knowledge, and, though we know that, we
+seekers after truth always bring up short at that barrier and
+dismount, not daring to put our hobbies to the fence."</p>
+
+<p>"One can but come a cropper," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"And risk staking our hobbies? No, no, that would make us ridiculous;
+and ridicule kills in Europe."</p>
+
+<p>"It's somewhat deadly in America, too," I said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"The more honor to you," said the Crown-Prince, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not the only one," I answered, lightly. "There is my
+confr&egrave;re, Professor Hyssop, who studies <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>apparitions and braves a
+contempt and ridicule which none of us would dare challenge. We
+Yankees are learning slowly. Some day we will find the lost key to the
+future while Europe is sneering at those who are trying to pick the
+lock."</p>
+
+<p>When King Christian, of Finland, and the Crown-Prince of Monaco had
+taken their hats and sticks and departed, I glanced across the room at
+the young Countess, who was now working rapidly on a type-writer,
+apparently quite oblivious of my presence.</p>
+
+<p>I looked out of the window again, and my gaze wandered over the
+exposition grounds. Gilt and scarlet and azure the palaces rose in
+every direction, under a wilderness of fluttering flags. Towers,
+minarets, turrets, golden spires cut the blue sky; in the west the
+gaunt Eiffel Tower sprawled across the glittering Esplanade; behind it
+rose the solid golden dome of the Emperor's tomb, gilded once more by
+the Almighty's sun, to amuse the living rabble while the dead
+slumbered in his imperial crypt, himself now but a relic for the
+amusement of the people whom he had despised. O tempora! O mores! O
+Napoleon!</p>
+
+<p>Down under my window, in the asphalted court, the King of Finland was
+entering his beautiful victoria. An adjutant, wearing a cocked hat and
+brilliant uniform, mounted the box beside the green-and-gold coachman;
+the two postilions straightened up in their saddles; the four horses
+danced. Then, when the Crown-Prince of Monaco had taken a seat beside
+the King, the carriage rolled away, and far down the quay I watched it
+until the flutter of the green-and-white plumes in the adjutant's
+cocked hat was all I could see of vanishing royalty.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>I was still musing there by the window, listening to the click and
+ringing of the type-writer, when I suddenly became aware that the
+clicking had ceased, and, turning, I saw the young Countess standing
+beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for your chivalrous impulse to help me," she said, frankly,
+holding out her bare hand.</p>
+
+<p>I bent over it.</p>
+
+<p>"I had not realized how desperate my case was," she said, with a
+smile. "I supposed that they would at least give me a hearing. How can
+I thank you for your brave vote in my favor?"</p>
+
+<p>"By giving me your confidence in this matter," said I, gravely. "If we
+are to win, we must work together and work hard, madame. We are
+entering a struggle, not only to prove the genuineness of a bird skin
+and the existence of a bird which neither of us has ever seen, but
+also a struggle which will either make us famous forever or render it
+impossible for either of us ever again to face a scientific audience."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," she said, quietly "And I understand all the better how
+gallant a gentleman I have had the fortune to enlist in my cause.
+Believe me, had I not absolute confidence in my ability to prove the
+existence of the ux I should not, selfish as I am, have accepted your
+chivalrous offer to stand or fall with me."</p>
+
+<p>The subtle emotion in her voice touched a responsive chord in me. I
+looked at her earnestly; she raised her beautiful eyes to mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you help me?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Would I help her? Faith, I'd pass the balance of my life turning
+flip-flaps to please her. I did not attempt to undeceive myself; I
+realized that the lightning had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>struck me&mdash;that I was desperately in
+love with the young Countess from the tip of her bonnet to the toe of
+her small, polished shoe. I was curiously cool about it, too, although
+my heart gave a thump that nigh choked me, and I felt myself going red
+from temple to chin.</p>
+
+<p>If the Countess d'Alzette noticed it she gave no sign, unless the pink
+tint under her eyes, deepening, was a subtle signal of understanding
+to the signal in my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose," she said, "that I failed, before the congress, to prove my
+theory? Suppose my investigations resulted in the exposure of a fraud
+and my name was held up to ridicule before all Europe? What would
+become of you, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"You are already celebrated as the discoverer of the mammoth and the
+great auk," she persisted. "You are young, enthusiastic, renowned, and
+you have a future before you that anybody in the world might envy."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," she said, softly, "you risk all because you will not leave
+a young woman friendless among her confr&egrave;res. It is not wise,
+monsieur; it is gallant and generous and impulsive, but it is not
+wisdom. Don Quixote rides no more in Europe, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"He stays at home&mdash;seventy million of him&mdash;in America," said I.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment she said, "I believe you, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"It is true enough," I said, with a laugh. "We are the only people who
+tilt at windmills these days&mdash;we and our cousins, the British, who
+taught us."</p>
+
+<p>I bowed gayly, and added:</p>
+
+<p>"With your colors to wear, I shall have the honor of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>breaking a lance
+against the biggest windmill in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the Citadel of Science," she said, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And its rock-ribbed respectability," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me thoughtfully, rolling and unrolling the scroll in her
+hands. Then she sighed, smiled, and brightened, handing me the scroll.</p>
+
+<p>"Read it carefully," she said; "it is an outline of the policy I
+suggest that we follow. You will be surprised at some of the
+statements. Yet every word is the truth. And, monsieur, your reward
+for the devotion you have offered will be no greater than you deserve,
+when you find yourself doubly famous for our joint monograph on the
+ux. Without your vote in the committee I should have been denied a
+hearing, even though I produced proofs to support my theory. I
+appreciate that; I do most truly appreciate the courage which prompted
+you to defend a woman at the risk of your own ruin. Come to me this
+evening at nine. I hold for you in store a surprise and pleasure which
+you do not dream of."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but I do," I said, slowly, under the spell of her delicate beauty
+and enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you?" she said, laughing. "You don't know what awaits you at
+nine this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"You," I said, fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>The color swept her face; she dropped me a deep courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>"At nine, then," she said. "No. 8 Rue d'Alouette."</p>
+
+<p>I bowed, took my hat, gloves, and stick, and attended her to her
+carriage below.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>Long after the blue-and-black victoria had whirled away down the
+crowded quay I stood looking after it, mazed in the web of that
+ancient enchantment whose spell fell over the first man in Eden, and
+whose sorcery shall not fail till the last man returns his soul.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="X" id="X"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>I lunched at my lodgings on the Quai Malthus, and I had but little
+appetite, having fed upon such an unexpected variety of emotions
+during the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Now, although I was already heels over head in love, I do not believe
+that loss of appetite was the result of that alone. I was slowly
+beginning to realize what my recent attitude might cost me, not only
+in an utter collapse of my scientific career, and the consequent
+material ruin which was likely to follow, but in the loss of all my
+friends at home. The Zoological Society of Bronx Park and the
+Smithsonian Institution of Washington had sent me as their trusted
+delegate, leaving it entirely to me to choose the subject on which I
+was to speak before the International Congress. What, then, would be
+their attitude when they learned that I had chosen to uphold the
+dangerous theory of the existence of the ux.</p>
+
+<p>Would they repudiate me and send another delegate to replace me? Would
+they merely wash their hands of me and let me go to my own
+destruction?</p>
+
+<p>"I will know soon enough," thought I, "for this morning's proceedings
+will have been cabled to New York ere now, and read at the
+breakfast-tables of every old, moss-grown naturalist in America before
+I see the Countess d'Alzette this evening." And I drew from my pocket
+the roll of paper which she had given me, and, lighting a cigar, lay
+back in my chair to read it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>The manuscript had been beautifully type-written, and I had no trouble
+in following her brief, clear account of the circumstances under which
+the notorious ux-skin had been obtained. As for the story itself, it
+was somewhat fishy, but I manfully swallowed my growing nervousness
+and comforted myself with the belief of Darwin in the existence of the
+ux, and the subsequent testimony of Wallace, who simply stated what he
+had seen through his telescope, and then left it to others to identify
+the enormous birds he described as he had observed them stalking about
+on the snowy peaks of the Tasmanian Alps.</p>
+
+<p>My own knowledge of the ux was confined to a single circumstance.
+When, in 1897, I had gone to Tasmania with Professor Farrago, to make
+a report on the availability of the so-called "Tasmanian devil," as a
+substitute for the mongoose in the West Indies, I of course heard a
+great deal of talk among the natives concerning the birds which they
+affirmed haunted the summits of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Our time in Tasmania was too limited to admit of an exploration then.
+But although we were perfectly aware that the summits of the Tasmanian
+Alps are inaccessible, we certainly should have attempted to gain them
+had not the time set for our departure arrived before we had completed
+the investigation for which we were sent.</p>
+
+<p>One relic, however, I carried away with me. It was a single greenish
+bronzed feather, found high up in the mountains by a native, and sold
+to me for a somewhat large sum of money.</p>
+
+<p>Darwin believed the ux to be covered with greenish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>plumage; Wallace
+was too far away to observe the color of the great birds; but all the
+natives of Tasmania unite in affirming that the plumage of the ux is
+green.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the color of this feather that made me an eager
+purchaser, it was the extraordinary length and size. I knew of no
+living bird large enough to wear such a feather. As for the color,
+that might have been tampered with before I bought it, and, indeed,
+testing it later, I found on the fronds traces of sulphate of copper.
+But the same thing has been found in the feathers of certain birds
+whose color is metallic green, and it has been proven that such birds
+pick up and swallow shining bits of copper pyrites.</p>
+
+<p>Why should not the ux do the same thing?</p>
+
+<p>Still, my only reason for believing in the existence of the bird was
+this single feather. I had easily proved that it belonged to no known
+species of bird. I also proved it to be similar to the tail-feathers
+of the ux-skin in Antwerp. But the feathers on the Antwerp specimen
+were gray, and the longest of them was but three feet in length, while
+my huge, bronze-green feather measured eleven feet from tip to tip.</p>
+
+<p>One might account for it supposing the Antwerp skin to be that of a
+young bird, or of a moulting bird, or perhaps of a different sex from
+the bird whose feather I had secured.</p>
+
+<p>Still, these ideas were not proven. Nothing concerning the birds had
+been proven. I had but a single fact to lean on, and that was that the
+feather I possessed could not have belonged to any known species of
+bird. Nobody but myself knew of the existence of this feather. And now
+I meant to cable to Bronx Park for it, and to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>place this evidence at
+the disposal of the beautiful Countess d'Alzette.</p>
+
+<p>My cigar had gone out, as I sat musing, and I relighted it and resumed
+my reading of the type-written notes, lazily, even a trifle
+sceptically, for all the evidence that she had been able to collect to
+substantiate her theory of the existence of the ux was not half as
+important as the evidence I was to produce in the shape of that
+enormous green feather.</p>
+
+<p>I came to the last paragraph, smoking serenely, and leaning back
+comfortably, one leg crossed over the other. Then, suddenly, my
+attention became riveted on the words under my eyes. Could I have read
+them aright? Could I believe what I read in ever-growing astonishment
+which culminated in an excitement that stirred the very hair on my
+head?</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"The ux exists. There is no longer room for doubt. Ocular
+proof I can now offer in the shape of <i>five living eggs</i> of
+this gigantic bird. All measures have been taken to hatch
+these eggs; they are now in the vast incubator. It is my plan
+to have them hatch, one by one, under the very eyes of the
+International Congress. It will be the greatest triumph that
+science has witnessed since the discovery of the New World.</p>
+
+<p class="right">[Signed] "<span class="sc">Susanne d'Alzette</span>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Either," I cried out, in uncontrollable excitement&mdash;"either that girl
+is mad or she is the cleverest woman on earth."</p>
+
+<p>After a moment I added:</p>
+
+<p>"In either event I am going to marry her."</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XI" id="XI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>That evening, a few minutes before nine o'clock, I descended from a
+cab in front of No. 8 Rue d'Alouette, and was ushered into a pretty
+reception-room by an irreproachable servant, who disappeared directly
+with my card.</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the young Countess came in, exquisite in her silvery
+dinner-gown, eyes bright, white arms extended in a charming, impulsive
+welcome. The touch of her silky fingers thrilled me; I was dumb under
+the enchantment of her beauty; and I think she understood my silence,
+for her blue eyes became troubled and the happy parting of her lips
+changed to a pensive curve.</p>
+
+<p>Presently I began to tell her about my bronzed-green feather; at my
+first word she looked up brightly, almost gratefully, I fancied; and
+in another moment we were deep in eager discussion of the subject
+which had first drawn us together.</p>
+
+<p>What evidence I possessed to sustain our theory concerning the
+existence of the ux I hastened to reveal; then, heart beating
+excitedly, I asked her about the eggs and where they were at present,
+and whether she believed it possible to bring them to Paris&mdash;all these
+questions in the same breath&mdash;which brought a happy light into her
+eyes and a delicious ripple of laughter to her lips.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>"Why, of course it is possible to bring the eggs here," she cried. "Am
+I sure? Parbleu! The eggs are already here, monsieur!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" I exclaimed. "In Paris?"</p>
+
+<p>"In Paris? Mais oui; and in my own house&mdash;<i>this very house</i>, monsieur.
+Come, you shall behold them with your own eyes!"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were brilliant with excitement; impulsively she stretched out
+her rosy hand. I took it; and she led me quickly back through the
+drawing-room, through the dining-room, across the butler's pantry, and
+into a long, dark hallway. We were almost running now&mdash;I keeping tight
+hold of her soft little hand, she, raising her gown a trifle, hurrying
+down the hallway, silken petticoats rustling like a silk banner in the
+wind. A turn to the right brought us to the cellar-stairs; down we
+hastened, and then across the cemented floor towards a long,
+glass-fronted shelf, pierced with steam-pipes.</p>
+
+<p>"A match," she whispered, breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>I struck a wax match and touched it to the gas-burner overhead.</p>
+
+<p>Never, never can I forget what that flood of gas-light revealed. In a
+row stood five large, glass-mounted incubators; behind the glass doors
+lay, in dormant majesty, five enormous eggs. The eggs were
+pale-green&mdash;lighter, somewhat, than robins' eggs, but not as pale as
+herons' eggs. Each egg appeared to be larger than a large hogs-head,
+and was partly embedded in bales of cotton-wool.</p>
+
+<p>Five little silver thermometers inside the glass doors indicated a
+temperature of 95&deg; Fahrenheit. I noticed that there was an automatic
+arrangement connected with the pipes which regulated the temperature.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>I was too deeply moved for words. Speech seemed superfluous as we
+stood there, hand in hand, contemplating those gigantic, pale-green
+eggs.</p>
+
+<p>There is something in a silent egg which moves one's deeper
+emotions&mdash;something solemn in its embryotic inertia, something awesome
+in its featureless immobility.</p>
+
+<p>I know of nothing on earth which is so totally lacking in expression
+as an egg. The great desert Sphinx, brooding through its veil of sand,
+has not that tremendous and meaningless dignity which wraps the
+colorless oval effort of a single domestic hen.</p>
+
+<p>I held the hand of the young Countess very tightly. Her fingers closed
+slightly.</p>
+
+<p>Then and there, in the solemn presence of those emotionless eggs, I
+placed my arm around her supple waist and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>She said nothing. Presently she stooped to observe the thermometer.
+Naturally, it registered 95&deg; Fahrenheit.</p>
+
+<p>"Susanne," I said, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we must go up-stairs," she whispered, breathlessly; and, picking
+up her silken skirts, she fled up the cellar-stairs.</p>
+
+<p>I turned out the gas, with that instinct of economy which early
+wastefulness has implanted in me, and followed the Countess Suzanne
+through the suite of rooms and into the small reception-hall where she
+had first received me.</p>
+
+<p>She was sitting on a low divan, head bent, slowly turning a sapphire
+ring on her finger, round and round.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her romantically, and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't," she said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>The correct reply to this is:</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"&mdash;very tenderly spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," she replied, which was also the correct and regular answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Suzanne," I said, slowly and passionately.</p>
+
+<p>She turned the sapphire ring on her finger. Presently she tired of
+this, so I lifted her passive hand very gently and continued turning
+the sapphire ring on her finger, slowly, to harmonize with the cadence
+of our unspoken thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Towards midnight I went home, walking with great care through a new
+street in Paris, paved exclusively with rose-colored blocks of air.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XII" id="XII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>At nine o'clock in the evening, July 31, 1900, the International
+Congress was to assemble in the great lecture-hall of the Belgian
+Scientific Pavilion, which adjourned the Tasmanian Pavilion, to hear
+the Countess Suzanne d'Alzette read her paper on the ux.</p>
+
+<p>That morning the Countess and I, with five furniture vans, had
+transported the five great incubators to the platform of the
+lecture-hall, and had engaged an army of plumbers and gas-fitters to
+make the steam-heating connections necessary to maintain in the
+incubators a temperature of 100&deg; Fahrenheit.</p>
+
+<p>A heavy green curtain hid the stage from the body of the lecture-hall.
+Behind this curtain the five enormous eggs reposed, each in its
+incubator.</p>
+
+<p>The Countess Suzanne was excited and calm by turns, her cheeks were
+pink, her lips scarlet, her eyes bright as blue planets at midnight.</p>
+
+<p>Without faltering she rehearsed her discourse before me, reading from
+her type-written manuscript in a clear voice, in which I could
+scarcely discern a tremor. Then we went through the dumb show of
+exhibiting the uxen eggs to a frantically applauding audience; she
+responded to countless supposititious encores, I leading her out
+repeatedly before the green curtain to face the great, damp, darkened
+auditorium.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>Then, in response to repeated imaginary recalls, she rehearsed the
+extemporaneous speech, thanking the distinguished audience for their
+patience in listening to an unknown confr&egrave;re, and confessing her
+obligations to me (here I appeared and bowed in self-abasement) for my
+faith in her and my aid in securing for her a public hearing before
+the most highly educated audience in the world.</p>
+
+<p>After that we retired behind the curtain to sit on an empty box and
+eat sandwiches and watch the last lingering plumbers pasting up the
+steam connections with a pot of molten lead.</p>
+
+<p>The plumbers were Americans, brought to Paris to make repairs on the
+American buildings during the exposition, and we conversed with them
+affably as they pottered about, plumber-like, poking under the
+flooring with lighted candles, rubbing their thumbs up and down musty
+old pipes, and prying up planks in dark corners.</p>
+
+<p>They informed us that they were union men and that they hoped we were
+too. And I replied that union was certainly my ultimate purpose, at
+which the young Countess smiled dreamily at vacancy.</p>
+
+<p>We did not dare leave the incubators. The plumbers lingered on, hour
+after hour, while we sat and watched the little silver thermometers,
+and waited.</p>
+
+<p>It was time for the Countess Suzanne to dress, and still the plumbers
+had not finished; so I sent a messenger for her maid, to bring her
+trunk to the lecture-hall, and I despatched another messenger to my
+lodgings for my evening clothes and fresh linen.</p>
+
+<p>There were several dressing-rooms off the stage. Here, about six
+o'clock, the Countess retired with her maid, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>dress, leaving me to
+watch the plumbers and the thermometers.</p>
+
+<p>When the Countess Suzanne returned, radiant and lovely in an evening
+gown of black lace, I gave her the roses I had brought for her and
+hurried off to dress in my turn, leaving her to watch the
+thermometers.</p>
+
+<p>I was not absent more than half an hour, but when I returned I found
+the Countess anxiously conversing with the plumbers and pointing
+despairingly at the thermometers, which now registered only 95&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>"You must keep up the temperature!" I said. "Those eggs are due to
+hatch within a few hours. What's the trouble with the heat?"</p>
+
+<p>The plumber did not know, but thought the connections were defective.</p>
+
+<p>"But that's why we called you in!" exclaimed the Countess. "Can't you
+fix things securely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we'll fix things, lady," replied the plumber, condescendingly,
+and he ambled away to rub his thumb up and down a pipe.</p>
+
+<p>As we alone were unable to move and handle the enormous eggs, the
+Countess, whose sweet character was a stranger to vindictiveness or
+petty resentment, had written to the members of the ornithological
+committee, revealing the marvellous fortune which had crowned her
+efforts in the search for evidence to sustain her theory concerning
+the ux, and inviting these gentlemen to aid her in displaying the
+great eggs to the assembled congress.</p>
+
+<p>This she had done the night previous. Every one of the gentlemen
+invited had come post-haste to her "hotel," to view the eggs with
+their own sceptical and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>astonished eyes; and the fair young Countess
+and I tasted our first triumph in her cellar, whither we conducted Sir
+Peter Grebe, the Crown-Prince of Monaco, Baron de Becasse, and his
+Majesty King Christian of Finland.</p>
+
+<p>Scepticism and incredulity gave place to excitement and unbounded
+enthusiasm. The old King embraced the Countess; Baron de Becasse
+attempted to kiss me; Sir Peter Grebe made a handsome apology for his
+folly and vowed that he would do open penance for his sins. The poor
+Crown-Prince, who was of a nervous temperament, sat on the
+cellar-stairs and wept like a child.</p>
+
+<p>His grief at his own pig-headedness touched us all profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that these gentlemen were coming to-night to give their
+aid to us in moving the priceless eggs, and lend their countenance and
+enthusiastic support to the young Countess in her maiden effort.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Peter Grebe arrived first, all covered with orders and
+decorations, and greeted us affectionately, calling the Countess the
+"sweetest lass in France," and me his undutiful Yankee cousin who had
+landed feet foremost at the expense of the British Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The King of Finland, the Crown-Prince, and Baron de Becasse arrived
+together, a composite mass of medals, sashes, and academy palms. To
+see them moving boxes about, straightening chairs, and pulling out
+rugs reminded me of those golden-embroidered gentlemen who run out
+into the arena and roll up carpets after the acrobats have finished
+their turn in the Nouveau Cirque.</p>
+
+<p>I was aiding the King of Finland to move a heavy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>keg of nails, when
+the Countess called out to me in alarm, saying that the thermometers
+had dropped to 80&deg; Fahrenheit.</p>
+
+<p>I spoke sharply to the plumbers, who were standing in a circle behind
+the dressing-rooms; but they answered sullenly that they could do no
+more work that day.</p>
+
+<p>Indignant and alarmed, I ordered them to come out to the stage, and,
+after some hesitation, they filed out, a sulky, silent lot of workmen,
+with their tools already gathered up and tied in their kits. At once I
+noticed that a new man had appeared among them&mdash;a red-faced, stocky
+man wearing a frock-coat and a shiny silk hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is the master-workman here?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," said a man in blue overalls.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "why don't you fix those steam-fittings?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. The man in the silk hat smirked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, that's all right," said the man in the silk hat. "These
+men know their business without you tellin' them."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" I demanded, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm just a walkin' delegate," he replied, with a sneer. "There's
+a strike in New York and I come over here to tie this here exposition
+up. See?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to say you won't let these men finish their work?" I asked,
+thunderstruck.</p>
+
+<p>"That's about it, young man," he said, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>Furious, I glanced at my watch, then at the thermometers, which now
+registered only 75&deg;. Already I could hear the first-comers of the
+audience arriving in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>the body of the hall. Already a stage-hand was
+turning up the footlights and dragging chairs and tables hither and
+thither.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you take to stay and attend to those steam-pipes?" I
+demanded, desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be done nohow," observed the man in the silk hat. "That New
+York strike is good for a month yet." Then, turning to the workmen, he
+nodded and, to my horror, the whole gang filed out after him, turning
+deaf ears to my entreaties and threats.</p>
+
+<p>There was a deathly silence, then Sir Peter exploded into a vivid
+shower of words. The Countess, pale as a ghost, gave me a
+heart-breaking look. The Crown-Prince wept.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Heaven!" I cried; "the thermometers have fallen to 70&deg;!"</p>
+
+<p>The King of Finland sat down on a chair and pressed his hands over his
+eyes. Baron de Becasse ran round and round, uttering subdued and
+plaintive screams; Sir Peter swore steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," I cried, desperately, "we must save those eggs! They are
+on the very eve of hatching! Who will volunteer?"</p>
+
+<p>"To do what?" moaned the Crown-Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you," I exclaimed, running to the incubators and beckoning
+to the Baron to aid me.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment we had rolled out the great egg, made a nest on the stage
+floor with the bales of cotton-wool, and placed the egg in it. One
+after another we rolled out the remaining eggs, building for each its
+nest of cotton; and at last the five enormous eggs lay there in a row
+behind the green curtain.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>"Now," said I, excitedly, to the King, "you must get up on that egg
+and try to keep it warm."</p>
+
+<p>The King began to protest, but I would take no denial, and presently
+his Majesty was perched up on the great egg, gazing foolishly about at
+the others, who were now all climbing up on their allotted eggs.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Heaven!" muttered the King, as Sir Peter settled down
+comfortably on his egg, "I am willing to give life and fortune for the
+sake of science, but I can't bear to hatch out eggs like a bird!"</p>
+
+<p>The Crown-Prince was now sitting patiently beside the Baron de
+Becasse.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel in my bones," he murmured, "that I'm about to hatch something.
+Can't you hear a tapping on the shell of your egg, Baron?"</p>
+
+<p>"Parbleu!" replied the Baron. "The shell is moving under me."</p>
+
+<p>It certainly was; for, the next moment, the Baron fell into his egg
+with a crash and a muffled shriek, and floundered out, dripping,
+yellow as a canary.</p>
+
+<p>"N'importe!" he cried, excitedly. "Allons! Save the eggs! Hurrah! Vive
+la science!" And he scrambled up on the fourth egg and sat there, arms
+folded, sublime courage transfiguring him from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>We all gave him a cheer, which was hushed as the stage-manager ran in,
+warning us that the audience was already assembled and in place.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going to raise the curtain while we're sitting, are you?"
+demanded the King of Finland, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," I said; "sit tight, your Majesty. Courage, gentlemen! Our
+vindication is at hand!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>The Countess glanced at me with startled eyes; I took her hand,
+saluted it respectfully, and then quietly led her before the curtain,
+facing an ocean of upturned faces across the flaring footlights.</p>
+
+<p>She stood a moment to acknowledge the somewhat ragged applause, a calm
+smile on her lips. All her courage had returned; I saw that at once.</p>
+
+<p>Very quietly she touched her lips to the <i>eau-sucr&eacute;e</i>, laid her
+manuscript on the table, raised her beautiful head, and began:</p>
+
+<p>"That the ux is a living bird I am here before you to prove&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A sharp report behind the curtain drowned her voice. She paled; the
+audience rose amid cries of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"What was it?" she asked, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Peter has hatched out his egg," I whispered. "Hark! There goes
+another egg!" And I ran behind the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>Such a scene as I beheld was never dreamed of on land or sea. Two
+enormous young uxen, all over gigantic pin-feathers, were wandering
+stupidly about. Mounted on one was Sir Peter Grebe, eyes starting from
+his apoplectic visage; on the other, clinging to the bird's neck, hung
+the Baron de Becasse.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could move, the two remaining eggs burst, and a pair of huge,
+scrawny fledglings rose among the d&eacute;bris, bearing off on their backs
+the King and Crown-Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Help!" said the King of Finland, faintly. "I'm falling off!"</p>
+
+<p>I sprang to his aid, but tripped on the curtain-spring. The next
+instant the green curtain shot up, and there, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>revealed to that vast
+and distinguished audience, roamed four enormous chicks, bearing on
+their backs the most respected and exclusive aristocracy of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The Countess Suzanne turned with a little shriek of horror, then sat
+down in her chair, laid her lovely head on the table, and very quietly
+fainted away, unconscious of the frantic cheers which went roaring to
+the roof.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>This, then, is the <i>true</i> history of the famous exposition scandal.
+And, as I have said, had it not been for the presence in that audience
+of two American reporters nobody would have known what all the world
+now knows&mdash;nobody would have read of the marvellous feats of bareback
+riding indulged in by the King of Finland&mdash;nobody would have read how
+Sir Peter Grebe steered his mount safely past the footlights only to
+come to grief over the prompter's box.</p>
+
+<p>But this <i>is</i> scandal. And, as for the charming Countess Suzanne
+d'Alzette, the public has heard all that it is entitled to hear, and
+much that it is not entitled to hear.</p>
+
+<p>However, on second thoughts, perhaps the public is entitled to hear a
+little more. I will therefore say this much&mdash;the shock of astonishment
+which stunned me when the curtain flew up, revealing the
+King-bestridden uxen, was nothing to the awful blow which smote me
+when the Count d'Alzette leaped from the orchestra, over the
+footlights, and bore away with him the fainting form of his wife, the
+lovely Countess d'Alzette.</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes wonder&mdash;but, as I have repeatedly observed, this dull and
+pedantic narrative of fact is no vehicle for sentimental soliloquy. It
+is, then, merely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>sufficient to say that I took the earliest steamer
+for kinder shores, spurred on to haste by a venomous cable-gram from
+the Smithsonian, repudiating me, and by another from Bronx Park,
+ordering me to spend the winter in some inexpensive, poisonous, and
+unobtrusive spot, and make a collection of isopods. The island of Java
+appeared to me to be as poisonously unobtrusive and inexpensive a
+region as I had ever heard of; a steamer sailed from Antwerp for
+Batavia in twenty-four hours. Therefore, as I say, I took the
+night-train for Brussels, and the steamer from Antwerp the following
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>Of my uneventful voyage, of the happy and successful quest, there is
+little to relate. The Javanese are frolicsome and hospitable. There
+was a girl there with features that were as delicate as though
+chiselled out of palest amber; and I remember she wore a most
+wonderful jewelled, helmet-like head-dress, and jingling bangles on
+her ankles, and when she danced she made most graceful and poetic
+gestures with her supple wrists&mdash;but that has nothing to do with
+isopods, absolutely nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Letters from home came occasionally. Professor Farrago had returned to
+the Bronx and had been re-elected to the high office he had so nobly
+held when I first became associated with him.</p>
+
+<p>Through his kindness and by his advice I remained for several years in
+the Far East, until a letter from him arrived recalling me and also
+announcing his own hurried and sudden departure for Florida. He also
+mentioned my promotion to the office of subcurator of department; so I
+started on my homeward voyage very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>much pleased with the world, and
+arrived in New York on April 1, 1904, ready for a rest to which I
+believed myself entitled. And the first thing that they handed me was
+a letter from Professor Farrago, summoning me South.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>The letter that started me&mdash;I was going to say startled me, but only
+imaginative people are startled&mdash;the letter, then, that started me
+from Bronx Park to the South I print without the permission of my
+superior, Professor Farrago. I have not obtained his permission, for
+the somewhat exciting reason that nobody knows where he is. Publicity
+being now recognized as the annihilator of mysteries, a benevolent
+purpose alone inspires me to publish a letter so strange, so
+pathetically remarkable, in view of what has recently occurred.</p>
+
+<p>As I say, I had only just returned from Java with a valuable
+collection of undescribed isopods&mdash;an order of edriophthalmous
+crustaceans with seven free thoracic somites furnished with fourteen
+legs&mdash;and I beg my reader's pardon, but my reader will see the
+necessity for the author's absolute accuracy in insisting on detail,
+because the story that follows is a dangerous story for a scientist to
+tell, in view of the vast amount of nonsense and fiction in
+circulation masquerading as stories of scientific adventure.</p>
+
+<p>I was, therefore, anticipating a delightful summer's work with pen and
+microscope, when on April 1st I received the following extraordinary
+letter from Professor Farrago:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+<p class="right">"<span class="sc">In Camp, Little Sprite Lake</span>,<br />
+"<span class="sc">Everglades, Florida</span>, <i>March 15, 1902.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="sc">My Dear Mr. Gilland</span>,&mdash;On receipt of this
+communication you will immediately secure for me the following
+articles:</p>
+
+<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 1em;">"One complete outfit of woman's clothing.<br />
+"One camera.<br />
+"One light steel cage, large enough for you to stand in.<br />
+"One stenographer (male sex).<br />
+"One five-pound steel tank, with siphon and hose attachment.<br />
+"One rifle and ammunition.<br />
+"Three ounces rosium oxyde.<br />
+"One ounce chlorate strontium.</p>
+
+<p>"You will then, within twenty-four hours, set out with the
+stenographer and the supplies mentioned and join me in camp on
+Little Sprite Lake. This order is formal and admits of no
+delay. You will appreciate the necessity of absolute and
+unquestioning obedience when I tell you that I am practically
+on the brink of the most astonishing discovery recorded in
+natural history since Monsieur Zani discovered the
+purple-spotted zoombok in Nyanza; and that I depend upon you
+and your zeal and fidelity for success.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare not, lest my letter fall into unscrupulous hands,
+convey to you more than a hint of what lies before us in these
+uncharted solitudes of the Everglades.</p>
+
+<p>"You must read between the lines when I say that because one
+can see through a sheet of glass, the glass is none the less
+solid and palpable. One can see <i>through</i> it&mdash;if that is also
+seeing it; but one can nevertheless hold it and feel it and
+receive from it sensations of cold or heat according to its
+temperature.</p>
+
+<p>"Certain jellyfish are absolutely transparent when in the
+water, and one can only know of their presence by accidental
+contact, not by sight.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Have you ever thought that possibly there might exist larger
+and more highly organized creatures transparent to eyesight,
+yet palpable to touch?</i></p>
+
+<p>"Little Sprite Lake is the jumping-off place; beyond lie the
+Everglades, the outskirts of which are haunted by the
+Seminoles, the interior of which have never been visited by
+man, as far as we know.</p>
+
+<p>"As you are aware, no general survey of Florida has yet been
+made; there exist no maps of the Everglades south of
+Okeechobee; even Little Sprite Lake is but a vague blot on our
+maps. We know, of course, that south of the eleven thousand
+square <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>miles of fresh water which is called Lake Okeechobee
+the Everglades form a vast, delta-like projection of thousands
+and thousands of square miles. Darkest Africa is no longer a
+mystery; but the Everglades to-day remain the sombre secret of
+our continent. And, to-day, this unknown expanse of swamps,
+barrens, forests, and lagoons is greater than in the days of
+De Soto, because the entire region has been slowly rising.</p>
+
+<p>"All this, my dear sir, you already know, and I ask your
+indulgence for recalling the facts to your memory. I do it for
+this reason&mdash;the search for <i>what I am seeking</i> may lead us to
+utter destruction; and therefore my formal orders to you
+should be modified to this extent:&mdash;do you volunteer? If you
+volunteer, my orders remain; if not, turn this letter over to
+Mr. Kingsley, who will find for me the companion I require.</p>
+
+<p>"In the event of your coming, you must break your journey at
+False Cape and ask for an old man named Slunk. He will give
+you a packet; you will give him a dollar, and drive on to Cape
+Canaveral, and you will do what is to be done there. From
+there to Fort Kissimmee, to Okeechobee, traversing the lake to
+the Rita River, where I have marked the trail to Little
+Sprite.</p>
+
+<p>"At Little Sprite I shall await you; beyond that point a
+merciful Providence alone can know what awaits us.</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 15%;">"Yours fraternally,</p>
+
+<p class="right sc">"Farrago.</p>
+
+<p>"P.S.&mdash;I think that you had better make your will, and suggest
+the same idea to the stenographer who is to accompany you. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; F."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And that was the letter I received while seated comfortably on the
+floor of my work-room, surrounded by innocent isopods, all patiently
+awaiting scientific investigation.</p>
+
+<p>And this is what I did: Within twenty-four hours I had assembled the
+supplies required&mdash;the cage, the woman's clothing, tank, arms and
+ammunition, and the chemicals; I had secured accommodations, for that
+evening, on the Florida, Volusia, and Fort Lauderdale Railway as far
+as Citron City; and I had been interviewing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>stenographers all day
+long, the result of an innocently worded advertisement in the daily
+newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>It was now very close to the time when I must summon a cab and drive
+to the ferry; and yet I was still shy one stenographer.</p>
+
+<p>I had seen scores; they simply would not listen to the proposition.
+"Why does a gentleman in the backwoods of Florida want a
+stenographer?" they demanded; and as I had not the faintest idea, I
+could only say so. I think the majority interviewed concluded I had
+escaped from a State institution.</p>
+
+<p>As the time for departure approached I became desperate, urging and
+beseeching applicants to accompany me; but neither sympathy for my
+instant need nor desire for salary moved them.</p>
+
+<p>I waited until the last moment, hoping against hope. Then, with a
+groan of despair, I seized luggage and raincoat, made for the door and
+flung it open, only to find myself face to face with an attractive
+young girl, apparently on the point of pressing the electric button.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," I said, "but I have a train to catch."</p>
+
+<p>She was noticeably attractive in her storm-coat and pretty hat, and I
+really was sorry&mdash;so sorry that I added:</p>
+
+<p>"I have about twenty-seven seconds to place at your service before I
+go."</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty will be sufficient," she replied, pleasantly. "I saw your
+advertisement for a stenographer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We require a man," I interposed, hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you engaged him?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no."</p>
+
+<p>We looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>"You wouldn't accept, anyway," I began.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't leave town, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you required it."</p>
+
+<p>"What? Go to Florida?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes&mdash;if I must."</p>
+
+<p>"But think of the alligators! Think of the snakes&mdash;big, bitey snakes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious!" she exclaimed, eyes growing bigger.</p>
+
+<p>"Indians, too!&mdash;unreconciled, sulky Seminoles! Fevers! Mud-puddles!
+Spiders! And only fifty dollars a week&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I'll go," she stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Go?" I repeated, grimly; "then you've exactly two and three-quarter
+seconds left for preparations."</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively she raised her little gloved hand and patted her hair.
+"I'm ready," she said, unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p>"One extra second to make your will," I added, stunned by her
+self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I have nothing to leave&mdash;nobody to leave it to," she said,
+smiling; "I am ready."</p>
+
+<p>I took that extra second myself for a lightning course in reflection
+upon effects and consequences.</p>
+
+<p>"It's silly, it's probably murder," I said, "but you're engaged! Now
+we must run for it!"</p>
+
+<p>And that is how I came to engage the services of Miss Helen Barrison
+as stenographer.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>At noon on the second day I disembarked from the train at Citron City
+with all paraphernalia&mdash;cage, chemicals, arsenal, and stenographer; an
+accumulation of very dusty impedimenta&mdash;all but the stenographer. By
+three o'clock our hotel livery-rig was speeding along the beach at
+False Cape towards the tall lighthouse looming above the dunes.</p>
+
+<p>The abode of a gentleman named Slunk was my goal. I sat brooding in
+the rickety carriage, still dazed by the rapidity of my flight from
+New York; the stenographer sat beside me, blue eyes bright with
+excitement, fair hair blowing in the sea-wind.</p>
+
+<p>Our railway companionship had been of the slightest, also absolutely
+formal; for I was too absorbed in conjecturing the meaning of this
+journey to be more than absent-mindedly civil; and she, I fancy, had
+had time for repentance and perhaps for a little fright, though I
+could discover traces of neither.</p>
+
+<p>I remember she left the train at some city or other where we were held
+for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a
+brand-new grip sack.</p>
+
+<p>She must have bought clothes, for she continued to remain cool and
+fresh in her summer shirt-waists and short outing skirt; and she
+looked immaculate now, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>sitting there beside me, the trace of a smile
+curving her red mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm looking for a personage named Slunk," I observed.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silent consideration of the Atlantic Ocean she said,
+"When do my duties begin, Mr. Gilland?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord alone knows," I replied, grimly. "Are you repenting of your
+bargain?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite happy," she said, serenely.</p>
+
+<p>Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail,
+pink-and-ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs
+of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the
+incarnation of New York piquancy&mdash;a translated denizen of the
+metropolis&mdash;a slender spirit of the back offices of sky-scrapers. Why
+had I lured her hither?&mdash;here where the heavy, lavender-tinted
+breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune-jungles
+vultures soared, and snowy-headed eagles, hulking along the sands,
+tore dead fish and yelped at us as we passed.</p>
+
+<p>Strange waters, strange skies&mdash;a strange, lost land aquiver under an
+exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child,
+unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?" I asked, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," she said, smiling as the maid of Manhattan alone knows
+how to smile&mdash;shyly, inquiringly&mdash;with a lingering hint of laughter in
+the curled lips' corners. Then her sensitive features fell a trifle.
+"Not pluck," she said, "but necessity; I had no chance to choose, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>no
+time to wait. My last dollar, Mr. Gilland, is in my purse!"</p>
+
+<p>With a gay little gesture she drew it from her shirt-front, then,
+smiling, sat turning it over and over in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>The sun fell on her hands, gilding the smooth skin with the first tint
+of sunburn. Under the corners of her eyes above the rounded cheeks a
+pink stain lay like the first ripening flush on a wild strawberry.
+That, too, was the mark left by the caress of wind and sun. I had had
+no idea she was so pretty.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we'll enjoy this adventure," I said; "don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I try to make the best of things," she said, gazing off into the
+horizon haze. "Look," she added; "is that a man?"</p>
+
+<p>A spot far away on the beach caught my eye. At first I thought it was
+a pelican&mdash;and small wonder, too, for the dumpy, waddling,
+goose-necked individual who loomed up resembled a heavy bottomed bird
+more than a human being.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose that could be Mr. Slunk?" asked the stenographer, as
+our vehicle drew nearer.</p>
+
+<p>He looked as though his name ought to be Slunk; he was digging coquina
+clams, and he dug with a pecking motion like a water-turkey mastering
+a mullet too big for it.</p>
+
+<p>His name was Slunk; he admitted it when I accused him. Our negro
+driver drew rein, and I descended to the sand and gazed on Mr. Slunk.</p>
+
+<p>He was, as I have said, not impressive, even with the tremendous
+background of sky and ocean.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>"I've come something over a thousand miles to see you," I said,
+reluctant to admit that I had come as far to see such a specimen of
+human architecture.</p>
+
+<p>A weather-beaten grin stretched the skin that covered his face, and he
+shoved a hairy paw into the pockets of his overalls, digging deeply
+into profound depths. First he brought to light a twist of South
+Carolina tobacco, which he leisurely inserted in his mouth&mdash;not,
+apparently, for pleasure, but merely to get rid of it.</p>
+
+<p>The second object excavated from the overalls was a small packet
+addressed to me. This he handed to me; I gravely handed him a silver
+dollar; he went back to his clam-digging, and I entered the carriage
+and drove on. All had been carried out according to the letter of my
+instructions so far, and my spirits brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind I'll read my instructions," I said, in high
+good-humor.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray do not hesitate," she said, smiling in sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>So I opened the little packet and read:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"Drive to Cape Canaveral along the beach. You will find a gang
+of men at work on a government breakwater. The superintendent
+is Mr. Rowan. Show him this letter.</p>
+
+<p class="right sc">"Farrago."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Rather disappointed&mdash;for I had been expecting to find in the packet
+some key to the interesting mystery which had sent Professor Farrago
+into the Everglades&mdash;I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a
+study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed:
+ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay,
+sparkleberry, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>live-oak, with here and there a weather-twisted
+palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus
+and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the
+vultures, sailing, sailing&mdash;some mere circling motes lost in the blue
+above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping
+shadows slanted continually across our road.</p>
+
+<p>"I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought they were crows," she confessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Carrion-crows&mdash;yes.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'The carrion-crows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"> &nbsp;Sing, Caw! caw!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">&mdash;only they don't," I added, my song putting me in good-humor once
+more. And I glanced askance at the pretty stenographer.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pleasure to be employed by agreeable people," she said,
+innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can be much more agreeable than that," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Professor Farrago&mdash;amusing?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;oh, certainly&mdash;but not in&mdash;in the way I am."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly it flashed upon me that my superior was a confirmed hater of
+unmarried women. I had clean forgotten it; and now the full import of
+what I had done scared me silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Barrison.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not yet," I said, ominously.</p>
+
+<p>How on earth could I have overlooked that well-known fact. The hurry
+and anxiety, the stress of instant preparation and departure, had
+clean driven it from my absent-minded head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>Jogging on over the sand, I sat silent, cudgelling my brains for a
+solution of the disastrous predicament I had gotten into. I pictured
+the astonished rage of my superior&mdash;my probable dismissal from
+employment&mdash;perhaps the general overturning and smash-up of the entire
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p>A distant, dark object on the beach concentrated my distracted
+thoughts; it must be the breakwater at Cape Canaveral. And it was the
+breakwater, swarming with negro workmen, who were swinging great
+blocks of coquina into cemented beds, singing and whistling at their
+labor.</p>
+
+<p>I forgot my predicament when I saw a thin white man in sun-helmet and
+khaki directing the work from the beach; and as our horses plodded up,
+I stepped out and hailed him by name.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my name is Rowan," he said, instantly, turning to meet me. His
+sharp, clear eyes included the vehicle and the stenographer, and he
+lifted his helmet, then looked squarely at me.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Gilland," I said, dropping my voice and stepping nearer.
+"I have just come from Bronx Park, New York."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed, waiting for something more from me; so I presented my
+credentials.</p>
+
+<p>His formal manner changed at once. "Come over here and let us talk a
+bit," he said, cordially&mdash;then hesitated, glancing at Miss
+Barrison&mdash;"if your wife would excuse us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The pretty stenographer colored, and I dryly set Mr. Rowan
+right&mdash;which appeared to disturb him more than his mistake.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>"Pardon me, Mr. Gilland, but you do not propose to take this young
+girl into the Everglades, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I had proposed to do," I said, brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>Perfectly aware that I resented his inquiry, he cast a perplexed and
+troubled glance at her, then slowly led the way to a great block of
+sun-warmed coquina, where he sat down, motioning me to do the same.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," he said, "that you don't know just where you are going or
+just what you are expected to do."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll tell you, then. You are going into the devil's own country
+to look for something that I fled five hundred miles to avoid."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" I said, uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"That is so, Mr. Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! And what is this object that I am to look for and from which you
+fled five hundred miles?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know what you ran away from?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. Perhaps if I had known I should have run a thousand miles."</p>
+
+<p>We eyed one another.</p>
+
+<p>"You think, then, that I'd better send Miss Barrison back to New
+York?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do. It may be murder to take her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll do it!" I said, nervously. "Back she goes from the first
+railroad station."</p>
+
+<p>In a flash the thought came to me that here was a way to avoid the
+wrath of Professor Farrago&mdash;and a good excuse, too. He might forgive
+my not bringing a man as stenographer in view of my limited time; he
+never would forgive my presenting him with a woman.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>"She must go back," I repeated; and it rather surprised me to find
+myself already anticipating loneliness&mdash;something that never in all my
+travels had I experienced before.</p>
+
+<p>"By the first train," I added, firmly, disliking Mr. Rowan without any
+reason except that he had suddenly deprived me of my stenographer.</p>
+
+<p>"What I have to tell you," he began, lighting a cigarette, the mate to
+which I declined, "is this: Three years ago, before I entered this
+contracting business, I was in the government employ as officer in the
+Coast Survey. Our duties took us into Florida waters; we were months
+at a time working on shore."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled thoughtfully at his cigarette and blew a light cloud into
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>"I had leave for a month once; and like an ass I prepared to spend it
+in a hunting-trip among the Everglades."</p>
+
+<p>He crossed his lean legs and gazed meditatively at his cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," he went on, "that we penetrated the Everglades farther
+than any white man who ever lived to return. There's nothing very
+dismal about the Everglades&mdash;the greater part, I mean. You get high
+and low hummock, marshes, creeks, lakes, and all that. If you get
+lost, you're a goner. If you acquire fever, you're as well off as the
+seraphim&mdash;and not a whit better. There are the usual animals
+there&mdash;bears (little black fellows) lynxes, deer, panthers,
+alligators, and a few stray crocodiles. As for snakes, of course
+they're there, moccasins a-plenty, some rattlers, but, after all, not
+as many snakes as one finds in Alabama, or even northern Florida and
+Georgia.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>"The Seminoles won't help you&mdash;won't even talk to you. They're a
+sullen pack&mdash;but not murderous, as far as I know. Beyond their inner
+limits lie the unknown regions."</p>
+
+<p>He bit the wet end from his cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"I went there," he said; "I came out as soon as I could."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;for one thing, my companion died of fright."</p>
+
+<p>"Fright? What at?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's something in there."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>He fixed a penetrating gaze on me. "I don't know, Mr. Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see anything to frighten you?" I insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I felt something." He dropped his cigarette and ground it
+into the sand viciously. "To cut it short," he said, "I am most
+unwillingly led to believe that there are&mdash;creatures&mdash;of some sort in
+the Everglades&mdash;living creatures quite as large as you or I&mdash;and that
+they are perfectly transparent&mdash;as transparent as a colorless
+jellyfish."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the veiled import of Professor Farrago's letter was made
+clear to me. He, too, believed that.</p>
+
+<p>"It embarrasses me like the devil to say such a thing," continued
+Rowan, digging in the sand with his spurred heels. "It seems so&mdash;so
+like a whopping lie&mdash;it seems so childish and ridiculous&mdash;so cursed
+cheap! But I fled; and there you are. I might add," he said,
+indifferently, "that I have the ordinary portion of courage allotted
+to normal men."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you believe these&mdash;these animals to be?" I asked,
+fascinated.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>"I don't know." An obstinate look came into his eyes. "I don't know,
+and I absolutely refuse to speculate for the benefit of anybody. I
+wouldn't do it for my friend Professor Farrago; and I'm not going to
+do it for you," he ended, laughing a rather grim laugh that somehow
+jarred me into realizing the amazing import of his story. For I did
+not doubt it, strange as it was&mdash;fantastic, incredible though it
+sounded in the ears of a scientist.</p>
+
+<p>What it was that carried conviction I do not know&mdash;perhaps the fact
+that my superior credited it; perhaps the manner of narration. Told in
+quiet, commonplace phrases, by an exceedingly practical and
+unimaginative young man who was plainly embarrassed in the telling,
+the story rang out like a shout in a ca&ntilde;on, startling because of the
+absolute lack of emphasis employed in the telling.</p>
+
+<p>"Professor Farrago asked me to speak of this to no one except the man
+who should come to his assistance. He desired the first chance of
+clearing this&mdash;this rather perplexing matter. No doubt he didn't want
+exploring parties prowling about him," added Rowan, smiling. "But
+there's no fear of that, I fancy. I never expect to tell that story
+again to anybody; I shouldn't have told him, only somehow it's worried
+me for three years, and though I was deadly afraid of ridicule, I
+finally made up my mind that science ought to have a hack at it.</p>
+
+<p>"When I was in New York last winter I summoned up courage and wrote
+Professor Farrago. He came to see me at the Holland House that same
+evening; I told him as much as I ever shall tell anybody. That is all,
+Mr. Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>For a long time I sat silent, musing over the strange <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>words. After a
+while I asked him whether Professor Farrago was supplied with
+provisions; and he said he was; that a great store of staples and tins
+of concentrated rations had been carried in as far as Little Sprite
+Lake; that Professor Farrago was now there alone, having insisted upon
+dismissing all those he had employed.</p>
+
+<p>"There was no practical use for a guide," added Rowan, "because no
+cracker, no Indian, and no guide knows the region beyond the Seminole
+country."</p>
+
+<p>I rose, thanking him and offering my hand. He took it and shook it in
+manly fashion, saying: "I consider Professor Farrago a very brave man;
+I may say the same of any man who volunteers to accompany him.
+Good-bye, Mr. Gilland; I most earnestly wish for your success.
+Professor Farrago left this letter for you."</p>
+
+<p>And that was all. I climbed back into the rickety carriage, carrying
+my unopened letter; the negro driver cracked his whip and whistled,
+and the horses trotted inland over a fine shell road which was to lead
+us across Verbena Junction to Citron City. Half an hour later we
+crossed the tracks at Verbena and turned into a broad marl road. This
+aroused me from my deep and speculative reverie, and after a few
+moments I asked Miss Barrison's indulgence and read the letter from
+Professor Farrago which Mr. Rowan had given me:</p>
+
+<div class="block2"><p>"<span class="sc">Dear Mr. Gilland</span>,&mdash;You now know all I dared not
+write, fearing to bring a swarm of explorers about my ears in
+case the letter was lost, and found by unscrupulous meddlers.
+If you still are willing to volunteer, knowing all that I
+know, join me as soon as possible. If family considerations
+deter you from taking what perhaps is an insane risk, I shall
+not expect you to join me. In that event, return to New York
+immediately and send Kingsley.</p>
+
+<p class="right">"Yours, &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
+&nbsp; &nbsp; F."</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>"What the deuce is the matter with him!" I exclaimed, irritably. "I'll
+take any chances Kingsley does!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Barrison looked up in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barrison," I said, plunging into the subject headfirst, "I'm
+extremely sorry, but I have news that forces me to believe the journey
+too dangerous for you to attempt, so I think that it would be much
+better&mdash;" The consternation in her pretty face checked me.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully sorry," I muttered, appalled by her silence.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but you engaged me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it&mdash;I should not have done it. I only&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But you did engage me, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that I did&mdash;er&mdash;oh, of course&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But a verbal contract is binding between honorable people, isn't it,
+Mr. Gilland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And ours was a verbal contract; and in consideration you paid me my
+first week's salary, and I bought shirt-waists and a short skirt and
+three changes of&mdash;and tooth-brushes and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know," I groaned. "But I'll fix all that."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't if you break your contract."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," she said, flushing up, "I should not accept."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Really I do. You are going into a dangerous country and you're afraid
+I'll be frightened."</p>
+
+<p>"It's something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what are the dangers?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>"Alligators, big, bitey snakes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've said all that before!"</p>
+
+<p>"Seminoles&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And that too. What else is there? Did the young man in the sun-helmet
+tell you of something worse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;much worse! Something so dreadfully horrible that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not at liberty to tell you, Miss Barrison," I said, striving to
+appear shocked.</p>
+
+<p>"It would not make any difference anyway," she observed, calmly. "I'm
+not afraid of anything in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are!" I said. "Listen to me; I'd be awfully glad to have you
+go&mdash;I&mdash;I really had no idea how I'd miss you&mdash;miss such pleasant
+companionship. But it is not possible&mdash;" The recollection of Professor
+Farrago's aversion suddenly returned. "No, no," I said, "it can't be
+done. I'm most unhappy over this mistake of mine; please don't look as
+though you were ready to cry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't discharge me, Mr. Gilland," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a brute to do it, but I must; I was a bigger brute to engage you,
+but I did. Don't&mdash;please don't look at me that way, Miss Barrison! As
+a matter of fact, I'm tender-hearted and I can't endure it."</p>
+
+<p>"If you only knew what I had been through you wouldn't send me away,"
+she said, in a low voice. "It took my last penny to clothe myself and
+pay for the last lesson at the college of stenography. I&mdash;I lived on
+almost nothing for weeks; every respectable place was filled; I walked
+and walked and walked, and nobody <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>wanted me&mdash;they all required people
+with experience&mdash;and how can I have experience until I begin, Mr.
+Gilland? I was perfectly desperate when I went to see you, knowing
+that you had advertised for a man&mdash;" The slightest break in her clear
+voice scared me.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to cry," she said, striving to smile. "If I must go, I
+will go. I&mdash;I didn't mean to say all this&mdash;but&mdash;but I've been so&mdash;so
+discouraged;&mdash;and you were not very cross with me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Smitten with remorse, I picked up her hand and fell to patting it
+violently, trying to think of something to say. The exercise did not
+appear to stimulate my wits.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;then I'm to go with you?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I will see," I said, weakly, "but I fear there's trouble ahead for
+this expedition."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear there is," she agreed, in a cheerful voice. "You have a rifle
+and a cage in your luggage. Are you going to trap Indians and have me
+report their language?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not going to trap Indians," I said, sharply. "They may trap
+us&mdash;but that's a detail. What I want to say to you is this: Professor
+Farrago detests unmarried women, and I forgot it when I engaged you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, is that all?" she asked, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Not all, but enough to cost me my position."</p>
+
+<p>"How absurd! Why, there are millions of things we might
+do!&mdash;millions!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's one of them?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we might pretend to be married!" Her frank and absolutely
+innocent delight in this suggestion was refreshing, but troubling.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>"We would have to be demonstrative to make that story go," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Well-bred people are not demonstrative in public," she retorted,
+turning a trifle pink.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but in private&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I think there is no necessity for carrying a pleasantry into our
+private life," she said, in a perfectly amiable voice. "Anyway, if
+Professor Farrago's feelings are to be spared, no sacrifice on the
+part of a mere girl could be too great," she added, gayly; "I will
+wear men's clothes if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"You may have to anyhow in the jungle," I said; "and as it's not an
+uncommon thing these days, nobody would ever take you for anything
+except what you are&mdash;a very wilful and plucky and persistent and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And what, Mr. Gilland?"</p>
+
+<p>"And attractive," I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Mr. Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>"You're welcome," I snapped. The near whistle of a locomotive warned
+us, and I rose in the carriage, looking out across the sand-hills.</p>
+
+<p>"That is probably our train," observed the pretty stenographer.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Our</i> train!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you insist&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no, Mr. Gilland; I only trust implicitly in my employer."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll wait till we get to Citron City," I said, weakly; "then it will
+be time enough to discuss the situation, won't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," she said, smiling; but she knew, and I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>already feared,
+that the situation no longer admitted of discussion. In a few moments
+more we emerged, without warning, from the scrub-crested sand-hills
+into the single white street of Citron City, where China-trees hung
+heavy with bloom, and magnolias, already set with perfumed candelabra,
+spread soft, checkered shadows over the marl.</p>
+
+<p>The train lay at the station, oceans of heavy, black smoke lazily
+flowing from the locomotive; negroes were hoisting empty fruit-crates
+aboard the baggage-car, through the door of which I caught a glimpse
+of my steel cage and remaining paraphernalia, all securely crated.</p>
+
+<p>"Telegram hyah foh Mistuh Gilland," remarked the operator, lounging at
+his window as we descended from our dusty vehicle. He had not
+addressed himself to anybody in particular, but I said that I was Mr.
+Gilland, and he produced the envelope. "Toted in from Okeechobee?" he
+inquired, listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably; it's signed 'Farrago,' isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's foh yoh, suh, I reckon," said the operator, handing it out with
+a yawn. Then he removed his hat and fanned his head, which was
+perfectly bald.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the yellow envelope. "Get me a good dog with points," was the
+laconic message; and it irritated me to receive such idiotic
+instructions at such a time and in such a place. A good dog? Where the
+mischief could I find a dog in a town consisting of ten houses and a
+water-tank? I said as much to the bald-headed operator, who smiled
+wearily and replaced his hat: "Dawg? They's moh houn'-dawgs in Citron
+City than they's wood-ticks to keep them busy. I reckon a dollah 'll
+do a heap foh you, suh."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>"Could you get me a dog for a dollar?" I asked;&mdash;"one with points?"</p>
+
+<p>"Points? I sholy can, suh;&mdash;plenty of points. What kind of dawg do yoh
+requiah, suh?&mdash;live dawg? daid dawg? houn'-dawg? raid-dawg? hawg-dawg?
+coon-dawg?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The locomotive emitted a long, lazy, softly modulated and thoroughly
+Southern toot. I handed the operator a silver dollar, and he presently
+emerged from his office and slouched off up the street, while I walked
+with Miss Barrison to the station platform, where I resumed the
+discussion of her future movements.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very young to take such a risk," I said, gravely. "Had I not
+better buy your ticket back to New York? The north-bound train meets
+this one. I suppose we are waiting for it now&mdash;" I stopped, conscious
+of her impatience.</p>
+
+<p>Her face flushed brightly: "Yes; I think it best. I have embarrassed
+you too long already&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say that!" I muttered. "I&mdash;I&mdash;shall be deadly bored without
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not an entertainer, only a stenographer," she said, curtly.
+"Please get me my ticket, Mr. Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at me from the car-platform; the locomotive tooted two
+drawling toots.</p>
+
+<p>"It is for your sake," I said, avoiding her gaze as the far-off
+whistle of the north-bound express came floating out of the blue
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer; I fished out my watch, regarding it in silence,
+listening to the hum of the approaching train, which ought presently
+to bear her away into the North, where nothing could menace her except
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>brilliant pitfalls of a Christian civilization. But I stood
+there, temporizing, unable to utter a word as her train shot by us
+with a rush, slower, slower, and finally stopped, with a long-drawn
+sigh from the air-brakes.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant the telegraph-operator appeared, carrying a dog by the
+scruff of the neck&mdash;a sad-eyed, ewe-necked dog, from the four corners
+of which dangled enormous, cushion-like paws. He yelped when he beheld
+me. Miss Barrison leaned down from the car-platform and took the
+animal into her arms, uttering a suppressed exclamation of pity as she
+lifted him.</p>
+
+<p>"You have your hands full," she said to me; "I'll take him into the
+car for you."</p>
+
+<p>She mounted the steps; I followed with the valises, striving to get a
+good view of my acquisition over her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't the kind of dog I wanted!" I repeated again and again,
+inspecting the animal as it sprawled on the floor of the car at the
+edge of Miss Barrison's skirt. "That dog is all voice and feet and
+emotion! What makes it stick up its paws like that? I don't want that
+dog and I'm not going to identify myself with it! Where's the
+operator&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I turned towards the car-window; the operator's bald head was visible
+on a line with the sill, and I made motions at him. He bowed with
+courtly grace, as though I were thanking him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not!" I cried, shaking my head. "I wanted a dog with points&mdash;not
+the kind of points that stick up all over this dog. Take him away!"</p>
+
+<p>The operator's head appeared to be gliding out of my range of vision;
+then the windows of the north-bound <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>train slid past, faster and
+faster. A melancholy grace-note from the dog, a jolt, and I turned
+around, appalled.</p>
+
+<p>"This train is going," I stammered, "and you are on it!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Barrison sprang up and started towards the door, and I sped after
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I can jump," she said, breathlessly, edging out to the platform;
+"please let me! There is time yet&mdash;if you only wouldn't hold me&mdash;so
+tight&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later we walked slowly back together through the car and
+took seats facing one another.</p>
+
+<p>Between us sat the hound-dog, a prey to melancholy unutterable.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XV" id="XV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted
+civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open
+boat containing&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">One light steel cage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One rifle and ammunition,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One stenographer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three ounces rosium oxide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One hound-dog,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two valises.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A playful wave slopped over the bow and I lost count; but the pretty
+stenographer made the inventory, while I resumed the oars, and the dog
+punctured the primeval silence with staccato yelps.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later everything and everybody was accounted for; the
+sky was blue and the palms waved, and several species of dicky-birds
+tuned up as I pulled with powerful strokes out into the sunny waters
+of Little Sprite Lake, now within a few miles of my journey's end.</p>
+
+<p>From ponds hidden in the marshes herons rose in lazily laborious
+flight, flapping low across the water; high in the cypress yellow-eyed
+ospreys bent crested heads to watch our progress; sun-baked
+alligators, lying <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>heavily in the shoreward sedge, slid open, glassy
+eyes as we passed.</p>
+
+<p>"Even the 'gators make eyes at you," I said, resting on my oars.</p>
+
+<p>We were on terms of badinage.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was it who shed crocodile tears at the prospect of shipping me
+North?" she inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Speaking of tears," I observed, "somebody is likely to shed a number
+when Professor Farrago is picked up."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" she said, and snapped her pretty, sun-tanned fingers; and I
+resumed the oars in time to avoid shipwreck on a large mud-bar.</p>
+
+<p>She reclined in the stern, serenely occupied with the view, now and
+then caressing the discouraged dog, now and then patting her hair
+where the wind had loosened a bright strand.</p>
+
+<p>"If Professor Farrago didn't expect a woman stenographer," she said,
+abruptly, "why did he instruct you to bring a complete outfit of
+woman's clothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I said, tartly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you bought them. Are they for a young woman or an old woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; I sent a messenger to a department store. I don't know
+what he bought."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you look them over?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Why? I should have been no wiser. I fancy they're all right,
+because the bill was eighteen hundred dollars&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The pretty stenographer sat up abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that much?" I asked, uneasily. "I've always heard women's clothing
+was expensive. Wasn't it enough? I told the boy to order the
+best;&mdash;Professor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>Farrago always requires the very best scientific
+instruments, and&mdash;I listed the clothes as scientific accessories&mdash;that
+being the object of this expedition&mdash;<i>What</i> are you laughing at?"</p>
+
+<p>When it pleased her to recover her gravity she announced her desire to
+inspect and repack the clothing; but I refused.</p>
+
+<p>"They're for Professor Farrago," I said. "I don't know what he wants
+of them. I don't suppose he intends to wear 'em and caper about the
+jungle, but they're his. I got them because he told me to. I bought a
+cage, too, to fit myself, but I don't suppose he means to put me in
+it. Perhaps," I added, "he may invite you into it."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me refold the gowns," she pleaded, persuasively. "What does a
+clumsy man know about packing such clothing as that? If you don't,
+they'll be ruined. It's a shame to drag those boxes about through mud
+and water!"</p>
+
+<p>So we made a landing, and lifted out and unlocked the boxes. All I
+could see inside were mounds of lace and ribbons, and with a vague
+idea that Miss Barrison needed no assistance I returned to the boat
+and sat down to smoke until she was ready.</p>
+
+<p>When she summoned me her face was flushed and her eyes bright.</p>
+
+<p>"Those are certainly the most beautiful things!" she said, softly.
+"Why, it is like a bride's trousseau&mdash;absolutely complete&mdash;all except
+the bridal gown&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't there a dress there?" I exclaimed, in alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not a day-dress."</p>
+
+<p>"Night-dresses!" I shrieked. "He doesn't want <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>women's night-dresses!
+He's a bachelor! Good Heavens! I've done it this time!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but who is to wear them?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know? I don't know anything; I can only presume that he
+doesn't intend to open a department store in the Everglades. And if
+any lady is to wear garments in his vicinity, I assume that those
+garments are to be anything except diaphanous!... Please take your
+seat in the boat, Miss Barrison. I want to row and think."</p>
+
+<p>I had had my fill of exercise and thought when, about four o'clock in
+the afternoon, Miss Barrison directed my attention to a point of palms
+jutting out into the water about a mile to the southward.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Farrago!" I exclaimed, catching sight of a United States flag
+floating majestically from a bamboo-pole. "Give me the megaphone, if
+you please."</p>
+
+<p>She handed me the instrument; I hailed the shore; and presently a man
+appeared under the palms at the water's edge.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" I roared, trying to inject cheerfulness into the hollow
+bellow. "How are you, professor?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer came distinctly across the water:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Who</i> is that with you?"</p>
+
+<p>My lips were buried in the megaphone; I strove to speak; I only
+produced a ghastly, chuckling sound.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you expect to tell the truth," observed the pretty
+stenographer, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>I removed my lips from the megaphone and looked around at her. She
+returned my gaze with a disturbing smile.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>"I want to mitigate the blow," I said, hoarsely. "Tell me how."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know," she said, sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>I</i> do!" I fairly barked, and seizing the megaphone again, I
+set it to my lips and roared, "My fianc&eacute;e!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" exclaimed Miss Barrison, in consternation, "I thought
+you were going to tell the truth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do that or you'll upset us," I snapped&mdash;"I'm telling the truth;
+I've engaged myself to you; I did it mentally before I bellowed."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You know as well as I do what engagements mean," I said, picking up
+the oars and digging them deep in the blue water.</p>
+
+<p>She assented uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes more of vigorous rowing brought us to a muddy landing
+under a cluster of tall palmettos, where a gasoline launch lay.
+Professor Farrago came down to the shore as I landed, and I walked
+ahead to meet him. He was the maddest man I ever saw. But I was his
+match, for I was desperate.</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil&mdash;" he began, under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" I said, deliberately. "An engaged woman is practically
+married already, because marriages are made in heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" he gasped, "are you mad, Gilland? I sent for a
+stenographer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barrison is a stenographer," I said, calmly; and before he could
+recover I had presented him, and left them face to face, washing my
+hands of the whole affair.</p>
+
+<p>Unloading the boat and carrying the luggage up under the palms, I
+heard her saying:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>"No, I am not in the least afraid of snakes, and I am quite ready to
+begin my duties."</p>
+
+<p>And he: "Mr. Gilland is a young man who&mdash;er&mdash;lacks practical
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>And she: "Mr. Gilland has been most thoughtful for my comfort. The
+journey has been perfectly heavenly."</p>
+
+<p>And he, clumsily: "Ahem!&mdash;the&mdash;er&mdash;celestial aspect of your journey
+has&mdash;er&mdash;doubtless been colored by&mdash;er&mdash;the prospect of
+your&mdash;er&mdash;approaching nuptials&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She, hastily: "Oh, I do not think so, professor."</p>
+
+<p>"Idiot!" I muttered, dragging the dog to the shore, where his yelps
+brought the professor hurrying.</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>that</i> the dog?" he inquired, adjusting his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the dog," I said. "He's full of points, you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," mused the professor; "I thought he was full of&mdash;" He hesitated,
+inspecting the animal, who, nose to the ground, stood investigating a
+smell of some sort.</p>
+
+<p>"See," I said, with enthusiasm, "he's found a scent; he's trailing it
+already! Now he's rolling on it!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's rolling on one of our concentrated food lozenges," said the
+professor, dryly. "Tie him up, Mr. Gilland, and ask Mrs. Gilland to
+come up to camp. Your room is ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Rooms," I corrected; "she isn't Mrs. Gilland yet," I added, with a
+forced smile.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're practically married," observed the professor, "as you
+pointed out to me. And if she's practically Mrs. Gilland, why not say
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, all the same," I snarled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>"But marriages are made in&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I cast a desperate eye upon him.</p>
+
+<p>From that moment, whenever we were alone together, he made a target of
+me. I never had supposed him humorously vindictive; he was, and his
+apparently innocent mistakes almost turned my hair gray.</p>
+
+<p>But to Miss Barrison he was kind and courteous, and for a time
+over-serious. Observing him, I could never detect the slightest
+symptom of dislike for her sex&mdash;a failing which common rumor had
+always credited him with to the verge of absolute rudeness.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, it was perfectly plain to anybody that he liked her.
+There was in his manner towards her a mixture of business formality
+and the deferential attitude of a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>We were seated, just before sunset, outside of the hut built of
+palmetto logs, when Professor Farrago, addressing us both, began the
+explanation of our future duties.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Barrison, it appeared, was to note everything said by himself,
+making several shorthand copies by evening. In other words, she was to
+report every scrap of conversation she heard while in the Everglades.
+And she nodded intelligently as he finished, and drew pad and pencil
+from the pocket of her walking-skirt, jotting down his instructions as
+a beginning. I could see that he was pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"The reason I do this," he said, "is because I do not wish to hide
+anything that transpires while we are on this expedition. Only the
+most scrupulously minute record can satisfy me; no details are too
+small to merit record; I demand and I court from my fellow-scientists
+and from the public the fullest investigation."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>He smiled slightly, turning towards me.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Mr. Gilland, how dangerous to the reputation of a
+scientific man is any line of investigation into the unusual. If a man
+once is even suspected of charlatanism, of sensationalism, of turning
+his attention to any phenomena not strictly within the proper pale of
+scientific investigation, that man is doomed to ridicule; his
+profession disowns him; he becomes a man without honor, without
+authority. Is it not so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore," he resumed, thoughtfully, "as I do most firmly believe in
+the course I am now pursuing, whether I succeed or fail I desire a
+true and minute record made, hiding nothing of what may be said or
+done. A stenographer alone can give this to the world, while I can
+only supplement it with a description of events&mdash;if I live to
+transcribe them."</p>
+
+<p>Sunk in profound reverie he sat there silent under the great, smooth
+palm-tree&mdash;a venerable figure in his yellow dressing-gown and carpet
+slippers. Seated side by side, we waited, a trifle awed. I could hear
+the soft breathing of the pretty stenographer beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"First of all," said Professor Farrago, looking up, "I must be able to
+trust those who are here to aid me."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I will be faithful," said the girl, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not doubt you, my child," he said; "nor you, Gilland. And so I
+am going to tell you this much now&mdash;more, I hope, later."</p>
+
+<p>And he sat up straight, lifting an impressive forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rowan, lately an officer of our Coast Survey, wrote me a letter
+from the Holland House in New <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>York&mdash;a letter so strange that, on
+reading it, I immediately repaired to his hotel, where for hours we
+talked together.</p>
+
+<p>"The result of that conference is this expedition.</p>
+
+<p>"I have now been here two months, and I am satisfied of certain facts.
+First, there do exist in this unexplored wilderness certain forms of
+life which are solid and palpable, but transparent and practically
+invisible. Second, these living creatures belong to the animal
+kingdom, are warm-blooded vertebrates, possess powers of locomotion,
+but whether that of flight I am not certain. Third, they appear to
+possess such senses as we enjoy&mdash;smell, touch, sight, hearing, and no
+doubt the sense of taste. Fourth, their skin is smooth to the touch,
+and the temperature of the epidermis appears to approximate that of a
+normal human being. Fifth and last, whether bipeds or quadrupeds I do
+not know, though all evidence appears to confirm my theory that they
+walk erect. One pair of their limbs appear to terminate in a sort of
+foot&mdash;like a delicately shaped human foot, except that there appear to
+be no toes. The other pair of limbs terminate in something that, from
+the single instance I experienced, seemed to resemble soft but firm
+antenn&aelig; or, perhaps, digitated palpi&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Feelers!" I blurted out.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, but I think so. Once, when I was standing in the
+forest, perfectly aware that creatures I could not see had stealthily
+surrounded me, the tension was brought to a crisis when over my face,
+from cheek to chin, stole a soft something, brushing the skin as
+delicately as a child's fingers might brush it."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" I breathed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>A care-worn smile crept into his eyes. "A test for nerves, you think,
+Mr. Gilland? I agree with you. Nobody fears what anybody can see."</p>
+
+<p>There came the slightest movement beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you trembling?" I asked, turning.</p>
+
+<p>"I was writing," she replied, steadily. "Did my elbow touch you?"</p>
+
+<p>"By-the-way," said Professor Farrago, "I fear I forgot to congratulate
+you upon your choice of a stenographer, Mr. Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>A rosy light stole over her pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to record that too?" she asked, raising her blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," he replied, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"But, professor," I began, a prey to increasing excitement, "do you
+propose to attempt the capture of one of these animals?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what the cage is for," he said. "I supposed you had guessed
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"I had," murmured the pretty stenographer.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not doubt it," said Professor Farrago, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"What are the chemicals for&mdash;and the tank and hose attachment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Think, Mr. Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't; I'm almost stunned by what you tell me."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "The rosium oxide and salts of strontium are to be dumped
+into the tank together. They'll effervesce, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"And I can throw a rose-colored spray over any object by the hose
+attachment, can't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>"Well, I tried it on a transparent jelly-fish and it became perfectly
+visible and of a beautiful rose-color: and I tried it on rock-crystal,
+and on glass, and on pure gelatine, and all became suffused with a
+delicate pink glow, which lasted for hours or minutes according to the
+substance.... Now you understand, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; you want to see what sort of creature you have to deal with."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; so when I've trapped it I am going to spray it." He turned
+half humorously towards the stenographer: "I fancy you understood long
+before Mr. Gilland did."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," she said, with a sidelong lifting of the heavy
+lashes; and I caught the color of her eyes for a second.</p>
+
+<p>"You see how Miss Barrison spares your feelings," observed Professor
+Farrago, dryly. "She owes you little gratitude for bringing her here,
+yet she proves a generous victim."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am very grateful for this rarest of chances!" she said, shyly.
+"To be among the first in the world to discover such wonders ought to
+make me very grateful to the man who gave me the opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean Mr. Gilland?" asked the professor, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>I had never before seen Professor Farrago laugh such a care-free
+laugh; I had never suspected him of harboring even an embryo of the
+social graces. Dry as dust, sapless as steel, precise as the magnetic
+needle, he had hitherto been to me the mummified embodiment of science
+militant. Now, in the guise of a perfectly human and genial old
+gentleman, I scarcely recognized my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>superior of the Bronx Park
+society. And as a woman-hater he was a miserable failure.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens," I thought to myself, "am I becoming jealous of my revered
+professor's social success with a stray stenographer?" I felt mean,
+and I probably looked it, and I was glad that telepathy did not permit
+Miss Barrison to record my secret and unworthy ruminations.</p>
+
+<p>The professor was saying: "These transparent creatures break off
+berries and fruits and branches; I have seen a flower, too, plucked
+from its stem by invisible digits and borne swiftly through the
+forest&mdash;only the flower visible, apparently speeding through the air
+and out of sight among the thickets.</p>
+
+<p>"I have found the footprints that I described to you, usually on the
+edge of a stream or in the soft loam along some forest lake or lost
+lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Again and again I have been conscious in the forest that unseen eyes
+were fixed on me, that unseen shapes were following me. Never but that
+one time did these invisible creatures close in around me and venture
+to touch me.</p>
+
+<p>"They may be weak; their structure may be frail, and they may be
+incapable of violence or harm, but the depth of the footprints
+indicates a weight of at least one hundred and thirty pounds, and it
+certainly requires some muscular strength to break off a branch of
+wild guavas."</p>
+
+<p>He bent his noble head, thoughtfully regarding the design on his
+slippers.</p>
+
+<p>"What was the rifle for?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Defence, not aggression," he said, simply.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>"And the camera?"</p>
+
+<p>"A camera record is necessary in these days of bad artists."</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated, glancing at Miss Barrison. She was still writing, her
+pretty head bent over the pad in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"And the clothing?" I asked, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get it?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;" I glanced at Miss Barrison. "There's no use writing down
+everything, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything must be recorded," said Professor Farrago, inflexibly.
+"What clothing did you buy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot the gown," I said, getting red about the ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgot the gown!" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;one kind of gown&mdash;the day kind. I&mdash;I got the other kind."</p>
+
+<p>He was annoyed; so was I. After a moment he got up, and crossing to
+the log cabin, opened one of the boxes of apparel.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it what you wanted?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Y-es, I presume so," he replied, visibly perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the best to be had," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"That's quite right," he said, musingly. "We use only the best of
+everything at Bronx Park. It is traditional with us, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Curiosity pushed me. "Well, what on earth is it for?" I broke out.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me gravely over the tops of his spectacles&mdash;a striking
+and inspiring figure in his yellow flannel dressing-gown and
+slippers.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>"I shall tell you some day&mdash;perhaps," he said, mildly. "Good-night,
+Miss Barrison; good-night, Mr. Gilland. You will find extra blankets
+on your bunk&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Bunks," he said, and shut the door.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"There is something weird about this whole proceeding," I observed to
+the pretty stenographer next morning.</p>
+
+<p>"These pies will be weird if you don't stop talking to me," she said,
+opening the doors of Professor Farrago's portable camping-oven and
+peeping in at the fragrant pastry.</p>
+
+<p>The professor had gone off somewhere into the woods early that
+morning. As he was not in the habit of talking to himself, the
+services of Miss Barrison were not required. Before he started,
+however, he came to her with a request for a dozen pies, the
+construction of which he asked if she understood. She had been to
+cooking-school in more prosperous days, and she mentioned it; so at
+his earnest solicitation she undertook to bake for him twelve
+apple-pies; and she was now attempting it, assisted by advice from me.</p>
+
+<p>"Are they burned?" I asked, sniffing the air.</p>
+
+<p>"No, they are not burned, Mr. Gilland, but my finger is," she
+retorted, stepping back to examine the damage.</p>
+
+<p>I offered sympathy and witch-hazel, but she would have none of my
+offerings, and presently returned to her pies.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't eat all that pastry," I protested.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>"Professor Farrago said they were not for us to eat," she said,
+dusting each pie with powdered sugar.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are they for? The dog? Or are they simply objets d'art to
+adorn the shanty&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You annoy me," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"The pies annoy me; won't you tell me what they're for?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a pretty fair idea what they're for," she observed, tossing
+her head. "Haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What?"</p>
+
+<p>"These pies are for bait."</p>
+
+<p>"To bait hooks with?" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Hooks! No, you silly man. They're for baiting the cage. He means to
+trap these transparent creatures in a cage baited with pie."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed scornfully; inserted the burned tip of her finger in her
+mouth and stood looking at me defiantly like a flushed and bright-eyed
+school-girl.</p>
+
+<p>"You think you're teasing me," she said; "but you do not realize what
+a singularly slow-minded young man you are."</p>
+
+<p>I stopped laughing. "How did you come to the conclusion that pies were
+to be used for such a purpose?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I deduce," she observed, with an airy wave of her disengaged hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Your deductions are weird&mdash;like everything else in this vicinity.
