[Illustration: "Dainty noses to the wind, their beautiful eyes wide andalert. "]

 POLICE!!!

 BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

 ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY HUTT

 NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1915

TO LOUISE JOCELYN

 All the pretty things you say, All the pretty things you do In your own delightful way Make me fall in love with you, Turning Autumn into May. 

 Every day is twice as gay Just because of you, Louise! Which is going some, you say? In my dull, pedantic way I am fashioning my lay Just because I want to please. 

 Just because the things you say, Just because the things you do In your clever, charming way Make me fall in love with you. That is all, my dear, to-day. 

R. W. C. 

_Christmas, 1915. _

FOREWORD

 Give me no gold nor palaces Nor quarts of gems in chalices Nor mention me in Who is Who I'd rather roam abroad with you Investigating sky and land, Volcanoes, lakes, and glacial sand I'd rather climb with all my legs To find a nest of speckled eggs, Or watch the spotted spider spin Or see a serpent shed its skin! Give me no star-and-garter blue! I'd rather roam around with you. 

 Flatten me not with flattery! Walk with me to the Battery, And see in glassy tanks the seals, The sturgeons, flounders, smelt and eels Disport themselves in ichthyic curves-- And when it gets upon our nerves Then, while our wabbling taxi honks I'll tell you all about the Bronx, Where captive wild things mope and stare Through grills of steel that bar each lair Doomed to imprisonment for life-- And you may go and take your wife. 

 Come to the Park[1] with me; I'll show you crass stupidity Which sentences the hawk and fox To inactivity, and locks The door of freedom on the lynx Where puma pines and eagle stinks. Never a slaver's fetid hold Has held the misery untold That crowds the great cats' kennels where Their vacant eyes glare blank despair Half crazed by sloth, half dazed by fear All day, all night, year after year. 

 To the swift, clean things that cleave the air To the swift, clean things that cleave the sea To the swift, clean things that brave and dare Forest and peak and prairie free, A cage to craze and stifle and stun And a fat man feeding a penny bun And a she-one giggling, "Ain't it grand!" As she drags a dirty-nosed brat by the hand. 

[Footnote 1: Central Park, filthiest, cruellest and most outrageous ofzoological exhibitions. ]

PREFACE

On a beautiful day in spring as I was running as hard as I could runpursued by the New York police and a number of excited citizens, my mind, which becomes brilliantly active under physical exhilaration, began towork busily. 

I thought about all sorts of things: I thought about hard times andfinancial depression and about our great President who is in a classall alone with himself and soon to become extinct; I thought aboutart and why there isn't any when it's talked about; I thought ofmacro-lepidoptera, of metagrammatism, monoliths, manicures, and monsoons. 

And all the time I was running as fast as I could run; and the faster Iran the more things I thought about until my terrific pace set my brainwhizzing like a wheel. 

I felt no remorse at having published these memoirs of my life--which waswhy the police and populace were pursuing me, maddened to frenzy by thefearless revelation of mighty scientific truths in this little volume youare about to attempt to read. _Ubicumque ars ostentatur, veritas abessevidetur!_

I thought about it clearly, calmly, concisely as I fled. The maddenedshouts of the prejudiced populace did not disturb me. Around and aroundthe Metropolitan Museum of Art I ran; the inmates of that institutioncame out to watch me and they knew at a glance that I was one of them forthey set up a clamor like a bunch of decoy ducks when one of their wildcomrades comes whirling by. 

"Police! Police!" they shouted; but I went careering on uptown, afraidonly that the park squirrels might club together to corner me. There arecorners in grain. Why not in--but let that pass. 

I took the park wall in front of the great Mr. Carnegie's cottage at asingle bound. He stood on his terrace and shouted, "Police!" He was quitelogical. 

The Equal Franchise Society was having a May party in the park near theHarlem Mere. They had chosen the Honorable William Jennings Bryan asQueen of the May. He wore low congress-gaiters and white socks; he waswalking under a canopy, crowned with paper flowers, his hair curled overhis coat collar, the tips of his fingers were suavely joined over hisabdomen. 

The moment he caught sight of me he shouted, "Police!"

He was right. The cabinet lacked only me. 

And I might have consented to tarry--might have allowed myself to beapprehended for political purposes, had not a nobler, holier, moreimperative duty urged me northward still. 

Though all Bloomingdale shouted, "Stop him!" and all Matteawan yelled, "Police!" I should not have consented to pause. Even the quackitudinousrecognition spontaneously offered by the Metropolitan Museum had not beensufficient to decoy me to my fellows. 

I knew, of course, that I could find a sanctuary and a welcome in manyplaces--in almost any sectarian edifice, any club, any newspaper office, any of the great publishers', any school, any museum; I knew that I wouldbe welcomed at Columbia University, at the annex to the Hall of Fame, inthe Bishop's Palace on Morningside Heights--there were many places allready to receive, understand and honour me. 

For a sufficiently crippled intellect, for a still-born brain, for theintellectually aborted, there is always a place on some editorial, sectarian, or educational staff. 

Try It!

But I had other ideas as I galloped northward. The voiceless summons ofthe most jealous of mistresses was making siren music in my ears. Thatcoquettish jade, Science, was calling me by wireless, and I wasresponding with both legs. 

And so, at last, I arrived at the Bronx Park and dashed into theAdministration Building where everybody rose and cheered me to the echo. 

I was at home at last, unterrified, undismayed, and ready again as alwaysto dedicate my life to the service of Truth and to every caprice and whimof my immortal mistress, Science. But I don't want to marry her. 

_Magna est veritas! Sed major et longinquo reverentia. _

CONTENTS

The Third Eye

The Immortal

The Ladies of the Lake

One Over

Un Peu d'Amour

The Eggs of the Silver Moon

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Dainty noses to the wind, their beautiful eyes wide and alert"

"Climbing about among the mangroves above the water"

"To see him feed made me sick"

"'Kemper!' I shouted. .. . 'He's one of them! Knock him flat with yourriflestock!'"

"Say, listen, Bo--I mean Prof. , I've got the goods'"

"He played on his concertina . .. On the chance that the music might lurea cave-girl down the hill"

"Moving warily and gracefully amid the great coquina slabs"

"I collapsed into the arms of the nicest looking one"

"The heavy artillery was evidently frightened"

"Somebody had swooned in his arms, too"

"'If you keep me up this tree and starve me to death it will be murder'"

"Then a horrible thing occurred"

"I felt so sorry for her that I kissed her"

"Out of the mud rose _five or six dozen mammoths_"

"Dr. Delmour used up every film in the camera to record the scientifictriumph of the ages"

"'Everybody has put one over on me!' I shrieked"

"Miss Blythe had carried to her father a large bucket of lettuce leaves"

"'Don't let it bite!' cried the girl. 'Be careful, Mr. Smith!'"

"Kicked over the bucket of salad, and began to dance with rage"

"'It's a worm!' shrieked Blythe"

"'Which way do you usually go home?' I asked"

"This little caterpillar . .. Is certain to find those leaves'"

POLICE!!!

Being a few deathless truths concerning several mysteries recently andscientifically unravelled by a modest servant of Science. 

_Quo quisque stultior, eo magis insolescit. _

THE THIRD EYE

Although the man's back was turned toward me, I was uncomfortablyconscious that he was watching me. How he could possibly be watchingme while I stood directly behind him, I did not ask myself; yet, nevertheless, instinct warned me that I was being inspected; thatsomehow or other the man was staring at me as steadily as though he andI had been face to face and his faded, sea-green eyes were focussed uponme. 

It was an odd sensation which persisted in spite of logic, and of whichI could not rid myself. Yet the little waitress did not seem to share it. Perhaps she was not under his glassy inspection. But then, of course, Icould not be either. 

No doubt the nervous tension incident to the expedition was making mesupersensitive and even morbid. 

Our sail-boat rode the shallow torquoise-tinted waters at anchor, rockinggently just off the snowy coral reef on which we were now camping. Theyouthful waitress who, for economy's sake, wore her cap, apron, collarand cuffs over her dainty print dress, was seated by the signal firewriting in her diary. Sometimes she thoughtfully touched her pencil pointwith the tip of her tongue; sometimes she replenished the fire from apile of dead mangrove branches heaped up on the coral reef beside her. Whatever she did she accomplished gracefully. 

As for the man, Grue, his back remained turned toward us both and hecontinued, apparently, to scan the horizon for the sail which we allexpected. And all the time I could not rid myself of the unpleasant ideathat somehow or other he was looking at me, watching attentively theexpression of my features and noting my every movement. 

The smoke of our fire blew wide across leagues of shallow, sparklingwater, or, when the wind veered, whirled back into our faces across thereef, curling and eddying among the standing mangroves like fog drifting. 

Seated there near the fire, from time to time I swept the horizon with mymarine glasses; but there was no sign of Kemper; no sail broke the farsweep of sky and water; nothing moved out there save when a wild ducktook wing amid the dark raft of its companions to circle low above theocean and settle at random, invisible again except when, at intervals, its white breast flashed in the sunshine. 

Meanwhile the waitress had ceased to write in her diary and now sat withthe closed book on her knees and her pencil resting against her lips, gazing thoughtfuly at the back of Grue's head. 

It was a ratty head of straight black hair, and looked greasy. The restof him struck me as equally unkempt and dingy--a youngish man, lean, deeply bitten by the sun of the semi-tropics to a mahogany hue, andunusually hairy. 

I don't mind a brawny, hairy man, but the hair on Grue's arms and chestwas a rusty red, and like a chimpanzee's in texture, and sometimes awildly absurd idea possessed me that the man needed it when he went aboutin the palm forests without his clothes. 

But he was only a "poor white"--a "cracker" recruited from one of thereefs near Pelican Light, where he lived alone by fishing and selling hisfish to the hotels at Heliatrope City. The sail-boat was his; he figuredas our official guide on this expedition--an expedition which already hadbegun to worry me a great deal. 

For it was, perhaps, the wildest goose chase and the most absurdlyhopeless enterprise ever undertaken in the interest of science by theBronx Park authorities. 

Nothing is more dreaded by scientists than ridicule; and it was in spiteof this terror of ridicule that I summoned sufficient courage to organizean exploring party and start out in search of something so extraordinary, so hitherto unheard of, that I had not dared reveal to Kemper by letterthe object of my quest. 

No, I did not care to commit myself to writing just yet; I had merelysent Kemper a letter to join me on Sting-ray Key. 

He telegraphed me from Tampa that he would join me at the rendezvous; andI started directly from Bronx Park for Heliatrope City; arrived there inthree days; found the waitress all ready to start with me; inquired abouta guide and discovered the man Grue in his hut off Pelican Light; made mybargain with him; and set sail for Sting-ray Key, the most excited andthe most nervous young man who ever had dared disaster in the sacredcause of science. 

Everything was now at stake, my honour, reputation, career, fortune. For, as chief of the Anthropological Field Survey Department of the greatBronx Park Zoölogical Society, I was perfectly aware that no scientificreputation can survive ridicule. 

Nevertheless, the die had been cast, the Rubicon crossed in a sail-boatcontaining one beachcombing cracker, one hotel waitress, a pile ofcamping kit and special utensils, and myself!

How was I going to tell Kemper? How was I going to confess to him that Iwas staking my reputation as an anthropologist upon a letter or two anda personal interview with a young girl--a waitress at the Hotel Gardeniain Heliatrope City?

 * * * * *

I lowered my sea-glasses and glanced sideways at the waitress. She wasstill chewing the end of her pencil, reflectively. 

She was a pretty girl, one Evelyn Grey, and had been a countryschool-teacher in Massachusetts until her health broke. 

Florida was what she required; but that healing climate was possible toher only if she could find there a self-supporting position. 

Also she had nourished an ambition for a postgraduate education, withfurther aspirations to a Government appointment in the SmithsonianInstitute. 

All very worthy, no doubt--in fact, particularly commendable because thewages she saved as waitress in a Florida hotel during the winter were heronly means of support while studying for college examinations during thesummer in Boston, where she lived. 

Yet, although she was an inmate of Massachusetts, her face and figurewould have ornamented any light-opera stage. I never looked at her butI thought so; and her cuffs and apron merely accentuated the delusion. Such ankles are seldom seen when the curtain rises after the overture. Odd that frivolous thoughts could flit through an intellect dedicatedonly to science!

The man, Grue, had not stirred from his survey of the Atlantic Ocean. Hehad a somewhat disturbing capacity for remaining motionless--like astealthy and predatory bird which depends on immobility for aggressiveand defensive existence. 

The sea-wind fluttered his cotton shirt and trousers and the tatteredbrim of his straw hat. And always I felt as though he were watching meout of the back of his ratty head, through the ravelled straw brim thatsagged over his neck. 

The pretty waitress had now chewed the end of her pencil to asatisfactory pulp, and she was writing again in her diary, very intently, so that my cautious touch on her arm seemed to startle her. 

Meeting her inquiring eyes I said in a low voice:

"I am not sure why, but I don't seem to care very much for that man, Grue. Do you?"

She glanced at the water's edge, where Grue stood, immovable, his backstill turned to us. 

"I never liked him, " she said under her breath. 

"Why?" I asked cautiously. 

She merely shrugged her shoulders. She did it gracefully. 

I said:

"Have you any particular reason for disliking him?"

"He's dirty. "

"He _looks_ dirty, yet every day he goes into the sea and swims about. Heought to be clean enough. "

She thought for a moment, then:

"He seems, somehow, to be fundamentally unclean--I don't mean that hedoesn't wash himself. But there are certain sorts of animals and birdsand other creatures from which one instinctively shrinks--not, perhaps, because they are materially unclean--"

"I understand, " I said. After a silence I added: "Well, there's no chancenow of sending him back, even if I were inclined to do so. He appears tobe familiar with these latitudes. I don't suppose we could find a betterman for our purpose. Do you?"

"No. He was a sponge fisher once, I believe. "

"Did he tell you so?"

"No. But yesterday, when you took the boat and cruised to the south, Isat writing here and keeping up the fire. And I saw Grue climbing aboutamong the mangroves over the water in a most uncanny way; and twosnake-birds sat watching him, and they never moved. 

"He didn't seem to see them; his back was toward them. And then, all atonce, he leaped backward at them where they sat on a mangrove, and he gotone of them by the neck--"

[Illustration: "Climbing about among the mangroves above thewater. "]

"What!"

The girl nodded. 

"By the neck, " she repeated, "and down they went into the water. And whatdo you suppose happened?"

"I can't imagine, " said I with a grimace. 

"Well, Grue went under, still clutching the squirming, flapping bird; andhe _stayed_ under. "

"Stayed under the _water_?"

"Yes, longer than any sponge diver I ever heard of. And I was becomingfrightened when the bloody bubbles and feathers began to come up--"

"_What_ was he doing under water?"

"He must have been tearing the bird to pieces. Oh, it was quiteunpleasant, I assure you, Mr. Smith. And when he came up and lookedat me out of those very vitreous eyes he resembled something horridlyamphibious. .. . And I felt rather sick and dizzy. "

"He's got to stop that sort of thing!" I said angrily. "Snake-birds areharmless and I won't have him killing them in that barbarous fashion. I've warned him already to let birds alone. I don't know how he catchesthem or why he kills them. But he seems to have a mania for doing it--"

I was interrupted by Grue's soft and rather pleasant voice from thewater's edge, announcing a sail on the horizon. He did not turn whenspeaking. 

The next moment I made out the sail and focussed my glasses on it. 

"It's Professor Kemper, " I announced presently. 

"I'm so glad, " remarked Evelyn Grey. 

I don't know why it should have suddenly occurred to me, apropos ofnothing, that Billy Kemper was unusually handsome. Or why I shouldhave turned and looked at the pretty waitress--except that she was, perhaps, worth gazing upon from a purely non-scientific point of view. Infact, to a man not entirely absorbed in scientific research and notpassionately and irrevocably wedded to his profession, her violet-blueeyes and rather sweet mouth might have proved disturbing. 

As I was thinking about this she looked up at me and smiled. 

"It's a good thing, " I thought to myself, "that I am irrevocably weddedto my profession. " And I gazed fixedly across the Atlantic Ocean. 

 * * * * *

There was scarcely sufficient breeze of a steady character to bringKemper to Sting-ray Key; but he got out his sweeps when I hailed him andcame in at a lively clip, anchoring alongside of our boat and leapingashore with that unnecessary dash and abandon which women find pleasing. 

Glancing sideways at my waitress through my spectacles, I found herlooking into a small hand mirror and patting her hair with one slim andsuntanned hand. 

When Professor Kemper landed on the coral he shot a curious look at Grue, and then came striding across the reef to me. 

"Hello, Smithy!" he said, holding out his hand. "Here I am, you see! Nowwhat's up--"

Just then Evelyn Grey got up from her seat beside the fire; and Kemperturned and gazed at her with every symptom of unfeigned approbation. 

I introduced him. Evelyn Grey seemed a trifle indifferent. A good-lookingman doesn't last long with a clever woman. I smiled to myself, polishingmy spectacles gleefully. Yet, I had no idea why I was smiling. 

We three people turned and walked toward the comb of the reef. A solitarypalm represented the island's vegetation, except, of course, for thewater-growing mangroves. 

I asked Miss Grey to precede us and wait for us under the palm;and she went forward in that light-footed way of hers which, to anynon-scientific man, might have been a trifle disturbing. It had no effectupon me. Besides, I was looking at Grue, who had gone to the fire and wasevidently preparing to fry our evening meal of fish and rice. I didn'tlike to have him cook, but I wasn't going to do it myself; and my prettywaitress didn't know how to cook anything more complicated than beans. We had no beans. 

Kemper said to me:

"Why on earth did you bring a waitress?"

"Not to wait on table, " I replied, amused. "I'll explain her later. Meanwhile, I merely want to say that you need not remain with thisexpedition if you don't want to. It's optional with you. "

"That's a funny thing to say!"

"No, not funny; sad. The truth is that if I fail I'll be driven intoobscurity by the ridicule of my brother scientists the world over. I hadto tell them at the Bronx what I was going after. Every man connectedwith the society attempted to dissuade me, saying that the whole thingwas absurd and that my reputation would suffer if I engaged in such aridiculous quest. So when you hear what that girl and I are after outhere in the semi-tropics, and when you are in possession of the onlyevidence I have to justify my credulity, if you want to go home, go. Because I don't wish to risk your reputation as a scientist unless youchoose to risk it yourself. "

He regarded me curiously, then his eyes strayed toward the palm-treewhich Evelyn Grey was now approaching. 

"All right, " he said briefly, "let's hear what's up. "

So we moved forward to rejoin the girl, who had already seated herselfunder the tree. 

She looked very attractive in her neat cuffs, tiny cap, and pink printgown, as we approached her. 

"Why does she dress that way?" asked Kemper, uneasily. 

"Economy. She desires to use up the habiliments of a service which therewill be no necessity for her to reënter if this expedition provessuccessful. "

"Oh. But Smithy--"

"What?"

"Was it--moral--to bring a waitress?"

"Perfectly, " I replied sharply. "Science knows no sex!"

"I don't understand how a waitress can be scientific, " he muttered, "andthere seems to be no question about her possessing plenty of sex--"

"If that girl's conclusions are warranted, " I interrupted coldly, "she isa most intelligent and clever person. _I_ think they are warranted. Ifyou don't, you may go home as soon as you like. "

I glanced at him; he was smiling at her with that strained politenesswhich alters the natural expression of men in the imminence of aconversation with a new and pretty woman. 

I often wonder what particular combination of facial muscles are broughtinto play when that politely receptive expression transforms the normaland masculine features into a fixed simper. 

When Kemper and I had seated ourselves, I calmly cut short the small talkin which he was already indulging, and to which, I am sorry to say, mypretty waitress was beginning to respond. I had scarcely thought it ofher--but that's neither here nor there--and I invited her to recapitulatethe circumstances which had resulted in our present foregathering here onthis strip of coral in the Atlantic Ocean. 

She did so very modestly and without embarrassment, stating the case andreviewing the evidence so clearly and so simply that I could see howevery word she uttered was not only amazing but also convincing Kemper. 

When she had ended he asked a few questions very seriously:

"Granted, " he said, "that the pituitary gland represents what we assumeit represents, how much faith is to be placed in the testimony of aSeminole Indian?"

"A Seminole Indian, " she replied, "has seldom or never been known to lie. And where a whole tribe testify alike the truth of what they assert cannot be questioned. "

"How did you make them talk? They are a sullen, suspicious people, haughty, uncommunicative, seldom even replying to an ordinary questionfrom a white man. "

"They consider me one of them. "

"Why?" he asked in surprise. 

"I'll tell you why. It came about through a mere accident. I was waitressat the hotel; it happened to be my afternoon off; so I went down to thecoquina dock to study. I study in my leisure moments, because I wish tofit myself for a college examination. "

Her charming face became serious; she picked up the hem of her apron andcontinued to pleat it slowly and with precision as she talked:

"There was a Seminole named Tiger-tail sitting there, his feet danglingabove his moored canoe, evidently waiting for the tide to turn before hewent out to spear crayfish. I merely noticed he was sitting there in thesunshine, that's all. And then I opened my mythology book and turned tothe story of Argus, on which I was reading up. 

"And this is what happened: there was a picture of the death of Argus, facing the printed page which I was reading--the well-known picture whereJuno is holding the head of the decapitated monster--and I had readscarcely a dozen words in the book before the Seminole beside me leanedover and placed his forefinger squarely upon the head of Argus. 

"'Who?' he demanded. 

"I looked around good-humoredly and was surprised at the evidentexcitement of the Indian. They're not excitable, you know. 

"'That, ' said I, 'is a Greek gentleman named Argus. ' I suppose he thoughtI meant a Minorcan, for he nodded. Then, without further comment, heplaced his finger on Juno. 

"'_Who?_' he inquired emphatically. 

"I said flippantly: 'Oh, that's only my aunt, Juno. '

"'Aunty of you?'

"'Yes. '

"'She kill 'um Three-eye?'

"Argus had been depicted with three eyes. 

"'Yes, ' I said, 'my Aunt Juno had Argus killed. '

"'Why kill 'um?'

"'Well, Aunty needed his eyes to set in the tails of the peacocks whichdrew her automobile. So when they cut off the head of Argus my aunt hadthe eyes taken out; and that's a picture of how she set them into thepeacock. '

"'Aunty of _you_?' he repeated. 

"'Certainly, ' I said gravely; 'I am a direct descendant of the Goddess ofWisdom. That's why I'm always studying when you see me down on the dockhere. '

"_'You Seminole!_' he said emphatically. 

"'Seminole, ' I repeated, puzzled. 

"'You Seminole! Aunty Seminole--_you_ Seminole!'

"'Why, Tiger-tail?'

"'Seminole hunt Three-eye long time--hundred, hundred year--hunt 'umThree-eye, kill 'um Three-eye. '

"'You say that for hundreds of years the Seminoles have hunted a creaturewith three eyes?'

"'Sure! Hunt 'um now!'

"'_Now?_'

"'Sure!'

"'But, Tiger-tail, if the legends of your people tell you that theSeminoles hunted a creature with three eyes hundreds of years ago, certainly no such three-eyed creatures remain today?'

"'Some. '

"'What! Where?'

"'Black Bayou. '

"'Do you mean to tell me that a living creature with three eyes stillinhabits the forests of Black Bayou?'

"'Sure. Me see 'um. Me kill 'um three-eye man. '

"'You have killed a man who had _three eyes_?'

"'Sure!'

"'A man? _With three eyes?_'

"'Sure. '"

 * * * * *

The pretty waitress, excitedly engrossed in her story, was unconsciouslyacting out the thrilling scene of her dialogue with the Indian, evenimitating his voice and gestures. And Kemper and I listened and watchedher breathlessly, fascinated by her lithe and supple grace as well as bythe astounding story she was so frankly unfolding with the consummateartlessness of a natural actress. 

She turned her flushed face to us:

"I made up my mind, " she said, "that Tiger-tail's story was worthinvestigating. It was perfectly easy for me to secure corroboration, because that Seminole went back to his Everglade camp and told every oneof his people that I was a white Seminole because my ancestors alsohunted the three-eyed man and nobody except a Seminole could know thatsuch a thing as a three-eyed man existed. 

"So, the next afternoon off, I embarked in Tiger-tail's canoe and hetook me to his camp. And there I talked to his people, men and women, questioning, listening, putting this and that together, trying todiscover some foundation for their persistent statements concerning men, still living in the jungles of Black Bayou, who had three eyes insteadof two. 

"All told the same story; all asserted that since the time their recordsran the Seminoles had hunted and slain every three-eyed man they couldcatch; and that as long as the Seminoles had lived in the Everglades thethree-eyed men had lived in the forests beyond Black Bayou. "

She paused, dramatically, cooling her cheeks in her palms and lookingfrom Kemper to me with eyes made starry by excitement. 

"And _what_ do you think!" she continued, under her breath. "To provewhat they said they brought for my inspection a skull. And then two moreskulls like the first one. 

"Every skull had been painted with Spanish red; the coarse black hairstill stuck to the scalps. And, behind, just over where the pituitarygland is situated, was a hollow, bony orbit--unmistakably the socket ofa _third eye_!"

"W-where are those skulls?" demanded Kemper, in a voice not entirelyunder control. 

"They wouldn't part with one of them. I tried every possible persuasion. On my own responsibility, and even before I communicated with Mr. Smith--" turning toward me, "--I offered them twenty thousand dollars fora single skull, staking my word of honour that the Bronx Museum wouldpay that sum. 