+Pies to catch invisible monsters? Pooh!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not particularly complimentary, are you?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not particularly; but I could be, with you for my inspiration. I
+could even be enthusiastic&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>"About my pies?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;about your eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very frivolous&mdash;for a scientist," she said, scornfully;
+"please subdue your enthusiasm and bring me some wood. This fire is
+almost out."</p>
+
+<p>When I had brought the wood, she presented me with a pail of hot water
+and pointed at the dishes on the breakfast-table.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" I cried, revolted.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suppose I must do them&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked pensively at her scorched finger-tip, and, pursing up her
+red lips, blew a gentle breath to cool it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do the dishes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>Splashing and slushing the cups and saucers about in the hot water, I
+reflected upon the events of the last few days. The dog, stupefied by
+unwonted abundance of food, lay in the sunshine, sleeping the sleep of
+repletion; the pretty stenographer, all rosy from her culinary
+exertions, was removing the pies and setting them in neat rows to
+cool.</p>
+
+<p>"There," she said, with a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you....
+You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also
+expected to do general housework."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't engage you," I said, maliciously; "you engaged me, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>She regarded me disdainfully, nose uptilted.</p>
+
+<p>"How thoroughly disagreeable you can be!" she said. "Dry your own
+dishes. I'm going for a stroll."</p>
+
+<p>"May I join&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You may <i>not</i>! I shall go so far that you cannot possibly discover
+me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>I watched her forestward progress; she sauntered for about thirty
+yards along the lake and presently sat down in plain sight under a
+huge live-oak.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later I had completed my task as general bottle-washer,
+and I cast about for something to occupy me.</p>
+
+<p>First I approached and politely caressed the satiated dog. He woke up,
+regarded me with dully meditative eyes, yawned, and went to sleep
+again. Never a flop of tail to indicate gratitude for blandishments,
+never the faintest symptom of canine appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Chilled by my reception, I moused about for a while, poking into boxes
+and bundles; then raised my head and inspected the landscape. Through
+the vista of trees the pink shirt-waist of the pretty stenographer
+glimmered like a rose blooming in the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>From whatever point I viewed the prospect that pink spot seemed to
+intrude; I turned my back and examined the jungle, but there it was
+repeated in a hundred pink blossoms among the massed thickets; I
+looked up into the tree-tops, where pink mosses spotted the palms; I
+looked out over the lake, and I saw it in my mind's eye pinker than
+ever. It was certainly a case of pink-eye.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go for a stroll, too; it's a free country," I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>After I had strolled in a complete circle I found myself within three
+feet of a pink shirt-waist.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," I said; "I had no inten&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were never coming," she said, amiably.</p>
+
+<p>"How is your finger?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>She held it up. I took it gingerly; it was smooth and faintly rosy at
+the tip.</p>
+
+<p>"Does it hurt?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Dreadfully. Your hands feel so cool&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>After a silence she said, "Thank you, that has cooled the burning."</p>
+
+<p>"I am determined," said I, "to expel the fire from your finger if it
+takes hours and hours." And I seated myself with that intention.</p>
+
+<p>For a while she talked, making innocent observations concerning the
+tropical foliage surrounding us. Then silence crept in between us,
+accentuated by the brooding stillness of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid your hands are growing tired," she said, considerately.</p>
+
+<p>I denied it.</p>
+
+<p>Through the vista of palms we could see the lake, blue as a violet,
+sparkling with silvery sunshine. In the intense quiet the splash of
+leaping mullet sounded distinctly.</p>
+
+<p>Once a tall crane stalked into view among the sedges; once an unseen
+alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the
+stillness of the wilderness grew more intense.</p>
+
+<p>We had been sitting there for a long while without exchanging a word,
+dreamily watching the ripple of the azure water, when all at once
+there came a scurrying patter of feet through the forest, and, looking
+up, I beheld the hound-dog, tail between his legs, bearing down on us
+at lightning speed. I rose instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with the dog?" cried the pretty stenographer. "Is
+he going mad, Mr. Gilland?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>"Something has scared him," I exclaimed, as the dog, eyes like lighted
+candles, rushed frantically between my legs and buried his head in
+Miss Barrison's lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor doggy!" she said, smoothing the collapsed pup; "poor, p-oor
+little beast! Did anything scare him? Tell aunty all about it."</p>
+
+<p>When a dog flees <i>without yelping</i> he's a badly frightened creature. I
+instinctively started back towards the camp whence the beast had fled,
+and before I had taken a dozen steps Miss Barrison was beside me,
+carrying the dog in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I've an idea," she said, under her breath.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the camp.</p>
+
+<p>"It's this: I'll wager that we find those pies gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pies gone?" I repeated, perplexed; "what makes you think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They <i>are</i> gone!" she exclaimed. "Look!"</p>
+
+<p>I gaped stupidly at the rough pine table where the pies had stood in
+three neat rows of four each. And then, in a moment, the purport of
+this robbery flashed upon my senses.</p>
+
+<p>"The transparent creatures!" I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" she whispered, clinging to the trembling dog in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>I listened. I could hear nothing, see nothing, yet slowly I became
+convinced of the presence of something unseen&mdash;something in the forest
+close by, watching us out of invisible eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A chill, settling along my spine, crept upward to my scalp, until
+every separate hair wiggled to the roots. Miss Barrison was pale, but
+perfectly calm and self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>"Let us go in-doors," I said, as steadily as I could.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>I held the door open; she entered with the dog; I followed, closing
+and barring the door, and then took my station at the window, rifle in
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a sound in the forest. Miss Barrison laid the dog on the
+floor and quietly picked up her pad and pencil. Presently she was deep
+in a report of the phenomena, her pencil flying, leaf after leaf from
+the pad fluttering to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did I at the window change my position of scared alertness, until
+I was aware of her hand gently touching my elbow to attract my
+attention, and her soft voice at my ear&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You don't suppose by any chance that the dog ate those pies?"</p>
+
+<p>I collected my tumultuous thoughts and turned to stare at the dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve pies, twelve inches each in diameter," she reflected,
+musingly. "One dog, twenty inches in diameter. How many times will the
+pies go into the dog? Let me see." She made a few figures on her pad,
+thought awhile, produced a tape-measure from her pocket, and, kneeling
+down, measured the dog.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, looking up at me, "he couldn't contain them."</p>
+
+<p>Inspired by her coolness and perfect composure, I set the rifle in the
+corner and opened the door. Sunlight fell in bars through the quiet
+woods; nothing stirred on land or water save the great, yellow-striped
+butterflies that fluttered and soared and floated above the flowering
+thickets bordering the jungle.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>The heat became intense; Miss Barrison went to her room to change her
+gown for a lighter one; I sat down under a live-oak, eyes and ears
+strained for any sign of our invisible neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>When she emerged in the lightest and filmiest of summer gowns, she
+brought the camera with her; and for a while we took pictures of each
+other, until we had used up all but one film.</p>
+
+<p>Desiring to possess a picture of Miss Barrison and myself seated
+together, I tied a string to the shutter-lever and attached the other
+end of the string to the dog, who had resumed his interrupted
+slumbers. At my whistle he jumped up nervously, snapping the lever,
+and the picture was taken.</p>
+
+<p>With such innocent and harmless pastime we whiled away the afternoon.
+She made twelve more apple-pies. I mounted guard over them. And we
+were just beginning to feel a trifle uneasy about Professor Farrago,
+when he appeared, tramping sturdily through the forest, green umbrella
+and butterfly-net under one arm, shot-gun and cyanide-jar under the
+other, and his breast all criss-crossed with straps, from which
+dangled field-glasses, collecting-boxes, and botanizing-tins&mdash;an
+inspiring figure indeed&mdash;the embodied symbol of science indomitable,
+triumphant!</p>
+
+<p>We hailed him with three guilty cheers; the dog woke up with a
+perfunctory bark&mdash;the first sound I had heard from him since he yelped
+his disapproval of me on the lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Barrison produced three bowls full of boiling water and dropped
+three pellets of concentrated soup-meat into them, while I prepared
+coffee. And in a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>moments our simple dinner was ready&mdash;the red
+ants had been dusted from the biscuits, the spiders chased off the
+baked beans, the scorpions shaken from the napkins, and we sat down at
+the rough, improvised table under the palms.</p>
+
+<p>The professor gave us a brief but modest account of his short tour of
+exploration. He had brought back a new species of orchid, several
+undescribed beetles, and a pocketful of coontie seed. He appeared,
+however, to be tired and singularly depressed, and presently we
+learned why.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that he had gone straight to that section of the forest
+where he had hitherto always found signs of the transparent and
+invisible creatures which he had determined to capture, and he had not
+found a single trace of them.</p>
+
+<p>"It alarms me," he said, gravely. "If they have deserted this region,
+it might take a lifetime to locate them again in this wilderness."</p>
+
+<p>Then, very quietly, sinking her voice instinctively, as though the
+unseen might be at our very elbows listening, Miss Barrison recounted
+the curious adventure which had befallen the dog and the first batch
+of apple-pies.</p>
+
+<p>With visible and increasing excitement the professor listened until
+the very end. Then he struck the table with clinched fist&mdash;a
+resounding blow which set the concentrated soup dancing in the bowls
+and scattered the biscuits and the industrious red ants in every
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Eureka!" he whispered. "Miss Barrison, your deduction was not only
+perfectly reasonable, but brilliant. You are right; the pies are for
+that very purpose. I conceived the idea when I first came here. Again
+and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>again the pies that my guide made out of dried apples disappeared
+in a most astonishing and mysterious manner when left to cool. At
+length I determined to watch them every second; and did so, with the
+result that late one afternoon I was amazed to see a pie slowly rise
+from the table and move swiftly away through the air about four feet
+above the ground, finally disappearing into a tangle of jasmine and
+grape-vine.</p>
+
+<p>"The apparently automatic flight of that pie solved the problem; these
+transparent creatures cannot resist that delicacy. Therefore I decided
+to bait the cage for them this very night&mdash;Look! What's the matter
+with that dog?"</p>
+
+<p>The dog suddenly bounded into the air, alighted on all fours, ears,
+eyes, and muzzle concentrated on a point directly behind us.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious! The pies!" faltered Miss Barrison, half rising from
+her seat; but the dog rushed madly into her skirts, scrambling for
+protection, and she fell back almost into my arms.</p>
+
+<p>Clasping her tightly, I looked over my shoulder; the last pie was
+snatched from the table before my eyes and I saw it borne swiftly away
+by something unseen, straight into the deepening shadows of the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>The professor was singularly calm, even slightly ironical, as he
+turned to me, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps if you relinquish Miss Barrison she may be able to free
+herself from that dog."</p>
+
+<p>I did so immediately, and she deposited the cowering dog in my arms.
+Her face had suddenly become pink.</p>
+
+<p>I passed the dog on to Professor Farrago, dumping it viciously into
+his lap&mdash;a proceeding which struck me as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>resembling a pastime of
+extreme youth known as "button, button, who's got the button?"</p>
+
+<p>The professor examined the animal gravely, feeling its pulse, counting
+its respirations, and finally inserting a tentative finger in an
+attempt to examine its tongue. The dog bit him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ouch! It's a clear case of fright," he said, gravely. "I wanted a dog
+to aid me in trailing these remarkable creatures, but I think this dog
+of yours is useless, Gilland."</p>
+
+<p>"It's given us warning of the creatures' presence twice already," I
+argued.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little thing," said Miss Barrison, softly; "I don't know why,
+but I love that dog.... He has eyes like yours, Mr. Gilland&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Exasperated, I rose from the table. "He's got eyes like holes burned
+in a blanket!" I said. "And if ever a flicker of intelligence lighted
+them I have failed to observe it."</p>
+
+<p>The professor regarded me dreamily. "We ought to have more pies," he
+observed. "Perhaps if you carried the oven into the shanty&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Miss Barrison; "we can lock the door while I make
+twelve more pies."</p>
+
+<p>I carried the portable camping-oven into the cabin, connected the
+patent asbestos chimney-pipes, and lighted the fire. And in a few
+minutes Miss Barrison, sleeves rolled up and pink apron pinned under
+her chin, was busily engaged in rolling pie-crust, while Professor
+Farrago measured out spices and set the dried apples to soak.</p>
+
+<p>The swift Southern twilight had already veiled the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>forest as I
+stepped out of the cabin to smoke a cigar and promenade a bit and
+cogitate. A last trace of color lingering in the west faded out as I
+looked; the gray glimmer deepened into darkness, through which the
+white lake vapors floated in thin, wavering strata across the water.</p>
+
+<p>For a while the frog's symphony dominated all other sounds, then
+lagoon and forest and cypress branch awoke; and through the steadily
+sustained tumult of woodland voices I could hear the dry bark of the
+fox-squirrel, the whistle of the raccoon, ducks softly quacking or
+whimpering as they prepared for sleep among the reeds, the soft
+booming of bitterns, the clattering gossip of the heronry, the
+Southern whippoorwill's incessant call.</p>
+
+<p>At regular intervals the howling note of a lone heron echoed the
+strident screech of a crimson-crested crane; the horned owl's savage
+hunting-cry haunted the night, now near, now floating from infinite
+distances.</p>
+
+<p>And after a while I became aware of a nearer sound, low-pitched but
+ceaseless&mdash;the hum of thousands of lesser living creatures blending to
+a steady monotone.</p>
+
+<p>Then the theatrical moon came up through filmy draperies of waving
+Spanish moss thin as cobwebs; and far in the wilderness a cougar fell
+a-crying and coughing like a little child with a bad cold.</p>
+
+<p>I went in after that. Miss Barrison was sitting before the oven, knees
+gathered in her clasped hands, languidly studying the fire. She looked
+up as I appeared, opened the oven-doors, sniffed the aroma, and
+resumed her attitude of contented indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the professor?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>"He has retired. He's been talking in his sleep at moments."</p>
+
+<p>"Better take it down; that's what you're here for," I observed,
+closing and holding the outside door. "Ugh! there's a chill in the
+air. The dew is pelting down from the pines like a steady fall of
+rain."</p>
+
+<p>"You will get fever if you roam about at night," she said. "Mercy!
+your coat is soaking. Sit here by the fire."</p>
+
+<p>So I pulled up a bench and sat down beside her like the traditional
+spider.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Muffitt," I said, "don't let me frighten you away&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I was going anyhow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she demanded, reseating herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I like to sit beside you," I said, truthfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Your avowal is startling and not to be substantiated by facts," she
+remarked, resting her chin on one hand and gazing into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean because I went for a stroll by moonlight? I did that because
+you always seem to make fun of me as soon as the professor joins us."</p>
+
+<p>"Make fun of you? You surely don't expect me to make eyes at you!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence; I toasted my shins, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"How is your burned finger?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>She lifted it for my inspection, and I began a protracted examination.</p>
+
+<p>"What would you prescribe?" she inquired, with an absent-minded glance
+at the professor's closed door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>"I don't know; perhaps a slight but firm pressure of the
+finger-tips&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You tried that this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"But the dog interrupted us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Interrupted <i>you</i>. Besides&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you ought to," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting there before the oven, side by side, hand innocently clasped
+in hand, we heard the drumming of the dew on the roof, the night-wind
+stirring the palms, the muffled snoring of the professor, the faint
+whisper and crackle of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>A single candle burned brightly, piling our shadows together on the
+wall behind us; moonlight silvered the window-panes, over which
+crawled multitudes of soft-winged moths, attracted by the candle
+within.</p>
+
+<p>"See their tiny eyes glow!" she whispered. "How their wings quiver!
+And all for a candle-flame! Alas! alas! fire is the undoing of us
+all."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward, resting as though buried in reverie. After a while
+she extended one foot a trifle and, with the point of her shoe,
+carefully unlatched the oven-door. As it swung outward a delicious
+fragrance filled the room.</p>
+
+<p>"They're done," she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. "Help me to
+lift them out."</p>
+
+<p>Together we arranged the delicious pastry in rows on the bench to
+cool. I opened the door for a few minutes, then closed and bolted it
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose those transparent creatures will smell the odor and
+come around the cabin?" she suggested, wiping her fingers on her
+handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled,
+some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some
+snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peacock-blue
+edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to
+the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to
+the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose you know that the antenn&aelig; of that silvery-winged moth
+are distinctly pectinate," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do," she said. "I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard
+College."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "You've been through Barnard? You
+are a Doctor of Entomology?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was my undoing," she said. "The department was abolished the year
+I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian."</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my
+own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to
+self-sustenance."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose
+I'd flirt with you if I was?"</p>
+
+<p>She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem
+of Andrew Lang:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"> &nbsp;But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent&mdash;I don't
+know why.</p>
+
+<p>The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>flaring above a
+saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left
+the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"That's curious," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good
+gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw nothing," I said, disturbed. "Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>A soft sound against the glass, as though invisible fingers were
+feeling the pane&mdash;a gentle rubbing&mdash;then a tap-tap, all but inaudible.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a bird? Can you see?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the
+pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there.</p>
+
+<p>We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the
+glass outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and
+carried them into my room.</p>
+
+<p>Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand,
+and whispering, "Good-night! A demain, monsieur!" slipped into her
+room and softly closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle
+resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I
+dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed
+to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other,
+eating slice after slice of apple-pie.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>Dawn came&mdash;the dawn of a day that I am destined never to forget. Long,
+rosy streamers of light broke through the forest, shaking, quivering,
+like unstable beams from celestial search-lights. Mist floated upward
+from marsh and lake; and through it the spectral palms loomed,
+drooping fronds embroidered with dew.</p>
+
+<p>For a while the ringing outburst of bird music dominated all; but it
+soon ceased with dropping notes from the crimson cardinals repeated in
+lengthening minor intervals; and then the spell of silence returned,
+broken only by the faint splash of mullet, mocking the sun with
+sinuous, silver flashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning," said a low voice from the door as I stood encouraging
+the camp-fire with splinter wood and dead palmetto fans.</p>
+
+<p>Fresh and sweet from her toilet as a dew-drenched rose, Miss Barrison
+stood there sniffing the morning air daintily, thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>"Too much perfume," she said&mdash;"too much like ylang-ylang in a
+department-store. Central Park smells sweeter on an April morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you criticising the wild jasmine?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm criticising an exotic smell. Am I not permitted to comment on the
+tropics?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>Fishing out a cedar log from the lumber-stack, I fell to chopping it
+vigorously. The axe-strokes made a cheerful racket through the woods.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you hear anything last night after you retired?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Something was at my window&mdash;something that thumped softly and seemed
+to be feeling all over the glass. To tell you the truth, I was silly
+enough to remain dressed all night."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't look it," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, when daylight came I had a chance," she added, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," said I, leaning on the axe and watching her, "you are
+about the coolest and pluckiest woman I ever knew."</p>
+
+<p>"We were all in the same fix," she said, modestly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, we were not. Now I'll tell you the truth&mdash;my hair stood up the
+greater part of the night. You are looking upon a poltroon, Miss
+Barrison."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there was something at your window, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something? A dozen! They were monkeying with the sashes and panes all
+night long, and I imagined that I could hear them breathing&mdash;as though
+from effort of intense eagerness. Ouch! I came as near losing my nerve
+as I care to. I came within an ace of hurling those cursed pies
+through the window at them. I'd bolt to-day if I wasn't afraid to play
+the coward."</p>
+
+<p>"Most people are brave for that reason," she said.</p>
+
+<p>The dog, who had slept under my bunk, and who had contributed to my
+entertainment by sighing and moaning all night, now appeared ready for
+business&mdash;business in his case being the operation of feeding. I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>presented him with a concentrated tablet, which he cautiously
+investigated and then rolled on.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice testimonial for the people who concocted it," I said, in
+disgust. "I wish I had an egg."</p>
+
+<p>"There are some concentrated egg tablets in the shanty," said Miss
+Barrison; but the idea was not attractive.</p>
+
+<p>"I refuse to fry a pill for breakfast," I said, sullenly, and set the
+coffee-pot on the coals.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the dewy beauty of the morning, breakfast was not a
+cheerful function. Professor Farrago appeared, clad in sun-helmet and
+khaki. I had seldom seen him depressed; but he was now, and his very
+efforts to disguise it only emphasized his visible anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>His preparations for the day, too, had an ominous aspect to me. He
+gave his orders and we obeyed, instinctively suppressing questions.
+First, he and I transported all personal luggage of the company to the
+big electric launch&mdash;Miss Barrison's effects, his, and my own. His
+private papers, the stenographic reports, and all memoranda were tied
+up together and carried aboard.</p>
+
+<p>Then, to my surprise, two weeks' concentrated rations for two and
+mineral water sufficient for the same period were stowed away aboard
+the launch. Several times he asked me whether I knew how to run the
+boat, and I assured him that I did.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time nothing was left ashore except the bare furnishings of
+the cabin, the female wearing-apparel, the steel cage and chemicals
+which I had brought, and the twelve apple-pies&mdash;the latter under lock
+and key in my room.</p>
+
+<p>As the preparations came to an end, the professor's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>gentle melancholy
+seemed to deepen. Once I ventured to ask him if he was indisposed, and
+he replied that he had never felt in better physical condition.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he bade me fetch the pies; and I brought them, and, at a
+sign from him, placed them inside the steel cage, closing and locking
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," he said, glancing from Miss Barrison to me, and from me
+to the dog&mdash;"I believe that we are ready to start."</p>
+
+<p>He went to the cabin and locked the door on the outside, pocketing the
+key.</p>
+
+<p>Then he backed up to the steel cage, stooped and lifted his end as I
+lifted mine, and together we started off through the forest, bearing
+the cage between us as porters carry a heavy piece of luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Barrison came next, carrying the trousseau, the tank, hose, and
+chemicals; and the dog followed her&mdash;probably not from affection for
+us, but because he was afraid to be left alone.</p>
+
+<p>We walked in silence, the professor and I keeping an instinctive
+lookout for snakes; but we encountered nothing of that sort. On every
+side, touching our shoulders, crowded the closely woven and
+impenetrable tangle of the jungle; and we threaded it along a narrow
+path which he, no doubt, had cut, for the machete marks were still
+fresh, and the blazes on hickory, live-oak, and palm were all wet with
+dripping sap, and swarming with eager, brilliant butterflies.</p>
+
+<p>At times across our course flowed shallow, rapid streams of water,
+clear as crystal, and most alluring to the thirsty.</p>
+
+<p>"There's fever in every drop," said the professor, as I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>mentioned my
+thirst; "take the bottled water if you mean to stay a little longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Stay where?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"On earth," he replied, tersely; and we marched on.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty of the tropics is marred somewhat for me; under all the
+fresh splendor of color death lurks in brilliant tints. Where painted
+fruit hangs temptingly, where great, silky blossoms exhale alluring
+scent, where the elaps coils inlaid with scarlet, black, and saffron,
+where in the shadow of a palmetto frond a succession of velvety black
+diamonds mark the rattler's swollen length, there death is; and his
+invisible consort, horror, creeps where the snake whose mouth is lined
+with white creeps&mdash;where the tarantula squats, hairy, motionless;
+where a bit of living enamel fringed with orange undulates along a
+mossy log.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking of these things, and watchful lest, unawares, terror unfold
+from some blossoming and leafy covert, I scarcely noticed the beauty
+of the glade we had entered&mdash;a long oval, cross-barred with sunshine
+which fell on hedges of scrub-palmetto, chin high, interlaced with
+golden blossoms of the jasmine. And all around, like pillars
+supporting a high green canopy above a throne, towered the silvery
+stems of palms fretted with pale, rose-tinted lichens and hung with
+draperies of grape-vine.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the place," said Professor Farrago.</p>
+
+<p>His quiet, passionless voice sounded strange to me; his words seemed
+strange, too, each one heavily weighted with hidden meaning.</p>
+
+<p>We set the cage on the ground; he unlocked and opened the steel-barred
+door, and, kneeling, carefully arranged the pies along the centre of
+the cage.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>"I have a curious presentiment," he said, "that I shall not come out
+of this experiment unscathed."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, for Heaven's sake, say that!" I broke out, my nerves on edge
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he asked, surprised. "I am not afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Not afraid to die?" I demanded, exasperated.</p>
+
+<p>"Who spoke of dying?" he inquired, mildly. "What I said was that I do
+not expect to come out of this affair unscathed."</p>
+
+<p>I did not comprehend his meaning, but I understood the reproof
+conveyed.</p>
+
+<p>He closed and locked the cage door again and came towards us,
+balancing the key across the palm of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Barrison had seated herself on the leaves; I stood back as the
+professor sat down beside her; then, at a gesture from him, took the
+place he indicated on his left.</p>
+
+<p>"Before we begin," he said, calmly, "there are several things you
+ought to know and which I have not yet told you. The first concerns
+the feminine wearing apparel which Mr. Gilland brought me."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Miss Barrison and asked her whether she had brought a
+complete outfit, and she opened the bundle on her knees and handed it
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot," he said, "delicately explain in so many words what use I
+expect to make of this apparel. Nor do I yet know whether I shall have
+any use at all for it. That can only be a theoretical speculation
+until, within a few more hours, my theory is proven or disproven&mdash;and,"
+he said, suddenly turning on me, "my theory concerning these invisible
+creatures is the most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>extraordinary and audacious theory ever
+entertained by man since Columbus presumed that there must lie
+somewhere a hidden continent which nobody had ever seen."</p>
+
+<p>He passed his hand over his protruding forehead, lost for a moment in
+deepest reflection. Then, "Have you ever heard of the Sphyx?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me that Ponce de Leon wrote of something&mdash;" I began,
+hesitating.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the famous lines in the third volume which have set so many wise
+men guessing. You recall them:</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>And there, alas! within sound of the Fountain of Youth whose waters
+tint the skin till the whole body glows softly like the petal of a
+rose&mdash;there, alas! in the new world already blooming</i>, <span class="sc">The Eternal
+Enigma</span> <i>I beheld, in the flesh living; yet it faded even as I
+looked, although I swear it lived and breathed. This is the Sphyx</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>A silence; then I said, "Those lines are meaningless to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to me," said Miss Barrison, softly.</p>
+
+<p>The professor looked at her. "Ah, child! Ever subtler, ever surer&mdash;the
+Eternal Enigma is no enigma to you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the Sphyx?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you read De Soto? Or Goya?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, both. I remember now that De Soto records the Syachas legend of
+the Sphyx&mdash;something about a goddess&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a goddess," said Miss Barrison, her lips touched with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said the professor, gently. "And Goya said:</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>It has come to my ears while in the lands of the Syachas</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span><i>that the
+Sphyx surely lives, as bolder and more curious men than I may, God
+willing, prove to the world hereafter</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But what is the Sphyx?" I insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"For centuries wise men and savants have asked each other that
+question. I have answered it for myself; I am now to prove it, I
+trust."</p>
+
+<p>His face darkened, and again and again he stroked his heavy brow.</p>
+
+<p>"If anything occurs," he said, taking my hand in his left and Miss
+Barrison's hand in his right, "promise me to obey my wishes. Will
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," we said, together.</p>
+
+<p>"If I lose my life, or&mdash;or disappear, promise me on your honor to get
+to the electric launch as soon as possible and make all speed
+northward, placing my private papers, the reports of Miss Barrison,
+and your own reports in the hands of the authorities in Bronx Park.
+Don't attempt to aid me; don't delay to search for me. Do you
+promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," we breathed together.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at us solemnly. "If you fail me, you betray me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>We swore obedience.</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us begin," he said, and he rose and went to the steel cage.
+Unlocking the door, he flung it wide and stepped inside, leaving the
+cage door open.</p>
+
+<p>"The moment a single pie is disturbed," he said to me, "I shall close
+the steel door from the inside, and you and Miss Barrison will then
+dump the rosium oxide and the strontium into the tank, clap on the
+lid, turn the nozzle of the hose on the cage, and spray it
+thoroughly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>Whatever is invisible in the cage will become visible and
+of a faint rose color. And when the trapped creature becomes visible,
+hold yourselves ready to aid me as long as I am able to give you
+orders. After that either all will go well or all will go otherwise,
+and you must run for the launch." He seated himself in the cage near
+the open door.</p>
+
+<p>I placed the steel tank near the cage, uncoiled the hose attachment,
+unscrewed the top, and dumped in the salts of strontium. Miss Barrison
+unwrapped the bottle of rosium oxide and loosened the cork. We
+examined this pearl-and-pink powder and shook it up so that it might
+run out quickly. Then Miss Barrison sat down, and presently became
+absorbed in a stenographic report of the proceedings up to date.</p>
+
+<p>When Miss Barrison finished her report she handed me the bundle of
+papers. I stowed them away in my wallet, and we sat down together
+beside the tank.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the cage Professor Farrago was seated, his spectacled eyes
+fixed on the row of pies. For a while, although realizing perfectly
+that our quarry was transparent and invisible, we unconsciously
+strained our eyes in quest of something stirring in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think," said I, in a low voice, "that the odor of the pies
+might draw at least one out of the odd dozen that came rubbing up
+against my window last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Listen!" she breathed. But we heard nothing save the snoring of
+the overfed dog at our feet.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll give us ample notice by butting into Miss Barrison's skirts," I
+observed. "No need of our watching, professor."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>The professor nodded. Presently he removed his spectacles and lay back
+against the bars, closing his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>At first the forest silence seemed cheerful there in the flecked
+sunlight. The spotted wood-gnats gyrated merrily, chased by
+dragon-flies; the shy wood-birds hopped from branch to twig, peering
+at us in friendly inquiry; a lithe, gray squirrel, plumy tail
+undulating, rambled serenely around the cage, sniffing at the pastry
+within.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, without apparent reason, the squirrel sprang to a
+tree-trunk, hung a moment on the bark, quivering all over, then dashed
+away into the jungle.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did he act like that?" whispered Miss Barrison. And, after a
+moment: "How still it is! Where have the birds gone?"</p>
+
+<p>In the ominous silence the dog began to whimper in his sleep and his
+hind legs kicked convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>"He's dreaming&mdash;" I began.</p>
+
+<p>The words were almost driven down my throat by the dog, who, without a
+yelp of warning, hurled himself at Miss Barrison and alighted on my
+chest, fore paws around my neck.</p>
+
+<p>I cast him scornfully from me, but he scrambled back, digging like a
+mole to get under us.</p>
+
+<p>"The transparent creatures!" whispered Miss Barrison. "Look! See that
+pie move!"</p>
+
+<p>I sprang to my feet just as the professor, jamming on his spectacles,
+leaned forward and slammed the cage door.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got one!" he shouted, frantically. "There's one in the cage!
+Turn on that hose!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a second," said Miss Barrison, calmly, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>uncorking the bottle and
+pouring a pearly stream of rosium oxide into the tank. "Quick! It's
+fizzing! Screw on the top!"</p>
+
+<p>In a second I had screwed the top fast, seized the hose, and directed
+a hissing cloud of vapor through the cage bars.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment nothing was heard save the whistling rush of the perfumed
+spray escaping; a delicious odor of roses filled the air. Then,
+slowly, there in the sunshine, a misty something grew in the cage&mdash;a
+glistening, pearl-tinted phantom, imperceptibly taking shape in
+space&mdash;vague at first as a shred of lake vapor, then lengthening,
+rounding into flowing form, clearer, clearer.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sphyx!" gasped the professor. "In the name of Heaven, play that
+hose!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke the treacherous hose burst. A showery pillar of
+rose-colored vapor enveloped everything. Through the thickening fog
+for one brief instant a human form appeared like magic&mdash;a woman's
+form, flawless, exquisite as a statue, pure as marble. Then the
+swimming vapor buried it, cage, pies, and all.</p>
+
+<p>We ran frantically around, the cage in the obscurity, appealing for
+instructions and feeling for the bars. Once the professor's muffled
+voice was heard demanding the wearing apparel, and I groped about and
+found it and stuffed it through the bars of the cage.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you need help?" I shouted. There was no response. Staring around
+through the thickening vapor of rosium rolling in clouds from the
+overturned tank, I heard Miss Barrison's voice calling:</p>
+
+<p>"I can't move! A transparent lady is holding me!"</p>
+
+<p>Blindly I rushed about, arms outstretched, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>next moment struck
+the door of the cage so hard that the impact almost knocked me
+senseless. Clutching it to steady myself, it suddenly flew open. A
+rush of partly visible creatures passed me like a burst of pink
+flames, and in the midst, borne swiftly away on the crest of the
+outrush, the professor passed like a bolt shot from a catapult; and
+his last cry came wafted back to me from the forest as I swayed there,
+drunk with the stupefying perfume: "Don't worry! I'm all right!"</p>
+
+<p>I staggered out into the clearer air towards a figure seen dimly
+through swirling vapor.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hurt?" I stammered, clasping Miss Barrison in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;oh no," she said, wringing her hands. "But the professor! I saw
+him! I could not scream; I could not move! <i>They</i> had him!"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him too," I groaned. "There was not one trace of terror on his
+face. He was actually smiling."</p>
+
+<p>Overcome at the sublime courage of the man, we wept in each other's
+arms.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>True to our promise to Professor Farrago, we made the best of our way
+northward; and it was not a difficult journey by any means, the voyage
+in the launch across Okeechobee being perfectly simple and the trail
+to the nearest railroad station but a few easy miles from the
+landing-place.</p>
+
+<p>Shocking as had been our experience, dreadful as was the calamity
+which had not only robbed me of a life-long friend, but had also
+bereaved the entire scientific world, I could not seem to feel that
+desperate and hopeless grief which the natural decease of a close
+friend might <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>warrant. No; there remained a vague expectancy which so
+dominated my sorrow that at moments I became hopeful&mdash;nay, sanguine,
+that I should one day again behold my beloved superior in the flesh.
+There was something so happy in his last smile, something so artlessly
+pleased, that I was certain no fear of impending dissolution worried
+him as he disappeared into the uncharted depth of the unknown
+Everglades.</p>
+
+<p>I think Miss Barrison agreed with me, too. She appeared to be more or
+less dazed, which was, of course, quite natural; and during our return
+voyage across Okeechobee and through the lagoons and forests beyond
+she was very silent.</p>
+
+<p>When we reached the railroad at Portulacca, a thrifty lemon-growing
+ranch on the Volusia and Chinkapin Railway, the first thing I did was
+to present my dog to the station-agent&mdash;but I was obliged to give him
+five dollars before he consented to accept the dog.</p>
+
+<p>However, Miss Barrison interviewed the station-master's wife, a
+kindly, pitiful soul, who promised to be a good mistress to the
+creature. We both felt better after that was off our minds; we felt
+better still when the north-bound train rolled leisurely into the
+white glare of Portulacca, and presently rolled out again, quite as
+leisurely, bound, thank Heaven, for that abused aggregation of sinful
+boroughs called New York.</p>
+
+<p>Except for one young man whom I encountered in the smoker, we had the
+train to ourselves, a circumstance which, curiously enough, appeared
+to increase Miss Barrison's depression, and my own as a natural
+sequence. The circumstances of the taking off of Professor Farrago
+appeared to engross her thoughts so completely that it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>made me uneasy
+during our trip out from Little Sprite&mdash;in fact it was growing plainer
+to me every hour that in her brief acquaintance with that
+distinguished scientist she had become personally attached to him to
+an extent that began to worry me. Her personal indignation at the
+caged Sphyx flared out at unexpected intervals, and there could be no
+doubt that her unhappiness and resentment were becoming morbid.</p>
+
+<p>I spent an hour or two in the smoking compartment, tenanted only by a
+single passenger and myself. He was an agreeable young man, although,
+in the natural acquaintanceship that we struck up, I regretted to
+learn that he was a writer of popular fiction, returning from Fort
+Worth, where he had been for the sole purpose of composing a poem on
+Florida.</p>
+
+<p>I have always, in common with other mentally balanced savants,
+despised writers of fiction. All scientists harbor a natural antipathy
+to romance in any form, and that antipathy becomes a deep horror if
+fiction dares to deal flippantly with the exact sciences, or if some
+degraded intellect assumes the warrantless liberty of using natural
+history as the vehicle for silly tales.</p>
+
+<p>Never but once had I been tempted to romance in any form; never but
+once had sentiment interfered with a passionless transfer of
+scientific notes to the sanctuary of the unvarnished note-book or the
+cloister of the juiceless monograph. Nor have I the slightest approach
+to that superficial and doubtful quality known as literary skill.
+Once, however, as I sat alone in the middle of the floor, classifying
+my isopods, I was not only astonished but totally unprepared to find
+myself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>repeating aloud a verse that I myself had unconsciously
+fashioned:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"An isopod<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&nbsp; Is a work of God."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="noin">Never before in all my life had I made a rhyme; and it worried me for
+weeks, ringing in my brain day and night, confusing me, interfering
+with my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>I said as much to the young man, who only laughed good-naturedly and
+replied that it was the Creator's purpose to limit certain intellects,
+nobody knows why, and that it was apparent that mine had not escaped.</p>
+
+<p>"There's one thing, however," he said, "that might be of some interest
+to you and come within the circumscribed scope of your intelligence."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?" I asked, tartly.</p>
+
+<p>"A scientific experience of mine," he said, with a careless laugh.
+"It's so much stranger than fiction that even Professor Bruce
+Stoddard, of Columbia, hesitated to credit it."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the young fellow suspiciously. His bland smile disarmed
+me, but I did not invite him to relate his experience, although he
+apparently needed only that encouragement to begin.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, if I could tell it exactly as it occurred," he observed, "and a
+stenographer could take it down, word for word, exactly as I relate
+it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It would give me great pleasure to do so," said a quiet voice at the
+door. We rose at once, removing the cigars from our lips; but Miss
+Barrison bade us continue smoking, and at a gesture from her we
+resumed our seats after she had installed herself by the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," she said, looking coldly at me, "I couldn't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>endure the
+solitude any longer. Isn't there anything to do on this tiresome
+train?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you had your pad and pencil," I began, maliciously, "you might
+take down a matter of interest&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked frankly at the young man, who laughed in that pleasant,
+good-tempered manner of his, and offered to tell us of his alleged
+scientific experience if we thought it might amuse us sufficiently to
+vary the dull monotony of the journey north.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it fiction?" I asked, point-blank.</p>
+
+<p>"It is absolute truth," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>I rose and went off to find pad and pencil. When I returned Miss
+Barrison was laughing at a story which the young man had just
+finished.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he ended, gravely, "I have practically decided to renounce
+fiction as a means of livelihood and confine myself to simple,
+uninteresting statistics and facts."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad to hear you say that," I exclaimed, warmly. He bowed,
+looked at Miss Barrison, and asked her when he might begin his story.</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever you are ready," replied Miss Barrison, smiling in a manner
+which I had not observed since the disappearance of Professor Farrago.
+I'll admit that the young fellow was superficially attractive.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," he began, modestly, "having no technical ability
+concerning the affair in question, and having no knowledge of either
+comparative anatomy or zoology, I am perhaps unfitted to tell this
+story. But the story is true; the episode occurred under my own
+eyes&mdash;within a few hours' sail of the Battery. And as I was one of the
+first persons to verify what has long been a theory among scientists,
+and, moreover, as the result of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>Professor Holroyd's discovery is to
+be placed on exhibition in Madison Square Garden on the 20th of next
+month, I have decided to tell you, as simply as I am able, exactly
+what occurred.</p>
+
+<p>"I first told the story on April 1, 1903, to the editors of the <i>North
+American Review</i>, <i>The Popular Science Monthly</i>, the <i>Scientific
+American</i>, <i>Nature</i>, <i>Outing</i>, and the <i>Fossiliferous Magazine</i>. All
+these gentlemen rejected it; some curtly informing me that fiction had
+no place in their columns. When I attempted to explain that it was not
+fiction, the editors of these periodicals either maintained a
+contemptuous silence, or bluntly notified me that my literary services
+and opinions were not desired. But finally, when several publishers
+offered to take the story as fiction, I cut short all negotiations and
+decided to publish it myself. Where I am known at all, it is my
+misfortune to be known as a writer of fiction. This makes it
+impossible for me to receive a hearing from a scientific audience. I
+regret it bitterly, because now, when it is too late, I am prepared to
+prove certain scientific matters of interest, and to produce the
+proofs. In this case, however, I am fortunate, for nobody can dispute
+the existence of a thing when the bodily proof is exhibited as
+evidence.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the story; and if I tell it as I write fiction, it is because
+I do not know how to tell it otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>"I was walking along the beach below Pine Inlet, on the south shore of
+Long Island. The railroad and telegraph station is at West Oyster Bay.
+Everybody who has travelled on the Long Island Railroad knows the
+station, but few, perhaps, know Pine Inlet. Duck-shooters, of course,
+are familiar with it; but as there are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>no hotels there, and nothing
+to see except salt meadow, salt creek, and a strip of dune and sand,
+the summer-squatting public may probably be unaware of its existence.
+The local name for the place is Pine Inlet; the maps give its name as
+Sand Point, I believe, but anybody at West Oyster Bay can direct you
+to it. Captain McPeek, who keeps the West Oyster Bay House, drives
+duck-shooters there in winter. It lies five miles southeast from West
+Oyster Bay.</p>
+
+<p>"I had walked over that afternoon from Captain McPeek's. There was a
+reason for my going to Pine Inlet&mdash;it embarrasses me to explain it,
+but the truth is I meditated writing an ode to the ocean. It was out
+of the question to write it in West Oyster Bay, with the whistle of
+locomotives in my ears. I knew that Pine Inlet was one of the
+loneliest places on the Atlantic coast; it is out of sight of
+everything except leagues of gray ocean. Rarely one might make out
+fishing-smacks drifting across the horizon. Summer squatters never
+visited it; sportsmen shunned it, except in winter. Therefore, as I
+was about to do a bit of poetry, I thought that Pine Inlet was the
+spot for the deed. So I went there.</p>
+
+<p>"As I was strolling along the beach, biting my pencil reflectively,
+tremendously impressed by the solitude and the solemn thunder of the
+surf, a thought occurred to me&mdash;how unpleasant it would be if I
+suddenly stumbled on a summer boarder. As this joyless impossibility
+flitted across my mind, I rounded a bleak sand-dune.</p>
+
+<p>"A girl stood directly in my path.</p>
+
+<p>"She stared at me as though I had just crawled up out of the sea to
+bite her. I don't know what my own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>expression resembled, but I have
+been given to understand it was idiotic.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I perceived, after a few moments, that the young lady was
+frightened, and I knew I ought to say something civil. So I said, 'Are
+there many mosquitoes here?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' she replied, with a slight quiver in her voice; 'I have only
+seen one, and it was biting somebody else.'</p>
+
+<p>"The conversation seemed so futile, and the young lady appeared to be
+more nervous than before. I had an impulse to say, 'Do not run; I have
+breakfasted,' for she seemed to be meditating a flight into the
+breakers. What I did say was: 'I did not know anybody was here. I do
+not intend to intrude. I come from Captain McPeek's, and I am writing
+an ode to the ocean.' After I had said this it seemed to ring in my
+ears like, 'I come from Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful
+James.'</p>
+
+<p>"I glanced timidly at her.</p>
+
+<p>"'She's thinking of the same thing,' said I to myself.</p>
+
+<p>"However, the young lady seemed to be a trifle reassured. I noticed
+she drew a sigh of relief and looked at my shoes. She looked so long
+that it made me suspicious, and I also examined my shoes. They seemed
+to be in a fair state of repair.</p>
+
+<p>"'I&mdash;I am sorry,' she said, 'but would you mind not walking on the
+beach?'</p>
+
+<p>"This was sudden. I had intended to retire and leave the beach to her,
+but I did not fancy being driven away so abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dear me!' she cried; 'you don't understand. I do not&mdash;I would not
+think for a moment of asking you to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>leave Pine Inlet. I merely
+ventured to request you to walk on the dunes. I am so afraid that your
+footprints may obliterate the impressions that my father is studying.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh!' said I, looking about me as though I had been caught in the
+middle of a flower-bed; 'really I did not notice any impressions.
+Impressions of what?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't know,' she said, smiling a little at my awkward pose. 'If
+you step this way in a straight line you can do no damage.'</p>
+
+<p>"I did as she bade me. I suppose my movements resembled the gait of a
+wet peacock. Possibly they recalled the delicate man&oelig;uvres of the
+kangaroo. Anyway, she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"This seriously annoyed me. I had been at a disadvantage; I walk well
+enough when let alone.</p>
+
+<p>"'You can scarcely expect,' said I, 'that a man absorbed in his own
+ideas could notice impressions on the sand. I trust I have obliterated
+nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>"As I said this I looked back at the long line of footprints
+stretching away in prospective across the sand. They were my own. How
+large they looked! Was that what she was laughing at?</p>
+
+<p>"'I wish to explain,' she said, gravely, looking at the point of her
+parasol. 'I am very sorry to be obliged to warn you&mdash;to ask you to
+forego the pleasure of strolling on a beach that does not belong to
+me. Perhaps,' she continued, in sudden alarm, 'perhaps this beach
+belongs to you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'The beach? Oh no,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'But&mdash;but you were going to write poems about it?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Only one&mdash;and that does not necessitate owning the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>beach. I have
+observed,' said I, frankly, 'that the people who own nothing write
+many poems about it.'</p>
+
+<p>"She looked at me seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"'I write many poems,' I added.</p>
+
+<p>"She laughed doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'Would you rather I went away?' I asked, politely. 'My family is
+respectable,' I added; and I told her my name.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh! Then you wrote <i>Culled Cowslips</i> and <i>Faded Fig-Leaves</i> and you
+imitate Maeterlinck, and you&mdash;Oh, I know lots of people that you
+know;' she cried, with every symptom of relief; 'and you know my
+brother.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am the author,' said I, coldly, 'of <i>Culled Cowslips</i>, but <i>Faded
+Fig-Leaves</i> was an earlier work, which I no longer recognize, and I
+should be grateful to you if you would be kind enough to deny that I
+ever imitated Maeterlinck. Possibly,' I added, 'he imitates me.'</p>
+
+<p>"She was very quiet, and I saw she was sorry.</p>
+
+<p>"'Never mind,' I said, magnanimously, 'you probably are not familiar
+with modern literature. If I knew your name I should ask permission to
+present myself.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, I am Daisy Holroyd,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"'What! Jack Holroyd's little sister?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Little?' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"'I didn't mean that,' said I. 'You know that your brother and I were
+great friends in Paris&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'I know,' she said, significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ahem! Of course,' I said, 'Jack and I were inseparable&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Except when shut in separate cells,' said Miss Holroyd, coldly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>"This unfeeling allusion to the unfortunate termination of a
+Latin-Quarter celebration hurt me.</p>
+
+<p>"'The police,' said I, 'were too officious.'</p>
+
+<p>"'So Jack says,' replied Miss Holroyd, demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"We had unconsciously moved on along the sand-hills, side by side, as
+we spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"'To think,' I repeated, 'that I should meet Jack's little&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Please,' she said, 'you are only three years my senior.'</p>
+
+<p>"She opened the sunshade and tipped it over one shoulder. It was
+white, and had spots and posies on it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Jack sends us every new book you write,' she observed. 'I do not
+approve of some things you write.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Modern school,' I mumbled.</p>
+
+<p>"'That is no excuse,' she said, severely; 'Anthony Trollope didn't do
+it.'</p>
+
+<p>"The foam spume from the breakers was drifting across the dunes, and
+the little tip-up snipe ran along the beach and teetered and whistled
+and spread their white-barred wings for a low, straight flight across
+the shingle, only to tip and run and sail on again. The salt sea-wind
+whistled and curled through the crested waves, blowing in perfumed
+puffs across thickets of sweet bay and cedar. As we passed through the
+crackling juicy-stemmed marsh-weed myriads of fiddler crabs raised
+their fore-claws in warning and backed away, rustling, through the
+reeds, aggressive, protesting.</p>
+
+<p>"'Like millions of pygmy Ajaxes defying the lightning,' I said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>"Miss Holroyd laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now I never imagined that authors were clever except in print,' she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"She was a most extraordinary girl.</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose,' she observed, after a moment's silence&mdash;'I suppose I am
+taking you to my father.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Delighted!' I mumbled. 'H'm! I had the honor of meeting Professor
+Holroyd in Paris.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes; he bailed you and Jack out,' said Miss Holroyd, serenely.</p>
+
+<p>"The silence was too painful to last.</p>
+
+<p>"'Captain McPeek is an interesting man,' I said. I spoke more loudly
+than I intended. I may have been nervous.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'but he has a most singular hotel clerk.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You mean Mr. Frisby?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' I admitted, 'Mr. Frisby is queer. He was once a bill-poster.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I know it!' exclaimed Daisy Holroyd, with some heat. 'He ruins
+landscapes whenever he has an opportunity. Do you know that he has a
+passion for bill-posting? He has; he posts bills for the pure pleasure
+of it, just as you play golf, or tennis, or squash.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But he's a hotel clerk now,' I said; 'nobody employs him to post
+bills.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I know it! He does it all by himself for the pure pleasure of it.
+Papa has engaged him to come down here for two weeks, and I dread it,'
+said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"What Professor Holroyd might want of Frisby I had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>not the faintest
+notion. I suppose Miss Holroyd noticed the bewilderment in my face,
+for she laughed and nodded her head twice.</p>
+
+<p>"'Not only Mr. Frisby, but Captain McPeek also,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"'You don't mean to say that Captain McPeek is going to close his
+hotel!' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"My trunk was there. It contained guarantees of my respectability.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh no; his wife will keep it open,' replied the girl. 'Look! you can
+see papa now. He's digging.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Where?' I blurted out.</p>
+
+<p>"I remembered Professor Holroyd as a prim, spectacled gentleman, with
+close-cut, snowy beard and a clerical allure. The man I saw digging
+wore green goggles, a jersey, a battered sou'wester, and hip-boots of
+rubber. He was delving in the muck of the salt meadow, his face
+streaming with perspiration, his boots and jersey splashed with
+unpleasant-looking mud. He glanced up as we approached, shading his
+eyes with a sunburned hand.</p>
+
+<p>"'Papa, dear,' said Miss Holroyd, 'here is Jack's friend, whom you
+bailed out of Mazas.'</p>
+
+<p>"The introduction was startling. I turned crimson with mortification.
+The professor was very decent about it; he called me by name at once.
+Then he looked at his spade. It was clear he considered me a nuisance
+and wished to go on with his digging.</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose,' he said, 'you are still writing?'</p>
+
+<p>"'A little,' I replied, trying not to speak sarcastically. My output
+had rivalled that of 'The Duchess'&mdash;in quantity, I mean.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>"'I seldom read&mdash;fiction,' he said, looking restlessly at the hole in
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Holroyd came to my rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"'That was a charming story you wrote last,' she said. 'Papa should
+read it&mdash;you should, papa; it's all about a fossil.'</p>
+
+<p>"We both looked narrowly at Miss Holroyd. Her smile was guileless.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fossils!' repeated the professor. 'Do you care for fossils?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Very much,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I am not perfectly sure what my object was in lying. I looked at
+Daisy Holroyd's dark-fringed eyes. They were very grave.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fossils,' said I, 'are my hobby.'</p>
+
+<p>"I think Miss Holroyd winced a little at this. I did not care. I went
+on:</p>
+
+<p>"'I have seldom had the opportunity to study the subject, but, as a
+boy, I collected flint arrow-heads&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"'Flint arrow-heads!' said the professor coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes; they were the nearest things to fossils obtainable,' I replied,
+marvelling at my own mendacity.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor looked into the hole. I also looked. I could see
+nothing in it. 'He's digging for fossils,' thought I to myself.</p>
+
+<p>"'Perhaps,' said the professor, cautiously, 'you might wish to aid me
+in a little research&mdash;that is to say, if you have an inclination for
+fossils.' The double-entendre was not lost upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have read all your books so eagerly,' said I, 'that to join you,
+to be of service to you in any research, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>however difficult and
+trying, would be an honor and a privilege that I never dared to hope
+for.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That,' thought I to myself, 'will do its own work.'</p>
+
+<p>"But the professor was still suspicious. How could he help it, when he
+remembered Jack's escapades, in which my name was always blended!
+Doubtless he was satisfied that my influence on Jack was evil. The
+contrary was the case, too.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fossils,' he said, worrying the edge of the excavation with his
+spade&mdash;'fossils are not things to be lightly considered.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, indeed!' I protested.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fossils are the most interesting as well as puzzling things in the
+world,' said he.</p>
+
+<p>"'They are!' I cried, enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>"'But I am not looking for fossils,' observed the professor, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"This was a facer. I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She bit her lip and
+fixed her eyes on the sea. Her eyes were wonderful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did you think I was digging for fossils in a salt meadow?' queried
+the professor. 'You can have read very little about the subject. I am
+digging for something quite different.'</p>
+
+<p>"I was silent. I knew that my face was flushed. I longed to say,
+'Well, what the devil are you digging for?' but I only stared into the
+hole as though hypnotized.</p>
+
+<p>"'Captain McPeek and Frisby ought to be here,' he said, looking first
+at Daisy and then across the meadows.</p>
+
+<p>"I ached to ask him why he had subp&oelig;naed Captain McPeek and
+Frisby.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>"'They are coming,' said Daisy, shading her eyes. 'Do you see the
+speck on the meadows?'</p>
+
+<p>"'It may be a mud-hen,' said the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Holroyd is right,' I said. 'A wagon and team and two men are
+coming from the north. There's a dog beside the wagon&mdash;it's that
+miserable yellow dog of Frisby's.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good gracious!' cried the professor, 'you don't mean to tell me that
+you see all that at such a distance?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why not?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'I see nothing,' he insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"'You will see that I'm right, presently,' I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor removed his blue goggles and rubbed them, glancing
+obliquely at me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Haven't you heard what extraordinary eyesight duck-shooters have?'
+said his daughter, looking back at her father. 'Jack says that he can
+tell exactly what kind of a duck is flying before most people could
+see anything at all in the sky.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It's true,' I said; 'it comes to anybody, I fancy, who has had
+practice.'</p>
+
+<p>"The professor regarded me with a new interest. There was inspiration
+in his eyes. He turned towards the ocean. For a long time he stared at
+the tossing waves on the beach, then he looked far out to where the
+horizon met the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"'Are there any ducks out there?' he asked, at last.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' said I, scanning the sea, 'there are.'</p>
+
+<p>"He produced a pair of binoculars from his coat-tail pocket, adjusted
+them, and raised them to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"'H'm! What sort of ducks?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>"I looked more carefully, holding both hands over my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"'Surf-ducks and widgeon. There is one bufflehead among them&mdash;no, two;
+the rest are coots,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"'This,' cried the professor, 'is most astonishing. I have good eyes,
+but I can't see a blessed thing without these binoculars!'</p>
+
+<p>"'It's not extraordinary,' said I; 'the surf-ducks and coots any
+novice might recognize; the widgeon and buffleheads I should not have
+been able to name unless they had risen from the water. It is easy to
+tell any duck when it is flying, even though it looks no bigger than a
+black pin-point.'</p>
+
+<p>"But the professor insisted that it was marvellous, and he said that I
+might render him invaluable service if I would consent to come and
+camp at Pine Inlet for a few weeks.</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at his daughter, but she turned her back. Her back was
+beautifully moulded. Her gown fitted also.</p>
+
+<p>"'Camp out here?' I repeated, pretending to be unpleasantly surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not think he would care to,' said Miss Holroyd, without
+turning.</p>
+
+<p>"I had not expected that.</p>
+
+<p>"'Above all things,' said I, in a clear, pleasant voice, 'I like to
+camp out.'</p>
+
+<p>"She said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is not exactly camping,' said the professor. 'Come, you shall see
+our conservatory. Daisy, come, dear! You must put on a heavier frock;
+it is getting towards sundown.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>"At that moment, over a near dune, two horses' heads appeared,
+followed by two human heads, then a wagon, then a yellow dog.</p>
+
+<p>"I turned triumphantly to the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"'You are the very man I want,' he muttered&mdash;'the very man&mdash;the very
+man.'</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She returned my glance with a defiant
+little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"'Waal,' said Captain McPeek, driving up, 'here we be! Git out,
+Frisby.'</p>
+
+<p>"Frisby, fat, nervous, and sentimental, hopped out of the cart.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come,' said the professor, impatiently moving across the dunes. I
+walked with Daisy Holroyd. McPeek and Frisby followed. The yellow dog
+walked by himself.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"The sun was dipping into the sea as we trudged across the meadows
+towards a high, dome-shaped dune covered with cedars and thickets of
+sweet bay. I saw no sign of habitation among the sand-hills. Far as
+the eye could reach, nothing broke the gray line of sea and sky save
+the squat dunes crowned with stunted cedars.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, as we rounded the base of the dune, we almost walked into the
+door of a house. My amazement amused Miss Holroyd, and I noticed also
+a touch of malice in her pretty eyes. But she said nothing, following
+her father into the house, with the slightest possible gesture to me.
+Was it invitation or was it menace?</p>
+
+<p>"The house was merely a light wooden frame, covered with some
+waterproof stuff that looked like a mixture of rubber and tar. Over
+this&mdash;in fact, over the whole roof&mdash;was pitched an awning of heavy
+sail-cloth. I noticed that the house was anchored to the sand by
+chains, already rusted red. But this one-storied house was not the
+only building nestling in the south shelter of the big dune. A hundred
+feet away stood another structure&mdash;long, low, also built of wood. It
+had rows on rows of round port-holes on every side. The ports were
+fitted with heavy glass, hinged to swing open if necessary. A single,
+big double door occupied the front.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>"Behind this long, low building was still another, a mere shed. Smoke
+rose from the sheet-iron chimney. There was somebody moving about
+inside the open door.</p>
+
+<p>"As I stood gaping at this mushroom hamlet the professor appeared at
+the door and asked me to enter. I stepped in at once.</p>
+
+<p>"The house was much larger than I had imagined. A straight hallway ran
+through the centre from east to west. On either side of this hallway
+were rooms, the doors swinging wide open. I counted three doors on
+each side; the three on the south appeared to be bedrooms.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor ushered me into a room on the north side, where I found
+Captain McPeek and Frisby sitting at a table, upon which were drawings
+and sketches of articulated animals and fishes.</p>
+
+<p>"'You see, McPeek,' said the professor, 'we only wanted one more man,
+and I think I've got him&mdash;Haven't I?' turning eagerly to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, yes,' I said, laughing; 'this is delightful. Am I invited to
+stay here?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Your bedroom is the third on the south side; everything is ready.
+McPeek, you can bring his trunk to-morrow, can't you?' demanded the
+professor.</p>
+
+<p>"The red-faced captain nodded, and shifted a quid.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then it's all settled,' said the professor, and he drew a sigh of
+satisfaction. 'You see,' he said, turning to me, 'I was at my wit's
+end to know whom to trust. I never thought of you. Jack's out in
+China, and I didn't dare trust anybody in my own profession. All you
+care about is writing verses and stories, isn't it?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>"'I like to shoot,' I replied, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Just the thing!' he cried, beaming at us all in turn. 'Now I can see
+no reason why we should not progress rapidly. McPeek, you and Frisby
+must get those boxes up here before dark. Dinner will be ready before
+you have finished unloading. Dick, you will wish to go to your room
+first.'</p>
+
+<p>"My name isn't Dick, but he spoke so kindly, and beamed upon me in
+such a fatherly manner, that I let it go. I had occasion to correct
+him afterwards, several times, but he always forgot the next minute.
+He calls me Dick to this day.</p>
+
+<p>"It was dark when Professor Holroyd, his daughter, and I sat down to
+dinner. The room was the same in which I had noticed the drawings of
+beast and bird, but the round table had been extended into an oval,
+and neatly spread with dainty linen and silver.</p>
+
+<p>"A fresh-cheeked Swedish girl appeared from a farther room, bearing
+the soup. The professor ladled it out, still beaming.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now, this is very delightful&mdash;isn't it, Daisy?' he said.</p>
+
+<p>"'Very,' said Miss Holroyd, with a tinge of irony.</p>
+
+<p>"'Very,' I repeated, heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose,' said the professor, nodding mysteriously at his
+daughter, 'that Dick knows nothing of what we're about down here?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose,' said Miss Holroyd, 'that he thinks we are digging for
+fossils.'</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at my plate. She might have spared me that.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, well,' said her father, smiling to himself, 'he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>shall know
+everything by morning. You'll be astonished, Dick, my boy.'</p>
+
+<p>"'His name isn't Dick,' corrected Daisy.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor said, 'Isn't it?' in an absent-minded way, and relapsed
+into contemplation of my necktie.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked Miss Holroyd a few questions about Jack, and was informed
+that he had given up law and entered the consular service&mdash;as what, I
+did not dare ask, for I know what our consular service is.</p>
+
+<p>"'In China,' said Daisy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Choo Choo is the name of the city,' added her father, proudly; 'it's
+the terminus of the new trans-Siberian railway.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It's on the Pong Ping,' said Daisy.</p>
+
+<p>"'He's vice-consul,' added the professor, triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"'He'll make a good one,' I observed. I knew Jack. I pitied his
+consul.</p>
+
+<p>"So we chatted on about my old playmate, until Freda, the red-cheeked
+maid, brought coffee, and the professor lighted a cigar, with a little
+bow to his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course, you don't smoke,' she said to me, with a glimmer of
+malice in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"'He mustn't,' interposed the professor, hastily; 'it will make his
+hand tremble.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, it won't,' said I, laughing; 'but my hand will shake if I don't
+smoke. Are you going to employ me as a draughtsman?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You'll know to-morrow,' he chuckled, with a mysterious smile at his
+daughter. 'Daisy, give him my best cigars&mdash;put the box here on the
+table. We can't afford to have his hand tremble.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>"Miss Holroyd rose and crossed the hallway to her father's room,
+returning presently with a box of promising-looking cigars.</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't think he knows what is good for him,' she said. 'He should
+smoke only one every day.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was hard to bear. I am not vindictive, but I decided to treasure
+up a few of Miss Holroyd's gentle taunts. My intimacy with her brother
+was certainly a disadvantage to me now. Jack had apparently been
+talking too much, and his sister appeared to be thoroughly acquainted
+with my past. It was a disadvantage. I remembered her vaguely as a
+girl with long braids, who used to come on Sundays with her father and
+take tea with us in our rooms. Then she went to Germany to school, and
+Jack and I employed our Sunday evenings otherwise. It is true that I
+regarded her weekly visits as a species of infliction, but I did not
+think I ever showed it.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is strange,' said I, 'that you did not recognize me at once, Miss
+Holroyd. Have I changed so greatly in five years?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You wore a pointed French beard in Paris,' she said&mdash;'a very downy
+one. And you never stayed to tea but twice, and then you only spoke
+once.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh!' said I, blankly. 'What did I say?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You asked me if I liked plums,' said Daisy, bursting into an
+irresistible ripple of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw that I must have made the same sort of an ass of myself that
+most boys of eighteen do.</p>
+
+<p>"It was too bad. I never thought about the future in those days. Who
+could have imagined that little Daisy Holroyd would have grown up into
+this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>bewildering young lady? It was really too bad. Presently the
+professor retired to his room, carrying with him an armful of
+drawings, and bidding us not to sit up late. When he closed his door
+Miss Holroyd turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Papa will work over those drawings until midnight,' she said, with a
+despairing smile.</p>
+
+<p>"'It isn't good for him,' I said. 'What are the drawings?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You may know to-morrow,' she answered, leaning forward on the table
+and shading her face with one hand. 'Tell me about yourself and Jack
+in Paris.'</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at her suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"'What! There isn't much to tell. We studied. Jack went to the law
+school, and I attended&mdash;er&mdash;oh, all sorts of schools.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Did you? Surely you gave yourself a little recreation occasionally?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Occasionally,' I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am afraid you and Jack studied too hard.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That may be,' said I, looking meek.</p>
+
+<p>"'Especially about fossils.'</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't stand that.</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Holroyd,' I said, 'I do care for fossils. You may think that I
+am a humbug, but I have a perfect mania for fossils&mdash;now.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Since when?'</p>
+
+<p>"'About an hour ago,' I said, airily. Out of the corner of my eye I
+saw that she had flushed up. It pleased me.</p>
+
+<p>"'You will soon tire of the experiment,' she said, with a dangerous
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, I may,' I replied, indifferently.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>"She drew back. The movement was scarcely perceptible, but I noticed
+it, and she knew I did.</p>
+
+<p>"The atmosphere was vaguely hostile. One feels such mental conditions
+and changes instantly. I picked up a chess-board, opened it, set up
+the pieces with elaborate care, and began to move, first the white,
+then the black. Miss Holroyd watched me coldly at first, but after a
+dozen moves she became interested and leaned a shade nearer. I moved a
+black pawn forward.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why do you do that?' said Daisy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Because,' said I, 'the white queen threatens the pawn.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It was an aggressive move,' she insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"'Purely defensive,' I said. 'If her white highness will let the pawn
+alone, the pawn will let the queen alone.'</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Holroyd rested her chin on her wrist and gazed steadily at the
+board. She was flushing furiously, but she held her ground.</p>
+
+<p>"'If the white queen doesn't block that pawn, the pawn may become
+dangerous,' she said, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"I laughed, and closed up the board with a snap.</p>
+
+<p>"'True,' I said, 'it might even take the queen.' After a moment's
+silence I asked, 'What would you do in that case, Miss Holroyd?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I should resign,' she said, serenely; then, realizing what she had
+said, she lost her self-possession for a second, and cried: 'No,
+indeed! I should fight to the bitter end! I mean&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'What?' I asked, lingering over my revenge.</p>
+
+<p>"'I mean,' she said, slowly, 'that your black pawn would never have
+the chance&mdash;never! I should take it immediately.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>"'I believe you would,' said I, smiling; 'so we'll call the game
+yours, and&mdash;the pawn captured.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't want it,' she exclaimed. 'A pawn is worthless.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Except when it's in the king row.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Chess is most interesting,' she observed, sedately. She had
+completely recovered her self-possession. Still I saw that she now had
+a certain respect for my defensive powers. It was very soothing to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'You know,' said I, gravely, 'that I am fonder of Jack than of
+anybody. That's the reason we never write each other, except to borrow
+things. I am afraid that when I was a young cub in France I was not an
+attractive personality.'</p>
+
+<p>"'On the contrary,' said Daisy, smiling, 'I thought you were very big
+and very perfect. I had illusions. I wept often when I went home and
+remembered that you never took the trouble to speak to me but once.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I was a cub,' I said&mdash;'not selfish and brutal, but I didn't
+understand school-girls. I never had any sisters, and I didn't know
+what to say to very young girls. If I had imagined that you felt
+hurt&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, I did&mdash;five years ago. Afterwards I laughed at the whole thing.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Laughed?' I repeated, vaguely disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, of course. I was very easily hurt when I was a child. I think I
+have outgrown it.'</p>
+
+<p>"The soft curve of her sensitive mouth contradicted her.</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you forgive me now?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes. I had forgotten the whole thing until I met you an hour or so
+ago.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>"There was something that had a ring not entirely genuine in this
+speech. I noticed it, but forgot it the next moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Presently she rose, touched her hair with the tip of one finger, and
+walked to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-night,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-night,' said I, opening the door for her to pass.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"The sea was a sheet of silver tinged with pink. The tremendous arch
+of the sky was all shimmering and glimmering with the promise of the
+sun. Already the mist above, flecked with clustered clouds, flushed
+with rose color and dull gold. I heard the low splash of the waves
+breaking and curling across the beach. A wandering breeze, fresh and
+fragrant, blew the curtains of my window. There was the scent of sweet
+bay in the room, and everywhere the subtle, nameless perfume of the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>"When at last I stood upon the shore, the air and sea were all
+a-glimmer in a rosy light, deepening to crimson in the zenith. Along
+the beach I saw a little cove, shelving and all a-shine, where shallow
+waves washed with a mellow sound. Fine as dusted gold the shingle
+glowed, and the thin film of water rose, receded, crept up again a
+little higher, and again flowed back, with the low hiss of snowy foam
+and gilded bubbles breaking.</p>
+
+<p>"I stood a little while quiet, my eyes upon the water, the invitation
+of the ocean in my ears, vague and sweet as the murmur of a shell.
+Then I looked at my bathing-suit and towels.</p>
+
+<p>"'In we go!' said I, aloud. A second later the prophecy was
+fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>"I swam far out to sea, and as I swam the waters all around me turned
+to gold. The sun had risen.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a fragrance in the sea at dawn that none can name.
+Whitethorn a-bloom in May, sedges a-sway, and scented rushes rustling
+in an inland wind recall the sea to me&mdash;I can't say why.</p>
+
+<p>"Far out at sea I raised myself, swung around, dived, and set out
+again for shore, striking strong strokes until the necked foam flew.
+And when at last I shot through the breakers, I laughed aloud and
+sprang upon the beach, breathless and happy. Then from the ocean came
+another cry, clear, joyous, and a white arm rose in the air.</p>
+
+<p>"She came drifting in with the waves like a white sea-sprite, laughing
+at me, and I plunged into the breakers again to join her.</p>
+
+<p>"Side by side we swam along the coast, just outside the breakers,
+until in the next cove we saw the flutter of her maid's cap-strings.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will beat you to breakfast!' she cried, as I rested, watching her
+glide up along the beach.</p>
+
+<p>"'Done!' said I&mdash;'for a sea-shell!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Done!' she called, across the water.</p>
+
+<p>"I made good speed along the shore, and I was not long in dressing,
+but when I entered the dining-room she was there, demure, smiling,
+exquisite in her cool, white frock.</p>
+
+<p>"'The sea-shell is yours,' said I. 'I hope I can find one with a pearl
+in it.'</p>
+
+<p>"The professor hurried in before she could reply. He greeted me very
+cordially, but there was an abstracted air about him, and he called me
+Dick until I recognized <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>that remonstrance was useless. He was not
+long over his coffee and rolls.</p>
+
+<p>"'McPeek and Frisby will return with the last load, including your
+trunk, by early afternoon,' he said, rising and picking up his bundle
+of drawings. 'I haven't time to explain to you what we are doing,
+Dick, but Daisy will take you about and instruct you. She will give
+you the rifle standing in my room&mdash;it's a good Winchester. I have sent
+for an 'Express' for you, big enough to knock over any elephant in
+India. Daisy, take him through the sheds and tell him everything.
+Luncheon is at noon. Do you usually take luncheon, Dick?'</p>
+
+<p>"'When I am permitted,' I smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said the professor, doubtfully, 'you mustn't come back here
+for it. Freda can take you what you want. Is your hand unsteady after
+eating?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, papa!' said Daisy. 'Do you intend to starve him?'</p>
+
+<p>"We all laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor tucked his drawings into a capacious pocket, pulled his
+sea-boots up to his hips, seized a spade, and left, nodding to us as
+though he were thinking of something else.</p>
+
+<p>"We went to the door and watched him across the salt meadows until the
+distant sand-dune hid him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'I am going to take you to the shop.'</p>
+
+<p>"She put on a broad-brimmed straw hat, a distractingly pretty
+combination of filmy cool stuffs, and led the way to the long, low
+structure that I had noticed the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>"The interior was lighted by the numberless little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>port-holes, and I
+could see everything plainly. I acknowledge I was nonplussed by what I
+did see.</p>
+
+<p>"In the centre of the shed, which must have been at least a hundred
+feet long, stood what I thought at first was the skeleton of an
+enormous whale. After a moment's silent contemplation of the thing I
+saw that it could not be a whale, for the frames of two gigantic,
+batlike wings rose from each shoulder. Also I noticed that the animal
+possessed legs&mdash;four of them&mdash;with most unpleasant-looking webbed
+claws fully eight feet long. The bony framework of the head, too,
+resembled something between a crocodile and a monstrous
+snapping-turtle. The walls of the shanty were hung with drawings and
+blue prints. A man dressed in white linen was tinkering with the
+vertebrae of the lizard-like tail.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where on earth did such a reptile come from?' I asked at length.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, it's not real!' said Daisy, scornfully; 'it's papier-mach&eacute;.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I see,' said I; 'a stage prop.'</p>
+
+<p>"'A what?' asked Daisy, in hurt astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, a&mdash;a sort of Siegfried dragon&mdash;a what's-his-name&mdash;er, Pfafner,
+or Peffer, or&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'If my father heard you say such things he would dislike you,' said
+Daisy. She looked grieved, and moved towards the door. I
+apologized&mdash;for what, I knew not&mdash;and we became reconciled. She ran
+into her father's room and brought me the rifle, a very good
+Winchester. She also gave me a cartridge-belt, full.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now,' she smiled, 'I shall take you to your observatory, and when we
+arrive you are to begin your duty at once.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>"'And that duty?' I ventured, shouldering the rifle.</p>
+
+<p>"'That duty is to watch the ocean. I shall then explain the whole
+affair&mdash;but you mustn't look at me while I speak; you must watch the
+sea.'</p>
+
+<p>"'This,' said I, 'is hardship. I had rather go without the luncheon.'</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think she was offended at my speech; still she frowned for
+almost three seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"We passed through acres of sweet bay and spear grass, sometimes
+skirting thickets of twisted cedars, sometimes walking in the full
+glare of the morning sun, sinking into shifting sand where
+sun-scorched shells crackled under our feet, and sun-browned sea-weed
+glistened, bronzed and iridescent. Then, as we climbed a little hill,
+the sea-wind freshened in our faces, and lo! the ocean lay below us,
+far-stretching as the eye could reach, glittering, magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>"Daisy sat down flat on the sand. It takes a clever girl to do that
+and retain the respectful deference due her from men. It takes a
+graceful girl to accomplish it triumphantly when a man is looking.</p>
+
+<p>"'You must sit beside me,' she said&mdash;as though it would prove irksome
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now,' she continued, 'you must watch the water while I am talking.'</p>
+
+<p>"I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why don't you do it, then?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I succeeded in wrenching my head towards the ocean, although I felt
+sure it would swing gradually round again in spite of me.</p>
+
+<p>"'To begin with,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'there's a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>thing in that ocean
+that would astonish you if you saw it. Turn your head!'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am,' I said, meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did you hear what I said?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes&mdash;er&mdash;a thing in the ocean that's going to astonish me.' Visions
+of mermaids rose before me.</p>
+
+<p>"'The thing,' said Daisy, 'is a thermosaurus!'</p>
+
+<p>"I nodded vaguely, as though anticipating a delightful introduction to
+a nautical friend.</p>
+
+<p>"'You don't seem astonished,' she said, reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why should I be?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Please turn your eyes towards the water. Suppose a thermosaurus
+should look out of the waves!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said I, 'in that case the pleasure would be mutual.'</p>
+
+<p>"She frowned and bit her upper lip.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you know what a thermosaurus is?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'If I am to guess,' said I, 'I guess it's a jelly-fish.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It's that big, ugly, horrible creature that I showed you in the
+shed!' cried Daisy, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"'Eh!' I stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"'Not papier-mach&eacute;, either,' she continued, excitedly; 'it's a real
+one.'</p>
+
+<p>"This was pleasant news. I glanced instinctively at my rifle and then
+at the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said I at last, 'it strikes me that you and I resemble a pair
+of Andromedas waiting to be swallowed. This rifle won't stop a beast,
+a live beast, like that Nibelungen dragon of yours.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, it will,' she said; 'it's not an ordinary rifle.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then, for the first time, I noticed, just below the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>magazine, a
+cylindrical attachment that was strange to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now, if you will watch the sea very carefully, and will promise not
+to look at me,' said Daisy, 'I will try to explain.'</p>
+
+<p>"She did not wait for me to promise, but went on eagerly, a sparkle of
+excitement in her blue eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"'You know, of all the fossil remains of the great batlike and
+lizard-like creatures that inhabited the earth ages and ages ago, the
+bones of the gigantic saurians are the most interesting. I think they
+used to splash about the water and fly over the land during the
+carboniferous period; anyway, it doesn't matter. Of course you have
+seen pictures of reconstructed creatures such as the ichthyosaurus,
+the plesiosaurus, the anthracosaurus, and the thermosaurus?'</p>
+
+<p>"I nodded, trying to keep my eyes from hers.</p>
+
+<p>"'And you know that the remains of the thermosaurus were first
+discovered and reconstructed by papa?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' said I. There was no use in saying no.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am glad you do. Now, papa has proved that this creature lived
+entirely in the Gulf Stream, emerging for occasional flights across an
+ocean or two. Can you imagine how he proved it?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' said I, resolutely pointing my nose at the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>"'He proved it by a minute examination of the microscopical shells
+found among the ribs of the thermosaurus. These shells contained
+little creatures that live only in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
+They were the food of the thermosaurus.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It was rather slender rations for a thing like that, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>wasn't it? Did
+he ever swallow bigger food&mdash;er&mdash;men?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh yes. Tons of fossil bones from prehistoric men are also found in
+the interior of the thermosaurus.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then,' said I, 'you, at least, had better go back to Captain
+McPeek's&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Please turn around; don't be so foolish. I didn't say there was a
+live thermosaurus in the water, did I?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Isn't there?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, no!'</p>
+
+<p>"My relief was genuine, but I thought of the rifle and looked
+suspiciously out to sea.</p>
+
+<p>"'What's the Winchester for?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Listen, and I will explain. Papa has found out&mdash;how, I do not
+exactly understand&mdash;that there is in the waters of the Gulf Stream the
+body of a thermosaurus. The creature must have been alive within a
+year or so. The impenetrable scale-armor that covers its body has, as
+far as papa knows, prevented its disintegration. We know that it is
+there still, or was there within a few months. Papa has reports and
+sworn depositions from steamer captains and seamen from a dozen
+different vessels, all corroborating one another in essential details.