"It was useless. Not only do the Seminoles refuse to part with one ofthose skulls, but I have also learned that I am the first person with awhite skin who has ever even heard of their existence--so profoundly havethese red men of the Everglades guarded their secret through centuries. "

After a silence Kemper, rather pale, remarked:

"This is a most astonishing business, Miss Grey. "

"What do you think about it?" I demanded. "Is it not worth while for usto explore Black Bayou?"

He nodded in a dazed sort of way, but his gaze remained riveted on thegirl. Presently he said:

"Why does Miss Grey go?"

She turned in surprise:

"Why am I going? But it is _my_ discovery--_my_ contribution to science, isn't it?"

"Certainly!" we exclaimed warmly and in unison. And Kemper added: "I wasonly thinking of the dangers and hardships. Smith and I could do theactual work--"

"Oh!" she cried in quick protest, "I wouldn't miss one moment of theexcitement, one pain, one pang! I _love_ it! It would simply break myheart not to share every chance, hazard, danger of this expedition--everyatom of hope, excitement, despair, uncertainty--and the ultimatesuccess--the unsurpassable thrill of exultation in the final instantof triumph!"

She sprang to her feet in a flash of uncontrollable enthusiasm, and stoodthere, aglow with courage and resolution, making a highly agreeablepicture in her apron and cuffs, the sea wind fluttering the brighttendrils of her hair under her dainty cap. 

We got to our feet much impressed; and now absolutely convinced thatthere did exist, somewhere, descendants of prehistoric men in whom thethird eye--placed in the back of the head for purposes of defensiveobservation--had not become obsolete and reduced to the traces which weknow only as the pituitary body or pituitary gland. 

Kemper and I were, of course, aware that in the insect world the ocelliserved the same purpose that the degenerate pituitary body once served inthe occiput of man. 

As we three walked slowly back to the campfire, where our evening mealwas now ready, Evelyn Grey, who walked between us, told us what sheknew about the hunting of these three-eyed men by the Seminoles--howintense was the hatred of the Indians for these people, how murderouslythey behaved toward any one of them whom they could track down and catch. 

"Tiger-tail told me, " she went on, "that in all probability the strangerace was nearing extinction, but that all had not yet been exterminatedbecause now and then, when hunting along Black Bayou, traces of livingthree-eyed men were still found by him and his people. 

"No later than last week Tiger-tail himself had startled one of thesestrange denizens of Black Bayou from a meal of fish; and had heard himleap through the bushes and plunge into the water. It appears thatcenturies of persecution have made these three-eyed men partlyamphibious--that is, capable of filling their lungs with air andremaining under water almost as long as a turtle. "

"That's impossible!" said Kemper bluntly. 

"I thought so myself, " she said with a smile, "until Tiger-tail told mea little more about them. He says that they can breathe through the poresof their skins; that their bodies are covered with a thick, silky hair, and that when they dive they carry down with them enough air to form asort of skin over them, so that under water their bodies appear to besilver-plated. "

"Good Lord!" faltered Kemper. "That is a little too much!"

"Yet, " said I, "that is exactly what air-breathing water beetles do. Theglobules of air, clinging to the body-hairs, appear to silver-plate them;and they can remain below indefinitely, breathing through spiracles. Doubtless the skin pores of these men have taken on the character ofspiracles. "

"You know, " he said in a curious, flat voice, which sounded likethe tones of a partly stupified man, "this whole business is sogrotesque--apparently so wildly absurd--that it's having a sort ofnightmare effect on me. " And, dropping his voice to a whisper close tomy ear: "Good heavens!" he said. "Can you reconcile such a creature aswe are starting out to hunt, with anything living known to science?"

"No, " I replied in guarded tones. "And there are moments, Kemper, sinceI have come into possession of Miss Grey's story, when I find myselfseriously doubting my own sanity. "

"I'm doubting mine, now, " he whispered, "only that girl is so fresh andwholesome and human and sane--"

"She is a very clever girl, " I said. 

"And really beautiful!"

"She is intelligent, " I remarked. There was a chill in my tone whichdoubtless discouraged Kemper, for he ventured nothing further concerningher superficially personal attractions. 

After all, if any questions of priority were to arise, the prettywaitress was _my_ discovery. And in the scientific world it is aninflexible rule that he who first discovers any particular specimen ofany species whatever is first entitled to describe and comment upon thatspecimen without interference or unsolicited advice from anybody. 

Maybe there was in my eye something that expressed as much. For whenKemper caught my cold gaze fixed upon him he winced and looked away likea reproved setter dog who knew better. Which also, for the moment, put anend to the rather gay and frivolous line of small talk which he had againbegun with the pretty waitress. 

I was exceedingly surprised at Professor William Henry Kemper, D. F. 

As we approached the campfire the loathsome odour of frying mulletsaluted my nostrils. 

Kemper, glancing at Grue, said aside to me:

"That's an odd-looking fellow. What is he? Minorcan?"

"Oh, just a beachcomber. I don't know what he is. He strikes me asdirty--though he can't be so, physically. I don't like him and I don'tknow why. And I wish we'd engaged somebody else to guide us. "

Toward dawn something awoke me and I sat up in my blanket under the moon. But my leg had not been pulled. 

Kemper snored at my side. In her little dog-tent the pretty waitressprobably was fast asleep. I knew it because the string she had tied toone of her ornamental ankles still lay across the ground convenient to myhand. In any emergency I had only to pull it to awake her. 

A similar string, tied to my ankle, ran parallel to hers and disappearedunder the flap of her tent. This was for her to pull if she liked. Shehad never yet pulled it. Nor I the other. Nevertheless I truly felt thatthese humble strings were, in a subtler sense, ties that bound ustogether. No wonder Kemper's behaviour had slightly irritated me. 

I looked up at the silver moon; I glanced at Kemper's unlovely bulk, swathed in a blanket; I contemplated the dog-tent with, perhaps, thatslight trace of sentiment which a semi-tropical moon is likely to inspireeven in a jellyfish. And suddenly I remembered Grue and looked for him. 

He was accustomed to sleep in his boat, but I did not see him in eitherof the boats. Here and there were a few lumpy shadows in the moonlight, but none of them was Grue lying prone on the ground. Where the devil hadhe gone?

Cautiously I untied my ankle string, rose in my pajamas, stepped into myslippers, and walked out through the moonlight. 

There was nothing to hide Grue, no rocks or vegetation except thesolitary palm on the back-bone of the reef. 

I walked as far as the tree and looked up into the arching fronds. Nobodywas up there. I could see the moonlit sky through the fronds. Nor wasGrue lying asleep anywhere on the other side of the coral ridge. 

And suddenly I became aware of all my latent distrust and dislike for theman. And the vigour of my sentiments surprised me because I really hadnot understood how deep and thorough my dislike had been. 

Also, his utter disappearance struck me as uncanny. Both boats werethere; and there were many leagues of sea to the nearest coast. 

Troubled and puzzled I turned and walked back to the dead embers of thefire. Kemper had merely changed the timbre of his snore to a whistlingaria, which at any other time would have enraged me. Now, somehow, italmost comforted me. 

Seated on the shore I looked out to sea, racking my brains for anexplanation of Grue's disappearance. And while I sat there racking them, far out on the water a little flock of ducks suddenly scattered and rosewith frightened quackings and furiously beating wings. 

For a moment I thought I saw a round, dark object on the waves where theflock had been. 

And while I sat there watching, up out of the sea along the reef to myright crawled a naked, dripping figure holding a dead duck in his mouth. 

Fascinated, I watched it, recognising Grue with his ratty black hair allplastered over his face. 

Whether he caught sight of me or not, I don't know; but he suddenlydropped the dead duck from his mouth, turned, and dived under water. 

It was a grim and horrid species of sport or pastime, this amphibiousbusiness of his, catching wild birds and dragging them about as thoughhe were an animal. 

Evidently he was ashamed of himself, for he had dropped the duck. Iwatched it floating by on the waves, its head under water. Suddenlysomething jerked it under, a fish perhaps, for it did not come up andfloat again, as far as I could see. 

When I went back to camp Grue lay apparently asleep on the north side ofthe fire. I glanced at him in disgust and crawled into my tent. 

The next day Evelyn Grey awoke with a headache and kept her tent. I hadall I could do to prevent Kemper from prescribing for her. I did thatmyself, sitting beside her and testing her pulse for hours at a time, while Kemper took one of Grue's grains and went off into the mangrovesand speared grunt and eels for a chowder which he said he knew how toconcoct. 

Toward afternoon the pretty waitress felt much better, and I warnedKemper and Grue that we should sail for Black Bayou after dinner. 

 * * * * *

Dinner was a mess, as usual, consisting of fried mullet and rice, and asort of chowder in which the only ingredients I recognised were sectionsof crayfish. 

After we had finished and had withdrawn from the fire, Grue scraped everyremaining shred of food into a kettle and went for it. To see him feedmade me sick, so I rejoined Miss Grey and Kemper, who had found a greencocoanut and were alternately deriving nourishment from the milk insideit. 

[Illustration: "To see him feed made me sick. "]

Somehow or other there seemed to me a certain levity about thatperformance, and it made me uncomfortable; but I managed to smile arather sickly smile when they offered me a draught, and I took a pull atthe milk--I don't exactly know why, because I don't like it. But the moonwas up over the sea, now, and the dusk was languorously balmy, and Ididn't care to leave those two drinking milk out of the same cocoanutunder a tropic moon. 

Not that my interest in Evelyn Grey was other than scientific. But afterall it was I who had discovered her. 

We sailed as soon as Grue, gobbling and snuffling, had cleaned up thelast crumb of food. Kemper blandly offered to take Miss Grey into hisboat, saying that he feared my boat was overcrowded, what with theparaphernalia, the folding cages, Grue, Miss Grey, and myself. 

I sat on that suggestion, but offered to take my own tiller and lend himGrue. He couldn't wriggle out of it, seeing that his alleged motive hadbeen the overcrowding of my boat, but he looked rather sick when Gruewent aboard his boat. 

As for me, I hoisted sail with something so near a chuckle that itsurprised me; and I looked at Evelyn Grey to see whether she had noticedthe unseemly symptom. 

Apparently she had not. She sat forward, her eyes fixed soulfully uponthe moon. Had I been dedicated to any profession except a scientificone--but let that pass. 

Grue in Kemper's sail-boat led, and my boat followed out into the silveryand purple dusk, now all sparkling under the high lustre of the moon. 

Dimly I saw vast rafts of wild duck part and swim leisurely away to portand starboard, leaving a glittering lane of water for us to sail through;into the scintillant night from the sea sprang mullet, silvery, quivering, falling back into the wash with a splash. 

Here and there in the moonlight steered ominous black triangles, circlingus, leading us, sheering across bow and flashing wake, all phosphorescentwith lambent sea-fire--the fins of great sharks. 

"You need have no fear, " said I to the pretty waitress. 

She said nothing. 

"Of course if you _are_ afraid, " I added, "perhaps you might care tochange your seat. "

There was room in the stern where I sat. 

"Do you think there is any danger?" she asked. 

"From sharks?"

"Yes. "

"Reaching up and biting you?"

"Yes. "

"Oh, I don't really suppose there is, " I said, managing to convey theidea, I am ashamed to say, that the catastrophe was a possibility. 

She came over and seated herself beside me. I was very much ashamed ofmyself, but I could not repress a triumphant glance ahead at the otherboat, where Kemper sat huddled forward, evidently bored to extinction. 

Every now and then I could see him turn and crane his neck as though inan effort to distinguish what was going on in our boat. 

There was nothing going on, absolutely nothing. The moon was magnificent;and I think the pretty waitress must have been a little tired, for herhead drooped and nodded at moments, even while I was talking to her abouta specimen of _Euplectilla speciosa_ on which I had written a monograph. So she must have been really tired, for the subject was interesting. 

"You won't incommode my operations with sheet and tiller, " I said to herkindly, "if you care to rest your head against my shoulder. "

Evidently she was very tired, for she did so, and closed her eyes. 

After a while, fearing that she might fall over backward into thesea--but let that pass. .. . I don't know whether or not Kemper coulddistinguish anything aboard our boat. He craned his head enough to twistit off his neck. 

To be so utterly, so blindly devoted to science is a great safeguard fora man. Single-mindedness, however, need not induce atrophy of everyhumane impulse. I drew the pretty waitress closer--not that the night wascold, but it might become so. Changes in the tropics come swiftly. It iswell to be prepared. 

Her cheek felt very soft against my shoulder. There seemed to be a faintperfume about her hair. It really was odd how subtly fragrant she seemedto be--almost, perhaps, a matter of scientific interest. 

Her hands did not seem to be chilled; they did seem unusually smooth andsoft. 

I said to her: "When at home, I suppose your mother tucks you in; doesn'tshe?"

"Yes, " she nodded sleepily. 

"And what does she do then?" said I, with something of that ponderousplayfulness with which I make scientific jokes at a meeting of the BronxAnthropological Association, when I preside. 

"She kisses me and turns out the light, " said Evelyn Grey, innocently. 

I don't know how much Kemper could distinguish. He kept dodging about andtwisting his head until I really thought it would come off, unless it hadbeen screwed on like the top of a piano stool. 

A few minutes later he fired his pistol twice; and Evelyn sat up. I neverknew why he fired; he never offered any explanation. 

Toward midnight I could hear the roar of breakers on our starboard bow. Evelyn heard them, too, and sat up inquiringly. 

"Grue has found the inlet to Black Bayou, I suppose, " said I. 

And it proved to be the case, for, with the surf thundering on eitherhand, we sailed into a smoothly flowing inlet through which the floodtide was running between high dunes all sparkling in the moonlight andcrowned with shadowy palms. 

Occasionally I heard noises ahead of us from the other boat, as thoughKemper was trying to converse with us, but as his apropos was asunintelligible as it was inopportune, I pretended not to hear him. Besides, I had all I could do to manoeuvre the tiller and prevent EvelynGrey from falling off backward into the bayou. Besides, it is notcustomary to converse with the man at the helm. 

After a while--during which I seemed to distinguish in Kemper's voice aquality that rhymes with his name--his tones varied through phases allthe way from irony to exasperation. After a while he gave it up and tookto singing. 

There was a moon, and I suppose he thought he had a voice. It didn'tstrike me so. After several somewhat melancholy songs, he let off hispistol two or three times and then subsided into silence. 

I didn't care; neither his songs nor his shots interrupted--but let thatpass, also. 

We were now sailing into the forest through pool after pool ofinterminable lagoons, startling into unseen and clattering flighthundreds of waterfowl. I could feel the wind from their whistlingwings in the darkness, as they drove by us out to sea. It seemed tostartle the pretty waitress. It is a solemn thing to be responsible fora pretty girl's peace of mind. I reassured her continually, perhaps atrifle nervously. But there were no more pistol shots. Perhaps Kemper hadused up his cartridges. 

We were still drifting along under drooping sails, borne inland almostentirely by the tide, when the first pale, watery, gray light streakedthe east. When it grew a little lighter, Evelyn sat up; all danger ofsharks being over. Also, I could begin to see what was going on in theother boat. Which was nothing remarkable; Kemper slumped against themast, his head turned in our direction; Grue sat at the helm, motionless, his tattered straw hat sagging on his neck. 

When the sun rose, I called out cheerily to Kemper, asking him how he hadpassed the night. Evelyn also raised her head, pausing while bringing herdisordered hair under discipline, to listen to his reply. 

But he merely mumbled something. Perhaps he was still sleepy. 

As for me, I felt exceedingly well; and when Grue turned his craft inshore, I did so, too; and when, under the overhanging foliage of theforest, the nose of my boat grated on the sand, I rose and crossed thedeck with a step distinctly frolicsome. 

Kemper seemed distant and glum; Evelyn Grey spoke to him shyly now andthen, and I noticed she looked at him only when he was gazing elsewherethan at her. She had a funny, conciliatory air with him, half ashamed, partly humorous and amused, as though something about Kemper's sulkyill-humour was continually making tiny inroads on her gravity. 

Some mullet had jumped into the two boats--half a dozen during ourmoonlight voyage--and these were now being fried with rice for us byGrue. Lord! How I hated to eat them!

After we had finished breakfast, Grue, as usual, did everything to theremainder except to get into the fry-pan with both feet; and as usual hesickened me. 

When he'd cleaned up everything, I sent him off into the forest tofind a dry shell-mound for camping purposes; then I made fast bothboats, and Kemper and I carried ashore our paraphernalia, spare_batterie-de-cuisine_, firearms, fishing tackle, spears, harpoons, grains, oars, sails, spars, folding cage--everything with which astrictly scientific expedition is usually burdened. 

Evelyn was washing her face in the crystal waters of a branch that flowedinto the lagoon from under the live-oaks. She looked very pretty doingit, like a naiad or dryad scrubbing away at her forest toilet. 

It was, in fact, such a pretty spectacle that I was going over to sitbeside her while she did it, but Kemper started just when I was going to, and I turned away. Some men invariably do the wrong thing. But a handsomeman doesn't last long with a pretty girl. 

I was thinking of this as I stood contemplating an alligator slide, whenGrue came back saying that the shore on which we had landed was thetermination of a shell-mound, and that it was the only dry place he hadfound. 

So I bade him pitch our tents a few feet back from the shore; and stoodwatching him while he did so, one eye reverting occasionally to EvelynGrey and Kemper. They both were seated cross-legged beside the branch, and they seemed to be talking a great deal and rather earnestly. Icouldn't quite understand what they found to talk about so earnestly andvolubly all of a sudden, inasmuch as they had heretofore exchanged veryfew observations during a most brief and formal acquaintance, dating onlyfrom sundown the day before. 

Grue set up our three tents, carried the luggage inland, and then hungabout for a while until the vast shadow of a vulture swept across thetrees. 

I never saw such an indescribable expression on a human face as I sawon Grue's as he looked up at the huge, unclean bird. His vitreous eyesfairly glittered; the corners of his mouth quivered and grew wet; and tomy astonishment he seemed to emit a low, mewing noise. 

"What the devil are you doing?" I said impulsively, in my amazement anddisgust. 

He looked at me, his eyes still glittering, the corners of his mouthstill wet; but the curious sounds had ceased. 

"What?" he asked. 

"Nothing. I thought you spoke. " I didn't know what else to say. 

He made no reply. Once, when I had partly turned my head, I was awarethat he was warily turning his to look at the vulture, which had alightedheavily on the ground near the entrails and heads of the mullet, where hehad cast them on the dead leaves. 

I walked over to where Evelyn Grey and Kemper sat so busily conversing;and their volubility ceased as they glanced up and saw me approaching. Which phenomenon both perplexed and displeased me. 

I said:

"This is the Black Bayou forest, and we have the most serious businessof our lives before us. Suppose you and I start out, Kemper, and see ifthere are any traces of what we are after in the neighborhood of ourcamp. "

"Do you think it safe to leave Miss Grey alone in camp?" he askedgravely. 

I hadn't thought of that:

"No, of course not, " I said. "Grue can stay. "

"I don't need anybody, " she said quickly. "Anyway, I'm rather afraid ofGrue. "

"Afraid of Grue?" I repeated. 

"Not exactly afraid. But he's--unpleasant. "

"I'll remain with Miss Grey, " said Kemper politely. 

"Oh, " she exclaimed, "I couldn't ask that. It is true that I feel alittle tired and nervous, but I can go with you and Mr. Smith and Grue--"

I surveyed Kemper in cold perplexity. As chief of the expedition, Icouldn't very well offer to remain with Evelyn Grey, but I didn't proposethat Kemper should, either. 

"Take Grue, " he suggested, "and look about the woods for a while. Perhapsafter dinner Miss Grey may feel sufficiently rested to join us. "

"I am sure, " she said, "that a few hours' rest in camp will set me on myfeet. All I need is rest. I didn't sleep very soundly last night. "

I felt myself growing red, and I looked away from them both. 

"Oh, " said Kemper, in apparent surprise, "I thought you had slept soundlyall night long. "

"Nobody, " said I, "could have slept very pleasantly during that musicalperformance of yours. "

"Were you singing?" she asked innocently of Kemper. 

"He was singing when he wasn't firing off his pistol, " I remarked. "Nowonder you couldn't sleep with any satisfaction to yourself. "

Grue had disappeared into the forest; I stood watching for him to comeout again. After a few minutes I heard a furious but distant noise offlapping; the others also heard it; and we listened in silence, wonderingwhat it was. 

"It's Grue killing something, " faltered Evelyn Grey, turning a triflepale. 

"Confound it!" I exclaimed. "I'm going to stop that right now. "

Kemper rose and followed me as I started for the woods; but as we passedthe beached boats Grue appeared from among the trees. 

"Where have you been?" I demanded. 

"In the woods. "

"Doing what?"

"Nothing. "

There was a bit of down here and there clinging to his cotton shirt andtrousers, and one had caught and stuck at the corner of his mouth. 

"See here, Grue, " I said, "I don't want you to kill any birds except forcamp purposes. Why do you try to catch and kill birds?"

"I don't. "

I stared at the man and he stared back at me out of his glassy eyes. 

"You mean to say that you don't, somehow or other, manage to catch andkill birds?"

"No, I don't. "

There was nothing further for me to say unless I gave him the lie. Ididn't care to do that, needing his services. 

Evelyn Grey had come up to join us; there was a brief silence; weall stood looking at Grue; and he looked back at us out of his pale, washed-out, and unblinking eyes. 

"Grue, " I said, "I haven't yet explained to you the object of thisexpedition to Black Bayou. Now, I'll tell you what I want. But first letme ask you a question or two. You know the Black Bayou forests, don'tyou?"

"Yes. "

"Did you ever see anything unusual in these forests?"

"No. "

"Are you sure?"

The man stared at us, one after another. Then he said:

"What are you looking for in Black Bayou?"

"Something very curious, very strange, very unusual. So strange andunusual, in fact, that the great Zoölogical Society of the Bronx in NewYork has sent me down here at the head of this expedition to search theforests of Black Bayou. "

"For what?" he demanded, in a dull, accentless voice. 

"For a totally new species of human being, Grue. I wish to catch one andtake it back to New York in that folding cage. "

His green eyes had grown narrow as though sun-dazzled. Kemper had steppedbehind us into the woods and was now busy setting up the folding cage. Grue remained motionless. 

"I am going to offer you, " I said, "the sum of one thousand dollars ingold if you can guide us to a spot where we may see this hitherto unknownspecies--a creature which is apparently a man but which has, in the backof his head, a _third eye_--"

I paused in amazement: Grue's cheeks had suddenly puffed out and werequivering; and from the corners of his slitted mouth he was emitting awhimpering sound like the noise made by a low-circling pigeon. 

"Grue!" I cried. "What's the matter with you?"

"What is _he_ doing?" screamed Grue, quivering from head to foot, but notturning around. 

"Who?" I cried. 

"The man behind me!"

"Professor Kemper? He's setting up the folding cage--"

With a screech that raised my hair, Grue whipped out his murderous knifeand _hurled himself backward_ at Kemper, but the latter shrank asidebehind the partly erected cage, and Grue whirled around, snarling, hacking, and even biting at the wood frame and steel bars. 

And then occurred a thing so horrid that it sickened me to the pit of mystomach; for the man's sagging straw hat had fallen off, and there, inthe back of his head, through the coarse, black, ratty hair, I saw aglassy eye glaring at me. 

"Kemper!" I shouted. "He's got a third eye! He's one of them! Knock himflat with your riflestock!" And I seized a shot-gun from the top ofthe baggage bundle on the ground beside me, and leaped at Grue, aiminga terrific blow at him. 

[Illustration: "'Kemper!' I shouted. .. . 'He is one of them! Knock himflat with your riflestock!'"]

But the glassy eye in the back of his head was watching me between theclotted strands of hair, and he dodged both Kemper and me, swinging hisheavy knife in circles and glaring at us both out of the front and backof his head. 

Kemper seized him by his arm, but Grue's shirt came off, and I saw hisentire body was as furry as an ape's. And all the while he was snappingat us and leaping hither and thither to avoid our blows; and from thecorners of his puffed cheeks he whined and whimpered and mewed throughthe saliva foam. 

"Keep him from the water!" I panted, following him with clubbed shot-gun;and as I advanced I almost stepped on a soiled heap of foulness--the deadbuzzard which he had caught and worried to death with his teeth. 

Suddenly he threw his knife at my head, hurling it backward; dodged, screeched, and bounded by me toward the shore of the lagoon, where thepretty waitress was standing, petrified. 

For one moment I thought he had her, but she picked up her skirts, ranfor the nearest boat, and seized a harpoon; and in his fierce eagernessto catch her he leaped clear over the boat and fell with a splash intothe lagoon. 

As Kemper and I sprang aboard and looked over into the water, wecould see him going down out of reach of a harpoon; and his body seemedto be silver-plated, flashing and glittering like a burnished eel, socompletely did the skin of air envelope him, held there by the fur thatcovered him. 

And, as he rested for a moment on the bottom, deep down through the clearwaters of the lagoon where he lay prone, I could see, as the currentstirred his long, black hair, the third eye looking up at us, glassy, unwinking, horrible. 

 * * * * *

A bubble or two, like globules of quicksilver, were detached from theburnished skin of air that clothed him, and came glittering upward. 

Suddenly there was a flash; a flurrying cloud of blue mud; and Grue wasgone. 

 * * * * *

After a long while I turned around in the muteness of my despair. Andslowly froze. 

For the pretty waitress, becomingly pale, was gathered in Kemper's arms, her cheek against his shoulder. Neither seemed to be aware of me. 

"Darling, " he said, in the imbecile voice of a man in love, "why do youtremble so when I am here to protect you? Don't you love and trust me?"

"Oo--h--yes, " she sighed, pressing her cheek closer to his shoulder. 

I shoved my hands into my pockets, passed them without noticing them, andstepped ashore. 