+These stories, of course, get into the newspapers&mdash;sea-serpent
+stories&mdash;but papa knows that they confirm his theory that the huge
+body of this reptile is swinging along somewhere in the Gulf Stream.'</p>
+
+<p>"She opened her sunshade and held it over her. I noticed that she
+deigned to give me the benefit of about one-eighth of it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Your duty with that rifle is this: if we are fortunate enough to see
+the body of the thermosaurus come <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>floating by, you are to take good
+aim and fire&mdash;fire rapidly every bullet in the magazine; then reload
+and fire again, and reload and fire as long as you have any cartridges
+left.'</p>
+
+<p>"'A self-feeding Maxim is what I should have,' I said, with gentle
+sarcasm. 'Well, and suppose I make a sieve of this big lizard?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you see these rings in the sand?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure enough, somebody had driven heavy piles deep into the sand all
+around us, and to the tops of these piles were attached steel rings,
+half buried under the spear-grass. We sat almost exactly in the centre
+of a circle of these rings.</p>
+
+<p>"'The reason is this,' said Daisy; 'every bullet in your cartridges is
+steel-tipped and armor-piercing. To the base of each bullet is
+attached a thin wire of pallium. Pallium is that new metal, a thread
+of which, drawn out into finest wire, will hold a ton of iron
+suspended. Every bullet is fitted with minute coils of miles of this
+wire. When the bullet leaves the rifle it spins out this wire as a
+shot from a life-saver's mortar spins out and carries the life-line to
+a wrecked ship. The end of each coil of wire is attached to that
+cylinder under the magazine of your rifle. As soon as the shell is
+automatically ejected this wire flies out also. A bit of scarlet tape
+is fixed to the end, so that it will be easy to pick up. There is also
+a snap-clasp on the end, and this clasp fits those rings that you see
+in the sand. Now, when you begin firing, it is my duty to run and pick
+up the wire ends and attach them to the rings. Then, you see, we have
+the body of the thermosaurus full of bullets, every bullet anchored to
+the shore by tiny wires, each of which could easily hold a ton's
+strain.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>"I looked at her in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then,' she added, calmly, 'we have captured the thermosaurus.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Your father,' said I, at length, 'must have spent years of labor
+over this preparation.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It is the work of a lifetime,' she said, simply.</p>
+
+<p>"My face, I suppose, showed my misgivings.</p>
+
+<p>"'It must not fail,' she added.</p>
+
+<p>"'But&mdash;but we are nowhere near the Gulf Stream,' I ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"Her face brightened, and she frankly held the sunshade over us both.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, you don't know,' she said, 'what else papa has discovered. Would
+you believe that he has found a loop in the Gulf Stream&mdash;a genuine
+loop&mdash;that swings in here just outside of the breakers below? It is
+true! Everybody on Long Island knows that there is a warm current off
+the coast, but nobody imagined it was merely a sort of backwater from
+the Gulf Stream that formed a great circular mill-race around the cone
+of a subterranean volcano, and rejoined the Gulf Stream off Cape
+Albatross. But it is! That is why papa bought a yacht three years ago
+and sailed about for two years so mysteriously. Oh, I did want to go
+with him so much!'</p>
+
+<p>"'This,' said I, 'is most astonishing.'</p>
+
+<p>"She leaned enthusiastically towards me, her lovely face aglow.</p>
+
+<p>"'Isn't it?' she said; 'and to think that you and papa and I are the
+only people in the whole world who know this!'</p>
+
+<p>"To be included in such a triology was very delightful.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>"'Papa is writing the whole thing&mdash;I mean about the currents. He also
+has in preparation sixteen volumes on the thermosaurus. He said this
+morning that he was going to ask you to write the story first for some
+scientific magazine. He is certain that Professor Bruce Stoddard, of
+Columbia, will write the pamphlets necessary. This will give papa time
+to attend to the sixteen-volume work, which he expects to finish in
+three years.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Let us first,' said I, laughing, 'catch our thermosaurus.'</p>
+
+<p>"'We must not fail,' she said, wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'We shall not fail,' I said, 'for I promise to sit on this sand-hill
+as long as I live&mdash;until a thermosaurus appears&mdash;if that is your wish,
+Miss Holroyd.'</p>
+
+<p>"Our eyes met for an instant. She did not chide me, either, for not
+looking at the ocean. Her eyes were bluer, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose,' she said, bending her head and absently pouring sand
+between her fingers&mdash;'I suppose you think me a blue-stocking, or
+something odious?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Not exactly,' I said. There was an emphasis in my voice that made
+her color. After a moment she laid the sunshade down, still open.</p>
+
+<p>"'May I hold it?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"She nodded almost imperceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>"The ocean had turned a deep marine blue, verging on purple, that
+heralded a scorching afternoon. The wind died away; the odor of cedar
+and sweet-bay hung heavy in the air.</p>
+
+<p>"In the sand at our feet an iridescent flower-beetle crawled, its
+metallic green-and-blue wings burning like a spark. Great gnats, with
+filmy, glittering wings, danced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>aimlessly above the young golden-rod;
+burnished crickets, inquisitive, timid, ran from under chips of
+driftwood, waved their antenn&aelig; at us, and ran back again. One by one
+the marbled tiger-beetles tumbled at our feet, dazed from the exertion
+of an a&euml;rial flight, then scrambled and ran a little way, or darted
+into the wire grass, where great, brilliant spiders eyed them askance
+from their gossamer hammocks.</p>
+
+<p>"Far out at sea the white gulls floated and drifted on the water, or
+sailed up into the air to flap lazily for a moment and settle back
+among the waves. Strings of black surf-ducks passed, their strong
+wings tipping the surface of the water; single wandering coots whirled
+from the breakers into lonely flight towards the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"We lay and watched the little ring-necks running along the water's
+edge, now backing away from the incoming tide, now boldly wading after
+the undertow. The harmony of silence, the deep perfume, the mystery of
+waiting for that something that all await&mdash;what is it? love? death? or
+only the miracle of another morrow?&mdash;troubled me with vague
+restlessness. As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a
+shadow, an the shadow is sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"And so the morning wore away until Freda came with a cool-looking
+hamper. Then delicious cold fowl and lettuce sandwiches and champagne
+cup set our tongues wagging as only very young tongues can wag. Daisy
+went back with Freda after luncheon, leaving me a case of cigars, with
+a bantering smile. I dozed, half awake, keeping a partly closed eye on
+the ocean, where a faint gray streak showed plainly amid the azure
+water all around. That was the Gulf Stream loop.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>"About four o'clock Frisby appeared with a bamboo shelter-tent, for
+which I was unaffectedly grateful.</p>
+
+<p>"After he had erected it over me he stopped to chat a bit, but the
+conversation bored me, for he could talk of nothing but bill-posting.</p>
+
+<p>"'You wouldn't ruin the landscape here, would you?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ruin it!' repeated Frisby, nervously. 'It's ruined now; there ain't
+a place to stick a bill.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The snipe stick bills&mdash;in the sand,' I said, flippantly.</p>
+
+<p>"There was no humor about Frisby. 'Do they?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I moved with a certain impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"'Bills,' said Frisby, 'give spice an' variety to nature. They break
+the monotony of the everlastin' green and what-you-may-call-its.'</p>
+
+<p>"I glared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Bills,' he continued, 'are not easy to stick, lemme tell you, sir.
+Sign-paintin's a soft snap when it comes to bill-stickin'. Now, I
+guess I've stuck more bills onto New York State than ennybody.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you?' I said, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, siree! I always pick out the purtiest spots&mdash;kinder filled
+chuck full of woods and brooks and things; then I h'ist my paste-pot
+onto a rock, and I slather that rock with gum, and whoop she goes!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Whoop what goes?'</p>
+
+<p>"'The bill. I paste her onto the rock, with one swipe of the brush for
+the edges and a back-handed swipe for the finish&mdash;except when a bill
+is folded in two halves.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And what do you do then?' I asked, disgusted.</p>
+
+<p>"'Swipe twice,' said Frisby, with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>"'And you don't think it injures the landscape?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Injures it!' he exclaimed, convinced that I was attempting to joke.</p>
+
+<p>"I looked wearily out to sea. He also looked at the water and sighed
+sentimentally.</p>
+
+<p>"'Floatin' buoys with bills onto 'em is a idea of mine,' he observed.
+'That damn ocean is monotonous, ain't it?'</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what I might have done to Frisby&mdash;the rifle was so
+convenient&mdash;if his mean yellow dog had not waddled up at this
+juncture.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hi, Davy, sic 'em!' said Frisby, expectorating upon a clam-shell and
+hurling it seaward. The cur watched the flight of the shell
+apathetically, then squatted in the sand and looked at his master.</p>
+
+<p>"'Kinder lost his spirit,' said Frisby, 'ain't he? I once stuck a bill
+onto Davy, an' it come off, an' the paste sorter sickened him. He was
+hell on rats&mdash;once!'</p>
+
+<p>"After a moment or two Frisby took himself off, whistling cheerfully
+to Davy, who followed him when he was ready. The rifle burned in my
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"It was nearly six o'clock when the professor appeared, spade on
+shoulder, boots smeared with mud.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' he said, 'nothing to report, Dick, my boy?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing, professor.'</p>
+
+<p>"He wiped his shining face with his handkerchief and stared at the
+water.</p>
+
+<p>"'My calculations lead me to believe,' he said, 'that our prize may be
+due any day now. This theory I base upon the result of the report from
+the last sea-captain I saw. I cannot understand why some of these
+captains did not take the carcass in tow. They all say that they
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>tried, but that the body sank before they could come within half a
+mile. The truth is, probably, that they did not stir a foot from their
+course to examine the thing.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you ever cruised about for it?' I ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"'For two years,' he said, grimly. 'It's no use; it's accident when a
+ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from
+where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They
+think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are
+teeming with sea-serpent fol-de-rol.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you sure,' I asked, 'that it will swing into the coast on this
+Gulf Stream loop?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with a
+dead right-whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last
+summer.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I think I did,' said I, with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned
+the air for miles around.</p>
+
+<p>"'But,' I continued, 'suppose it comes in the night?'</p>
+
+<p>"He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"'There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too, the
+current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise would
+strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not
+experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs
+across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that
+anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be
+carried so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the
+carcass could float again into deep water. There are chances of its
+stranding indefinitely, too, but I don't care to take those chances.
+That is why I have stationed you here, Dick.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>"He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"'There is another question I want to ask,' I said, 'if you don't
+mind.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course not!' he said, warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"'What are you digging for?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself
+with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don't know a better
+exercise. Do you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I suppose not,' I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered
+whether he'd mention fossils.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-mach&eacute; thermosaurus?'
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>"'We constructed that from measurements I took from the fossil remains
+of the thermosaurus in the Metropolitan Museum. Professor Bruce
+Stoddard made the drawings. We set it up here, all ready to receive
+the skin of the carcass that I am expecting.'</p>
+
+<p>"We had started towards home, walking slowly across the darkening
+dunes, shoulder to shoulder. The sand was deep, and walking was not
+easy.</p>
+
+<p>"'I wish,' said I at last, 'that I knew why Miss Holroyd asked me not
+to walk on the beach. It's much less fatiguing.'</p>
+
+<p>"'That,' said the professor, 'is a matter that I intend to discuss
+with you to-night.' He spoke gravely, almost sadly. I felt that
+something of unparalleled importance was soon to be revealed. So I
+kept very quiet, watching the ocean out of the corners of my eyes.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XX" id="XX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"Dinner was ended. Daisy Holroyd lighted her father's pipe for him,
+and insisted on my smoking as much as I pleased. Then she sat down,
+and folded her hands like a good little girl, waiting for her father
+to make the revelation which I felt in my bones must be something out
+of the ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor smoked for a while, gazing meditatively at his
+daughter; then, fixing his gray eyes on me, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you ever heard of the kree&mdash;that Australian bird, half parrot,
+half hawk, that destroys so many sheep in New South Wales?'</p>
+
+<p>"I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"'The kree kills a sheep by alighting on its back and tearing away the
+flesh with its hooked beak until a vital part is reached. You know
+that? Well, it has been discovered that the kree had prehistoric
+prototypes. These birds were enormous creatures, who preyed upon
+mammoths and mastodons, and even upon the great saurians. It has been
+conclusively proved that a few saurians have been killed by the
+ancestors of the kree, but the favorite food of these birds was
+undoubtedly the thermosaurus. It is believed that the birds attacked
+the eyes of the thermosaurus, and when, as was its habit, the mammoth
+creature turned on its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>back to claw them, they fell upon the thinner
+scales of its stomach armor and finally killed it. This, of course, is
+a theory, but we have almost absolute proofs of its correctness. Now,
+these two birds are known among scientists as the ekaf-bird and the
+ool-yllik. The names are Australian, in which country most of their
+remains have been unearthed. They lived during the Carboniferous
+period. Now, it is not generally known, but the fact is, that in 1801
+Captain Ransom, of the British exploring vessel <i>Gull</i>, purchased from
+the natives of Tasmania the skin of an ekaf-bird that could not have
+been killed more than twenty-four hours previous to its sale. I saw
+this skin in the British Museum. It was labelled, "Unknown bird,
+probably extinct." It took me exactly a week to satisfy myself that it
+was actually the skin of an ekaf-bird. But that is not all, Dick,'
+continued the professor, excitedly. 'In 1854 Admiral Stuart, of our
+own navy, saw the carcass of a strange, gigantic bird floating along
+the southern coast of Australia. Sharks were after it, and before a
+boat could be lowered these miserable fish got it. But the good old
+admiral secured a few feathers and sent them to the Smithsonian. I saw
+them. They were not even labelled, but I knew that they were feathers
+from the ekaf-bird or its near relative, the ool-yllik.'</p>
+
+<p>"I had grown so interested that I had leaned far across the table.
+Daisy, too, bent forward. It was only when the professor paused for a
+moment that I noticed how close together our heads were&mdash;Daisy's and
+mine. I don't think she realized it. She did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now comes the important part of this long discourse,' said the
+professor, smiling at our eagerness. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>"'Ever since the carcass of our
+derelict thermosaurus was first noticed, every captain who has seen it
+has also reported the presence of one or more gigantic birds in the
+neighborhood. These birds, at a great distance, appeared to be
+hovering over the carcass, but on the approach of a vessel they
+disappeared. Even in mid-ocean they were observed. When I heard about
+it I was puzzled. A month later I was satisfied that neither the
+ekaf-bird nor the ool-yllik was extinct. Last Monday I knew that I was
+right. I found forty-eight distinct impressions of the huge,
+seven-toed claw of the ekaf-bird on the beach here at Pine Inlet. You
+may imagine my excitement. I succeeded in digging up enough wet sand
+around one of these impressions to preserve its form. I managed to get
+it into a soap-box, and now it is there in my shop. The tide rose too
+rapidly for me to save the other footprints.'</p>
+
+<p>"I shuddered at the possibility of a clumsy misstep on my part
+obliterating the impression of an ool-yllik.</p>
+
+<p>"'That is the reason that my daughter warned you off the beach,' he
+said, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hanging would have been too good for the vandal who destroyed such
+priceless prizes,' I cried out, in self-reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"Daisy Holroyd turned a flushed face to mine and impulsively laid her
+hand on my sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"'How could you know?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"'It's all right now,' said her father, emphasizing each word with a
+gentle tap of his pipe-bowl on the table-edge; 'don't be hard on
+yourself, Dick. You'll do yeoman's service yet.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was nearly midnight, and still we chatted on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>about the
+thermosaurus, the ekaf-bird, and the ool-yllik, eagerly discussing the
+probability of the great reptile's carcass being in the vicinity. That
+alone seemed to explain the presence of these prehistoric birds at
+Pine Inlet.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do they ever attack human beings?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor looked startled.</p>
+
+<p>"'Gracious!' he exclaimed, 'I never thought of that. And Daisy running
+about out-of-doors! Dear me! It takes a scientist to be an unnatural
+parent!'</p>
+
+<p>"His alarm was half real, half assumed; but, all the same, he glanced
+gravely at us both, shaking his handsome head, absorbed in thought.
+Daisy herself looked a little doubtful. As for me, my sensations were
+distinctly queer.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is true,' said the professor, frowning at the wall, 'that human
+remains have been found associated with the bones of the ekaf-bird&mdash;I
+don't know how intimately. It is a matter to be taken into most
+serious consideration.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The problem can be solved,' said I, 'in several ways. One is, to
+keep Miss Holroyd in the house&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'I shall not stay in,' cried Daisy, indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"We all laughed, and her father assured her that she should not be
+abused.</p>
+
+<p>"'Even if I did stay in,' she said, 'one of these birds might alight
+on Master Dick.'</p>
+
+<p>"She looked saucily at me as she spoke, but turned crimson when her
+father observed, quietly, 'You don't seem to think of me, Daisy!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course I do,' she said, getting up and putting both arms around
+her father's neck; 'but Dick&mdash;as&mdash;as you call him&mdash;is so helpless and
+timid.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>"My blissful smile froze on my lips.</p>
+
+<p>"'Timid!' I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"She came back to the table, making me a mocking reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you think I am to be laughed at with impunity?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"'What are your other plans, Dick?' asked the professor. 'Daisy, let
+him alone, you little tease!'</p>
+
+<p>"'One is, to haul a lot of cast-iron boilers along the dunes,' I said.
+'If these birds come when the carcass floats in, and if they seem
+disposed to trouble us, we could crawl into the boilers and be safe.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, that is really brilliant!' cried Daisy.</p>
+
+<p>"'Be quiet, my child. Dick, the plan is sound and sensible and
+perfectly practical. McPeek and Frisby shall go for a dozen loads of
+boilers to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It will spoil the beauty of the landscape,' said Daisy, with a
+taunting nod to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'And Frisby will probably attempt to cover them with bill-posters,' I
+added, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"'That,' said Daisy, 'I shall prevent, even at the cost of his life.'
+And she stood up, looking very determined.</p>
+
+<p>"'Children, children,' protested the professor, 'go to bed&mdash;you bother
+me.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then I turned deliberately to Miss Holroyd.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-night, Daisy,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-night, Dick,' she said, very gently.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XXI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"The week passed quickly for me, leaving but few definite impressions.
+As I look back to it now I can see the long stretch of beach burning
+in the fierce sunlight, the endless meadows, with the glimmer of water
+in the distance, the dunes, the twisted cedars, the leagues of
+scintillating ocean, rocking, rocking, always rocking. In the starlit
+nights the curlew came in from the sand-bars by twos and threes; I
+could hear their querulous call as I lay in bed thinking. All day long
+the little ring-necks whistled from the shore. The plover answered
+them from distant, lonely inland pools. The great white gulls drifted
+like feathers upon the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"One morning towards the end of the week, I, strolling along the
+dunes, came upon Frisby. He was bill-posting. I caught him red-handed.</p>
+
+<p>"'This,' said I, 'must stop. Do you understand, Mr. Frisby?'</p>
+
+<p>"He stepped back from his work, laying his head on one side,
+considering first me, then the bill that he had pasted on one of our
+big boilers.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't you like the color?' he asked. 'It goes well on them black
+boilers.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Color! No, I don't like the color, either. Can't you understand that
+there are some people in the world <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>who object to seeing
+patent-medicine advertisements scattered over a landscape?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Hey?' he said, perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you kindly remove that advertisement?' I persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"'Too late,' said Frisby; 'it's sot.'</p>
+
+<p>"I was too disgusted to speak, but my disgust turned to anger when I
+perceived that, as far as the eye could reach, our boilers, lying from
+three to four hundred feet apart, were ablaze with yellow-and-red
+posters extolling the 'Eureka Liver Pill Company.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It don't cost 'em nothin',' said Frisby, cheerfully; 'I done it fur
+the fun of it. Purty, ain't it?'</p>
+
+<p>"'They are Professor Holroyd's boilers,' I said, subduing a desire to
+beat Frisby with my telescope. 'Wait until Miss Holroyd sees this
+work.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't she like yeller and red?' he demanded, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"'You'll find out,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Frisby gaped at his handiwork and then at his yellow dog. After a
+moment he mechanically spat on a clam-shell and requested Davy to
+'sic' it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Can't you comprehend that you have ruined our pleasure in the
+landscape?' I asked, more mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"'I've got some green bills,' said Frisby; 'I kin stick 'em over the
+yeller ones&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Confound it,' said I, 'it isn't the color!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then,' observed Frisby, 'you don't like them pills. I've got some
+bills of the "Cropper Automobile" and a few of "Bagley, the Gents'
+Tailor"&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Frisby,' said I, 'use them all&mdash;paste the whole collection over your
+dog and yourself&mdash;then walk off the cliff.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>"He sullenly unfolded a green poster, swabbed the boiler with paste,
+laid the upper section of the bill upon it, and plastered the whole
+bill down with a thwack of his brush. As I walked away I heard him
+muttering.</p>
+
+<p>"Next day Daisy was so horrified that I promised to give Frisby an
+ultimatum. I found him with Freda, gazing sentimentally at his work,
+and I sent him back to the shop in a hurry, telling Freda at the same
+time that she could spend her leisure in providing Mr. Frisby with
+sand, soap, and a scrubbing-brush. Then I walked on to my post of
+observation.</p>
+
+<p>"I watched until sunset. Daisy came with her father to hear my report,
+but there was nothing to tell, and we three walked slowly back to the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"In the evenings the professor worked on his volumes, the click of his
+type-writer sounding faintly behind his closed door. Daisy and I
+played chess sometimes; sometimes we played hearts. I don't remember
+that we ever finished a game of either&mdash;we talked too much.</p>
+
+<p>"Our discussions covered every topic of interest: we argued upon
+politics; we skimmed over literature and music; we settled
+international differences; we spoke vaguely of human brotherhood. I
+say we slighted no subject of interest&mdash;I am wrong; we never spoke of
+love.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, love is a matter of interest to ten people out of ten. Why it
+was that it did not appear to interest us is as interesting a question
+as love itself. We were young, alert, enthusiastic, inquiring. We
+eagerly absorbed theories concerning any curious phenomena in nature,
+as intellectual cocktails to stimulate discussion. And yet we did not
+discuss love. I do not say that we avoided <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>it. No; the subject was
+too completely ignored for even that. And yet we found it very
+difficult to pass an hour separated. The professor noticed this, and
+laughed at us. We were not even embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunday passed in pious contemplation of the ocean. Daisy read a
+little in her prayer-book, and the professor threw a cloth over his
+type-writer and strolled up and down the sands. He may have been lost
+in devout abstraction; he may have been looking for footprints. As for
+me, my mind was very serene, and I was more than happy. Daisy read to
+me a little for my soul's sake, and the professor came up and said
+something cheerful. He also examined the magazine of my Winchester.</p>
+
+<p>"That night, too, Daisy took her guitar to the sands and sang one or
+two Basque hymns. Unlike us, the Basques do not take their pleasures
+sadly. One of their pleasures is evidently religion.</p>
+
+<p>"The big moon came up over the dunes and stared at the sea until the
+surface of every wave trembled with radiance. A sudden stillness fell
+across the world; the wind died out; the foam ran noiselessly across
+the beach; the cricket's rune was stilled.</p>
+
+<p>"I leaned back, dropping one hand upon the sand. It touched another
+hand, soft and cool.</p>
+
+<p>"After a while the other hand moved slightly, and I found that my own
+had closed above it. Presently one finger stirred a little&mdash;only a
+little&mdash;for our fingers were interlocked.</p>
+
+<p>"On the shore the foam-froth bubbled and winked and glimmered in the
+moonlight. A star fell from the zenith, showering the night with
+incandescent dust.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>"If our fingers lay interlaced beside us, her eyes were calm and
+serene as always, wide open, fixed upon the depths of a dark sky. And
+when her father rose and spoke to us, she did not withdraw her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"'Is it late?' she asked, dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is midnight, little daughter.'</p>
+
+<p>"I stood up, still holding her hand, and aided her to rise. And when,
+at the door, I said good-night, she turned and looked at me for a
+little while in silence, then passed into her room slowly, with head
+still turned towards me.</p>
+
+<p>"All night long I dreamed of her; and when the east whitened, I sprang
+up, the thunder of the ocean in my ears, the strong sea-wind blowing
+into the open window.</p>
+
+<p>"'She's asleep,' I thought, and I leaned from the window and peered
+out into the east.</p>
+
+<p>"The sea called to me, tossing its thousand arms; the soaring gulls,
+dipping, rising, wheeling above the sandbar, screamed and clamored for
+a playmate. I slipped into my bathing-suit, dropped from the window
+upon the soft sand, and in a moment had plunged head foremost into the
+surf, swimming beneath the waves towards the open sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Under the tossing ocean the voice of the waters was in my ears&mdash;a
+low, sweet voice, intimate, mysterious. Through singing foam and
+broad, green, glassy depths, by whispering sandy channels atrail with
+sea-weed, and on, on, out into the vague, cool sea, I sped, rising to
+the top, sinking, gliding. Then at last I flung myself out of water,
+hands raised, and the clamor of the gulls filled my ears.</p>
+
+<p>"As I lay, breathing fast, drifting on the sea, far out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>beyond the
+gulls I saw a flash of white, and an arm was lifted, signalling me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Daisy!' I called.</p>
+
+<p>"A clear hail came across the water, distinct on the sea-wind, and at
+the same instant we raised our hands and moved towards each other.</p>
+
+<p>"How we laughed as we met in the sea! The white dawn came up out of
+the depths, the zenith turned to rose and ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"And with the dawn came the wind&mdash;a great sea-wind, fresh, aromatic,
+that hurled our voices back into our throats and lifted the sheeted
+spray above our heads. Every wave, crowned with mist, caught us in a
+cool embrace, cradled us, and slipped away, only to leave us to
+another wave, higher, stronger, crested with opalescent glory,
+breathing incense.</p>
+
+<p>"We turned together up the coast, swimming lightly side by side, but
+our words were caught up by the winds and whirled into the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"We looked up at the driving clouds; we looked out upon the pallid
+waste of waters, but it was into each other's eyes we looked,
+wondering, wistful, questioning the reason of sky and sea And there in
+each other's eyes we read the mystery, and we knew that earth and sky
+and sea were created for us alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Drifting on by distant sands and dunes, her white fingers touching
+mine, we spoke, keying our tones to the wind's vast harmony. And we
+spoke of love.</p>
+
+<p>"Gray and wide as the limitless span of the sky and the sea, the winds
+gathered from the world's ends to bear us on; but they were not
+familiar winds; for now, along the coast, the breakers curled and
+showed a million <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>fangs, and the ocean stirred to its depths, uneasy,
+ominous, and the menace of its murmur drew us closer as we moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Where the dull thunder and the tossing spray warned us from sunken
+reefs, we heard the harsh challenges of gulls; where the pallid surf
+twisted in yellow coils of spume above the bar, the singing sands
+murmured of treachery and secrets of lost souls agasp in the throes of
+silent undertows.</p>
+
+<p>"But there was a little stretch of beach glimmering through the
+mountains of water, and towards this we turned, side by side. Around
+us the water grew warmer; the breath of the following waves moistened
+our cheeks; the water itself grew gray and strange about us.</p>
+
+<p>"'We have come too far,' I said; but she only answered:</p>
+
+<p>"'Faster, faster! I am afraid!' The water was almost hot now; its
+aromatic odor filled our lungs.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Gulf loop!' I muttered. 'Daisy, shall I help you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No. Swim&mdash;close by me! Oh-h! Dick&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"Her startled cry was echoed by another&mdash;a shrill scream, unutterably
+horrible&mdash;and a great bird flapped from the beach, splashing and
+beating its pinions across the water with a thundering noise.</p>
+
+<p>"Out across the waves it blundered, rising little by little from the
+water, and now, to my horror, I saw another monstrous bird swinging in
+the air above it, squealing as it turned on its vast wings. Before I
+could speak we touched the beach, and I half lifted her to the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"'Quick!' I repeated. 'We must not wait.'</p>
+
+<p>"Her eyes were dark with fear, but she rested a hand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>on my shoulder,
+and we crept up among the dune-grasses and sank down by the point of
+sand where the rough shelter stood, surrounded by the iron-ringed
+piles.</p>
+
+<p>"She lay there, breathing fast and deep, dripping with spray. I had no
+power of speech left, but when I rose wearily to my knees and looked
+out upon the water my blood ran cold. Above the ocean, on the breast
+of the roaring wind, three enormous birds sailed, turning and wheeling
+among one another; and below, drifting with the gray stream of the
+Gulf loop, a colossal bulk lay half submerged&mdash;a gigantic lizard,
+floating belly upward.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Daisy crept kneeling to my side and touched me, trembling from
+head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>"'I know,' I muttered. 'I must run back for the rifle.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And&mdash;and leave me?'</p>
+
+<p>"I took her by the hand, and we dragged ourselves through the
+wire-grass to the open end of a boiler lying in the sand.</p>
+
+<p>"She crept in on her hands and knees, and called to me to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"'You are safe now,' I cried. 'I must go back for the rifle.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The birds may&mdash;may attack you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'If they do I can get into one of the other boilers,' I said. 'Daisy,
+you must not venture out until I come back. You won't, will you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No-o,' she whispered, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then&mdash;good-bye.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-bye,' she answered, but her voice was very small and still.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-bye,' I said again. I was kneeling at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>mouth of the big
+iron tunnel; it was dark inside and I could not see her, but, before I
+was conscious of it, her arms were around my neck and we had kissed
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember how I went away. When I came to my proper senses I
+was swimming along the coast at full speed, and over my head wheeled
+one of the birds, screaming at every turn.</p>
+
+<p>"The intoxication of that innocent embrace, the close impress of her
+arms around my neck, gave me a strength and recklessness that neither
+fear nor fatigue could subdue. The bird above me did not even frighten
+me. I watched it over my shoulder, swimming strongly, with the tide
+now aiding me, now stemming my course; but I saw the shore passing
+quickly, and my strength increased, and I shouted when I came in sight
+of the house, and scrambled up on the sand, dripping and excited.
+There was nobody in sight, and I gave a last glance up into the air
+where the bird wheeled, still screeching, and hastened into the house.
+Freda stared at me in amazement as I seized the rifle and shouted for
+the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"'He has just gone to town, with Captain McPeek in his wagon,'
+stammered Freda.</p>
+
+<p>"'What!' I cried. 'Does he know where his daughter is?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Holroyd is asleep&mdash;not?' gasped Freda.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where's Frisby?' I cried, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yimmie?' quavered Freda.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, Jimmie; isn't there anybody here? Good Heavens! where's that
+man in the shop?'</p>
+
+<p>"'He also iss gone,' said Freda, shedding tears, 'to buy papier-mach&eacute;.
+Yimmie, he iss gone to post bills.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>"I waited to hear no more, but swung my rifle over my shoulder, and,
+hanging the cartridge-belt across my chest, hurried out and up the
+beach. The bird was not in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"I had been running for perhaps a minute when, far up on the dunes, I
+saw a yellow dog rush madly through a clump of sweet-bay, and at the
+same moment a bird soared past, rose, and hung hovering just above the
+thicket. Suddenly the bird swooped; there was a shriek and a yelp from
+the cur, but the bird gripped it in one claw and beat its wings upon
+the sand, striving to rise. Then I saw Frisby&mdash;paste, bucket, and
+brush raised&mdash;fall upon the bird, yelling lustily. The fierce creature
+relaxed its talons, and the dog rushed on, squeaking with terror. The
+bird turned on Frisby and sent him sprawling on his face, a sticky
+mass of paste and sand. But this did not end the struggle. The bird,
+croaking horridly, flew at the prostrate bill-poster, and the sand
+whirled into a pillar above its terrible wings. Scarcely knowing what
+I was about, I raised my rifle and fired twice. A scream echoed each
+shot, and the bird rose heavily in a shower of sand; but two bullets
+were embedded in that mass of foul feathers, and I saw the wires and
+scarlet tape uncoiling on the sand at my feet. In an instant I seized
+them and passed the ends around a cedar-tree, hooking the clasps
+tight. Then I cast one swift glance upward, where the bird wheeled,
+screeching, anchored like a kite to the pallium wires; and I hurried
+on across the dunes, the shells cutting my feet and the bushes tearing
+my wet swimming-suit, until I dripped with blood from shoulder to
+ankle. Out in the ocean the carcass of the thermosaurus floated, claws
+outspread, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>belly glistening in the gray light, and over him circled
+two birds. As I reached the shelter I knelt and fired into the mass of
+scales, and at my first shot a horrible thing occurred&mdash;the
+lizard-like head writhed, the slitted yellow eyes sliding open from
+the film that covered them. A shudder passed across the undulating
+body, the great scaled belly heaved, and one leg feebly clawed at the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>"The thing was still alive!</p>
+
+<p>"Crushing back the horror that almost paralyzed my hands, I planted
+shot after shot into the quivering reptile, while it writhed and
+clawed, striving to turn over and dive; and at each shot the black
+blood spurted in long, slim jets across the water. And now Daisy was
+at my side, pale and determined, swiftly clasping each tape-marked
+wire to the iron rings in the circle around us. Twice I filled the
+magazine from my belt, and twice I poured streams of steel-tipped
+bullets into the scaled mass, twisting and shuddering on the sea.
+Suddenly the birds steered towards us. I felt the wind from their vast
+wings. I saw the feathers erect, vibrating. I saw the spread claws
+outstretched, and I struck furiously at them, crying to Daisy to run
+into the iron shelter. Backing, swinging my clubbed rifle, I
+retreated, but I tripped across one of the taut pallium wires, and in
+an instant the hideous birds were on me, and the bone in my forearm
+snapped like a pipe-stem at a blow from their wings. Twice I struggled
+to my knees, blinded with blood, confused, almost fainting; then I
+fell again, rolling into the mouth of the iron boiler.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>"When I struggled back to consciousness Daisy knelt silently beside
+me, while Captain McPeek and Professor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>Holroyd bound up my shattered
+arm, talking excitedly. The pain made me faint and dizzy. I tried to
+speak and could not. At last they got me to my feet and into the
+wagon, and Daisy came, too, and crouched beside me, wrapped in
+oilskins to her eyes. Fatigue, lack of food, and excitement had
+combined with wounds and broken bones to extinguish the last atom of
+strength in my body; but my mind was clear enough to understand that
+the trouble was over and the thermosaurus safe.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard McPeek say that one of the birds that I had anchored to a
+cedar-tree had torn loose from the bullets and had winged its way
+heavily out to sea. The professor answered: 'Yes, the ekaf-bird; the
+others were ool-ylliks. I'd have given my right arm to have secured
+them.' Then for a time I heard no more; but the jolting of the wagon
+over the dunes roused me to keenest pain, and I held out my right hand
+to Daisy. She clasped it in both of hers, and kissed it again and
+again.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>"There is little more to add, I think. Professor Bruce Stoddard's
+scientific pamphlet will be published soon, to be followed by
+Professor Holroyd's sixteen volumes. In a few days the stuffed and
+mounted thermosaurus will be placed on free public exhibition in the
+arena of Madison Square Garden, the only building in the city large
+enough to contain the body of this immense winged reptile."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>The young man hesitated, looking long and earnestly at Miss Barrison.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you marry her?" she asked, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't believe it," said the young man, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>earnestly&mdash;"you
+wouldn't believe it, after all that happened, if I should tell you
+that she married Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia&mdash;would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I would," said Miss Barrison. "You never can tell what a girl
+will do."</p>
+
+<p>"That story of yours," I said, "is to me the most wonderful and
+valuable contribution to nature study that it has ever been my fortune
+to listen to. You are fitted to write; it is your sacred mission to
+produce. Are you going to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am writing," said the young man, quietly, "a nature book. Sir Peter
+Grebe's magnificent monograph on the speckled titmouse inspired me.
+But nature study is not what I have chosen as my life's mission."</p>
+
+<p>He looked dreamily across at Miss Barrison. "No, not natural
+phenomena," he repeated, "but unnatural phenomena. What Professor
+Hyssop has done for Columbia, I shall attempt to do for Harvard. In
+fact, I have already accepted the chair of Psychical Phenomena at
+Cambridge."</p>
+
+<p>I gazed upon him with intense respect.</p>
+
+<p>"A personal experience revealed to me my life's work," he, went on,
+thoughtfully stroking his blond mustache. "If Miss Barrison would care
+to hear it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please tell it," she said, sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to relate it clothed in that artificial garb known as
+literary style," he explained, deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter," I said, "I never noticed any style at all in your
+story of the thermosaurus."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled gratefully, and passed his hand over his face; a far-away
+expression came into his eyes, and he slowly began, hesitating, as
+though talking to himself:</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XXII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"It was high noon in the city of Antwerp. From slender steeples
+floated the mellow music of the Flemish bells, and in the spire of the
+great cathedral across the square the cracked chimes clashed discords
+until my ears ached.</p>
+
+<p>"When the fiend in the cathedral had jerked the last tuneless clang
+from the chimes, I removed my fingers from my ears and sat down at one
+of the iron tables in the court. A waiter, with his face shaved blue,
+brought me a bottle of Rhine wine, a tumbler of cracked ice, and a
+siphon.</p>
+
+<p>"'Does monsieur desire anything else?' he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes&mdash;the head of the cathedral bell-ringer; bring it with vinegar
+and potatoes,' I said, bitterly. Then I began to ponder on my
+great-aunt and the Crimson Diamond.</p>
+
+<p>"The white walls of the H&ocirc;tel St. Antoine rose in a rectangle around
+the sunny court, casting long shadows across the basin of the
+fountain. The strip of blue overhead was cloudless. Sparrows twittered
+under the eaves the yellow awnings fluttered, the flowers swayed in
+the summer breeze, and the jet of the fountain splashed among the
+water-plants. On the sunny side of the piazza the tables were vacant;
+on the shady side I was lazily aware that the tables behind me were
+occupied, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>but I was indifferent as to their occupants, partly because
+I shunned all tourists, partly because I was thinking of my
+great-aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Most old ladies are eccentric, but there is a limit, and my
+great-aunt had overstepped it. I had believed her to be wealthy&mdash;she
+died bankrupt. Still, I knew there was one thing she did possess, and
+that was the famous Crimson Diamond. Now, of course, you know who my
+great-aunt was.</p>
+
+<p>"Excepting the Koh-i-noor and the Regent, this enormous and unique
+stone was, as everybody knows, the most valuable gem in existence. Any
+ordinary person would have placed that diamond in a safe-deposit. My
+great-aunt did nothing of the kind. She kept it in a small velvet bag,
+which she carried about her neck. She never took it off, but wore it
+dangling openly on her heavy silk gown.</p>
+
+<p>"In this same bag she also carried dried catnip-leaves, of which she
+was inordinately fond. Nobody but myself, her only living relative,
+knew that the Crimson Diamond lay among the sprigs of catnip in the
+little velvet bag.</p>
+
+<p>"'Harold,' she would say, 'do you think I'm a fool? If I place the
+Crimson Diamond in any safe-deposit vault in New York, somebody will
+steal it, sooner or later.' Then she would nibble a sprig of catnip
+and peer cunningly at me. I loathed the odor of catnip and she knew
+it. I also loathed cats. This also she knew, and of course surrounded
+herself with a dozen. Poor old lady! One day she was found dead in her
+bed in her apartments at the Waldorf. The doctor said she died from
+natural causes. The only other occupant of her sleeping-room was a
+cat. The cat fled when we broke <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>open the door, and I heard that she
+was received and cherished by some eccentric people in a neighboring
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, although my great-aunt's death was due to purely natural causes,
+there was one very startling and disagreeable feature of the case. The
+velvet bag containing the Crimson Diamond had disappeared. Every inch
+of the apartment was searched, the floors torn up, the walls
+dismantled, but the Crimson Diamond had vanished. Chief of Police
+Conlon detailed four of his best men on the case, and, as I had
+nothing better to do, I enrolled myself as a volunteer. I also offered
+$25,000 reward for the recovery of the gem. All New York was agog.</p>
+
+<p>"The case seemed hopeless enough, although there were five of us after
+the thief. McFarlane was in London, and had been for a month, but
+Scotland Yard could give him no help, and the last I heard of him he
+was roaming through Surrey after a man with a white spot in his hair.
+Harrison had gone to Paris. He kept writing me that clews were plenty
+and the scent hot, but as Dennet, in Berlin, and Clancy, in Vienna,
+wrote me the same thing, I began to doubt these gentlemen's ability.</p>
+
+<p>"'You say,' I answered Harrison, 'that the fellow is a Frenchman, and
+that he is now concealed in Paris; but Dennet writes me by the same
+mail that the thief is undoubtedly a German, and was seen yesterday in
+Berlin. To-day I received a letter from Clancy, assuring me that
+Vienna holds the culprit, and that he is an Austrian from Trieste.
+Now, for Heaven's sake,' I ended, 'let me alone and stop writing me
+letters until you have something to write about.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>"The night-clerk at the Waldorf had furnished us with our first clew.
+On the night of my aunt's death he had seen a tall, grave-faced man
+hurriedly leave the hotel. As the man passed the desk he removed his
+hat and mopped his forehead, and the night-clerk noticed that in the
+middle of his head there was a patch of hair as white as snow.</p>
+
+<p>"We worked this clew for all it was worth, and, a month later, I
+received a cable despatch from Paris, saying that a man answering to
+the description of the Waldorf suspect had offered an enormous crimson
+diamond for sale to a jeweller in the Palais Royal. Unfortunately the
+fellow took fright and disappeared before the jeweller could send for
+the police, and since that time McFarlane in London, Harrison in
+Paris, Dennet in Berlin, and Clancy in Vienna had been chasing men
+with white patches on their hair until no gray-headed patriarch in
+Europe was free from suspicion. I myself had sleuthed it through
+England, France, Holland, and Belgium, and now I found myself in
+Antwerp at the H&ocirc;tel St. Antoine, without a clew that promised
+anything except another outrage on some respectable white-haired
+citizen. The case seemed hopeless enough, unless the thief tried again
+to sell the gem. Here was our only hope, for, unless he cut the stone
+into smaller ones, he had no more chance of selling it than he would
+have had if he had stolen the Venus of Milo and peddled her about the
+Rue de Seine. Even were he to cut up the stone, no respectable gem
+collector or jeweller would buy a crimson diamond without first
+notifying me; for although a few red stones are known to collectors,
+the color of the Crimson Diamond was absolutely unique, and there was
+little probability of an honest mistake.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>"Thinking of all these things, I sat sipping my Rhine wine in the
+shadow of the yellow awnings. A large white cat came sauntering by and
+stopped in front of me to perform her toilet, until I wished she would
+go away. After a while she sat up, licked her whiskers, yawned once or
+twice, and was about to stroll on, when, catching sight of me, she
+stopped short and looked me squarely in the face. I returned the
+attention with a scowl, because I wished to discourage any advances
+towards social intercourse which she might contemplate; but after a
+while her steady gaze disconcerted me, and I turned to my Rhine wine.
+A few minutes later I looked up again. The cat was still eying me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now what the devil is the matter with the animal,' I muttered; 'does
+she recognize in me a relative?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Perhaps,' observed a man at the next table.</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you mean by that?' I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"'What I say,' replied the man at the next table.</p>
+
+<p>"I looked him full in the face. He was old and bald and appeared
+weak-minded. His age protected his impudence. I turned my back on him.
+Then my eyes fell on the cat again. She was still gazing earnestly at
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"Disgusted that she should take such pointed public notice of me, I
+wondered whether other people saw it; I wondered whether there was
+anything peculiar in my own personal appearance. How hard the creature
+stared! It was most embarrassing.</p>
+
+<p>"'What has got into that cat?' I thought. 'It's sheer impudence. It's
+an intrusion, and I won't stand it!' The cat did not move. I tried to
+stare her out of countenance. It was useless. There was aggressive
+inquiry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>in her yellow eyes. A sensation of uneasiness began to steal
+over me&mdash;a sensation of embarrassment not unmixed with awe. All cats
+looked alike to me, and yet there was something about this one that
+bothered me&mdash;something that I could not explain to myself, but which
+began to occupy me.</p>
+
+<p>"She looked familiar&mdash;this Antwerp cat. An odd sense of having seen
+her before, of having been well acquainted with her in former years,
+slowly settled in my mind, and, although I could never remember the
+time when I had not detested cats, I was almost convinced that my
+relations with this Antwerp tabby had once been intimate if not
+cordial. I looked more closely at the animal. Then an idea struck
+me&mdash;an idea which persisted and took definite shape in spite of me. I
+strove to escape from it, to evade it, to stifle and smother it; an
+inward struggle ensued which brought the perspiration in beads upon my
+cheeks&mdash;a struggle short, sharp, decisive. It was useless&mdash;useless to
+try to put it from me&mdash;this idea so wretchedly bizarre, so grotesque
+and fantastic, so utterly inane&mdash;it was useless to deny that the cat
+bore a distinct resemblance to my great-aunt!</p>
+
+<p>"I gazed at her in horror. What enormous eyes the creature had!</p>
+
+<p>"'Blood is thicker than water,' said the man at the next table.</p>
+
+<p>"'What does he mean by that?' I muttered, angrily, swallowing a
+tumbler of Rhine wine and seltzer. But I did not turn. What was the
+use?</p>
+
+<p>"'Chattering old imbecile,' I added to myself, and struck a match, for
+my cigar was out; but, as I raised the match to relight it, I
+encountered the cat's eyes again. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>I could not enjoy my cigar with the
+animal staring at me, but I was justly indignant, and I did not intend
+to be routed. 'The idea! Forced to leave for a cat!' I sneered. 'We
+will see who will be the one to go!' I tried to give her a jet of
+seltzer from the siphon, but the bottle was too nearly empty to carry
+far. Then I attempted to lure her nearer, calling her in French,
+German, and English, but she did not stir. I did not know the Flemish
+for 'cat.'</p>
+
+<p>"'She's got a name, and won't come,' I thought. 'Now, what under the
+sun can I call her?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Aunty,' suggested the man at the next table.</p>
+
+<p>"I sat perfectly still. Could that man have answered my thoughts?&mdash;for
+I had not spoken aloud. Of course not&mdash;it was a coincidence&mdash;but a
+very disgusting one.</p>
+
+<p>"'Aunty,' I repeated, mechanically, 'aunty, aunty&mdash;good gracious, how
+horribly human that cat looks!' Then, somehow or other, Shakespeare's
+words crept into my head and I found myself repeating: 'The soul of my
+grandam might haply inhabit a bird; the soul of&mdash;nonsense!' I
+growled&mdash;'it isn't printed correctly! One might possibly say, speaking
+in poetical metaphor, that the soul of a bird might haply inhabit
+one's grandam&mdash;' I stopped short, flushing painfully. 'What awful
+rot!' I murmured, and lighted another cigar. The cat was still
+staring; the cigar went out. I grew more and more nervous. 'What rot!'
+I repeated. 'Pythagoras must have been an ass, but I do believe there
+are plenty of asses alive to-day who swallow that sort of thing.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Who knows?' sighed the man at the next table, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>I sprang to my
+feet and wheeled about. But I only caught a glimpse of a pair of
+frayed coat-tails and a bald head vanishing into the dining-room. I
+sat down again, thoroughly indignant. A moment later the cat got up
+and went away.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XXIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"Daylight was fading in the city of Antwerp. Down into the sea sank
+the sun, tinting the vast horizon with flakes of crimson, and touching
+with rich deep undertones the tossing waters of the Scheldt. Its glow
+fell like a rosy mantle over red-tiled roofs and meadows; and through
+the haze the spires of twenty churches pierced the air like sharp,
+gilded flames. To the west and south the green plains, over which the
+Spanish armies tramped so long ago, stretched away until they met the
+sky; the enchantment of the after-glow had turned old Antwerp into
+fairy-land; and sea and sky and plain were beautiful and vague as the
+night-mists floating in the moats below.</p>
+
+<p>"Along the sea-wall from the Rubens Gate all Antwerp strolled, and
+chattered, and flirted, and sipped their Flemish wines from slender
+Flemish glasses, or gossiped over krugs of foaming beer.</p>
+
+<p>"From the Scheldt came the cries of sailors, the creaking of cordage,
+and the puff! puff! of the ferry-boats. On the bastions of the
+fortress opposite, a bugler was standing. Twice the mellow notes of
+the bugle came faintly over the water, then a great gun thundered from
+the ramparts, and the Belgian flag fluttered along the lanyards to the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I leaned listlessly on the sea-wall and looked down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>at the Scheldt
+below. A battery of artillery was embarking for the fortress. The
+tublike transport lay hissing and whistling in the slip, and the
+stamping of horses, the rumbling of gun and caisson, and the sharp
+cries of the officers came plainly to the ear.</p>
+
+<p>"When the last caisson was aboard and stowed, and the last trooper had
+sprung jingling to the deck, the transport puffed out into the
+Scheldt, and I turned away through the throng of promenaders; and
+found a little table on the terrace, just outside of the pretty caf&eacute;.
+And as I sat down I became aware of a girl at the next table&mdash;a girl
+all in white&mdash;the most ravishingly and distractingly pretty girl that
+I had ever seen. In the agitation of the moment I forgot my name, my
+fortune, my aunt, and the Crimson Diamond&mdash;all these I forgot in a
+purely human impulse to see clearly; and to that end I removed my
+monocle from my left eye. Some moments later I came to myself and
+feebly replaced it. It was too late; the mischief was done. I was not
+aware at first of the exact state of my feelings&mdash;for I had never been
+in love more than three or four times in all my life&mdash;but I did know
+that at her request I would have been proud to stand on my head, or
+turn a flip-flap into the Scheldt.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not stare at her, but I managed to see her most of the time
+when her eyes were in another direction. I found myself drinking
+something which a waiter brought, presumably upon an order which I did
+not remember having given. Later I noticed that it was a loathsome
+drink which the Belgians call 'American grog,' but I swallowed it and
+lighted a cigarette. As the fragrant cloud rose in the air, a voice,
+which I recognized with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>chill, broke, into my dream of enchantment.
+Could <i>he</i> have been there all the while&mdash;there sitting beside that
+vision in white? His hat was off, and the ocean-breezes whispered
+about his bald head. His frayed coat-tails were folded carefully over
+his knees, and between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he
+balanced a bad cigar. He looked at me in a mildly cheerful way, and
+said, 'I know now.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Know what?' I asked, thinking it better to humor him, for I was
+convinced that he was mad.</p>
+
+<p>"'I know why cats bite.'</p>
+
+<p>"This was startling. I hadn't an idea what to say.</p>
+
+<p>"'I know why,' he repeated; 'can you guess why?' There was a covert
+tone of triumph in his voice and he smiled encouragement. 'Come, try
+and guess,' he urged.</p>
+
+<p>"I told him that I was unequal to problems.</p>
+
+<p>"'Listen, young man,' he continued, folding his coat-tails closely
+about his legs&mdash;'try to reason it out: why should cats bite? Don't you
+know? I do.'</p>
+
+<p>"He looked at me anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"'You take no interest in this problem?' he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh yes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then why do you not ask me why?' he said, looking vaguely
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' I said, in desperation, 'why do cats bite?&mdash;hang it all!' I
+thought, 'it's like a burned-cork show, and I'm Mr. Bones and he's
+Tambo!'</p>
+
+<p>"Then he smiled gently. 'Young man,' he said, 'cats bite because they
+feed on catnip. I have reasoned it out.'</p>
+
+<p>"I stared at him in blank astonishment. Was this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>benevolent-looking
+old party poking fun at me? Was he paying me up for the morning's
+snub? Was he a malignant and revengeful old party, or was he merely
+feeble-minded? Who might he be? What was he doing here in
+Antwerp&mdash;what was he doing now?&mdash;for the bald one had turned
+familiarly to the beautiful girl in white.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wilhelmina,' he said, 'do you feel chilly?' The girl shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Not in the least, papa.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Her father!' I thought&mdash;'her father!' Thank God she did not say
+'popper'!</p>
+
+<p>"'I have been to the Zoo to-day,' announced the bald one, turning
+towards me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, indeed,' I observed; 'er&mdash;I trust you enjoyed it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I have been contemplating the apes,' he continued, dreamily. 'Yes,
+contemplating the apes.'</p>
+
+<p>"I tried to look interested.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, the apes,' he murmured, fixing his mild eyes on me. Then he
+leaned towards me confidentially and whispered, 'Can you tell me what
+a monkey thinks?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I cannot,' I replied, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah,' he sighed, sinking back in his chair, and patting the slender
+hand of the girl beside him&mdash;'ah, who can tell what a monkey thinks?'
+His gentle face lulled my suspicions, and I replied, very gravely:</p>
+
+<p>"'Who can tell whether they think at all?'</p>
+
+<p>"'True, true! Who can tell whether they think at all; and if they do
+think, ah! who can tell what they think?'</p>
+
+<p>"'But,' I began, 'if you can't tell whether they think <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>at all, what's
+the use of trying to conjecture what they <i>would</i> think if they <i>did</i>
+think?'</p>
+
+<p>"He raised his hand in deprecation. 'Ah, it is exactly that which is
+of such absorbing interest&mdash;exactly that! It is the abstruseness of
+the proposition which stimulates research&mdash;which stirs profoundly the
+brain of the thinking world. The question is of vital and instant
+importance. Possibly you have already formed an opinion.'</p>
+
+<p>"I admitted that I had thought but little on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"'I doubt,' he continued, swathing his knees in his coat-tails&mdash;'I
+doubt whether you have given much attention to the subject lately
+discussed by the Boston Dodo Society of Pythagorean Research.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am not sure,' I said, politely, 'that I recall that particular
+discussion. May I ask what was the question brought up?'</p>
+
+<p>"'The Felis domestica question.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, that must indeed be interesting! And&mdash;er&mdash;what may be the Felis
+do&mdash;do&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Domestica&mdash;not dodo. Felis domestica, the common or garden cat.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Indeed,' I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"'You are not listening,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I only half heard him. I could not turn my eyes from his daughter's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"'Cat!' shouted the bald one, and I almost leaped from my chair. 'Are
+you deaf?' he inquired, sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"'No&mdash;oh no!' I replied, coloring with confusion; 'you were&mdash;pardon
+me&mdash;you were&mdash;er&mdash;speaking of the dodo. Extraordinary bird that&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>"'I was not discussing the dodo,' he sighed. 'I was speaking of cats.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'The question is,' he continued, twisting his frayed coat-tails into
+a sort of rope&mdash;'the question is, how are we to ameliorate the present
+condition and social status of our domestic cats?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Feed 'em,' I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"He raised both hands. They were eloquent with patient expostulation.
+'I mean their spiritual condition,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I nodded, but my eyes reverted to that exquisite face. She sat
+silent, her eyes fixed on the waning flecks of color in the western
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' repeated the bald one, 'the spiritual welfare of our domestic
+cats.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Toms and tabbies?' I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"'Exactly,' he said, tying a large knot in his coat-tails.</p>
+
+<p>"'You will ruin your coat,' I observed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Papa!' exclaimed the girl, turning in dismay, as that gentleman gave
+a guilty start, 'stop it at once!'</p>
+
+<p>"He smiled apologetically and made a feeble attempt to conceal his
+coat-tails.</p>
+
+<p>"'My dear,' he said, with gentle deprecation, 'I am so
+absent-minded&mdash;I always do it in the heat of argument.'</p>
+
+<p>"The girl rose, and, bending over her untidy parent, deftly untied the
+knot in his flapping coat. When he was disentangled, she sat down and
+said, with a ghost of a smile, 'He is so very absent-minded.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Your father is evidently a great student,' I ventured, pleasantly.
+How I pitied her, tied to this old lunatic!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>"'Yes, he is a great student,' she said, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am,' he murmured; 'that's what makes me so absent-minded. I often
+go to bed and forget to sleep.' Then, looking at me, he asked me my
+name, adding, with a bow, that his name was P. Royal Wyeth, Professor
+of Pythagorean Research and Abstruse Paradox.</p>
+
+<p>"'My first name is Penny&mdash;named after Professor Penny, of Harvard,' he
+said; 'but I seldom use my first name in connection with my second, as
+the combination suggests a household remedy of penetrating odor.'</p>
+
+<p>"'My name is Kensett,' I said, 'Harold Kensett, of New York.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Student?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Er&mdash;a little.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Student of diamonds?'</p>
+
+<p>"I smiled. 'Oh, I see you know who my great-aunt was,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'I know her,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah&mdash;perhaps you are unaware that my great-aunt is not now living.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I know her,' he repeated, obstinately.</p>
+
+<p>"I bowed. What a crank he was!</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you study? You don't fiddle away all your time, do you?' he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Now that was just what I did, but I was not pleased to have Miss
+Wyeth know it. Although my time was chiefly spent in killing time, I
+had once, in a fit of energy, succeeded in writing some verses 'To a
+Tomtit,' so I evaded a humiliating confession by saying that I had
+done a little work in ornithology.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good!' cried the professor, beaming all over. 'I knew you were a
+fellow-scientist. Possibly you are a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>brother-member of the Boston
+Dodo Society of Pythagorean Research. Are you a dodo?'</p>
+
+<p>"I shook my head. 'No, I am not a dodo.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Only a jay?'</p>
+
+<p>"'A&mdash;what?' I said, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"'A jay. We call the members of the Junior Ornithological Jay Society
+of New York, jays, just as we refer to ourselves as dodos. Are you not
+even a jay?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am not,' I said, watching him suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"'I must convert you, I see,' said the professor, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"'I'm afraid I do not approve of Pythagorean research,' I began, but
+the beautiful Miss Wyeth turned to me very seriously, and, looking me
+frankly in the eyes, said:</p>
+
+<p>"'I trust you will be open to conviction.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Good Lord!' I thought. 'Can she be another lunatic?' I looked at her
+steadily. What a little beauty she was! She also, then, belonged to
+the Pythagoreans&mdash;a sect I despised. Everybody knows all about the
+Pythagorean craze, its rise in Boston, its rapid spread, and its
+subsequent consolidation with mental and Christian science, theosophy,
+hypnotism, the Salvation Army, the Shakers, the Dunkards, and the
+mind-cure cult, upon a business basis. I had hitherto regarded all
+Pythagoreans with the same scornful indifference which I accorded to
+the faith-curists; being a member of no particular church, I was
+scarcely prepared to take any of them seriously. Least of all did I
+approve of the 'business basis,' and I looked very much askance indeed
+at the 'Scientific and Religious Trust Company,' duly incorporated and
+generally known as the Pythagorean <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>Trust, which, consolidating with
+mind-curists, faith-curists, and other flourishing salvation
+syndicates, actually claimed a place among ordinary trusts, and at the
+same time pretended to a control over man's future life. No, I could
+never listen&mdash;I was ashamed of even entertaining the notion, and I
+shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, Miss Wyeth, I am afraid I do not care to listen to any reasoning
+on this subject.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't you believe in Pythagoras?' demanded the professor, subduing
+his excitement with difficulty, and adding another knot to his
+coat-tails.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' I said, 'I do not.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How do you know you don't?' inquired the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"'Because,' I said, firmly, 'it is nonsense to say that the soul of a
+human being can inhabit a hen!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Put it in a more simplified form!' insisted the professor. 'Do you
+believe that the soul of a hen can inhabit a human being?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, I don't!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Did you ever hear of a hen-pecked man?' cried the professor, his
+voice ending in a shout.</p>
+
+<p>"I nodded, intensely annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you listen to reason, then?' he continued, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' I began, but I caught Miss Wyeth's blue eyes fixed on mine with
+an expression so sad, so sweetly appealing, that I faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, I will listen,' I said, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you become my pupil?' insisted the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"I was shocked to find myself wavering, but my eyes were looking into
+hers, and I could not disobey what I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>read there. The longer I looked
+the greater inclination I felt to waver. I saw that I was going to
+give in, and, strangest of all, my conscience did not trouble me. I
+felt it coming&mdash;a sort of mild exhilaration took possession of me. For
+the first time in my life I became reckless&mdash;I even gloried in my
+recklessness.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, yes,' I cried, leaning eagerly across the table, 'I shall be
+glad&mdash;delighted! Will you take me as your pupil?' My single eye-glass
+fell from its position unheeded. 'Take me! Oh, will you take me?' I
+cried. Instead of answering, the professor blinked rapidly at me for a
+moment. I imagined his eyes had grown bigger, and were assuming a
+greenish tinge. The corners of his mouth began to quiver, emitting
+queer, caressing little noises, and he rapidly added knot after knot
+to his twitching coat-tails. Suddenly he bent forward across the table
+until his nose almost touched mine. The pupils of his eyes expanded,
+the iris assuming a beautiful, changing, golden-green tinge, and his
+coat-tails switched violently. Then he began to mew.</p>
+
+<p>"I strove to rouse myself from my paralysis&mdash;I tried to shrink back,
+for I felt the end of his cold nose touch mine. I could not move. The
+cry of terror died in my straining throat, my hands tightened
+convulsively; I was incapable of speech or motion. At the same time my
+brain became wonderfully clear. I began to remember everything that
+had ever happened to me&mdash;everything that I had ever done or said. I
+even remembered things that I had neither done nor said; I recalled
+distinctly much that had never happened. How fresh and strong my
+memory! The past was like a mirror, crystal clear, and there, in
+glorious tints and hues, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>the scenes of my childhood grew and glowed
+and faded, and gave place to newer and more splendid scenes. For a
+moment the episode of the cat at the H&ocirc;tel St. Antoine flashed across
+my mind. When it vanished a chilly stupor slowly clouded my brain; the
+scenes, the memories, the brilliant colors, faded, leaving me
+enveloped in a gray vapor, through which the two great eyes of the
+professor twinkled with a murky light. A peculiar longing stirred
+me&mdash;a strange yearning for something, I knew not what&mdash;but, oh! how I
+longed and yearned for it! Slowly this indefinite, incomprehensible
+longing became a living pain. Ah, how I suffered, and how the vapors
+seemed to crowd around me! Then, as at a great distance, I heard her
+voice, sweet, imperative:</p>
+
+<p>"'Mew!' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"For a moment I seemed to see the interior of my own skull, lighted as
+by a flash of fire; the rolling eyeballs, veined in scarlet, the
+glistening muscles quivering along the jaw, the humid masses of the
+convoluted brain; then awful darkness&mdash;a darkness almost tangible&mdash;an
+utter blackness, through which now seemed to creep a thin, silver
+thread, like a river crawling across a world&mdash;like a thought gliding
+to the brain&mdash;like a song, a thin, sharp song which some distant voice
+was singing&mdash;which I was singing.</p>
+
+<p>"And I knew that I was mewing!</p>
+
+<p>"I threw myself back in my chair and mewed with all my heart. Oh, that
+heavy load which was lifted from my breast! How good, how satisfying
+it was to mew! And how I did miaul and yowl!</p>
+
+<p>"I gave myself up to it, heart and soul; my whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>being thrilled with
+the passionate outpourings of a spirit freed. My voice trembled in the
+upper bars of a feline love-song, quavered, descended, swelling again
+into an intimation that I brooked no rival, and ended with a
+magnificent crescendo.</p>
+
+<p>"I finished, somewhat abashed, and glanced askance at the professor
+and his daughter, but the one sat nonchalantly disentangling his
+coat-tails, and the other was apparently absorbed in the distant
+landscape. Evidently they did not consider me ridiculous. Flushing
+painfully, I turned in my chair to see how my grewsome solo had
+affected the people on the terrace. Nobody even looked at me. This,
+however, gave me little comfort, for, as I began to realize what I had
+done, my mortification and rage knew no bounds. I was ready to die of
+shame. What on earth had induced me to mew? I looked wildly about for
+escape&mdash;I would leap up&mdash;rush home to bury my burning face in my
+pillows, and, later, in the friendly cabin of a homeward-bound
+steamer. I would fly&mdash;fly at once! Woe to the man who blocked my way!
+I started to my feet, but at that moment I caught Miss Wyeth's eyes
+fixed on mine.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't go,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"What in Heaven's name lay in those blue eyes? I slowly sank back into
+my chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the professor spoke: 'Wilhelmina, I have just received a
+despatch.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Where from, papa?'</p>
+
+<p>"'From India. I'm going at once.'</p>
+
+<p>"She nodded her head, without turning her eyes from the sea. 'Is it
+important, papa?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I should say so. The cashier of the local trust has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>compromised an
+astral body, and has squandered on her all our funds, including a lot
+of first mortgages on Nirvana. I suppose he's been dabbling in futures
+and is short in his accounts. I sha'n't be gone long.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then, good-night, papa,' she said, kissing him; 'try to be back by
+eleven.' I sat stupidly staring at them.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, it's only to Bombay&mdash;I sha'n't go to Thibet
+to-night&mdash;good-night, my dear,' said the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Then a singular thing occurred. The professor had at last succeeded
+in disentangling his coat-tails, and now, jamming his hat over his
+ears, and waving his arms with a batlike motion, he climbed upon the
+seat of his chair and ejaculated the word 'Presto!' Then I found my
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"'Stop him!' I cried, in terror.</p>
+
+<p>"'Presto! Presto!' shouted the professor, balancing himself on the
+edge of his chair and waving his arms majestically, as if preparing
+for a sudden flight across the Scheldt; and, firmly convinced that he
+not only meditated it, but was perfectly capable of attempting it, I
+covered my eyes with my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you ill, Mr. Kensett?' asked the girl, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"I raised my head indignantly. 'Not at all, Miss Wyeth, only I'll bid
+you good-evening, for this is the nineteenth century, and I'm a
+Christian.'</p>
+
+<p>"'So am I,' she said. 'So is my father.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The devil he is,' I thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Her next words made me jump.</p>
+
+<p>"'Please do not be profane, Mr. Kensett.'</p>
+
+<p>"How did she know I was profane? I had not spoken a word! Could it be
+possible she was able to read my thoughts? This was too much, and I
+rose.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>"'I have the honor to bid you good-evening,' I began, and reluctantly
+turned to include the professor, expecting to see that gentleman
+balancing himself on his chair. The professor's chair was empty.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh,' said the girl, smiling, 'my father has gone.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Gone! Where?'</p>
+
+<p>"'To&mdash;to India, I believe.'</p>
+
+<p>"I sank helplessly into my own chair.</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not think he will stay very long&mdash;he promised to return by
+eleven,' she said, timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"I tried to realize the purport of it all. 'Gone to India? Gone! How?
+On a broomstick? Good Heavens,' I murmured, 'am I insane?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Perfectly,' she said, 'and I am tired; you may take me back to the
+hotel.'</p>
+
+<p>"I scarcely heard her; I was feebly attempting to gather up my numbed
+wits. Slowly I began to comprehend the situation, to review the
+startling and humiliating events of the day. At noon, in the court of
+the H&ocirc;tel St. Antoine, I had been annoyed by a man and a cat. I had
+retired to my own room and had slept until dinner. In the evening I
+met two tourists on the sea-wall promenade. I had been beguiled into
+conversation&mdash;yes, into intimacy with these two tourists! I had had
+the intention of embracing the faith of Pythagoras! Then I had mewed
+like a cat with all the strength of my lungs. Now the male tourist
+vanishes&mdash;and leaves me in charge of the female tourist, alone and at
+night in a strange city! And now the female tourist proposes that I
+take her home!</p>
+
+<p>"With a remnant of self-possession I groped for my eye-glass, seized
+it, screwed it firmly into my eye, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>looked long and earnestly at
+the girl. As I looked, my eyes softened, my monacle dropped, and I
+forgot everything in the beauty and purity of the face before me. My
+heart began to beat against my stiff, white waistcoat. Had I
+dared&mdash;yes, dared to think of this wondrous little beauty as a female
+tourist? Her pale, sweet face, turned towards the sea, seemed to cast
+a spell upon the night. How loud my heart was beating! The yellow moon
+floated, half dipping in the sea, flooding land and water with
+enchanted lights. Wind and wave seemed to feel the spell of her eyes,
+for the breeze died away, the heaving Scheldt tossed noiselessly, and
+the dark Dutch luggers swung idly on the tide with every sail adroop.</p>
+
+<p>"A sudden hush fell over land and water, the voices on the promenade
+were stilled; little by little the shadowy throng, the terrace, the
+sea itself vanished, and I only saw her face, shadowed against the
+moon.</p>
+
+<p>"It seemed as if I had drifted miles above the earth, through all
+space and eternity, and there was naught between me and high heaven
+but that white face. Ah, how I loved her! I knew it&mdash;I never doubted
+it. Could years of passionate adoration touch her heart&mdash;her little
+heart, now beating so calmly with no thought of love to startle it
+from its quiet and send it fluttering against the gentle breast? In
+her lap her clasped hands tightened&mdash;her eyelids drooped as though
+some pleasant thought was passing. I saw the color dye her temples, I
+saw the blue eyes turn, half frightened, to my own, I saw&mdash;and I knew
+she had read my thoughts. Then we both rose, side by side, and she was
+weeping softly, yet for my life I dared not speak. She turned away,
+touching her eyes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>with a bit of lace, and I sprang to her side and
+offered her my arm.</p>
+
+<p>"'You cannot go back alone,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"She did not take my arm.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you hate me, Miss Wyeth?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am very tired,' she said; 'I must go home.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You cannot go alone.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not care to accept your escort.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then&mdash;you send me away?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' she said, in a hard voice. 'You can come if you like.' So I
+humbly attended her to the H&ocirc;tel St. Antoine.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XXIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"As we reached the Place Verte and turned into the court of the hotel,
+the sound of the midnight bells swept over the city, and a horse-car
+jingled slowly by on its last trip to the railroad station.</p>
+
+<p>"We passed the fountain, bubbling and splashing in the moonlit court,
+and, crossing the square, entered the southern wing of the hotel. At
+the foot of the stairway she leaned for an instant against the
+banisters.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am afraid we have walked too fast,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"She turned to me coldly. 'No&mdash;conventionalities must be observed. You
+were quite right in escaping as soon as possible.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But,' I protested, 'I assure you&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"She gave a little movement of impatience. 'Don't,' she said, 'you
+tire me&mdash;conventionalities tire me. Be satisfied&mdash;nobody has seen
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You are cruel,' I said, in a low voice&mdash;'what do you think I care
+for conventionalities?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You care everything&mdash;you care what people think, and you try to do
+what they say is good form. You never did such an original thing in
+your life as you have just done.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You read my thoughts,' I exclaimed, bitterly. 'It is not fair&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Fair or not, I know what you consider me&mdash;ill-bred, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>common, pleased
+with any sort of attention. Oh! why should I waste one word&mdash;one
+thought on you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Wyeth&mdash;' I began, but she interrupted me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Would you dare tell me what you think of me?&mdash;Would you dare tell me
+what you think of my father?'</p>
+
+<p>"I was silent. She turned and mounted two steps of the stairway, then
+faced me again.</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you think it was for my own pleasure that I permitted myself to
+be left alone with you? Do you imagine that I am flattered by your
+attention?&mdash;do you venture to think I ever could be? How dared you
+think what you did think there on the sea-wall?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I cannot help my thoughts!' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"'You turned on me like a tiger when you awoke from your trance. Do
+you really suppose that you mewed? Are you not aware that my father
+hypnotized you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No&mdash;I did not know it,' I said. The hot blood tingled in my
+finger-tips, and I looked angrily at her.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why do you imagine that I waste my time on you?' she said. 'Your
+vanity has answered that question&mdash;now let your intelligence answer
+it. I am a Pythagorean; I have been chosen to bring in a convert, and
+you were the convert selected for me by the Mahatmas of the
+Consolidated Trust Company. I have followed you from New York to
+Antwerp, as I was bidden, but now my courage fails, and I shrink from
+fulfilling my mission, knowing you to be the type of man you are. If I
+could give it up&mdash;if I could only go away&mdash;never, never again to see
+you! Ah, I fear they will not permit it!&mdash;until my mission is
+accomplished. Why was I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>chosen&mdash;I, with a woman's heart and a woman's
+pride. I&mdash;I hate you!'</p>
+
+<p>"'I love you,' I said, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"She paled and looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"'Answer me,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Her wide, blue eyes turned back again, and I held them with mine. At
+last she slowly drew a long-stemmed rose from the bunch at her belt,
+turned, and mounted the shadowy staircase. For a moment I thought I
+saw her pause on the landing above, but the moonlight was uncertain.
+After waiting for a long time in vain, I moved away, and in going
+raised my hand to my face, but I stopped short, and my heart stopped
+too, for a moment. In my hand I held a long-stemmed rose.</p>
+
+<p>"With my brain in a whirl I crept across the court and mounted the
+stairs to my room. Hour after hour I walked the floor, slowly at
+first, then more rapidly, but it brought no calm to the fierce tumult
+of my thoughts, and at last I dropped into a chair before the empty
+fireplace, burying my head in my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncertain, shocked, and deadly weary, I tried to think&mdash;I strove to
+bring order out of the chaos in my brain, but I only sat staring at
+the long-stemmed rose. Slowly I began to take a vague pleasure in its
+heavy perfume, and once I crushed a leaf between my palms, and,
+bending over, drank in the fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Twice my lamp flickered and went out, and twice, treading softly, I
+crossed the room to relight it. Twice I threw open the door, thinking
+that I heard some sound without. How close the air was!&mdash;how heavy and
+hot! And what was that strange, subtle odor which had insensibly
+filled the room? It grew stronger and more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>penetrating, and I began
+to dislike it, and to escape it I buried my nose in the half-opened
+rose. Horror! The odor came from the rose&mdash;and the rose itself was no
+longer a rose&mdash;not even a flower now&mdash;it was only a bunch of catnip;
+and I dashed it to the floor and ground it under my heel.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mountebank!' I cried, in a rage. My anger grew cold&mdash;and I shivered,
+drawn perforce to the curtained window. Something was there, outside.
+I could not hear it, for it made no sound, but I knew it was there,
+watching me. What was it? The damp hair stirred on my head. I touched
+the heavy curtains. Whatever was outside them sprang up, tore at the
+window, and then rushed away.</p>
+
+<p>"Feeling very shaky, I crept to the window, opened it, and leaned out.
+The night was calm. I heard the fountain splashing in the moonlight
+and the sea-winds soughing through the palms. Then I closed the window
+and turned back into the room; and as I stood there a sudden breeze,
+which could not have come from without, blew sharply in my face,
+extinguishing the candle and sending the long curtains bellying out
+into the room. The lamp on the table flashed and smoked and sputtered;
+the room was littered with flying papers and catnip leaves. Then the
+strange wind died away, and somewhere in the night a cat snarled.</p>
+
+<p>"I turned desperately to my trunk and flung it open. Into it I threw
+everything I owned, pell-mell, closed the lid, locked it, and, seizing
+my mackintosh and travelling-bag, ran down the stairs, crossed the
+court, and entered the night-office of the hotel. There I called up
+the sleepy clerk, settled my reckoning, and sent a porter for a cab.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>"'Now,' I said, 'what time does the next train leave?'</p>
+
+<p>"'The next train for where?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Anywhere!'</p>
+
+<p>"The clerk locked the safe, and, carefully keeping the desk between
+himself and me, motioned the office-boy to look at the time-tables.</p>
+
+<p>"'Next train, 2.10. Brussels&mdash;Paris,' read the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"At that moment the cab rattled up by the curbstone, and I sprang in
+while the porter tossed my traps on top. Away we bumped over the stony
+pavement, past street after street lighted dimly by tall gas-lamps,
+and alley after alley brilliant with the glare of villanous all-night
+caf&eacute;-concerts, and then, turning, we rumbled past the Circus and the
+Eldorado, and at last stopped with a jolt before the Brussels station.</p>
+
+<p>"I had not a moment to lose. 'Paris!' I cried&mdash;'first-class!' and,
+pocketing the book of coupons, hurried across the platform to where
+the Brussels train lay. A guard came running up, flung open the door
+of a first-class carriage, slammed and locked it after I had jumped
+in, and the long train glided from the arched station out into the
+starlit morning.</p>
+
+<p>"I was all alone in the compartment. The wretched lamp in the roof
+flickered dimly, scarcely lighting the stuffy box. I could not see to
+read my time-table, so I wrapped my legs in the travelling-rug and lay
+back, staring out into the misty morning. Trees, walls,
+telegraph-poles flashed past, and the cinders drove in showers against
+the rattling windows. I slept at times, fitfully, and once, springing
+up, peered sharply at the opposite seat, possessed with the idea that
+somebody was there.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>"When the train reached Brussels I was sound asleep, and the guard
+awoke me with difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"'Breakfast, sir?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Anything,' I sighed, and stepped out to the platform, rubbing my
+legs and shivering. The other passengers were already breakfasting in
+the station caf&eacute;, and I joined them and managed to swallow a cup of
+coffee and a roll.</p>
+
+<p>"The morning broke gray and cloudy, and I bundled myself into my
+mackintosh for a tramp along the platform. Up and down I stamped,
+puffing a cigar, and digging my hands deep in my pockets, while the
+other passengers huddled into the warmer compartments of the train or
+stood watching the luggage being lifted into the forward
+mail-carriage. The wait was very long; the hands of the great clock
+pointed to six, and still the train lay motionless along the platform.
+I approached a guard and asked him whether anything was wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"'Accident on the line,' he replied; 'monsieur had better go to his
+compartment and try to sleep, for we may be delayed until noon.'</p>
+
+<p>"I followed the guard's advice, and, crawling into my corner, wrapped
+myself in the rug and lay back watching the rain-drops spattering
+along the window-sill. At noon the train had not moved, and I lunched
+in the compartment. At four o'clock in the afternoon the
+station-master came hurrying along the platform, crying, 'Montez!
+montez! messieurs, s'il vous pla&icirc;t'&mdash;and the train steamed out of the
+station and whirled away through the flat, treeless Belgian plains. At
+times I dozed, but the shaking of the car always awoke me, and I would
+sit blinking out at the endless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>stretch of plain, until a sudden
+flurry of rain blotted the landscape from my eyes. At last a long,
+shrill whistle from the engine, a jolt, a series of bumps, and an
+apparition of red trousers and bayonets warned me that we had arrived
+at the French frontier. I turned out with the others, and opened my
+valise for inspection, but the customs officials merely chalked it,
+without examination, and I hurried back to my compartment amid the
+shouting of guards and the clanging of station bells. Again I found
+that I was alone in the compartment, so I smoked a cigarette, thanked
+Heaven, and fell into a dreamless sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"How long I slept I do not know, but when I awoke the train was
+roaring through a tunnel. When again it flashed out into the open
+country I peered through the grimy, rain-stained window and saw that
+the storm had ceased and stars were twinkling in the sky. I stretched
+my legs, yawned, pushed my travelling-cap back from my forehead, and,
+stumbling to my feet, walked up and down the compartment until my
+cramped muscles were relieved. Then I sat down again, and, lighting a
+cigar, puffed great rings and clouds of fragrant smoke across the
+aisle.</p>
+
+<p>"The train was flying; the cars lurched and shook, and the windows
+rattled accompaniment to the creaking panels. The smoke from my cigar
+dimmed the lamp in the ceiling and hid the opposite seat from view.
+How it curled and writhed in the corners, now eddying upward, now
+floating across the aisle like a veil! I lounged back in my cushioned
+seat, watching it with interest. What queer shapes it took! How thick
+it was becoming!&mdash;how strangely luminous! Now it had filled the whole
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>compartment, puff after puff crowding upward, waving, wavering,
+clouding the windows, and blotting the lamp from sight. It was most
+interesting. I had never before smoked such a cigar. What an
+extraordinary brand! I examined the end, flicking the ashes away. The
+cigar was out. Fumbling for a match to relight it, my eyes fell on the
+drifting smoke-curtain which swayed across the corner opposite. It
+seemed almost tangible. How like a real curtain it hung, gray,
+impenetrable! A man might hide behind it. Then an idea came into my
+head, and it persisted until my uneasiness amounted to a vague terror.
+I tried to fight it off&mdash;I strove to resist&mdash;but the conviction slowly
+settled upon me that something was behind that smoke-veil&mdash;something
+which had entered the compartment while I slept.</p>
+
+<p>"'It can't be,' I muttered, my eyes fixed on the misty drapery; 'the
+train has not stopped.'</p>
+
+<p>"The car creaked and trembled. I sprang to my feet and swept my arm
+through the veil of smoke. Then my hair rose on my head. For my hand
+touched another hand, and my eyes had met two other eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard a voice in the gloom, low and sweet, calling me by name; I
+saw the eyes again, tender and blue; soft fingers touched my own.</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you afraid?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"My heart began to beat again, and my face warmed with returning
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is only I,' she said, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"I seemed to hear my own voice speaking as if at a great distance,
+'You here&mdash;alone?'</p>
+
+<p>"'How cruel of you!' she faltered; 'I am not alone.' At the same
+instant my eyes fell upon the professor, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>calmly seated by the farther
+window. His hands were thrust into the folds of a corded and tasselled
+dressing-gown, from beneath which peeped two enormous feet encased in
+carpet slippers. Upon his head towered a yellow night-cap. He did not
+pay the slightest attention to either me or his daughter, and, except
+for the lighted cigar which he kept shifting between his lips, he
+might have been taken for a wax dummy.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I began to speak, feebly, hesitating like a child.</p>
+
+<p>"'How did you come into this compartment? You&mdash;you do not possess
+wings, I suppose? You could not have been here all the time. Will you
+explain&mdash;explain to me? See, I ask you very humbly, for I do not
+understand. This is the nineteenth century, and these things don't fit
+in. I'm wearing a Dunlap hat&mdash;I've got a copy of the New York <i>Herald</i>
+in my bag&mdash;President Roosevelt is alive, and everything is so very
+unromantic in the world! Is this real magic? Perhaps I'm filled with
+hallucinations. Perhaps I'm asleep and dreaming. Perhaps you are not
+really here&mdash;nor I&mdash;nor anybody, nor anything!'</p>
+
+<p>"The train plunged into a tunnel, and when again it dashed out from
+the other end the cold wind blew furiously in my face from the farther
+window. It was wide open; the professor was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"'Papa has changed to another compartment,' she said, quietly. 'I
+think perhaps you were beginning to bore him.'</p>
+
+<p>"Her eyes met mine and she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you very much bewildered?'</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at her in silence. She sat very quietly, her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>hands clasped
+above her knee, her curly hair glittering to her girdle. A long robe,
+almost silvery in the twilight, clung to her young figure; her bare
+feet were thrust deep into a pair of shimmering Eastern slippers.</p>
+
+<p>"'When you fled,' she sighed, 'I was asleep and there was no time to
+lose. I barely had a moment to go to Bombay, to find papa, and return
+in time to join you. This is an East-Indian costume.'</p>
+
+<p>"Still I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you shocked?' she asked, simply.</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' I replied, in a dull voice, 'I'm past that.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You are very rude,' she said, with the tears starting to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not mean to be. I only wish to go away&mdash;away somewhere and find
+out what my name is.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Your name is Harold Kensett.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Are you sure?' I asked, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes&mdash;what troubles you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Is everything plain to you? Are you a sort of prophet and
+second-sight medium? Is nothing hidden from you?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing,' she faltered. My head ached and I clasped it in my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"A sudden change came over her. 'I am human&mdash;believe me!' she said,
+with piteous eagerness. 'Indeed, I do not seem strange to those who
+understand. You wonder, because you left me at midnight in Antwerp and
+you wake to find me here. If, because I find myself reincarnated,
+endowed with senses and capabilities which few at present possess&mdash;if
+I am so made, why should it seem strange? It is all so natural to me.
+If I appear to you&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>"'Appear?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Wilhelmina!' I cried; 'can you vanish?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' she murmured; 'does it seem to you unmaidenly?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Great Heaven!' I groaned.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't!' she cried, with tears in her voice&mdash;'oh, please don't! Help
+me to bear it! If you only knew how awful it is to be different from
+other girls&mdash;how mortifying it is to me to be able to vanish&mdash;oh, how
+I hate and detest it all!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't cry,' I said, looking at her pityingly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, dear me!' she sobbed. 'You shudder at the sight of me because I
+can vanish.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't!' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, you do! You abhor me&mdash;you shrink away! Oh, why did I ever see
+you?&mdash;why did you ever come into my life?&mdash;what have I done in ages
+past, that now, reborn, I suffer cruelly&mdash;cruelly?'</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you mean?' I whispered. My voice trembled with happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"'I?&mdash;nothing; but you think me a fabled monster.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Wilhelmina&mdash;my sweet Wilhelmina,' I said, 'I don't think you a
+fabled monster. I love you; see&mdash;see&mdash;I am at your feet; listen to me,
+my darling&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"She turned her blue eyes to mine. I saw tears sparkling on the curved
+lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wilhelmina, I love you,' I said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Slowly she raised her hands to my head and held it a moment, looking
+at me strangely. Then her face grew nearer to my own, her glittering
+hair fell over my shoulders, her lips rested on mine.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>"In that long, sweet kiss the beating of her heart answered mine, and
+I learned a thousand truths, wonderful, mysterious, splendid; but when
+our lips fell apart, the memory of what I learned departed also.</p>
+
+<p>"'It was so very simple and beautiful,' she sighed, 'and I&mdash;I never
+saw it. But the Mahatmas knew&mdash;ah, they knew that my mission could
+only be accomplished through love.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And it is,' I whispered, 'for you shall teach me&mdash;me, your husband.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And&mdash;and you will not be impatient? You will try to believe?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I will believe what you tell me, my sweetheart.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Even about&mdash;cats?'</p>
+
+<p>"Before I could reply the farther window opened and a yellow
+night-cap, followed by the professor, entered from somewhere without.
+Wilhelmina sank back on her sofa, but the professor needed not to be
+told, and we both knew he was already busily reading our thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"For a moment there was dead silence&mdash;long enough for the professor to
+grasp the full significance of what had passed. Then he uttered a
+single exclamation, 'Oh!'</p>
+
+<p>"After a while, however, he looked at me for the first time that
+evening, saying, 'Congratulate you, Mr. Kensett, I'm sure,' tied
+several knots in the cord of his dressing-gown, lighted a cigar, and
+paid no further attention to either of us. Some moments later he
+opened the window again and disappeared. I looked across the aisle at
+Wilhelmina.</p>
+
+<p>"'You may come over beside me,' she said, shyly.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>XXV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>"It was nearly ten o'clock and our train was rapidly approaching
+Paris. We passed village after village wrapped in mist, station after
+station hung with twinkling red and blue and yellow lanterns, then
+sped on again with the echo of the switch-bells ringing in our ears.</p>
+
+<p>"When at length the train slowed up and stopped, I opened the window
+and looked out upon a long, wet platform, shining under the electric
+lights.</p>
+
+<p>"A guard came running by, throwing open the doors of each compartment,
+and crying, 'Paris next! Tickets, if you please.'</p>
+
+<p>"I handed him my book of coupons, from which he tore several and
+handed it back. Then he lifted his lantern and peered into the
+compartment, saying, 'Is monsieur alone?'</p>
+
+<p>"I turned to Wilhelmina.</p>
+
+<p>"'He wants your ticket&mdash;give it to me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What's that?' demanded the guard.</p>
+
+<p>"I looked anxiously at Wilhelmina.</p>
+
+<p>"'If your father has the tickets&mdash;' I began, but was interrupted by
+the guard, who snapped:</p>
+
+<p>"'Monsieur will give himself the trouble to remember that I do not
+understand English.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Keep quiet!' I said, sharply, in French. 'I am not speaking to
+you.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>"The guard stared stupidly at me, then, at my luggage, and finally,
+entering the car, knelt down and peered under the seats. Presently he
+got up, very red in the face, and went out slamming the door. He had
+not paid the slightest attention to Wilhelmina, but I distinctly heard
+him say, 'Only Englishmen and idiots talk to themselves!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Wilhelmina,' I faltered, 'do you mean to say that that guard could
+not see you?'</p>
+
+<p>"She began to look so serious again that I merely added, 'Never mind,
+I don't care whether you are invisible or not, dearest.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am not invisible to you,' she said; 'why should you care?'</p>
+
+<p>"A great noise of bells and whistles drowned our voices, and, amid the
+whirring of switch-bells, the hissing of steam, and the cries of
+'Paris! All out!' our train glided into the station.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the professor who opened the door of our carriage. There he
+stood, calmly adjusting his yellow night-cap and drawing his
+dressing-gown closer with the corded tassels.</p>
+
+<p>"'Where have you been?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'On the engine.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>In</i> the engine, I suppose you mean,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, I don't; I mean <i>on</i> the engine&mdash;on the pilot. It was very
+refreshing. Where are we going now?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you know Paris?' asked Wilhelmina, turning to me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes. I think your father had better take you to the H&ocirc;tel Normandie
+on the Rue de l'&Eacute;chelle&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'But you must stay there, too!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>"'Of course&mdash;if you wish&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"She laughed nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't you see that my father and I could not take rooms&mdash;now? You
+must engage three rooms for yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why?' I asked, stupidly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, dear&mdash;why, because we are invisible.'</p>
+
+<p>"I tried to repress a shudder. The professor gave Wilhelmina his arm,
+and, as I studied his ensemble, I thanked Heaven that he was
+invisible.</p>
+
+<p>"At the gate of the station I hailed a four-seated cab, and we rattled
+away through the stony streets, brilliant with gas-jets, and in a few
+moments rolled smoothly across the Avenue de l'Op&eacute;ra, turned into the
+Rue de l'&Eacute;chelle, and stopped. A bright little page, all over buttons,
+came out, took my luggage, and preceded us into the hallway.</p>
+
+<p>"I, with Wilhelmina on my arm and the professor shuffling along beside
+me, walked over to the desk.</p>
+
+<p>"'Room?' said the clerk. 'We have a very desirable room on the second,
+fronting the Rue St. Honor&eacute;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'But we&mdash;that is, I want three rooms&mdash;three separate rooms!' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"The clerk scratched his chin. 'Monsieur is expecting friends?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Say yes,' whispered Wilhelmina, with a suspicion of laughter in her
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' I repeated, feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen, of course?' said the clerk, looking at me narrowly.</p>
+
+<p>"'One lady.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Married, of course?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>"'What's that to you?' I said, sharply. 'What do you mean by speaking
+to us&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Us!'</p>
+
+<p>"'I mean to me,' I said, badly rattled; 'give me the rooms and let me
+get to bed, will you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Monsieur will remember,' said the clerk, coldly, 'that this is an
+old and respectable hotel.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I know it,' I said, smothering my rage.</p>
+
+<p>"The clerk eyed me suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"'Front!' he called, with irritating deliberation. 'Show this
+gentleman to apartment ten.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How many rooms are there!' I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"'Three sleeping-rooms and a parlor.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I will take it,' I said, with composure.</p>
+
+<p>"'On probation,' muttered the clerk, insolently.</p>
+
+<p>"Swallowing the insult, I followed the bell-boy up the stairs, keeping
+between him and Wilhelmina, for I dreaded to see him walk through her
+as if she were thin air. A trim maid rose to meet us and conducted us
+through a hallway into a large apartment. She threw open all the
+bedroom-doors and said, 'Will monsieur have the goodness to choose?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Which will you take,' I began, turning to Wilhelmina.</p>
+
+<p>"'I? Monsieur!' cried the startled maid.</p>
+
+<p>"That completely upset me. 'Here,' I muttered, slipping some silver
+into her hand; 'now, for the love of Heaven, run away!'</p>
+
+<p>"When she had vanished with a doubtful 'Merci, monsieur!' I handed the
+professor the keys and asked him to settle the thing with Wilhelmina.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilhelmina took the corner room, the professor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>rambled into the next
+one, and I said good-night and crept wearily into my own chamber. I
+sat down and tried to think. A great feeling of fatigue weighted my
+spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"'I can think better with my clothes off,' I said, and slipped the
+coat from my shoulders. How tired I was! 'I can think better in bed,'
+I muttered, flinging my cravat on the dresser and tossing my
+shirt-studs after it. I was certainly very tired. 'Now,' I yawned,
+grasping the pillow and drawing it under my head&mdash;'now I can think a
+bit.' But before my head fell on the pillow sleep closed my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I began to dream at once. It seemed as though my eyes were wide open
+and the professor was standing beside my bed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Young man,' he said, 'you've won my daughter and you must pay the
+piper!'</p>
+
+<p>"'What piper?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Pied Piper of Hamelin, I don't think,' replied the professor,
+vulgarly, and before I could realize what he was doing he had drawn a
+reed pipe from his dressing-gown and was playing a strangely annoying
+air. Then an awful thing occurred. Cats began to troop into the room,
+cats by the hundred&mdash;toms and tabbies, gray, yellow, Maltese, Persian,
+Manx&mdash;all purring and all marching round and round, rubbing against
+the furniture, the professor, and even against me. I struggled with
+the nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>"'Take them away!' I tried to gasp.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nonsense!' he said; 'here is an old friend.'</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the white tabby cat of the H&ocirc;tel St. Antoine.</p>
+
+<p>"'An old friend,' he repeated, and played a dismal melody on his
+reed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>"I saw Wilhelmina enter the room, lift the white tabby in her arms,
+and bring her to my side.</p>
+
+<p>"'Shake hands with him,' she commanded.</p>
+
+<p>"To my horror the tabby deliberately extended a paw and tapped me on
+the knuckles.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh!' I cried, in agony; 'this is a horrible dream! Why, oh, why
+can't I wake!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' she said, dropping the cat, 'it is partly a dream, but some of
+it is real. Remember what I say, my darling; you are to go to-morrow
+morning and meet the twelve-o'clock train from Antwerp at the Gare du
+Nord. Papa and I are coming to Paris on that train. Don't you know
+that we are not really here now, you silly boy? Good-night, then. I
+shall be very glad to see you.'</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her glide from the room, followed by the professor, playing a
+gay quick-step, to which the cats danced two and two.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-night, sir,' said each cat as it passed my bed; and I dreamed
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>"When I awoke, the room, the bed had vanished; I was in the street,
+walking rapidly; the sun shone down on the broad, white pavements of
+Paris, and the streams of busy life flowed past me on either side. How
+swiftly I was walking! Where the devil was I going? Surely I had
+business somewhere that needed immediate attention. I tried to
+remember when I had awakened, but I could not. I wondered where I had
+dressed myself; I had apparently taken great pains with my toilet, for
+I was immaculate, monocle and all, even down to a long-stemmed rose
+nestling in my button-hole. I knew Paris and recognized the streets
+through which I was hurrying. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>Where could I be going? What was my
+hurry? I glanced at my watch and found I had not a moment to lose.
+Then, as the bells of the city rang out mid-day, I hastened into the
+railroad station on the Rue Lafayette and walked out to the platform.
+And as I looked down the glittering track, around the distant curve
+shot a locomotive followed by a long line of cars. Nearer and nearer
+it came, while the station-gongs sounded and the switch-bells began
+ringing all along the track.</p>
+
+<p>"'Antwerp express!' cried the sous-chef de gare, and as the train
+slipped along the tiled platform I sprang upon the steps of a
+first-class carriage and threw open the door.</p>
+
+<p>"'How do you do, Mr. Kensett?' said Wilhelmina Wyeth, springing
+lightly to the platform. 'Really it is very nice of you to come to the
+train.' At the same moment a bald, mild-eyed gentleman emerged from
+the depths of the same compartment, carrying a large, covered basket.</p>
+
+<p>"'How are you, Kensett?' he said. 'Glad to see you again. Rather warm
+in that compartment&mdash;no, I will not trust this basket to an
+expressman; give Wilhelmina your arm and I'll follow. We go to the
+Normandie, I believe?'</p>
+
+<p>"All the morning I had Wilhelmina to myself, and at dinner I sat
+beside her, with the professor opposite. The latter was cheerful
+enough, but he nearly ruined my appetite, for he smelled strongly of
+catnip. After dinner he became restless and fidgeted about in his
+chair until coffee was brought, and we went up to the parlor of our
+apartment. Here his restlessness <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>increased to such an extent that I
+ventured to ask him if he was in good health.</p>
+
+<p>"'It's that basket&mdash;the covered basket which I have in the next room,'
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"'What's the trouble with the basket?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'The basket's all right&mdash;but the contents worry me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'May I inquire what the contents are?' I ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"The professor rose.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' he said, 'you may inquire of my daughter.' He left the room,
+but reappeared shortly, carrying a saucer of milk.</p>
+
+<p>"I watched him enter the next room, which was mine.</p>
+
+<p>"'What on earth is he taking that into my room for?' I asked
+Wilhelmina. 'I don't keep cats.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But you will,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>"'I? Never!'</p>
+
+<p>"'You will if I ask you to.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But&mdash;but you won't ask me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But I do.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Wilhelmina!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Harold!'</p>
+
+<p>"'I detest cats.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You must not.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I can't help it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You will when I ask it. Have I not given myself to you? Will you not
+make a little sacrifice for me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't understand&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Would you refuse my first request?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No,' I said, miserably, 'I will keep dozens of cats&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do not ask that; I only wish you to keep one.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>"'Was that what your father had in that basket?' I asked,
+suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, the basket came from Antwerp.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What! The white Antwerp cat!' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And you ask me to keep that cat? Oh, Wilhelmina!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Listen!' she said. 'I have a long story to tell you; come nearer,
+close to me. You say you love me?'</p>
+
+<p>"I bent and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>"'Then I shall put you to the proof,' she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"'Prove me!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Listen. That cat is the same cat that ran out of the apartment in
+the Waldorf when your great-aunt ceased to exist&mdash;in human shape. My
+father and myself, having received word from the Mahatmas of the Trust
+Company, sheltered and cherished the cat. We were ordered by the
+Mahatmas to convert you. The task was appalling&mdash;but there is no such
+thing as refusing a command, and we laid our plans. That man with a
+white spot in his hair was my father&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'What! Your father is bald.'</p>
+
+<p>"'He wore a wig then. The white spot came from dropping chemicals on
+the wig while experimenting with a substance which you could not
+comprehend.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then&mdash;then that clew was useless; but who could have taken the
+Crimson Diamond? And who was the man with the white spot on his head
+who tried to sell the stone in Paris?'</p>
+
+<p>"'That was my father.'</p>
+
+<p>"'He&mdash;he&mdash;st&mdash;took the Crimson Diamond!' I cried, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes and no. That was only a paste stone that he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>had in Paris. It
+was to draw you over here. He had the real Crimson Diamond also.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Your father?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes. He has it in the next room now. Can you not see how it
+disappeared, Harold? Why, the cat swallowed it!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you mean to say that the white tabby swallowed the Crimson
+Diamond?'</p>
+
+<p>"'By mistake. She tried to get it out of the velvet bag, and, as the
+bag was also full of catnip, she could not resist a mouthful, and
+unfortunately just then you broke in the door and so startled the cat
+that she swallowed the Crimson Diamond.'</p>
+
+<p>"There was a painful pause. At last I said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Wilhelmina, as you are able to vanish, I suppose you also are able
+to converse with cats.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am,' she replied, trying to keep back the tears of mortification.</p>
+
+<p>"'And that cat told you this?'</p>
+
+<p>"'She did.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And my Crimson Diamond is inside that cat?'</p>
+
+<p>"'It is.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Then,' said I, firmly, 'I am going to chloroform the cat.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Harold!' she cried, in terror, 'that cat is your great-aunt!'</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know to this day how I stood the shock of that announcement,
+or how I managed to listen while Wilhelmina tried to explain the
+transmigration theory, but it was all Chinese to me. I only knew that
+I was a blood relation of a cat, and the thought nearly drove me mad.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>"'Try, my darling, try to love her,' whispered Wilhelmina; 'she must
+be very precious to you&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, with my diamond inside her,' I replied, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"'You must not neglect her,' said Wilhelmina.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh no, I'll always have my eye on her&mdash;I mean I will surround her
+with luxury&mdash;er, milk and bones and catnip and books&mdash;er&mdash;does she
+read?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Not the books that human beings read. Now, go and speak to your
+aunt, Harold.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Eh! How the deuce&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Go; for my sake try to be cordial.'</p>
+
+<p>"She rose and led me unresistingly to the door of my room.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good Heavens!' I groaned; 'this is awful.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Courage, my darling!' she whispered. 'Be brave for love of me.'</p>
+
+<p>"I drew her to me and kissed her. Beads of cold perspiration started
+in the roots of my hair, but I clenched my teeth and entered the room
+alone. The room was dark and I stood silent, not knowing where to
+turn, fearful lest I step on my aunt! Then, through the dreary
+silence, I called, 'Aunty!'</p>
+
+<p>"A faint noise broke upon my ear, and my heart grew sick, but I strode
+into the darkness, calling, hoarsely:</p>
+
+<p>"'Aunt Tabby! It is your nephew!'</p>
+
+<p>"Again the faint sound. Something was stirring there among the
+shadows&mdash;a shape moving softly along the wall, a shade which glided by
+me, paused, wavered, and darted under the bed. Then I threw myself on
+the floor, profoundly moved, begging, imploring my aunt to come to
+me.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>"'Aunty! Aunty!' I murmured. 'Your nephew is waiting to take you to
+his heart!'</p>
+
+<p>"At last I saw my great-aunt's eyes shining in the dark."</p>
+
+<p>The young man's voice grew hushed and solemn, and he lifted his hand
+in silence:</p>
+
+<p>"Close the door. That meeting is not for the eyes of the world! Close
+the door upon that sacred scene where great-aunt and nephew are united
+at last."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>A long pause followed; deep emotion was visible in Miss Barrison's
+sensitive face. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;you are married?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Mr. Kensett, in a mortified voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" I asked, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he said, "although my fianc&eacute;e was prepared to accept a cat
+as her great-aunt, she could not endure the complications that
+followed."</p>
+
+<p>"What complications?" inquired Miss Barrison.</p>
+
+<p>The young man sighed profoundly, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>"My great-aunt had kittens," he said, softly.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 15%; padding-top: 1.25em; padding-bottom: 1.25em;' />
+
+<p>The tremendous scientific importance of these experiences excited me
+beyond measure. The simplicity of the narrative, the elaborate
+attention to corroborative detail, all bore irresistible testimony to
+the truth of these accounts of phenomena vitally important to the
+entire world of science.</p>
+
+<p>We all dined together that night&mdash;a little earnest company of
+knowledge-seekers in the vast wilderness of the unexplored; and we
+lingered long in the dining-car, propounding questions, advancing
+theories, speculating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>upon possibilities of most intense interest.
+Never before had I known a man whose relatives were cats and kittens,
+but he did not appear to share my enthusiasm in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he said, looking at Miss Barrison, "it may be interesting
+from a purely scientific point of view, but it has already proved a
+bar to my marrying."</p>
+
+<p>"Were the kittens black?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "my aunt drew the color-line, I am proud to say."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see," said Miss Barrison, "why the fact that your great-aunt
+is a cat should prevent you from marrying."</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't prevent <i>me</i>!" said the young man, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor me," mused Miss Barrison&mdash;"if I were really in love."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile I had been very busy thinking about Professor Farrago, and,
+coming to an interesting theory, advanced it.</p>
+
+<p>"If," I began, "he marries one of those transparent ladies, what about
+the children?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some would be, no doubt, transparent," said Kensett.</p>
+
+<p>"They might be only translucent," suggested Miss Barrison.</p>
+
+<p>"Or partially opaque," I ventured. "But it's a risky marriage&mdash;not to
+be able to see what one's wife is about&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a silly reflection on women," said Miss Barrison, quietly.
+"Besides, a girl need not be transparent to conceal what she's
+doing."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>This observation seemed to end our postprandial and tripartite
+conference; Miss Barrison retired to her stateroom presently; after a
+last cigar, smoked almost in silence, the young man and I bade each
+other a civil good-night and retired to our respective berths.</p>
+
+<p>I think it was at Richmond, Virginia, that I was awakened by the negro
+porter shaking me very gently and repeating, in a pleasant, monotonous
+voice: "Teleg'am foh you, suh! Teleg'am foh Mistuh Gilland, suh. 'Done
+call you 'lev'm times sense breakfass, suh! Las' call foh luncheon,
+suh. Teleg'am foh&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" I muttered, sitting up in my bunk, "is it as late as that!
+Where are we?" I slid up the window-shade and sat blinking at a flood
+of sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>"Telegram?" I said, yawning and rubbing my eyes. "Let me have it. All
+right, I'll be out presently. Shut that curtain! I don't want the
+entire car to criticise my pink pajamas!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ain' nobody in de cyar, 'scusin yo'se'f, suh," grinned the porter,
+retiring.</p>
+
+<p>I heard him, but did not comprehend, sitting there sleepily unfolding
+the scrawled telegram. Suddenly my eyes flew wide open; I scanned the
+despatch with stunned incredulity:</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<p class="right sc">"Atlanta, Georgia.</p>
+
+<p>"We couldn't help it. Love at first sight. Married this
+morning in Atlanta. Wildly happy. Forgive. Wire blessing.</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="margin-right: 5%;">"(Signed) <span class="sc">Harold Kensett</span>, &nbsp;<br />
+"<span class="sc">Helen Barrison Kensett.</span>"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Porter!" I shouted. "Porter! Help!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no response.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>"Oh, Lord!" I groaned, and rolled over, burying my head in the
+blankets; for I understood at last that Science, the most jealous,
+most exacting of mistresses, could never brook a rival.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+<br />
+Page &nbsp;86: &nbsp;beautful replaced with beautiful<br />
+Page 180: &nbsp;Magazin replaced with Magazine<br />
+Page 206: &nbsp;sun-sorched replaced with sun-scorched<br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's In Search of the Unknown, by Robert W. Chambers
+
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+Project Gutenberg's In Search of the Unknown, by Robert W. Chambers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: In Search of the Unknown
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: June 23, 2006 [EBook #18668]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                          |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation matches the original document.      |
+    |                                                              |
+    | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected |
+    | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of  |
+    | this document.                                               |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SHE STARTED TOWARD THE DOOR]
+
+
+
+
+IN SEARCH OF THE
+UNKNOWN
+
+
+
+BY
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE MAIDS OF PARADISE" "THE MAID-AT-ARMS"
+"CARDIGAN" "THE CONSPIRATORS" ETC.
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+1904
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1904, by ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+Published June, 1904.
+
+
+
+
+           TO
+        MY FRIEND
+    E. LE GRAND BEERS
+
+    MY DEAR LE GRAND,--You and I were early drawn together by a
+    common love of nature. Your researches into the natural
+    history of the tree-toad, your observations upon the
+    mud-turtles of Providence Township, your experiments with the
+    fresh-water lobster, all stimulated my enthusiasm in a
+    scientific direction, which has crystallized in this helpful
+    little book, dedicated to you.
+
+    Pray accept it as an insignificant payment on account for all
+    I owe to you.
+
+              THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+It appears to the writer that there is urgent need of more "nature
+books"--books that are scraped clear of fiction and which display only
+the carefully articulated skeleton of fact. Hence this little volume,
+presented with some hesitation and more modesty. Various chapters
+have, at intervals, appeared in the pages of various publications. The
+continued narrative is now published for the first time; and the
+writer trusts that it may inspire enthusiasm for natural and
+scientific research, and inculcate a passion for accurate observation
+among the young.
+
+  THE AUTHOR.
+
+  _April 1, 1904._
+
+
+
+
+    Where the slanting forest eaves,
+    Shingled tight with greenest leaves,
+    Sweep the scented meadow-sedge,
+    Let us snoop along the edge;
+    Let us pry in hidden nooks,
+    Laden with our nature books,
+    Scaring birds with happy cries,
+    Chloroforming butterflies,
+    Rooting up each woodland plant,
+    Pinning beetle, fly, and ant,
+    So we may identify
+    What we've ruined, by-and-by.
+
+
+
+
+IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN
+
+
+I
+
+
+Because it all seems so improbable--so horribly impossible to me now,
+sitting here safe and sane in my own library--I hesitate to record an
+episode which already appears to me less horrible than grotesque. Yet,
+unless this story is written now, I know I shall never have the
+courage to tell the truth about the matter--not from fear of ridicule,
+but because I myself shall soon cease to credit what I now know to be
+true. Yet scarcely a month has elapsed since I heard the stealthy
+purring of what I believed to be the shoaling undertow--scarcely a
+month ago, with my own eyes, I saw that which, even now, I am
+beginning to believe never existed. As for the harbor-master--and the
+blow I am now striking at the old order of things--But of that I shall
+not speak now, or later; I shall try to tell the story simply and
+truthfully, and let my friends testify as to my probity and the
+publishers of this book corroborate them.
+
+On the 29th of February I resigned my position under the government
+and left Washington to accept an offer from Professor Farrago--whose
+name he kindly permits me to use--and on the first day of April I
+entered upon my new and congenial duties as general superintendent of
+the water-fowl department connected with the Zoological Gardens then
+in course of erection at Bronx Park, New York.
+
+For a week I followed the routine, examining the new foundations,
+studying the architect's plans, following the surveyors through the
+Bronx thickets, suggesting arrangements for water-courses and pools
+destined to be included in the enclosures for swans, geese, pelicans,
+herons, and such of the waders and swimmers as we might expect to
+acclimate in Bronx Park.
+
+It was at that time the policy of the trustees and officers of the
+Zoological Gardens neither to employ collectors nor to send out
+expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided to depend upon
+voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in
+dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services
+as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers,
+snarers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at
+exorbitant rates.
+
+To the proprietors of five-legged kittens, mangy lynxes, moth-eaten
+coyotes, and dancing bears I returned courteous but uncompromising
+refusals--of course, first submitting all such letters, together with
+my replies, to Professor Farrago.
+
+One day towards the end of May, however, just as I was leaving Bronx
+Park to return to town, Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department,
+called out to me that Professor Farrago wanted to see me a moment; so
+I put my pipe into my pocket again and retraced my steps to the
+temporary, wooden building occupied by Professor Farrago, general
+superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. The professor, who was
+sitting at his desk before a pile of letters and replies submitted for
+approval by me, pushed his glasses down and looked over them at me
+with a whimsical smile that suggested amusement, impatience,
+annoyance, and perhaps a faint trace of apology.
+
+"Now, here's a letter," he said, with a deliberate gesture towards a
+sheet of paper impaled on a file--"a letter that I suppose you
+remember." He disengaged the sheet of paper and handed it to me.
+
+"Oh yes," I replied, with a shrug; "of course the man is
+mistaken--or--"
+
+"Or what?" demanded Professor Farrago, tranquilly, wiping his glasses.
+
+"--Or a liar," I replied.
+
+After a silence he leaned back in his chair and bade me read the
+letter to him again, and I did so with a contemptuous tolerance for
+the writer, who must have been either a very innocent victim or a very
+stupid swindler. I said as much to Professor Farrago, but, to my
+surprise, he appeared to waver.
+
+"I suppose," he said, with his near-sighted, embarrassed smile, "that
+nine hundred and ninety-nine men in a thousand would throw that letter
+aside and condemn the writer as a liar or a fool?"
+
+"In my opinion," said I, "he's one or the other."
+
+"He isn't--in mine," said the professor, placidly.
+
+"What!" I exclaimed. "Here is a man living all alone on a strip of
+rock and sand between the wilderness and the sea, who wants you to
+send somebody to take charge of a bird that doesn't exist!"
+
+"How do you know," asked Professor Farrago, "that the bird in question
+does not exist?"
+
+"It is generally accepted," I replied, sarcastically, "that the great
+auk has been extinct for years. Therefore I may be pardoned for
+doubting that our correspondent possesses a pair of them alive."
+
+"Oh, you young fellows," said the professor, smiling wearily, "you
+embark on a theory for destinations that don't exist."
+
+He leaned back in his chair, his amused eyes searching space for the
+imagery that made him smile.
+
+"Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of Heaven and a
+stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to--do you?"
+
+Rather red in the face, I said: "Don't you believe the great auk to be
+extinct?"
+
+"Audubon saw the great auk."
+
+"Who has seen a single specimen since?"
+
+"Nobody--except our correspondent here," he replied, laughing.
+
+I laughed, too, considering the interview at an end, but the professor
+went on, coolly:
+
+"Whatever it is that our correspondent has--and I am daring to believe
+that it _is_ the great auk itself--I want you to secure it for the
+society."
+
+When my astonishment subsided my first conscious sentiment was one of
+pity. Clearly, Professor Farrago was on the verge of dotage--ah, what
+a loss to the world!
+
+I believe now that Professor Farrago perfectly interpreted my
+thoughts, but he betrayed neither resentment nor impatience. I drew a
+chair up beside his desk--there was nothing to do but to obey, and
+this fool's errand was none of my conceiving.
+
+Together we made out a list of articles necessary for me and itemized
+the expenses I might incur, and I set a date for my return, allowing
+no margin for a successful termination to the expedition.
+
+"Never mind that," said the professor. "What I want you to do is to
+get those birds here safely. Now, how many men will you take?"
+
+"None," I replied, bluntly; "it's a useless expense, unless there is
+something to bring back. If there is I'll wire you, you may be sure."
+
+"Very well," said Professor Farrago, good-humoredly, "you shall have
+all the assistance you may require. Can you leave to-night?"
+
+The old gentleman was certainly prompt. I nodded, half-sulkily, aware
+of his amusement.
+
+"So," I said, picking up my hat, "I am to start north to find a place
+called Black Harbor, where there is a man named Halyard who possesses,
+among other household utensils, two extinct great auks--"
+
+We were both laughing by this time. I asked him why on earth he
+credited the assertion of a man he had never before heard of.
+
+"I suppose," he replied, with the same half-apologetic, half-humorous
+smile, "it is instinct. I feel, somehow, that this man Halyard _has_
+got an auk--perhaps two. I can't get away from the idea that we are on
+the eve of acquiring the rarest of living creatures. It's odd for a
+scientist to talk as I do; doubtless you're shocked--admit it, now!"
+
+But I was not shocked; on the contrary, I was conscious that the same
+strange hope that Professor Farrago cherished was beginning, in spite
+of me, to stir my pulses, too.
+
+"If he has--" I began, then stopped.
+
+The professor and I looked hard at each other in silence.
+
+"Go on," he said, encouragingly.
+
+But I had nothing more to say, for the prospect of beholding with my
+own eyes a living specimen of the great auk produced a series of
+conflicting emotions within me which rendered speech profanely
+superfluous.
+
+As I took my leave Professor Farrago came to the door of the
+temporary, wooden office and handed me the letter written by the man
+Halyard. I folded it and put it into my pocket, as Halyard might
+require it for my own identification.
+
+"How much does he want for the pair?" I asked.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars. Don't demur--if the birds are really--"
+
+"I know," I said, hastily, not daring to hope too much.
+
+"One thing more," said Professor Farrago, gravely; "you know, in that
+last paragraph of his letter, Halyard speaks of something else in the
+way of specimens--an undiscovered species of amphibious biped--just
+read that paragraph again, will you?"
+
+I drew the letter from my pocket and read as he directed:
+
+    "When you have seen the two living specimens of the great auk,
+    and have satisfied yourself that I tell the truth, you may be
+    wise enough to listen without prejudice to a statement I shall
+    make concerning the existence of the strangest creature ever
+    fashioned. I will merely say, at this time, that the creature
+    referred to is an amphibious biped and inhabits the ocean near
+    this coast. More I cannot say, for I personally have not seen
+    the animal, but I have a witness who has, and there are many
+    who affirm that they have seen the creature. You will
+    naturally say that my statement amounts to nothing; but when
+    your representative arrives, if he be free from prejudice, I
+    expect his reports to you concerning this sea-biped will
+    confirm the solemn statements of a witness I _know_ to be
+    unimpeachable.
+
+  "Yours truly,      BURTON HALYARD.
+
+  "BLACK HARBOR."
+
+"Well," I said, after a moment's thought, "here goes for the
+wild-goose chase."
+
+"Wild auk, you mean," said Professor Farrago, shaking hands with me.
+"You will start to-night, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, but Heaven knows how I'm ever going to land in this man
+Halyard's door-yard. Good-bye!"
+
+"About that sea-biped--" began Professor Farrago, shyly.
+
+"Oh, don't!" I said; "I can swallow the auks, feathers and claws, but
+if this fellow Halyard is hinting he's seen an amphibious creature
+resembling a man--"
+
+"--Or a woman," said the professor, cautiously.
+
+I retired, disgusted, my faith shaken in the mental vigor of Professor
+Farrago.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The three days' voyage by boat and rail was irksome. I bought my kit
+at Sainte Croix, on the Central Pacific Railroad, and on June 1st I
+began the last stage of my journey _via_ the Sainte Isole broad-gauge,
+arriving in the wilderness by daylight. A tedious forced march by
+blazed trail, freshly spotted on the wrong side, of course, brought me
+to the northern terminus of the rusty, narrow-gauge lumber railway
+which runs from the heart of the hushed pine wilderness to the sea.
+
+Already a long train of battered flat-cars, piled with sluice-props
+and roughly hewn sleepers, was moving slowly off into the brooding
+forest gloom, when I came in sight of the track; but I developed a
+gratifying and unexpected burst of speed, shouting all the while. The
+train stopped; I swung myself aboard the last car, where a pleasant
+young fellow was sitting on the rear brake, chewing spruce and reading
+a letter.
+
+"Come aboard, sir," he said, looking up with a smile; "I guess you're
+the man in a hurry."
+
+"I'm looking for a man named Halyard," I said, dropping rifle and
+knapsack on the fresh-cut, fragrant pile of pine. "Are you Halyard?"
+
+"No, I'm Francis Lee, bossing the mica pit at Port-of-Waves," he
+replied, "but this letter is from Halyard, asking me to look out for a
+man in a hurry from Bronx Park, New York."
+
+"I'm that man," said I, filling my pipe and offering him a share of
+the weed of peace, and we sat side by side smoking very amiably, until
+a signal from the locomotive sent him forward and I was left alone,
+lounging at ease, head pillowed on both arms, watching the blue sky
+flying through the branches overhead.
+
+Long before we came in sight of the ocean I smelled it; the fresh,
+salt aroma stole into my senses, drowsy with the heated odor of pine
+and hemlock, and I sat up, peering ahead into the dusky sea of pines.
+
+Fresher and fresher came the wind from the sea, in puffs, in mild,
+sweet breezes, in steady, freshening currents, blowing the feathery
+crowns of the pines, setting the balsam's blue tufts rocking.
+
+Lee wandered back over the long line of flats, balancing himself
+nonchalantly as the cars swung around a sharp curve, where water
+dripped from a newly propped sluice that suddenly emerged from the
+depths of the forest to run parallel to the railroad track.
+
+"Built it this spring," he said, surveying his handiwork, which seemed
+to undulate as the cars swept past. "It runs to the cove--or ought
+to--" He stopped abruptly with a thoughtful glance at me.
+
+"So you're going over to Halyard's?" he continued, as though answering
+a question asked by himself.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"You've never been there--of course?"
+
+"No," I said, "and I'm not likely to go again."
+
+I would have told him why I was going if I had not already begun to
+feel ashamed of my idiotic errand.
+
+"I guess you're going to look at those birds of his," continued Lee,
+placidly.
+
+"I guess I am," I said, sulkily, glancing askance to see whether he
+was smiling.
+
+But he only asked me, quite seriously, whether a great auk was really
+a very rare bird; and I told him that the last one ever seen had been
+found dead off Labrador in January, 1870. Then I asked him whether
+these birds of Halyard's were really great auks, and he replied,
+somewhat indifferently, that he supposed they were--at least, nobody
+had ever before seen such birds near Port-of-Waves.
+
+"There's something else," he said, running, a pine-sliver through his
+pipe-stem--"something that interests us all here more than auks, big
+or little. I suppose I might as well speak of it, as you are bound to
+hear about it sooner or later."
+
+He hesitated, and I could see that he was embarrassed, searching for
+the exact words to convey his meaning.
+
+"If," said I, "you have anything in this region more important to
+science than the great auk, I should be very glad to know about it."
+
+Perhaps there was the faintest tinge of sarcasm in my voice, for he
+shot a sharp glance at me and then turned slightly. After a moment,
+however, he put his pipe into his pocket, laid hold of the brake with
+both hands, vaulted to his perch aloft, and glanced down at me.
+
+"Did you ever hear of the harbor-master?" he asked, maliciously.
+
+"Which harbor-master?" I inquired.
+
+"You'll know before long," he observed, with a satisfied glance into
+perspective.
+
+This rather extraordinary observation puzzled me. I waited for him to
+resume, and, as he did not, I asked him what he meant.
+
+"If I knew," he said, "I'd tell you. But, come to think of it, I'd be
+a fool to go into details with a scientific man. You'll hear about the
+harbor-master--perhaps you will see the harbor-master. In that event I
+should be glad to converse with you on the subject."
+
+I could not help laughing at his prim and precise manner, and, after a
+moment, he also laughed, saying:
+
+"It hurts a man's vanity to know he knows a thing that somebody else
+knows he doesn't know. I'm damned if I say another word about the
+harbor-master until you've been to Halyard's!"
+
+"A harbor-master," I persisted, "is an official who superintends the
+mooring of ships--isn't he?"
+
+But he refused to be tempted into conversation, and we lounged
+silently on the lumber until a long, thin whistle from the locomotive
+and a rush of stinging salt-wind brought us to our feet. Through the
+trees I could see the bluish-black ocean, stretching out beyond black
+headlands to meet the clouds; a great wind was roaring among the trees
+as the train slowly came to a stand-still on the edge of the primeval
+forest.
+
+Lee jumped to the ground and aided me with my rifle and pack, and then
+the train began to back away along a curved side-track which, Lee
+said, led to the mica-pit and company stores.
+
+"Now what will you do?" he asked, pleasantly. "I can give you a good
+dinner and a decent bed to-night if you like--and I'm sure Mrs. Lee
+would be very glad to have you stop with us as long as you choose."
+
+I thanked him, but said that I was anxious to reach Halyard's before
+dark, and he very kindly led me along the cliffs and pointed out the
+path.
+
+"This man Halyard," he said, "is an invalid. He lives at a cove called
+Black Harbor, and all his truck goes through to him over the company's
+road. We receive it here, and send a pack-mule through once a month.
+I've met him; he's a bad-tempered hypochondriac, a cynic at heart, and
+a man whose word is never doubted. If he says he has a great auk, you
+may be satisfied he has."
+
+My heart was beating with excitement at the prospect; I looked out
+across the wooded headlands and tangled stretches of dune and hollow,
+trying to realize what it might mean to me, to Professor Farrago, to
+the world, if I should lead back to New York a live auk.
+
+"He's a crank," said Lee; "frankly, I don't like him. If you find it
+unpleasant there, come back to us."
+
+"Does Halyard live alone?" I asked.
+
+"Yes--except for a professional trained nurse--poor thing!"
+
+"A man?"
+
+"No," said Lee, disgustedly.
+
+Presently he gave me a peculiar glance; hesitated, and finally said:
+"Ask Halyard to tell you about his nurse and--the harbor-master.
+Good-bye--I'm due at the quarry. Come and stay with us whenever you
+care to; you will find a welcome at Port-of-Waves."
+
+We shook hands and parted on the cliff, he turning back into the
+forest along the railway, I starting northward, pack slung, rifle over
+my shoulder. Once I met a group of quarrymen, faces burned brick-red,
+scarred hands swinging as they walked. And, as I passed them with a
+nod, turning, I saw that they also had turned to look after me, and I
+caught a word or two of their conversation, whirled back to me on the
+sea-wind.
+
+They were speaking of the harbor-master.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Towards sunset I came out on a sheer granite cliff where the sea-birds
+were whirling and clamoring, and the great breakers dashed, rolling in
+double-thundered reverberations on the sun-dyed, crimson sands below
+the rock.
+
+Across the half-moon of beach towered another cliff, and, behind this,
+I saw a column of smoke rising in the still air. It certainly came
+from Halyard's chimney, although the opposite cliff prevented me from
+seeing the house itself.
+
+I rested a moment to refill my pipe, then resumed rifle and pack, and
+cautiously started to skirt the cliffs. I had descended half-way
+towards the beech, and was examining the cliff opposite, when
+something on the very top of the rock arrested my attention--a man
+darkly outlined against the sky. The next moment, however, I knew it
+could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of
+the cliff and slid down the sheer, smooth lace like a lizard. Before I
+could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf--or, at
+least, it seemed to--but the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so
+unexpectedly, that I was not sure I had seen anything at all.
+
+However, I was curious enough to climb the cliff on the land side and
+make my way towards the spot where I imagined I saw the man. Of
+course, there was nothing there--not a trace of a human being, I mean.
+Something _had_ been there--a sea-otter, possibly--for the remains of
+a freshly killed fish lay on the rock, eaten to the back-bone and
+tail.
+
+The next moment, below me, I saw the house, a freshly painted, trim,
+flimsy structure, modern, and very much out of harmony with the
+splendid savagery surrounding it. It struck a nasty, cheap note in the
+noble, gray monotony of headland and sea.
+
+The descent was easy enough. I crossed the crescent beach, hard as
+pink marble, and found a little trodden path among the rocks, that led
+to the front porch of the house.
+
+There were two people on the porch--I heard their voices before I saw
+them--and when I set my foot upon the wooden steps, I saw one of them,
+a woman, rise from her chair and step hastily towards me.
+
+"Come back!" cried the other, a man with a smooth-shaven, deeply lined
+face, and a pair of angry, blue eyes; and the woman stepped back
+quietly, acknowledging my lifted hat with a silent inclination.
+
+The man, who was reclining in an invalid's rolling-chair, clapped both
+large, pale hands to the wheels and pushed himself out along the
+porch. He had shawls pinned about him, an untidy, drab-colored hat on
+his head, and, when he looked down at me, he scowled.
+
+"I know who you are," he said, in his acid voice; "you're one of the
+Zoological men from Bronx Park. You look like it, anyway."
+
+"It is easy to recognize you from your reputation," I replied,
+irritated at his discourtesy.
+
+"Really," he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh, "I'm
+obliged for your frankness. You're after my great auks, are you not?"
+
+"Nothing else would have tempted me into this place," I replied,
+sincerely.
+
+"Thank Heaven for that," he said. "Sit down a moment; you've
+interrupted us." Then, turning to the young woman, who wore the neat
+gown and tiny cap of a professional nurse, he bade her resume what she
+had been saying. She did so, with deprecating glance at me, which made
+the old man sneer again.
+
+"It happened so suddenly," she said, in her low voice, "that I had no
+chance to get back. The boat was drifting in the cove; I sat in the
+stern, reading, both oars shipped, and the tiller swinging. Then I
+heard a scratching under the boat, but thought it might be
+sea-weed--and, next moment, came those soft thumpings, like the sound
+of a big fish rubbing its nose against a float."
+
+Halyard clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl in
+grim displeasure.
+
+"Didn't you know enough to be frightened?" he demanded.
+
+"No--not then," she said, coloring faintly; "but when, after a few
+moments, I looked up and saw the harbor-master running up and down the
+beach, I was horribly frightened."
+
+"Really?" said Halyard, sarcastically; "it was about time." Then,
+turning to me, he rasped out: "And that young lady was obliged to row
+all the way to Port-of-Waves and call to Lee's quarrymen to take her
+boat in."
+
+Completely mystified, I looked from Halyard to the girl, not in the
+least comprehending what all this meant.
+
+"That will do," said Halyard, ungraciously, which curt phrase was
+apparently the usual dismissal for the nurse.
+
+She rose, and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, stepping
+noiselessly into the house.
+
+"I want beef-tea!" bawled Halyard after her; then he gave me an
+unamiable glance.
+
+"I was a well-bred man," he sneered; "I'm a Harvard graduate, too, but
+I live as I like, and I do what I like, and I say what I like."
+
+"You certainly are not reticent," I said, disgusted.
+
+"Why should I be?" he rasped; "I pay that young woman for my
+irritability; it's a bargain between us."
+
+"In your domestic affairs," I said, "there is nothing that interests
+me. I came to see those auks."
+
+"You probably believe them to be razor-billed auks," he said,
+contemptuously. "But they're not; they're great auks."
+
+I suggested that he permit me to examine them, and he replied,
+indifferently, that they were in a pen in his backyard, and that I was
+free to step around the house when I cared to.
+
+I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda, and hastened off with mixed
+emotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in his
+senses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, I
+argued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin to
+a penguin in that pen.
+
+I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupor of amazement when I
+came to the wire-covered enclosure. Not only were there two great
+auks in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on their
+sea-weed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two newly
+hatched chicks, all bill and feet, which nestled sedately at the edge
+of a puddle of salt-water, where some small fish were swimming.
+
+For a while excitement blinded, nay, deafened me. I tried to realize
+that I was gazing upon the last individuals of an all but extinct
+race--the sole survivors of the gigantic auk, which, for thirty years,
+has been accounted an extinct creature.
+
+I believe that I did not move muscle nor limb until the sun had gone
+down and the crowding darkness blurred my straining eyes and blotted
+the great, silent, bright-eyed birds from sight.
+
+Even then I could not tear myself away from the enclosure; I listened
+to the strange, drowsy note of the male bird, the fainter responses of
+the female, the thin plaints of the chicks, huddling under her breast;
+I heard their flipper-like, embryotic wings beating sleepily as the
+birds stretched and yawned their beaks and clacked them, preparing for
+slumber.
+
+"If you please," came a soft voice from the door, "Mr. Halyard awaits
+your company to dinner."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I dined well--or, rather, I might have enjoyed my dinner if Mr.
+Halyard had been eliminated; and the feast consisted exclusively of a
+joint of beef, the pretty nurse, and myself. She was exceedingly
+attractive--with a disturbing fashion of lowering her head and raising
+her dark eyes when spoken to.
+
+As for Halyard, he was unspeakable, bundled up in his snuffy shawls,
+and making uncouth noises over his gruel. But it is only just to say
+that his table was worth sitting down to and his wine was sound as a
+bell.
+
+"Yah!" he snapped, "I'm sick of this cursed soup--and I'll trouble you
+to fill my glass--"
+
+"It is dangerous for you to touch claret," said the pretty nurse.
+
+"I might as well die at dinner as anywhere," he observed.
+
+"Certainly," said I, cheerfully passing the decanter, but he did not
+appear overpleased with the attention.
+
+"I can't smoke, either," he snarled, hitching the shawls around until
+he looked like Richard the Third.
+
+However, he was good enough to shove a box of cigars at me, and I took
+one and stood up, as the pretty nurse slipped past and vanished into
+the little parlor beyond.
+
+We sat there for a while without speaking. He picked irritably at the
+bread-crumbs on the cloth, never glancing in my direction; and I,
+tired from my long foot-tour, lay back in my chair, silently
+appreciating one of the best cigars I ever smoked.
+
+"Well," he rasped out at length, "what do you think of my auks--and my
+veracity?"
+
+I told him that both were unimpeachable.
+
+"Didn't they call me a swindler down there at your museum?" he
+demanded.
+
+I admitted that I had heard the term applied. Then I made a clean
+breast of the matter, telling him that it was I who had doubted; that
+my chief, Professor Farrago, had sent me against my will, and that I
+was ready and glad to admit that he, Mr. Halyard, was a benefactor of
+the human race.
+
+"Bosh!" he said. "What good does a confounded wobbly, bandy-toed bird
+do to the human race?"
+
+But he was pleased, nevertheless; and presently he asked me, not
+unamiably, to punish his claret again.
+
+"I'm done for," he said; "good things to eat and drink are no good to
+me. Some day I'll get mad enough to have a fit, and then--"
+
+He paused to yawn.
+
+"Then," he continued, "that little nurse of mine will drink up my
+claret and go back to civilization, where people are polite."
+
+Somehow or other, in spite of the fact that Halyard was an old pig,
+what he said touched me. There was certainly not much left in life for
+him--as he regarded life.
+
+"I'm going to leave her this house," he said, arranging his shawls.
+"She doesn't know it. I'm going to leave her my money, too. She
+doesn't know that. Good Lord! What kind of a woman can she be to stand
+my bad temper for a few dollars a month!"
+
+"I think," said I, "that it's partly because she's poor, partly
+because she's sorry for you."
+
+He looked up with a ghastly smile.
+
+"You think she really is sorry?"
+
+Before I could answer he went on: "I'm no mawkish sentimentalist, and
+I won't allow anybody to be sorry for me--do you hear?"
+
+"Oh, I'm not sorry for you!" I said, hastily, and, for the first time
+since I had seen him, he laughed heartily, without a sneer.
+
+We both seemed to feel better after that; I drank his wine and smoked
+his cigars, and he appeared to take a certain grim pleasure in
+watching me.
+
+"There's no fool like a young fool," he observed, presently.
+
+As I had no doubt he referred to me, I paid him no attention.
+
+After fidgeting with his shawls, he gave me an oblique scowl and asked
+me my age.
+
+"Twenty-four," I replied.
+
+"Sort of a tadpole, aren't you?" he said.
+
+As I took no offence, he repeated the remark.
+
+"Oh, come," said I, "there's no use in trying to irritate me. I see
+through you; a row acts like a cocktail on you--but you'll have to
+stick to gruel in my company."
+
+"I call that impudence!" he rasped out, wrathfully.
+
+"I don't care what you call it," I replied, undisturbed, "I am not
+going to be worried by you. Anyway," I ended, "it is my opinion that
+you could be very good company if you chose."
+
+The proposition appeared to take his breath away--at least, he said
+nothing more; and I finished my cigar in peace and tossed the stump
+into a saucer.
+
+"Now," said I, "what price do you set upon your birds, Mr. Halyard?"
+
+"Ten thousand dollars," he snapped, with an evil smile.
+
+"You will receive a certified check when the birds are delivered," I
+said, quietly.
+
+"You don't mean to say you agree to that outrageous bargain--and I
+won't take a cent less, either--Good Lord!--haven't you any spirit
+left?" he cried, half rising from his pile of shawls.
+
+His piteous eagerness for a dispute sent me into laughter impossible
+to control, and he eyed me, mouth open, animosity rising visibly.
+
+Then he seized the wheels of his invalid chair and trundled away, too
+mad to speak; and I strolled out into the parlor, still laughing.
+
+The pretty nurse was there, sewing under a hanging lamp.
+
+"If I am not indiscreet--" I began.
+
+"Indiscretion is the better part of valor," said she, dropping her
+head but raising her eyes.
+
+So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated.
+
+"Doubtless," said I, "you are hemming a 'kerchief."
+
+"Doubtless I am not," she said; "this is a night-cap for Mr.
+Halyard."
+
+A mental vision of Halyard in a night-cap, very mad, nearly set me
+laughing again.
+
+"Like the King of Yvetot, he wears his crown in bed," I said,
+flippantly.
+
+"The King of Yvetot might have made that remark," she observed,
+re-threading her needle.
+
+It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man's
+ears feel.
+
+To cool them, I strolled out to the porch; and, after a while, the
+pretty nurse came out, too, and sat down in a chair not far away. She
+probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with.
+
+"I have so little company--it is a great relief to see somebody from
+the world," she said. "If you can be agreeable, I wish you would."
+
+The idea that she had come out to see me was so agreeable that I
+remained speechless until she said: "Do tell me what people are doing
+in New York."
+
+So I seated myself on the steps and talked about the portion of the
+world inhabited by me, while she sat sewing in the dull light that
+straggled out from the parlor windows.
+
+She had a certain coquetry of her own, using the usual methods with an
+individuality that was certainly fetching. For instance, when she lost
+her needle--and, another time, when we both, on hands and knees,
+hunted for her thimble.
+
+However, directions for these pastimes may be found in contemporary
+classics.
+
+I was as entertaining as I could be--perhaps not quite as entertaining
+as a young man usually thinks he is. However, we got on very well
+together until I asked her tenderly who the harbor-master might be,
+whom they all discussed so mysteriously.
+
+"I do not care to speak about it," she said, with a primness of which
+I had not suspected her capable.
+
+Of course I could scarcely pursue the subject after that--and, indeed,
+I did not intend to--so I began to tell her how I fancied I had seen a
+man on the cliff that afternoon, and how the creature slid over the
+sheer rock like a snake.
+
+To my amazement, she asked me to kindly discontinue the account of my
+adventures, in an icy tone, which left no room for protest.
+
+"It was only a sea-otter," I tried to explain, thinking perhaps she
+did not care for snake stories.
+
+But the explanation did not appear to interest her, and I was
+mortified to observe that my impression upon her was anything but
+pleasant.
+
+"She doesn't seem to like me and my stories," thought I, "but she is
+too young, perhaps, to appreciate them."
+
+So I forgave her--for she was even prettier than I had thought her at
+first--and I took my leave, saying that Mr. Halyard would doubtless
+direct me to my room.
+
+Halyard was in his library, cleaning a revolver, when I entered.
+
+"Your room is next to mine," he said; "pleasant dreams, and kindly
+refrain from snoring."
+
+"May I venture an absurd hope that you will do the same!" I replied,
+politely.
+
+That maddened him, so I hastily withdrew.
+
+I had been asleep for at least two hours when a movement by my bedside
+and a light in my eyes awakened me. I sat bolt upright in bed,
+blinking at Halyard, who, clad in a dressing-gown and wearing a
+night-cap, had wheeled himself into my room with one hand, while with
+the other he solemnly waved a candle over my head.
+
+"I'm so cursed lonely," he said--"come, there's a good fellow--talk to
+me in your own original, impudent way."
+
+I objected strenuously, but he looked so worn and thin, so lonely and
+bad-tempered, so lovelessly grotesque, that I got out of bed and
+passed a spongeful of cold water over my head.
+
+Then I returned to bed and propped the pillows up for a back-rest,
+ready to quarrel with him if it might bring some little pleasure into
+his morbid existence.
+
+"No," he said, amiably, "I'm too worried to quarrel, but I'm much
+obliged for your kindly offer. I want to tell you something."
+
+"What?" I asked, suspiciously.
+
+"I want to ask you if you ever saw a man with gills like a fish?"
+
+"Gills?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes, gills! Did you?"
+
+"No," I replied, angrily, "and neither did you."
+
+"No, I never did," he said, in a curiously placid voice, "but there's
+a man with gills like a fish who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you
+needn't look that way--nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I
+tell you that there's a man--or a thing that looks like a man--as big
+as you are, too--all slate-colored--with nasty red gills like a
+fish!--and I've a witness to prove what I say!"
+
+"Who?" I asked, sarcastically.
+
+"The witness? My nurse."
+
+"Oh! She saw a slate-colored man with gills?"
+
+"Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Mica Quarry
+Company at Port-of-Waves. So have a dozen men who work in the quarry.
+Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and anybody
+can tell you about the harbor-master."
+
+"The harbor-master!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a
+man--and--by Heaven! _is_ a man--that's the harbor-master. Ask any
+quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their
+boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of
+every cat-boat in the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he
+saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday!
+Ask anybody along the coast what sort of a thing moves about the
+cliffs like a man and slides over them into the sea like an otter--"
+
+"I saw it do that!" I burst out.
+
+"Oh, did you? Well, _what was it?_"
+
+Something kept me silent, although a dozen explanations flew to my
+lips.
+
+After a pause, Halyard said: "You saw the harbor-master, that's what
+you saw!"
+
+I looked at him without a word.
+
+"Don't mistake me," he said, pettishly; "I don't think that the
+harbor-master is a spirit or a sprite or a hobgoblin, or any sort of
+damned rot. Neither do I believe it to be an optical illusion."
+
+"What do you think it is?" I asked.
+
+"I think it's a man--I think it's a branch of the human race--that's
+what I think. Let me tell you something: the deepest spot in the
+Atlantic Ocean is a trifle over five miles deep--and I suppose you
+know that this place lies only about a quarter of a mile off this
+headland. The British exploring vessel, _Gull_, Captain Marotte,
+discovered and sounded it, I believe. Anyway, it's there, and it's my
+belief that the profound depths are inhabited by the remnants of the
+last race of amphibious human beings!"
+
+This was childish; I did not bother to reply.
+
+"Believe it or not, as you will," he said, angrily; "one thing I know,
+and that is this: the harbor-master has taken to hanging around my
+cove, and he is attracted by my nurse! I won't have it! I'll blow his
+fishy gills out of his head if I ever get a shot at him! I don't care
+whether it's homicide or not--anyway, it's a new kind of murder and it
+attracts me!"
+
+I gazed at him incredulously, but he was working himself into a
+passion, and I did not choose to say what I thought.
+
+"Yes, this slate-colored thing with gills goes purring and grinning
+and spitting about after my nurse--when she walks, when she rows, when
+she sits on the beach! Gad! It drives me nearly frantic. I won't
+tolerate it, I tell you!"
+
+"No," said I, "I wouldn't either." And I rolled over in bed convulsed
+with laughter.
+
+The next moment I heard my door slam. I smothered my mirth and rose to
+close the window, for the land-wind blew cold from the forest, and a
+drizzle was sweeping the carpet as far as my bed.
+
+That luminous glare which sometimes lingers after the stars go out,
+threw a trembling, nebulous radiance over sand and cove. I heard the
+seething currents under the breakers' softened thunder--louder than I
+ever heard it. Then, as I closed my window, lingering for a last look
+at the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle-deep, in the surf,
+all alone there in the night. But--was it a man? For the figure
+suddenly began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle,
+waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window
+again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the
+chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the
+coast--I heard nothing save the purring of bubbles on seething sands.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+It took me a week to perfect my arrangements for transporting the
+great auks, by water, to Port-of-Waves, where a lumber schooner was to
+be sent from Petite Sainte Isole, chartered by me for a voyage to New
+York.
+
+I had constructed a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to
+squat until they arrived at Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor
+Farrago were brief. One merely said "Victory!" Another explained that
+I wanted no assistance; and a third read: "Schooner chartered. Arrive
+New York July 1st. Send furniture-van to foot of Bluff Street."
+
+My week as a guest of Mr. Halyard proved interesting. I wrangled with
+that invalid to his heart's content, I worked all day on my osier
+cage, I hunted the thimble in the moonlight with the pretty nurse. We
+sometimes found it.
+
+As for the thing they called the harbor-master, I saw it a dozen
+times, but always either at night or so far away and so close to the
+sea that of course no trace of it remained when I reached the spot,
+rifle in hand.
+
+I had quite made up my mind that the so-called harbor-master was a
+demented darky--wandered from, Heaven knows where--perhaps shipwrecked
+and gone mad from his sufferings. Still, it was far from pleasant to
+know that the creature was strongly attracted by the pretty nurse.
+
+She, however, persisted in regarding the harbor-master as a
+sea-creature; she earnestly affirmed that it had gills, like a fish's
+gills, that it had a soft, fleshy hole for a mouth, and its eyes were
+luminous and lidless and fixed.
+
+"Besides," she said, with a shudder, "it's all slate color, like a
+porpoise, and it looks as wet as a sheet of india-rubber in a
+dissecting-room."
+
+The day before I was to set sail with my auks in a cat-boat bound for
+Port-of-Waves, Halyard trundled up to me in his chair and announced
+his intention of going with me.
+
+"Going where?" I asked.
+
+"To Port-of-Waves and then to New York," he replied, tranquilly.
+
+I was doubtful, and my lack of cordiality hurt his feelings.
+
+"Oh, of course, if you need the sea-voyage--" I began.
+
+"I don't; I need you," he said, savagely; "I need the stimulus of our
+daily quarrel. I never disagreed so pleasantly with anybody in my
+life; it agrees with me; I am a hundred per cent. better than I was
+last week."
+
+I was inclined to resent this, but something in the deep-lined face of
+the invalid softened me. Besides, I had taken a hearty liking to the
+old pig.
+
+"I don't want any mawkish sentiment about it," he said, observing me
+closely; "I won't permit anybody to feel sorry for me--do you
+understand?"
+
+"I'll trouble you to use a different tone in addressing me," I
+replied, hotly; "I'll feel sorry for you if I choose to!" And our
+usual quarrel proceeded, to his deep satisfaction.
+
+By six o'clock next evening I had Halyard's luggage stowed away in the
+cat-boat, and the pretty nurse's effects corded down, with the newly
+hatched auk-chicks in a hat-box on top. She and I placed the osier
+cage aboard, securing it firmly, and then, throwing tablecloths over
+the auks' heads, we led those simple and dignified birds down the path
+and across the plank at the little wooden pier. Together we locked up
+the house, while Halyard stormed at us both and wheeled himself
+furiously up and down the beach below. At the last moment she forgot
+her thimble. But we found it, I forget where.
+
+"Come on!" shouted Halyard, waving his shawls furiously; "what the
+devil are you about up there?"
+
+He received our explanation with a sniff, and we trundled him aboard
+without further ceremony.
+
+"Don't run me across the plank like a steamer trunk!" he shouted, as I
+shot him dexterously into the cock-pit. But the wind was dying away,
+and I had no time to dispute with him then.
+
+The sun was setting above the pine-clad ridge as our sail flapped and
+partly filled, and I cast off, and began a long tack, east by south,
+to avoid the spouting rocks on our starboard bow.
+
+The sea-birds rose in clouds as we swung across the shoal, the black
+surf-ducks scuttered out to sea, the gulls tossed their sun-tipped
+wings in the ocean, riding the rollers like bits of froth.
+
+Already we were sailing slowly out across that great hole in the
+ocean, five miles deep, the most profound sounding ever taken in the
+Atlantic. The presence of great heights or great depths, seen or
+unseen, always impresses the human mind--perhaps oppresses it. We were
+very silent; the sunlight stain on cliff and beach deepened to
+crimson, then faded into sombre purple bloom that lingered long after
+the rose-tint died out in the zenith.
+
+Our progress was slow; at times, although the sail filled with the
+rising land breeze, we scarcely seemed to move at all.
+
+"Of course," said the pretty nurse, "we couldn't be aground in the
+deepest hole in the Atlantic."
+
+"Scarcely," said Halyard, sarcastically, "unless we're grounded on a
+whale."
+
+"What's that soft thumping?" I asked. "Have we run afoul of a barrel
+or log?"
+
+It was almost too dark to see, but I leaned over the rail and swept
+the water with my hand.
+
+Instantly something smooth glided under it, like the back of a great
+fish, and I jerked my hand back to the tiller. At the same moment the
+whole surface of the water seemed to begin to purr, with a sound like
+the breaking of froth in a champagne-glass.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" asked Halyard, sharply.
+
+"A fish came up under my hand," I said; "a porpoise or something--"
+
+With a low cry, the pretty nurse clasped my arm in both her hands.
+
+"Listen!" she whispered. "It's purring around the boat."
+
+"What the devil's purring?" shouted Halyard. "I won't have anything
+purring around me!"
+
+At that moment, to my amazement, I saw that the boat had stopped
+entirely, although the sail was full and the small pennant fluttered
+from the mast-head. Something, too, was tugging at the rudder,
+twisting and jerking it until the tiller strained and creaked in my
+hand. All at once it snapped; the tiller swung useless and the boat
+whirled around, heeling in the stiffening wind, and drove shoreward.
+
+It was then that I, ducking to escape the boom, caught a glimpse of
+something ahead--something that a sudden wave seemed to toss on deck
+and leave there, wet and flapping--a man with round, fixed, fishy
+eyes, and soft, slaty skin.
+
+But the horror of the thing were the two gills that swelled and
+relaxed spasmodically, emitting a rasping, purring sound--two gasping,
+blood-red gills, all fluted and scolloped and distended.
+
+Frozen with amazement and repugnance, I stared at the creature; I felt
+the hair stirring on my head and the icy sweat on my forehead.
+
+"It's the harbor-master!" screamed Halyard.
+
+The harbor-master had gathered himself into a wet lump, squatting
+motionless in the bows under the mast; his lidless eyes were
+phosphorescent, like the eyes of living codfish. After a while I felt
+that either fright or disgust was going to strangle me where I sat,
+but it was only the arms of the pretty nurse clasped around me in a
+frenzy of terror.
+
+There was not a fire-arm aboard that we could get at. Halyard's hand
+crept backward where a steel-shod boat-hook lay, and I also made a
+clutch at it. The next moment I had it in my hand, and staggered
+forward, but the boat was already tumbling shoreward among the
+breakers, and the next I knew the harbor-master ran at me like a
+colossal rat, just as the boat rolled over and over through the surf,
+spilling freight and passengers among the sea-weed-covered rocks.
+
+When I came to myself I was thrashing about knee-deep in a rocky pool,
+blinded by the water and half suffocated, while under my feet, like a
+stranded porpoise, the harbor-master made the water boil in his
+efforts to upset me. But his limbs seemed soft and boneless; he had no
+nails, no teeth, and he bounced and thumped and flapped and splashed
+like a fish, while I rained blows on him with the boat-hook that
+sounded like blows on a football. And all the while his gills were
+blowing out and frothing, and purring, and his lidless eyes looked
+into mine, until, nauseated and trembling, I dragged myself back to
+the beach, where already the pretty nurse alternately wrung her hands
+and her petticoats in ornamental despair.
+
+Beyond the cove, Halyard was bobbing up and down, afloat in his
+invalid's chair, trying to steer shoreward. He was the maddest man I
+ever saw.
+
+"Have you killed that rubber-headed thing yet?" he roared.
+
+"I can't kill it," I shouted, breathlessly. "I might as well try to
+kill a football!"
+
+"Can't you punch a hole in it?" he bawled. "If I can only get at
+him--"
+
+His words were drowned in a thunderous splashing, a roar of great,
+broad flippers beating the sea, and I saw the gigantic forms of my two
+great auks, followed by their chicks, blundering past in a shower of
+spray, driving headlong out into the ocean.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" I said. "I can't stand that," and, for the first time in
+my life, I fainted peacefully--and appropriately--at the feet of the
+pretty nurse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is within the range of possibility that this story may be doubted.
+It doesn't matter; nothing can add to the despair of a man who has
+lost two great auks.
+
+As for Halyard, nothing affects him--except his involuntary sea-bath,
+and that did him so much good that he writes me from the South that
+he's going on a walking-tour through Switzerland--if I'll join him. I
+might have joined him if he had not married the pretty nurse. I wonder
+whether--But, of course, this is no place for speculation.
+
+In regard to the harbor-master, you may believe it or not, as you
+choose. But if you hear of any great auks being found, kindly throw a
+table-cloth over their heads and notify the authorities at the new
+Zoological Gardens in Bronx Park, New York. The reward is ten thousand
+dollars.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Before I proceed any further, common decency requires me to reassure
+my readers concerning my intentions, which, Heaven knows, are far from
+flippant.
+
+To separate fact from fancy has always been difficult for me, but now
+that I have had the honor to be chosen secretary of the Zoological
+Gardens in Bronx Park, I realize keenly that unless I give up writing
+fiction nobody will believe what I write about science. Therefore it
+is to a serious and unimaginative public that I shall hereafter
+address myself; and I do it in the modest confidence that I shall
+neither be distrusted nor doubted, although unfortunately I still
+write in that irrational style which suggests covert frivolity, and
+for which I am undergoing a course of treatment in English literature
+at Columbia College. Now, having promised to avoid originality and
+confine myself to facts, I shall tell what I have to tell concerning
+the dingue, the mammoth, and--something else.
+
+For some weeks it had been rumored that Professor Farrago, president
+of the Bronx Park Zoological Society, would resign, to accept an
+enormous salary as manager of Barnum & Bailey's circus. He was now
+with the circus in London, and had promised to cable his decision
+before the day was over.
+
+I hoped he would decide to remain with us. I was his secretary and
+particular favorite, and I viewed, without enthusiasm, the advent of a
+new president, who might shake us all out of our congenial and
+carefully excavated ruts. However, it was plain that the trustees of
+the society expected the resignation of Professor Farrago, for they
+had been in secret session all day, considering the names of possible
+candidates to fill Professor Farrago's large, old-fashioned shoes.
+These preparations worried me, for I could scarcely expect another
+chief as kind and considerate as Professor Leonidas Farrago.
+
+That afternoon in June I left my office in the Administration Building
+in Bronx Park and strolled out under the trees for a breath of air.
+But the heat of the sun soon drove me to seek shelter under a little
+square arbor, a shady retreat covered with purple wistaria and
+honeysuckle. As I entered the arbor I noticed that there were three
+other people seated there--an elderly lady with masculine features and
+short hair, a younger lady sitting beside her, and, farther away, a
+rough-looking young man reading a book.
+
+For a moment I had an indistinct impression of having met the elder
+lady somewhere, and under circumstances not entirely agreeable, but
+beyond a stony and indifferent glance she paid no attention to me. As
+for the younger lady, she did not look at me at all. She was very
+young, with pretty eyes, a mass of silky brown hair, and a skin as
+fresh as a rose which had just been rained on.
+
+With that delicacy peculiar to lonely scientific bachelors, I modestly
+sat down beside the rough young man, although there was more room
+beside the younger lady. "Some lazy loafer reading a penny dreadful,"
+I thought, glancing at him, then at the title of his book. Hearing me
+beside him, he turned around and blinked over his shabby shoulder, and
+the movement uncovered the page he had been silently conning. The
+volume in his hands was Darwin's famous monograph on the monodactyl.
+
+He noticed the astonishment on my face and smiled uneasily, shifting
+the short clay pipe in his mouth.
+
+"I guess," he observed, "that this here book is too much for me,
+mister."
+
+"It's rather technical," I replied, smiling.
+
+"Yes," he said, in vague admiration; "it's fierce, ain't it?"
+
+After a silence I asked him if he would tell me why he had chosen
+Darwin as a literary pastime.
+
+"Well," he said, placidly, "I was tryin' to read about annermals, but
+I'm up against a word-slinger this time all right. Now here's a
+gum-twister," and he painfully spelled out m-o-n-o-d-a-c-t-y-l,
+breathing hard all the while.
+
+"Monodactyl," I said, "means a single-toed creature."
+
+He turned the page with alacrity. "Is that the beast he's talkin'
+about?" he asked.
+
+The illustration he pointed out was a wood-cut representing Darwin's
+reconstruction of the dingue from the fossil bones in the British
+Museum. It was a well-executed wood-cut, showing a dingue in the
+foreground and, to give scale, a mammoth in the middle distance.
+
+"Yes," I replied, "that is the dingue."
+
+"I've seen one," he observed, calmly.
+
+I smiled and explained that the dingue had been extinct for some
+thousands of years.
+
+"Oh, I guess not," he replied, with cool optimism. Then he placed a
+grimy forefinger on the mammoth.
+
+"I've seen them things, too," he remarked.
+
+Again I patiently pointed out his error, and suggested that he
+referred to the elephant.
+
+"Elephant be blowed!" he replied, scornfully. "I guess I know what I
+seen. An' I seen that there thing you call a dingue, too."
+
+Not wishing to prolong a futile discussion, I remained silent. After a
+moment he wheeled around, removing his pipe from his hard mouth.
+
+"Did you ever hear tell of Graham's Glacier?" he demanded.
+
+"Certainly," I replied, astonished; "it's the southernmost glacier in
+British America."
+
+"Right," he said. "And did you ever hear tell of the Hudson Mountings,
+mister?"
+
+"Yes," I replied.
+
+"What's behind 'em?" he snapped out.
+
+"Nobody knows," I answered. "They are considered impassable."
+
+"They ain't, though," he said, doggedly; "I've been behind 'em."
+
+"Really!" I replied, tiring of his yarn.
+
+"Ya-as, reely," he repeated, sullenly. Then he began to fumble and
+search through the pages of his book until he found what he wanted.
+"Mister," he said, "jest read that out loud, please."
+
+The passage he indicated was the famous chapter beginning:
+
+    "Is the mammoth extinct? Is the dingue extinct? Probably. And
+    yet the aborigines of British America maintain the contrary.
+    Probably both the mammoth and the dingue are extinct; but
+    until expeditions have penetrated and explored not only the
+    unknown region in Alaska but also that hidden table-land
+    beyond the Graham Glacier and the Hudson Mountains, it will
+    not be possible to definitely announce the total extinction of
+    either the mammoth or the dingue."
+
+When I had read it, slowly, for his benefit, he brought his hand down
+smartly on one knee and nodded rapidly.
+
+"Mister," he said, "that gent knows a thing or two, and don't you
+forgit it!" Then he demanded, abruptly, how I knew he hadn't been
+behind the Graham Glacier.
+
+I explained.
+
+"Shucks!" he said; "there's a road five miles wide inter that there
+table-land. Mister, I ain't been in New York long; I come inter port a
+week ago on the _Arctic Belle_, whaler. I was in the Hudson range when
+that there Graham Glacier bust up--"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Didn't you know it?" he asked. "Well, mebbe it ain't in the papers,
+but it busted all right--blowed up by a earthquake an' volcano
+combine. An', mister, it was oreful. My, how I did run!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that some convulsion of the earth has
+shattered the Graham Glacier?" I asked.
+
+"Convulsions? Ya-as, an' fits, too," he said, sulkily. "The hull blame
+thing dropped inter a hole. An' say, mister, home an' mother is good
+enough fur me now."
+
+I stared at him stupidly.
+
+"Once," he said, "I ketched pelts fur them sharps at Hudson Bay, like
+any yaller husky, but the things I seen arter that convulsion-fit--the
+_things I seen behind the Hudson Mountings_--don't make me hanker
+arter no life on the pe-rarie wild, lemme tell yer. I may be a Mother
+Carey chicken, but this chicken has got enough."
+
+After a long silence I picked up his book again and pointed at the
+picture of the mammoth.
+
+"What color is it?" I asked.
+
+"Kinder red an' brown," he answered, promptly. "It's woolly, too."
+
+Astounded, I pointed to the dingue.
+
+"One-toed," he said, quickly; "makes a noise like a bell when
+scutterin' about."
+
+Intensely excited, I laid my hand on his arm. "My society will give
+you a thousand dollars," I said, "if you pilot me inside the Hudson
+table-land and show me either a mammoth or a dingue!"
+
+He looked me calmly in the eye.
+
+"Mister," he said, slowly, "have you got a million for to squander on
+me?"
+
+"No," I said, suspiciously.
+
+"Because," he went on, "it wouldn't be enough. Home an' mother suits
+me now."
+
+He picked up his book and rose. In vain I asked his name and address;
+in vain I begged him to dine with me--to become my honored guest.
+
+"Nit," he said, shortly, and shambled off down the path.
+
+But I was not going to lose him like that. I rose and deliberately
+started to stalk him. It was easy. He shuffled along, pulling on his
+pipe, and I after him.
+
+It was growing a little dark, although the sun still reddened the tops
+of the maples. Afraid of losing him in the falling dusk, I once more
+approached him and laid my hand upon his ragged sleeve.
+
+"Look here," he cried, wheeling about, "I want you to quit follerin'
+me. Don't I tell you money can't make me go back to them mountings!"
+And as I attempted to speak, he suddenly tore off his cap and pointed
+to his head. His hair was white as snow.
+
+"That's what come of monkeyin' inter your cursed mountings," he
+shouted, fiercely. "There's things in there what no Christian oughter
+see. Lemme alone er I'll bust yer."
+
+He shambled on, doubled fists swinging by his side. The next moment,
+setting my teeth obstinately, I followed him and caught him by the
+park gate. At my hail he whirled around with a snarl, but I grabbed
+him by the throat and backed him violently against the park wall.
+
+"You invaluable ruffian," I said, "now you listen to me. I live in
+that big stone building, and I'll give you a thousand dollars to take
+me behind the Graham Glacier. Think it over and call on me when you
+are in a pleasanter frame of mind. If you don't come by noon to-morrow
+I'll go to the Graham Glacier without you."
+
+He was attempting to kick me all the time, but I managed to avoid him,
+and when I had finished I gave him a shove which almost loosened his
+spinal column. He went reeling out across the sidewalk, and when he
+had recovered his breath and his balance he danced with displeasure
+and displayed a vocabulary that astonished me. However, he kept his
+distance.
+
+As I turned back into the park, satisfied that he would not follow,
+the first person I saw was the elderly, stony-faced lady of the
+wistaria arbor advancing on tiptoe. Behind her came the younger lady
+with cheeks like a rose that had been rained on.
+
+Instantly it occurred to me that they had followed us, and at the same
+moment I knew who the stony-faced lady was. Angry, but polite, I
+lifted my hat and saluted her, and she, probably furious at having
+been caught tip-toeing after me, cut me dead. The younger lady passed
+me with face averted, but even in the dusk I could see the tip of one
+little ear turn scarlet.
+
+Walking on hurriedly, I entered the Administration Building, and found
+Professor Lesard, of the reptilian department, preparing to leave.
+
+"Don't you do it," I said, sharply; "I've got exciting news."
+
+"I'm only going to the theatre," he replied. "It's a good show--Adam
+and Eve; there's a snake in it, you know. It's in my line."
+
+"I can't help it," I said; and I told him briefly what had occurred in
+the arbor.
+
+"But that's not all," I continued, savagely. "Those women followed us,
+and who do you think one of them turned out to be? Well, it was
+Professor Smawl, of Barnard College, and I'll bet every pair of boots
+I own that she starts for the Graham Glacier within a week. Idiot that
+I was!" I exclaimed, smiting my head with both hands. "I never
+recognized her until I saw her tip-toeing and craning her neck to
+listen. Now she knows about the glacier; she heard every word that
+young ruffian said, and she'll go to the glacier if it's only to
+forestall me."
+
+Professor Lesard looked anxious. He knew that Miss Smawl, professor of
+natural history at Barnard College, had long desired an appointment
+at the Bronx Park gardens. It was even said she had a chance of
+succeeding Professor Farrago as president, but that, of course, must
+have been a joke. However, she haunted the gardens, annoying the
+keepers by persistently poking the animals with her umbrella. On one
+occasion she sent us word that she desired to enter the tigers'
+enclosure for the purpose of making experiments in hypnotism.
+Professor Farrago was absent, but I took it upon myself to send back
+word that I feared the tigers might injure her. The miserable small
+boy who took my message informed her that I was afraid she might
+injure the tigers, and the unpleasant incident almost cost me my
+position.
+
+"I am quite convinced," said I to Professor Lesard, "that Miss Smawl
+is perfectly capable of abusing the information she overheard, and of
+starting herself to explore a region that, by all the laws of decency,
+justice, and prior claim, belongs to me."
+
+"Well," said Lesard, with a peculiar laugh, "it's not certain whether
+you can go at all."
+
+"Professor Farrago will authorize me," I said, confidently.
+
+"Professor Farrago has resigned," said Lesard. It was a bolt from a
+clear sky.
+
+"Good Heavens!" I blurted out. "What will become of the rest of us,
+then?"
+
+"I don't know," he replied. "The trustees are holding a meeting over
+in the Administration Building to elect a new president for us. It
+depends on the new president what becomes of us."
+
+"Lesard," I said, hoarsely, "you don't suppose that they could
+possibly elect Miss Smawl as our president, do you?"
+
+He looked at me askance and bit his cigar.
+
+"I'd be in a nice position, wouldn't I?" said I, anxiously.
+
+"The lady would probably make you walk the plank for that tiger
+business," he replied.
+
+"But I didn't do it," I protested, with sickly eagerness. "Besides, I
+explained to her--"
+
+He said nothing, and I stared at him, appalled by the possibility of
+reporting to Professor Smawl for instructions next morning.
+
+"See here, Lesard," I said, nervously, "I wish you would step over to
+the Administration Building and ask the trustees if I may prepare for
+this expedition. Will you?"
+
+He glanced at me sympathetically. It was quite natural for me to wish
+to secure my position before the new president was elected--especially
+as there was a chance of the new president being Miss Smawl.
+
+"You are quite right," he said; "the Graham Glacier would be the
+safest place for you if our next president is to be the Lady of the
+Tigers." And he started across the park puffing his cigar.
+
+I sat down on the doorstep to wait for his return, not at all charmed
+with the prospect. It made me furious, too, to see my ambition nipped
+with the frost of a possible veto from Miss Smawl.
+
+"If she is elected," thought I, "there is nothing for me but to
+resign--to avoid the inconvenience of being shown the door. Oh, I wish
+I had allowed her to hypnotize the tigers!"