And there I sat down under a tree, with my back toward them, all aloneand face to face with the greatest grief of my life. 

But which it was--the loss of her or the loss of Grue, I had not yet madeup my mind. 

THE IMMORTAL

I

As everybody knows, the great majority of Americans, upon reaching theage of natural selection, are elected to the American Institute of Artsand Ethics, which is, so to speak, the Ellis Island of the Academy. 

Occasionally a general mobilization of the Academy is ordered and, fromthe teeming population of the Institute, a new Immortal is selected forthe American Academy of Moral Endeavor by the simple process ofblindfolded selection from _Who's Which_. 

The motto of this most stately of earthly institutions is a peculiarlymodest, truthful, and unintentional epigram by Tupper:

"Unknown, I became Famous; Famous, I remain Unknown. "

And so I found it to be the case; for, when at last I was privileged towrite my name, "Smith, Academician, " I discovered to my surprise that Iknew none of my brother Immortals, and, more amazing still, none of themhad ever heard of me. 

This latter fact became the more astonishing to me as I learned theidentity of the other Immortals. 

Even the President of our great republic was numbered among theseOlympians. I had every right to suppose that he had heard of me. I hadhappened to hear of him, because his Secretary of State once mentionedhim at Chautauqua. 

It was a wonderfully meaningless sensation to know nobody and to discovermyself equally unknown amid that matchless companionship. We were like amixed bunch of gods, Greek, Norse, Hindu, Hottentot--all gathered onOlympus, having never heard of each other but taking it for granted thatwe were all gods together and all members of this club. 

My initiation into the Academy had been fixed for April first, and I wasmuch worried concerning the address which I was of course expected todeliver on that occasion before my fellow members. 

It had to be an exciting address because slumber was not an infrequentphenomenon among the Immortals on such solemn occasions. Like dozens ofdozing Joves a dull discourse always set them nodding. 

But always under such circumstances the pretty ushers from BarnardCollege passed around refreshments; a suffragette orchestra struck up;the ushers uprooted the seated Immortals and fox-trotted them intocomparative consciousness. 

But I didn't wish to have my inaugural address interrupted, therefore Iwas at my wits' ends to discover a subject of such exciting scientificinterest that my august audience could not choose but listen asattentively as they would listen from the front row to some deathlessstunt in vaudeville. 

That morning I had left the Bronx rather early, hoping that a long walkmight compose my thoughts and enable me to think of some sufficientlyentertaining and unusual subject for my inaugural address. 

I walked as far as Columbia University, gazed with rapture upon itsmagnificent architecture until I was as satiated as though I had arisenfrom a banquet at Childs'. 

To aid mental digestion I strolled over to the noble home of the Academyand Institute adjoining Mr. Huntington's Hispano-Moresque Museum. 

It was a fine, sunny morning, and the Immortals were being exercised by anumber of pretty ushers from Barnard. 

I gazed upon the impressive procession with pride unutterable; very soonI also should walk two and two in the sunshine, my dome crowned withfigurative laurels, cracking scientific witticisms with my fellowinmates, or, perhaps, squeezing the pretty fingers of some--But let thatpass. 

I was, as I say, gazing upon this inspiring scene on a beautiful morningin February, when I became aware of a short and visibly vulgar personbeside me, plucking persistently at my elbow. 

"Are you the great Academician, Perfessor Smith?" he asked, tipping hispearl-coloured and somewhat soiled bowler. 

"Yes, " I said condescendingly. "Your description of me precludes furtherdoubt. What can I do for you, my good man?"

"Are you this here Perfessor Smith of the Department of Anthropology inthe Bronx Park Zoölogical Society?" he persisted. 

"What do you desire of me?" I repeated, taking another look at him. Hewas exceedingly ordinary. 

"Prof, old sport, " he said cordially, "I took a slant at the papersyesterday, an' I seen all about the big time these guys had when you rodethe goat--"

"Rode--_what_?"

"When you was elected. Get me?"

I stared at him. He grinned in a friendly way. 

"The privacy of those solemn proceedings should remain sacred. It wereunfit to discuss such matters with the world at large, " I said coldly. 

"I get you, " he rejoined cheerfully. 

"What do you desire of me?" I repeated. "Why this unseemly apropos?"

"I was comin' to it. Perfessor, I'll be frank. I need money--"

"You need brains!"

"No, " he said good-humouredly, "I've got 'em; plenty of 'em; I'moverstocked with idees. What I want to do is to sell _you_ a few--"

"Do you know you are impudent!"

"Listen, friend. I seen a piece in the papers as how you was to make thespeech of your life when you ride the goat for these here guys on Aprilfirst--"

"I decline to listen--"

"_One_ minute, friend! I want to ask you one thing! _What_ are you goingto talk about?"

I was already moving away but I stopped and stared at him. 

"That's the question, " he nodded with unimpaired cheerfulness, "_what_are you going to talk about on April _the_ first? Remember it's thehot-air party of your life. _Ree_-member that each an' every paper in theUnited States will print what you say. Now, how about it, friend? Are youup in your lines?"

Swallowing my repulsion for him I said: "Why are you concerned as to whatmay be the subject of my approaching address?"

"There you are, Prof!" he exclaimed delightedly; "I want to do businesswith you. That's me! I'm frank about it. Say, there ought to be a wad ofthe joyful in it for us both--"

"What?"

"Sure. We can work it any old way. Take Tyng, Tyng and Company, thetypewriter people. I'd be ashamed to tell you what I can get out o'them if you'll mention the Tyng-Tyng typewriter in your speech--"

"What you suggest is infamous!" I said haughtily. 

"Believe _me_ there's enough in it to make it a financial coup, and I askyou, Prof, isn't a financial coup respectable?"

"You seem to be morally unfitted to comprehend--"

"Pardon _me_! I'm fitted up regardless with all kinds of fixtures. I'mfixed to undertake anything. Now if you'd prefer the Bunsen Baby Biscuitbunch--why old man Bunsen would come across--"

"I won't do such things!" I said angrily. 

"Very well, very well. Don't get riled, sir. That's only one way to buildon Fifth Avenoo. I've got one hundred thousand other ways--"

"I don't want to talk to you--"

"They're honest--some of them. Say, if you want a stric'ly honest dealI've got the goods. Only it ain't as easy and the money ain't as big--"

"I don't want to talk to you--"

"Yes you do. You don't reelize it but you do. Why you're fixin' to makethe holler of your life, ain't you? What are you goin' to say? Hey?What you aimin' to say to make those guys set up? What's the use ofup-stagin'? Ain't you willin' to pay me a few plunks if I _dy_-vulge toyou the most startlin' phenomena that has ever electrified civilizationsense the era of P. T. Barnum!"

I was already hurrying away when the mention of that great scientist'sname halted me once more. 

The little flashy man had been tagging along at my heels, talkingcheerfully and volubly all the while; and now, as I halted again, hestruck an attitude, legs apart, thumbs hooked in his arm-pits, and hishead cocked knowingly on one side. 

"Prof, " he said, "if you'd work in the Tyng-Tyng Company, or fix it upwith Bunsen to mention his Baby Biscuits as the most nootritious ofcondeements, there'd be more in it for you an' me. But it's up to you. "

"Well I won't!" I retorted. 

"Very well, ve-ry well, " he said soothingly. "Then look over another lineo' samples. No trouble to show 'em--none at all, sir! Now if P. T. Barnum was alive--"

I said very seriously: "The name of that great discoverer falling fromyour illiterate lips has halted me a second time. His name alone investsyour somewhat suspicious conversation with a dignity and authorityheretofore conspicuously absent. If, as you hint, you have any scientificinformation for sale which P. T. Barnum might have considered worthpurchasing, you may possibly find in me a client. Proceed, young sir. "

"Say, listen, Bo--I mean, Prof. I've got the goods. Don't worry. I've gotinformation in my think-box that would make your kick-in speech the eventof the century. The question remains, do I get mine?"

[Illustration: "'Say, listen, Bo--I mean, Prof. I've got the goods. '"]

"What is this scientific information?"

We had now walked as far as Riverside Drive. There were plenty ofunoccupied benches. I sat down and he seated himself beside me. 

For a few moments I gazed upon the magnificent view. Even he seemed awedby the proportions of the superb iron gas tank dominating the prospect. 

I gazed at the colossal advertisements across the Hudson, at the freighttrains below; I gazed upon the lordly Hudson itself, that majestic sewerwhich drains the Empire State, bearing within its resistless floodmillions of tons of insoluble matter from that magic fairyland which wecall "up-state, " to the sea. And, thinking of disposal plants, I thoughtof that sublime paraphrase--"From the Mohawk to the Hudson, and from theHudson to the Sea. "

"Bo, " he said, "I gotta hand it to you. Them guys might have got wise ifyou had worked in the Tyng-Tyng Company or the Bunsen stuff. There wasbig money into it, but it might not have went. "

I waited curiously. 

"But this here dope I'm startin' in to cook for you is a straight, reelible, an' hones' pill. P. T. Barnum he would have went a million milesto see what I seen last Janooary down in the Coquina country--"

"Where is that?"

"Say; that's what costs money to know. When I put you wise I'm due toretire from actyve business. Get me?"

"Go on. "

"Sure. I was down to the Coquina country, a-doin'--well, I was doin'rubes. I gotta be hones' with _you_, Prof. That's what I was a-doin'of--sellin' farms under water to suckers. Bee-u-tiful Florida! Own yourown orange grove. Seven crops o' strawberries every winter in Gawd's owncountry--get me?"

He bestowed upon me a loathsome wink. 

"Well, it went big till I made a break and got in Dutch with the NavyDepartment what was surveyin' the Everglades for a safe and sane harborof refuge for the navy in time o' war. 

"Sir, they was a-dredgin' up the farms I was sellin', an' the suckersheard of it an' squealed somethin' fierce, an' I had to hustle! Yes, sir, I had to git up an' mosey cross-lots. And what with the Federal Gov'mentchasin' me one way an' them rubes an' the sheriff of Pickalocka Countyracin' me t'other, I got lost for fair--yes, sir. "

He smiled reminiscently, produced from his pockets the cold and offensiveremains of a partly consumed cigar, and examined it critically. Then herequested a match. 

"I shall now pass over lightly or in subdood silence the painful eventsof my flight, " he remarked, waving his cigar and expelling a long squirtof smoke from his unshaven lips. "Surfice it to say that I got everythin'that was comin' to me, an' then some, what with snakes and murskeeters, an' briers an' mud, an' hunger an' thirst an' heat. Wasn't there a wopnamed Pizarro or somethin' what got lost down in Florida? Well, he's gotnothin' on me. I never want to see the dam' state again. But I'll go backif _you_ say so!"

His small rat eyes rested musingly upon the river; he sucked thoughtfullyat his cigar, hooked one soiled thumb into the armhole of his fancy vestand crossed his legs. 

"To resoom, " he said cheerily; "I come out one day, half nood, onto thebanks of the Miami River. The rest was a pipe after what I had wentthrough. 

"I trimmed a guy at Miami, got clothes and railroad fare, an' ducked. 

"Now the valyble portion of my discourse is this here partial informationconcernin' what I seen--or rather what I run onto durin' my crool flightfrom my ree-lentless persecutors. 

"An' these here is the facts: There is, contrary to maps, Coast Surveyguys, an' general opinion, a range of hills in Florida, made entirely ofcoquina. 

"It's a good big range, too, fifty miles long an' anywhere from one tofive miles acrost. 

"An' what I've got to say is this: Into them there Coquina hills therestill lives the expirin' remains of the cave-men--"

"What!" I exclaimed incredulously. 

"Or, " he continued calmly, "to speak more stric'ly, the few individoolsof that there expirin' race is now totally reduced to a few women. "

"Your statement is wild--"

"No; but they're wild. I seen 'em. Bein' extremely bee-utiful Iapproached nearer, but they hove rocks at me, they did, an' they run intothe rocks like squir'ls, they did, an' I was too much on the blink tostick around whistlin' for dearie. 

"But I seen 'em; they was all dolled up in the skins of wild annermals. When I see the first one she was eatin' onto a ear of corn, an' I nearlyketched her, but she run like hellnall--yes, sir. Just like that. 

"So next I looked for some cave guy to waltz up an' paste me, but no. An'after I had went through them dam' Coquina mountains I realized thatthere was nary a guy left in this here expirin' race, only women, an'only about a dozen o' them. "

He ceased, meditatively expelled a cloud of pungent smoke, and folded hisarms. 

"Of course, " said I with a sneer, "you have proofs to back your pleasanttale?"

"Sure. I made a map. "

"I see, " said I sarcastically. "You propose to have me pay you for thatmap?"

"Sure. "

"How much, my confiding friend?"

"Ten thousand plunks. "

I began to laugh. He laughed, too: "You'll pay 'em if you take my map an'go to the Coquina hills, " he said. 

I stopped laughing: "Do you mean that I am to go there and investigatebefore I pay you for this information?"