+
+Thoughts of crime flitted through my mind. Miss Smawl would not remain
+president--or anything else very long--if she persisted in her desire
+for the tigers. And then when she called for help I would pretend not
+to hear.
+
+Aroused from criminal meditation by the return of Professor Lesard, I
+jumped up and peered into his perplexed eyes. "They've elected a
+president," he said, "but they won't tell us who the president is
+until to-morrow."
+
+"You don't think--" I stammered.
+
+"I don't know. But I know this: the new president sanctions the
+expedition to the Graham Glacier, and directs you to choose an
+assistant and begin preparations for four people."
+
+Overjoyed, I seized his hand and said, "Hurray!" in a voice weak with
+emotion. "The old dragon isn't elected this time," I added,
+triumphantly.
+
+"By-the-way," he said, "who was the other dragon with her in the park
+this evening?"
+
+I described her in a more modulated voice.
+
+"Whew!" observed Professor Lesard, "that must be her assistant,
+Professor Dorothy Van Twiller! She's the prettiest blue-stocking in
+town."
+
+With this curious remark my confrere followed me into my room and
+wrote down the list of articles I dictated to him. The list included a
+complete camping equipment for myself and three other men.
+
+"Am I one of those other men?" inquired Lesard, with an unhappy smile.
+
+Before I could reply my door was shoved open and a figure appeared at
+the threshold, cap in hand.
+
+"What do you want?" I asked, sternly; but my heart was beating high
+with triumph.
+
+The figure shuffled; then came a subdued voice:
+
+"Mister, I guess I'll go back to the Graham Glacier along with you.
+I'm Billy Spike, an' it kinder scares me to go back to them Hudson
+Mountains, but somehow, mister, when you choked me and kinder walked
+me off on my ear, why, mister, I kinder took to you like."
+
+There was absolute silence for a minute; then he said:
+
+"So if you go, I guess I'll go, too, mister."
+
+"For a thousand dollars?"
+
+"Fur nawthin'," he muttered--"or what you like."
+
+"All right, Billy," I said, briskly; "just look over those rifles and
+ammunition and see that everything's sound."
+
+He slowly lifted his tough young face and gave me a doglike glance.
+They were hard eyes, but there was gratitude in them.
+
+"You'll get your throat slit," whispered Lesard.
+
+"Not while Billy's with me," I replied, cheerfully.
+
+Late that night, as I was preparing for pleasant dreams, a knock came
+on my door and a telegraph-messenger handed me a note, which I read,
+shivering in my bare feet, although the thermometer marked eighty
+Fahrenheit:
+
+    "You will immediately leave for the Hudson Mountains via
+    Wellman Bay, Labrador, there to await further instructions.
+    Equipment for yourself and one assistant will include
+    following articles" [here began a list of camping utensils,
+    scientific paraphernalia, and provisions]. "The steamer
+    _Penguin_ sails at five o'clock to-morrow morning. Kindly find
+    yourself on board at that hour. Any excuse for not complying
+    with these orders will be accepted as your resignation.
+
+                "SUSAN SMAWL,
+             "President Bronx Zoological Society."
+
+"Lesard!" I shouted, trembling with fury.
+
+He appeared at his door, chastely draped in pajamas; and he read the
+insolent letter with terrified alacrity.
+
+"What are you going to do--resign?" he asked, much frightened.
+
+"Do!" I snarled, grinding my teeth; "I'm going--that's what I'm going
+to do!"
+
+"But--but you can't get ready and catch that steamer, too," he
+stammered.
+
+He did not know me.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+And so it came about that one calm evening towards the end of June,
+William Spike and I went into camp under the southerly shelter of that
+vast granite wall called the Hudson Mountains, there to await the
+promised "further instructions."
+
+It had been a tiresome trip by steamer to Anticosti, from there by
+schooner to Widgeon Bay, then down the coast and up the Cape Clear
+River to Port Porpoise. There we bought three pack-mules and started
+due north on the Great Fur Trail. The second day out we passed Fort
+Boise, the last outpost of civilization, and on the sixth day we were
+travelling eastward under the granite mountain parapets.
+
+On the evening of the sixth day out from Fort Boise we went into camp
+for the last time before entering the unknown land.
+
+I could see it already through my field-glasses, and while William was
+building the fire I climbed up among the rocks above and sat down,
+glasses levelled, to study the prospect.
+
+There was nothing either extraordinary or forbidding in the landscape
+which stretched out beyond; to the right the solid palisade of granite
+cut off the view; to the left the palisade continued, an endless
+barrier of sheer cliffs crowned with pine and hemlock. But the
+interesting section of the landscape lay almost directly in front of
+me--a rent in the mountain-wall through which appeared to run a level,
+arid plain, miles wide, and as smooth and even as a highroad.
+
+There could be no doubt concerning the significance of that rent in
+the solid mountain-wall; and, moreover, it was exactly as William
+Spike had described it. However, I called to him and he came up from
+the smoky camp-fire, axe on shoulder.
+
+"Yep," he said, squatting beside me; "the Graham Glacier used to
+meander through that there hole, but somethin' went wrong with the
+earth's in'ards an' there was a bust-up."
+
+"And you saw it, William?" I said, with a sigh of envy.
+
+"Hey? Seen it? Sure I seen it! I was to Spoutin' Springs, twenty mile
+west, with a bale o' blue fox an' otter pelt. Fust I knew them geysers
+begun for to groan egregious like, an' I seen the caribou gallopin'
+hell-bent south. 'This climate,' sez I, 'is too bracin' for me,' so I
+struck a back trail an' landed onto a hill. Then them geysers blowed
+up, one arter the next, an' I heard somethin' kinder cave in between
+here an' China. I disremember things what happened. Somethin' throwed
+me down, but I couldn't stay there, for the blamed ground was runnin'
+like a river--all wavy-like, an' the sky hit me on the back o' me
+head."
+
+"And then?" I urged, in that new excitement which every repetition of
+the story revived. I had heard it all twenty times since we left New
+York, but mere repetition could not apparently satisfy me.
+
+"Then," continued William, "the whole world kinder went off like a
+fire-cracker, an' I come too, an' ran like--"
+
+"I know," said I, cutting him short, for I had become wearied of the
+invariable profanity which lent a lurid ending to his narrative.
+
+"After that," I continued, "you went through the rent in the
+mountains?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"And you saw a dingue and a creature that resembled a mammoth?"
+
+"Sure," he repeated, sulkily.
+
+"And you saw something else?" I always asked this question; it
+fascinated me to see the sullen fright flicker in William's eyes, and
+the mechanical backward glance, as though what he had seen might still
+be behind him.
+
+He had never answered this third question but once, and that time he
+fairly snarled in my face as he growled: "I seen what no Christian
+oughter see."
+
+So when I repeated: "And you saw something else, William?" he gave me
+a wicked, frightened leer, and shuffled off to feed the mules.
+Flattery, entreaties, threats left him unmoved; he never told me what
+the third thing was that he had seen behind the Hudson Mountains.
+
+William had retired to mix up with his mules; I resumed my binoculars
+and my silent inspection of the great, smooth path left by the Graham
+Glacier when something or other exploded that vast mass of ice into
+vapor.
+
+The arid plain wound out from the unknown country like a river, and I
+thought then, and think now, that when the glacier was blown into
+vapor the vapor descended in the most terrific rain the world has ever
+seen, and poured through the newly blasted mountain-gateway, sweeping
+the earth to bed-rock. To corroborate this theory, miles to the
+southward I could see the debris winding out across the land towards
+Wellman Bay, but as the terminal moraine of the vanished glacier
+formerly ended there I could not be certain that my theory was
+correct. Owing to the formation of the mountains I could not see more
+than half a mile into the unknown country. What I could see appeared
+to be nothing but the continuation of the glacier's path, scored out
+by the cloud-burst, and swept as smooth as a floor.
+
+Sitting there, my heart beating heavily with excitement, I looked
+through the evening glow at the endless, pine-crowned mountain-wall
+with its giant's gateway pierced for me! And I thought of all the
+explorers and the unknown heroes--trappers, Indians, humble
+naturalists, perhaps--who had attempted to scale that sheer barricade
+and had died there or failed, beaten back from those eternal cliffs.
+Eternal? No! For the Eternal Himself had struck the rock, and it had
+sprung asunder, thundering obedience.
+
+In the still evening air the smoke from the fire below mounted in a
+straight, slender pillar, like the smoke from those ancient altars
+builded before the first blood had been shed on earth.
+
+The evening wind stirred the pines; a tiny spring brook made thin
+harmony among the rocks; a murmur came from the quiet camp. It was
+William adjuring his mules. In the deepening twilight I descended the
+hillock, stepping cautiously among the rocks.
+
+Then, suddenly, as I stood outside the reddening ring of firelight,
+far in the depths of the unknown country, far behind the
+mountain-wall, a sound grew on the quiet air. William heard it and
+turned his face to the mountains. The sound faded to a vibration which
+was felt, not heard. Then once more I began to divine a vibration in
+the air, gathering in distant volume until it became a sound, lasting
+the space of a spoken word, fading to vibration, then silence.
+
+Was it a cry?
+
+I looked at William inquiringly. He had quietly fainted away.
+
+I got him to the little brook and poked his head into the icy water,
+and after a while he sat up pluckily.
+
+To an indignant question he replied: "Naw, I ain't a-cussin' you.
+Lemme be or I'll have fits."
+
+"Was it that sound that scared you?" I asked.
+
+"Ya-as," he replied with a dauntless shiver.
+
+"Was it the voice of the mammoth?" I persisted, excitedly. "Speak,
+William, or I'll drag you about and kick you!"
+
+He replied that it was neither a mammoth nor a dingue, and added a
+strong request for privacy, which I was obliged to grant, as I could
+not torture another word out of him.
+
+I slept little that night; the exciting proximity of the unknown land
+was too much for me. But although I lay awake for hours, I heard
+nothing except the tinkle of water among the rocks and the plover
+calling from some hidden marsh. At daybreak I shot a ptarmigan which
+had walked into camp, and the shot set the echoes yelling among the
+mountains.
+
+William, sullen and heavy-eyed, dressed the bird, and we broiled it
+for breakfast.
+
+Neither he nor I alluded to the sound we had heard the night before;
+he boiled water and cleaned up the mess-kit, and I pottered about
+among the rocks for another ptarmigan. Wearying of this, presently, I
+returned to the mules and William, and sat down for a smoke.
+
+"It strikes me," I said, "that our instructions to 'await further
+orders' are idiotic. How are we to receive 'further orders' here?"
+
+William did not know.
+
+"You don't suppose," said I, in sudden disgust, "that Miss Smawl
+believes there is a summer hotel and daily mail service in the Hudson
+Mountains?"
+
+William thought perhaps she did suppose something of the sort.
+
+It irritated me beyond measure to find myself at last on the very
+border of the unknown country, and yet checked, held back, by the
+irresponsible orders of a maiden lady named Smawl. However, my salary
+depended upon the whim of that maiden lady, and although I fussed and
+fumed and glared at the mountains through my glasses, I realized that
+I could not stir without the permission of Miss Smawl. At times this
+grotesque situation became almost unbearable, and I often went away by
+myself and indulged in fantasies, firing my gun off and pretending I
+had hit Miss Smawl by mistake. At such moments I would imagine I was
+free at last to plunge into the strange country, and I would squat on
+a rock and dream of bagging my first mammoth.
+
+The time passed heavily; the tension increased with each new day. I
+shot ptarmigan and kept our table supplied with brook-trout. William
+chopped wood, conversed with his mules, and cooked very badly.
+
+"See here," I said, one morning; "we have been in camp a week to-day,
+and I can't stand your cooking another minute!"
+
+William, who was washing a saucepan, looked up and begged me
+sarcastically to accept the _cordon bleu_. But I know only how to cook
+eggs, and there were no eggs within some hundred miles.
+
+To get the flavor of the breakfast out of my mouth I walked up to my
+favorite hillock and sat down for a smoke. The next moment, however, I
+was on my feet, cheering excitedly and shouting for William.
+
+"Here come 'further instructions' at last!" I cried, pointing to the
+southward, where two dots on the grassy plain were imperceptibly
+moving in our direction.
+
+"People on mules," said William, without enthusiasm.
+
+"They must be messengers for us!" I cried, in chaste joy. "Three
+cheers for the northward trail, William, and the mischief take
+Miss--Well, never mind now," I added.
+
+"On them approachin' mules," observed William, "there is wimmen."
+
+I stared at him for a second, then attempted to strike him. He dodged
+wearily and repeated his incredible remark: "Ya-as, there
+is--wimmen--two female ladies onto them there mules."
+
+"Bring me my glasses!" I said, hoarsely; "bring me those glasses,
+William, because I shall destroy you if you don't!"
+
+Somewhat awed by my calm fury, he hastened back to camp and returned
+with the binoculars. It was a breathless moment. I adjusted the lenses
+with a steady hand and raised them.
+
+Now, of all unexpected sights my fate may reserve for me in the
+future, I trust--nay, I know--that none can ever prove as unwelcome as
+the sight I perceived through my binoculars. For upon the backs of
+those distant mules were two women, and the first one was Miss Smawl!
+
+Upon her head she wore a helmet, from which fluttered a green veil.
+Otherwise she was clothed in tweeds; and at moments she beat upon her
+mule with a thick umbrella.
+
+Surfeited with the sickening spectacle, I sat down on a rock and tried
+to cry.
+
+"I told yer so," observed William; but I was too tired to attack him.
+
+When the caravan rode into camp I was myself again, smilingly prepared
+for the worst, and I advanced, cap in hand, followed furtively by
+William.
+
+"Welcome," I said, violently injecting joy into my voice. "Welcome,
+Professor Smawl, to the Hudson Mountains!"
+
+"Kindly take my mule," she said, climbing down to mother earth.
+
+"William," I said, with dignity, "take the lady's mule."
+
+Miss Smawl gave me a stolid glance, then made directly for the
+camp-fire, where a kettle of game-broth simmered over the coals. The
+last I saw of her she was smelling of it, and I turned my back and
+advanced towards the second lady pilgrim, prepared to be civil until
+snubbed.
+
+Now, it is quite certain that never before had William Spike or I
+beheld so much feminine loveliness in one human body on the back of a
+mule. She was clad in the daintiest of shooting-kilts, yet there was
+nothing mannish about her except the way she rode the mule, and that
+only accentuated her adorable femininity.
+
+I remembered what Professor Lesard had said about blue stockings--but
+Miss Dorothy Van Twiller's were gray, turned over at the tops, and
+disappearing into canvas spats buckled across a pair of slim
+shooting-boots.
+
+"Welcome," said I, attempting to restrain a too violent cordiality.
+"Welcome, Professor Van Twiller, to the Hudson Mountains."
+
+"Thank you," she replied, accepting my assistance very sweetly; "it is
+a pleasure to meet a human being again."
+
+I glanced at Miss Smawl. She was eating game-broth, but she resembled
+a human being in a general way.
+
+"I should very much like to wash my hands," said Professor Van
+Twiller, drawing the buckskin gloves from her slim fingers.
+
+I brought towels and soap and conducted her to the brook.
+
+She called to Professor Smawl to join her, and her voice was
+crystalline; Professor Smawl declined, and her voice was batrachian.
+
+"She is so hungry!" observed Miss Van Twiller. "I am very thankful we
+are here at last, for we've had a horrid time. You see, we neither of
+us know how to cook."
+
+I wondered what they would say to William's cooking, but I held my
+peace and retired, leaving the little brook to mirror the sweetest
+face that was ever bathed in water.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+That afternoon our expedition, in two sections, moved forward. The
+first section comprised myself and all the mules; the second section
+was commanded by Professor Smawl, followed by Professor Van Twiller,
+armed with a tiny shot-gun. William, loaded down with the ladies'
+toilet articles, skulked in the rear. I say skulked; there was no
+other word for it.
+
+"So you're a guide, are you?" observed Professor Smawl when William,
+cap in hand, had approached her with well-meant advice. "The woods are
+full of lazy guides. Pick up those Gladstone bags! I'll do the guiding
+for this expedition."
+
+Made cautious by William's humiliation, I associated with the mules
+exclusively. Nevertheless, Professor Smawl had her hard eyes on me,
+and I realized she meant mischief.
+
+The encounter took place just as I, driving the five mules, entered
+the great mountain gateway, thrilled with anticipation which almost
+amounted to foreboding. As I was about to set foot across the
+imaginary frontier which divided the world from the unknown land,
+Professor Smawl hailed me and I halted until she came up.
+
+"As commander of this expedition," she said, somewhat out of breath,
+"I desire to be the first living creature who has ever set foot
+behind the Graham Glacier. Kindly step aside, young sir!"
+
+"Madam," said I, rigid with disappointment, "my guide, William Spike,
+entered that unknown land a year ago."
+
+"He _says_ he did," sneered Professor Smawl.
+
+"As you like," I replied; "but it is scarcely generous to forestall
+the person whose stupidity gave you the clew to this unexplored
+region."
+
+"You mean yourself?" she asked, with a stony stare.
+
+"I do," said I, firmly.
+
+Her little, hard eyes grew harder, and she clutched her umbrella until
+the steel ribs crackled.
+
+"Young man," she said, insolently; "if I could have gotten rid of you
+I should have done so the day I was appointed president. But Professor
+Farrago refused to resign unless your position was assured, subject,
+of course, to your good behavior. Frankly, I don't like you, and I
+consider your views on science ridiculous, and if an opportunity
+presents itself I will be most happy to request your resignation.
+Kindly collect your mules and follow me."
+
+Mortified beyond measure, I collected my mules and followed my
+president into the strange country behind the Hudson Mountains--I who
+had aspired to lead, compelled to follow in the rear, driving mules.
+
+The journey was monotonous at first, but we shortly ascended a ridge
+from which we could see, stretching out below us, the wilderness
+where, save the feet of William Spike, no human feet had passed.
+
+As for me, tingling with enthusiasm, I forgot my chagrin, I forgot the
+gross injustice, I forgot my mules. "Excelsior!" I cried, running up
+and down the ridge in uncontrollable excitement at the sublime
+spectacle of forest, mountain, and valley all set with little lakes.
+
+"Excelsior!" repeated an excited voice at my side, and Professor Van
+Twiller sprang to the ridge beside me, her eyes bright as stars.
+
+Exalted, inspired by the mysterious beauty of the view, we clasped
+hands and ran up and down the grassy ridge.
+
+"That will do," said Professor Smawl, coldly, as we raced about like a
+pair of distracted kittens. The chilling voice broke the spell; I
+dropped Professor Van Twiller's hand and sat down on a bowlder, aching
+with wrath.
+
+Late that afternoon we halted beside a tiny lake, deep in the unknown
+wilderness, where purple and scarlet bergamot choked the shores and
+the spruce-partridge strutted fearlessly under our very feet. Here we
+pitched our two tents. The afternoon sun slanted through the pines;
+the lake glittered; acres of golden brake perfumed the forest silence,
+broken only at rare intervals by the distant thunder of a partridge
+drumming.
+
+Professor Smawl ate heavily and retired to her tent to lie torpid
+until evening. William drove the unloaded mules into an intervale full
+of sun-cured, fragrant grasses; I sat down beside Professor Van
+Twiller.
+
+The wilderness is electric. Once within the influence of its currents,
+human beings become positively or negatively charged, violently
+attracting or repelling each other.
+
+"There is something the matter with this air," said Professor Van
+Twiller. "It makes me feel as though I were desperately enamoured of
+the entire human race."
+
+She leaned back against a pine, smiling vaguely, and crossing one knee
+over the other.
+
+Now I am not bold by temperament, and, normally, I fear ladies.
+Therefore it surprised me to hear myself begin a frivolous _causerie_,
+replying to her pretty epigrams with epigrams of my own, advancing to
+the borderland of badinage, fearlessly conducting her and myself over
+that delicate frontier to meet upon the terrain of undisguised
+flirtation.
+
+It was clear that she was out for a holiday. The seriousness and
+restraints of twenty-two years she had left behind her in the
+civilized world, and now, with a shrug of her young shoulders, she
+unloosened her burden of reticence, dignity, and responsibility and
+let the whole load fall with a discreet thud.
+
+"Even hares go mad in March," she said, seriously. "I know you intend
+to flirt with me--and I don't care. Anyway, there's nothing else to
+do, is there?"
+
+"Suppose," said I, solemnly, "I should take you behind that big tree
+and attempt to kiss you!"
+
+The prospect did not appear to appall her, so I looked around with
+that sneaking yet conciliatory caution peculiar to young men who are
+novices in the art. Before I had satisfied myself that neither William
+nor the mules were observing us, Professor Van Twiller rose to her
+feet and took a short step backward.
+
+"Let's set traps for a dingue," she said, "will you?"
+
+I looked at the big tree, undecided. "Come on," she said; "I'll show
+you how." And away we went into the woods, she leading, her kilts
+flashing through the golden half-light.
+
+Now I had not the faintest notion how to trap the dingue, but
+Professor Van Twiller asserted that it formerly fed on the tender tips
+of the spruce, quoting Darwin as her authority.
+
+So we gathered a bushel of spruce-tips, piled them on the bank of a
+little stream, then built a miniature stockade around the bait, a foot
+high. I roofed this with hemlock, then laboriously whittled out and
+adjusted a swinging shutter for the entrance, setting it on springy
+twigs.
+
+"The dingue, you know, was supposed to live in the water," she said,
+kneeling beside me over our trap.
+
+I took her little hand and thanked her for the information.
+
+"Doubtless," she said, enthusiastically, "a dingue will come out of
+the lake to-night to feed on our spruce-tips. Then," she added, "we've
+got him."
+
+"True!" I said, earnestly, and pressed her fingers very gently.
+
+Her face was turned a little away; I don't remember what she said; I
+don't remember that she said anything. A faint rose-tint stole over
+her cheek. A few moments later she said: "You must not do that again."
+
+It was quite late when we strolled back to camp. Long before we came
+in sight of the twin tents we heard a deep voice bawling our names. It
+was Professor Smawl, and she pounced upon Dorothy and drove her
+ignominiously into the tent.
+
+"As for you," she said, in hollow tones, "you may explain your
+conduct at once, or place your resignation at my disposal."
+
+But somehow or other I appeared to be temporarily lost to shame, and I
+only smiled at my infuriated president, and entered my own tent with a
+step that was distinctly frolicsome.
+
+"Billy," said I to William Spike, who regarded me morosely from the
+depths of the tent, "I'm going out to bag a mammoth to-morrow, so
+kindly clean my elephant-gun and bring an axe to chop out the tusks."
+
+That night Professor Smawl complained bitterly of the cooking, but as
+neither Dorothy nor I knew how to improve it, she revenged herself on
+us by eating everything on the table and retiring to bed, taking
+Dorothy with her.
+
+I could not sleep very well; the mosquitoes were intrusive, and
+Professor Smawl dreamed she was a pack of wolves and yelped in her
+sleep.
+
+"Bird, ain't she?" said William, roused from slumber by her weird
+noises.
+
+Dorothy, much frightened, crawled out of her tent, where her
+blanket-mate still dreamed dyspeptically, and William and I made her
+comfortable by the camp-fire.
+
+It takes a pretty girl to look pretty half asleep in a blanket.
+
+"Are you sure you are quite well?" I asked her.
+
+To make sure, I tested her pulse. For an hour it varied more or less,
+but without alarming either of us. Then she went back to bed and I sat
+alone by the camp-fire.
+
+Towards midnight I suddenly began to feel that strange, distant
+vibration that I had once before felt. As before, the vibration grew
+on the still air, increasing in volume until it became a sound, then
+died out into silence.
+
+I rose and stole into my tent.
+
+William, white as death, lay in his corner, weeping in his sleep.
+
+I roused him remorselessly, and he sat up scowling, but refused to
+tell me what he had been dreaming.
+
+"Was it about that third thing you saw--" I began. But he snarled up
+at me like a startled animal, and I was obliged to go to bed and toss
+about and speculate.
+
+The next morning it rained. Dorothy and I visited our dingue-trap but
+found nothing in it. We were inclined, however, to stay out in the
+rain behind a big tree, but Professor Smawl vetoed that proposition
+and sent me off to supply the larder with fresh meat.
+
+I returned, mad and wet, with a dozen partridges and a white
+hare--brown at that season--and William cooked them vilely.
+
+"I can taste the feathers!" said Professor Smawl, indignantly.
+
+"There is no accounting for taste," I said, with a polite gesture of
+deprecation; "personally, I find feathers unpalatable."
+
+"You may hand in your resignation this evening!" cried Professor
+Smawl, in hollow tones of passion.
+
+I passed her the pancakes with a cheerful smile, and flippantly
+pressed the hand next me. Unexpectedly it proved to be William's
+sticky fist, and Dorothy and I laughed until her tears ran into
+Professor Smawl's coffee-cup--an accident which kindled her wrath to
+red heat, and she requested my resignation five times during the
+evening.
+
+The next day it rained again, more or less. Professor Smawl complained
+of the cooking, demanded my resignation, and finally marched out to
+explore, lugging the reluctant William with her. Dorothy and I sat
+down behind the largest tree we could find.
+
+I don't remember what we were saying when a peculiar sound interrupted
+us, and we listened earnestly.
+
+It was like a bell in the woods, ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong!--a
+low, mellow, golden harmony, coming nearer, then stopping.
+
+I clasped Dorothy in my arms in my excitement.
+
+"It is the note of the dingue!" I whispered, "and that explains its
+name, handed down from remote ages along with the names of the
+behemoth and the coney. It was because of its bell-like cry that it
+was named! Darling!" I cried, forgetting our short acquaintance, "we
+have made a discovery that the whole world will ring with!"
+
+Hand in hand we tiptoed through the forest to our trap. There was
+something in it that took fright at our approach and rushed
+panic-stricken round and round the interior of the trap, uttering its
+alarm-note, which sounded like the jangling of a whole string of
+bells.
+
+I seized the strangely beautiful creature; it neither attempted to
+bite nor scratch, but crouched in my arms, trembling and eying me.
+
+Delighted with the lovely, tame animal, we bore it tenderly back to
+the camp and placed it on my blanket. Hand in hand we stood before it,
+awed by the sight of this beast, so long believed to be extinct.
+
+"It is too good to be true," sighed Dorothy, clasping her white hands
+under her chin and gazing at the dingue in rapture.
+
+"Yes," said I, solemnly, "you and I, my child, are face to face with
+the fabled dingue--_Dingus solitarius_! Let us continue to gaze at it,
+reverently, prayerfully, humbly--"
+
+Dorothy yawned--probably with excitement.
+
+We were still mutely adoring the dingue when Professor Smawl burst
+into the tent at a hand-gallop, bawling hoarsely for her kodak and
+note-book.
+
+Dorothy seized her triumphantly by the arm and pointed at the dingue,
+which appeared to be frightened to death.
+
+"What!" cried Professor Smawl, scornfully; "_that_ a dingue? Rubbish!"
+
+"Madam," I said, firmly, "it is a dingue! It's a monodactyl! See! It
+has but a single toe!"
+
+"Bosh!" she retorted; "it's got four!"
+
+"Four!" I repeated, blankly.
+
+"Yes; one on each foot!"
+
+"Of course," I said; "you didn't suppose a monodactyl meant a beast
+with one leg and one toe!"
+
+But she laughed hatefully and declared it was a woodchuck.
+
+We squabbled for a while until I saw the significance of her attitude.
+The unfortunate woman wished to find a dingue first and be accredited
+with the discovery.
+
+I lifted the dingue in both hands and shook the creature gently, until
+the chiming ding-dong of its protestations filled our ears like sweet
+bells jangled out of tune.
+
+Pale with rage at this final proof of the dingue's identity, she
+seized her camera and note-book.
+
+"I haven't any time to waste over that musical woodchuck!" she
+shouted, and bounced out of the tent.
+
+"What have you discovered, dear?" cried Dorothy, running after her.
+
+"A mammoth!" bawled Professor Smawl, triumphantly; "and I'm going to
+photograph him!"
+
+Neither Dorothy nor I believed her. We watched the flight of the
+infatuated woman in silence.
+
+And now, at last, the tragic shadow falls over my paper as I write. I
+was never passionately attached to Professor Smawl, yet I would gladly
+refrain from chronicling the episode that must follow if, as I have
+hitherto attempted, I succeed in sticking to the unornamented truth.
+
+I have said that neither Dorothy nor I believed her. I don't know why,
+unless it was that we had not yet made up our minds to believe that
+the mammoth still existed on earth. So, when Professor Smawl
+disappeared in the forest, scuttling through the underbrush like a
+demoralized hen, we viewed her flight with unconcern. There was a
+large tree in the neighborhood--a pleasant shelter in case of rain. So
+we sat down behind it, although the sun was shining fiercely.
+
+It was one of those peaceful afternoons in the wilderness when the
+whole forest dreams, and the shadows are asleep and every little
+leaflet takes a nap. Under the still tree-tops the dappled sunlight,
+motionless, soaked the sod; the forest-flies no longer whirled in
+circles, but sat sunning their wings on slender twig-tips.
+
+The heat was sweet and spicy; the sun drew out the delicate essence
+of gum and sap, warming volatile juices until they exhaled through the
+aromatic bark.
+
+The sun went down into the wilderness; the forest stirred in its
+sleep; a fish splashed in the lake. The spell was broken. Presently
+the wind began to rise somewhere far away in the unknown land. I heard
+it coming, nearer, nearer--a brisk wind that grew heavier and blew
+harder as it neared us--a gale that swept distant branches--a furious
+gale that set limbs clashing and cracking, nearer and nearer. Crack!
+and the gale grew to a hurricane, trampling trees like dead twigs!
+Crack! Crackle! Crash! Crash!
+
+_Was it the wind?_
+
+With the roaring in my ears I sprang up, staring into the forest
+vista, and at the same instant, out of the crashing forest, sped
+Professor Smawl, skirts tucked up, thin legs flying like
+bicycle-spokes. I shouted, but the crashing drowned my voice. Then all
+at once the solid earth began to shake, and with the rush and roar of
+a tornado a gigantic living thing burst out of the forest before our
+eyes--a vast shadowy bulk that rocked and rolled along, mowing down
+trees in its course.
+
+Two great crescents of ivory curved from its head; its back swept
+through the tossing tree-tops. Once it bellowed like a gun fired from
+a high bastion.
+
+The apparition passed with the noise of thunder rolling on towards the
+ends of the earth. Crack! crash! went the trees, the tempest swept
+away in a rolling volley of reports, distant, more distant, until,
+long after the tumult had deadened, then ceased, the stunned forest
+echoed with the fall of mangled branches slowly dropping.
+
+That evening an agitated young couple sat close together in the
+deserted camp, calling timidly at intervals for Professor Smawl and
+William Spike. I say timidly, because it is correct; we did not care
+to have a mammoth respond to our calls. The lurking echoes across the
+lake answered our cries; the full moon came up over the forest to look
+at us. We were not much to look at. Dorothy was moistening my shoulder
+with unfeigned tears, and I, afraid to light the fire, sat hunched up
+under the common blanket, wildly examining the darkness around us.
+
+Chilled to the spinal marrow, I watched the gray lights whiten in the
+east. A single bird awoke in the wilderness. I saw the nearer trees
+looming in the mist, and the silver fog rolling on the lake.
+
+All night long the darkness had vibrated with the strange monotone
+which I had heard the first night, camping at the gate of the unknown
+land. My brain seemed to echo that subtle harmony which rings in the
+auricular labyrinth after sound has ceased.
+
+There are ghosts of sound which return to haunt long after sound is
+dead. It was these voiceless spectres of a voice long dead that
+stirred the transparent silence, intoning toneless tones.
+
+I think I make myself clear.
+
+It was an uncanny night; morning whitened the east; gray daylight
+stole into the woods, blotting the shadows to paler tints. It was
+nearly mid-day before the sun became visible through the fine-spun web
+of mist--a pale spot of gilt in the zenith.
+
+By this pallid light I labored to strike the two empty tents, gather
+up our equipments and pack them on our five mules. Dorothy aided me
+bravely, whimpering when I spoke of Professor Smawl and William Spike,
+but abating nothing of her industry until we had the mules loaded and
+I was ready to drive them, Heaven knows whither.
+
+"Where shall we go?" quavered Dorothy, sitting on a log with the
+dingue in her lap.
+
+One thing was certain; this mammoth-ridden land was no place for
+women, and I told her so.
+
+We placed the dingue in a basket and tied it around the leading mule's
+neck. Immediately the dingue, alarmed, began dingling like a cow-bell.
+It acted like a charm on the other mules, and they gravely filed off
+after their leader, following the bell. Dorothy and I, hand in hand,
+brought up the rear.
+
+I shall never forget that scene in the forest--the gray arch of the
+heavens swimming in mist through which the sun peered shiftily, the
+tall pines wavering through the fog, the preoccupied mules marching
+single file, the foggy bell-note of the gentle dingue in its swinging
+basket, and Dorothy, limp kilts dripping with dew, plodding through
+the white dusk.
+
+We followed the terrible tornado-path which the mammoth had left in
+its wake, but there were no traces of its human victims--neither one
+jot of Professor Smawl nor one solitary tittle of William Spike.
+
+And now I would be glad to end this chapter if I could; I would gladly
+leave myself as I was, there in the misty forest, with an arm
+encircling the slender body of my little companion, and the mules
+moving in a monotonous line, and the dingue discreetly jingling--but
+again that menacing shadow falls across my page, and truth bids me
+tell all, and I, the slave of accuracy, must remember my vows as the
+dauntless disciple of truth.
+
+Towards sunset--or that pale parody of sunset which set the forest
+swimming in a ghastly, colorless haze--the mammoth's trail of ruin
+brought us suddenly out of the trees to the shore of a great sheet of
+water.
+
+It was a desolate spot; northward a chaos of sombre peaks rose, piled
+up like thunder-clouds along the horizon; east and south the darkening
+wilderness spread like a pall. Westward, crawling out into the mist
+from our very feet, the gray waste of water moved under the dull sky,
+and flat waves slapped the squatting rocks, heavy with slime.
+
+And now I understood why the trail of the mammoth continued straight
+into the lake, for on either hand black, filthy tamarack swamps lay
+under ghostly sheets of mist. I strove to creep out into the bog,
+seeking a footing, but the swamp quaked and the smooth surface
+trembled like jelly in a bowl. A stick thrust into the slime sank into
+unknown depths.
+
+Vaguely alarmed, I gained the firm land again and looked around,
+believing there was no road open but the desolate trail we had
+traversed. But I was in error; already the leading mule was wading out
+into the water, and the others, one by one, followed.
+
+How wide the lake might be we could not tell, because the band of fog
+hung across the water like a curtain. Yet out into this flat, shallow
+void our mules went steadily, slop! slop! slop! in single file.
+Already they were growing indistinct in the fog, so I bade Dorothy
+hasten and take off her shoes and stockings.
+
+She was ready before I was, I having to unlace my shooting-boots, and
+she stepped out into the water, kilts fluttering, moving her white
+feet cautiously. In a moment I was beside her, and we waded forward,
+sounding the shallow water with our poles.
+
+When the water had risen to Dorothy's knees I hesitated, alarmed. But
+when we attempted to retrace our steps we could not find the shore
+again, for the blank mist shrouded everything, and the water deepened
+at every step.
+
+I halted and listened for the mules. Far away in the fog I heard a
+dull splashing, receding as I listened. After a while all sound died
+away, and a slow horror stole over me--a horror that froze the little
+net-work of veins in every limb. A step to the right and the water
+rose to my knees; a step to the left and the cold, thin circle of the
+flood chilled my breast. Suddenly Dorothy screamed, and the next
+moment a far cry answered--a far, sweet cry that seemed to come from
+the sky, like the rushing harmony of the world's swift winds. Then the
+curtain of fog before us lighted up from behind; shadows moved on the
+misty screen, outlines of trees and grassy shores, and tiny birds
+flying. Thrown on the vapory curtain, in silhouette, a man and a woman
+passed under the lovely trees, arms about each other's necks; near
+them the shadows of five mules grazed peacefully; a dingue gambolled
+close by.
+
+"It is a mirage!" I muttered, but my voice made no sound. Slowly the
+light behind the fog died out; the vapor around us turned to rose,
+then dissolved, while mile on mile of a limitless sea spread away
+till, like a quick line pencilled at a stroke, the horizon cut sky and
+sea in half, and before us lay an ocean from which towered a mountain
+of snow--or a gigantic berg of milky ice--for it was moving.
+
+"Good Heavens," I shrieked; "it is alive!"
+
+At the sound of my crazed cry the mountain of snow became a pillar,
+towering to the clouds, and a wave of golden glory drenched the figure
+to its knees! Figure? Yes--for a colossal arm shot across the sky,
+then curved back in exquisite grace to a head of awful beauty--a
+woman's head, with eyes like the blue lake of heaven--ay, a woman's
+splendid form, upright from the sky to the earth, knee-deep in the
+sea. The evening clouds drifted across her brow; her shimmering hair
+lighted the world beneath with sunset. Then, shading her white brow
+with one hand, she bent, and with the other hand dipped in the sea,
+she sent a wave rolling at us. Straight out of the horizon it sped--a
+ripple that grew to a wave, then to a furious breaker which caught us
+up in a whirl of foam, bearing us onward, faster, faster, swiftly
+flying through leagues of spray until consciousness ceased and all was
+blank.
+
+Yet ere my senses fled I heard again that strange cry--that sweet,
+thrilling harmony rushing out over the foaming waters, filling earth
+and sky with its soundless vibrations.
+
+And I knew it was the hail of the Spirit of the North warning us back
+to life again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Looking back, now, over the days that passed before we staggered into
+the Hudson Bay outpost at Gravel Cove, I am inclined to believe that
+neither Dorothy nor I were clothed entirely in our proper minds--or,
+if we were, our minds, no doubt, must have been in the same condition
+as our clothing. I remember shooting ptarmigan, and that we ate them;
+flashes of memory recall the steady downpour of rain through the
+endless twilight of shaggy forests; dim days on the foggy tundra,
+mud-holes from which the wild ducks rose in thousands; then the
+stunted hemlocks, then the forest again. And I do not even recall the
+moment when, at last, stumbling into the smooth path left by the
+Graham Glacier, we crawled through the mountain-wall, out of the
+unknown land, and once more into a world protected by the Lord
+Almighty.
+
+A hunting-party of Elbon Indians brought us in to the post, and
+everybody was most kind--that I remember, just before going into
+several weeks of unpleasant delirium mercifully mitigated with
+unconsciousness.
+
+Curiously enough, Professor Van Twiller was not very much battered,
+physically, for I had carried her for days, pickaback. But the awful
+experience had produced a shock which resulted in a nervous condition
+that lasted so long after she returned to New York that the wealthy
+and eminent specialist who attended her insisted upon taking her to
+the Riviera and marrying her. I sometimes wonder--but, as I have said,
+such reflections have no place in these austere pages.
+
+However, anybody, I fancy, is at liberty to speculate upon the fate of
+the late Professor Smawl and William Spike, and upon the mules and the
+gentle dingue. Personally, I am convinced that the suggestive
+silhouettes I saw on that ghastly curtain of fog were cast by
+beatified beings in some earthly paradise--a mirage of bliss of which
+we caught but the colorless shadow-shapes floating 'twixt sea and
+sky.
+
+At all events, neither Professor Smawl nor her William Spike ever
+returned; no exploring expedition has found a trace of mule or lady,
+of William or the dingue. The new expedition to be organized by
+Barnard College may penetrate still farther. I suppose that, when the
+time comes, I shall be expected to volunteer. But Professor Van
+Twiller is married, and William and Professor Smawl ought to be, and
+altogether, considering the mammoth and that gigantic and splendid
+apparition that bent from the zenith to the ocean and sent a
+tidal-wave rolling from the palm of one white hand--I say, taking all
+these various matters under consideration, I think I shall decide to
+remain in New York and continue writing for the scientific
+periodicals. Besides, the mortifying experience at the Paris
+Exposition has dampened even my perennially youthful enthusiasm. And
+as for the late expedition to Florida, Heaven knows I am ready to
+repeat it--nay, I am already forming a plan for the rescue--but though
+I am prepared to encounter any danger for the sake of my beloved
+superior, Professor Farrago, I do not feel inclined to commit
+indiscretions in order to pry into secrets which, as I regard it,
+concern Professor Smawl and William Spike alone.
+
+But all this is, in a measure, premature. What I now have to relate is
+the recital of an eye-witness to that most astonishing scandal which
+occurred during the recent exposition in Paris.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+When the delegates were appointed to the International Scientific
+Congress at the Paris Exposition of 1900, how little did anybody
+imagine that the great conference would end in the most gigantic
+scandal that ever stirred two continents?
+
+Yet, had it not been for the pair of American newspapers published in
+Paris, this scandal would never have been aired, for the continental
+press is so well muzzled that when it bites its teeth merely meet in
+the empty atmosphere with a discreet snap.
+
+But to the Yankee nothing excepting the Monroe Doctrine is sacred, and
+the unsopped watch-dogs of the press bite right and left, unmuzzled.
+The biter bites--it is his profession--and that ends the affair; the
+bitee is bitten, and, in the deplorable argot of the hour, "it is up
+to him."
+
+So now that the scandal has been well aired and hung out to dry in the
+teeth of decency and the four winds, and as all the details have been
+cheerfully and grossly exaggerated, it is, perhaps, the proper moment
+for the truth to be written by the only person whose knowledge of all
+the facts in the affair entitles him to speak for himself as well as
+for those honorable ladies and gentlemen whose names and titles have
+been so mercilessly criticised.
+
+These, then, are the simple facts:
+
+The International Scientific Congress, now adjourned _sine die_, met
+at nine o'clock in the morning, May 3, 1900, in the Tasmanian Pavilion
+of the Paris Exposition. There were present the most famous scientists
+of Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, and the
+United States.
+
+His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco presided.
+
+It is not necessary, now, to repeat the details of that preliminary
+meeting. It is sufficient to say that committees representing the
+various known sciences were named and appointed by the Prince of
+Monaco, who had been unanimously elected permanent chairman of the
+conference. It is the composition of a single committee that concerns
+us now, and that committee, representing the science which treats of
+bird life, was made up as follows:
+
+Chairman--His Royal Highness the Crown-Prince of Monaco. Members--Sir
+Peter Grebe, Great Britain; Baron de Becasse, France; his Royal
+Highness King Christian, of Finland; the Countess d'Alzette, of
+Belgium; and I, from the United States, representing the Smithsonian
+Institution and the Bronx Park Zoological Society of New York.
+
+This, then, was the composition of that now notorious ornithological
+committee, a modest, earnest, self-effacing little band of workers,
+bound together--in the beginning--by those ties of mutual respect and
+esteem which unite all laborers in the vineyard of science.
+
+From the first meeting of our committee, science, the great leveller,
+left no artificial barriers of rank or title standing between us. We
+were enthusiasts in our love for ornithology; we found new inspiration
+in the democracy of our common interests.
+
+As for me, I chatted with my fellows, feeling no restraint myself and
+perceiving none. The King of Finland and I discussed his latest
+monograph on the speckled titmouse, and I was glad to agree with the
+King in all his theories concerning the nesting habits of that
+important bird.
+
+Sir Peter Grebe, a large, red gentleman in tweeds, read us some notes
+he had made on the domestic hen and her reasons for running ahead of a
+horse and wagon instead of stepping aside to let the disturbing
+vehicle pass.
+
+The Crown-Prince of Monaco took issue with Sir Peter; so did the Baron
+de Becasse; and we were entertained by a friendly and marvellously
+interesting three-cornered dispute, shared in by three of the most
+profound thinkers of the century.
+
+I shall never forget the brilliancy of that argument, nor the modest,
+good-humored retorts which gave us all a glimpse into depths of
+erudition which impressed us profoundly and set the seal on the bonds
+which held us so closely together.
+
+Alas, that the seal should ever have been broken! Alas, that the
+glittering apple of discord should have been flung into our
+midst!--no, not flung, but gently rolled under our noses by the gloved
+fingers of the lovely Countess d'Alzette.
+
+"Messieurs," said the fair Countess, when all present, excepting she
+and I, had touched upon or indicated the subjects which they had
+prepared to present to the congress--"messieurs mes confreres, I have
+been requested by our distinguished chairman, the Crown-Prince of
+Monaco, to submit to your judgment the subject which, by favor of the
+King of the Belgians, I have prepared to present to the International
+Scientific Congress."
+
+She made a pretty courtesy as she named her own sovereign, and we all
+rose out of respect to that most austere and moral ruler the King of
+Belgium.
+
+"But," she said, with a charming smile of depreciation, "I am very,
+very much afraid that the subject which I have chosen may not meet
+with your approval, gentlemen."
+
+She stood there in her dainty Parisian gown and bonnet, shaking her
+pretty head uncertainly, a smile on her lips, her small, gloved
+fingers interlocked.
+
+"Oh, I know how dreadful it would be if this great congress should be
+compelled to listen to any hoax like that which Monsieur de Rougemont
+imposed on the British Royal Society," she said, gravely; "and because
+the subject of my paper is as strange as the strangest phenomenon
+alleged to have been noted by Monsieur de Rougemont, I hesitate--"
+
+She glanced at the silent listeners around her. Sir Peter's red face
+had hardened; the King of Finland frowned slightly; the Crown-Prince
+of Monaco and Baron de Becasse wore anxious smiles. But when her
+violet eyes met mine I gave her a glance of encouragement, and that
+glance, I am forced to confess, was not dictated by scientific
+approval, but by something that never entirely dries up in the
+mustiest and dustiest of savants--the old Adam implanted in us all.
+
+Now, I knew perfectly well what her subject must be; so did every man
+present. For it was no secret that his Majesty of Belgium had been
+swindled by some natives in Tasmania, and had paid a very large sum of
+money for a skin of that gigantic bird, the ux, which has been so
+often reported to exist among the inaccessible peaks of the Tasmanian
+Mountains. Needless, perhaps, to say that the skin proved a fraud,
+being nothing more than a Barnum contrivance made up out of the skins
+of a dozen ostriches and cassowaries, and most cleverly put together
+by Chinese workmen; at least, such was the report made on it by Sir
+Peter Grebe, who had been sent by the British Society to Antwerp to
+examine the acquisition. Needless, also, perhaps, to say that King
+Leopold, of Belgium, stoutly maintained that the skin of the ux was
+genuine from beak to claw.
+
+For six months there had been a most serious difference of opinion
+among European ornithologists concerning the famous ux in the Antwerp
+Museum; and this difference had promised to result in an open quarrel
+between a few Belgian savants on one side and-all Europe and Great
+Britain on the other.
+
+Scientists have a deep--rooted horror of anything that touches on
+charlatanism; the taint of trickery not only alarms them, but drives
+them away from any suspicious subject, and usually ruins,
+scientifically speaking, the person who has introduced the subject for
+discussion.
+
+Therefore, it took no little courage for the Countess d'Alzette to
+touch, with her dainty gloves, a subject which every scientist in
+Europe, with scarcely an exception, had pronounced fraudulent and
+unworthy of investigation. And to bring it before the great
+International Congress required more courage still; for the person
+who could face, in executive session, the most brilliant intellects in
+the world, and openly profess faith in a Barnumized bird skin, either
+had no scientific reputation to lose or was possessed of a bravery far
+above that of the savants who composed the audience.
+
+Now, when the pretty Countess caught a flash of encouragement in my
+glance she turned rosy with gratification and surprise. Clearly, she
+had not expected to find a single ally in the entire congress. Her
+quick smile of gratitude touched me, and made me ashamed, too, for I
+had encouraged her out of the pure love of mischief, hoping to hear
+the whole matter threshed before the congress and so have it settled
+once for all. It was a thoughtless thing to do on my part. I should
+have remembered the consequences to the Countess if it were proven
+that she had been championing a fraud. The ruffled dignity of the
+congress would never forgive her; her scientific career would
+practically be at an end, because her theories and observations could
+no longer command respect or even the attention of those who knew that
+she herself had once been deceived by a palpable fraud.
+
+I looked at her guiltily, already ashamed of myself for encouraging
+her to her destruction. How lovely and innocent she appeared, standing
+there reading her notes in a low, clear voice, fresh as a child's,
+with now and then a delicious upward sweep of her long, dark lashes.
+
+With a start I came to my senses and bestowed a pinch on myself. This
+was neither the time nor the place to sentimentalize over a girlish
+beauty whose small, Parisian head was crammed full of foolish, brave
+theories concerning an imposition which her aged sovereign had been
+unable to detect.
+
+I saw the gathering frown on the King of Finland's dark face; I saw
+Sir Peter Grebe grow redder and redder, and press his thick lips
+together to control the angry "Bosh!" which need not have been uttered
+to have been understood. The Baron de Becasse wore a painfully neutral
+smile, which froze his face into a quaint gargoyle; the Crown-Prince
+of Monaco looked at his polished fingernails with a startled yet
+abstracted resignation. Clearly the young Countess had not a
+sympathizer in the committee.
+
+Something--perhaps it was the latent chivalry which exists imbedded in
+us all, perhaps it was pity, perhaps a glimmering dawn of belief in
+the ux skin--set my thoughts working very quickly.
+
+The Countess d'Alzette finished her notes, then glanced around with a
+deprecating smile, which died out on her lips when she perceived the
+silent and stony hostility of her fellow-scientists. A quick
+expression of alarm came into her lovely eyes. Would they vote against
+giving her a hearing before the congress? It required a unanimous vote
+to reject a subject. She turned her eyes on me.
+
+I rose, red as fire, my head humming with a chaos of ideas all
+disordered and vague, yet whirling along in a single, resistless
+current. I had come to the congress prepared to deliver a monograph on
+the great auk; but now the subject went overboard as the birds
+themselves had, and I found myself pleading with the committee to give
+the Countess a hearing on the ux.
+
+"Why not?" I exclaimed, warmly. "It is established beyond question
+that the ux does exist in Tasmania. Wallace saw several uxen, through
+his telescope, walking about upon the inaccessible heights of the
+Tasmanian Mountains. Darwin acknowledged that the bird exists;
+Professor Farrago has published a pamphlet containing an accumulation
+of all data bearing upon the ux. Why should not Madame la Comtesse be
+heard by the entire congress?"
+
+I looked at Sir Peter Grebe.
+
+"Have _you_ seen this alleged bird skin in the Antwerp Museum?" he
+asked, perspiring with indignation.
+
+"Yes, I have," said I. "It has been patched up, but how are we to know
+that the skin did not require patching? I have not found that ostrich
+skin has been used. It is true that the Tasmanians may have shot the
+bird to pieces and mended the skin with bits of cassowary hide here
+and there. But the greater part of the skin, and the beak and claws,
+are, in my estimation, well worth the serious attention of savants. To
+pronounce them fraudulent is, in my opinion, rash and premature."
+
+I mopped my brow; I was in for it now. I had thrown in my reputation
+with the reputation of the Countess.
+
+The displeasure and astonishment of my confreres was unmistakable. In
+the midst of a strained silence I moved that a vote be taken upon the
+advisability of a hearing before the congress on the subject of the
+ux. After a pause the young Countess, pale and determined, seconded my
+motion. The result of the balloting was a foregone conclusion; the
+Countess had one vote--she herself refraining from voting--and the
+subject was entered on the committee-book as acceptable and a date set
+for the hearing before the International Congress.
+
+The effect of this vote on our little committee was most marked.
+Constraint took the place of cordiality, polite reserve replaced that
+guileless and open-hearted courtesy with which our proceedings had
+begun.
+
+With icy politeness, the Crown-Prince of Monaco asked me to state the
+subject of the paper I proposed to read before the congress, and I
+replied quietly that, as I was partly responsible for advocating the
+discussion of the ux, I proposed to associate myself with the Countess
+d'Alzette in that matter--if Madame la Comtesse would accept the offer
+of a brother savant.
+
+"Indeed I will," she said, impulsively, her blue eyes soft with
+gratitude.
+
+"Very well," observed Sir Peter Grebe, swallowing his indignation and
+waddling off towards the door; "I shall resign my position on this
+committee--yes, I will, I tell you!"--as the King of Finland laid a
+fatherly hand on Sir Peter's sleeve--"I'll not be made responsible for
+this damn--"
+
+He choked, sputtered, then bowed to the horrified Countess, asking
+pardon, and declaring that he yielded to nobody in respect for the
+gentler sex. And he retired with the Baron de Becasse.
+
+But out in the hallway I heard him explode. "Confound it! This is no
+place for petticoats, Baron! And as for that Yankee ornithologist,
+he's hung himself with the Countess's corset--string--yes, he has!
+Don't tell me, Baron! The young idiot was all right until the Countess
+looked at him, I tell you. Gad! how she crumpled him up with those
+blue eyes of hers! What the devil do women come into such committees
+for? Eh? It's an outrage, I tell you! Why, the whole world will jeer
+at us if we sit and listen to her monograph on that fraudulent bird!"
+
+The young Countess, who was writing near the window, could not have
+heard this outburst; but I heard it, and so did King Christian and the
+Crown-Prince of Monaco.
+
+"Lord," thought I, "the Countess and I are in the frying-pan this
+time. I'll do what I can to keep us both out of the fire."
+
+When the King and the Crown-Prince had made their adieux to the
+Countess, and she had responded, pale and serious, they came over to
+where I was standing, looking out on the Seine.
+
+"Though we must differ from you," said the King, kindly, "we wish you
+all success in this dangerous undertaking."
+
+I thanked him.
+
+"You are a young man to risk a reputation already established,"
+remarked the Crown-Prince, then added: "You are braver than I.
+Ridicule is a barrier to all knowledge, and, though we know that, we
+seekers after truth always bring up short at that barrier and
+dismount, not daring to put our hobbies to the fence."
+
+"One can but come a cropper," said I.
+
+"And risk staking our hobbies? No, no, that would make us ridiculous;
+and ridicule kills in Europe."
+
+"It's somewhat deadly in America, too," I said, smiling.
+
+"The more honor to you," said the Crown-Prince, gravely.
+
+"Oh, I am not the only one," I answered, lightly. "There is my
+confrere, Professor Hyssop, who studies apparitions and braves a
+contempt and ridicule which none of us would dare challenge. We
+Yankees are learning slowly. Some day we will find the lost key to the
+future while Europe is sneering at those who are trying to pick the
+lock."
+
+When King Christian, of Finland, and the Crown-Prince of Monaco had
+taken their hats and sticks and departed, I glanced across the room at
+the young Countess, who was now working rapidly on a type-writer,
+apparently quite oblivious of my presence.
+
+I looked out of the window again, and my gaze wandered over the
+exposition grounds. Gilt and scarlet and azure the palaces rose in
+every direction, under a wilderness of fluttering flags. Towers,
+minarets, turrets, golden spires cut the blue sky; in the west the
+gaunt Eiffel Tower sprawled across the glittering Esplanade; behind it
+rose the solid golden dome of the Emperor's tomb, gilded once more by
+the Almighty's sun, to amuse the living rabble while the dead
+slumbered in his imperial crypt, himself now but a relic for the
+amusement of the people whom he had despised. O tempora! O mores! O
+Napoleon!
+
+Down under my window, in the asphalted court, the King of Finland was
+entering his beautiful victoria. An adjutant, wearing a cocked hat and
+brilliant uniform, mounted the box beside the green-and-gold coachman;
+the two postilions straightened up in their saddles; the four horses
+danced. Then, when the Crown-Prince of Monaco had taken a seat beside
+the King, the carriage rolled away, and far down the quay I watched it
+until the flutter of the green-and-white plumes in the adjutant's
+cocked hat was all I could see of vanishing royalty.
+
+I was still musing there by the window, listening to the click and
+ringing of the type-writer, when I suddenly became aware that the
+clicking had ceased, and, turning, I saw the young Countess standing
+beside me.
+
+"Thank you for your chivalrous impulse to help me," she said, frankly,
+holding out her bare hand.
+
+I bent over it.
+
+"I had not realized how desperate my case was," she said, with a
+smile. "I supposed that they would at least give me a hearing. How can
+I thank you for your brave vote in my favor?"
+
+"By giving me your confidence in this matter," said I, gravely. "If we
+are to win, we must work together and work hard, madame. We are
+entering a struggle, not only to prove the genuineness of a bird skin
+and the existence of a bird which neither of us has ever seen, but
+also a struggle which will either make us famous forever or render it
+impossible for either of us ever again to face a scientific audience."
+
+"I know it," she said, quietly "And I understand all the better how
+gallant a gentleman I have had the fortune to enlist in my cause.
+Believe me, had I not absolute confidence in my ability to prove the
+existence of the ux I should not, selfish as I am, have accepted your
+chivalrous offer to stand or fall with me."
+
+The subtle emotion in her voice touched a responsive chord in me. I
+looked at her earnestly; she raised her beautiful eyes to mine.
+
+"Will you help me?" she asked.
+
+Would I help her? Faith, I'd pass the balance of my life turning
+flip-flaps to please her. I did not attempt to undeceive myself; I
+realized that the lightning had struck me--that I was desperately in
+love with the young Countess from the tip of her bonnet to the toe of
+her small, polished shoe. I was curiously cool about it, too, although
+my heart gave a thump that nigh choked me, and I felt myself going red
+from temple to chin.
+
+If the Countess d'Alzette noticed it she gave no sign, unless the pink
+tint under her eyes, deepening, was a subtle signal of understanding
+to the signal in my eyes.
+
+"Suppose," she said, "that I failed, before the congress, to prove my
+theory? Suppose my investigations resulted in the exposure of a fraud
+and my name was held up to ridicule before all Europe? What would
+become of you, monsieur?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"You are already celebrated as the discoverer of the mammoth and the
+great auk," she persisted. "You are young, enthusiastic, renowned, and
+you have a future before you that anybody in the world might envy."
+
+I said nothing.
+
+"And yet," she said, softly, "you risk all because you will not leave
+a young woman friendless among her confreres. It is not wise,
+monsieur; it is gallant and generous and impulsive, but it is not
+wisdom. Don Quixote rides no more in Europe, my friend."
+
+"He stays at home--seventy million of him--in America," said I.
+
+After a moment she said, "I believe you, monsieur."
+
+"It is true enough," I said, with a laugh. "We are the only people who
+tilt at windmills these days--we and our cousins, the British, who
+taught us."
+
+I bowed gayly, and added:
+
+"With your colors to wear, I shall have the honor of breaking a lance
+against the biggest windmill in the world."
+
+"You mean the Citadel of Science," she said, smiling.
+
+"And its rock-ribbed respectability," I replied.
+
+She looked at me thoughtfully, rolling and unrolling the scroll in her
+hands. Then she sighed, smiled, and brightened, handing me the scroll.
+
+"Read it carefully," she said; "it is an outline of the policy I
+suggest that we follow. You will be surprised at some of the
+statements. Yet every word is the truth. And, monsieur, your reward
+for the devotion you have offered will be no greater than you deserve,
+when you find yourself doubly famous for our joint monograph on the
+ux. Without your vote in the committee I should have been denied a
+hearing, even though I produced proofs to support my theory. I
+appreciate that; I do most truly appreciate the courage which prompted
+you to defend a woman at the risk of your own ruin. Come to me this
+evening at nine. I hold for you in store a surprise and pleasure which
+you do not dream of."
+
+"Ah, but I do," I said, slowly, under the spell of her delicate beauty
+and enthusiasm.
+
+"How can you?" she said, laughing. "You don't know what awaits you at
+nine this evening?"
+
+"You," I said, fascinated.
+
+The color swept her face; she dropped me a deep courtesy.
+
+"At nine, then," she said. "No. 8 Rue d'Alouette."
+
+I bowed, took my hat, gloves, and stick, and attended her to her
+carriage below.
+
+Long after the blue-and-black victoria had whirled away down the
+crowded quay I stood looking after it, mazed in the web of that
+ancient enchantment whose spell fell over the first man in Eden, and
+whose sorcery shall not fail till the last man returns his soul.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+I lunched at my lodgings on the Quai Malthus, and I had but little
+appetite, having fed upon such an unexpected variety of emotions
+during the morning.
+
+Now, although I was already heels over head in love, I do not believe
+that loss of appetite was the result of that alone. I was slowly
+beginning to realize what my recent attitude might cost me, not only
+in an utter collapse of my scientific career, and the consequent
+material ruin which was likely to follow, but in the loss of all my
+friends at home. The Zoological Society of Bronx Park and the
+Smithsonian Institution of Washington had sent me as their trusted
+delegate, leaving it entirely to me to choose the subject on which I
+was to speak before the International Congress. What, then, would be
+their attitude when they learned that I had chosen to uphold the
+dangerous theory of the existence of the ux.
+
+Would they repudiate me and send another delegate to replace me? Would
+they merely wash their hands of me and let me go to my own
+destruction?
+
+"I will know soon enough," thought I, "for this morning's proceedings
+will have been cabled to New York ere now, and read at the
+breakfast-tables of every old, moss-grown naturalist in America before
+I see the Countess d'Alzette this evening." And I drew from my pocket
+the roll of paper which she had given me, and, lighting a cigar, lay
+back in my chair to read it.
+
+The manuscript had been beautifully type-written, and I had no trouble
+in following her brief, clear account of the circumstances under which
+the notorious ux-skin had been obtained. As for the story itself, it
+was somewhat fishy, but I manfully swallowed my growing nervousness
+and comforted myself with the belief of Darwin in the existence of the
+ux, and the subsequent testimony of Wallace, who simply stated what he
+had seen through his telescope, and then left it to others to identify
+the enormous birds he described as he had observed them stalking about
+on the snowy peaks of the Tasmanian Alps.
+
+My own knowledge of the ux was confined to a single circumstance.
+When, in 1897, I had gone to Tasmania with Professor Farrago, to make
+a report on the availability of the so-called "Tasmanian devil," as a
+substitute for the mongoose in the West Indies, I of course heard a
+great deal of talk among the natives concerning the birds which they
+affirmed haunted the summits of the mountains.
+
+Our time in Tasmania was too limited to admit of an exploration then.
+But although we were perfectly aware that the summits of the Tasmanian
+Alps are inaccessible, we certainly should have attempted to gain them
+had not the time set for our departure arrived before we had completed
+the investigation for which we were sent.
+
+One relic, however, I carried away with me. It was a single greenish
+bronzed feather, found high up in the mountains by a native, and sold
+to me for a somewhat large sum of money.
+
+Darwin believed the ux to be covered with greenish plumage; Wallace
+was too far away to observe the color of the great birds; but all the
+natives of Tasmania unite in affirming that the plumage of the ux is
+green.
+
+It was not only the color of this feather that made me an eager
+purchaser, it was the extraordinary length and size. I knew of no
+living bird large enough to wear such a feather. As for the color,
+that might have been tampered with before I bought it, and, indeed,
+testing it later, I found on the fronds traces of sulphate of copper.
+But the same thing has been found in the feathers of certain birds
+whose color is metallic green, and it has been proven that such birds
+pick up and swallow shining bits of copper pyrites.
+
+Why should not the ux do the same thing?
+
+Still, my only reason for believing in the existence of the bird was
+this single feather. I had easily proved that it belonged to no known
+species of bird. I also proved it to be similar to the tail-feathers
+of the ux-skin in Antwerp. But the feathers on the Antwerp specimen
+were gray, and the longest of them was but three feet in length, while
+my huge, bronze-green feather measured eleven feet from tip to tip.
+
+One might account for it supposing the Antwerp skin to be that of a
+young bird, or of a moulting bird, or perhaps of a different sex from
+the bird whose feather I had secured.
+
+Still, these ideas were not proven. Nothing concerning the birds had
+been proven. I had but a single fact to lean on, and that was that the
+feather I possessed could not have belonged to any known species of
+bird. Nobody but myself knew of the existence of this feather. And now
+I meant to cable to Bronx Park for it, and to place this evidence at
+the disposal of the beautiful Countess d'Alzette.
+
+My cigar had gone out, as I sat musing, and I relighted it and resumed
+my reading of the type-written notes, lazily, even a trifle
+sceptically, for all the evidence that she had been able to collect to
+substantiate her theory of the existence of the ux was not half as
+important as the evidence I was to produce in the shape of that
+enormous green feather.
+
+I came to the last paragraph, smoking serenely, and leaning back
+comfortably, one leg crossed over the other. Then, suddenly, my
+attention became riveted on the words under my eyes. Could I have read
+them aright? Could I believe what I read in ever-growing astonishment
+which culminated in an excitement that stirred the very hair on my
+head?
+
+    "The ux exists. There is no longer room for doubt. Ocular
+    proof I can now offer in the shape of _five living eggs_ of
+    this gigantic bird. All measures have been taken to hatch
+    these eggs; they are now in the vast incubator. It is my plan
+    to have them hatch, one by one, under the very eyes of the
+    International Congress. It will be the greatest triumph that
+    science has witnessed since the discovery of the New World.
+
+          [Signed] "SUSANNE D'ALZETTE."
+
+"Either," I cried out, in uncontrollable excitement--"either that girl
+is mad or she is the cleverest woman on earth."
+
+After a moment I added:
+
+"In either event I am going to marry her."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+That evening, a few minutes before nine o'clock, I descended from a
+cab in front of No. 8 Rue d'Alouette, and was ushered into a pretty
+reception-room by an irreproachable servant, who disappeared directly
+with my card.
+
+In a few moments the young Countess came in, exquisite in her silvery
+dinner-gown, eyes bright, white arms extended in a charming, impulsive
+welcome. The touch of her silky fingers thrilled me; I was dumb under
+the enchantment of her beauty; and I think she understood my silence,
+for her blue eyes became troubled and the happy parting of her lips
+changed to a pensive curve.
+
+Presently I began to tell her about my bronzed-green feather; at my
+first word she looked up brightly, almost gratefully, I fancied; and
+in another moment we were deep in eager discussion of the subject
+which had first drawn us together.
+
+What evidence I possessed to sustain our theory concerning the
+existence of the ux I hastened to reveal; then, heart beating
+excitedly, I asked her about the eggs and where they were at present,
+and whether she believed it possible to bring them to Paris--all these
+questions in the same breath--which brought a happy light into her
+eyes and a delicious ripple of laughter to her lips.
+
+"Why, of course it is possible to bring the eggs here," she cried. "Am
+I sure? Parbleu! The eggs are already here, monsieur!"
+
+"Here!" I exclaimed. "In Paris?"
+
+"In Paris? Mais oui; and in my own house--_this very house_, monsieur.
+Come, you shall behold them with your own eyes!"
+
+Her eyes were brilliant with excitement; impulsively she stretched out
+her rosy hand. I took it; and she led me quickly back through the
+drawing-room, through the dining-room, across the butler's pantry, and
+into a long, dark hallway. We were almost running now--I keeping tight
+hold of her soft little hand, she, raising her gown a trifle, hurrying
+down the hallway, silken petticoats rustling like a silk banner in the
+wind. A turn to the right brought us to the cellar-stairs; down we
+hastened, and then across the cemented floor towards a long,
+glass-fronted shelf, pierced with steam-pipes.
+
+"A match," she whispered, breathlessly.
+
+I struck a wax match and touched it to the gas-burner overhead.
+
+Never, never can I forget what that flood of gas-light revealed. In a
+row stood five large, glass-mounted incubators; behind the glass doors
+lay, in dormant majesty, five enormous eggs. The eggs were
+pale-green--lighter, somewhat, than robins' eggs, but not as pale as
+herons' eggs. Each egg appeared to be larger than a large hogs-head,
+and was partly embedded in bales of cotton-wool.
+
+Five little silver thermometers inside the glass doors indicated a
+temperature of 95 deg. Fahrenheit. I noticed that there was an automatic
+arrangement connected with the pipes which regulated the temperature.
+
+I was too deeply moved for words. Speech seemed superfluous as we
+stood there, hand in hand, contemplating those gigantic, pale-green
+eggs.
+
+There is something in a silent egg which moves one's deeper
+emotions--something solemn in its embryotic inertia, something awesome
+in its featureless immobility.
+
+I know of nothing on earth which is so totally lacking in expression
+as an egg. The great desert Sphinx, brooding through its veil of sand,
+has not that tremendous and meaningless dignity which wraps the
+colorless oval effort of a single domestic hen.
+
+I held the hand of the young Countess very tightly. Her fingers closed
+slightly.
+
+Then and there, in the solemn presence of those emotionless eggs, I
+placed my arm around her supple waist and kissed her.
+
+She said nothing. Presently she stooped to observe the thermometer.
+Naturally, it registered 95 deg. Fahrenheit.
+
+"Susanne," I said, softly.
+
+"Oh, we must go up-stairs," she whispered, breathlessly; and, picking
+up her silken skirts, she fled up the cellar-stairs.
+
+I turned out the gas, with that instinct of economy which early
+wastefulness has implanted in me, and followed the Countess Suzanne
+through the suite of rooms and into the small reception-hall where she
+had first received me.
+
+She was sitting on a low divan, head bent, slowly turning a sapphire
+ring on her finger, round and round.
+
+I looked at her romantically, and then--
+
+"Please don't," she said.
+
+The correct reply to this is:
+
+"Why not?"--very tenderly spoken.
+
+"Because," she replied, which was also the correct and regular answer.
+
+"Suzanne," I said, slowly and passionately.
+
+She turned the sapphire ring on her finger. Presently she tired of
+this, so I lifted her passive hand very gently and continued turning
+the sapphire ring on her finger, slowly, to harmonize with the cadence
+of our unspoken thoughts.
+
+Towards midnight I went home, walking with great care through a new
+street in Paris, paved exclusively with rose-colored blocks of air.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+At nine o'clock in the evening, July 31, 1900, the International
+Congress was to assemble in the great lecture-hall of the Belgian
+Scientific Pavilion, which adjourned the Tasmanian Pavilion, to hear
+the Countess Suzanne d'Alzette read her paper on the ux.
+
+That morning the Countess and I, with five furniture vans, had
+transported the five great incubators to the platform of the
+lecture-hall, and had engaged an army of plumbers and gas-fitters to
+make the steam-heating connections necessary to maintain in the
+incubators a temperature of 100 deg. Fahrenheit.
+
+A heavy green curtain hid the stage from the body of the lecture-hall.
+Behind this curtain the five enormous eggs reposed, each in its
+incubator.
+
+The Countess Suzanne was excited and calm by turns, her cheeks were
+pink, her lips scarlet, her eyes bright as blue planets at midnight.
+
+Without faltering she rehearsed her discourse before me, reading from
+her type-written manuscript in a clear voice, in which I could
+scarcely discern a tremor. Then we went through the dumb show of
+exhibiting the uxen eggs to a frantically applauding audience; she
+responded to countless supposititious encores, I leading her out
+repeatedly before the green curtain to face the great, damp, darkened
+auditorium.
+
+Then, in response to repeated imaginary recalls, she rehearsed the
+extemporaneous speech, thanking the distinguished audience for their
+patience in listening to an unknown confrere, and confessing her
+obligations to me (here I appeared and bowed in self-abasement) for my
+faith in her and my aid in securing for her a public hearing before
+the most highly educated audience in the world.
+
+After that we retired behind the curtain to sit on an empty box and
+eat sandwiches and watch the last lingering plumbers pasting up the
+steam connections with a pot of molten lead.
+
+The plumbers were Americans, brought to Paris to make repairs on the
+American buildings during the exposition, and we conversed with them
+affably as they pottered about, plumber-like, poking under the
+flooring with lighted candles, rubbing their thumbs up and down musty
+old pipes, and prying up planks in dark corners.
+
+They informed us that they were union men and that they hoped we were
+too. And I replied that union was certainly my ultimate purpose, at
+which the young Countess smiled dreamily at vacancy.
+
+We did not dare leave the incubators. The plumbers lingered on, hour
+after hour, while we sat and watched the little silver thermometers,
+and waited.
+
+It was time for the Countess Suzanne to dress, and still the plumbers
+had not finished; so I sent a messenger for her maid, to bring her
+trunk to the lecture-hall, and I despatched another messenger to my
+lodgings for my evening clothes and fresh linen.
+
+There were several dressing-rooms off the stage. Here, about six
+o'clock, the Countess retired with her maid, to dress, leaving me to
+watch the plumbers and the thermometers.
+
+When the Countess Suzanne returned, radiant and lovely in an evening
+gown of black lace, I gave her the roses I had brought for her and
+hurried off to dress in my turn, leaving her to watch the
+thermometers.
+
+I was not absent more than half an hour, but when I returned I found
+the Countess anxiously conversing with the plumbers and pointing
+despairingly at the thermometers, which now registered only 95 deg..
+
+"You must keep up the temperature!" I said. "Those eggs are due to
+hatch within a few hours. What's the trouble with the heat?"
+
+The plumber did not know, but thought the connections were defective.
+
+"But that's why we called you in!" exclaimed the Countess. "Can't you
+fix things securely?"
+
+"Oh, we'll fix things, lady," replied the plumber, condescendingly,
+and he ambled away to rub his thumb up and down a pipe.
+
+As we alone were unable to move and handle the enormous eggs, the
+Countess, whose sweet character was a stranger to vindictiveness or
+petty resentment, had written to the members of the ornithological
+committee, revealing the marvellous fortune which had crowned her
+efforts in the search for evidence to sustain her theory concerning
+the ux, and inviting these gentlemen to aid her in displaying the
+great eggs to the assembled congress.
+
+This she had done the night previous. Every one of the gentlemen
+invited had come post-haste to her "hotel," to view the eggs with
+their own sceptical and astonished eyes; and the fair young Countess
+and I tasted our first triumph in her cellar, whither we conducted Sir
+Peter Grebe, the Crown-Prince of Monaco, Baron de Becasse, and his
+Majesty King Christian of Finland.
+
+Scepticism and incredulity gave place to excitement and unbounded
+enthusiasm. The old King embraced the Countess; Baron de Becasse
+attempted to kiss me; Sir Peter Grebe made a handsome apology for his
+folly and vowed that he would do open penance for his sins. The poor
+Crown-Prince, who was of a nervous temperament, sat on the
+cellar-stairs and wept like a child.
+
+His grief at his own pig-headedness touched us all profoundly.
+
+So it happened that these gentlemen were coming to-night to give their
+aid to us in moving the priceless eggs, and lend their countenance and
+enthusiastic support to the young Countess in her maiden effort.
+
+Sir Peter Grebe arrived first, all covered with orders and
+decorations, and greeted us affectionately, calling the Countess the
+"sweetest lass in France," and me his undutiful Yankee cousin who had
+landed feet foremost at the expense of the British Empire.
+
+The King of Finland, the Crown-Prince, and Baron de Becasse arrived
+together, a composite mass of medals, sashes, and academy palms. To
+see them moving boxes about, straightening chairs, and pulling out
+rugs reminded me of those golden-embroidered gentlemen who run out
+into the arena and roll up carpets after the acrobats have finished
+their turn in the Nouveau Cirque.
+
+I was aiding the King of Finland to move a heavy keg of nails, when
+the Countess called out to me in alarm, saying that the thermometers
+had dropped to 80 deg. Fahrenheit.
+
+I spoke sharply to the plumbers, who were standing in a circle behind
+the dressing-rooms; but they answered sullenly that they could do no
+more work that day.
+
+Indignant and alarmed, I ordered them to come out to the stage, and,
+after some hesitation, they filed out, a sulky, silent lot of workmen,
+with their tools already gathered up and tied in their kits. At once I
+noticed that a new man had appeared among them--a red-faced, stocky
+man wearing a frock-coat and a shiny silk hat.
+
+"Who is the master-workman here?" I asked.
+
+"I am," said a man in blue overalls.
+
+"Well," said I, "why don't you fix those steam-fittings?"
+
+There was a silence. The man in the silk hat smirked.
+
+"Well?" said I.
+
+"Come, come, that's all right," said the man in the silk hat. "These
+men know their business without you tellin' them."
+
+"Who are you?" I demanded, sharply.
+
+"Oh, I'm just a walkin' delegate," he replied, with a sneer. "There's
+a strike in New York and I come over here to tie this here exposition
+up. See?"
+
+"You mean to say you won't let these men finish their work?" I asked,
+thunderstruck.
+
+"That's about it, young man," he said, coolly.
+
+Furious, I glanced at my watch, then at the thermometers, which now
+registered only 75 deg.. Already I could hear the first-comers of the
+audience arriving in the body of the hall. Already a stage-hand was
+turning up the footlights and dragging chairs and tables hither and
+thither.
+
+"What will you take to stay and attend to those steam-pipes?" I
+demanded, desperately.
+
+"It can't be done nohow," observed the man in the silk hat. "That New
+York strike is good for a month yet." Then, turning to the workmen, he
+nodded and, to my horror, the whole gang filed out after him, turning
+deaf ears to my entreaties and threats.
+
+There was a deathly silence, then Sir Peter exploded into a vivid
+shower of words. The Countess, pale as a ghost, gave me a
+heart-breaking look. The Crown-Prince wept.
+
+"Great Heaven!" I cried; "the thermometers have fallen to 70 deg.!"
+
+The King of Finland sat down on a chair and pressed his hands over his
+eyes. Baron de Becasse ran round and round, uttering subdued and
+plaintive screams; Sir Peter swore steadily.
+
+"Gentlemen," I cried, desperately, "we must save those eggs! They are
+on the very eve of hatching! Who will volunteer?"
+
+"To do what?" moaned the Crown-Prince.
+
+"I'll show you," I exclaimed, running to the incubators and beckoning
+to the Baron to aid me.
+
+In a moment we had rolled out the great egg, made a nest on the stage
+floor with the bales of cotton-wool, and placed the egg in it. One
+after another we rolled out the remaining eggs, building for each its
+nest of cotton; and at last the five enormous eggs lay there in a row
+behind the green curtain.
+
+"Now," said I, excitedly, to the King, "you must get up on that egg
+and try to keep it warm."
+
+The King began to protest, but I would take no denial, and presently
+his Majesty was perched up on the great egg, gazing foolishly about at
+the others, who were now all climbing up on their allotted eggs.
+
+"Great Heaven!" muttered the King, as Sir Peter settled down
+comfortably on his egg, "I am willing to give life and fortune for the
+sake of science, but I can't bear to hatch out eggs like a bird!"
+
+The Crown-Prince was now sitting patiently beside the Baron de
+Becasse.
+
+"I feel in my bones," he murmured, "that I'm about to hatch something.
+Can't you hear a tapping on the shell of your egg, Baron?"
+
+"Parbleu!" replied the Baron. "The shell is moving under me."
+
+It certainly was; for, the next moment, the Baron fell into his egg
+with a crash and a muffled shriek, and floundered out, dripping,
+yellow as a canary.
+
+"N'importe!" he cried, excitedly. "Allons! Save the eggs! Hurrah! Vive
+la science!" And he scrambled up on the fourth egg and sat there, arms
+folded, sublime courage transfiguring him from head to foot.
+
+We all gave him a cheer, which was hushed as the stage-manager ran in,
+warning us that the audience was already assembled and in place.
+
+"You're not going to raise the curtain while we're sitting, are you?"
+demanded the King of Finland, anxiously.
+
+"No, no," I said; "sit tight, your Majesty. Courage, gentlemen! Our
+vindication is at hand!"
+
+The Countess glanced at me with startled eyes; I took her hand,
+saluted it respectfully, and then quietly led her before the curtain,
+facing an ocean of upturned faces across the flaring footlights.
+
+She stood a moment to acknowledge the somewhat ragged applause, a calm
+smile on her lips. All her courage had returned; I saw that at once.
+
+Very quietly she touched her lips to the _eau-sucree_, laid her
+manuscript on the table, raised her beautiful head, and began:
+
+"That the ux is a living bird I am here before you to prove--"
+
+A sharp report behind the curtain drowned her voice. She paled; the
+audience rose amid cries of excitement.
+
+"What was it?" she asked, faintly.
+
+"Sir Peter has hatched out his egg," I whispered. "Hark! There goes
+another egg!" And I ran behind the curtain.
+
+Such a scene as I beheld was never dreamed of on land or sea. Two
+enormous young uxen, all over gigantic pin-feathers, were wandering
+stupidly about. Mounted on one was Sir Peter Grebe, eyes starting from
+his apoplectic visage; on the other, clinging to the bird's neck, hung
+the Baron de Becasse.
+
+Before I could move, the two remaining eggs burst, and a pair of huge,
+scrawny fledglings rose among the debris, bearing off on their backs
+the King and Crown-Prince.
+
+"Help!" said the King of Finland, faintly. "I'm falling off!"
+
+I sprang to his aid, but tripped on the curtain-spring. The next
+instant the green curtain shot up, and there, revealed to that vast
+and distinguished audience, roamed four enormous chicks, bearing on
+their backs the most respected and exclusive aristocracy of Europe.
+
+The Countess Suzanne turned with a little shriek of horror, then sat
+down in her chair, laid her lovely head on the table, and very quietly
+fainted away, unconscious of the frantic cheers which went roaring to
+the roof.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This, then, is the _true_ history of the famous exposition scandal.
+And, as I have said, had it not been for the presence in that audience
+of two American reporters nobody would have known what all the world
+now knows--nobody would have read of the marvellous feats of bareback
+riding indulged in by the King of Finland--nobody would have read how
+Sir Peter Grebe steered his mount safely past the footlights only to
+come to grief over the prompter's box.
+
+But this _is_ scandal. And, as for the charming Countess Suzanne
+d'Alzette, the public has heard all that it is entitled to hear, and
+much that it is not entitled to hear.
+
+However, on second thoughts, perhaps the public is entitled to hear a
+little more. I will therefore say this much--the shock of astonishment
+which stunned me when the curtain flew up, revealing the
+King-bestridden uxen, was nothing to the awful blow which smote me
+when the Count d'Alzette leaped from the orchestra, over the
+footlights, and bore away with him the fainting form of his wife, the
+lovely Countess d'Alzette.
+
+I sometimes wonder--but, as I have repeatedly observed, this dull and
+pedantic narrative of fact is no vehicle for sentimental soliloquy. It
+is, then, merely sufficient to say that I took the earliest steamer
+for kinder shores, spurred on to haste by a venomous cable-gram from
+the Smithsonian, repudiating me, and by another from Bronx Park,
+ordering me to spend the winter in some inexpensive, poisonous, and
+unobtrusive spot, and make a collection of isopods. The island of Java
+appeared to me to be as poisonously unobtrusive and inexpensive a
+region as I had ever heard of; a steamer sailed from Antwerp for
+Batavia in twenty-four hours. Therefore, as I say, I took the
+night-train for Brussels, and the steamer from Antwerp the following
+evening.
+
+Of my uneventful voyage, of the happy and successful quest, there is
+little to relate. The Javanese are frolicsome and hospitable. There
+was a girl there with features that were as delicate as though
+chiselled out of palest amber; and I remember she wore a most
+wonderful jewelled, helmet-like head-dress, and jingling bangles on
+her ankles, and when she danced she made most graceful and poetic
+gestures with her supple wrists--but that has nothing to do with
+isopods, absolutely nothing.
+
+Letters from home came occasionally. Professor Farrago had returned to
+the Bronx and had been re-elected to the high office he had so nobly
+held when I first became associated with him.
+
+Through his kindness and by his advice I remained for several years in
+the Far East, until a letter from him arrived recalling me and also
+announcing his own hurried and sudden departure for Florida. He also
+mentioned my promotion to the office of subcurator of department; so I
+started on my homeward voyage very much pleased with the world, and
+arrived in New York on April 1, 1904, ready for a rest to which I
+believed myself entitled. And the first thing that they handed me was
+a letter from Professor Farrago, summoning me South.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The letter that started me--I was going to say startled me, but only
+imaginative people are startled--the letter, then, that started me
+from Bronx Park to the South I print without the permission of my
+superior, Professor Farrago. I have not obtained his permission, for
+the somewhat exciting reason that nobody knows where he is. Publicity
+being now recognized as the annihilator of mysteries, a benevolent
+purpose alone inspires me to publish a letter so strange, so
+pathetically remarkable, in view of what has recently occurred.
+
+As I say, I had only just returned from Java with a valuable
+collection of undescribed isopods--an order of edriophthalmous
+crustaceans with seven free thoracic somites furnished with fourteen
+legs--and I beg my reader's pardon, but my reader will see the
+necessity for the author's absolute accuracy in insisting on detail,
+because the story that follows is a dangerous story for a scientist to
+tell, in view of the vast amount of nonsense and fiction in
+circulation masquerading as stories of scientific adventure.
+
+I was, therefore, anticipating a delightful summer's work with pen and
+microscope, when on April 1st I received the following extraordinary
+letter from Professor Farrago:
+
+
+            "IN CAMP, LITTLE SPRITE LAKE,
+
+          "EVERGLADES, FLORIDA, _March 15, 1902._
+
+    "MY DEAR MR. GILLAND,--On receipt of this communication you
+    will immediately secure for me the following articles:
+
+    "One complete outfit of woman's clothing.
+    "One camera.
+    "One light steel cage, large enough for you to stand in.
+    "One stenographer (male sex).
+    "One five-pound steel tank, with siphon and hose attachment.
+    "One rifle and ammunition.
+    "Three ounces rosium oxyde.
+    "One ounce chlorate strontium.
+
+    "You will then, within twenty-four hours, set out with the
+    stenographer and the supplies mentioned and join me in camp on
+    Little Sprite Lake. This order is formal and admits of no
+    delay. You will appreciate the necessity of absolute and
+    unquestioning obedience when I tell you that I am practically
+    on the brink of the most astonishing discovery recorded in
+    natural history since Monsieur Zani discovered the
+    purple-spotted zoombok in Nyanza; and that I depend upon you
+    and your zeal and fidelity for success.
+
+    "I dare not, lest my letter fall into unscrupulous hands,
+    convey to you more than a hint of what lies before us in these
+    uncharted solitudes of the Everglades.
+
+    "You must read between the lines when I say that because one
+    can see through a sheet of glass, the glass is none the less
+    solid and palpable. One can see _through_ it--if that is also
+    seeing it; but one can nevertheless hold it and feel it and
+    receive from it sensations of cold or heat according to its
+    temperature.
+
+    "Certain jellyfish are absolutely transparent when in the
+    water, and one can only know of their presence by accidental
+    contact, not by sight.
+
+    "_Have you ever thought that possibly there might exist larger
+    and more highly organized creatures transparent to eyesight,
+    yet palpable to touch?_
+
+    "Little Sprite Lake is the jumping-off place; beyond lie the
+    Everglades, the outskirts of which are haunted by the
+    Seminoles, the interior of which have never been visited by
+    man, as far as we know.
+
+    "As you are aware, no general survey of Florida has yet been
+    made; there exist no maps of the Everglades south of
+    Okeechobee; even Little Sprite Lake is but a vague blot on our
+    maps. We know, of course, that south of the eleven thousand
+    square miles of fresh water which is called Lake Okeechobee
+    the Everglades form a vast, delta-like projection of thousands
+    and thousands of square miles. Darkest Africa is no longer a
+    mystery; but the Everglades to-day remain the sombre secret of
+    our continent. And, to-day, this unknown expanse of swamps,
+    barrens, forests, and lagoons is greater than in the days of
+    De Soto, because the entire region has been slowly rising.
+
+    "All this, my dear sir, you already know, and I ask your
+    indulgence for recalling the facts to your memory. I do it for
+    this reason--the search for _what I am seeking_ may lead us to
+    utter destruction; and therefore my formal orders to you
+    should be modified to this extent:--do you volunteer? If you
+    volunteer, my orders remain; if not, turn this letter over to
+    Mr. Kingsley, who will find for me the companion I require.
+
+    "In the event of your coming, you must break your journey at
+    False Cape and ask for an old man named Slunk. He will give
+    you a packet; you will give him a dollar, and drive on to Cape
+    Canaveral, and you will do what is to be done there. From
+    there to Fort Kissimmee, to Okeechobee, traversing the lake to
+    the Rita River, where I have marked the trail to Little
+    Sprite.
+
+    "At Little Sprite I shall await you; beyond that point a
+    merciful Providence alone can know what awaits us.
+
+          "Yours fraternally,
+
+          "FARRAGO.
+
+    "P.S.--I think that you had better make your will, and suggest
+    the same idea to the stenographer who is to accompany you.
+
+              F."
+
+And that was the letter I received while seated comfortably on the
+floor of my work-room, surrounded by innocent isopods, all patiently
+awaiting scientific investigation.
+
+And this is what I did: Within twenty-four hours I had assembled the
+supplies required--the cage, the woman's clothing, tank, arms and
+ammunition, and the chemicals; I had secured accommodations, for that
+evening, on the Florida, Volusia, and Fort Lauderdale Railway as far
+as Citron City; and I had been interviewing stenographers all day
+long, the result of an innocently worded advertisement in the daily
+newspapers.
+
+It was now very close to the time when I must summon a cab and drive
+to the ferry; and yet I was still shy one stenographer.
+
+I had seen scores; they simply would not listen to the proposition.
+"Why does a gentleman in the backwoods of Florida want a
+stenographer?" they demanded; and as I had not the faintest idea, I
+could only say so. I think the majority interviewed concluded I had
+escaped from a State institution.
+
+As the time for departure approached I became desperate, urging and
+beseeching applicants to accompany me; but neither sympathy for my
+instant need nor desire for salary moved them.
+
+I waited until the last moment, hoping against hope. Then, with a
+groan of despair, I seized luggage and raincoat, made for the door and
+flung it open, only to find myself face to face with an attractive
+young girl, apparently on the point of pressing the electric button.
+
+"I'm sorry," I said, "but I have a train to catch."
+
+She was noticeably attractive in her storm-coat and pretty hat, and I
+really was sorry--so sorry that I added:
+
+"I have about twenty-seven seconds to place at your service before I
+go."
+
+"Twenty will be sufficient," she replied, pleasantly. "I saw your
+advertisement for a stenographer--"
+
+"We require a man," I interposed, hastily.
+
+"Have you engaged him?"
+
+"N-no."
+
+We looked at each other.
+
+"You wouldn't accept, anyway," I began.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"You wouldn't leave town, would you?"
+
+"Yes, if you required it."
+
+"What? Go to Florida?"
+
+"Y-yes--if I must."
+
+"But think of the alligators! Think of the snakes--big, bitey snakes!"
+
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed, eyes growing bigger.
+
+"Indians, too!--unreconciled, sulky Seminoles! Fevers! Mud-puddles!
+Spiders! And only fifty dollars a week--"
+
+"I--I'll go," she stammered.
+
+"Go?" I repeated, grimly; "then you've exactly two and three-quarter
+seconds left for preparations."
+
+Instinctively she raised her little gloved hand and patted her hair.
+"I'm ready," she said, unsteadily.
+
+"One extra second to make your will," I added, stunned by her
+self-possession.
+
+"I--I have nothing to leave--nobody to leave it to," she said,
+smiling; "I am ready."
+
+I took that extra second myself for a lightning course in reflection
+upon effects and consequences.
+
+"It's silly, it's probably murder," I said, "but you're engaged! Now
+we must run for it!"
+
+And that is how I came to engage the services of Miss Helen Barrison
+as stenographer.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+At noon on the second day I disembarked from the train at Citron City
+with all paraphernalia--cage, chemicals, arsenal, and stenographer; an
+accumulation of very dusty impedimenta--all but the stenographer. By
+three o'clock our hotel livery-rig was speeding along the beach at
+False Cape towards the tall lighthouse looming above the dunes.
+
+The abode of a gentleman named Slunk was my goal. I sat brooding in
+the rickety carriage, still dazed by the rapidity of my flight from
+New York; the stenographer sat beside me, blue eyes bright with
+excitement, fair hair blowing in the sea-wind.
+
+Our railway companionship had been of the slightest, also absolutely
+formal; for I was too absorbed in conjecturing the meaning of this
+journey to be more than absent-mindedly civil; and she, I fancy, had
+had time for repentance and perhaps for a little fright, though I
+could discover traces of neither.
+
+I remember she left the train at some city or other where we were held
+for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a
+brand-new grip sack.
+
+She must have bought clothes, for she continued to remain cool and
+fresh in her summer shirt-waists and short outing skirt; and she
+looked immaculate now, sitting there beside me, the trace of a smile
+curving her red mouth.
+
+"I'm looking for a personage named Slunk," I observed.
+
+After a moment's silent consideration of the Atlantic Ocean she said,
+"When do my duties begin, Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"The Lord alone knows," I replied, grimly. "Are you repenting of your
+bargain?"
+
+"I am quite happy," she said, serenely.
+
+Remorse smote me that I had consented to engage this frail,
+pink-and-ivory biped for an enterprise which lay outside the suburbs
+of Manhattan. I glanced guiltily at my victim; she sat there, the
+incarnation of New York piquancy--a translated denizen of the
+metropolis--a slender spirit of the back offices of sky-scrapers. Why
+had I lured her hither?--here where the heavy, lavender-tinted
+breakers thundered on a lost coast; here where above the dune-jungles
+vultures soared, and snowy-headed eagles, hulking along the sands,
+tore dead fish and yelped at us as we passed.
+
+Strange waters, strange skies--a strange, lost land aquiver under an
+exotic sun; and there she sat with her wise eyes of a child,
+unconcerned, watching the world in perfect confidence.
+
+"May I pay a little compliment to your pluck?" I asked, amused.
+
+"Certainly," she said, smiling as the maid of Manhattan alone knows
+how to smile--shyly, inquiringly--with a lingering hint of laughter in
+the curled lips' corners. Then her sensitive features fell a trifle.
+"Not pluck," she said, "but necessity; I had no chance to choose, no
+time to wait. My last dollar, Mr. Gilland, is in my purse!"
+
+With a gay little gesture she drew it from her shirt-front, then,
+smiling, sat turning it over and over in her lap.
+
+The sun fell on her hands, gilding the smooth skin with the first tint
+of sunburn. Under the corners of her eyes above the rounded cheeks a
+pink stain lay like the first ripening flush on a wild strawberry.
+That, too, was the mark left by the caress of wind and sun. I had had
+no idea she was so pretty.
+
+"I think we'll enjoy this adventure," I said; "don't you?"
+
+"I try to make the best of things," she said, gazing off into the
+horizon haze. "Look," she added; "is that a man?"
+
+A spot far away on the beach caught my eye. At first I thought it was
+a pelican--and small wonder, too, for the dumpy, waddling,
+goose-necked individual who loomed up resembled a heavy bottomed bird
+more than a human being.
+
+"Do you suppose that could be Mr. Slunk?" asked the stenographer, as
+our vehicle drew nearer.
+
+He looked as though his name ought to be Slunk; he was digging coquina
+clams, and he dug with a pecking motion like a water-turkey mastering
+a mullet too big for it.
+
+His name was Slunk; he admitted it when I accused him. Our negro
+driver drew rein, and I descended to the sand and gazed on Mr. Slunk.
+
+He was, as I have said, not impressive, even with the tremendous
+background of sky and ocean.
+
+"I've come something over a thousand miles to see you," I said,
+reluctant to admit that I had come as far to see such a specimen of
+human architecture.
+
+A weather-beaten grin stretched the skin that covered his face, and he
+shoved a hairy paw into the pockets of his overalls, digging deeply
+into profound depths. First he brought to light a twist of South
+Carolina tobacco, which he leisurely inserted in his mouth--not,
+apparently, for pleasure, but merely to get rid of it.
+
+The second object excavated from the overalls was a small packet
+addressed to me. This he handed to me; I gravely handed him a silver
+dollar; he went back to his clam-digging, and I entered the carriage
+and drove on. All had been carried out according to the letter of my
+instructions so far, and my spirits brightened.
+
+"If you don't mind I'll read my instructions," I said, in high
+good-humor.
+
+"Pray do not hesitate," she said, smiling in sympathy.
+
+So I opened the little packet and read:
+
+    "Drive to Cape Canaveral along the beach. You will find a gang
+    of men at work on a government breakwater. The superintendent
+    is Mr. Rowan. Show him this letter.
+
+                "FARRAGO."
+
+Rather disappointed--for I had been expecting to find in the packet
+some key to the interesting mystery which had sent Professor Farrago
+into the Everglades--I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a
+study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed:
+ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay,
+sparkleberry, and live-oak, with here and there a weather-twisted
+palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus
+and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the
+vultures, sailing, sailing--some mere circling motes lost in the blue
+above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping
+shadows slanted continually across our road.
+
+"I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud.
+
+"I thought they were crows," she confessed.
+
+"Carrion-crows--yes.
+
+    "'The carrion-crows
+      Sing, Caw! caw!'
+
+--only they don't," I added, my song putting me in good-humor once
+more. And I glanced askance at the pretty stenographer.
+
+"It is a pleasure to be employed by agreeable people," she said,
+innocently.
+
+"Oh, I can be much more agreeable than that," I said.
+
+"Is Professor Farrago--amusing?" she asked.
+
+"Well--oh, certainly--but not in--in the way I am."
+
+Suddenly it flashed upon me that my superior was a confirmed hater of
+unmarried women. I had clean forgotten it; and now the full import of
+what I had done scared me silent.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Barrison.
+
+"No--not yet," I said, ominously.
+
+How on earth could I have overlooked that well-known fact. The hurry
+and anxiety, the stress of instant preparation and departure, had
+clean driven it from my absent-minded head.
+
+Jogging on over the sand, I sat silent, cudgelling my brains for a
+solution of the disastrous predicament I had gotten into. I pictured
+the astonished rage of my superior--my probable dismissal from
+employment--perhaps the general overturning and smash-up of the entire
+expedition.
+
+A distant, dark object on the beach concentrated my distracted
+thoughts; it must be the breakwater at Cape Canaveral. And it was the
+breakwater, swarming with negro workmen, who were swinging great
+blocks of coquina into cemented beds, singing and whistling at their
+labor.
+
+I forgot my predicament when I saw a thin white man in sun-helmet and
+khaki directing the work from the beach; and as our horses plodded up,
+I stepped out and hailed him by name.
+
+"Yes, my name is Rowan," he said, instantly, turning to meet me. His
+sharp, clear eyes included the vehicle and the stenographer, and he
+lifted his helmet, then looked squarely at me.
+
+"My name is Gilland," I said, dropping my voice and stepping nearer.
+"I have just come from Bronx Park, New York."
+
+He bowed, waiting for something more from me; so I presented my
+credentials.
+
+His formal manner changed at once. "Come over here and let us talk a
+bit," he said, cordially--then hesitated, glancing at Miss
+Barrison--"if your wife would excuse us--"
+
+The pretty stenographer colored, and I dryly set Mr. Rowan
+right--which appeared to disturb him more than his mistake.
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Gilland, but you do not propose to take this young
+girl into the Everglades, do you?"
+
+"That's what I had proposed to do," I said, brusquely.
+
+Perfectly aware that I resented his inquiry, he cast a perplexed and
+troubled glance at her, then slowly led the way to a great block of
+sun-warmed coquina, where he sat down, motioning me to do the same.
+
+"I see," he said, "that you don't know just where you are going or
+just what you are expected to do."
+
+"No, I don't," I said.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you, then. You are going into the devil's own country
+to look for something that I fled five hundred miles to avoid."
+
+"Is that so?" I said, uneasily.
+
+"That is so, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"Oh! And what is this object that I am to look for and from which you
+fled five hundred miles?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know what you ran away from?"
+
+"No, sir. Perhaps if I had known I should have run a thousand miles."
+
+We eyed one another.
+
+"You think, then, that I'd better send Miss Barrison back to New
+York?" I asked.
+
+"I certainly do. It may be murder to take her."
+
+"Then I'll do it!" I said, nervously. "Back she goes from the first
+railroad station."
+
+In a flash the thought came to me that here was a way to avoid the
+wrath of Professor Farrago--and a good excuse, too. He might forgive
+my not bringing a man as stenographer in view of my limited time; he
+never would forgive my presenting him with a woman.
+
+"She must go back," I repeated; and it rather surprised me to find
+myself already anticipating loneliness--something that never in all my
+travels had I experienced before.
+
+"By the first train," I added, firmly, disliking Mr. Rowan without any
+reason except that he had suddenly deprived me of my stenographer.
+
+"What I have to tell you," he began, lighting a cigarette, the mate to
+which I declined, "is this: Three years ago, before I entered this
+contracting business, I was in the government employ as officer in the
+Coast Survey. Our duties took us into Florida waters; we were months
+at a time working on shore."
+
+He pulled thoughtfully at his cigarette and blew a light cloud into
+the air.
+
+"I had leave for a month once; and like an ass I prepared to spend it
+in a hunting-trip among the Everglades."
+
+He crossed his lean legs and gazed meditatively at his cigarette.
+
+"I believe," he went on, "that we penetrated the Everglades farther
+than any white man who ever lived to return. There's nothing very
+dismal about the Everglades--the greater part, I mean. You get high
+and low hummock, marshes, creeks, lakes, and all that. If you get
+lost, you're a goner. If you acquire fever, you're as well off as the
+seraphim--and not a whit better. There are the usual animals
+there--bears (little black fellows) lynxes, deer, panthers,
+alligators, and a few stray crocodiles. As for snakes, of course
+they're there, moccasins a-plenty, some rattlers, but, after all, not
+as many snakes as one finds in Alabama, or even northern Florida and
+Georgia.
+
+"The Seminoles won't help you--won't even talk to you. They're a
+sullen pack--but not murderous, as far as I know. Beyond their inner
+limits lie the unknown regions."
+
+He bit the wet end from his cigarette.
+
+"I went there," he said; "I came out as soon as I could."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well--for one thing, my companion died of fright."
+
+"Fright? What at?"
+
+"Well, there's something in there."
+
+"What?"
+
+He fixed a penetrating gaze on me. "I don't know, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"Did you see anything to frighten you?" I insisted.
+
+"No, but I felt something." He dropped his cigarette and ground it
+into the sand viciously. "To cut it short," he said, "I am most
+unwillingly led to believe that there are--creatures--of some sort in
+the Everglades--living creatures quite as large as you or I--and that
+they are perfectly transparent--as transparent as a colorless
+jellyfish."
+
+Instantly the veiled import of Professor Farrago's letter was made
+clear to me. He, too, believed that.
+
+"It embarrasses me like the devil to say such a thing," continued
+Rowan, digging in the sand with his spurred heels. "It seems so--so
+like a whopping lie--it seems so childish and ridiculous--so cursed
+cheap! But I fled; and there you are. I might add," he said,
+indifferently, "that I have the ordinary portion of courage allotted
+to normal men."
+
+"But what do you believe these--these animals to be?" I asked,
+fascinated.
+
+"I don't know." An obstinate look came into his eyes. "I don't know,
+and I absolutely refuse to speculate for the benefit of anybody. I
+wouldn't do it for my friend Professor Farrago; and I'm not going to
+do it for you," he ended, laughing a rather grim laugh that somehow
+jarred me into realizing the amazing import of his story. For I did
+not doubt it, strange as it was--fantastic, incredible though it
+sounded in the ears of a scientist.
+
+What it was that carried conviction I do not know--perhaps the fact
+that my superior credited it; perhaps the manner of narration. Told in
+quiet, commonplace phrases, by an exceedingly practical and
+unimaginative young man who was plainly embarrassed in the telling,
+the story rang out like a shout in a canon, startling because of the
+absolute lack of emphasis employed in the telling.
+
+"Professor Farrago asked me to speak of this to no one except the man
+who should come to his assistance. He desired the first chance of
+clearing this--this rather perplexing matter. No doubt he didn't want
+exploring parties prowling about him," added Rowan, smiling. "But
+there's no fear of that, I fancy. I never expect to tell that story
+again to anybody; I shouldn't have told him, only somehow it's worried
+me for three years, and though I was deadly afraid of ridicule, I
+finally made up my mind that science ought to have a hack at it.
+
+"When I was in New York last winter I summoned up courage and wrote
+Professor Farrago. He came to see me at the Holland House that same
+evening; I told him as much as I ever shall tell anybody. That is all,
+Mr. Gilland."
+
+For a long time I sat silent, musing over the strange words. After a
+while I asked him whether Professor Farrago was supplied with
+provisions; and he said he was; that a great store of staples and tins
+of concentrated rations had been carried in as far as Little Sprite
+Lake; that Professor Farrago was now there alone, having insisted upon
+dismissing all those he had employed.
+
+"There was no practical use for a guide," added Rowan, "because no
+cracker, no Indian, and no guide knows the region beyond the Seminole
+country."
+
+I rose, thanking him and offering my hand. He took it and shook it in
+manly fashion, saying: "I consider Professor Farrago a very brave man;
+I may say the same of any man who volunteers to accompany him.
+Good-bye, Mr. Gilland; I most earnestly wish for your success.
+Professor Farrago left this letter for you."
+
+And that was all. I climbed back into the rickety carriage, carrying
+my unopened letter; the negro driver cracked his whip and whistled,
+and the horses trotted inland over a fine shell road which was to lead
+us across Verbena Junction to Citron City. Half an hour later we
+crossed the tracks at Verbena and turned into a broad marl road. This
+aroused me from my deep and speculative reverie, and after a few
+moments I asked Miss Barrison's indulgence and read the letter from
+Professor Farrago which Mr. Rowan had given me:
+
+    "DEAR MR. GILLAND,--You now know all I dared not write,
+    fearing to bring a swarm of explorers about my ears in case
+    the letter was lost, and found by unscrupulous meddlers. If
+    you still are willing to volunteer, knowing all that I know,
+    join me as soon as possible. If family considerations deter
+    you from taking what perhaps is an insane risk, I shall not
+    expect you to join me. In that event, return to New York
+    immediately and send Kingsley.
+
+              "Yours, F."
+
+"What the deuce is the matter with him!" I exclaimed, irritably. "I'll
+take any chances Kingsley does!"
+
+Miss Barrison looked up in surprise.
+
+"Miss Barrison," I said, plunging into the subject headfirst, "I'm
+extremely sorry, but I have news that forces me to believe the journey
+too dangerous for you to attempt, so I think that it would be much
+better--" The consternation in her pretty face checked me.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," I muttered, appalled by her silence.
+
+"But--but you engaged me!"
+
+"I know it--I should not have done it. I only--"
+
+"But you did engage me, didn't you?"
+
+"I believe that I did--er--oh, of course--"
+
+"But a verbal contract is binding between honorable people, isn't it,
+Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"And ours was a verbal contract; and in consideration you paid me my
+first week's salary, and I bought shirt-waists and a short skirt and
+three changes of--and tooth-brushes and--"
+
+"I know, I know," I groaned. "But I'll fix all that."
+
+"You can't if you break your contract."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because," she said, flushing up, "I should not accept."
+
+"You don't understand--"
+
+"Really I do. You are going into a dangerous country and you're afraid
+I'll be frightened."
+
+"It's something like that."
+
+"Tell me what are the dangers?"
+
+"Alligators, big, bitey snakes--"
+
+"Oh, you've said all that before!"
+
+"Seminoles--"
+
+"And that too. What else is there? Did the young man in the sun-helmet
+tell you of something worse?"
+
+"Yes--much worse! Something so dreadfully horrible that--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I am not at liberty to tell you, Miss Barrison," I said, striving to
+appear shocked.
+
+"It would not make any difference anyway," she observed, calmly. "I'm
+not afraid of anything in the world."
+
+"Yes, you are!" I said. "Listen to me; I'd be awfully glad to have you
+go--I--I really had no idea how I'd miss you--miss such pleasant
+companionship. But it is not possible--" The recollection of Professor
+Farrago's aversion suddenly returned. "No, no," I said, "it can't be
+done. I'm most unhappy over this mistake of mine; please don't look as
+though you were ready to cry!"
+
+"Don't discharge me, Mr. Gilland," she said.
+
+"I'm a brute to do it, but I must; I was a bigger brute to engage you,
+but I did. Don't--please don't look at me that way, Miss Barrison! As
+a matter of fact, I'm tender-hearted and I can't endure it."
+
+"If you only knew what I had been through you wouldn't send me away,"
+she said, in a low voice. "It took my last penny to clothe myself and
+pay for the last lesson at the college of stenography. I--I lived on
+almost nothing for weeks; every respectable place was filled; I walked
+and walked and walked, and nobody wanted me--they all required people
+with experience--and how can I have experience until I begin, Mr.
+Gilland? I was perfectly desperate when I went to see you, knowing
+that you had advertised for a man--" The slightest break in her clear
+voice scared me.
+
+"I'm not going to cry," she said, striving to smile. "If I must go, I
+will go. I--I didn't mean to say all this--but--but I've been so--so
+discouraged;--and you were not very cross with me--"
+
+Smitten with remorse, I picked up her hand and fell to patting it
+violently, trying to think of something to say. The exercise did not
+appear to stimulate my wits.
+
+"Then--then I'm to go with you?" she asked.
+
+"I will see," I said, weakly, "but I fear there's trouble ahead for
+this expedition."
+
+"I fear there is," she agreed, in a cheerful voice. "You have a rifle
+and a cage in your luggage. Are you going to trap Indians and have me
+report their language?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to trap Indians," I said, sharply. "They may trap
+us--but that's a detail. What I want to say to you is this: Professor
+Farrago detests unmarried women, and I forgot it when I engaged you."
+
+"Oh, is that all?" she asked, laughing.
+
+"Not all, but enough to cost me my position."
+
+"How absurd! Why, there are millions of things we might
+do!--millions!"
+
+"What's one of them?" I inquired.
+
+"Why, we might pretend to be married!" Her frank and absolutely
+innocent delight in this suggestion was refreshing, but troubling.
+
+"We would have to be demonstrative to make that story go," I said.
+
+"Why? Well-bred people are not demonstrative in public," she retorted,
+turning a trifle pink.
+
+"No, but in private--"
+
+"I think there is no necessity for carrying a pleasantry into our
+private life," she said, in a perfectly amiable voice. "Anyway, if
+Professor Farrago's feelings are to be spared, no sacrifice on the
+part of a mere girl could be too great," she added, gayly; "I will
+wear men's clothes if you wish."
+
+"You may have to anyhow in the jungle," I said; "and as it's not an
+uncommon thing these days, nobody would ever take you for anything
+except what you are--a very wilful and plucky and persistent and--"
+
+"And what, Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"And attractive," I muttered.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"You're welcome," I snapped. The near whistle of a locomotive warned
+us, and I rose in the carriage, looking out across the sand-hills.
+
+"That is probably our train," observed the pretty stenographer.
+
+"_Our_ train!"
+
+"Yes; isn't it?"
+
+"Then you insist--"
+
+"Ah, no, Mr. Gilland; I only trust implicitly in my employer."
+
+"We'll wait till we get to Citron City," I said, weakly; "then it will
+be time enough to discuss the situation, won't it?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," she said, smiling; but she knew, and I already feared,
+that the situation no longer admitted of discussion. In a few moments
+more we emerged, without warning, from the scrub-crested sand-hills
+into the single white street of Citron City, where China-trees hung
+heavy with bloom, and magnolias, already set with perfumed candelabra,
+spread soft, checkered shadows over the marl.
+
+The train lay at the station, oceans of heavy, black smoke lazily
+flowing from the locomotive; negroes were hoisting empty fruit-crates
+aboard the baggage-car, through the door of which I caught a glimpse
+of my steel cage and remaining paraphernalia, all securely crated.
+
+"Telegram hyah foh Mistuh Gilland," remarked the operator, lounging at
+his window as we descended from our dusty vehicle. He had not
+addressed himself to anybody in particular, but I said that I was Mr.
+Gilland, and he produced the envelope. "Toted in from Okeechobee?" he
+inquired, listlessly.
+
+"Probably; it's signed 'Farrago,' isn't it?"
+
+"It's foh yoh, suh, I reckon," said the operator, handing it out with
+a yawn. Then he removed his hat and fanned his head, which was
+perfectly bald.
+
+I opened the yellow envelope. "Get me a good dog with points," was the
+laconic message; and it irritated me to receive such idiotic
+instructions at such a time and in such a place. A good dog? Where the
+mischief could I find a dog in a town consisting of ten houses and a
+water-tank? I said as much to the bald-headed operator, who smiled
+wearily and replaced his hat: "Dawg? They's moh houn'-dawgs in Citron
+City than they's wood-ticks to keep them busy. I reckon a dollah 'll
+do a heap foh you, suh."
+
+"Could you get me a dog for a dollar?" I asked;--"one with points?"
+
+"Points? I sholy can, suh;--plenty of points. What kind of dawg do yoh
+requiah, suh?--live dawg? daid dawg? houn'-dawg? raid-dawg? hawg-dawg?
+coon-dawg?--"
+
+The locomotive emitted a long, lazy, softly modulated and thoroughly
+Southern toot. I handed the operator a silver dollar, and he presently
+emerged from his office and slouched off up the street, while I walked
+with Miss Barrison to the station platform, where I resumed the
+discussion of her future movements.
+
+"You are very young to take such a risk," I said, gravely. "Had I not
+better buy your ticket back to New York? The north-bound train meets
+this one. I suppose we are waiting for it now--" I stopped, conscious
+of her impatience.
+
+Her face flushed brightly: "Yes; I think it best. I have embarrassed
+you too long already--"
+
+"Don't say that!" I muttered. "I--I--shall be deadly bored without
+you."
+
+"I am not an entertainer, only a stenographer," she said, curtly.
+"Please get me my ticket, Mr. Gilland."
+
+She gazed at me from the car-platform; the locomotive tooted two
+drawling toots.
+
+"It is for your sake," I said, avoiding her gaze as the far-off
+whistle of the north-bound express came floating out of the blue
+distance.
+
+She did not answer; I fished out my watch, regarding it in silence,
+listening to the hum of the approaching train, which ought presently
+to bear her away into the North, where nothing could menace her except
+the brilliant pitfalls of a Christian civilization. But I stood
+there, temporizing, unable to utter a word as her train shot by us
+with a rush, slower, slower, and finally stopped, with a long-drawn
+sigh from the air-brakes.
+
+At that instant the telegraph-operator appeared, carrying a dog by the
+scruff of the neck--a sad-eyed, ewe-necked dog, from the four corners
+of which dangled enormous, cushion-like paws. He yelped when he beheld
+me. Miss Barrison leaned down from the car-platform and took the
+animal into her arms, uttering a suppressed exclamation of pity as she
+lifted him.
+
+"You have your hands full," she said to me; "I'll take him into the
+car for you."
+
+She mounted the steps; I followed with the valises, striving to get a
+good view of my acquisition over her shoulder.
+
+"That isn't the kind of dog I wanted!" I repeated again and again,
+inspecting the animal as it sprawled on the floor of the car at the
+edge of Miss Barrison's skirt. "That dog is all voice and feet and
+emotion! What makes it stick up its paws like that? I don't want that
+dog and I'm not going to identify myself with it! Where's the
+operator--"
+
+I turned towards the car-window; the operator's bald head was visible
+on a line with the sill, and I made motions at him. He bowed with
+courtly grace, as though I were thanking him.
+
+"I'm not!" I cried, shaking my head. "I wanted a dog with points--not
+the kind of points that stick up all over this dog. Take him away!"
+
+The operator's head appeared to be gliding out of my range of vision;
+then the windows of the north-bound train slid past, faster and
+faster. A melancholy grace-note from the dog, a jolt, and I turned
+around, appalled.
+
+"This train is going," I stammered, "and you are on it!"
+
+Miss Barrison sprang up and started towards the door, and I sped after
+her.
+
+"I can jump," she said, breathlessly, edging out to the platform;
+"please let me! There is time yet--if you only wouldn't hold me--so
+tight--"
+
+A few moments later we walked slowly back together through the car and
+took seats facing one another.
+
+Between us sat the hound-dog, a prey to melancholy unutterable.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted
+civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open
+boat containing--
+
+    One light steel cage,
+    One rifle and ammunition,
+    One stenographer,
+    Three ounces rosium oxide,
+    One hound-dog,
+    Two valises.
+
+A playful wave slopped over the bow and I lost count; but the pretty
+stenographer made the inventory, while I resumed the oars, and the dog
+punctured the primeval silence with staccato yelps.
+
+A few minutes later everything and everybody was accounted for; the
+sky was blue and the palms waved, and several species of dicky-birds
+tuned up as I pulled with powerful strokes out into the sunny waters
+of Little Sprite Lake, now within a few miles of my journey's end.
+
+From ponds hidden in the marshes herons rose in lazily laborious
+flight, flapping low across the water; high in the cypress yellow-eyed
+ospreys bent crested heads to watch our progress; sun-baked
+alligators, lying heavily in the shoreward sedge, slid open, glassy
+eyes as we passed.
+
+"Even the 'gators make eyes at you," I said, resting on my oars.
+
+We were on terms of badinage.
+
+"Who was it who shed crocodile tears at the prospect of shipping me
+North?" she inquired.
+
+"Speaking of tears," I observed, "somebody is likely to shed a number
+when Professor Farrago is picked up."
+
+"Pooh!" she said, and snapped her pretty, sun-tanned fingers; and I
+resumed the oars in time to avoid shipwreck on a large mud-bar.
+
+She reclined in the stern, serenely occupied with the view, now and
+then caressing the discouraged dog, now and then patting her hair
+where the wind had loosened a bright strand.
+
+"If Professor Farrago didn't expect a woman stenographer," she said,
+abruptly, "why did he instruct you to bring a complete outfit of
+woman's clothing?"
+
+"I don't know," I said, tartly.
+
+"But you bought them. Are they for a young woman or an old woman?"
+
+"I don't know; I sent a messenger to a department store. I don't know
+what he bought."
+
+"Didn't you look them over?"
+
+"No. Why? I should have been no wiser. I fancy they're all right,
+because the bill was eighteen hundred dollars--"
+
+The pretty stenographer sat up abruptly.
+
+"Is that much?" I asked, uneasily. "I've always heard women's clothing
+was expensive. Wasn't it enough? I told the boy to order the
+best;--Professor Farrago always requires the very best scientific
+instruments, and--I listed the clothes as scientific accessories--that
+being the object of this expedition--_What_ are you laughing at?"
+
+When it pleased her to recover her gravity she announced her desire to
+inspect and repack the clothing; but I refused.
+
+"They're for Professor Farrago," I said. "I don't know what he wants
+of them. I don't suppose he intends to wear 'em and caper about the
+jungle, but they're his. I got them because he told me to. I bought a
+cage, too, to fit myself, but I don't suppose he means to put me in
+it. Perhaps," I added, "he may invite you into it."
+
+"Let me refold the gowns," she pleaded, persuasively. "What does a
+clumsy man know about packing such clothing as that? If you don't,
+they'll be ruined. It's a shame to drag those boxes about through mud
+and water!"
+
+So we made a landing, and lifted out and unlocked the boxes. All I
+could see inside were mounds of lace and ribbons, and with a vague
+idea that Miss Barrison needed no assistance I returned to the boat
+and sat down to smoke until she was ready.
+
+When she summoned me her face was flushed and her eyes bright.
+
+"Those are certainly the most beautiful things!" she said, softly.
+"Why, it is like a bride's trousseau--absolutely complete--all except
+the bridal gown--"
+
+"Isn't there a dress there?" I exclaimed, in alarm.
+
+"No--not a day-dress."
+
+"Night-dresses!" I shrieked. "He doesn't want women's night-dresses!
+He's a bachelor! Good Heavens! I've done it this time!"
+
+"But--but who is to wear them?" she asked.
+
+"How do I know? I don't know anything; I can only presume that he
+doesn't intend to open a department store in the Everglades. And if
+any lady is to wear garments in his vicinity, I assume that those
+garments are to be anything except diaphanous!... Please take your
+seat in the boat, Miss Barrison. I want to row and think."
+
+I had had my fill of exercise and thought when, about four o'clock in
+the afternoon, Miss Barrison directed my attention to a point of palms
+jutting out into the water about a mile to the southward.
+
+"That's Farrago!" I exclaimed, catching sight of a United States flag
+floating majestically from a bamboo-pole. "Give me the megaphone, if
+you please."
+
+She handed me the instrument; I hailed the shore; and presently a man
+appeared under the palms at the water's edge.
+
+"Hello!" I roared, trying to inject cheerfulness into the hollow
+bellow. "How are you, professor?"
+
+The answer came distinctly across the water:
+
+"_Who_ is that with you?"
+
+My lips were buried in the megaphone; I strove to speak; I only
+produced a ghastly, chuckling sound.
+
+"Of course you expect to tell the truth," observed the pretty
+stenographer, quietly.
+
+I removed my lips from the megaphone and looked around at her. She
+returned my gaze with a disturbing smile.
+
+"I want to mitigate the blow," I said, hoarsely. "Tell me how."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she said, sweetly.
+
+"Well, _I_ do!" I fairly barked, and seizing the megaphone again, I
+set it to my lips and roared, "My fiancee!"
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Miss Barrison, in consternation, "I thought
+you were going to tell the truth!"
+
+"Don't do that or you'll upset us," I snapped--"I'm telling the truth;
+I've engaged myself to you; I did it mentally before I bellowed."
+
+"But--"
+
+"You know as well as I do what engagements mean," I said, picking up
+the oars and digging them deep in the blue water.
+
+She assented uncertainly.
+
+A few minutes more of vigorous rowing brought us to a muddy landing
+under a cluster of tall palmettos, where a gasoline launch lay.
+Professor Farrago came down to the shore as I landed, and I walked
+ahead to meet him. He was the maddest man I ever saw. But I was his
+match, for I was desperate.
+
+"What the devil--" he began, under his breath.
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, deliberately. "An engaged woman is practically
+married already, because marriages are made in heaven."
+
+"Good Lord!" he gasped, "are you mad, Gilland? I sent for a
+stenographer--"
+
+"Miss Barrison is a stenographer," I said, calmly; and before he could
+recover I had presented him, and left them face to face, washing my
+hands of the whole affair.
+
+Unloading the boat and carrying the luggage up under the palms, I
+heard her saying:
+
+"No, I am not in the least afraid of snakes, and I am quite ready to
+begin my duties."
+
+And he: "Mr. Gilland is a young man who--er--lacks practical
+experience."
+
+And she: "Mr. Gilland has been most thoughtful for my comfort. The
+journey has been perfectly heavenly."
+
+And he, clumsily: "Ahem!--the--er--celestial aspect of your journey
+has--er--doubtless been colored by--er--the prospect of
+your--er--approaching nuptials--"
+
+She, hastily: "Oh, I do not think so, professor."
+
+"Idiot!" I muttered, dragging the dog to the shore, where his yelps
+brought the professor hurrying.
+
+"Is _that_ the dog?" he inquired, adjusting his spectacles.
+
+"That's the dog," I said. "He's full of points, you see?"
+
+"Oh," mused the professor; "I thought he was full of--" He hesitated,
+inspecting the animal, who, nose to the ground, stood investigating a
+smell of some sort.
+
+"See," I said, with enthusiasm, "he's found a scent; he's trailing it
+already! Now he's rolling on it!"
+
+"He's rolling on one of our concentrated food lozenges," said the
+professor, dryly. "Tie him up, Mr. Gilland, and ask Mrs. Gilland to
+come up to camp. Your room is ready."
+
+"Rooms," I corrected; "she isn't Mrs. Gilland yet," I added, with a
+forced smile.
+
+"But you're practically married," observed the professor, "as you
+pointed out to me. And if she's practically Mrs. Gilland, why not say
+so?"
+
+"Don't, all the same," I snarled.
+
+"But marriages are made in--"
+
+I cast a desperate eye upon him.
+
+From that moment, whenever we were alone together, he made a target of
+me. I never had supposed him humorously vindictive; he was, and his
+apparently innocent mistakes almost turned my hair gray.
+
+But to Miss Barrison he was kind and courteous, and for a time
+over-serious. Observing him, I could never detect the slightest
+symptom of dislike for her sex--a failing which common rumor had
+always credited him with to the verge of absolute rudeness.
+
+On the contrary, it was perfectly plain to anybody that he liked her.
+There was in his manner towards her a mixture of business formality
+and the deferential attitude of a gentleman.
+
+We were seated, just before sunset, outside of the hut built of
+palmetto logs, when Professor Farrago, addressing us both, began the
+explanation of our future duties.
+
+Miss Barrison, it appeared, was to note everything said by himself,
+making several shorthand copies by evening. In other words, she was to
+report every scrap of conversation she heard while in the Everglades.
+And she nodded intelligently as he finished, and drew pad and pencil
+from the pocket of her walking-skirt, jotting down his instructions as
+a beginning. I could see that he was pleased.
+
+"The reason I do this," he said, "is because I do not wish to hide
+anything that transpires while we are on this expedition. Only the
+most scrupulously minute record can satisfy me; no details are too
+small to merit record; I demand and I court from my fellow-scientists
+and from the public the fullest investigation."
+
+He smiled slightly, turning towards me.
+
+"You know, Mr. Gilland, how dangerous to the reputation of a
+scientific man is any line of investigation into the unusual. If a man
+once is even suspected of charlatanism, of sensationalism, of turning
+his attention to any phenomena not strictly within the proper pale of
+scientific investigation, that man is doomed to ridicule; his
+profession disowns him; he becomes a man without honor, without
+authority. Is it not so?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"Therefore," he resumed, thoughtfully, "as I do most firmly believe in
+the course I am now pursuing, whether I succeed or fail I desire a
+true and minute record made, hiding nothing of what may be said or
+done. A stenographer alone can give this to the world, while I can
+only supplement it with a description of events--if I live to
+transcribe them."
+
+Sunk in profound reverie he sat there silent under the great, smooth
+palm-tree--a venerable figure in his yellow dressing-gown and carpet
+slippers. Seated side by side, we waited, a trifle awed. I could hear
+the soft breathing of the pretty stenographer beside me.
+
+"First of all," said Professor Farrago, looking up, "I must be able to
+trust those who are here to aid me."
+
+"I--I will be faithful," said the girl, in a low voice.
+
+"I do not doubt you, my child," he said; "nor you, Gilland. And so I
+am going to tell you this much now--more, I hope, later."
+
+And he sat up straight, lifting an impressive forefinger.
+
+"Mr. Rowan, lately an officer of our Coast Survey, wrote me a letter
+from the Holland House in New York--a letter so strange that, on
+reading it, I immediately repaired to his hotel, where for hours we
+talked together.
+
+"The result of that conference is this expedition.
+
+"I have now been here two months, and I am satisfied of certain facts.
+First, there do exist in this unexplored wilderness certain forms of
+life which are solid and palpable, but transparent and practically
+invisible. Second, these living creatures belong to the animal
+kingdom, are warm-blooded vertebrates, possess powers of locomotion,
+but whether that of flight I am not certain. Third, they appear to
+possess such senses as we enjoy--smell, touch, sight, hearing, and no
+doubt the sense of taste. Fourth, their skin is smooth to the touch,
+and the temperature of the epidermis appears to approximate that of a
+normal human being. Fifth and last, whether bipeds or quadrupeds I do
+not know, though all evidence appears to confirm my theory that they
+walk erect. One pair of their limbs appear to terminate in a sort of
+foot--like a delicately shaped human foot, except that there appear to
+be no toes. The other pair of limbs terminate in something that, from
+the single instance I experienced, seemed to resemble soft but firm
+antennae or, perhaps, digitated palpi--"
+
+"Feelers!" I blurted out.
+
+"I don't know, but I think so. Once, when I was standing in the
+forest, perfectly aware that creatures I could not see had stealthily
+surrounded me, the tension was brought to a crisis when over my face,
+from cheek to chin, stole a soft something, brushing the skin as
+delicately as a child's fingers might brush it."
+
+"Good Lord!" I breathed.
+
+A care-worn smile crept into his eyes. "A test for nerves, you think,
+Mr. Gilland? I agree with you. Nobody fears what anybody can see."
+
+There came the slightest movement beside me.
+
+"Are you trembling?" I asked, turning.
+
+"I was writing," she replied, steadily. "Did my elbow touch you?"
+
+"By-the-way," said Professor Farrago, "I fear I forgot to congratulate
+you upon your choice of a stenographer, Mr. Gilland."
+
+A rosy light stole over her pale face.
+
+"Am I to record that too?" she asked, raising her blue eyes.
+
+"Certainly," he replied, gravely.
+
+"But, professor," I began, a prey to increasing excitement, "do you
+propose to attempt the capture of one of these animals?"
+
+"That is what the cage is for," he said. "I supposed you had guessed
+that."
+
+"I had," murmured the pretty stenographer.
+
+"I do not doubt it," said Professor Farrago, gravely.
+
+"What are the chemicals for--and the tank and hose attachment?"
+
+"Think, Mr. Gilland."
+
+"I can't; I'm almost stunned by what you tell me."
+
+He laughed. "The rosium oxide and salts of strontium are to be dumped
+into the tank together. They'll effervesce, of course."
+
+"Of course," I muttered.
+
+"And I can throw a rose-colored spray over any object by the hose
+attachment, can't I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I tried it on a transparent jelly-fish and it became perfectly
+visible and of a beautiful rose-color: and I tried it on rock-crystal,
+and on glass, and on pure gelatine, and all became suffused with a
+delicate pink glow, which lasted for hours or minutes according to the
+substance.... Now you understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes; you want to see what sort of creature you have to deal with."
+
+"Exactly; so when I've trapped it I am going to spray it." He turned
+half humorously towards the stenographer: "I fancy you understood long
+before Mr. Gilland did."
+
+"I don't think so," she said, with a sidelong lifting of the heavy
+lashes; and I caught the color of her eyes for a second.
+
+"You see how Miss Barrison spares your feelings," observed Professor
+Farrago, dryly. "She owes you little gratitude for bringing her here,
+yet she proves a generous victim."
+
+"Oh, I am very grateful for this rarest of chances!" she said, shyly.
+"To be among the first in the world to discover such wonders ought to
+make me very grateful to the man who gave me the opportunity."
+
+"Do you mean Mr. Gilland?" asked the professor, laughing.
+
+I had never before seen Professor Farrago laugh such a care-free
+laugh; I had never suspected him of harboring even an embryo of the
+social graces. Dry as dust, sapless as steel, precise as the magnetic
+needle, he had hitherto been to me the mummified embodiment of science
+militant. Now, in the guise of a perfectly human and genial old
+gentleman, I scarcely recognized my superior of the Bronx Park
+society. And as a woman-hater he was a miserable failure.
+
+"Heavens," I thought to myself, "am I becoming jealous of my revered
+professor's social success with a stray stenographer?" I felt mean,
+and I probably looked it, and I was glad that telepathy did not permit
+Miss Barrison to record my secret and unworthy ruminations.
+
+The professor was saying: "These transparent creatures break off
+berries and fruits and branches; I have seen a flower, too, plucked
+from its stem by invisible digits and borne swiftly through the
+forest--only the flower visible, apparently speeding through the air
+and out of sight among the thickets.
+
+"I have found the footprints that I described to you, usually on the
+edge of a stream or in the soft loam along some forest lake or lost
+lagoon.
+
+"Again and again I have been conscious in the forest that unseen eyes
+were fixed on me, that unseen shapes were following me. Never but that
+one time did these invisible creatures close in around me and venture
+to touch me.
+
+"They may be weak; their structure may be frail, and they may be
+incapable of violence or harm, but the depth of the footprints
+indicates a weight of at least one hundred and thirty pounds, and it
+certainly requires some muscular strength to break off a branch of
+wild guavas."
+
+He bent his noble head, thoughtfully regarding the design on his
+slippers.
+
+"What was the rifle for?" I asked.
+
+"Defence, not aggression," he said, simply.
+
+"And the camera?"
+
+"A camera record is necessary in these days of bad artists."
+
+I hesitated, glancing at Miss Barrison. She was still writing, her
+pretty head bent over the pad in her lap.
+
+"And the clothing?" I asked, carelessly.
+
+"Did you get it?" he demanded.
+
+"Of course--" I glanced at Miss Barrison. "There's no use writing down
+everything, is there?"
+
+"Everything must be recorded," said Professor Farrago, inflexibly.
+"What clothing did you buy?"
+
+"I forgot the gown," I said, getting red about the ears.
+
+"Forgot the gown!" he repeated.
+
+"Yes--one kind of gown--the day kind. I--I got the other kind."
+
+He was annoyed; so was I. After a moment he got up, and crossing to
+the log cabin, opened one of the boxes of apparel.
+
+"Is it what you wanted?" I inquired.
+
+"Y-es, I presume so," he replied, visibly perplexed.
+
+"It's the best to be had," said I.
+
+"That's quite right," he said, musingly. "We use only the best of
+everything at Bronx Park. It is traditional with us, you know."
+
+Curiosity pushed me. "Well, what on earth is it for?" I broke out.
+
+He looked at me gravely over the tops of his spectacles--a striking
+and inspiring figure in his yellow flannel dressing-gown and
+slippers.
+
+"I shall tell you some day--perhaps," he said, mildly. "Good-night,
+Miss Barrison; good-night, Mr. Gilland. You will find extra blankets
+on your bunk--"
+
+"What!" I cried.
+
+"Bunks," he said, and shut the door.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+"There is something weird about this whole proceeding," I observed to
+the pretty stenographer next morning.
+
+"These pies will be weird if you don't stop talking to me," she said,
+opening the doors of Professor Farrago's portable camping-oven and
+peeping in at the fragrant pastry.
+
+The professor had gone off somewhere into the woods early that
+morning. As he was not in the habit of talking to himself, the
+services of Miss Barrison were not required. Before he started,
+however, he came to her with a request for a dozen pies, the
+construction of which he asked if she understood. She had been to
+cooking-school in more prosperous days, and she mentioned it; so at
+his earnest solicitation she undertook to bake for him twelve
+apple-pies; and she was now attempting it, assisted by advice from me.
+
+"Are they burned?" I asked, sniffing the air.
+
+"No, they are not burned, Mr. Gilland, but my finger is," she
+retorted, stepping back to examine the damage.
+
+I offered sympathy and witch-hazel, but she would have none of my
+offerings, and presently returned to her pies.
+
+"We can't eat all that pastry," I protested.
+
+"Professor Farrago said they were not for us to eat," she said,
+dusting each pie with powdered sugar.
+
+"Well, what are they for? The dog? Or are they simply objets d'art to
+adorn the shanty--"
+
+"You annoy me," she said.
+
+"The pies annoy me; won't you tell me what they're for?"
+
+"I have a pretty fair idea what they're for," she observed, tossing
+her head. "Haven't you?"
+
+"No. What?"
+
+"These pies are for bait."
+
+"To bait hooks with?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Hooks! No, you silly man. They're for baiting the cage. He means to
+trap these transparent creatures in a cage baited with pie."
+
+She laughed scornfully; inserted the burned tip of her finger in her
+mouth and stood looking at me defiantly like a flushed and bright-eyed
+school-girl.
+
+"You think you're teasing me," she said; "but you do not realize what
+a singularly slow-minded young man you are."
+
+I stopped laughing. "How did you come to the conclusion that pies were
+to be used for such a purpose?" I asked.
+
+"I deduce," she observed, with an airy wave of her disengaged hand.
+
+"Your deductions are weird--like everything else in this vicinity.
+Pies to catch invisible monsters? Pooh!"
+
+"You're not particularly complimentary, are you?" she said.
+
+"Not particularly; but I could be, with you for my inspiration. I
+could even be enthusiastic--"
+
+"About my pies?"
+
+"No--about your eyes."
+
+"You are very frivolous--for a scientist," she said, scornfully;
+"please subdue your enthusiasm and bring me some wood. This fire is
+almost out."
+
+When I had brought the wood, she presented me with a pail of hot water
+and pointed at the dishes on the breakfast-table.
+
+"Never!" I cried, revolted.
+
+"Then I suppose I must do them--"
+
+She looked pensively at her scorched finger-tip, and, pursing up her
+red lips, blew a gentle breath to cool it.
+
+"I'll do the dishes," I said.
+
+Splashing and slushing the cups and saucers about in the hot water, I
+reflected upon the events of the last few days. The dog, stupefied by
+unwonted abundance of food, lay in the sunshine, sleeping the sleep of
+repletion; the pretty stenographer, all rosy from her culinary
+exertions, was removing the pies and setting them in neat rows to
+cool.
+
+"There," she said, with a sigh; "now I will dry the dishes for you....
+You didn't mention the fact, when you engaged me, that I was also
+expected to do general housework."
+
+"I didn't engage you," I said, maliciously; "you engaged me, you
+know."
+
+She regarded me disdainfully, nose uptilted.
+
+"How thoroughly disagreeable you can be!" she said. "Dry your own
+dishes. I'm going for a stroll."
+
+"May I join--"
+
+"You may _not_! I shall go so far that you cannot possibly discover
+me."
+
+I watched her forestward progress; she sauntered for about thirty
+yards along the lake and presently sat down in plain sight under a
+huge live-oak.
+
+A few moments later I had completed my task as general bottle-washer,
+and I cast about for something to occupy me.
+
+First I approached and politely caressed the satiated dog. He woke up,
+regarded me with dully meditative eyes, yawned, and went to sleep
+again. Never a flop of tail to indicate gratitude for blandishments,
+never the faintest symptom of canine appreciation.
+
+Chilled by my reception, I moused about for a while, poking into boxes
+and bundles; then raised my head and inspected the landscape. Through
+the vista of trees the pink shirt-waist of the pretty stenographer
+glimmered like a rose blooming in the wilderness.
+
+From whatever point I viewed the prospect that pink spot seemed to
+intrude; I turned my back and examined the jungle, but there it was
+repeated in a hundred pink blossoms among the massed thickets; I
+looked up into the tree-tops, where pink mosses spotted the palms; I
+looked out over the lake, and I saw it in my mind's eye pinker than
+ever. It was certainly a case of pink-eye.
+
+"I'll go for a stroll, too; it's a free country," I muttered.
+
+After I had strolled in a complete circle I found myself within three
+feet of a pink shirt-waist.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said; "I had no inten--"
+
+"I thought you were never coming," she said, amiably.
+
+"How is your finger?" I asked.
+
+She held it up. I took it gingerly; it was smooth and faintly rosy at
+the tip.
+
+"Does it hurt?" I inquired.
+
+"Dreadfully. Your hands feel so cool--"
+
+After a silence she said, "Thank you, that has cooled the burning."
+
+"I am determined," said I, "to expel the fire from your finger if it
+takes hours and hours." And I seated myself with that intention.
+
+For a while she talked, making innocent observations concerning the
+tropical foliage surrounding us. Then silence crept in between us,
+accentuated by the brooding stillness of the forest.
+
+"I am afraid your hands are growing tired," she said, considerately.
+
+I denied it.
+
+Through the vista of palms we could see the lake, blue as a violet,
+sparkling with silvery sunshine. In the intense quiet the splash of
+leaping mullet sounded distinctly.
+
+Once a tall crane stalked into view among the sedges; once an unseen
+alligator shook the silence with his deep, hollow roaring. Then the
+stillness of the wilderness grew more intense.
+
+We had been sitting there for a long while without exchanging a word,
+dreamily watching the ripple of the azure water, when all at once
+there came a scurrying patter of feet through the forest, and, looking
+up, I beheld the hound-dog, tail between his legs, bearing down on us
+at lightning speed. I rose instantly.
+
+"What is the matter with the dog?" cried the pretty stenographer. "Is
+he going mad, Mr. Gilland?"
+
+"Something has scared him," I exclaimed, as the dog, eyes like lighted
+candles, rushed frantically between my legs and buried his head in
+Miss Barrison's lap.
+
+"Poor doggy!" she said, smoothing the collapsed pup; "poor, p-oor
+little beast! Did anything scare him? Tell aunty all about it."
+
+When a dog flees _without yelping_ he's a badly frightened creature. I
+instinctively started back towards the camp whence the beast had fled,
+and before I had taken a dozen steps Miss Barrison was beside me,
+carrying the dog in her arms.
+
+"I've an idea," she said, under her breath.
+
+"What?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the camp.
+
+"It's this: I'll wager that we find those pies gone!"
+
+"Pies gone?" I repeated, perplexed; "what makes you think--"
+
+"They _are_ gone!" she exclaimed. "Look!"
+
+I gaped stupidly at the rough pine table where the pies had stood in
+three neat rows of four each. And then, in a moment, the purport of
+this robbery flashed upon my senses.
+
+"The transparent creatures!" I gasped.
+
+"Hush!" she whispered, clinging to the trembling dog in her arms.
+
+I listened. I could hear nothing, see nothing, yet slowly I became
+convinced of the presence of something unseen--something in the forest
+close by, watching us out of invisible eyes.
+
+A chill, settling along my spine, crept upward to my scalp, until
+every separate hair wiggled to the roots. Miss Barrison was pale, but
+perfectly calm and self-possessed.
+
+"Let us go in-doors," I said, as steadily as I could.
+
+"Very well," she replied.
+
+I held the door open; she entered with the dog; I followed, closing
+and barring the door, and then took my station at the window, rifle in
+hand.
+
+There was not a sound in the forest. Miss Barrison laid the dog on the
+floor and quietly picked up her pad and pencil. Presently she was deep
+in a report of the phenomena, her pencil flying, leaf after leaf from
+the pad fluttering to the floor.
+
+Nor did I at the window change my position of scared alertness, until
+I was aware of her hand gently touching my elbow to attract my
+attention, and her soft voice at my ear--
+
+"You don't suppose by any chance that the dog ate those pies?"
+
+I collected my tumultuous thoughts and turned to stare at the dog.
+
+"Twelve pies, twelve inches each in diameter," she reflected,
+musingly. "One dog, twenty inches in diameter. How many times will the
+pies go into the dog? Let me see." She made a few figures on her pad,
+thought awhile, produced a tape-measure from her pocket, and, kneeling
+down, measured the dog.
+
+"No," she said, looking up at me, "he couldn't contain them."
+
+Inspired by her coolness and perfect composure, I set the rifle in the
+corner and opened the door. Sunlight fell in bars through the quiet
+woods; nothing stirred on land or water save the great, yellow-striped
+butterflies that fluttered and soared and floated above the flowering
+thickets bordering the jungle.
+
+The heat became intense; Miss Barrison went to her room to change her
+gown for a lighter one; I sat down under a live-oak, eyes and ears
+strained for any sign of our invisible neighbors.
+
+When she emerged in the lightest and filmiest of summer gowns, she
+brought the camera with her; and for a while we took pictures of each
+other, until we had used up all but one film.
+
+Desiring to possess a picture of Miss Barrison and myself seated
+together, I tied a string to the shutter-lever and attached the other
+end of the string to the dog, who had resumed his interrupted
+slumbers. At my whistle he jumped up nervously, snapping the lever,
+and the picture was taken.
+
+With such innocent and harmless pastime we whiled away the afternoon.
+She made twelve more apple-pies. I mounted guard over them. And we
+were just beginning to feel a trifle uneasy about Professor Farrago,
+when he appeared, tramping sturdily through the forest, green umbrella
+and butterfly-net under one arm, shot-gun and cyanide-jar under the
+other, and his breast all criss-crossed with straps, from which
+dangled field-glasses, collecting-boxes, and botanizing-tins--an
+inspiring figure indeed--the embodied symbol of science indomitable,
+triumphant!
+
+We hailed him with three guilty cheers; the dog woke up with a
+perfunctory bark--the first sound I had heard from him since he yelped
+his disapproval of me on the lagoon.
+
+Miss Barrison produced three bowls full of boiling water and dropped
+three pellets of concentrated soup-meat into them, while I prepared
+coffee. And in a few moments our simple dinner was ready--the red
+ants had been dusted from the biscuits, the spiders chased off the
+baked beans, the scorpions shaken from the napkins, and we sat down at
+the rough, improvised table under the palms.
+
+The professor gave us a brief but modest account of his short tour of
+exploration. He had brought back a new species of orchid, several
+undescribed beetles, and a pocketful of coontie seed. He appeared,
+however, to be tired and singularly depressed, and presently we
+learned why.
+
+It seemed that he had gone straight to that section of the forest
+where he had hitherto always found signs of the transparent and
+invisible creatures which he had determined to capture, and he had not
+found a single trace of them.
+
+"It alarms me," he said, gravely. "If they have deserted this region,
+it might take a lifetime to locate them again in this wilderness."
+
+Then, very quietly, sinking her voice instinctively, as though the
+unseen might be at our very elbows listening, Miss Barrison recounted
+the curious adventure which had befallen the dog and the first batch
+of apple-pies.
+
+With visible and increasing excitement the professor listened until
+the very end. Then he struck the table with clinched fist--a
+resounding blow which set the concentrated soup dancing in the bowls
+and scattered the biscuits and the industrious red ants in every
+direction.
+
+"Eureka!" he whispered. "Miss Barrison, your deduction was not only
+perfectly reasonable, but brilliant. You are right; the pies are for
+that very purpose. I conceived the idea when I first came here. Again
+and again the pies that my guide made out of dried apples disappeared
+in a most astonishing and mysterious manner when left to cool. At
+length I determined to watch them every second; and did so, with the
+result that late one afternoon I was amazed to see a pie slowly rise
+from the table and move swiftly away through the air about four feet
+above the ground, finally disappearing into a tangle of jasmine and
+grape-vine.
+
+"The apparently automatic flight of that pie solved the problem; these
+transparent creatures cannot resist that delicacy. Therefore I decided
+to bait the cage for them this very night--Look! What's the matter
+with that dog?"
+
+The dog suddenly bounded into the air, alighted on all fours, ears,
+eyes, and muzzle concentrated on a point directly behind us.
+
+"Good gracious! The pies!" faltered Miss Barrison, half rising from
+her seat; but the dog rushed madly into her skirts, scrambling for
+protection, and she fell back almost into my arms.
+
+Clasping her tightly, I looked over my shoulder; the last pie was
+snatched from the table before my eyes and I saw it borne swiftly away
+by something unseen, straight into the deepening shadows of the
+forest.
+
+The professor was singularly calm, even slightly ironical, as he
+turned to me, saying:
+
+"Perhaps if you relinquish Miss Barrison she may be able to free
+herself from that dog."
+
+I did so immediately, and she deposited the cowering dog in my arms.
+Her face had suddenly become pink.
+
+I passed the dog on to Professor Farrago, dumping it viciously into
+his lap--a proceeding which struck me as resembling a pastime of
+extreme youth known as "button, button, who's got the button?"
+
+The professor examined the animal gravely, feeling its pulse, counting
+its respirations, and finally inserting a tentative finger in an
+attempt to examine its tongue. The dog bit him.
+
+"Ouch! It's a clear case of fright," he said, gravely. "I wanted a dog
+to aid me in trailing these remarkable creatures, but I think this dog
+of yours is useless, Gilland."
+
+"It's given us warning of the creatures' presence twice already," I
+argued.
+
+"Poor little thing," said Miss Barrison, softly; "I don't know why,
+but I love that dog.... He has eyes like yours, Mr. Gilland--"
+
+Exasperated, I rose from the table. "He's got eyes like holes burned
+in a blanket!" I said. "And if ever a flicker of intelligence lighted
+them I have failed to observe it."
+
+The professor regarded me dreamily. "We ought to have more pies," he
+observed. "Perhaps if you carried the oven into the shanty--"
+
+"Certainly," said Miss Barrison; "we can lock the door while I make
+twelve more pies."
+
+I carried the portable camping-oven into the cabin, connected the
+patent asbestos chimney-pipes, and lighted the fire. And in a few
+minutes Miss Barrison, sleeves rolled up and pink apron pinned under
+her chin, was busily engaged in rolling pie-crust, while Professor
+Farrago measured out spices and set the dried apples to soak.
+
+The swift Southern twilight had already veiled the forest as I
+stepped out of the cabin to smoke a cigar and promenade a bit and
+cogitate. A last trace of color lingering in the west faded out as I
+looked; the gray glimmer deepened into darkness, through which the
+white lake vapors floated in thin, wavering strata across the water.
+
+For a while the frog's symphony dominated all other sounds, then
+lagoon and forest and cypress branch awoke; and through the steadily
+sustained tumult of woodland voices I could hear the dry bark of the
+fox-squirrel, the whistle of the raccoon, ducks softly quacking or
+whimpering as they prepared for sleep among the reeds, the soft
+booming of bitterns, the clattering gossip of the heronry, the
+Southern whippoorwill's incessant call.
+
+At regular intervals the howling note of a lone heron echoed the
+strident screech of a crimson-crested crane; the horned owl's savage
+hunting-cry haunted the night, now near, now floating from infinite
+distances.
+
+And after a while I became aware of a nearer sound, low-pitched but
+ceaseless--the hum of thousands of lesser living creatures blending to
+a steady monotone.
+
+Then the theatrical moon came up through filmy draperies of waving
+Spanish moss thin as cobwebs; and far in the wilderness a cougar fell
+a-crying and coughing like a little child with a bad cold.
+
+I went in after that. Miss Barrison was sitting before the oven, knees
+gathered in her clasped hands, languidly studying the fire. She looked
+up as I appeared, opened the oven-doors, sniffed the aroma, and
+resumed her attitude of contented indifference.
+
+"Where is the professor?" I asked.
+
+"He has retired. He's been talking in his sleep at moments."
+
+"Better take it down; that's what you're here for," I observed,
+closing and holding the outside door. "Ugh! there's a chill in the
+air. The dew is pelting down from the pines like a steady fall of
+rain."
+
+"You will get fever if you roam about at night," she said. "Mercy!
+your coat is soaking. Sit here by the fire."
+
+So I pulled up a bench and sat down beside her like the traditional
+spider.
+
+"Miss Muffitt," I said, "don't let me frighten you away--"
+
+"I was going anyhow--"
+
+"Please don't."
+
+"Why?" she demanded, reseating herself.
+
+"Because I like to sit beside you," I said, truthfully.
+
+"Your avowal is startling and not to be substantiated by facts," she
+remarked, resting her chin on one hand and gazing into the fire.
+
+"You mean because I went for a stroll by moonlight? I did that because
+you always seem to make fun of me as soon as the professor joins us."
+
+"Make fun of you? You surely don't expect me to make eyes at you!"
+
+There was a silence; I toasted my shins, thoughtfully.
+
+"How is your burned finger?" I asked.
+
+She lifted it for my inspection, and I began a protracted examination.
+
+"What would you prescribe?" she inquired, with an absent-minded glance
+at the professor's closed door.
+
+"I don't know; perhaps a slight but firm pressure of the
+finger-tips--"
+
+"You tried that this afternoon."
+
+"But the dog interrupted us--"
+
+"Interrupted _you_. Besides--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't think you ought to," she said.
+
+Sitting there before the oven, side by side, hand innocently clasped
+in hand, we heard the drumming of the dew on the roof, the night-wind
+stirring the palms, the muffled snoring of the professor, the faint
+whisper and crackle of the fire.
+
+A single candle burned brightly, piling our shadows together on the
+wall behind us; moonlight silvered the window-panes, over which
+crawled multitudes of soft-winged moths, attracted by the candle
+within.
+
+"See their tiny eyes glow!" she whispered. "How their wings quiver!
+And all for a candle-flame! Alas! alas! fire is the undoing of us
+all."
+
+She leaned forward, resting as though buried in reverie. After a while
+she extended one foot a trifle and, with the point of her shoe,
+carefully unlatched the oven-door. As it swung outward a delicious
+fragrance filled the room.
+
+"They're done," she said, withdrawing her hand from mine. "Help me to
+lift them out."
+
+Together we arranged the delicious pastry in rows on the bench to
+cool. I opened the door for a few minutes, then closed and bolted it
+again.
+
+"Do you suppose those transparent creatures will smell the odor and
+come around the cabin?" she suggested, wiping her fingers on her
+handkerchief.
+
+I walked to the window uneasily. Outside the pane the moths crawled,
+some brilliant in scarlet and tan-color set with black, some
+snow-white with black tracings on their wings, and bodies peacock-blue
+edged with orange. The scientist in me was aroused; I called her to
+the window, and she came and leaned against the sill, nose pressed to
+the glass.
+
+"I don't suppose you know that the antennae of that silvery-winged moth
+are distinctly pectinate," I said.
+
+"Of course I do," she said. "I took my degree as D.E. at Barnard
+College."
+
+"What!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "You've been through Barnard? You
+are a Doctor of Entomology?"
+
+"It was my undoing," she said. "The department was abolished the year
+I graduated. There was no similar vacancy, even in the Smithsonian."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my
+own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to
+self-sustenance."
+
+She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.
+
+"I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose
+I'd flirt with you if I was?"
+
+She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem
+of Andrew Lang:
+
+    "Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel,
+     But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal."
+
+Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent--I don't
+know why.
+
+The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a
+saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.
+
+Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left
+the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.
+
+"That's curious," I said.
+
+"What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good
+gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?"
+
+"I saw nothing," I said, disturbed. "Listen!"
+
+A soft sound against the glass, as though invisible fingers were
+feeling the pane--a gentle rubbing--then a tap-tap, all but inaudible.
+
+"Is it a bird? Can you see?" she whispered.
+
+The candle-flame behind us flashed and expired. Moonlight flooded the
+pane. The sounds continued, but there was nothing there.
+
+We understood now what it was that so gently rubbed and patted the
+glass outside. With one accord we noiselessly gathered up the pies and
+carried them into my room.
+
+Then she walked to the door of her room, turned, held out her hand,
+and whispering, "Good-night! A demain, monsieur!" slipped into her
+room and softly closed the door.
+
+And all night long I lay in troubled slumber beside the pies, a rifle
+resting on the blankets beside me, a revolver under my pillow. And I
+dreamed of moths with brilliant eyes and vast silvery wings harnessed
+to a balloon in which Miss Barrison and I sat, arms around each other,
+eating slice after slice of apple-pie.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Dawn came--the dawn of a day that I am destined never to forget. Long,
+rosy streamers of light broke through the forest, shaking, quivering,
+like unstable beams from celestial search-lights. Mist floated upward
+from marsh and lake; and through it the spectral palms loomed,
+drooping fronds embroidered with dew.
+
+For a while the ringing outburst of bird music dominated all; but it
+soon ceased with dropping notes from the crimson cardinals repeated in
+lengthening minor intervals; and then the spell of silence returned,
+broken only by the faint splash of mullet, mocking the sun with
+sinuous, silver flashes.
+
+"Good-morning," said a low voice from the door as I stood encouraging
+the camp-fire with splinter wood and dead palmetto fans.
+
+Fresh and sweet from her toilet as a dew-drenched rose, Miss Barrison
+stood there sniffing the morning air daintily, thoroughly.
+
+"Too much perfume," she said--"too much like ylang-ylang in a
+department-store. Central Park smells sweeter on an April morning."
+
+"Are you criticising the wild jasmine?" I asked.
+
+"I'm criticising an exotic smell. Am I not permitted to comment on the
+tropics?"
+
+Fishing out a cedar log from the lumber-stack, I fell to chopping it
+vigorously. The axe-strokes made a cheerful racket through the woods.
+
+"Did you hear anything last night after you retired?" I asked.
+
+"Something was at my window--something that thumped softly and seemed
+to be feeling all over the glass. To tell you the truth, I was silly
+enough to remain dressed all night."
+
+"You don't look it," I said.
+
+"Oh, when daylight came I had a chance," she added, laughing.
+
+"All the same," said I, leaning on the axe and watching her, "you are
+about the coolest and pluckiest woman I ever knew."
+
+"We were all in the same fix," she said, modestly.
+
+"No, we were not. Now I'll tell you the truth--my hair stood up the
+greater part of the night. You are looking upon a poltroon, Miss
+Barrison."
+
+"Then there was something at your window, too?"
+
+"Something? A dozen! They were monkeying with the sashes and panes all
+night long, and I imagined that I could hear them breathing--as though
+from effort of intense eagerness. Ouch! I came as near losing my nerve
+as I care to. I came within an ace of hurling those cursed pies
+through the window at them. I'd bolt to-day if I wasn't afraid to play
+the coward."
+
+"Most people are brave for that reason," she said.
+
+The dog, who had slept under my bunk, and who had contributed to my
+entertainment by sighing and moaning all night, now appeared ready for
+business--business in his case being the operation of feeding. I
+presented him with a concentrated tablet, which he cautiously
+investigated and then rolled on.
+
+"Nice testimonial for the people who concocted it," I said, in
+disgust. "I wish I had an egg."
+
+"There are some concentrated egg tablets in the shanty," said Miss
+Barrison; but the idea was not attractive.
+
+"I refuse to fry a pill for breakfast," I said, sullenly, and set the
+coffee-pot on the coals.
+
+In spite of the dewy beauty of the morning, breakfast was not a
+cheerful function. Professor Farrago appeared, clad in sun-helmet and
+khaki. I had seldom seen him depressed; but he was now, and his very
+efforts to disguise it only emphasized his visible anxiety.
+
+His preparations for the day, too, had an ominous aspect to me. He
+gave his orders and we obeyed, instinctively suppressing questions.
+First, he and I transported all personal luggage of the company to the
+big electric launch--Miss Barrison's effects, his, and my own. His
+private papers, the stenographic reports, and all memoranda were tied
+up together and carried aboard.
+
+Then, to my surprise, two weeks' concentrated rations for two and
+mineral water sufficient for the same period were stowed away aboard
+the launch. Several times he asked me whether I knew how to run the
+boat, and I assured him that I did.
+
+In a short time nothing was left ashore except the bare furnishings of
+the cabin, the female wearing-apparel, the steel cage and chemicals
+which I had brought, and the twelve apple-pies--the latter under lock
+and key in my room.
+
+As the preparations came to an end, the professor's gentle melancholy
+seemed to deepen. Once I ventured to ask him if he was indisposed, and
+he replied that he had never felt in better physical condition.
+
+Presently he bade me fetch the pies; and I brought them, and, at a
+sign from him, placed them inside the steel cage, closing and locking
+the door.
+
+"I believe," he said, glancing from Miss Barrison to me, and from me
+to the dog--"I believe that we are ready to start."
+
+He went to the cabin and locked the door on the outside, pocketing the
+key.
+
+Then he backed up to the steel cage, stooped and lifted his end as I
+lifted mine, and together we started off through the forest, bearing
+the cage between us as porters carry a heavy piece of luggage.
+
+Miss Barrison came next, carrying the trousseau, the tank, hose, and
+chemicals; and the dog followed her--probably not from affection for
+us, but because he was afraid to be left alone.
+
+We walked in silence, the professor and I keeping an instinctive
+lookout for snakes; but we encountered nothing of that sort. On every
+side, touching our shoulders, crowded the closely woven and
+impenetrable tangle of the jungle; and we threaded it along a narrow
+path which he, no doubt, had cut, for the machete marks were still
+fresh, and the blazes on hickory, live-oak, and palm were all wet with
+dripping sap, and swarming with eager, brilliant butterflies.
+
+At times across our course flowed shallow, rapid streams of water,
+clear as crystal, and most alluring to the thirsty.
+
+"There's fever in every drop," said the professor, as I mentioned my
+thirst; "take the bottled water if you mean to stay a little longer."
+
+"Stay where?" I asked.
+
+"On earth," he replied, tersely; and we marched on.
+
+The beauty of the tropics is marred somewhat for me; under all the
+fresh splendor of color death lurks in brilliant tints. Where painted
+fruit hangs temptingly, where great, silky blossoms exhale alluring
+scent, where the elaps coils inlaid with scarlet, black, and saffron,
+where in the shadow of a palmetto frond a succession of velvety black
+diamonds mark the rattler's swollen length, there death is; and his
+invisible consort, horror, creeps where the snake whose mouth is lined
+with white creeps--where the tarantula squats, hairy, motionless;
+where a bit of living enamel fringed with orange undulates along a
+mossy log.
+
+Thinking of these things, and watchful lest, unawares, terror unfold
+from some blossoming and leafy covert, I scarcely noticed the beauty
+of the glade we had entered--a long oval, cross-barred with sunshine
+which fell on hedges of scrub-palmetto, chin high, interlaced with
+golden blossoms of the jasmine. And all around, like pillars
+supporting a high green canopy above a throne, towered the silvery
+stems of palms fretted with pale, rose-tinted lichens and hung with
+draperies of grape-vine.
+
+"This is the place," said Professor Farrago.
+
+His quiet, passionless voice sounded strange to me; his words seemed
+strange, too, each one heavily weighted with hidden meaning.
+
+We set the cage on the ground; he unlocked and opened the steel-barred
+door, and, kneeling, carefully arranged the pies along the centre of
+the cage.
+
+"I have a curious presentiment," he said, "that I shall not come out
+of this experiment unscathed."
+
+"Don't, for Heaven's sake, say that!" I broke out, my nerves on edge
+again.
+
+"Why not?" he asked, surprised. "I am not afraid."
+
+"Not afraid to die?" I demanded, exasperated.
+
+"Who spoke of dying?" he inquired, mildly. "What I said was that I do
+not expect to come out of this affair unscathed."
+
+I did not comprehend his meaning, but I understood the reproof
+conveyed.
+
+He closed and locked the cage door again and came towards us,
+balancing the key across the palm of his hand.