"Sure. If the goods ain't up to sample the deal is off. "

"Sample? What sample?" I demanded derisively. 

He made a gesture with one soiled hand as though quieting a balky horse. 

"I took a snapshot, friend. You wanta take a slant at it?"

"You took a photograph of one of these alleged cave-dwellers?"

"I took ten but when these here cave-ladies hove rocks at me the fillumswas put on the blink--all excep' this one which I dee-veloped an'printed. "

He drew from his inner coat pocket a photograph and handed it to me--themost amazing photograph I ever gazed upon. Astounded, almost convincedI sat looking at this irrefutable evidence in silence. The smoke of hiscigar drifting into my face aroused me from a sort of dazed inertia. 

"Listen, " I said, half strangled, "are you willing to wait for paymentuntil I personally have verified the existence of these--er--creatures?"

"You betcher! When you have went there an' have saw the goods, just letme have mine if they're up to sample. Is that right?"

"It seems perfectly fair. "

"It is fair. I wouldn't try to do a scientific guy--no, sir. Me withoutno eddycation, only brains? Fat chance I'd have to put one over on aAcademy sport what's chuck-a-block with Latin an' Greek an' scientificstuff an' all like that!"

I admitted to myself that he'd stand no chance. 

"Is it a go?" he asked. 

"Where is the map?" I inquired, trembling internally with excitement. 

"Ha--ha!" he said. "Listen to my mirth! The map is inside here, oldsport!" and he tapped his retreating forehead with one nicotine-stainedfinger. 

"I see, " said I, trying to speak carelessly; "you desire to pilot me. "

"I don't desire to but I gotta go with you. "

"An accurate map--"

"Can it, old sport! A accurate map is all right when it's pasted over thefront of your head for a face. But I wear the other kind of map _inside_me conk. Get me?"

"I confess that I do not. "

"Well, get _this_, then. It's a cash deal. If the goods is up to sampleyou hand me mine then an' there. I don't deliver no goods f. O. B. I shows'em to you. After you have saw them it's up to you to round 'em up. That's all, as they say when our great President pulls a gun. There ain'tgoin' to be no shootin'; walk out quietly, ladies!"

After I had sat there for fully ten minutes staring at him I came to theonly logical conclusion possible to a scientific mind. 

I said: "You are, admittedly, unlettered; you are confessedly achevalier of industry; personally you are exceedingly distasteful to me. But it is useless to deny that you are the most extraordinary man I eversaw. .. . How soon can you take me to these Coquina hills?"

"Gimme twenty-four hours to--fix things, " he said gaily. 

"Is that all?"

"It's plenty, I guess. An'--say!"

"What?"

"It's a stric'ly cash deal. Get me?"

"I shall have with me a certified check for ten thousand dollars. Also apair of automatics. "

He laughed: "Huh!" he said, "I could loco your cabbage-palm soup if I was_that_ kind! I'm on the level, Perfessor. If I wasn't I could get you inabout a hundred styles while you was blinkin' at what you was a-thinkin'about. But I ain't no gun-man. You hadn't oughta pull that stuff on me. I've give you your chanst; take it or leave it. "

I pondered profoundly for another ten minutes. And at last my decisionwas irrevocably reached. 

"It's a bargain, " I said firmly. "What is your name?"

"Sam Mink. Write it Samuel onto that there certyfied check--if you canspare the extra seconds from your valooble time. "

II

On Monday, the first day of March, 1915, about 10:30 a. M. , wecame in sight of something which, until I had met Mink, I never haddreamed existed in southern Florida--a high range of hills. 

It had been an eventless journey from New York to Miami, from Miami toFort Coquina; but from there through an absolutely pathless wilderness asfar as I could make out, the journey had been exasperating. 

Where we went I do not know even now: saw-grass and water, hammock andshell mound, palm forests, swamps, wildernesses of water-oak andlive-oak, vast stretches of pine, lagoons, sloughs, branches, muddycreeks, reedy reaches from which wild fowl rose in clouds wherealligators lurked or lumbered about after stranded fish, horriblemangrove thickets full of moccasins and water-turkeys, heronry morehorrible still, out of which the heat from a vertical sun distilled thelast atom of nauseating effluvia--all these choice spots we visited underthe guidance of the wretched Mink. I seemed to be missing nothing thatmight discourage or disgust me. 

He appeared to know the way, somehow, although my compass becamemysteriously lost the first day out from Fort Coquina. 

Again and again I felt instinctively that we were travelling in a vastcircle, but Mink always denied it, and I had no scientific instruments toverify my deepening suspicions. 

Another thing bothered me: Mink did not seem to suffer from insects orheat; in fact, to my intense annoyance, he appeared to be having acomfortable time of it, eating and drinking with gusto, sleeping snuglyunder a mosquito bar, permitting me to do all camp work, the paddling aslong as we used a canoe, and all the cooking, too, claiming, on his part, a complete ignorance of culinary art. 

Sometimes he condescended to catch a few fish for the common pan;sometimes he bestirred himself to shoot a duck or two. But usually heplayed on his concertina during his leisure moments which were plentiful. 

I began to detest Samuel Mink. 

At first I was murderously suspicious of him, and I walked about with myautomatic arsenal ostentatiously displayed. But he looked like such amiserable little shrimp that I became ashamed of my precautions. Besides, as he cheerfully pointed out, a little koonti soaked in my drinkingwater, would have done my business for me if he had meant me any physicalharm. Also he had a horrid habit of noosing moccasins for sport; and itwould have been easy for him to introduce one to me while I slept. 

Really what most worried me was the feeling which I could not throw offthat somehow or other we were making very little progress in anyparticular direction. 

He even admitted that there was reason for my doubts, but he confided tome that to find these Coquina hills, was like traversing a maze. Doublingto and fro among forests and swamps, he insisted, was the only possiblepath of access to the undiscovered Coquina hills of Florida. Otherwise, he argued, these Coquina hills would long ago have been discovered. 

And it seemed to me that he had been right when at last we came out onthe edge of a palm forest and beheld that astounding blue outline ofhills in a country which has always been supposed to lie as flat as aflabby flap-jack. 

A desert of saw-palmetto stretched away before us to the base of thehills; game trails ran through it in every direction like sheep paths;a few moth-eaten Florida deer trotted away as we appeared. 

Into one of these trails stepped Samuel Mink, burdened only with hisconcertina and a box of cigars. I, loaded with seventy pounds ofimpedimenta including a moving-picture apparatus, reeled after him. 

He walked on jauntily toward the hills, his pearl-coloured bowler hat atan angle. Occasionally he played upon his concertina as he advanced; nowand then he cut a pigeon wing. I hated him. At every toilsome step Ihated him more deeply. He played "Tipperary" on his concertina. 

"See 'em, old top?" he inquired, nodding toward the hills. "I'm a man ofmy word, I am. Look at 'em! Take 'em in, old sport! An' reemember, eachan' every hill is guaranteed to contain one bony fidy cave-lady what isthe last vanishin' traces of a extinc' an' dissappeerin' race!"

We toiled on--that is, I did, bowed under my sweating load ofparaphernalia. He skipped in advance like some degenerate twentiethcentury faun, playing on his pipes the unmitigated melodies of GeorgeCohan. 

"Watch your step!" he cried, nimbly avoiding the attentions of aground-rattler which tried to caress his ankle from under a saw-palmetto. 

With a shudder I gave the deadly little reptile room and flounderedforward a prey to exhaustion, melancholy, and red-bugs. A few buzzardskept pace with me, their broad, black shadows gliding ominously over thesun-drenched earth; blue-tail lizards went rustling and leaping away onevery side; floppy soft-winged butterflies escorted me; a strange birdwhich seemed to be dressed in a union suit of checked gingham, flew fromtree to tree as I plodded on, and squealed at me persistently. 

At last I felt the hard coquina under foot; the cool blue shadow of thehills enveloped me; I slipped off my pack, dumped it beside a little rillof crystal water which ran sparkling from the hills, and sat down on asoft and fragrant carpet of hound's-tongue. 

After a while I drank my fill at the rill, bathed head, neck, face andarms, and, feeling delightfully refreshed, leaned back against thefern-covered slab of coquina. 

"What are you doing?" I demanded of Mink who was unpacking the kit anddisengaging the moving-picture machine. 

"Gettin' ready, " he replied, fussing busily with the camera. 

"You don't expect to see any cave people here, do you?" I asked with athrill of reviving excitement. 

"Why not?"

"_Here_?"

"Cert'nly. Why the first one I seen was a-drinkin' into this brook. "

"Here! Where I'm sitting?" I asked incredulously. 

"Yes, sir, right there. It was this way; I was lyin' down, tryin' tofigure the shortes' way to Fort Coquina, an' wishin' I was nearerBroadway than I was to the Equator, when I heard a voice say, 'Blub-blub, muck-a-muck!' an' then I seen two cave-ladies come sof'ly stealin'along. "

"W-where?"

"Right there where you are a-sittin'. Say, they was lookers! An' theycome along quiet like two big-eyed deer, kinder nosin' the air andlistenin'. 

"'Gee whiz, ' thinks I, 'Longacre ain't got so much on them dames!' An' atthat one o' them wore a wild-cat's skin an' that's all--an' a wild-catain't big. And t'other she sported pa'm-leaf pyjamas. 

"So when they don't see nothin' around to hinder, they just lays downflat and takes a drink into that pool, lookin' up every swallow likelittle birds listenin' and kinder thankin' God for a good square drink. 

"I knowed they was wild girls soon as I seen 'em. Also they sez to oneanother, 'Blub-blub!' Kinder sof'ly. All the same I've seen wilder ladieson Broadway so I took a chanst where I was squattin' behind a rock. 

"So sez I, 'Ah there, sweetie Blub-blub! Have a taxi on me!' An' withthat they is on their feet, quiverin' all over an' nosin' the wind. Sofirst I took some snapshots at 'em with my Bijoo camera. 

"I guess they scented me all right for I seen their eyes grow bigger, an'then they give a bound an' was off over the rocks; an' me after 'em. Say, that was some steeple-chase until a few more cave-ladies come out on themrocks above us an' hove chunks of coquina at me. 

"An' with all that dodgin' an' duckin' of them there rocks the cave-girlsgot away; an' I seen 'em an' the other cave-ladies scurryin' into littlecaves--one whisked into this hole, another scuttled into that--bing! allover!

"All I could think of was to light a cigar an' blow the smoke in afterthe best-lookin' cave-girl. But I couldn't smoke her out, an' I hadn'ttime to starve her out. So that's all I know about this herepree-historic an' extinc' race o' vanishin' cave-ladies. "

As his simple and illiterate narrative advanced I became proportionallyexcited; and, when he ended, I sprang to my feet in an uncontrollableaccess of scientific enthusiasm:

"Was she really pretty?" I asked. 

"Listen, she was that peachy--"

"Enough!" I cried. "Science expects every man to do his duty! Are yourfilms ready to record a scene without precedent in the scientific annalsof creation?"

"They sure is!"

"Then place your camera and your person in a strategic position. This isa magnificent spot for an ambush! Come over beside me!"

He came across to where I had taken cover among the ferns behind theparapet of coquina, and with a thrill of pardonable joy I watched himunlimber his photographic artillery and place it in battery where myevery posture and action would be recorded for posterity if a cave-ladycame down to the water-hole to drink. 

"It were futile, " I explained to him in a guarded voice, "for me toattempt to cajole her as you attempted it. Neither playful nor moralsuasion could avail, for it is certain that no cave-lady understandsEnglish. "

"I thought o' that, too, " he remarked. "I said, 'Blub-blub! muck-a-muck!'to 'em when they started to run, but it didn't do no good. "

I smiled: "Doubtless, " said I, "the spoken language of the cave-dwelleris made up of similarly primitive exclamations, and you were quite rightin attempting to communicate with the cave-ladies and establish a cordialentente. Professor Garner has done so among the Simian population ofGaboon. Your attempt is most creditable and I shall make it part of myrecord. 

"But the main idea is to capture a living specimen of cave-lady, andcorroborate every detail of that pursuit and capture upon the films. 

"And believe me, Mr. Mink, " I added, my voice trembling with emotion, "noAcademician is likely to go to sleep when I illustrate my address withsuch pictures as you are now about to take!"

"The police might pull the show, " he suggested. 

"No, " said I, "Science is already immune; art is becoming so. Only natureneed fear the violence of prejudice; and doubtless she will continue towear pantalettes and common-sense nighties as long as our great republicendures. "

I unslung my field-glasses, adjusted them and took a penetrating squintat the hillside above. 

Nothing stirred up there except a buzzard or two wheeling on tip-curledpinions above the palms. 

Presently Mink inquired whether I had "lamped" anything, and I repliedthat I had not. 

"They may be snoozin' in their caves, " he suggested. "But don't you fret, old top; you'll get what's comin' to you and I'll get mine. "

"About that check--" I began and hesitated. 

"Sure. What about it?"

"I suppose I'm to give it to you when the first cave-woman appears. "

"That's what!"