+
+Miss Barrison had seated herself on the leaves; I stood back as the
+professor sat down beside her; then, at a gesture from him, took the
+place he indicated on his left.
+
+"Before we begin," he said, calmly, "there are several things you
+ought to know and which I have not yet told you. The first concerns
+the feminine wearing apparel which Mr. Gilland brought me."
+
+He turned to Miss Barrison and asked her whether she had brought a
+complete outfit, and she opened the bundle on her knees and handed it
+to him.
+
+"I cannot," he said, "delicately explain in so many words what use I
+expect to make of this apparel. Nor do I yet know whether I shall have
+any use at all for it. That can only be a theoretical speculation
+until, within a few more hours, my theory is proven or disproven--and,"
+he said, suddenly turning on me, "my theory concerning these invisible
+creatures is the most extraordinary and audacious theory ever
+entertained by man since Columbus presumed that there must lie
+somewhere a hidden continent which nobody had ever seen."
+
+He passed his hand over his protruding forehead, lost for a moment in
+deepest reflection. Then, "Have you ever heard of the Sphyx?" he
+asked.
+
+"It seems to me that Ponce de Leon wrote of something--" I began,
+hesitating.
+
+"Yes, the famous lines in the third volume which have set so many wise
+men guessing. You recall them:
+
+"'_And there, alas! within sound of the Fountain of Youth whose waters
+tint the skin till the whole body glows softly like the petal of a
+rose--there, alas! in the new world already blooming_, THE ETERNAL
+ENIGMA _I beheld, in the flesh living; yet it faded even as I looked,
+although I swear it lived and breathed. This is the Sphyx_.'"
+
+A silence; then I said, "Those lines are meaningless to me."
+
+"Not to me," said Miss Barrison, softly.
+
+The professor looked at her. "Ah, child! Ever subtler, ever surer--the
+Eternal Enigma is no enigma to you."
+
+"What is the Sphyx?" I asked.
+
+"Have you read De Soto? Or Goya?"
+
+"Yes, both. I remember now that De Soto records the Syachas legend of
+the Sphyx--something about a goddess--"
+
+"Not a goddess," said Miss Barrison, her lips touched with a smile.
+
+"Sometimes," said the professor, gently. "And Goya said:
+
+"'_It has come to my ears while in the lands of the Syachas that the
+Sphyx surely lives, as bolder and more curious men than I may, God
+willing, prove to the world hereafter_.'"
+
+"But what is the Sphyx?" I insisted.
+
+"For centuries wise men and savants have asked each other that
+question. I have answered it for myself; I am now to prove it, I
+trust."
+
+His face darkened, and again and again he stroked his heavy brow.
+
+"If anything occurs," he said, taking my hand in his left and Miss
+Barrison's hand in his right, "promise me to obey my wishes. Will
+you?"
+
+"Yes," we said, together.
+
+"If I lose my life, or--or disappear, promise me on your honor to get
+to the electric launch as soon as possible and make all speed
+northward, placing my private papers, the reports of Miss Barrison,
+and your own reports in the hands of the authorities in Bronx Park.
+Don't attempt to aid me; don't delay to search for me. Do you
+promise?"
+
+"Yes," we breathed together.
+
+He looked at us solemnly. "If you fail me, you betray me," he said.
+
+We swore obedience.
+
+"Then let us begin," he said, and he rose and went to the steel cage.
+Unlocking the door, he flung it wide and stepped inside, leaving the
+cage door open.
+
+"The moment a single pie is disturbed," he said to me, "I shall close
+the steel door from the inside, and you and Miss Barrison will then
+dump the rosium oxide and the strontium into the tank, clap on the
+lid, turn the nozzle of the hose on the cage, and spray it
+thoroughly. Whatever is invisible in the cage will become visible and
+of a faint rose color. And when the trapped creature becomes visible,
+hold yourselves ready to aid me as long as I am able to give you
+orders. After that either all will go well or all will go otherwise,
+and you must run for the launch." He seated himself in the cage near
+the open door.
+
+I placed the steel tank near the cage, uncoiled the hose attachment,
+unscrewed the top, and dumped in the salts of strontium. Miss Barrison
+unwrapped the bottle of rosium oxide and loosened the cork. We
+examined this pearl-and-pink powder and shook it up so that it might
+run out quickly. Then Miss Barrison sat down, and presently became
+absorbed in a stenographic report of the proceedings up to date.
+
+When Miss Barrison finished her report she handed me the bundle of
+papers. I stowed them away in my wallet, and we sat down together
+beside the tank.
+
+Inside the cage Professor Farrago was seated, his spectacled eyes
+fixed on the row of pies. For a while, although realizing perfectly
+that our quarry was transparent and invisible, we unconsciously
+strained our eyes in quest of something stirring in the forest.
+
+"I should think," said I, in a low voice, "that the odor of the pies
+might draw at least one out of the odd dozen that came rubbing up
+against my window last night."
+
+"Hush! Listen!" she breathed. But we heard nothing save the snoring of
+the overfed dog at our feet.
+
+"He'll give us ample notice by butting into Miss Barrison's skirts," I
+observed. "No need of our watching, professor."
+
+The professor nodded. Presently he removed his spectacles and lay back
+against the bars, closing his eyes.
+
+At first the forest silence seemed cheerful there in the flecked
+sunlight. The spotted wood-gnats gyrated merrily, chased by
+dragon-flies; the shy wood-birds hopped from branch to twig, peering
+at us in friendly inquiry; a lithe, gray squirrel, plumy tail
+undulating, rambled serenely around the cage, sniffing at the pastry
+within.
+
+Suddenly, without apparent reason, the squirrel sprang to a
+tree-trunk, hung a moment on the bark, quivering all over, then dashed
+away into the jungle.
+
+"Why did he act like that?" whispered Miss Barrison. And, after a
+moment: "How still it is! Where have the birds gone?"
+
+In the ominous silence the dog began to whimper in his sleep and his
+hind legs kicked convulsively.
+
+"He's dreaming--" I began.
+
+The words were almost driven down my throat by the dog, who, without a
+yelp of warning, hurled himself at Miss Barrison and alighted on my
+chest, fore paws around my neck.
+
+I cast him scornfully from me, but he scrambled back, digging like a
+mole to get under us.
+
+"The transparent creatures!" whispered Miss Barrison. "Look! See that
+pie move!"
+
+I sprang to my feet just as the professor, jamming on his spectacles,
+leaned forward and slammed the cage door.
+
+"I've got one!" he shouted, frantically. "There's one in the cage!
+Turn on that hose!"
+
+"Wait a second," said Miss Barrison, calmly, uncorking the bottle and
+pouring a pearly stream of rosium oxide into the tank. "Quick! It's
+fizzing! Screw on the top!"
+
+In a second I had screwed the top fast, seized the hose, and directed
+a hissing cloud of vapor through the cage bars.
+
+For a moment nothing was heard save the whistling rush of the perfumed
+spray escaping; a delicious odor of roses filled the air. Then,
+slowly, there in the sunshine, a misty something grew in the cage--a
+glistening, pearl-tinted phantom, imperceptibly taking shape in
+space--vague at first as a shred of lake vapor, then lengthening,
+rounding into flowing form, clearer, clearer.
+
+"The Sphyx!" gasped the professor. "In the name of Heaven, play that
+hose!"
+
+As he spoke the treacherous hose burst. A showery pillar of
+rose-colored vapor enveloped everything. Through the thickening fog
+for one brief instant a human form appeared like magic--a woman's
+form, flawless, exquisite as a statue, pure as marble. Then the
+swimming vapor buried it, cage, pies, and all.
+
+We ran frantically around, the cage in the obscurity, appealing for
+instructions and feeling for the bars. Once the professor's muffled
+voice was heard demanding the wearing apparel, and I groped about and
+found it and stuffed it through the bars of the cage.
+
+"Do you need help?" I shouted. There was no response. Staring around
+through the thickening vapor of rosium rolling in clouds from the
+overturned tank, I heard Miss Barrison's voice calling:
+
+"I can't move! A transparent lady is holding me!"
+
+Blindly I rushed about, arms outstretched, and the next moment struck
+the door of the cage so hard that the impact almost knocked me
+senseless. Clutching it to steady myself, it suddenly flew open. A
+rush of partly visible creatures passed me like a burst of pink
+flames, and in the midst, borne swiftly away on the crest of the
+outrush, the professor passed like a bolt shot from a catapult; and
+his last cry came wafted back to me from the forest as I swayed there,
+drunk with the stupefying perfume: "Don't worry! I'm all right!"
+
+I staggered out into the clearer air towards a figure seen dimly
+through swirling vapor.
+
+"Are you hurt?" I stammered, clasping Miss Barrison in my arms.
+
+"No--oh no," she said, wringing her hands. "But the professor! I saw
+him! I could not scream; I could not move! _They_ had him!"
+
+"I saw him too," I groaned. "There was not one trace of terror on his
+face. He was actually smiling."
+
+Overcome at the sublime courage of the man, we wept in each other's
+arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+True to our promise to Professor Farrago, we made the best of our way
+northward; and it was not a difficult journey by any means, the voyage
+in the launch across Okeechobee being perfectly simple and the trail
+to the nearest railroad station but a few easy miles from the
+landing-place.
+
+Shocking as had been our experience, dreadful as was the calamity
+which had not only robbed me of a life-long friend, but had also
+bereaved the entire scientific world, I could not seem to feel that
+desperate and hopeless grief which the natural decease of a close
+friend might warrant. No; there remained a vague expectancy which so
+dominated my sorrow that at moments I became hopeful--nay, sanguine,
+that I should one day again behold my beloved superior in the flesh.
+There was something so happy in his last smile, something so artlessly
+pleased, that I was certain no fear of impending dissolution worried
+him as he disappeared into the uncharted depth of the unknown
+Everglades.
+
+I think Miss Barrison agreed with me, too. She appeared to be more or
+less dazed, which was, of course, quite natural; and during our return
+voyage across Okeechobee and through the lagoons and forests beyond
+she was very silent.
+
+When we reached the railroad at Portulacca, a thrifty lemon-growing
+ranch on the Volusia and Chinkapin Railway, the first thing I did was
+to present my dog to the station-agent--but I was obliged to give him
+five dollars before he consented to accept the dog.
+
+However, Miss Barrison interviewed the station-master's wife, a
+kindly, pitiful soul, who promised to be a good mistress to the
+creature. We both felt better after that was off our minds; we felt
+better still when the north-bound train rolled leisurely into the
+white glare of Portulacca, and presently rolled out again, quite as
+leisurely, bound, thank Heaven, for that abused aggregation of sinful
+boroughs called New York.
+
+Except for one young man whom I encountered in the smoker, we had the
+train to ourselves, a circumstance which, curiously enough, appeared
+to increase Miss Barrison's depression, and my own as a natural
+sequence. The circumstances of the taking off of Professor Farrago
+appeared to engross her thoughts so completely that it made me uneasy
+during our trip out from Little Sprite--in fact it was growing plainer
+to me every hour that in her brief acquaintance with that
+distinguished scientist she had become personally attached to him to
+an extent that began to worry me. Her personal indignation at the
+caged Sphyx flared out at unexpected intervals, and there could be no
+doubt that her unhappiness and resentment were becoming morbid.
+
+I spent an hour or two in the smoking compartment, tenanted only by a
+single passenger and myself. He was an agreeable young man, although,
+in the natural acquaintanceship that we struck up, I regretted to
+learn that he was a writer of popular fiction, returning from Fort
+Worth, where he had been for the sole purpose of composing a poem on
+Florida.
+
+I have always, in common with other mentally balanced savants,
+despised writers of fiction. All scientists harbor a natural antipathy
+to romance in any form, and that antipathy becomes a deep horror if
+fiction dares to deal flippantly with the exact sciences, or if some
+degraded intellect assumes the warrantless liberty of using natural
+history as the vehicle for silly tales.
+
+Never but once had I been tempted to romance in any form; never but
+once had sentiment interfered with a passionless transfer of
+scientific notes to the sanctuary of the unvarnished note-book or the
+cloister of the juiceless monograph. Nor have I the slightest approach
+to that superficial and doubtful quality known as literary skill.
+Once, however, as I sat alone in the middle of the floor, classifying
+my isopods, I was not only astonished but totally unprepared to find
+myself repeating aloud a verse that I myself had unconsciously
+fashioned:
+
+    "An isopod
+     Is a work of God."
+
+Never before in all my life had I made a rhyme; and it worried me for
+weeks, ringing in my brain day and night, confusing me, interfering
+with my thoughts.
+
+I said as much to the young man, who only laughed good-naturedly and
+replied that it was the Creator's purpose to limit certain intellects,
+nobody knows why, and that it was apparent that mine had not escaped.
+
+"There's one thing, however," he said, "that might be of some interest
+to you and come within the circumscribed scope of your intelligence."
+
+"And what is that?" I asked, tartly.
+
+"A scientific experience of mine," he said, with a careless laugh.
+"It's so much stranger than fiction that even Professor Bruce
+Stoddard, of Columbia, hesitated to credit it."
+
+I looked at the young fellow suspiciously. His bland smile disarmed
+me, but I did not invite him to relate his experience, although he
+apparently needed only that encouragement to begin.
+
+"Now, if I could tell it exactly as it occurred," he observed, "and a
+stenographer could take it down, word for word, exactly as I relate
+it--"
+
+"It would give me great pleasure to do so," said a quiet voice at the
+door. We rose at once, removing the cigars from our lips; but Miss
+Barrison bade us continue smoking, and at a gesture from her we
+resumed our seats after she had installed herself by the window.
+
+"Really," she said, looking coldly at me, "I couldn't endure the
+solitude any longer. Isn't there anything to do on this tiresome
+train?"
+
+"If you had your pad and pencil," I began, maliciously, "you might
+take down a matter of interest--"
+
+She looked frankly at the young man, who laughed in that pleasant,
+good-tempered manner of his, and offered to tell us of his alleged
+scientific experience if we thought it might amuse us sufficiently to
+vary the dull monotony of the journey north.
+
+"Is it fiction?" I asked, point-blank.
+
+"It is absolute truth," he replied.
+
+I rose and went off to find pad and pencil. When I returned Miss
+Barrison was laughing at a story which the young man had just
+finished.
+
+"But," he ended, gravely, "I have practically decided to renounce
+fiction as a means of livelihood and confine myself to simple,
+uninteresting statistics and facts."
+
+"I am very glad to hear you say that," I exclaimed, warmly. He bowed,
+looked at Miss Barrison, and asked her when he might begin his story.
+
+"Whenever you are ready," replied Miss Barrison, smiling in a manner
+which I had not observed since the disappearance of Professor Farrago.
+I'll admit that the young fellow was superficially attractive.
+
+"Well, then," he began, modestly, "having no technical ability
+concerning the affair in question, and having no knowledge of either
+comparative anatomy or zoology, I am perhaps unfitted to tell this
+story. But the story is true; the episode occurred under my own
+eyes--within a few hours' sail of the Battery. And as I was one of the
+first persons to verify what has long been a theory among scientists,
+and, moreover, as the result of Professor Holroyd's discovery is to
+be placed on exhibition in Madison Square Garden on the 20th of next
+month, I have decided to tell you, as simply as I am able, exactly
+what occurred.
+
+"I first told the story on April 1, 1903, to the editors of the _North
+American Review_, _The Popular Science Monthly_, the _Scientific
+American_, _Nature_, _Outing_, and the _Fossiliferous Magazine_. All
+these gentlemen rejected it; some curtly informing me that fiction had
+no place in their columns. When I attempted to explain that it was not
+fiction, the editors of these periodicals either maintained a
+contemptuous silence, or bluntly notified me that my literary services
+and opinions were not desired. But finally, when several publishers
+offered to take the story as fiction, I cut short all negotiations and
+decided to publish it myself. Where I am known at all, it is my
+misfortune to be known as a writer of fiction. This makes it
+impossible for me to receive a hearing from a scientific audience. I
+regret it bitterly, because now, when it is too late, I am prepared to
+prove certain scientific matters of interest, and to produce the
+proofs. In this case, however, I am fortunate, for nobody can dispute
+the existence of a thing when the bodily proof is exhibited as
+evidence.
+
+"This is the story; and if I tell it as I write fiction, it is because
+I do not know how to tell it otherwise.
+
+"I was walking along the beach below Pine Inlet, on the south shore of
+Long Island. The railroad and telegraph station is at West Oyster Bay.
+Everybody who has travelled on the Long Island Railroad knows the
+station, but few, perhaps, know Pine Inlet. Duck-shooters, of course,
+are familiar with it; but as there are no hotels there, and nothing
+to see except salt meadow, salt creek, and a strip of dune and sand,
+the summer-squatting public may probably be unaware of its existence.
+The local name for the place is Pine Inlet; the maps give its name as
+Sand Point, I believe, but anybody at West Oyster Bay can direct you
+to it. Captain McPeek, who keeps the West Oyster Bay House, drives
+duck-shooters there in winter. It lies five miles southeast from West
+Oyster Bay.
+
+"I had walked over that afternoon from Captain McPeek's. There was a
+reason for my going to Pine Inlet--it embarrasses me to explain it,
+but the truth is I meditated writing an ode to the ocean. It was out
+of the question to write it in West Oyster Bay, with the whistle of
+locomotives in my ears. I knew that Pine Inlet was one of the
+loneliest places on the Atlantic coast; it is out of sight of
+everything except leagues of gray ocean. Rarely one might make out
+fishing-smacks drifting across the horizon. Summer squatters never
+visited it; sportsmen shunned it, except in winter. Therefore, as I
+was about to do a bit of poetry, I thought that Pine Inlet was the
+spot for the deed. So I went there.
+
+"As I was strolling along the beach, biting my pencil reflectively,
+tremendously impressed by the solitude and the solemn thunder of the
+surf, a thought occurred to me--how unpleasant it would be if I
+suddenly stumbled on a summer boarder. As this joyless impossibility
+flitted across my mind, I rounded a bleak sand-dune.
+
+"A girl stood directly in my path.
+
+"She stared at me as though I had just crawled up out of the sea to
+bite her. I don't know what my own expression resembled, but I have
+been given to understand it was idiotic.
+
+"Now I perceived, after a few moments, that the young lady was
+frightened, and I knew I ought to say something civil. So I said, 'Are
+there many mosquitoes here?'
+
+"'No,' she replied, with a slight quiver in her voice; 'I have only
+seen one, and it was biting somebody else.'
+
+"The conversation seemed so futile, and the young lady appeared to be
+more nervous than before. I had an impulse to say, 'Do not run; I have
+breakfasted,' for she seemed to be meditating a flight into the
+breakers. What I did say was: 'I did not know anybody was here. I do
+not intend to intrude. I come from Captain McPeek's, and I am writing
+an ode to the ocean.' After I had said this it seemed to ring in my
+ears like, 'I come from Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful
+James.'
+
+"I glanced timidly at her.
+
+"'She's thinking of the same thing,' said I to myself.
+
+"However, the young lady seemed to be a trifle reassured. I noticed
+she drew a sigh of relief and looked at my shoes. She looked so long
+that it made me suspicious, and I also examined my shoes. They seemed
+to be in a fair state of repair.
+
+"'I--I am sorry,' she said, 'but would you mind not walking on the
+beach?'
+
+"This was sudden. I had intended to retire and leave the beach to her,
+but I did not fancy being driven away so abruptly.
+
+"'Dear me!' she cried; 'you don't understand. I do not--I would not
+think for a moment of asking you to leave Pine Inlet. I merely
+ventured to request you to walk on the dunes. I am so afraid that your
+footprints may obliterate the impressions that my father is studying.'
+
+"'Oh!' said I, looking about me as though I had been caught in the
+middle of a flower-bed; 'really I did not notice any impressions.
+Impressions of what?'
+
+"'I don't know,' she said, smiling a little at my awkward pose. 'If
+you step this way in a straight line you can do no damage.'
+
+"I did as she bade me. I suppose my movements resembled the gait of a
+wet peacock. Possibly they recalled the delicate manoeuvres of the
+kangaroo. Anyway, she laughed.
+
+"This seriously annoyed me. I had been at a disadvantage; I walk well
+enough when let alone.
+
+"'You can scarcely expect,' said I, 'that a man absorbed in his own
+ideas could notice impressions on the sand. I trust I have obliterated
+nothing.'
+
+"As I said this I looked back at the long line of footprints
+stretching away in prospective across the sand. They were my own. How
+large they looked! Was that what she was laughing at?
+
+"'I wish to explain,' she said, gravely, looking at the point of her
+parasol. 'I am very sorry to be obliged to warn you--to ask you to
+forego the pleasure of strolling on a beach that does not belong to
+me. Perhaps,' she continued, in sudden alarm, 'perhaps this beach
+belongs to you?'
+
+"'The beach? Oh no,' I said.
+
+"'But--but you were going to write poems about it?'
+
+"'Only one--and that does not necessitate owning the beach. I have
+observed,' said I, frankly, 'that the people who own nothing write
+many poems about it.'
+
+"She looked at me seriously.
+
+"'I write many poems,' I added.
+
+"She laughed doubtfully.
+
+"'Would you rather I went away?' I asked, politely. 'My family is
+respectable,' I added; and I told her my name.
+
+"'Oh! Then you wrote _Culled Cowslips_ and _Faded Fig-Leaves_ and you
+imitate Maeterlinck, and you--Oh, I know lots of people that you
+know;' she cried, with every symptom of relief; 'and you know my
+brother.'
+
+"'I am the author,' said I, coldly, 'of _Culled Cowslips_, but _Faded
+Fig-Leaves_ was an earlier work, which I no longer recognize, and I
+should be grateful to you if you would be kind enough to deny that I
+ever imitated Maeterlinck. Possibly,' I added, 'he imitates me.'
+
+"She was very quiet, and I saw she was sorry.
+
+"'Never mind,' I said, magnanimously, 'you probably are not familiar
+with modern literature. If I knew your name I should ask permission to
+present myself.'
+
+"'Why, I am Daisy Holroyd,' she said.
+
+"'What! Jack Holroyd's little sister?'
+
+"'Little?' she cried.
+
+"'I didn't mean that,' said I. 'You know that your brother and I were
+great friends in Paris--'
+
+"'I know,' she said, significantly.
+
+"'Ahem! Of course,' I said, 'Jack and I were inseparable--'
+
+"'Except when shut in separate cells,' said Miss Holroyd, coldly.
+
+"This unfeeling allusion to the unfortunate termination of a
+Latin-Quarter celebration hurt me.
+
+"'The police,' said I, 'were too officious.'
+
+"'So Jack says,' replied Miss Holroyd, demurely.
+
+"We had unconsciously moved on along the sand-hills, side by side, as
+we spoke.
+
+"'To think,' I repeated, 'that I should meet Jack's little--'
+
+"'Please,' she said, 'you are only three years my senior.'
+
+"She opened the sunshade and tipped it over one shoulder. It was
+white, and had spots and posies on it.
+
+"'Jack sends us every new book you write,' she observed. 'I do not
+approve of some things you write.'
+
+"'Modern school,' I mumbled.
+
+"'That is no excuse,' she said, severely; 'Anthony Trollope didn't do
+it.'
+
+"The foam spume from the breakers was drifting across the dunes, and
+the little tip-up snipe ran along the beach and teetered and whistled
+and spread their white-barred wings for a low, straight flight across
+the shingle, only to tip and run and sail on again. The salt sea-wind
+whistled and curled through the crested waves, blowing in perfumed
+puffs across thickets of sweet bay and cedar. As we passed through the
+crackling juicy-stemmed marsh-weed myriads of fiddler crabs raised
+their fore-claws in warning and backed away, rustling, through the
+reeds, aggressive, protesting.
+
+"'Like millions of pygmy Ajaxes defying the lightning,' I said.
+
+"Miss Holroyd laughed.
+
+"'Now I never imagined that authors were clever except in print,' she
+said.
+
+"She was a most extraordinary girl.
+
+"'I suppose,' she observed, after a moment's silence--'I suppose I am
+taking you to my father.'
+
+"'Delighted!' I mumbled. 'H'm! I had the honor of meeting Professor
+Holroyd in Paris.'
+
+"'Yes; he bailed you and Jack out,' said Miss Holroyd, serenely.
+
+"The silence was too painful to last.
+
+"'Captain McPeek is an interesting man,' I said. I spoke more loudly
+than I intended. I may have been nervous.
+
+"'Yes,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'but he has a most singular hotel clerk.'
+
+"'You mean Mr. Frisby?'
+
+"'I do.'
+
+"'Yes,' I admitted, 'Mr. Frisby is queer. He was once a bill-poster.'
+
+"'I know it!' exclaimed Daisy Holroyd, with some heat. 'He ruins
+landscapes whenever he has an opportunity. Do you know that he has a
+passion for bill-posting? He has; he posts bills for the pure pleasure
+of it, just as you play golf, or tennis, or squash.'
+
+"'But he's a hotel clerk now,' I said; 'nobody employs him to post
+bills.'
+
+"'I know it! He does it all by himself for the pure pleasure of it.
+Papa has engaged him to come down here for two weeks, and I dread it,'
+said the girl.
+
+"What Professor Holroyd might want of Frisby I had not the faintest
+notion. I suppose Miss Holroyd noticed the bewilderment in my face,
+for she laughed and nodded her head twice.
+
+"'Not only Mr. Frisby, but Captain McPeek also,' she said.
+
+"'You don't mean to say that Captain McPeek is going to close his
+hotel!' I exclaimed.
+
+"My trunk was there. It contained guarantees of my respectability.
+
+"'Oh no; his wife will keep it open,' replied the girl. 'Look! you can
+see papa now. He's digging.'
+
+"'Where?' I blurted out.
+
+"I remembered Professor Holroyd as a prim, spectacled gentleman, with
+close-cut, snowy beard and a clerical allure. The man I saw digging
+wore green goggles, a jersey, a battered sou'wester, and hip-boots of
+rubber. He was delving in the muck of the salt meadow, his face
+streaming with perspiration, his boots and jersey splashed with
+unpleasant-looking mud. He glanced up as we approached, shading his
+eyes with a sunburned hand.
+
+"'Papa, dear,' said Miss Holroyd, 'here is Jack's friend, whom you
+bailed out of Mazas.'
+
+"The introduction was startling. I turned crimson with mortification.
+The professor was very decent about it; he called me by name at once.
+Then he looked at his spade. It was clear he considered me a nuisance
+and wished to go on with his digging.
+
+"'I suppose,' he said, 'you are still writing?'
+
+"'A little,' I replied, trying not to speak sarcastically. My output
+had rivalled that of 'The Duchess'--in quantity, I mean.
+
+"'I seldom read--fiction,' he said, looking restlessly at the hole in
+the ground.
+
+"Miss Holroyd came to my rescue.
+
+"'That was a charming story you wrote last,' she said. 'Papa should
+read it--you should, papa; it's all about a fossil.'
+
+"We both looked narrowly at Miss Holroyd. Her smile was guileless.
+
+"'Fossils!' repeated the professor. 'Do you care for fossils?'
+
+"'Very much,' said I.
+
+"Now I am not perfectly sure what my object was in lying. I looked at
+Daisy Holroyd's dark-fringed eyes. They were very grave.
+
+"'Fossils,' said I, 'are my hobby.'
+
+"I think Miss Holroyd winced a little at this. I did not care. I went
+on:
+
+"'I have seldom had the opportunity to study the subject, but, as a
+boy, I collected flint arrow-heads--"
+
+"'Flint arrow-heads!' said the professor coldly.
+
+"'Yes; they were the nearest things to fossils obtainable,' I replied,
+marvelling at my own mendacity.
+
+"The professor looked into the hole. I also looked. I could see
+nothing in it. 'He's digging for fossils,' thought I to myself.
+
+"'Perhaps,' said the professor, cautiously, 'you might wish to aid me
+in a little research--that is to say, if you have an inclination for
+fossils.' The double-entendre was not lost upon me.
+
+"'I have read all your books so eagerly,' said I, 'that to join you,
+to be of service to you in any research, however difficult and
+trying, would be an honor and a privilege that I never dared to hope
+for.'
+
+"'That,' thought I to myself, 'will do its own work.'
+
+"But the professor was still suspicious. How could he help it, when he
+remembered Jack's escapades, in which my name was always blended!
+Doubtless he was satisfied that my influence on Jack was evil. The
+contrary was the case, too.
+
+"'Fossils,' he said, worrying the edge of the excavation with his
+spade--'fossils are not things to be lightly considered.'
+
+"'No, indeed!' I protested.
+
+"'Fossils are the most interesting as well as puzzling things in the
+world,' said he.
+
+"'They are!' I cried, enthusiastically.
+
+"'But I am not looking for fossils,' observed the professor, mildly.
+
+"This was a facer. I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She bit her lip and
+fixed her eyes on the sea. Her eyes were wonderful eyes.
+
+"'Did you think I was digging for fossils in a salt meadow?' queried
+the professor. 'You can have read very little about the subject. I am
+digging for something quite different.'
+
+"I was silent. I knew that my face was flushed. I longed to say,
+'Well, what the devil are you digging for?' but I only stared into the
+hole as though hypnotized.
+
+"'Captain McPeek and Frisby ought to be here,' he said, looking first
+at Daisy and then across the meadows.
+
+"I ached to ask him why he had subpoenaed Captain McPeek and Frisby.
+
+"'They are coming,' said Daisy, shading her eyes. 'Do you see the
+speck on the meadows?'
+
+"'It may be a mud-hen,' said the professor.
+
+"'Miss Holroyd is right,' I said. 'A wagon and team and two men are
+coming from the north. There's a dog beside the wagon--it's that
+miserable yellow dog of Frisby's.'
+
+"'Good gracious!' cried the professor, 'you don't mean to tell me that
+you see all that at such a distance?'
+
+"'Why not?' I said.
+
+"'I see nothing,' he insisted.
+
+"'You will see that I'm right, presently,' I laughed.
+
+"The professor removed his blue goggles and rubbed them, glancing
+obliquely at me.
+
+"'Haven't you heard what extraordinary eyesight duck-shooters have?'
+said his daughter, looking back at her father. 'Jack says that he can
+tell exactly what kind of a duck is flying before most people could
+see anything at all in the sky.'
+
+"'It's true,' I said; 'it comes to anybody, I fancy, who has had
+practice.'
+
+"The professor regarded me with a new interest. There was inspiration
+in his eyes. He turned towards the ocean. For a long time he stared at
+the tossing waves on the beach, then he looked far out to where the
+horizon met the sea.
+
+"'Are there any ducks out there?' he asked, at last.
+
+"'Yes,' said I, scanning the sea, 'there are.'
+
+"He produced a pair of binoculars from his coat-tail pocket, adjusted
+them, and raised them to his eyes.
+
+"'H'm! What sort of ducks?'
+
+"I looked more carefully, holding both hands over my forehead.
+
+"'Surf-ducks and widgeon. There is one bufflehead among them--no, two;
+the rest are coots,' I replied.
+
+"'This,' cried the professor, 'is most astonishing. I have good eyes,
+but I can't see a blessed thing without these binoculars!'
+
+"'It's not extraordinary,' said I; 'the surf-ducks and coots any
+novice might recognize; the widgeon and buffleheads I should not have
+been able to name unless they had risen from the water. It is easy to
+tell any duck when it is flying, even though it looks no bigger than a
+black pin-point.'
+
+"But the professor insisted that it was marvellous, and he said that I
+might render him invaluable service if I would consent to come and
+camp at Pine Inlet for a few weeks.
+
+"I looked at his daughter, but she turned her back. Her back was
+beautifully moulded. Her gown fitted also.
+
+"'Camp out here?' I repeated, pretending to be unpleasantly surprised.
+
+"'I do not think he would care to,' said Miss Holroyd, without
+turning.
+
+"I had not expected that.
+
+"'Above all things,' said I, in a clear, pleasant voice, 'I like to
+camp out.'
+
+"She said nothing.
+
+"'It is not exactly camping,' said the professor. 'Come, you shall see
+our conservatory. Daisy, come, dear! You must put on a heavier frock;
+it is getting towards sundown.'
+
+"At that moment, over a near dune, two horses' heads appeared,
+followed by two human heads, then a wagon, then a yellow dog.
+
+"I turned triumphantly to the professor.
+
+"'You are the very man I want,' he muttered--'the very man--the very
+man.'
+
+"I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She returned my glance with a defiant
+little smile.
+
+"'Waal,' said Captain McPeek, driving up, 'here we be! Git out,
+Frisby.'
+
+"Frisby, fat, nervous, and sentimental, hopped out of the cart.
+
+"'Come,' said the professor, impatiently moving across the dunes. I
+walked with Daisy Holroyd. McPeek and Frisby followed. The yellow dog
+walked by himself.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+"The sun was dipping into the sea as we trudged across the meadows
+towards a high, dome-shaped dune covered with cedars and thickets of
+sweet bay. I saw no sign of habitation among the sand-hills. Far as
+the eye could reach, nothing broke the gray line of sea and sky save
+the squat dunes crowned with stunted cedars.
+
+"Then, as we rounded the base of the dune, we almost walked into the
+door of a house. My amazement amused Miss Holroyd, and I noticed also
+a touch of malice in her pretty eyes. But she said nothing, following
+her father into the house, with the slightest possible gesture to me.
+Was it invitation or was it menace?
+
+"The house was merely a light wooden frame, covered with some
+waterproof stuff that looked like a mixture of rubber and tar. Over
+this--in fact, over the whole roof--was pitched an awning of heavy
+sail-cloth. I noticed that the house was anchored to the sand by
+chains, already rusted red. But this one-storied house was not the
+only building nestling in the south shelter of the big dune. A hundred
+feet away stood another structure--long, low, also built of wood. It
+had rows on rows of round port-holes on every side. The ports were
+fitted with heavy glass, hinged to swing open if necessary. A single,
+big double door occupied the front.
+
+"Behind this long, low building was still another, a mere shed. Smoke
+rose from the sheet-iron chimney. There was somebody moving about
+inside the open door.
+
+"As I stood gaping at this mushroom hamlet the professor appeared at
+the door and asked me to enter. I stepped in at once.
+
+"The house was much larger than I had imagined. A straight hallway ran
+through the centre from east to west. On either side of this hallway
+were rooms, the doors swinging wide open. I counted three doors on
+each side; the three on the south appeared to be bedrooms.
+
+"The professor ushered me into a room on the north side, where I found
+Captain McPeek and Frisby sitting at a table, upon which were drawings
+and sketches of articulated animals and fishes.
+
+"'You see, McPeek,' said the professor, 'we only wanted one more man,
+and I think I've got him--Haven't I?' turning eagerly to me.
+
+"'Why, yes,' I said, laughing; 'this is delightful. Am I invited to
+stay here?'
+
+"'Your bedroom is the third on the south side; everything is ready.
+McPeek, you can bring his trunk to-morrow, can't you?' demanded the
+professor.
+
+"The red-faced captain nodded, and shifted a quid.
+
+"'Then it's all settled,' said the professor, and he drew a sigh of
+satisfaction. 'You see,' he said, turning to me, 'I was at my wit's
+end to know whom to trust. I never thought of you. Jack's out in
+China, and I didn't dare trust anybody in my own profession. All you
+care about is writing verses and stories, isn't it?'
+
+"'I like to shoot,' I replied, mildly.
+
+"'Just the thing!' he cried, beaming at us all in turn. 'Now I can see
+no reason why we should not progress rapidly. McPeek, you and Frisby
+must get those boxes up here before dark. Dinner will be ready before
+you have finished unloading. Dick, you will wish to go to your room
+first.'
+
+"My name isn't Dick, but he spoke so kindly, and beamed upon me in
+such a fatherly manner, that I let it go. I had occasion to correct
+him afterwards, several times, but he always forgot the next minute.
+He calls me Dick to this day.
+
+"It was dark when Professor Holroyd, his daughter, and I sat down to
+dinner. The room was the same in which I had noticed the drawings of
+beast and bird, but the round table had been extended into an oval,
+and neatly spread with dainty linen and silver.
+
+"A fresh-cheeked Swedish girl appeared from a farther room, bearing
+the soup. The professor ladled it out, still beaming.
+
+"'Now, this is very delightful--isn't it, Daisy?' he said.
+
+"'Very,' said Miss Holroyd, with a tinge of irony.
+
+"'Very,' I repeated, heartily.
+
+"'I suppose,' said the professor, nodding mysteriously at his
+daughter, 'that Dick knows nothing of what we're about down here?'
+
+"'I suppose,' said Miss Holroyd, 'that he thinks we are digging for
+fossils.'
+
+"I looked at my plate. She might have spared me that.
+
+"'Well, well,' said her father, smiling to himself, 'he shall know
+everything by morning. You'll be astonished, Dick, my boy.'
+
+"'His name isn't Dick,' corrected Daisy.
+
+"The professor said, 'Isn't it?' in an absent-minded way, and relapsed
+into contemplation of my necktie.
+
+"I asked Miss Holroyd a few questions about Jack, and was informed
+that he had given up law and entered the consular service--as what, I
+did not dare ask, for I know what our consular service is.
+
+"'In China,' said Daisy.
+
+"'Choo Choo is the name of the city,' added her father, proudly; 'it's
+the terminus of the new trans-Siberian railway.'
+
+"'It's on the Pong Ping,' said Daisy.
+
+"'He's vice-consul,' added the professor, triumphantly.
+
+"'He'll make a good one,' I observed. I knew Jack. I pitied his
+consul.
+
+"So we chatted on about my old playmate, until Freda, the red-cheeked
+maid, brought coffee, and the professor lighted a cigar, with a little
+bow to his daughter.
+
+"'Of course, you don't smoke,' she said to me, with a glimmer of
+malice in her eyes.
+
+"'He mustn't,' interposed the professor, hastily; 'it will make his
+hand tremble.'
+
+"'No, it won't,' said I, laughing; 'but my hand will shake if I don't
+smoke. Are you going to employ me as a draughtsman?'
+
+"'You'll know to-morrow,' he chuckled, with a mysterious smile at his
+daughter. 'Daisy, give him my best cigars--put the box here on the
+table. We can't afford to have his hand tremble.'
+
+"Miss Holroyd rose and crossed the hallway to her father's room,
+returning presently with a box of promising-looking cigars.
+
+"'I don't think he knows what is good for him,' she said. 'He should
+smoke only one every day.'
+
+"It was hard to bear. I am not vindictive, but I decided to treasure
+up a few of Miss Holroyd's gentle taunts. My intimacy with her brother
+was certainly a disadvantage to me now. Jack had apparently been
+talking too much, and his sister appeared to be thoroughly acquainted
+with my past. It was a disadvantage. I remembered her vaguely as a
+girl with long braids, who used to come on Sundays with her father and
+take tea with us in our rooms. Then she went to Germany to school, and
+Jack and I employed our Sunday evenings otherwise. It is true that I
+regarded her weekly visits as a species of infliction, but I did not
+think I ever showed it.
+
+"'It is strange,' said I, 'that you did not recognize me at once, Miss
+Holroyd. Have I changed so greatly in five years?'
+
+"'You wore a pointed French beard in Paris,' she said--'a very downy
+one. And you never stayed to tea but twice, and then you only spoke
+once.'
+
+"'Oh!' said I, blankly. 'What did I say?'
+
+"'You asked me if I liked plums,' said Daisy, bursting into an
+irresistible ripple of laughter.
+
+"I saw that I must have made the same sort of an ass of myself that
+most boys of eighteen do.
+
+"It was too bad. I never thought about the future in those days. Who
+could have imagined that little Daisy Holroyd would have grown up into
+this bewildering young lady? It was really too bad. Presently the
+professor retired to his room, carrying with him an armful of
+drawings, and bidding us not to sit up late. When he closed his door
+Miss Holroyd turned to me.
+
+"'Papa will work over those drawings until midnight,' she said, with a
+despairing smile.
+
+"'It isn't good for him,' I said. 'What are the drawings?'
+
+"'You may know to-morrow,' she answered, leaning forward on the table
+and shading her face with one hand. 'Tell me about yourself and Jack
+in Paris.'
+
+"I looked at her suspiciously.
+
+"'What! There isn't much to tell. We studied. Jack went to the law
+school, and I attended--er--oh, all sorts of schools.'
+
+"'Did you? Surely you gave yourself a little recreation occasionally?'
+
+"'Occasionally,' I nodded.
+
+"'I am afraid you and Jack studied too hard.'
+
+"'That may be,' said I, looking meek.
+
+"'Especially about fossils.'
+
+"I couldn't stand that.
+
+"'Miss Holroyd,' I said, 'I do care for fossils. You may think that I
+am a humbug, but I have a perfect mania for fossils--now.'
+
+"'Since when?'
+
+"'About an hour ago,' I said, airily. Out of the corner of my eye I
+saw that she had flushed up. It pleased me.
+
+"'You will soon tire of the experiment,' she said, with a dangerous
+smile.
+
+"'Oh, I may,' I replied, indifferently.
+
+"She drew back. The movement was scarcely perceptible, but I noticed
+it, and she knew I did.
+
+"The atmosphere was vaguely hostile. One feels such mental conditions
+and changes instantly. I picked up a chess-board, opened it, set up
+the pieces with elaborate care, and began to move, first the white,
+then the black. Miss Holroyd watched me coldly at first, but after a
+dozen moves she became interested and leaned a shade nearer. I moved a
+black pawn forward.
+
+"'Why do you do that?' said Daisy.
+
+"'Because,' said I, 'the white queen threatens the pawn.'
+
+"'It was an aggressive move,' she insisted.
+
+"'Purely defensive,' I said. 'If her white highness will let the pawn
+alone, the pawn will let the queen alone.'
+
+"Miss Holroyd rested her chin on her wrist and gazed steadily at the
+board. She was flushing furiously, but she held her ground.
+
+"'If the white queen doesn't block that pawn, the pawn may become
+dangerous,' she said, coldly.
+
+"I laughed, and closed up the board with a snap.
+
+"'True,' I said, 'it might even take the queen.' After a moment's
+silence I asked, 'What would you do in that case, Miss Holroyd?'
+
+"'I should resign,' she said, serenely; then, realizing what she had
+said, she lost her self-possession for a second, and cried: 'No,
+indeed! I should fight to the bitter end! I mean--'
+
+"'What?' I asked, lingering over my revenge.
+
+"'I mean,' she said, slowly, 'that your black pawn would never have
+the chance--never! I should take it immediately.'
+
+"'I believe you would,' said I, smiling; 'so we'll call the game
+yours, and--the pawn captured.'
+
+"'I don't want it,' she exclaimed. 'A pawn is worthless.'
+
+"'Except when it's in the king row.'
+
+"'Chess is most interesting,' she observed, sedately. She had
+completely recovered her self-possession. Still I saw that she now had
+a certain respect for my defensive powers. It was very soothing to me.
+
+"'You know,' said I, gravely, 'that I am fonder of Jack than of
+anybody. That's the reason we never write each other, except to borrow
+things. I am afraid that when I was a young cub in France I was not an
+attractive personality.'
+
+"'On the contrary,' said Daisy, smiling, 'I thought you were very big
+and very perfect. I had illusions. I wept often when I went home and
+remembered that you never took the trouble to speak to me but once.'
+
+"'I was a cub,' I said--'not selfish and brutal, but I didn't
+understand school-girls. I never had any sisters, and I didn't know
+what to say to very young girls. If I had imagined that you felt
+hurt--'
+
+"'Oh, I did--five years ago. Afterwards I laughed at the whole thing.'
+
+"'Laughed?' I repeated, vaguely disappointed.
+
+"'Why, of course. I was very easily hurt when I was a child. I think I
+have outgrown it.'
+
+"The soft curve of her sensitive mouth contradicted her.
+
+"'Will you forgive me now?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes. I had forgotten the whole thing until I met you an hour or so
+ago.'
+
+"There was something that had a ring not entirely genuine in this
+speech. I noticed it, but forgot it the next moment.
+
+"Presently she rose, touched her hair with the tip of one finger, and
+walked to the door.
+
+"'Good-night,' she said.
+
+"'Good-night,' said I, opening the door for her to pass.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+"The sea was a sheet of silver tinged with pink. The tremendous arch
+of the sky was all shimmering and glimmering with the promise of the
+sun. Already the mist above, flecked with clustered clouds, flushed
+with rose color and dull gold. I heard the low splash of the waves
+breaking and curling across the beach. A wandering breeze, fresh and
+fragrant, blew the curtains of my window. There was the scent of sweet
+bay in the room, and everywhere the subtle, nameless perfume of the
+sea.
+
+"When at last I stood upon the shore, the air and sea were all
+a-glimmer in a rosy light, deepening to crimson in the zenith. Along
+the beach I saw a little cove, shelving and all a-shine, where shallow
+waves washed with a mellow sound. Fine as dusted gold the shingle
+glowed, and the thin film of water rose, receded, crept up again a
+little higher, and again flowed back, with the low hiss of snowy foam
+and gilded bubbles breaking.
+
+"I stood a little while quiet, my eyes upon the water, the invitation
+of the ocean in my ears, vague and sweet as the murmur of a shell.
+Then I looked at my bathing-suit and towels.
+
+"'In we go!' said I, aloud. A second later the prophecy was
+fulfilled.
+
+"I swam far out to sea, and as I swam the waters all around me turned
+to gold. The sun had risen.
+
+"There is a fragrance in the sea at dawn that none can name.
+Whitethorn a-bloom in May, sedges a-sway, and scented rushes rustling
+in an inland wind recall the sea to me--I can't say why.
+
+"Far out at sea I raised myself, swung around, dived, and set out
+again for shore, striking strong strokes until the necked foam flew.
+And when at last I shot through the breakers, I laughed aloud and
+sprang upon the beach, breathless and happy. Then from the ocean came
+another cry, clear, joyous, and a white arm rose in the air.
+
+"She came drifting in with the waves like a white sea-sprite, laughing
+at me, and I plunged into the breakers again to join her.
+
+"Side by side we swam along the coast, just outside the breakers,
+until in the next cove we saw the flutter of her maid's cap-strings.
+
+"'I will beat you to breakfast!' she cried, as I rested, watching her
+glide up along the beach.
+
+"'Done!' said I--'for a sea-shell!'
+
+"'Done!' she called, across the water.
+
+"I made good speed along the shore, and I was not long in dressing,
+but when I entered the dining-room she was there, demure, smiling,
+exquisite in her cool, white frock.
+
+"'The sea-shell is yours,' said I. 'I hope I can find one with a pearl
+in it.'
+
+"The professor hurried in before she could reply. He greeted me very
+cordially, but there was an abstracted air about him, and he called me
+Dick until I recognized that remonstrance was useless. He was not
+long over his coffee and rolls.
+
+"'McPeek and Frisby will return with the last load, including your
+trunk, by early afternoon,' he said, rising and picking up his bundle
+of drawings. 'I haven't time to explain to you what we are doing,
+Dick, but Daisy will take you about and instruct you. She will give
+you the rifle standing in my room--it's a good Winchester. I have sent
+for an 'Express' for you, big enough to knock over any elephant in
+India. Daisy, take him through the sheds and tell him everything.
+Luncheon is at noon. Do you usually take luncheon, Dick?'
+
+"'When I am permitted,' I smiled.
+
+"'Well,' said the professor, doubtfully, 'you mustn't come back here
+for it. Freda can take you what you want. Is your hand unsteady after
+eating?'
+
+"'Why, papa!' said Daisy. 'Do you intend to starve him?'
+
+"We all laughed.
+
+"The professor tucked his drawings into a capacious pocket, pulled his
+sea-boots up to his hips, seized a spade, and left, nodding to us as
+though he were thinking of something else.
+
+"We went to the door and watched him across the salt meadows until the
+distant sand-dune hid him.
+
+"'Come,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'I am going to take you to the shop.'
+
+"She put on a broad-brimmed straw hat, a distractingly pretty
+combination of filmy cool stuffs, and led the way to the long, low
+structure that I had noticed the evening before.
+
+"The interior was lighted by the numberless little port-holes, and I
+could see everything plainly. I acknowledge I was nonplussed by what I
+did see.
+
+"In the centre of the shed, which must have been at least a hundred
+feet long, stood what I thought at first was the skeleton of an
+enormous whale. After a moment's silent contemplation of the thing I
+saw that it could not be a whale, for the frames of two gigantic,
+batlike wings rose from each shoulder. Also I noticed that the animal
+possessed legs--four of them--with most unpleasant-looking webbed
+claws fully eight feet long. The bony framework of the head, too,
+resembled something between a crocodile and a monstrous
+snapping-turtle. The walls of the shanty were hung with drawings and
+blue prints. A man dressed in white linen was tinkering with the
+vertebrae of the lizard-like tail.
+
+"'Where on earth did such a reptile come from?' I asked at length.
+
+"'Oh, it's not real!' said Daisy, scornfully; 'it's papier-mache.'
+
+"'I see,' said I; 'a stage prop.'
+
+"'A what?' asked Daisy, in hurt astonishment.
+
+"'Why, a--a sort of Siegfried dragon--a what's-his-name--er, Pfafner,
+or Peffer, or--'
+
+"'If my father heard you say such things he would dislike you,' said
+Daisy. She looked grieved, and moved towards the door. I
+apologized--for what, I knew not--and we became reconciled. She ran
+into her father's room and brought me the rifle, a very good
+Winchester. She also gave me a cartridge-belt, full.
+
+"'Now,' she smiled, 'I shall take you to your observatory, and when we
+arrive you are to begin your duty at once.'
+
+"'And that duty?' I ventured, shouldering the rifle.
+
+"'That duty is to watch the ocean. I shall then explain the whole
+affair--but you mustn't look at me while I speak; you must watch the
+sea.'
+
+"'This,' said I, 'is hardship. I had rather go without the luncheon.'
+
+"I do not think she was offended at my speech; still she frowned for
+almost three seconds.
+
+"We passed through acres of sweet bay and spear grass, sometimes
+skirting thickets of twisted cedars, sometimes walking in the full
+glare of the morning sun, sinking into shifting sand where
+sun-scorched shells crackled under our feet, and sun-browned sea-weed
+glistened, bronzed and iridescent. Then, as we climbed a little hill,
+the sea-wind freshened in our faces, and lo! the ocean lay below us,
+far-stretching as the eye could reach, glittering, magnificent.
+
+"Daisy sat down flat on the sand. It takes a clever girl to do that
+and retain the respectful deference due her from men. It takes a
+graceful girl to accomplish it triumphantly when a man is looking.
+
+"'You must sit beside me,' she said--as though it would prove irksome
+to me.
+
+"'Now,' she continued, 'you must watch the water while I am talking.'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'Why don't you do it, then?' she asked.
+
+"I succeeded in wrenching my head towards the ocean, although I felt
+sure it would swing gradually round again in spite of me.
+
+"'To begin with,' said Daisy Holroyd, 'there's a thing in that ocean
+that would astonish you if you saw it. Turn your head!'
+
+"'I am,' I said, meekly.
+
+"'Did you hear what I said?'
+
+"'Yes--er--a thing in the ocean that's going to astonish me.' Visions
+of mermaids rose before me.
+
+"'The thing,' said Daisy, 'is a thermosaurus!'
+
+"I nodded vaguely, as though anticipating a delightful introduction to
+a nautical friend.
+
+"'You don't seem astonished,' she said, reproachfully.
+
+"'Why should I be?' I asked.
+
+"'Please turn your eyes towards the water. Suppose a thermosaurus
+should look out of the waves!'
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'in that case the pleasure would be mutual.'
+
+"She frowned and bit her upper lip.
+
+"'Do you know what a thermosaurus is?' she asked.
+
+"'If I am to guess,' said I, 'I guess it's a jelly-fish.'
+
+"'It's that big, ugly, horrible creature that I showed you in the
+shed!' cried Daisy, impatiently.
+
+"'Eh!' I stammered.
+
+"'Not papier-mache, either,' she continued, excitedly; 'it's a real
+one.'
+
+"This was pleasant news. I glanced instinctively at my rifle and then
+at the ocean.
+
+"'Well,' said I at last, 'it strikes me that you and I resemble a pair
+of Andromedas waiting to be swallowed. This rifle won't stop a beast,
+a live beast, like that Nibelungen dragon of yours.'
+
+"'Yes, it will,' she said; 'it's not an ordinary rifle.'
+
+"Then, for the first time, I noticed, just below the magazine, a
+cylindrical attachment that was strange to me.
+
+"'Now, if you will watch the sea very carefully, and will promise not
+to look at me,' said Daisy, 'I will try to explain.'
+
+"She did not wait for me to promise, but went on eagerly, a sparkle of
+excitement in her blue eyes:
+
+"'You know, of all the fossil remains of the great batlike and
+lizard-like creatures that inhabited the earth ages and ages ago, the
+bones of the gigantic saurians are the most interesting. I think they
+used to splash about the water and fly over the land during the
+carboniferous period; anyway, it doesn't matter. Of course you have
+seen pictures of reconstructed creatures such as the ichthyosaurus,
+the plesiosaurus, the anthracosaurus, and the thermosaurus?'
+
+"I nodded, trying to keep my eyes from hers.
+
+"'And you know that the remains of the thermosaurus were first
+discovered and reconstructed by papa?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I. There was no use in saying no.
+
+"'I am glad you do. Now, papa has proved that this creature lived
+entirely in the Gulf Stream, emerging for occasional flights across an
+ocean or two. Can you imagine how he proved it?'
+
+"'No,' said I, resolutely pointing my nose at the ocean.
+
+"'He proved it by a minute examination of the microscopical shells
+found among the ribs of the thermosaurus. These shells contained
+little creatures that live only in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream.
+They were the food of the thermosaurus.'
+
+"'It was rather slender rations for a thing like that, wasn't it? Did
+he ever swallow bigger food--er--men?'
+
+"'Oh yes. Tons of fossil bones from prehistoric men are also found in
+the interior of the thermosaurus.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'you, at least, had better go back to Captain
+McPeek's--'
+
+"'Please turn around; don't be so foolish. I didn't say there was a
+live thermosaurus in the water, did I?'
+
+"'Isn't there?'
+
+"'Why, no!'
+
+"My relief was genuine, but I thought of the rifle and looked
+suspiciously out to sea.
+
+"'What's the Winchester for?' I asked.
+
+"'Listen, and I will explain. Papa has found out--how, I do not
+exactly understand--that there is in the waters of the Gulf Stream the
+body of a thermosaurus. The creature must have been alive within a
+year or so. The impenetrable scale-armor that covers its body has, as
+far as papa knows, prevented its disintegration. We know that it is
+there still, or was there within a few months. Papa has reports and
+sworn depositions from steamer captains and seamen from a dozen
+different vessels, all corroborating one another in essential details.
+These stories, of course, get into the newspapers--sea-serpent
+stories--but papa knows that they confirm his theory that the huge
+body of this reptile is swinging along somewhere in the Gulf Stream.'
+
+"She opened her sunshade and held it over her. I noticed that she
+deigned to give me the benefit of about one-eighth of it.
+
+"'Your duty with that rifle is this: if we are fortunate enough to see
+the body of the thermosaurus come floating by, you are to take good
+aim and fire--fire rapidly every bullet in the magazine; then reload
+and fire again, and reload and fire as long as you have any cartridges
+left.'
+
+"'A self-feeding Maxim is what I should have,' I said, with gentle
+sarcasm. 'Well, and suppose I make a sieve of this big lizard?'
+
+"'Do you see these rings in the sand?' she asked.
+
+"Sure enough, somebody had driven heavy piles deep into the sand all
+around us, and to the tops of these piles were attached steel rings,
+half buried under the spear-grass. We sat almost exactly in the centre
+of a circle of these rings.
+
+"'The reason is this,' said Daisy; 'every bullet in your cartridges is
+steel-tipped and armor-piercing. To the base of each bullet is
+attached a thin wire of pallium. Pallium is that new metal, a thread
+of which, drawn out into finest wire, will hold a ton of iron
+suspended. Every bullet is fitted with minute coils of miles of this
+wire. When the bullet leaves the rifle it spins out this wire as a
+shot from a life-saver's mortar spins out and carries the life-line to
+a wrecked ship. The end of each coil of wire is attached to that
+cylinder under the magazine of your rifle. As soon as the shell is
+automatically ejected this wire flies out also. A bit of scarlet tape
+is fixed to the end, so that it will be easy to pick up. There is also
+a snap-clasp on the end, and this clasp fits those rings that you see
+in the sand. Now, when you begin firing, it is my duty to run and pick
+up the wire ends and attach them to the rings. Then, you see, we have
+the body of the thermosaurus full of bullets, every bullet anchored to
+the shore by tiny wires, each of which could easily hold a ton's
+strain.'
+
+"I looked at her in amazement.
+
+"'Then,' she added, calmly, 'we have captured the thermosaurus.'
+
+"'Your father,' said I, at length, 'must have spent years of labor
+over this preparation.'
+
+"'It is the work of a lifetime,' she said, simply.
+
+"My face, I suppose, showed my misgivings.
+
+"'It must not fail,' she added.
+
+"'But--but we are nowhere near the Gulf Stream,' I ventured.
+
+"Her face brightened, and she frankly held the sunshade over us both.
+
+"'Ah, you don't know,' she said, 'what else papa has discovered. Would
+you believe that he has found a loop in the Gulf Stream--a genuine
+loop--that swings in here just outside of the breakers below? It is
+true! Everybody on Long Island knows that there is a warm current off
+the coast, but nobody imagined it was merely a sort of backwater from
+the Gulf Stream that formed a great circular mill-race around the cone
+of a subterranean volcano, and rejoined the Gulf Stream off Cape
+Albatross. But it is! That is why papa bought a yacht three years ago
+and sailed about for two years so mysteriously. Oh, I did want to go
+with him so much!'
+
+"'This,' said I, 'is most astonishing.'
+
+"She leaned enthusiastically towards me, her lovely face aglow.
+
+"'Isn't it?' she said; 'and to think that you and papa and I are the
+only people in the whole world who know this!'
+
+"To be included in such a triology was very delightful.
+
+"'Papa is writing the whole thing--I mean about the currents. He also
+has in preparation sixteen volumes on the thermosaurus. He said this
+morning that he was going to ask you to write the story first for some
+scientific magazine. He is certain that Professor Bruce Stoddard, of
+Columbia, will write the pamphlets necessary. This will give papa time
+to attend to the sixteen-volume work, which he expects to finish in
+three years.'
+
+"'Let us first,' said I, laughing, 'catch our thermosaurus.'
+
+"'We must not fail,' she said, wistfully.
+
+"'We shall not fail,' I said, 'for I promise to sit on this sand-hill
+as long as I live--until a thermosaurus appears--if that is your wish,
+Miss Holroyd.'
+
+"Our eyes met for an instant. She did not chide me, either, for not
+looking at the ocean. Her eyes were bluer, anyway.
+
+"'I suppose,' she said, bending her head and absently pouring sand
+between her fingers--'I suppose you think me a blue-stocking, or
+something odious?'
+
+"'Not exactly,' I said. There was an emphasis in my voice that made
+her color. After a moment she laid the sunshade down, still open.
+
+"'May I hold it?' I asked.
+
+"She nodded almost imperceptibly.
+
+"The ocean had turned a deep marine blue, verging on purple, that
+heralded a scorching afternoon. The wind died away; the odor of cedar
+and sweet-bay hung heavy in the air.
+
+"In the sand at our feet an iridescent flower-beetle crawled, its
+metallic green-and-blue wings burning like a spark. Great gnats, with
+filmy, glittering wings, danced aimlessly above the young golden-rod;
+burnished crickets, inquisitive, timid, ran from under chips of
+driftwood, waved their antennae at us, and ran back again. One by one
+the marbled tiger-beetles tumbled at our feet, dazed from the exertion
+of an aerial flight, then scrambled and ran a little way, or darted
+into the wire grass, where great, brilliant spiders eyed them askance
+from their gossamer hammocks.
+
+"Far out at sea the white gulls floated and drifted on the water, or
+sailed up into the air to flap lazily for a moment and settle back
+among the waves. Strings of black surf-ducks passed, their strong
+wings tipping the surface of the water; single wandering coots whirled
+from the breakers into lonely flight towards the horizon.
+
+"We lay and watched the little ring-necks running along the water's
+edge, now backing away from the incoming tide, now boldly wading after
+the undertow. The harmony of silence, the deep perfume, the mystery of
+waiting for that something that all await--what is it? love? death? or
+only the miracle of another morrow?--troubled me with vague
+restlessness. As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a
+shadow, an the shadow is sadness.
+
+"And so the morning wore away until Freda came with a cool-looking
+hamper. Then delicious cold fowl and lettuce sandwiches and champagne
+cup set our tongues wagging as only very young tongues can wag. Daisy
+went back with Freda after luncheon, leaving me a case of cigars, with
+a bantering smile. I dozed, half awake, keeping a partly closed eye on
+the ocean, where a faint gray streak showed plainly amid the azure
+water all around. That was the Gulf Stream loop.
+
+"About four o'clock Frisby appeared with a bamboo shelter-tent, for
+which I was unaffectedly grateful.
+
+"After he had erected it over me he stopped to chat a bit, but the
+conversation bored me, for he could talk of nothing but bill-posting.
+
+"'You wouldn't ruin the landscape here, would you?' I asked.
+
+"'Ruin it!' repeated Frisby, nervously. 'It's ruined now; there ain't
+a place to stick a bill.'
+
+"'The snipe stick bills--in the sand,' I said, flippantly.
+
+"There was no humor about Frisby. 'Do they?' he asked.
+
+"I moved with a certain impatience.
+
+"'Bills,' said Frisby, 'give spice an' variety to nature. They break
+the monotony of the everlastin' green and what-you-may-call-its.'
+
+"I glared at him.
+
+"'Bills,' he continued, 'are not easy to stick, lemme tell you, sir.
+Sign-paintin's a soft snap when it comes to bill-stickin'. Now, I
+guess I've stuck more bills onto New York State than ennybody.'
+
+"'Have you?' I said, angrily.
+
+"'Yes, siree! I always pick out the purtiest spots--kinder filled
+chuck full of woods and brooks and things; then I h'ist my paste-pot
+onto a rock, and I slather that rock with gum, and whoop she goes!'
+
+"'Whoop what goes?'
+
+"'The bill. I paste her onto the rock, with one swipe of the brush for
+the edges and a back-handed swipe for the finish--except when a bill
+is folded in two halves.'
+
+"'And what do you do then?' I asked, disgusted.
+
+"'Swipe twice,' said Frisby, with enthusiasm.
+
+"'And you don't think it injures the landscape?'
+
+"'Injures it!' he exclaimed, convinced that I was attempting to joke.
+
+"I looked wearily out to sea. He also looked at the water and sighed
+sentimentally.
+
+"'Floatin' buoys with bills onto 'em is a idea of mine,' he observed.
+'That damn ocean is monotonous, ain't it?'
+
+"I don't know what I might have done to Frisby--the rifle was so
+convenient--if his mean yellow dog had not waddled up at this
+juncture.
+
+"'Hi, Davy, sic 'em!' said Frisby, expectorating upon a clam-shell and
+hurling it seaward. The cur watched the flight of the shell
+apathetically, then squatted in the sand and looked at his master.
+
+"'Kinder lost his spirit,' said Frisby, 'ain't he? I once stuck a bill
+onto Davy, an' it come off, an' the paste sorter sickened him. He was
+hell on rats--once!'
+
+"After a moment or two Frisby took himself off, whistling cheerfully
+to Davy, who followed him when he was ready. The rifle burned in my
+fingers.
+
+"It was nearly six o'clock when the professor appeared, spade on
+shoulder, boots smeared with mud.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'nothing to report, Dick, my boy?'
+
+"'Nothing, professor.'
+
+"He wiped his shining face with his handkerchief and stared at the
+water.
+
+"'My calculations lead me to believe,' he said, 'that our prize may be
+due any day now. This theory I base upon the result of the report from
+the last sea-captain I saw. I cannot understand why some of these
+captains did not take the carcass in tow. They all say that they
+tried, but that the body sank before they could come within half a
+mile. The truth is, probably, that they did not stir a foot from their
+course to examine the thing.'
+
+"'Have you ever cruised about for it?' I ventured.
+
+"'For two years,' he said, grimly. 'It's no use; it's accident when a
+ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from
+where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They
+think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are
+teeming with sea-serpent fol-de-rol.'
+
+"'Are you sure,' I asked, 'that it will swing into the coast on this
+Gulf Stream loop?'
+
+"'I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with a
+dead right-whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last
+summer.'
+
+"'I think I did,' said I, with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned
+the air for miles around.
+
+"'But,' I continued, 'suppose it comes in the night?'
+
+"He laughed.
+
+"'There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too, the
+current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise would
+strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not
+experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs
+across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that
+anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be
+carried so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the
+carcass could float again into deep water. There are chances of its
+stranding indefinitely, too, but I don't care to take those chances.
+That is why I have stationed you here, Dick.'
+
+"He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself.
+
+"'There is another question I want to ask,' I said, 'if you don't
+mind.'
+
+"'Of course not!' he said, warmly.
+
+"'What are you digging for?'
+
+"'Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself
+with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don't know a better
+exercise. Do you?'
+
+"'I suppose not,' I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered
+whether he'd mention fossils.
+
+"'Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-mache thermosaurus?'
+he asked.
+
+"I shook my head.
+
+"'We constructed that from measurements I took from the fossil remains
+of the thermosaurus in the Metropolitan Museum. Professor Bruce
+Stoddard made the drawings. We set it up here, all ready to receive
+the skin of the carcass that I am expecting.'
+
+"We had started towards home, walking slowly across the darkening
+dunes, shoulder to shoulder. The sand was deep, and walking was not
+easy.
+
+"'I wish,' said I at last, 'that I knew why Miss Holroyd asked me not
+to walk on the beach. It's much less fatiguing.'
+
+"'That,' said the professor, 'is a matter that I intend to discuss
+with you to-night.' He spoke gravely, almost sadly. I felt that
+something of unparalleled importance was soon to be revealed. So I
+kept very quiet, watching the ocean out of the corners of my eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+"Dinner was ended. Daisy Holroyd lighted her father's pipe for him,
+and insisted on my smoking as much as I pleased. Then she sat down,
+and folded her hands like a good little girl, waiting for her father
+to make the revelation which I felt in my bones must be something out
+of the ordinary.
+
+"The professor smoked for a while, gazing meditatively at his
+daughter; then, fixing his gray eyes on me, he said:
+
+"'Have you ever heard of the kree--that Australian bird, half parrot,
+half hawk, that destroys so many sheep in New South Wales?'
+
+"I nodded.
+
+"'The kree kills a sheep by alighting on its back and tearing away the
+flesh with its hooked beak until a vital part is reached. You know
+that? Well, it has been discovered that the kree had prehistoric
+prototypes. These birds were enormous creatures, who preyed upon
+mammoths and mastodons, and even upon the great saurians. It has been
+conclusively proved that a few saurians have been killed by the
+ancestors of the kree, but the favorite food of these birds was
+undoubtedly the thermosaurus. It is believed that the birds attacked
+the eyes of the thermosaurus, and when, as was its habit, the mammoth
+creature turned on its back to claw them, they fell upon the thinner
+scales of its stomach armor and finally killed it. This, of course, is
+a theory, but we have almost absolute proofs of its correctness. Now,
+these two birds are known among scientists as the ekaf-bird and the
+ool-yllik. The names are Australian, in which country most of their
+remains have been unearthed. They lived during the Carboniferous
+period. Now, it is not generally known, but the fact is, that in 1801
+Captain Ransom, of the British exploring vessel _Gull_, purchased from
+the natives of Tasmania the skin of an ekaf-bird that could not have
+been killed more than twenty-four hours previous to its sale. I saw
+this skin in the British Museum. It was labelled, "Unknown bird,
+probably extinct." It took me exactly a week to satisfy myself that it
+was actually the skin of an ekaf-bird. But that is not all, Dick,'
+continued the professor, excitedly. 'In 1854 Admiral Stuart, of our
+own navy, saw the carcass of a strange, gigantic bird floating along
+the southern coast of Australia. Sharks were after it, and before a
+boat could be lowered these miserable fish got it. But the good old
+admiral secured a few feathers and sent them to the Smithsonian. I saw
+them. They were not even labelled, but I knew that they were feathers
+from the ekaf-bird or its near relative, the ool-yllik.'
+
+"I had grown so interested that I had leaned far across the table.
+Daisy, too, bent forward. It was only when the professor paused for a
+moment that I noticed how close together our heads were--Daisy's and
+mine. I don't think she realized it. She did not move.
+
+"'Now comes the important part of this long discourse,' said the
+professor, smiling at our eagerness. "'Ever since the carcass of our
+derelict thermosaurus was first noticed, every captain who has seen it
+has also reported the presence of one or more gigantic birds in the
+neighborhood. These birds, at a great distance, appeared to be
+hovering over the carcass, but on the approach of a vessel they
+disappeared. Even in mid-ocean they were observed. When I heard about
+it I was puzzled. A month later I was satisfied that neither the
+ekaf-bird nor the ool-yllik was extinct. Last Monday I knew that I was
+right. I found forty-eight distinct impressions of the huge,
+seven-toed claw of the ekaf-bird on the beach here at Pine Inlet. You
+may imagine my excitement. I succeeded in digging up enough wet sand
+around one of these impressions to preserve its form. I managed to get
+it into a soap-box, and now it is there in my shop. The tide rose too
+rapidly for me to save the other footprints.'
+
+"I shuddered at the possibility of a clumsy misstep on my part
+obliterating the impression of an ool-yllik.
+
+"'That is the reason that my daughter warned you off the beach,' he
+said, mildly.
+
+"'Hanging would have been too good for the vandal who destroyed such
+priceless prizes,' I cried out, in self-reproach.
+
+"Daisy Holroyd turned a flushed face to mine and impulsively laid her
+hand on my sleeve.
+
+"'How could you know?' she said.
+
+"'It's all right now,' said her father, emphasizing each word with a
+gentle tap of his pipe-bowl on the table-edge; 'don't be hard on
+yourself, Dick. You'll do yeoman's service yet.'
+
+"It was nearly midnight, and still we chatted on about the
+thermosaurus, the ekaf-bird, and the ool-yllik, eagerly discussing the
+probability of the great reptile's carcass being in the vicinity. That
+alone seemed to explain the presence of these prehistoric birds at
+Pine Inlet.
+
+"'Do they ever attack human beings?' I asked.
+
+"The professor looked startled.
+
+"'Gracious!' he exclaimed, 'I never thought of that. And Daisy running
+about out-of-doors! Dear me! It takes a scientist to be an unnatural
+parent!'
+
+"His alarm was half real, half assumed; but, all the same, he glanced
+gravely at us both, shaking his handsome head, absorbed in thought.
+Daisy herself looked a little doubtful. As for me, my sensations were
+distinctly queer.
+
+"'It is true,' said the professor, frowning at the wall, 'that human
+remains have been found associated with the bones of the ekaf-bird--I
+don't know how intimately. It is a matter to be taken into most
+serious consideration.'
+
+"'The problem can be solved,' said I, 'in several ways. One is, to
+keep Miss Holroyd in the house--'
+
+"'I shall not stay in,' cried Daisy, indignantly.
+
+"We all laughed, and her father assured her that she should not be
+abused.
+
+"'Even if I did stay in,' she said, 'one of these birds might alight
+on Master Dick.'
+
+"She looked saucily at me as she spoke, but turned crimson when her
+father observed, quietly, 'You don't seem to think of me, Daisy!'
+
+"'Of course I do,' she said, getting up and putting both arms around
+her father's neck; 'but Dick--as--as you call him--is so helpless and
+timid.'
+
+"My blissful smile froze on my lips.
+
+"'Timid!' I repeated.
+
+"She came back to the table, making me a mocking reverence.
+
+"'Do you think I am to be laughed at with impunity?' she said.
+
+"'What are your other plans, Dick?' asked the professor. 'Daisy, let
+him alone, you little tease!'
+
+"'One is, to haul a lot of cast-iron boilers along the dunes,' I said.
+'If these birds come when the carcass floats in, and if they seem
+disposed to trouble us, we could crawl into the boilers and be safe.'
+
+"'Why, that is really brilliant!' cried Daisy.
+
+"'Be quiet, my child. Dick, the plan is sound and sensible and
+perfectly practical. McPeek and Frisby shall go for a dozen loads of
+boilers to-morrow.'
+
+"'It will spoil the beauty of the landscape,' said Daisy, with a
+taunting nod to me.
+
+"'And Frisby will probably attempt to cover them with bill-posters,' I
+added, laughing.
+
+"'That,' said Daisy, 'I shall prevent, even at the cost of his life.'
+And she stood up, looking very determined.
+
+"'Children, children,' protested the professor, 'go to bed--you bother
+me.'
+
+"Then I turned deliberately to Miss Holroyd.
+
+"'Good-night, Daisy,' I said.
+
+"'Good-night, Dick,' she said, very gently.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+"The week passed quickly for me, leaving but few definite impressions.
+As I look back to it now I can see the long stretch of beach burning
+in the fierce sunlight, the endless meadows, with the glimmer of water
+in the distance, the dunes, the twisted cedars, the leagues of
+scintillating ocean, rocking, rocking, always rocking. In the starlit
+nights the curlew came in from the sand-bars by twos and threes; I
+could hear their querulous call as I lay in bed thinking. All day long
+the little ring-necks whistled from the shore. The plover answered
+them from distant, lonely inland pools. The great white gulls drifted
+like feathers upon the sea.
+
+"One morning towards the end of the week, I, strolling along the
+dunes, came upon Frisby. He was bill-posting. I caught him red-handed.
+
+"'This,' said I, 'must stop. Do you understand, Mr. Frisby?'
+
+"He stepped back from his work, laying his head on one side,
+considering first me, then the bill that he had pasted on one of our
+big boilers.
+
+"'Don't you like the color?' he asked. 'It goes well on them black
+boilers.'
+
+"'Color! No, I don't like the color, either. Can't you understand that
+there are some people in the world who object to seeing
+patent-medicine advertisements scattered over a landscape?'
+
+"'Hey?' he said, perplexed.
+
+"'Will you kindly remove that advertisement?' I persisted.
+
+"'Too late,' said Frisby; 'it's sot.'
+
+"I was too disgusted to speak, but my disgust turned to anger when I
+perceived that, as far as the eye could reach, our boilers, lying from
+three to four hundred feet apart, were ablaze with yellow-and-red
+posters extolling the 'Eureka Liver Pill Company.'
+
+"'It don't cost 'em nothin',' said Frisby, cheerfully; 'I done it fur
+the fun of it. Purty, ain't it?'
+
+"'They are Professor Holroyd's boilers,' I said, subduing a desire to
+beat Frisby with my telescope. 'Wait until Miss Holroyd sees this
+work.'
+
+"'Don't she like yeller and red?' he demanded, anxiously.
+
+"'You'll find out,' said I.
+
+"Frisby gaped at his handiwork and then at his yellow dog. After a
+moment he mechanically spat on a clam-shell and requested Davy to
+'sic' it.
+
+"'Can't you comprehend that you have ruined our pleasure in the
+landscape?' I asked, more mildly.
+
+"'I've got some green bills,' said Frisby; 'I kin stick 'em over the
+yeller ones--'
+
+"'Confound it,' said I, 'it isn't the color!'
+
+"'Then,' observed Frisby, 'you don't like them pills. I've got some
+bills of the "Cropper Automobile" and a few of "Bagley, the Gents'
+Tailor"--'
+
+"'Frisby,' said I, 'use them all--paste the whole collection over your
+dog and yourself--then walk off the cliff.'
+
+"He sullenly unfolded a green poster, swabbed the boiler with paste,
+laid the upper section of the bill upon it, and plastered the whole
+bill down with a thwack of his brush. As I walked away I heard him
+muttering.
+
+"Next day Daisy was so horrified that I promised to give Frisby an
+ultimatum. I found him with Freda, gazing sentimentally at his work,
+and I sent him back to the shop in a hurry, telling Freda at the same
+time that she could spend her leisure in providing Mr. Frisby with
+sand, soap, and a scrubbing-brush. Then I walked on to my post of
+observation.
+
+"I watched until sunset. Daisy came with her father to hear my report,
+but there was nothing to tell, and we three walked slowly back to the
+house.
+
+"In the evenings the professor worked on his volumes, the click of his
+type-writer sounding faintly behind his closed door. Daisy and I
+played chess sometimes; sometimes we played hearts. I don't remember
+that we ever finished a game of either--we talked too much.
+
+"Our discussions covered every topic of interest: we argued upon
+politics; we skimmed over literature and music; we settled
+international differences; we spoke vaguely of human brotherhood. I
+say we slighted no subject of interest--I am wrong; we never spoke of
+love.
+
+"Now, love is a matter of interest to ten people out of ten. Why it
+was that it did not appear to interest us is as interesting a question
+as love itself. We were young, alert, enthusiastic, inquiring. We
+eagerly absorbed theories concerning any curious phenomena in nature,
+as intellectual cocktails to stimulate discussion. And yet we did not
+discuss love. I do not say that we avoided it. No; the subject was
+too completely ignored for even that. And yet we found it very
+difficult to pass an hour separated. The professor noticed this, and
+laughed at us. We were not even embarrassed.
+
+"Sunday passed in pious contemplation of the ocean. Daisy read a
+little in her prayer-book, and the professor threw a cloth over his
+type-writer and strolled up and down the sands. He may have been lost
+in devout abstraction; he may have been looking for footprints. As for
+me, my mind was very serene, and I was more than happy. Daisy read to
+me a little for my soul's sake, and the professor came up and said
+something cheerful. He also examined the magazine of my Winchester.
+
+"That night, too, Daisy took her guitar to the sands and sang one or
+two Basque hymns. Unlike us, the Basques do not take their pleasures
+sadly. One of their pleasures is evidently religion.
+
+"The big moon came up over the dunes and stared at the sea until the
+surface of every wave trembled with radiance. A sudden stillness fell
+across the world; the wind died out; the foam ran noiselessly across
+the beach; the cricket's rune was stilled.
+
+"I leaned back, dropping one hand upon the sand. It touched another
+hand, soft and cool.
+
+"After a while the other hand moved slightly, and I found that my own
+had closed above it. Presently one finger stirred a little--only a
+little--for our fingers were interlocked.
+
+"On the shore the foam-froth bubbled and winked and glimmered in the
+moonlight. A star fell from the zenith, showering the night with
+incandescent dust.
+
+"If our fingers lay interlaced beside us, her eyes were calm and
+serene as always, wide open, fixed upon the depths of a dark sky. And
+when her father rose and spoke to us, she did not withdraw her hand.
+
+"'Is it late?' she asked, dreamily.
+
+"'It is midnight, little daughter.'
+
+"I stood up, still holding her hand, and aided her to rise. And when,
+at the door, I said good-night, she turned and looked at me for a
+little while in silence, then passed into her room slowly, with head
+still turned towards me.
+
+"All night long I dreamed of her; and when the east whitened, I sprang
+up, the thunder of the ocean in my ears, the strong sea-wind blowing
+into the open window.
+
+"'She's asleep,' I thought, and I leaned from the window and peered
+out into the east.
+
+"The sea called to me, tossing its thousand arms; the soaring gulls,
+dipping, rising, wheeling above the sandbar, screamed and clamored for
+a playmate. I slipped into my bathing-suit, dropped from the window
+upon the soft sand, and in a moment had plunged head foremost into the
+surf, swimming beneath the waves towards the open sea.
+
+"Under the tossing ocean the voice of the waters was in my ears--a
+low, sweet voice, intimate, mysterious. Through singing foam and
+broad, green, glassy depths, by whispering sandy channels atrail with
+sea-weed, and on, on, out into the vague, cool sea, I sped, rising to
+the top, sinking, gliding. Then at last I flung myself out of water,
+hands raised, and the clamor of the gulls filled my ears.
+
+"As I lay, breathing fast, drifting on the sea, far out beyond the
+gulls I saw a flash of white, and an arm was lifted, signalling me.
+
+"'Daisy!' I called.
+
+"A clear hail came across the water, distinct on the sea-wind, and at
+the same instant we raised our hands and moved towards each other.
+
+"How we laughed as we met in the sea! The white dawn came up out of
+the depths, the zenith turned to rose and ashes.
+
+"And with the dawn came the wind--a great sea-wind, fresh, aromatic,
+that hurled our voices back into our throats and lifted the sheeted
+spray above our heads. Every wave, crowned with mist, caught us in a
+cool embrace, cradled us, and slipped away, only to leave us to
+another wave, higher, stronger, crested with opalescent glory,
+breathing incense.