I pondered the matter for a while in silence. I could see no risk inpaying him this draft on sight. 

"All right, " I said. "Bring on your cave-dwellers. "

Hour succeeded hour, but no cave-dwellers came down to the pool to drink. We ate luncheon--a bit of cold duck, some koonti-bread, and a dish ofpalm-cabbage. I smoked an inexpensive cigar; Mink lit a more pretentiousone. Afterward he played on his concertina at my suggestion on the chancethat the music might lure a cave-girl down the hill. Nymphs weresometimes caught that way, and modern science seems to be reverting moreand more closely to the simpler truths of the classics which, in ourignorance and arrogance, we once dismissed as fables unworthy ofscientific notice. 

[Illustration: "He played on his concertina . .. On the chance that themusic might lure a cave-girl down the hill. "]

However this Broadway faun piped in vain: no white-footed dryad camestealing through the ferns to gaze, perhaps to dance to the concertina'splaintive melodies. 

So after a while he put his concertina into his pocket, cocked his derbyhat on one side, gathered his little bandy legs under his person, andsquatted there in silence, chewing the wet and bitter end of his extinctcigar. 

Toward mid-afternoon I unslung my field-glasses again and surveyed thehill. 

At first I noticed nothing, not even a buzzard; then, of a sudden, myattention was attracted to something moving among the fern-covered slabsof coquina just above where we lay concealed--a slim, graceful shape halfshadowed under a veil of lustrous hair which glittered like gold in thesun. 

"Mink!" I whispered hoarsely. "One of them is coming! This--this indeedis the stupendous and crowning climax of my scientific career!"

His comment was incredibly coarse: "Gimme the dough, " he said without atremor of surprise. Indeed there was a metallic ring of menace in his lowand entirely cold tones as he laid one hand on my arm. "No welchin', " hesaid, "or I put the whole show on the bum!"

The overwhelming excitement of the approaching crisis neutralized mydisgust; I fished out the certified check from my pocket and flung themiserable scrap of paper at him. "Get your machine ready!" I hissed. "Doyou understand what these moments mean to the civilized world!"

"I sure do, " he said. 

Nearer and nearer came the lithe white figure under its glorious crown ofhair, moving warily and gracefully amid the great coquina slabs--nearer, nearer, until I no longer required my glasses. 

[Illustration: "Moving warily and gracefully amid the great coquinaslabs. "]

She was a slender red-lipped thing, blue-eyed, dainty of hand and foot. 

The spotted pelt of a wild-cat covered her, or attempted to. 

I unfolded a large canvas sack as she approached the pool. For a momentor two she stood gazing around her and her close-set ears seemed to belistening. Then, apparently satisfied, she threw back her beautiful younghead and sent a sweet wild call floating back to the sunny hillside. 

"Blub-blub!" rang her silvery voice; "blub-blub! Muck-a-muck!" And fromthe fern-covered hollows above other voices replied joyously to herreassuring call, "Blub-blub-blub!"

The whole bunch was coming down to drink--the entire remnant of aprehistoric and almost extinct race of human creatures was coming toquench its thirst at this water-hole. How I wished for James Barnes atthe camera's crank! He alone could do justice to this golden girl beforeme. 

One by one, clad in their simple yet modest gowns of pelts and garlands, five exquisitively superb specimens of cave-girl came gracefully down tothe water-hole to drink. 

Almost swooning with scientific excitement I whispered to the unspeakableMink: "Begin to crank as soon as I move!" And, gathering up my big canvassack I rose, and, still crouching, stole through the ferns on tip-toe. 

They had already begun to drink when they heard me; I must have made someslight sound in the ferns, for their keen ears detected it and theysprang to their feet. 

It was a magnificent sight to see them there by the pool, tense, motionless, at gaze, their dainty noses to the wind, their beautiful eyeswide and alert. 

For a moment, enchanted, I remained spellbound in the presence of thisprehistoric spectacle, then, waving my sack, I sprang out from behind therock and cantered toward them. 

Instead of scattering and flying up the hillside they seemed paralyzed, huddling together as though to get into the picture. Delighted I turnedand glanced at Mink; he was cranking furiously. 

With an uncontrollable shout of triumph and delight I pranced towardthe huddling cave-girls, arms outspread as though heading a horse orconcentrating chickens. And, totally forgetting the uselessness ofurbanity and civilized speech as I danced around that lovely butterrified group, "Ladies!" I cried, "do not be alarmed, because I meanonly kindness and proper respect. Civilization calls you from the wilds!Sentiment, pity, piety propel my legs, not the ruthless desire to injureor enslave you! Ladies! You are under the wing of science. Ananthropologist is speaking to you! Fear nothing! Rather rejoice! Yourwonderful race shall be rescued from extinction--even if I have to do itmyself! Ladies, don't run!" They had suddenly scattered and were nowbeginning to dodge me. "I come among you bearing the precious promisesof education, of religion, of equal franchise, of fashion!"

"Blub-blub!" they whimpered continuing to dodge me. 

"Yes!" I cried in an excess of transcendental enthusiasm. "Blub-blub! Andthough I do not comprehend the exquisite simplicity of your primevalspeech, I answer with all my heart, 'Blub-blub!'"

Meanwhile, they were dodging and eluding me as I chased first one, thenanother, one hand outstretched, the other invitingly clutching the sack. 

A hasty glance at Mink now and then revealed him industriously crankingaway. 

Once I fell into the pool. That section of the film should never bereleased, I determined, as I blew the water out of my mouth, gasped, andstarted after a lovely, ruddy-haired cave-girl whose curiosity had ledher to linger beside the pool in which I was floundering. 

But run as fast as I could and skip hither and thither with all theagility I could muster I did not seem to be able to seize a singlecave-girl. 

Every few minutes, baffled and breathless, I rested; and they alwaysclustered together uttering their plaintively musical "blub-blub, " notapparently very much afraid of me, and even exhibiting curiosity. Now andthen they cast glances toward Mink who was grinding away steadily, and Icould scarcely retain a shout of joy as I realized what wonderfulpictures he was taking. Indeed luck seemed to be with me, so far, fornever once did these beautiful prehistoric creatures retire out ofphotographic range. 

But otherwise the problem was becoming serious. I could not catch one ofthem; they eluded me with maddening swiftness and grace; my pauses torecover my breath became more frequent. 

At last, dead beat, I sat down on a slab of coquina. And when I was ableto articulate I turned around toward Mink. 

"You'll have to drop your camera and come over and help me, " I panted. "I'm all in!"

"Not quite, " he said. 

For a moment I did not understand him; then under my outraged eyes, andwithin the hearing of my horrified ears a terrible thing occurred. 

"Now, ladies!" yelled Mink, "all on for the fine-ally! Up-stage there, you red-headed little spot-crabber! Mabel! Take the call! Now smile thewhole bloomin' bunch of you!"

What was he saying? I did not comprehend. I stared dully at the sixcave-girls as they grouped themselves in a semi-circle behind me. 

Then, as one of them came up and unfolded a white strip of cloth behindmy head, the others drew from concealed pockets in their kilts ofcat-fur, little silk flags of all nations and began to wave them. 

Paralyzed I turned my head. On the strip of white cloth, which thetallest cave-girl was holding directly behind my head, was printed inlarge black letters:

 SUNSET SOAP

For one cataclysmic instant I gazed upon this hideous spectacle, thenwith an unearthly cry I collapsed into the arms of the nicest lookingone. 

[Illustration: "I collapsed into the arms of the nicest looking one. "]

There is little more to say. Contrary to my fears the release of thisoutrageous film did not injure my scientific standing. Modern science, accustomed to proprietary testimonials, has become reconciled to suchthings. 

My appearance upon the films in the movies in behalf of Sunset Soap, oddly enough, seemed to enhance my scientific reputation. Even suchaustere purists as Guilford, the Cubist poet, congratulated me upon myfearless independence of ethical tradition. 

And I had lived to learn a gentler truth than that, for, the pretty girlwho had been cast for Cave-girl No. 3--But let that pass. _Adhibenda estin jocando moderatio_. 

Sweet are the uses of advertisement. 

THE LADIES OF THE LAKE

I

At the suggestion of several hundred thousand ladies desiring to reveland possibly riot in the saturnalia of equal franchise, the unnamed lakesin that vast and little known region in Alaska bounded by the YlanquiRiver and the Thunder Mountains were now being inexorably named afterwomen. 

It was a beautiful thought. Already several exquisite, lonely bits ofwater, gem-set among the eternal peaks, mirrors for cloud and soaringeagle, a glass for the moon as keystone to the towering arch of stars, had been irrevocably labelled. 

Already there was Lake Amelia Jones, Lake Sadie Dingleheimer, Lake MaggieMcFadden, and Lake Mrs. Gladys Doolittle Batt. 

I longed to see these lakes under the glamour of their newly addedbeauty. 

Imagine, therefore, my surprise and happiness when I received thefollowing communication from my revered and beloved chief, ProfessorFarrago, dated from the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, whither hehad been summoned in haste to examine and pronounce upon the identityof a very small bird supposed to be a specimen of that rare and almostextinct creature, the two-toed titmouse, _Mustitta duototus_, to bescientifically exact, as I invariably strive to be. 

The important letter in question was as follows:

 To Percy Smith, B. S. , D. F. , etc. , etc. , Curator, Department of Anthropology, Administration Building, Bronx Park, N. Y. 

 _My Dear Mr. Smith_:

 Several very important and determined ladies, recently honoured by the Government in having a number of lakes in Alaska named after them, have decided to make a pilgrimage to that region, inspired by a characteristic desire to gaze upon the lakes named after them individually. 

 They request information upon the following points:

 1st. Are the waters of the lakes in that locality sufficiently clear for a lady to do her hair by? In that event, the expedition will not burden itself with looking-glasses. 

 2nd. Are there any hotels? (You need merely say, no. I have tried to explain to them that it is, for the most part, an unexplored wilderness, but they insist upon further information from you. )

 3rd. If there are hotels, is there also running water to be had? (You may tell them that there is plenty of running water. )

 4th. What are the summer outdoor amusements? (You may inform them that there is plenty of bathing, boating, fishing, and an abundance of shade trees. Also, excellent mountain-climbing to be had in the vicinity. You need not mention the pastimes of "Hunt the Flea" or "Dodge the Skeeter. ")

 I am not by nature cruel, Mr. Smith, but when these ladies informed me that they had decided to penetrate that howling and unexplored wilderness without being burdened or interfered with by any member of my sex, for one horrid and criminal moment I hoped they would. Because in that event none of them would ever come back. 

 However, in my heart milder and more humane sentiments prevailed. I pointed out to them the peril of their undertaking, the dangers of an unexplored region, the necessity of masculine guidance and support. 

 My earnestness and solicitude were, I admit, prompted partly by a desire to utilize this expensively projected expedition as a vehicle for the accumulation of scientific data. 

 As soon as I heard of it I conceived the plan of attaching two members of our Bronx Park scientific staff to the expedition--you, and Mr. Brown. 

 But no sooner did these determined ladies hear of it than they repelled the suggestion with indignation. 

 Now, the matter stands as follows: These ladies don't want any man in the expedition; but they have at last realized that they've got to take a guide or two. And there are no feminine guides in Alaska. 

 Therefore, considering the immense and vital importance of such an opportunity to explore and report upon this unknown region at somebody else's expense, I suggest that you and Brown meet these ladies at Lake Mrs. Susan W. Pillsbury, which lies on the edge of the region to be explored; that you, without actually perjuring yourselves too horribly, convey to them the misleading impression that you are the promised guides provided for them by a cowed and avuncular Government; and that you take these fearsome ladies about and let them gaze at their reflections in the various lakes named after them; and that, while the expedition lasts, you secretly make such observations, notes, reports, and collections of the flora and fauna of the region as your opportunities may permit. 

 No time is to be lost. If, at Lake Susan W. Pillsbury, you find regular guides awaiting these ladies, you will bribe these guides to go away and you yourselves will then impersonate the guides. I know of no other way for you to explore this region, as all our available resources at Bronx Park have already been spent in painting appropriate scenery to line the cages of the mammalia, and also in the present exceedingly expensive expedition in search of the polka-dotted boom-bock, which is supposed to inhabit the jungle beyond Lake Niggerplug. 

 My most solemn and sincere wishes accompany you. Bless you!

 Farrago. 

II

This, then, is how it came about that "Kitten" Brown and I were seated, one midgeful morning in July, by the pellucid waters of Lake Susan W. Pillsbury, gnawing sections from a greasily fried trout, upon which I hadattempted culinary operations. 

Brown's baptismal name was William; but the unfortunate young manwas once discovered indiscreetly embracing a pretty assistant in theAdministration Building at Bronx, and, furthermore, was overheard toaddress her as "Kitten. "

So Kitten Brown it was for him in future. After he had fought all theyounger members of the scientific staff in turn, he gradually becameresigned to this annoying _nom d'amour_. 