+
+"We turned together up the coast, swimming lightly side by side, but
+our words were caught up by the winds and whirled into the sky.
+
+"We looked up at the driving clouds; we looked out upon the pallid
+waste of waters, but it was into each other's eyes we looked,
+wondering, wistful, questioning the reason of sky and sea And there in
+each other's eyes we read the mystery, and we knew that earth and sky
+and sea were created for us alone.
+
+"Drifting on by distant sands and dunes, her white fingers touching
+mine, we spoke, keying our tones to the wind's vast harmony. And we
+spoke of love.
+
+"Gray and wide as the limitless span of the sky and the sea, the winds
+gathered from the world's ends to bear us on; but they were not
+familiar winds; for now, along the coast, the breakers curled and
+showed a million fangs, and the ocean stirred to its depths, uneasy,
+ominous, and the menace of its murmur drew us closer as we moved.
+
+"Where the dull thunder and the tossing spray warned us from sunken
+reefs, we heard the harsh challenges of gulls; where the pallid surf
+twisted in yellow coils of spume above the bar, the singing sands
+murmured of treachery and secrets of lost souls agasp in the throes of
+silent undertows.
+
+"But there was a little stretch of beach glimmering through the
+mountains of water, and towards this we turned, side by side. Around
+us the water grew warmer; the breath of the following waves moistened
+our cheeks; the water itself grew gray and strange about us.
+
+"'We have come too far,' I said; but she only answered:
+
+"'Faster, faster! I am afraid!' The water was almost hot now; its
+aromatic odor filled our lungs.
+
+"'The Gulf loop!' I muttered. 'Daisy, shall I help you?'
+
+"'No. Swim--close by me! Oh-h! Dick--'
+
+"Her startled cry was echoed by another--a shrill scream, unutterably
+horrible--and a great bird flapped from the beach, splashing and
+beating its pinions across the water with a thundering noise.
+
+"Out across the waves it blundered, rising little by little from the
+water, and now, to my horror, I saw another monstrous bird swinging in
+the air above it, squealing as it turned on its vast wings. Before I
+could speak we touched the beach, and I half lifted her to the shore.
+
+"'Quick!' I repeated. 'We must not wait.'
+
+"Her eyes were dark with fear, but she rested a hand on my shoulder,
+and we crept up among the dune-grasses and sank down by the point of
+sand where the rough shelter stood, surrounded by the iron-ringed
+piles.
+
+"She lay there, breathing fast and deep, dripping with spray. I had no
+power of speech left, but when I rose wearily to my knees and looked
+out upon the water my blood ran cold. Above the ocean, on the breast
+of the roaring wind, three enormous birds sailed, turning and wheeling
+among one another; and below, drifting with the gray stream of the
+Gulf loop, a colossal bulk lay half submerged--a gigantic lizard,
+floating belly upward.
+
+"Then Daisy crept kneeling to my side and touched me, trembling from
+head to foot.
+
+"'I know,' I muttered. 'I must run back for the rifle.'
+
+"'And--and leave me?'
+
+"I took her by the hand, and we dragged ourselves through the
+wire-grass to the open end of a boiler lying in the sand.
+
+"She crept in on her hands and knees, and called to me to follow.
+
+"'You are safe now,' I cried. 'I must go back for the rifle.'
+
+"'The birds may--may attack you.'
+
+"'If they do I can get into one of the other boilers,' I said. 'Daisy,
+you must not venture out until I come back. You won't, will you?'
+
+"'No-o,' she whispered, doubtfully.
+
+"'Then--good-bye.'
+
+"'Good-bye,' she answered, but her voice was very small and still.
+
+"'Good-bye,' I said again. I was kneeling at the mouth of the big
+iron tunnel; it was dark inside and I could not see her, but, before I
+was conscious of it, her arms were around my neck and we had kissed
+each other.
+
+"I don't remember how I went away. When I came to my proper senses I
+was swimming along the coast at full speed, and over my head wheeled
+one of the birds, screaming at every turn.
+
+"The intoxication of that innocent embrace, the close impress of her
+arms around my neck, gave me a strength and recklessness that neither
+fear nor fatigue could subdue. The bird above me did not even frighten
+me. I watched it over my shoulder, swimming strongly, with the tide
+now aiding me, now stemming my course; but I saw the shore passing
+quickly, and my strength increased, and I shouted when I came in sight
+of the house, and scrambled up on the sand, dripping and excited.
+There was nobody in sight, and I gave a last glance up into the air
+where the bird wheeled, still screeching, and hastened into the house.
+Freda stared at me in amazement as I seized the rifle and shouted for
+the professor.
+
+"'He has just gone to town, with Captain McPeek in his wagon,'
+stammered Freda.
+
+"'What!' I cried. 'Does he know where his daughter is?'
+
+"'Miss Holroyd is asleep--not?' gasped Freda.
+
+"'Where's Frisby?' I cried, impatiently.
+
+"'Yimmie?' quavered Freda.
+
+"'Yes, Jimmie; isn't there anybody here? Good Heavens! where's that
+man in the shop?'
+
+"'He also iss gone,' said Freda, shedding tears, 'to buy papier-mache.
+Yimmie, he iss gone to post bills.'
+
+"I waited to hear no more, but swung my rifle over my shoulder, and,
+hanging the cartridge-belt across my chest, hurried out and up the
+beach. The bird was not in sight.
+
+"I had been running for perhaps a minute when, far up on the dunes, I
+saw a yellow dog rush madly through a clump of sweet-bay, and at the
+same moment a bird soared past, rose, and hung hovering just above the
+thicket. Suddenly the bird swooped; there was a shriek and a yelp from
+the cur, but the bird gripped it in one claw and beat its wings upon
+the sand, striving to rise. Then I saw Frisby--paste, bucket, and
+brush raised--fall upon the bird, yelling lustily. The fierce creature
+relaxed its talons, and the dog rushed on, squeaking with terror. The
+bird turned on Frisby and sent him sprawling on his face, a sticky
+mass of paste and sand. But this did not end the struggle. The bird,
+croaking horridly, flew at the prostrate bill-poster, and the sand
+whirled into a pillar above its terrible wings. Scarcely knowing what
+I was about, I raised my rifle and fired twice. A scream echoed each
+shot, and the bird rose heavily in a shower of sand; but two bullets
+were embedded in that mass of foul feathers, and I saw the wires and
+scarlet tape uncoiling on the sand at my feet. In an instant I seized
+them and passed the ends around a cedar-tree, hooking the clasps
+tight. Then I cast one swift glance upward, where the bird wheeled,
+screeching, anchored like a kite to the pallium wires; and I hurried
+on across the dunes, the shells cutting my feet and the bushes tearing
+my wet swimming-suit, until I dripped with blood from shoulder to
+ankle. Out in the ocean the carcass of the thermosaurus floated, claws
+outspread, belly glistening in the gray light, and over him circled
+two birds. As I reached the shelter I knelt and fired into the mass of
+scales, and at my first shot a horrible thing occurred--the
+lizard-like head writhed, the slitted yellow eyes sliding open from
+the film that covered them. A shudder passed across the undulating
+body, the great scaled belly heaved, and one leg feebly clawed at the
+air.
+
+"The thing was still alive!
+
+"Crushing back the horror that almost paralyzed my hands, I planted
+shot after shot into the quivering reptile, while it writhed and
+clawed, striving to turn over and dive; and at each shot the black
+blood spurted in long, slim jets across the water. And now Daisy was
+at my side, pale and determined, swiftly clasping each tape-marked
+wire to the iron rings in the circle around us. Twice I filled the
+magazine from my belt, and twice I poured streams of steel-tipped
+bullets into the scaled mass, twisting and shuddering on the sea.
+Suddenly the birds steered towards us. I felt the wind from their vast
+wings. I saw the feathers erect, vibrating. I saw the spread claws
+outstretched, and I struck furiously at them, crying to Daisy to run
+into the iron shelter. Backing, swinging my clubbed rifle, I
+retreated, but I tripped across one of the taut pallium wires, and in
+an instant the hideous birds were on me, and the bone in my forearm
+snapped like a pipe-stem at a blow from their wings. Twice I struggled
+to my knees, blinded with blood, confused, almost fainting; then I
+fell again, rolling into the mouth of the iron boiler.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"When I struggled back to consciousness Daisy knelt silently beside
+me, while Captain McPeek and Professor Holroyd bound up my shattered
+arm, talking excitedly. The pain made me faint and dizzy. I tried to
+speak and could not. At last they got me to my feet and into the
+wagon, and Daisy came, too, and crouched beside me, wrapped in
+oilskins to her eyes. Fatigue, lack of food, and excitement had
+combined with wounds and broken bones to extinguish the last atom of
+strength in my body; but my mind was clear enough to understand that
+the trouble was over and the thermosaurus safe.
+
+"I heard McPeek say that one of the birds that I had anchored to a
+cedar-tree had torn loose from the bullets and had winged its way
+heavily out to sea. The professor answered: 'Yes, the ekaf-bird; the
+others were ool-ylliks. I'd have given my right arm to have secured
+them.' Then for a time I heard no more; but the jolting of the wagon
+over the dunes roused me to keenest pain, and I held out my right hand
+to Daisy. She clasped it in both of hers, and kissed it again and
+again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There is little more to add, I think. Professor Bruce Stoddard's
+scientific pamphlet will be published soon, to be followed by
+Professor Holroyd's sixteen volumes. In a few days the stuffed and
+mounted thermosaurus will be placed on free public exhibition in the
+arena of Madison Square Garden, the only building in the city large
+enough to contain the body of this immense winged reptile."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young man hesitated, looking long and earnestly at Miss Barrison.
+
+"Did you marry her?" she asked, softly.
+
+"You wouldn't believe it," said the young man, earnestly--"you
+wouldn't believe it, after all that happened, if I should tell you
+that she married Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia--would you?"
+
+"Yes, I would," said Miss Barrison. "You never can tell what a girl
+will do."
+
+"That story of yours," I said, "is to me the most wonderful and
+valuable contribution to nature study that it has ever been my fortune
+to listen to. You are fitted to write; it is your sacred mission to
+produce. Are you going to?"
+
+"I am writing," said the young man, quietly, "a nature book. Sir Peter
+Grebe's magnificent monograph on the speckled titmouse inspired me.
+But nature study is not what I have chosen as my life's mission."
+
+He looked dreamily across at Miss Barrison. "No, not natural
+phenomena," he repeated, "but unnatural phenomena. What Professor
+Hyssop has done for Columbia, I shall attempt to do for Harvard. In
+fact, I have already accepted the chair of Psychical Phenomena at
+Cambridge."
+
+I gazed upon him with intense respect.
+
+"A personal experience revealed to me my life's work," he, went on,
+thoughtfully stroking his blond mustache. "If Miss Barrison would care
+to hear it--"
+
+"Please tell it," she said, sweetly.
+
+"I shall have to relate it clothed in that artificial garb known as
+literary style," he explained, deprecatingly.
+
+"It doesn't matter," I said, "I never noticed any style at all in your
+story of the thermosaurus."
+
+He smiled gratefully, and passed his hand over his face; a far-away
+expression came into his eyes, and he slowly began, hesitating, as
+though talking to himself:
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+"It was high noon in the city of Antwerp. From slender steeples
+floated the mellow music of the Flemish bells, and in the spire of the
+great cathedral across the square the cracked chimes clashed discords
+until my ears ached.
+
+"When the fiend in the cathedral had jerked the last tuneless clang
+from the chimes, I removed my fingers from my ears and sat down at one
+of the iron tables in the court. A waiter, with his face shaved blue,
+brought me a bottle of Rhine wine, a tumbler of cracked ice, and a
+siphon.
+
+"'Does monsieur desire anything else?' he inquired.
+
+"'Yes--the head of the cathedral bell-ringer; bring it with vinegar
+and potatoes,' I said, bitterly. Then I began to ponder on my
+great-aunt and the Crimson Diamond.
+
+"The white walls of the Hotel St. Antoine rose in a rectangle around
+the sunny court, casting long shadows across the basin of the
+fountain. The strip of blue overhead was cloudless. Sparrows twittered
+under the eaves the yellow awnings fluttered, the flowers swayed in
+the summer breeze, and the jet of the fountain splashed among the
+water-plants. On the sunny side of the piazza the tables were vacant;
+on the shady side I was lazily aware that the tables behind me were
+occupied, but I was indifferent as to their occupants, partly because
+I shunned all tourists, partly because I was thinking of my
+great-aunt.
+
+"Most old ladies are eccentric, but there is a limit, and my
+great-aunt had overstepped it. I had believed her to be wealthy--she
+died bankrupt. Still, I knew there was one thing she did possess, and
+that was the famous Crimson Diamond. Now, of course, you know who my
+great-aunt was.
+
+"Excepting the Koh-i-noor and the Regent, this enormous and unique
+stone was, as everybody knows, the most valuable gem in existence. Any
+ordinary person would have placed that diamond in a safe-deposit. My
+great-aunt did nothing of the kind. She kept it in a small velvet bag,
+which she carried about her neck. She never took it off, but wore it
+dangling openly on her heavy silk gown.
+
+"In this same bag she also carried dried catnip-leaves, of which she
+was inordinately fond. Nobody but myself, her only living relative,
+knew that the Crimson Diamond lay among the sprigs of catnip in the
+little velvet bag.
+
+"'Harold,' she would say, 'do you think I'm a fool? If I place the
+Crimson Diamond in any safe-deposit vault in New York, somebody will
+steal it, sooner or later.' Then she would nibble a sprig of catnip
+and peer cunningly at me. I loathed the odor of catnip and she knew
+it. I also loathed cats. This also she knew, and of course surrounded
+herself with a dozen. Poor old lady! One day she was found dead in her
+bed in her apartments at the Waldorf. The doctor said she died from
+natural causes. The only other occupant of her sleeping-room was a
+cat. The cat fled when we broke open the door, and I heard that she
+was received and cherished by some eccentric people in a neighboring
+apartment.
+
+"Now, although my great-aunt's death was due to purely natural causes,
+there was one very startling and disagreeable feature of the case. The
+velvet bag containing the Crimson Diamond had disappeared. Every inch
+of the apartment was searched, the floors torn up, the walls
+dismantled, but the Crimson Diamond had vanished. Chief of Police
+Conlon detailed four of his best men on the case, and, as I had
+nothing better to do, I enrolled myself as a volunteer. I also offered
+$25,000 reward for the recovery of the gem. All New York was agog.
+
+"The case seemed hopeless enough, although there were five of us after
+the thief. McFarlane was in London, and had been for a month, but
+Scotland Yard could give him no help, and the last I heard of him he
+was roaming through Surrey after a man with a white spot in his hair.
+Harrison had gone to Paris. He kept writing me that clews were plenty
+and the scent hot, but as Dennet, in Berlin, and Clancy, in Vienna,
+wrote me the same thing, I began to doubt these gentlemen's ability.
+
+"'You say,' I answered Harrison, 'that the fellow is a Frenchman, and
+that he is now concealed in Paris; but Dennet writes me by the same
+mail that the thief is undoubtedly a German, and was seen yesterday in
+Berlin. To-day I received a letter from Clancy, assuring me that
+Vienna holds the culprit, and that he is an Austrian from Trieste.
+Now, for Heaven's sake,' I ended, 'let me alone and stop writing me
+letters until you have something to write about.'
+
+"The night-clerk at the Waldorf had furnished us with our first clew.
+On the night of my aunt's death he had seen a tall, grave-faced man
+hurriedly leave the hotel. As the man passed the desk he removed his
+hat and mopped his forehead, and the night-clerk noticed that in the
+middle of his head there was a patch of hair as white as snow.
+
+"We worked this clew for all it was worth, and, a month later, I
+received a cable despatch from Paris, saying that a man answering to
+the description of the Waldorf suspect had offered an enormous crimson
+diamond for sale to a jeweller in the Palais Royal. Unfortunately the
+fellow took fright and disappeared before the jeweller could send for
+the police, and since that time McFarlane in London, Harrison in
+Paris, Dennet in Berlin, and Clancy in Vienna had been chasing men
+with white patches on their hair until no gray-headed patriarch in
+Europe was free from suspicion. I myself had sleuthed it through
+England, France, Holland, and Belgium, and now I found myself in
+Antwerp at the Hotel St. Antoine, without a clew that promised
+anything except another outrage on some respectable white-haired
+citizen. The case seemed hopeless enough, unless the thief tried again
+to sell the gem. Here was our only hope, for, unless he cut the stone
+into smaller ones, he had no more chance of selling it than he would
+have had if he had stolen the Venus of Milo and peddled her about the
+Rue de Seine. Even were he to cut up the stone, no respectable gem
+collector or jeweller would buy a crimson diamond without first
+notifying me; for although a few red stones are known to collectors,
+the color of the Crimson Diamond was absolutely unique, and there was
+little probability of an honest mistake.
+
+"Thinking of all these things, I sat sipping my Rhine wine in the
+shadow of the yellow awnings. A large white cat came sauntering by and
+stopped in front of me to perform her toilet, until I wished she would
+go away. After a while she sat up, licked her whiskers, yawned once or
+twice, and was about to stroll on, when, catching sight of me, she
+stopped short and looked me squarely in the face. I returned the
+attention with a scowl, because I wished to discourage any advances
+towards social intercourse which she might contemplate; but after a
+while her steady gaze disconcerted me, and I turned to my Rhine wine.
+A few minutes later I looked up again. The cat was still eying me.
+
+"'Now what the devil is the matter with the animal,' I muttered; 'does
+she recognize in me a relative?'
+
+"'Perhaps,' observed a man at the next table.
+
+"'What do you mean by that?' I demanded.
+
+"'What I say,' replied the man at the next table.
+
+"I looked him full in the face. He was old and bald and appeared
+weak-minded. His age protected his impudence. I turned my back on him.
+Then my eyes fell on the cat again. She was still gazing earnestly at
+me.
+
+"Disgusted that she should take such pointed public notice of me, I
+wondered whether other people saw it; I wondered whether there was
+anything peculiar in my own personal appearance. How hard the creature
+stared! It was most embarrassing.
+
+"'What has got into that cat?' I thought. 'It's sheer impudence. It's
+an intrusion, and I won't stand it!' The cat did not move. I tried to
+stare her out of countenance. It was useless. There was aggressive
+inquiry in her yellow eyes. A sensation of uneasiness began to steal
+over me--a sensation of embarrassment not unmixed with awe. All cats
+looked alike to me, and yet there was something about this one that
+bothered me--something that I could not explain to myself, but which
+began to occupy me.
+
+"She looked familiar--this Antwerp cat. An odd sense of having seen
+her before, of having been well acquainted with her in former years,
+slowly settled in my mind, and, although I could never remember the
+time when I had not detested cats, I was almost convinced that my
+relations with this Antwerp tabby had once been intimate if not
+cordial. I looked more closely at the animal. Then an idea struck
+me--an idea which persisted and took definite shape in spite of me. I
+strove to escape from it, to evade it, to stifle and smother it; an
+inward struggle ensued which brought the perspiration in beads upon my
+cheeks--a struggle short, sharp, decisive. It was useless--useless to
+try to put it from me--this idea so wretchedly bizarre, so grotesque
+and fantastic, so utterly inane--it was useless to deny that the cat
+bore a distinct resemblance to my great-aunt!
+
+"I gazed at her in horror. What enormous eyes the creature had!
+
+"'Blood is thicker than water,' said the man at the next table.
+
+"'What does he mean by that?' I muttered, angrily, swallowing a
+tumbler of Rhine wine and seltzer. But I did not turn. What was the
+use?
+
+"'Chattering old imbecile,' I added to myself, and struck a match, for
+my cigar was out; but, as I raised the match to relight it, I
+encountered the cat's eyes again. I could not enjoy my cigar with the
+animal staring at me, but I was justly indignant, and I did not intend
+to be routed. 'The idea! Forced to leave for a cat!' I sneered. 'We
+will see who will be the one to go!' I tried to give her a jet of
+seltzer from the siphon, but the bottle was too nearly empty to carry
+far. Then I attempted to lure her nearer, calling her in French,
+German, and English, but she did not stir. I did not know the Flemish
+for 'cat.'
+
+"'She's got a name, and won't come,' I thought. 'Now, what under the
+sun can I call her?'
+
+"'Aunty,' suggested the man at the next table.
+
+"I sat perfectly still. Could that man have answered my thoughts?--for
+I had not spoken aloud. Of course not--it was a coincidence--but a
+very disgusting one.
+
+"'Aunty,' I repeated, mechanically, 'aunty, aunty--good gracious, how
+horribly human that cat looks!' Then, somehow or other, Shakespeare's
+words crept into my head and I found myself repeating: 'The soul of my
+grandam might haply inhabit a bird; the soul of--nonsense!' I
+growled--'it isn't printed correctly! One might possibly say, speaking
+in poetical metaphor, that the soul of a bird might haply inhabit
+one's grandam--' I stopped short, flushing painfully. 'What awful
+rot!' I murmured, and lighted another cigar. The cat was still
+staring; the cigar went out. I grew more and more nervous. 'What rot!'
+I repeated. 'Pythagoras must have been an ass, but I do believe there
+are plenty of asses alive to-day who swallow that sort of thing.'
+
+"'Who knows?' sighed the man at the next table, and I sprang to my
+feet and wheeled about. But I only caught a glimpse of a pair of
+frayed coat-tails and a bald head vanishing into the dining-room. I
+sat down again, thoroughly indignant. A moment later the cat got up
+and went away.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+"Daylight was fading in the city of Antwerp. Down into the sea sank
+the sun, tinting the vast horizon with flakes of crimson, and touching
+with rich deep undertones the tossing waters of the Scheldt. Its glow
+fell like a rosy mantle over red-tiled roofs and meadows; and through
+the haze the spires of twenty churches pierced the air like sharp,
+gilded flames. To the west and south the green plains, over which the
+Spanish armies tramped so long ago, stretched away until they met the
+sky; the enchantment of the after-glow had turned old Antwerp into
+fairy-land; and sea and sky and plain were beautiful and vague as the
+night-mists floating in the moats below.
+
+"Along the sea-wall from the Rubens Gate all Antwerp strolled, and
+chattered, and flirted, and sipped their Flemish wines from slender
+Flemish glasses, or gossiped over krugs of foaming beer.
+
+"From the Scheldt came the cries of sailors, the creaking of cordage,
+and the puff! puff! of the ferry-boats. On the bastions of the
+fortress opposite, a bugler was standing. Twice the mellow notes of
+the bugle came faintly over the water, then a great gun thundered from
+the ramparts, and the Belgian flag fluttered along the lanyards to the
+ground.
+
+"I leaned listlessly on the sea-wall and looked down at the Scheldt
+below. A battery of artillery was embarking for the fortress. The
+tublike transport lay hissing and whistling in the slip, and the
+stamping of horses, the rumbling of gun and caisson, and the sharp
+cries of the officers came plainly to the ear.
+
+"When the last caisson was aboard and stowed, and the last trooper had
+sprung jingling to the deck, the transport puffed out into the
+Scheldt, and I turned away through the throng of promenaders; and
+found a little table on the terrace, just outside of the pretty cafe.
+And as I sat down I became aware of a girl at the next table--a girl
+all in white--the most ravishingly and distractingly pretty girl that
+I had ever seen. In the agitation of the moment I forgot my name, my
+fortune, my aunt, and the Crimson Diamond--all these I forgot in a
+purely human impulse to see clearly; and to that end I removed my
+monocle from my left eye. Some moments later I came to myself and
+feebly replaced it. It was too late; the mischief was done. I was not
+aware at first of the exact state of my feelings--for I had never been
+in love more than three or four times in all my life--but I did know
+that at her request I would have been proud to stand on my head, or
+turn a flip-flap into the Scheldt.
+
+"I did not stare at her, but I managed to see her most of the time
+when her eyes were in another direction. I found myself drinking
+something which a waiter brought, presumably upon an order which I did
+not remember having given. Later I noticed that it was a loathsome
+drink which the Belgians call 'American grog,' but I swallowed it and
+lighted a cigarette. As the fragrant cloud rose in the air, a voice,
+which I recognized with a chill, broke, into my dream of enchantment.
+Could _he_ have been there all the while--there sitting beside that
+vision in white? His hat was off, and the ocean-breezes whispered
+about his bald head. His frayed coat-tails were folded carefully over
+his knees, and between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he
+balanced a bad cigar. He looked at me in a mildly cheerful way, and
+said, 'I know now.'
+
+"'Know what?' I asked, thinking it better to humor him, for I was
+convinced that he was mad.
+
+"'I know why cats bite.'
+
+"This was startling. I hadn't an idea what to say.
+
+"'I know why,' he repeated; 'can you guess why?' There was a covert
+tone of triumph in his voice and he smiled encouragement. 'Come, try
+and guess,' he urged.
+
+"I told him that I was unequal to problems.
+
+"'Listen, young man,' he continued, folding his coat-tails closely
+about his legs--'try to reason it out: why should cats bite? Don't you
+know? I do.'
+
+"He looked at me anxiously.
+
+"'You take no interest in this problem?' he demanded.
+
+"'Oh yes.'
+
+"'Then why do you not ask me why?' he said, looking vaguely
+disappointed.
+
+"'Well,' I said, in desperation, 'why do cats bite?--hang it all!' I
+thought, 'it's like a burned-cork show, and I'm Mr. Bones and he's
+Tambo!'
+
+"Then he smiled gently. 'Young man,' he said, 'cats bite because they
+feed on catnip. I have reasoned it out.'
+
+"I stared at him in blank astonishment. Was this benevolent-looking
+old party poking fun at me? Was he paying me up for the morning's
+snub? Was he a malignant and revengeful old party, or was he merely
+feeble-minded? Who might he be? What was he doing here in
+Antwerp--what was he doing now?--for the bald one had turned
+familiarly to the beautiful girl in white.
+
+"'Wilhelmina,' he said, 'do you feel chilly?' The girl shook her head.
+
+"'Not in the least, papa.'
+
+"'Her father!' I thought--'her father!' Thank God she did not say
+'popper'!
+
+"'I have been to the Zoo to-day,' announced the bald one, turning
+towards me.
+
+"'Ah, indeed,' I observed; 'er--I trust you enjoyed it.'
+
+"'I have been contemplating the apes,' he continued, dreamily. 'Yes,
+contemplating the apes.'
+
+"I tried to look interested.
+
+"'Yes, the apes,' he murmured, fixing his mild eyes on me. Then he
+leaned towards me confidentially and whispered, 'Can you tell me what
+a monkey thinks?'
+
+"'I cannot,' I replied, sharply.
+
+"'Ah,' he sighed, sinking back in his chair, and patting the slender
+hand of the girl beside him--'ah, who can tell what a monkey thinks?'
+His gentle face lulled my suspicions, and I replied, very gravely:
+
+"'Who can tell whether they think at all?'
+
+"'True, true! Who can tell whether they think at all; and if they do
+think, ah! who can tell what they think?'
+
+"'But,' I began, 'if you can't tell whether they think at all, what's
+the use of trying to conjecture what they _would_ think if they _did_
+think?'
+
+"He raised his hand in deprecation. 'Ah, it is exactly that which is
+of such absorbing interest--exactly that! It is the abstruseness of
+the proposition which stimulates research--which stirs profoundly the
+brain of the thinking world. The question is of vital and instant
+importance. Possibly you have already formed an opinion.'
+
+"I admitted that I had thought but little on the subject.
+
+"'I doubt,' he continued, swathing his knees in his coat-tails--'I
+doubt whether you have given much attention to the subject lately
+discussed by the Boston Dodo Society of Pythagorean Research.'
+
+"'I am not sure,' I said, politely, 'that I recall that particular
+discussion. May I ask what was the question brought up?'
+
+"'The Felis domestica question.'
+
+"'Ah, that must indeed be interesting! And--er--what may be the Felis
+do--do--'
+
+"'Domestica--not dodo. Felis domestica, the common or garden cat.'
+
+"'Indeed,' I murmured.
+
+"'You are not listening,' he said.
+
+"I only half heard him. I could not turn my eyes from his daughter's
+face.
+
+"'Cat!' shouted the bald one, and I almost leaped from my chair. 'Are
+you deaf?' he inquired, sympathetically.
+
+"'No--oh no!' I replied, coloring with confusion; 'you were--pardon
+me--you were--er--speaking of the dodo. Extraordinary bird that--'
+
+"'I was not discussing the dodo,' he sighed. 'I was speaking of cats.'
+
+"'Of course,' I said.
+
+"'The question is,' he continued, twisting his frayed coat-tails into
+a sort of rope--'the question is, how are we to ameliorate the present
+condition and social status of our domestic cats?'
+
+"'Feed 'em,' I suggested.
+
+"He raised both hands. They were eloquent with patient expostulation.
+'I mean their spiritual condition,' he said.
+
+"I nodded, but my eyes reverted to that exquisite face. She sat
+silent, her eyes fixed on the waning flecks of color in the western
+sky.
+
+"'Yes,' repeated the bald one, 'the spiritual welfare of our domestic
+cats.'
+
+"'Toms and tabbies?' I murmured.
+
+"'Exactly,' he said, tying a large knot in his coat-tails.
+
+"'You will ruin your coat,' I observed.
+
+"'Papa!' exclaimed the girl, turning in dismay, as that gentleman gave
+a guilty start, 'stop it at once!'
+
+"He smiled apologetically and made a feeble attempt to conceal his
+coat-tails.
+
+"'My dear,' he said, with gentle deprecation, 'I am so
+absent-minded--I always do it in the heat of argument.'
+
+"The girl rose, and, bending over her untidy parent, deftly untied the
+knot in his flapping coat. When he was disentangled, she sat down and
+said, with a ghost of a smile, 'He is so very absent-minded.'
+
+"'Your father is evidently a great student,' I ventured, pleasantly.
+How I pitied her, tied to this old lunatic!
+
+"'Yes, he is a great student,' she said, quietly.
+
+"'I am,' he murmured; 'that's what makes me so absent-minded. I often
+go to bed and forget to sleep.' Then, looking at me, he asked me my
+name, adding, with a bow, that his name was P. Royal Wyeth, Professor
+of Pythagorean Research and Abstruse Paradox.
+
+"'My first name is Penny--named after Professor Penny, of Harvard,' he
+said; 'but I seldom use my first name in connection with my second, as
+the combination suggests a household remedy of penetrating odor.'
+
+"'My name is Kensett,' I said, 'Harold Kensett, of New York.'
+
+"'Student?'
+
+"'Er--a little.'
+
+"'Student of diamonds?'
+
+"I smiled. 'Oh, I see you know who my great-aunt was,' I said.
+
+"'I know her,' he said.
+
+"'Ah--perhaps you are unaware that my great-aunt is not now living.'
+
+"'I know her,' he repeated, obstinately.
+
+"I bowed. What a crank he was!
+
+"'What do you study? You don't fiddle away all your time, do you?' he
+asked.
+
+"Now that was just what I did, but I was not pleased to have Miss
+Wyeth know it. Although my time was chiefly spent in killing time, I
+had once, in a fit of energy, succeeded in writing some verses 'To a
+Tomtit,' so I evaded a humiliating confession by saying that I had
+done a little work in ornithology.
+
+"'Good!' cried the professor, beaming all over. 'I knew you were a
+fellow-scientist. Possibly you are a brother-member of the Boston
+Dodo Society of Pythagorean Research. Are you a dodo?'
+
+"I shook my head. 'No, I am not a dodo.'
+
+"'Only a jay?'
+
+"'A--what?' I said, angrily.
+
+"'A jay. We call the members of the Junior Ornithological Jay Society
+of New York, jays, just as we refer to ourselves as dodos. Are you not
+even a jay?'
+
+"'I am not,' I said, watching him suspiciously.
+
+"'I must convert you, I see,' said the professor, smiling.
+
+"'I'm afraid I do not approve of Pythagorean research,' I began, but
+the beautiful Miss Wyeth turned to me very seriously, and, looking me
+frankly in the eyes, said:
+
+"'I trust you will be open to conviction.'
+
+"'Good Lord!' I thought. 'Can she be another lunatic?' I looked at her
+steadily. What a little beauty she was! She also, then, belonged to
+the Pythagoreans--a sect I despised. Everybody knows all about the
+Pythagorean craze, its rise in Boston, its rapid spread, and its
+subsequent consolidation with mental and Christian science, theosophy,
+hypnotism, the Salvation Army, the Shakers, the Dunkards, and the
+mind-cure cult, upon a business basis. I had hitherto regarded all
+Pythagoreans with the same scornful indifference which I accorded to
+the faith-curists; being a member of no particular church, I was
+scarcely prepared to take any of them seriously. Least of all did I
+approve of the 'business basis,' and I looked very much askance indeed
+at the 'Scientific and Religious Trust Company,' duly incorporated and
+generally known as the Pythagorean Trust, which, consolidating with
+mind-curists, faith-curists, and other flourishing salvation
+syndicates, actually claimed a place among ordinary trusts, and at the
+same time pretended to a control over man's future life. No, I could
+never listen--I was ashamed of even entertaining the notion, and I
+shook my head.
+
+"'No, Miss Wyeth, I am afraid I do not care to listen to any reasoning
+on this subject.'
+
+"'Don't you believe in Pythagoras?' demanded the professor, subduing
+his excitement with difficulty, and adding another knot to his
+coat-tails.
+
+"'No,' I said, 'I do not.'
+
+"'How do you know you don't?' inquired the professor.
+
+"'Because,' I said, firmly, 'it is nonsense to say that the soul of a
+human being can inhabit a hen!'
+
+"'Put it in a more simplified form!' insisted the professor. 'Do you
+believe that the soul of a hen can inhabit a human being?'
+
+"'No, I don't!'
+
+"'Did you ever hear of a hen-pecked man?' cried the professor, his
+voice ending in a shout.
+
+"I nodded, intensely annoyed.
+
+"'Will you listen to reason, then?' he continued, eagerly.
+
+"'No,' I began, but I caught Miss Wyeth's blue eyes fixed on mine with
+an expression so sad, so sweetly appealing, that I faltered.
+
+"'Yes, I will listen,' I said, faintly.
+
+"'Will you become my pupil?' insisted the professor.
+
+"I was shocked to find myself wavering, but my eyes were looking into
+hers, and I could not disobey what I read there. The longer I looked
+the greater inclination I felt to waver. I saw that I was going to
+give in, and, strangest of all, my conscience did not trouble me. I
+felt it coming--a sort of mild exhilaration took possession of me. For
+the first time in my life I became reckless--I even gloried in my
+recklessness.
+
+"'Yes, yes,' I cried, leaning eagerly across the table, 'I shall be
+glad--delighted! Will you take me as your pupil?' My single eye-glass
+fell from its position unheeded. 'Take me! Oh, will you take me?' I
+cried. Instead of answering, the professor blinked rapidly at me for a
+moment. I imagined his eyes had grown bigger, and were assuming a
+greenish tinge. The corners of his mouth began to quiver, emitting
+queer, caressing little noises, and he rapidly added knot after knot
+to his twitching coat-tails. Suddenly he bent forward across the table
+until his nose almost touched mine. The pupils of his eyes expanded,
+the iris assuming a beautiful, changing, golden-green tinge, and his
+coat-tails switched violently. Then he began to mew.
+
+"I strove to rouse myself from my paralysis--I tried to shrink back,
+for I felt the end of his cold nose touch mine. I could not move. The
+cry of terror died in my straining throat, my hands tightened
+convulsively; I was incapable of speech or motion. At the same time my
+brain became wonderfully clear. I began to remember everything that
+had ever happened to me--everything that I had ever done or said. I
+even remembered things that I had neither done nor said; I recalled
+distinctly much that had never happened. How fresh and strong my
+memory! The past was like a mirror, crystal clear, and there, in
+glorious tints and hues, the scenes of my childhood grew and glowed
+and faded, and gave place to newer and more splendid scenes. For a
+moment the episode of the cat at the Hotel St. Antoine flashed across
+my mind. When it vanished a chilly stupor slowly clouded my brain; the
+scenes, the memories, the brilliant colors, faded, leaving me
+enveloped in a gray vapor, through which the two great eyes of the
+professor twinkled with a murky light. A peculiar longing stirred
+me--a strange yearning for something, I knew not what--but, oh! how I
+longed and yearned for it! Slowly this indefinite, incomprehensible
+longing became a living pain. Ah, how I suffered, and how the vapors
+seemed to crowd around me! Then, as at a great distance, I heard her
+voice, sweet, imperative:
+
+"'Mew!' she said.
+
+"For a moment I seemed to see the interior of my own skull, lighted as
+by a flash of fire; the rolling eyeballs, veined in scarlet, the
+glistening muscles quivering along the jaw, the humid masses of the
+convoluted brain; then awful darkness--a darkness almost tangible--an
+utter blackness, through which now seemed to creep a thin, silver
+thread, like a river crawling across a world--like a thought gliding
+to the brain--like a song, a thin, sharp song which some distant voice
+was singing--which I was singing.
+
+"And I knew that I was mewing!
+
+"I threw myself back in my chair and mewed with all my heart. Oh, that
+heavy load which was lifted from my breast! How good, how satisfying
+it was to mew! And how I did miaul and yowl!
+
+"I gave myself up to it, heart and soul; my whole being thrilled with
+the passionate outpourings of a spirit freed. My voice trembled in the
+upper bars of a feline love-song, quavered, descended, swelling again
+into an intimation that I brooked no rival, and ended with a
+magnificent crescendo.
+
+"I finished, somewhat abashed, and glanced askance at the professor
+and his daughter, but the one sat nonchalantly disentangling his
+coat-tails, and the other was apparently absorbed in the distant
+landscape. Evidently they did not consider me ridiculous. Flushing
+painfully, I turned in my chair to see how my grewsome solo had
+affected the people on the terrace. Nobody even looked at me. This,
+however, gave me little comfort, for, as I began to realize what I had
+done, my mortification and rage knew no bounds. I was ready to die of
+shame. What on earth had induced me to mew? I looked wildly about for
+escape--I would leap up--rush home to bury my burning face in my
+pillows, and, later, in the friendly cabin of a homeward-bound
+steamer. I would fly--fly at once! Woe to the man who blocked my way!
+I started to my feet, but at that moment I caught Miss Wyeth's eyes
+fixed on mine.
+
+"'Don't go,' she said.
+
+"What in Heaven's name lay in those blue eyes? I slowly sank back into
+my chair.
+
+"Then the professor spoke: 'Wilhelmina, I have just received a
+despatch.'
+
+"'Where from, papa?'
+
+"'From India. I'm going at once.'
+
+"She nodded her head, without turning her eyes from the sea. 'Is it
+important, papa?'
+
+"'I should say so. The cashier of the local trust has compromised an
+astral body, and has squandered on her all our funds, including a lot
+of first mortgages on Nirvana. I suppose he's been dabbling in futures
+and is short in his accounts. I sha'n't be gone long.'
+
+"'Then, good-night, papa,' she said, kissing him; 'try to be back by
+eleven.' I sat stupidly staring at them.
+
+"'Oh, it's only to Bombay--I sha'n't go to Thibet
+to-night--good-night, my dear,' said the professor.
+
+"Then a singular thing occurred. The professor had at last succeeded
+in disentangling his coat-tails, and now, jamming his hat over his
+ears, and waving his arms with a batlike motion, he climbed upon the
+seat of his chair and ejaculated the word 'Presto!' Then I found my
+voice.
+
+"'Stop him!' I cried, in terror.
+
+"'Presto! Presto!' shouted the professor, balancing himself on the
+edge of his chair and waving his arms majestically, as if preparing
+for a sudden flight across the Scheldt; and, firmly convinced that he
+not only meditated it, but was perfectly capable of attempting it, I
+covered my eyes with my hands.
+
+"'Are you ill, Mr. Kensett?' asked the girl, quietly.
+
+"I raised my head indignantly. 'Not at all, Miss Wyeth, only I'll bid
+you good-evening, for this is the nineteenth century, and I'm a
+Christian.'
+
+"'So am I,' she said. 'So is my father.'
+
+"'The devil he is,' I thought.
+
+"Her next words made me jump.
+
+"'Please do not be profane, Mr. Kensett.'
+
+"How did she know I was profane? I had not spoken a word! Could it be
+possible she was able to read my thoughts? This was too much, and I
+rose.
+
+"'I have the honor to bid you good-evening,' I began, and reluctantly
+turned to include the professor, expecting to see that gentleman
+balancing himself on his chair. The professor's chair was empty.
+
+"'Oh,' said the girl, smiling, 'my father has gone.'
+
+"'Gone! Where?'
+
+"'To--to India, I believe.'
+
+"I sank helplessly into my own chair.
+
+"'I do not think he will stay very long--he promised to return by
+eleven,' she said, timidly.
+
+"I tried to realize the purport of it all. 'Gone to India? Gone! How?
+On a broomstick? Good Heavens,' I murmured, 'am I insane?'
+
+"'Perfectly,' she said, 'and I am tired; you may take me back to the
+hotel.'
+
+"I scarcely heard her; I was feebly attempting to gather up my numbed
+wits. Slowly I began to comprehend the situation, to review the
+startling and humiliating events of the day. At noon, in the court of
+the Hotel St. Antoine, I had been annoyed by a man and a cat. I had
+retired to my own room and had slept until dinner. In the evening I
+met two tourists on the sea-wall promenade. I had been beguiled into
+conversation--yes, into intimacy with these two tourists! I had had
+the intention of embracing the faith of Pythagoras! Then I had mewed
+like a cat with all the strength of my lungs. Now the male tourist
+vanishes--and leaves me in charge of the female tourist, alone and at
+night in a strange city! And now the female tourist proposes that I
+take her home!
+
+"With a remnant of self-possession I groped for my eye-glass, seized
+it, screwed it firmly into my eye, and looked long and earnestly at
+the girl. As I looked, my eyes softened, my monacle dropped, and I
+forgot everything in the beauty and purity of the face before me. My
+heart began to beat against my stiff, white waistcoat. Had I
+dared--yes, dared to think of this wondrous little beauty as a female
+tourist? Her pale, sweet face, turned towards the sea, seemed to cast
+a spell upon the night. How loud my heart was beating! The yellow moon
+floated, half dipping in the sea, flooding land and water with
+enchanted lights. Wind and wave seemed to feel the spell of her eyes,
+for the breeze died away, the heaving Scheldt tossed noiselessly, and
+the dark Dutch luggers swung idly on the tide with every sail adroop.
+
+"A sudden hush fell over land and water, the voices on the promenade
+were stilled; little by little the shadowy throng, the terrace, the
+sea itself vanished, and I only saw her face, shadowed against the
+moon.
+
+"It seemed as if I had drifted miles above the earth, through all
+space and eternity, and there was naught between me and high heaven
+but that white face. Ah, how I loved her! I knew it--I never doubted
+it. Could years of passionate adoration touch her heart--her little
+heart, now beating so calmly with no thought of love to startle it
+from its quiet and send it fluttering against the gentle breast? In
+her lap her clasped hands tightened--her eyelids drooped as though
+some pleasant thought was passing. I saw the color dye her temples, I
+saw the blue eyes turn, half frightened, to my own, I saw--and I knew
+she had read my thoughts. Then we both rose, side by side, and she was
+weeping softly, yet for my life I dared not speak. She turned away,
+touching her eyes with a bit of lace, and I sprang to her side and
+offered her my arm.
+
+"'You cannot go back alone,' I said.
+
+"She did not take my arm.
+
+"'Do you hate me, Miss Wyeth?'
+
+"'I am very tired,' she said; 'I must go home.'
+
+"'You cannot go alone.'
+
+"'I do not care to accept your escort.'
+
+"'Then--you send me away?'
+
+"'No,' she said, in a hard voice. 'You can come if you like.' So I
+humbly attended her to the Hotel St. Antoine.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+"As we reached the Place Verte and turned into the court of the hotel,
+the sound of the midnight bells swept over the city, and a horse-car
+jingled slowly by on its last trip to the railroad station.
+
+"We passed the fountain, bubbling and splashing in the moonlit court,
+and, crossing the square, entered the southern wing of the hotel. At
+the foot of the stairway she leaned for an instant against the
+banisters.
+
+"'I am afraid we have walked too fast,' I said.
+
+"She turned to me coldly. 'No--conventionalities must be observed. You
+were quite right in escaping as soon as possible.'
+
+"'But,' I protested, 'I assure you--'
+
+"She gave a little movement of impatience. 'Don't,' she said, 'you
+tire me--conventionalities tire me. Be satisfied--nobody has seen
+you.'
+
+"'You are cruel,' I said, in a low voice--'what do you think I care
+for conventionalities?'
+
+"'You care everything--you care what people think, and you try to do
+what they say is good form. You never did such an original thing in
+your life as you have just done.'
+
+"'You read my thoughts,' I exclaimed, bitterly. 'It is not fair--'
+
+"'Fair or not, I know what you consider me--ill-bred, common, pleased
+with any sort of attention. Oh! why should I waste one word--one
+thought on you?'
+
+"'Miss Wyeth--' I began, but she interrupted me.
+
+"'Would you dare tell me what you think of me?--Would you dare tell me
+what you think of my father?'
+
+"I was silent. She turned and mounted two steps of the stairway, then
+faced me again.
+
+"'Do you think it was for my own pleasure that I permitted myself to
+be left alone with you? Do you imagine that I am flattered by your
+attention?--do you venture to think I ever could be? How dared you
+think what you did think there on the sea-wall?'
+
+"'I cannot help my thoughts!' I replied.
+
+"'You turned on me like a tiger when you awoke from your trance. Do
+you really suppose that you mewed? Are you not aware that my father
+hypnotized you?'
+
+"'No--I did not know it,' I said. The hot blood tingled in my
+finger-tips, and I looked angrily at her.
+
+"'Why do you imagine that I waste my time on you?' she said. 'Your
+vanity has answered that question--now let your intelligence answer
+it. I am a Pythagorean; I have been chosen to bring in a convert, and
+you were the convert selected for me by the Mahatmas of the
+Consolidated Trust Company. I have followed you from New York to
+Antwerp, as I was bidden, but now my courage fails, and I shrink from
+fulfilling my mission, knowing you to be the type of man you are. If I
+could give it up--if I could only go away--never, never again to see
+you! Ah, I fear they will not permit it!--until my mission is
+accomplished. Why was I chosen--I, with a woman's heart and a woman's
+pride. I--I hate you!'
+
+"'I love you,' I said, slowly.
+
+"She paled and looked away.
+
+"'Answer me,' I said.
+
+"Her wide, blue eyes turned back again, and I held them with mine. At
+last she slowly drew a long-stemmed rose from the bunch at her belt,
+turned, and mounted the shadowy staircase. For a moment I thought I
+saw her pause on the landing above, but the moonlight was uncertain.
+After waiting for a long time in vain, I moved away, and in going
+raised my hand to my face, but I stopped short, and my heart stopped
+too, for a moment. In my hand I held a long-stemmed rose.
+
+"With my brain in a whirl I crept across the court and mounted the
+stairs to my room. Hour after hour I walked the floor, slowly at
+first, then more rapidly, but it brought no calm to the fierce tumult
+of my thoughts, and at last I dropped into a chair before the empty
+fireplace, burying my head in my hands.
+
+"Uncertain, shocked, and deadly weary, I tried to think--I strove to
+bring order out of the chaos in my brain, but I only sat staring at
+the long-stemmed rose. Slowly I began to take a vague pleasure in its
+heavy perfume, and once I crushed a leaf between my palms, and,
+bending over, drank in the fragrance.
+
+"Twice my lamp flickered and went out, and twice, treading softly, I
+crossed the room to relight it. Twice I threw open the door, thinking
+that I heard some sound without. How close the air was!--how heavy and
+hot! And what was that strange, subtle odor which had insensibly
+filled the room? It grew stronger and more penetrating, and I began
+to dislike it, and to escape it I buried my nose in the half-opened
+rose. Horror! The odor came from the rose--and the rose itself was no
+longer a rose--not even a flower now--it was only a bunch of catnip;
+and I dashed it to the floor and ground it under my heel.
+
+"'Mountebank!' I cried, in a rage. My anger grew cold--and I shivered,
+drawn perforce to the curtained window. Something was there, outside.
+I could not hear it, for it made no sound, but I knew it was there,
+watching me. What was it? The damp hair stirred on my head. I touched
+the heavy curtains. Whatever was outside them sprang up, tore at the
+window, and then rushed away.
+
+"Feeling very shaky, I crept to the window, opened it, and leaned out.
+The night was calm. I heard the fountain splashing in the moonlight
+and the sea-winds soughing through the palms. Then I closed the window
+and turned back into the room; and as I stood there a sudden breeze,
+which could not have come from without, blew sharply in my face,
+extinguishing the candle and sending the long curtains bellying out
+into the room. The lamp on the table flashed and smoked and sputtered;
+the room was littered with flying papers and catnip leaves. Then the
+strange wind died away, and somewhere in the night a cat snarled.
+
+"I turned desperately to my trunk and flung it open. Into it I threw
+everything I owned, pell-mell, closed the lid, locked it, and, seizing
+my mackintosh and travelling-bag, ran down the stairs, crossed the
+court, and entered the night-office of the hotel. There I called up
+the sleepy clerk, settled my reckoning, and sent a porter for a cab.
+
+"'Now,' I said, 'what time does the next train leave?'
+
+"'The next train for where?'
+
+"'Anywhere!'
+
+"The clerk locked the safe, and, carefully keeping the desk between
+himself and me, motioned the office-boy to look at the time-tables.
+
+"'Next train, 2.10. Brussels--Paris,' read the boy.
+
+"At that moment the cab rattled up by the curbstone, and I sprang in
+while the porter tossed my traps on top. Away we bumped over the stony
+pavement, past street after street lighted dimly by tall gas-lamps,
+and alley after alley brilliant with the glare of villanous all-night
+cafe-concerts, and then, turning, we rumbled past the Circus and the
+Eldorado, and at last stopped with a jolt before the Brussels station.
+
+"I had not a moment to lose. 'Paris!' I cried--'first-class!' and,
+pocketing the book of coupons, hurried across the platform to where
+the Brussels train lay. A guard came running up, flung open the door
+of a first-class carriage, slammed and locked it after I had jumped
+in, and the long train glided from the arched station out into the
+starlit morning.
+
+"I was all alone in the compartment. The wretched lamp in the roof
+flickered dimly, scarcely lighting the stuffy box. I could not see to
+read my time-table, so I wrapped my legs in the travelling-rug and lay
+back, staring out into the misty morning. Trees, walls,
+telegraph-poles flashed past, and the cinders drove in showers against
+the rattling windows. I slept at times, fitfully, and once, springing
+up, peered sharply at the opposite seat, possessed with the idea that
+somebody was there.
+
+"When the train reached Brussels I was sound asleep, and the guard
+awoke me with difficulty.
+
+"'Breakfast, sir?' he asked.
+
+"'Anything,' I sighed, and stepped out to the platform, rubbing my
+legs and shivering. The other passengers were already breakfasting in
+the station cafe, and I joined them and managed to swallow a cup of
+coffee and a roll.
+
+"The morning broke gray and cloudy, and I bundled myself into my
+mackintosh for a tramp along the platform. Up and down I stamped,
+puffing a cigar, and digging my hands deep in my pockets, while the
+other passengers huddled into the warmer compartments of the train or
+stood watching the luggage being lifted into the forward
+mail-carriage. The wait was very long; the hands of the great clock
+pointed to six, and still the train lay motionless along the platform.
+I approached a guard and asked him whether anything was wrong.
+
+"'Accident on the line,' he replied; 'monsieur had better go to his
+compartment and try to sleep, for we may be delayed until noon.'
+
+"I followed the guard's advice, and, crawling into my corner, wrapped
+myself in the rug and lay back watching the rain-drops spattering
+along the window-sill. At noon the train had not moved, and I lunched
+in the compartment. At four o'clock in the afternoon the
+station-master came hurrying along the platform, crying, 'Montez!
+montez! messieurs, s'il vous plait'--and the train steamed out of the
+station and whirled away through the flat, treeless Belgian plains. At
+times I dozed, but the shaking of the car always awoke me, and I would
+sit blinking out at the endless stretch of plain, until a sudden
+flurry of rain blotted the landscape from my eyes. At last a long,
+shrill whistle from the engine, a jolt, a series of bumps, and an
+apparition of red trousers and bayonets warned me that we had arrived
+at the French frontier. I turned out with the others, and opened my
+valise for inspection, but the customs officials merely chalked it,
+without examination, and I hurried back to my compartment amid the
+shouting of guards and the clanging of station bells. Again I found
+that I was alone in the compartment, so I smoked a cigarette, thanked
+Heaven, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
+
+"How long I slept I do not know, but when I awoke the train was
+roaring through a tunnel. When again it flashed out into the open
+country I peered through the grimy, rain-stained window and saw that
+the storm had ceased and stars were twinkling in the sky. I stretched
+my legs, yawned, pushed my travelling-cap back from my forehead, and,
+stumbling to my feet, walked up and down the compartment until my
+cramped muscles were relieved. Then I sat down again, and, lighting a
+cigar, puffed great rings and clouds of fragrant smoke across the
+aisle.
+
+"The train was flying; the cars lurched and shook, and the windows
+rattled accompaniment to the creaking panels. The smoke from my cigar
+dimmed the lamp in the ceiling and hid the opposite seat from view.
+How it curled and writhed in the corners, now eddying upward, now
+floating across the aisle like a veil! I lounged back in my cushioned
+seat, watching it with interest. What queer shapes it took! How thick
+it was becoming!--how strangely luminous! Now it had filled the whole
+compartment, puff after puff crowding upward, waving, wavering,
+clouding the windows, and blotting the lamp from sight. It was most
+interesting. I had never before smoked such a cigar. What an
+extraordinary brand! I examined the end, flicking the ashes away. The
+cigar was out. Fumbling for a match to relight it, my eyes fell on the
+drifting smoke-curtain which swayed across the corner opposite. It
+seemed almost tangible. How like a real curtain it hung, gray,
+impenetrable! A man might hide behind it. Then an idea came into my
+head, and it persisted until my uneasiness amounted to a vague terror.
+I tried to fight it off--I strove to resist--but the conviction slowly
+settled upon me that something was behind that smoke-veil--something
+which had entered the compartment while I slept.
+
+"'It can't be,' I muttered, my eyes fixed on the misty drapery; 'the
+train has not stopped.'
+
+"The car creaked and trembled. I sprang to my feet and swept my arm
+through the veil of smoke. Then my hair rose on my head. For my hand
+touched another hand, and my eyes had met two other eyes.
+
+"I heard a voice in the gloom, low and sweet, calling me by name; I
+saw the eyes again, tender and blue; soft fingers touched my own.
+
+"'Are you afraid?' she said.
+
+"My heart began to beat again, and my face warmed with returning
+blood.
+
+"'It is only I,' she said, gently.
+
+"I seemed to hear my own voice speaking as if at a great distance,
+'You here--alone?'
+
+"'How cruel of you!' she faltered; 'I am not alone.' At the same
+instant my eyes fell upon the professor, calmly seated by the farther
+window. His hands were thrust into the folds of a corded and tasselled
+dressing-gown, from beneath which peeped two enormous feet encased in
+carpet slippers. Upon his head towered a yellow night-cap. He did not
+pay the slightest attention to either me or his daughter, and, except
+for the lighted cigar which he kept shifting between his lips, he
+might have been taken for a wax dummy.
+
+"Then I began to speak, feebly, hesitating like a child.
+
+"'How did you come into this compartment? You--you do not possess
+wings, I suppose? You could not have been here all the time. Will you
+explain--explain to me? See, I ask you very humbly, for I do not
+understand. This is the nineteenth century, and these things don't fit
+in. I'm wearing a Dunlap hat--I've got a copy of the New York _Herald_
+in my bag--President Roosevelt is alive, and everything is so very
+unromantic in the world! Is this real magic? Perhaps I'm filled with
+hallucinations. Perhaps I'm asleep and dreaming. Perhaps you are not
+really here--nor I--nor anybody, nor anything!'
+
+"The train plunged into a tunnel, and when again it dashed out from
+the other end the cold wind blew furiously in my face from the farther
+window. It was wide open; the professor was gone.
+
+"'Papa has changed to another compartment,' she said, quietly. 'I
+think perhaps you were beginning to bore him.'
+
+"Her eyes met mine and she smiled.
+
+"'Are you very much bewildered?'
+
+"I looked at her in silence. She sat very quietly, her hands clasped
+above her knee, her curly hair glittering to her girdle. A long robe,
+almost silvery in the twilight, clung to her young figure; her bare
+feet were thrust deep into a pair of shimmering Eastern slippers.
+
+"'When you fled,' she sighed, 'I was asleep and there was no time to
+lose. I barely had a moment to go to Bombay, to find papa, and return
+in time to join you. This is an East-Indian costume.'
+
+"Still I was silent.
+
+"'Are you shocked?' she asked, simply.
+
+"'No,' I replied, in a dull voice, 'I'm past that.'
+
+"'You are very rude,' she said, with the tears starting to her eyes.
+
+"'I do not mean to be. I only wish to go away--away somewhere and find
+out what my name is.'
+
+"'Your name is Harold Kensett.'
+
+"'Are you sure?' I asked, eagerly.
+
+"'Yes--what troubles you?'
+
+"'Is everything plain to you? Are you a sort of prophet and
+second-sight medium? Is nothing hidden from you?' I asked.
+
+"'Nothing,' she faltered. My head ached and I clasped it in my hand.
+
+"A sudden change came over her. 'I am human--believe me!' she said,
+with piteous eagerness. 'Indeed, I do not seem strange to those who
+understand. You wonder, because you left me at midnight in Antwerp and
+you wake to find me here. If, because I find myself reincarnated,
+endowed with senses and capabilities which few at present possess--if
+I am so made, why should it seem strange? It is all so natural to me.
+If I appear to you--'
+
+"'Appear?'
+
+"'Yes--'
+
+"'Wilhelmina!' I cried; 'can you vanish?'
+
+"'Yes,' she murmured; 'does it seem to you unmaidenly?'
+
+"'Great Heaven!' I groaned.
+
+"'Don't!' she cried, with tears in her voice--'oh, please don't! Help
+me to bear it! If you only knew how awful it is to be different from
+other girls--how mortifying it is to me to be able to vanish--oh, how
+I hate and detest it all!'
+
+"'Don't cry,' I said, looking at her pityingly.
+
+"'Oh, dear me!' she sobbed. 'You shudder at the sight of me because I
+can vanish.'
+
+"'I don't!' I cried.
+
+"'Yes, you do! You abhor me--you shrink away! Oh, why did I ever see
+you?--why did you ever come into my life?--what have I done in ages
+past, that now, reborn, I suffer cruelly--cruelly?'
+
+"'What do you mean?' I whispered. My voice trembled with happiness.
+
+"'I?--nothing; but you think me a fabled monster.'
+
+"'Wilhelmina--my sweet Wilhelmina,' I said, 'I don't think you a
+fabled monster. I love you; see--see--I am at your feet; listen to me,
+my darling--'
+
+"She turned her blue eyes to mine. I saw tears sparkling on the curved
+lashes.
+
+"'Wilhelmina, I love you,' I said again.
+
+"Slowly she raised her hands to my head and held it a moment, looking
+at me strangely. Then her face grew nearer to my own, her glittering
+hair fell over my shoulders, her lips rested on mine.
+
+"In that long, sweet kiss the beating of her heart answered mine, and
+I learned a thousand truths, wonderful, mysterious, splendid; but when
+our lips fell apart, the memory of what I learned departed also.
+
+"'It was so very simple and beautiful,' she sighed, 'and I--I never
+saw it. But the Mahatmas knew--ah, they knew that my mission could
+only be accomplished through love.'
+
+"'And it is,' I whispered, 'for you shall teach me--me, your husband.'
+
+"'And--and you will not be impatient? You will try to believe?'
+
+"'I will believe what you tell me, my sweetheart.'
+
+"'Even about--cats?'
+
+"Before I could reply the farther window opened and a yellow
+night-cap, followed by the professor, entered from somewhere without.
+Wilhelmina sank back on her sofa, but the professor needed not to be
+told, and we both knew he was already busily reading our thoughts.
+
+"For a moment there was dead silence--long enough for the professor to
+grasp the full significance of what had passed. Then he uttered a
+single exclamation, 'Oh!'
+
+"After a while, however, he looked at me for the first time that
+evening, saying, 'Congratulate you, Mr. Kensett, I'm sure,' tied
+several knots in the cord of his dressing-gown, lighted a cigar, and
+paid no further attention to either of us. Some moments later he
+opened the window again and disappeared. I looked across the aisle at
+Wilhelmina.
+
+"'You may come over beside me,' she said, shyly.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+"It was nearly ten o'clock and our train was rapidly approaching
+Paris. We passed village after village wrapped in mist, station after
+station hung with twinkling red and blue and yellow lanterns, then
+sped on again with the echo of the switch-bells ringing in our ears.
+
+"When at length the train slowed up and stopped, I opened the window
+and looked out upon a long, wet platform, shining under the electric
+lights.
+
+"A guard came running by, throwing open the doors of each compartment,
+and crying, 'Paris next! Tickets, if you please.'
+
+"I handed him my book of coupons, from which he tore several and
+handed it back. Then he lifted his lantern and peered into the
+compartment, saying, 'Is monsieur alone?'
+
+"I turned to Wilhelmina.
+
+"'He wants your ticket--give it to me.'
+
+"'What's that?' demanded the guard.
+
+"I looked anxiously at Wilhelmina.
+
+"'If your father has the tickets--' I began, but was interrupted by
+the guard, who snapped:
+
+"'Monsieur will give himself the trouble to remember that I do not
+understand English.'
+
+"'Keep quiet!' I said, sharply, in French. 'I am not speaking to
+you.'
+
+"The guard stared stupidly at me, then, at my luggage, and finally,
+entering the car, knelt down and peered under the seats. Presently he
+got up, very red in the face, and went out slamming the door. He had
+not paid the slightest attention to Wilhelmina, but I distinctly heard
+him say, 'Only Englishmen and idiots talk to themselves!'
+
+"'Wilhelmina,' I faltered, 'do you mean to say that that guard could
+not see you?'
+
+"She began to look so serious again that I merely added, 'Never mind,
+I don't care whether you are invisible or not, dearest.'
+
+"'I am not invisible to you,' she said; 'why should you care?'
+
+"A great noise of bells and whistles drowned our voices, and, amid the
+whirring of switch-bells, the hissing of steam, and the cries of
+'Paris! All out!' our train glided into the station.
+
+"It was the professor who opened the door of our carriage. There he
+stood, calmly adjusting his yellow night-cap and drawing his
+dressing-gown closer with the corded tassels.
+
+"'Where have you been?' I asked.
+
+"'On the engine.'
+
+"'_In_ the engine, I suppose you mean,' I said.
+
+"'No, I don't; I mean _on_ the engine--on the pilot. It was very
+refreshing. Where are we going now?'
+
+"'Do you know Paris?' asked Wilhelmina, turning to me.
+
+"'Yes. I think your father had better take you to the Hotel Normandie
+on the Rue de l'Echelle--'
+
+"'But you must stay there, too!'
+
+"'Of course--if you wish--'
+
+"She laughed nervously.
+
+"'Don't you see that my father and I could not take rooms--now? You
+must engage three rooms for yourself.'
+
+"'Why?' I asked, stupidly.
+
+"'Oh, dear--why, because we are invisible.'
+
+"I tried to repress a shudder. The professor gave Wilhelmina his arm,
+and, as I studied his ensemble, I thanked Heaven that he was
+invisible.
+
+"At the gate of the station I hailed a four-seated cab, and we rattled
+away through the stony streets, brilliant with gas-jets, and in a few
+moments rolled smoothly across the Avenue de l'Opera, turned into the
+Rue de l'Echelle, and stopped. A bright little page, all over buttons,
+came out, took my luggage, and preceded us into the hallway.
+
+"I, with Wilhelmina on my arm and the professor shuffling along beside
+me, walked over to the desk.
+
+"'Room?' said the clerk. 'We have a very desirable room on the second,
+fronting the Rue St. Honore--'
+
+"'But we--that is, I want three rooms--three separate rooms!' I said.
+
+"The clerk scratched his chin. 'Monsieur is expecting friends?'
+
+"'Say yes,' whispered Wilhelmina, with a suspicion of laughter in her
+voice.
+
+"'Yes,' I repeated, feebly.
+
+"'Gentlemen, of course?' said the clerk, looking at me narrowly.
+
+"'One lady.'
+
+"'Married, of course?'
+
+"'What's that to you?' I said, sharply. 'What do you mean by speaking
+to us--'
+
+"'Us!'
+
+"'I mean to me,' I said, badly rattled; 'give me the rooms and let me
+get to bed, will you?'
+
+"'Monsieur will remember,' said the clerk, coldly, 'that this is an
+old and respectable hotel.'
+
+"'I know it,' I said, smothering my rage.
+
+"The clerk eyed me suspiciously.
+
+"'Front!' he called, with irritating deliberation. 'Show this
+gentleman to apartment ten.'
+
+"'How many rooms are there!' I demanded.
+
+"'Three sleeping-rooms and a parlor.'
+
+"'I will take it,' I said, with composure.
+
+"'On probation,' muttered the clerk, insolently.
+
+"Swallowing the insult, I followed the bell-boy up the stairs, keeping
+between him and Wilhelmina, for I dreaded to see him walk through her
+as if she were thin air. A trim maid rose to meet us and conducted us
+through a hallway into a large apartment. She threw open all the
+bedroom-doors and said, 'Will monsieur have the goodness to choose?'
+
+"'Which will you take,' I began, turning to Wilhelmina.
+
+"'I? Monsieur!' cried the startled maid.
+
+"That completely upset me. 'Here,' I muttered, slipping some silver
+into her hand; 'now, for the love of Heaven, run away!'
+
+"When she had vanished with a doubtful 'Merci, monsieur!' I handed the
+professor the keys and asked him to settle the thing with Wilhelmina.
+
+"Wilhelmina took the corner room, the professor rambled into the next
+one, and I said good-night and crept wearily into my own chamber. I
+sat down and tried to think. A great feeling of fatigue weighted my
+spirits.
+
+"'I can think better with my clothes off,' I said, and slipped the
+coat from my shoulders. How tired I was! 'I can think better in bed,'
+I muttered, flinging my cravat on the dresser and tossing my
+shirt-studs after it. I was certainly very tired. 'Now,' I yawned,
+grasping the pillow and drawing it under my head--'now I can think a
+bit.' But before my head fell on the pillow sleep closed my eyes.
+
+"I began to dream at once. It seemed as though my eyes were wide open
+and the professor was standing beside my bed.
+
+"'Young man,' he said, 'you've won my daughter and you must pay the
+piper!'
+
+"'What piper?' I said.
+
+"'The Pied Piper of Hamelin, I don't think,' replied the professor,
+vulgarly, and before I could realize what he was doing he had drawn a
+reed pipe from his dressing-gown and was playing a strangely annoying
+air. Then an awful thing occurred. Cats began to troop into the room,
+cats by the hundred--toms and tabbies, gray, yellow, Maltese, Persian,
+Manx--all purring and all marching round and round, rubbing against
+the furniture, the professor, and even against me. I struggled with
+the nightmare.
+
+"'Take them away!' I tried to gasp.
+
+"'Nonsense!' he said; 'here is an old friend.'
+
+"I saw the white tabby cat of the Hotel St. Antoine.
+
+"'An old friend,' he repeated, and played a dismal melody on his
+reed.
+
+"I saw Wilhelmina enter the room, lift the white tabby in her arms,
+and bring her to my side.
+
+"'Shake hands with him,' she commanded.
+
+"To my horror the tabby deliberately extended a paw and tapped me on
+the knuckles.
+
+"'Oh!' I cried, in agony; 'this is a horrible dream! Why, oh, why
+can't I wake!'
+
+"'Yes,' she said, dropping the cat, 'it is partly a dream, but some of
+it is real. Remember what I say, my darling; you are to go to-morrow
+morning and meet the twelve-o'clock train from Antwerp at the Gare du
+Nord. Papa and I are coming to Paris on that train. Don't you know
+that we are not really here now, you silly boy? Good-night, then. I
+shall be very glad to see you.'
+
+"I saw her glide from the room, followed by the professor, playing a
+gay quick-step, to which the cats danced two and two.
+
+"'Good-night, sir,' said each cat as it passed my bed; and I dreamed
+no more.
+
+"When I awoke, the room, the bed had vanished; I was in the street,
+walking rapidly; the sun shone down on the broad, white pavements of
+Paris, and the streams of busy life flowed past me on either side. How
+swiftly I was walking! Where the devil was I going? Surely I had
+business somewhere that needed immediate attention. I tried to
+remember when I had awakened, but I could not. I wondered where I had
+dressed myself; I had apparently taken great pains with my toilet, for
+I was immaculate, monocle and all, even down to a long-stemmed rose
+nestling in my button-hole. I knew Paris and recognized the streets
+through which I was hurrying. Where could I be going? What was my
+hurry? I glanced at my watch and found I had not a moment to lose.
+Then, as the bells of the city rang out mid-day, I hastened into the
+railroad station on the Rue Lafayette and walked out to the platform.
+And as I looked down the glittering track, around the distant curve
+shot a locomotive followed by a long line of cars. Nearer and nearer
+it came, while the station-gongs sounded and the switch-bells began
+ringing all along the track.
+
+"'Antwerp express!' cried the sous-chef de gare, and as the train
+slipped along the tiled platform I sprang upon the steps of a
+first-class carriage and threw open the door.
+
+"'How do you do, Mr. Kensett?' said Wilhelmina Wyeth, springing
+lightly to the platform. 'Really it is very nice of you to come to the
+train.' At the same moment a bald, mild-eyed gentleman emerged from
+the depths of the same compartment, carrying a large, covered basket.
+
+"'How are you, Kensett?' he said. 'Glad to see you again. Rather warm
+in that compartment--no, I will not trust this basket to an
+expressman; give Wilhelmina your arm and I'll follow. We go to the
+Normandie, I believe?'
+
+"All the morning I had Wilhelmina to myself, and at dinner I sat
+beside her, with the professor opposite. The latter was cheerful
+enough, but he nearly ruined my appetite, for he smelled strongly of
+catnip. After dinner he became restless and fidgeted about in his
+chair until coffee was brought, and we went up to the parlor of our
+apartment. Here his restlessness increased to such an extent that I
+ventured to ask him if he was in good health.
+
+"'It's that basket--the covered basket which I have in the next room,'
+he said.
+
+"'What's the trouble with the basket?' I asked.
+
+"'The basket's all right--but the contents worry me.'
+
+"'May I inquire what the contents are?' I ventured.
+
+"The professor rose.
+
+"'Yes,' he said, 'you may inquire of my daughter.' He left the room,
+but reappeared shortly, carrying a saucer of milk.
+
+"I watched him enter the next room, which was mine.
+
+"'What on earth is he taking that into my room for?' I asked
+Wilhelmina. 'I don't keep cats.'
+
+"'But you will,' she said.
+
+"'I? Never!'
+
+"'You will if I ask you to.'
+
+"'But--but you won't ask me.'
+
+"'But I do.'
+
+"'Wilhelmina!'
+
+"'Harold!'
+
+"'I detest cats.'
+
+"'You must not.'
+
+"'I can't help it.'
+
+"'You will when I ask it. Have I not given myself to you? Will you not
+make a little sacrifice for me?'
+
+"'I don't understand--'
+
+"'Would you refuse my first request?'
+
+"'No,' I said, miserably, 'I will keep dozens of cats--'
+
+"'I do not ask that; I only wish you to keep one.'
+
+"'Was that what your father had in that basket?' I asked,
+suspiciously.
+
+"'Yes, the basket came from Antwerp.'
+
+"'What! The white Antwerp cat!' I cried.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'And you ask me to keep that cat? Oh, Wilhelmina!'
+
+"'Listen!' she said. 'I have a long story to tell you; come nearer,
+close to me. You say you love me?'
+
+"I bent and kissed her.
+
+"'Then I shall put you to the proof,' she murmured.
+
+"'Prove me!'
+
+"'Listen. That cat is the same cat that ran out of the apartment in
+the Waldorf when your great-aunt ceased to exist--in human shape. My
+father and myself, having received word from the Mahatmas of the Trust
+Company, sheltered and cherished the cat. We were ordered by the
+Mahatmas to convert you. The task was appalling--but there is no such
+thing as refusing a command, and we laid our plans. That man with a
+white spot in his hair was my father--'
+
+"'What! Your father is bald.'
+
+"'He wore a wig then. The white spot came from dropping chemicals on
+the wig while experimenting with a substance which you could not
+comprehend.'
+
+"'Then--then that clew was useless; but who could have taken the
+Crimson Diamond? And who was the man with the white spot on his head
+who tried to sell the stone in Paris?'
+
+"'That was my father.'
+
+"'He--he--st--took the Crimson Diamond!' I cried, aghast.
+
+"'Yes and no. That was only a paste stone that he had in Paris. It
+was to draw you over here. He had the real Crimson Diamond also.'
+
+"'Your father?'
+
+"'Yes. He has it in the next room now. Can you not see how it
+disappeared, Harold? Why, the cat swallowed it!'
+
+"'Do you mean to say that the white tabby swallowed the Crimson
+Diamond?'
+
+"'By mistake. She tried to get it out of the velvet bag, and, as the
+bag was also full of catnip, she could not resist a mouthful, and
+unfortunately just then you broke in the door and so startled the cat
+that she swallowed the Crimson Diamond.'
+
+"There was a painful pause. At last I said:
+
+"'Wilhelmina, as you are able to vanish, I suppose you also are able
+to converse with cats.'
+
+"'I am,' she replied, trying to keep back the tears of mortification.
+
+"'And that cat told you this?'
+
+"'She did.'
+
+"'And my Crimson Diamond is inside that cat?'
+
+"'It is.'
+
+"'Then,' said I, firmly, 'I am going to chloroform the cat.'
+
+"'Harold!' she cried, in terror, 'that cat is your great-aunt!'
+
+"I don't know to this day how I stood the shock of that announcement,
+or how I managed to listen while Wilhelmina tried to explain the
+transmigration theory, but it was all Chinese to me. I only knew that
+I was a blood relation of a cat, and the thought nearly drove me mad.
+
+"'Try, my darling, try to love her,' whispered Wilhelmina; 'she must
+be very precious to you--'
+
+"'Yes, with my diamond inside her,' I replied, faintly.
+
+"'You must not neglect her,' said Wilhelmina.
+
+"'Oh no, I'll always have my eye on her--I mean I will surround her
+with luxury--er, milk and bones and catnip and books--er--does she
+read?'
+
+"'Not the books that human beings read. Now, go and speak to your
+aunt, Harold.'
+
+"'Eh! How the deuce--'
+
+"'Go; for my sake try to be cordial.'
+
+"She rose and led me unresistingly to the door of my room.
+
+"'Good Heavens!' I groaned; 'this is awful.'
+
+"'Courage, my darling!' she whispered. 'Be brave for love of me.'
+
+"I drew her to me and kissed her. Beads of cold perspiration started
+in the roots of my hair, but I clenched my teeth and entered the room
+alone. The room was dark and I stood silent, not knowing where to
+turn, fearful lest I step on my aunt! Then, through the dreary
+silence, I called, 'Aunty!'
+
+"A faint noise broke upon my ear, and my heart grew sick, but I strode
+into the darkness, calling, hoarsely:
+
+"'Aunt Tabby! It is your nephew!'
+
+"Again the faint sound. Something was stirring there among the
+shadows--a shape moving softly along the wall, a shade which glided by
+me, paused, wavered, and darted under the bed. Then I threw myself on
+the floor, profoundly moved, begging, imploring my aunt to come to
+me.
+
+"'Aunty! Aunty!' I murmured. 'Your nephew is waiting to take you to
+his heart!'
+
+"At last I saw my great-aunt's eyes shining in the dark."
+
+The young man's voice grew hushed and solemn, and he lifted his hand
+in silence:
+
+"Close the door. That meeting is not for the eyes of the world! Close
+the door upon that sacred scene where great-aunt and nephew are united
+at last."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long pause followed; deep emotion was visible in Miss Barrison's
+sensitive face. She said:
+
+"Then--you are married?"
+
+"No," replied Mr. Kensett, in a mortified voice.
+
+"Why not?" I asked, amazed.
+
+"Because," he said, "although my fiancee was prepared to accept a cat
+as her great-aunt, she could not endure the complications that
+followed."
+
+"What complications?" inquired Miss Barrison.
+
+The young man sighed profoundly, shaking his head.
+
+"My great-aunt had kittens," he said, softly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tremendous scientific importance of these experiences excited me
+beyond measure. The simplicity of the narrative, the elaborate
+attention to corroborative detail, all bore irresistible testimony to
+the truth of these accounts of phenomena vitally important to the
+entire world of science.
+
+We all dined together that night--a little earnest company of
+knowledge-seekers in the vast wilderness of the unexplored; and we
+lingered long in the dining-car, propounding questions, advancing
+theories, speculating upon possibilities of most intense interest.
+Never before had I known a man whose relatives were cats and kittens,
+but he did not appear to share my enthusiasm in the matter.
+
+"You see," he said, looking at Miss Barrison, "it may be interesting
+from a purely scientific point of view, but it has already proved a
+bar to my marrying."
+
+"Were the kittens black?" I inquired.
+
+"No," he said, "my aunt drew the color-line, I am proud to say."
+
+"I don't see," said Miss Barrison, "why the fact that your great-aunt
+is a cat should prevent you from marrying."
+
+"It wouldn't prevent _me_!" said the young man, quickly.
+
+"Nor me," mused Miss Barrison--"if I were really in love."
+
+Meanwhile I had been very busy thinking about Professor Farrago, and,
+coming to an interesting theory, advanced it.
+
+"If," I began, "he marries one of those transparent ladies, what about
+the children?"
+
+"Some would be, no doubt, transparent," said Kensett.
+
+"They might be only translucent," suggested Miss Barrison.
+
+"Or partially opaque," I ventured. "But it's a risky marriage--not to
+be able to see what one's wife is about--"
+
+"That is a silly reflection on women," said Miss Barrison, quietly.
+"Besides, a girl need not be transparent to conceal what she's
+doing."
+
+This observation seemed to end our postprandial and tripartite
+conference; Miss Barrison retired to her stateroom presently; after a
+last cigar, smoked almost in silence, the young man and I bade each
+other a civil good-night and retired to our respective berths.
+
+I think it was at Richmond, Virginia, that I was awakened by the negro
+porter shaking me very gently and repeating, in a pleasant, monotonous
+voice: "Teleg'am foh you, suh! Teleg'am foh Mistuh Gilland, suh. 'Done
+call you 'lev'm times sense breakfass, suh! Las' call foh luncheon,
+suh. Teleg'am foh--"
+
+"Heavens!" I muttered, sitting up in my bunk, "is it as late as that!
+Where are we?" I slid up the window-shade and sat blinking at a flood
+of sunshine.
+
+"Telegram?" I said, yawning and rubbing my eyes. "Let me have it. All
+right, I'll be out presently. Shut that curtain! I don't want the
+entire car to criticise my pink pajamas!"
+
+"Ain' nobody in de cyar, 'scusin yo'se'f, suh," grinned the porter,
+retiring.
+
+I heard him, but did not comprehend, sitting there sleepily unfolding
+the scrawled telegram. Suddenly my eyes flew wide open; I scanned the
+despatch with stunned incredulity:
+
+
+              "ATLANTA, GEORGIA.
+
+    "We couldn't help it. Love at first sight. Married this
+    morning in Atlanta. Wildly happy. Forgive. Wire blessing.
+
+          "(Signed) HAROLD KENSETT,
+          "HELEN BARRISON KENSETT."
+
+"Porter!" I shouted. "Porter! Help!"
+
+There was no response.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" I groaned, and rolled over, burying my head in the
+blankets; for I understood at last that Science, the most jealous,
+most exacting of mistresses, could never brook a rival.
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                      |
+    |                                                              |
+    | Page  86: beautful replaced with beautiful                   |
+    | Page 180: Magazin replaced with Magazine                     |
+    | Page 206: sun-sorched replaced with sun-scorched             |
+    |                                                              |
+    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's In Search of the Unknown, by Robert W. Chambers
+
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