Lightly but thoroughly equipped for scientific field research, we hadarrived at the rendezvous in time to bribe the two guides engaged by theGovernment to go back to their own firesides. 

A week later the formidable expedition of representative ladies arrived;and now they were sitting on the shore of Lake Susan W. Pillsbury, at alittle distance from us, trying to keep the midges from their featuresand attempting to eat the fare provided for them by me. 

I myself couldn't eat it. No wonder they murmured. But hunger goaded themto attack the greasy mess of trout and fried cornmeal. 

Kitten was saying to me:

"Our medicine chest isn't very extensive. I hope they brought their own. If they didn't, some among us will never again see New York. "

I stole a furtive glance at the unfortunate women. There was one amongthem--but let me first enumerate their heavy artillery:

There was the Reverend Dr. Amelia Jones, blond, adipose, and close to thefour-score mark. She stepped high in the Equal Franchise ranks. Nobodyhad ever had the temerity to answer her back. 

There was Miss Sadie Dingleheimer, fifty, emaciated, anemic, and gauntlyglittering with thick-lensed eye-glasses. She was the President of theNational Prophylactic Club, whatever that may be. 

There was Miss Margaret McFadden, a Titian, profusely toothed, muscular, and President of the Hair Dressers' Union of the United States. 

There was Mrs. Gladys Doolittle Batt, a grass one--Batt being representedas a vanishing point--President of the National Eugenic and PurityLeague; tall, gnarled, sinuously powerful, and prone to emotionalattacks. The attacks were directed toward others. 

These, then, composed the heavy artillery. The artillery of the lightbrigade consisted only of a single piece. Her name was Angelica White, adelegate from the Trained Nurses' Association of America. The nurses hadbeen too busy with their business to attend such picnics, so one had beenselected by lot to represent the busy Association on this expedition. 

Angelica White was a tall, fair, yellow-haired girl of twenty-two orthree, with violet-blue eyes and red lips, and a way of smiling a littlewhen spoken to--but let that pass. I mean only to be scientificallyminute. A passion for fact has ever obsessed me. I have little literaryability and less desire to sully my pen with that degraded form ofletters known as fiction. Once in my life my mania for accuracy involvedme lyrically. It was a short poem, but an earnest one:

 Truth is mighty and must prevail, Otherwise it were inadvisable to tell the tale. 

I bestowed it upon the New York _Evening Post_, but declinedremuneration. My message belonged to the world. I don't mean thenewspaper. 

Her eyes, then, were tinted with that indefinable and agreeable nuancewhich modifies blue to a lilac or violet hue. 

Watching her askance, I was deeply sorry that my cooking seemed to painher. 

"Guide!" said Mrs. Doolittle Batt, in that remarkable, booming voice ofhers. 

"Ma'am!" said Kitten Brown and I with spontaneous alacrity, leaping fromthe ground as though shot at. 

"This cooking, " she said, with an ominous stare at us, "is atrocious. Don't you know how to cook?"

I said with a smiling attempt at ease:

"There are various ways of cooking food for the several species ofmammalia which an all-wise Providence--"

"Do you think you're cooking for wild-cats?" she demanded. 

Our smiles faded. 

"It's my opinion that you're incompetent, " remarked the Reverend Dr. Jones, slapping at midges with a hand that might have rocked all thecradles of the nation, but had not rocked any. 

"We're not getting our money's worth, " said Miss Dingleheimer, "even ifthe Government does pay your salaries. "

I looked appealingly from one stony face to another. In Miss McFadden'seye there was the somber glint of battle. She said:

"If you can guide us no better than you cook, God save us all this dayweek!" And she hurled the contents of her tin plate into Lake Susan W. Pillsbury. 

Mrs. Doolittle Batt arose:

"Come, " she said; "it is time we started. What is the name of the firstlake we may hope to encounter?"

We knew no more than did they, but we said that Lake Gladys DoolittleBatt was the first, hoping to placate that fearsome woman. 

"Come on, then!" she cried, picking up her carved and varnished mountainstaff. 

Miss Dingleheimer had brought one, too, from the Catskills. 

So Kitten Brown and I loaded our mule, set him in motion, and drove himforward into the unknown. 

Where we were going we had not the slightest idea; the margin of the lakewas easy travelling, so easy that we never noticed that we had alreadygone around the lake three times, until Mrs. Batt recognized the fact andturned on us furiously. 

I didn't know how to explain it, except to say feebly that I was doing itas a sort of preliminary canter to harden and inure the ladies. 

"We don't need hardening!" she snarled. "Do you understand that!"

I comprehended that at once. But I forced a sickly smile and skippedforward in the wake of my mule, with something of the same abandonwhich characterizes the flight of an unwelcome dog. 

In the terrified ear of Kitten I voiced my doubts concerning theprospects of a pleasant journey. 

We marched in the following order: Arthur, the heavily laden mule, led; then came Kitten Brown and myself, all hung over with stew-pans, shotguns, rifles, cartridge-belts, ponchos, and the toilet reticules ofthe ladies; then marched the Reverend Dr. Jones, and, in order, filingbehind her, Miss Dingleheimer, Mrs. Batt, Miss McFadden, and MissWhite--the latter in her trained nurse's costume and wearing a red crosson her sleeve--an idea of Mrs. Batt, who believed in emergency methods. 

Mrs. Batt also bore a banner, much interfered with by the foliage, bearing the inscription:

 EQUAL RIGHTS! EUGENICS OR EXTERMINATION!

After a while she shouted:

"Guide! Here, you may carry this banner for a while! I'm tired. "

Kitten and I took turns with it after that. It was hard work, particularly as one by one in turn they came up and hung their parasolsand shopping reticules all over us. We plodded forward like a pair ofmoving department stores, not daring to shift our burdens to Arthur, because we had already stuffed into the panniers of that simple anddignified animal all our collecting boxes, cyanide jars, butterfly nets, note-books, reels of piano wire, thermometers, barometers, hydrometers, stereometers, aeronoids, adnoids--everything, in fact, that guides arenot supposed to pack into the woods, but which we had smuggled unbeknownto those misguided ones we guided. 

And, to make room for our scientific paraphernalia, we had been obligedto do a thing so mean, so inexpressibly low, that I blush to relate it. But facts are facts; we discarded nearly a ton of feminine impedimenta. There was fancy work of all sorts in the making or in the raw--materialsfor knitting, embroidering, tatting, sewing, hemming, stitching, drawn-work, lace-making, crocheting. 

Also we disposed of almost half a ton of toilet necessities--powder, perfumery, cosmetics, hot-water bags, slippers, negligees, novels, magazines, bon-bons, chewing-gum, hat-boxes, gloves, stockings, underwear. 

We left enough apparel for each lady to change once. They'd have to dosome scrubbing now. Science can not be halted by hatpins; cosmos can notbe side-tracked by cosmetics. 

Toward sunset we came upon a small, crystal clear pond, set between thebases of several lofty mountains. I was ready to drop with fatigue, butI nerved myself, drew a deep, exultant breath, and with one of thosefine, sweeping gestures, I cried:

"Lake Mrs. Gladys Doolittle Batt! Eureka! At last! Excelsior!"

There was a profound silence behind me. I turned, striving to mask myapprehension with a smile. The ladies were regarding the pond insurprise. I admit that it was a pond, not a lake. 

Injecting into my voice the last remnants of glee which I could summon, Ishouted, "Eureka!" and began to caper about as though the size and beautyof the pond had affected me with irrepressible enthusiasm, hoping by myemotion to stampede the convention. 

The cold voice of Mrs. Doolittle Batt checked my transports:

"Is that puddle named after me?" she demanded. 

"M-ma'am?" I stammered. 

"If that wretched frog-pond has been christened with my name, somebody isgoing to get into trouble, " she said ominously. 

A profound silence ensued. Arthur patiently switched at flies. As forme, I looked up at the majestic pines, gazed upon the lofty and eternalhills, then ventured a sneaking glance all around me. But I coulddiscover no avenue of escape in case Mrs. Batt should charge me. 

"I had been informed, " she began dangerously, "that the majestic body ofwater, which I understood had been honoured with my name, was twelvemiles long and three miles wide. This appears to be a puddle!"

"B-b-but it's very p-pretty, " I protested feebly. "It's quite round andclear, and it's nearly a quarter of a mile in d-diameter--"

"Mind your business!" retorted Mrs. Doolittle Batt. "I've been swindled!"

Kitten Brown knew more about women than did I. He said in a fairly steadyvoice:

"Madame, it is an outrage! The women of this mighty nation should makethe Government answerable for its duplicity! Your lake should have beenat least twenty miles long!"

Everybody turned and looked at Kitten. He was a handsome dog. 

"This young man appears to have some trace of common-sense, " said Mrs. Batt. "I shall see to it that the Government is held responsible forthis odious act of insulting duplicity. I--I won't have my name given tothis--this wallow!--" She advanced toward me, her small eyes blazing: Iretreated to leeward of Arthur. 

"Guide!" she said in a voice still trembling with passion. "Are youcertain that you have made no mistake? You appear to be unusuallyignorant. "

"I am afraid there can be no room for doubt, " I said, almost scared outof my senses. 

"And on top of this outrage, am I to eat your cooking?" she demandedpassionately. "Did I come here to look at this frog-pond and choke onyour cooking? _Did_ I?"

"_I_ can cook, " said a clear, pleasant voice at my elbow. And Miss Whitecame forward, cool, clean, fresh as a posy in her uniform and cap. Iimmediately got behind her. 

"I can cook very nicely, " she said smilingly. "It is part of myprofession, you know. So if you two guides will be kind enough to buildthe fire and help me--" She let her violet eyes linger on me for aninstant, then on Brown. A moment later he and I were jostling each otherin our eagerness to obey her slightest suggestion. It is that way withmen. 

So we built her a fire and unpacked our provisions, and we waited verypolitely on the ladies when dinner was ready. 

It was a fine dinner--coffee, bacon, flap-jacks, soup, ash-bread, stewedchicken. 

The heavy artillery, made ravenous by their journey, required vastquantities of ammunition. They banqueted largely. I gazed in amazement atMrs. Doolittle Batt as she swallowed one flap-jack after another, whileher eyes bulged larger and larger. 

Nor was the capacity of Miss Dingleheimer and the Reverend Dr. Jones tobe mocked at by pachyderms. 

Brown and I left them eating while we erected the row of little tents. Every lady had demanded a separate tent. 

So we cut saplings, set up the silk, drove pegs, and brought armfuls ofbalsam boughs. 

I was afraid they'd demand their knitting and other utensils, but theyhad eaten to repletion, and were sleepy; and as each toilet case orreticule contained also a nightgown, they drew the flaps of their severaltents without insisting that we unpack Arthur's panniers. 

They all had disappeared within their tents except Miss White, whoinsisted on cooking something for us, although we protested that thescraps of the banquet were all right for mere guides. 

She stood beside us for a few minutes, watching us busy with ourdelicious dinner. 

"You poor fellows, " she said gently. "You are nearly starved. "

It is agreeable to be sympathized with by a tall, fair, fresh young girl. We looked up, simpering gratefully. 

"This is really a most lovely little lake, " she said, gazing out acrossthe still, crystalline water which was all rose and gold in the sunset, save where the sombre shapes of the towering mountains were mirrored inglassy depths. 

"It's odd, " I said, "that no trout are jumping. There ought to be lots ofthem there, and this is their jumping hour. "

We all looked at the quiet, oval bit of water. Not a circle, not theslightest ripple disturbed it. 

"It must be deep, " remarked Brown. 

We gazed up at the three lofty peaks, the bases of which were the shoresof this tiny gem among lakes. Deep, deep, plunging down into duskyprofundity, the rocks fell away sheer into limpid depths. 

"That little lake may be a thousand feet deep, " I said. "In 1903Professor Farrago, of Bronx Park, measured a lake in the ThunderMountains, which was two thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine feetdeep. "

Miss White looked at me curiously. 

Into a patch of late sunshine flitted a small butterfly--one of the_Grapta_ species. It settled on a chip of wood, uncoiled its delicateproboscis, and spread its fulvous and deeply indented wings. 

"_Grapta California_, " remarked Brown to me. 

"_Vanessa asteriska_" I corrected him. "Note the anal angle of thesecondaries and the argentiferous discal area bordering the subcostalnervule. "

"The characteristic stripes on the primaries are wanting, " he demurred. 

"It is double brooded. The summer form lacks the three darker bands. "

A few moments' silence was broken by the voice of Miss White. 

"I had no idea, " she remarked, "that Alaskan guides were so familiar withentomological terms and nomenclature. "

We both turned very red. 

Brown mumbled something about having picked up a smattering. I added thatBrown had taught me. 

Perhaps she believed us; her blue eyes rested on us curiously, musingly. Also, at moments, I fancied there was the faintest glint of amusement inthem. 

She said:

"Two scientific gentlemen from New York requested permission to join thisexpedition, but Mrs. Batt refused them. " She gazed thoughtfully uponthe waters of Lake Gladys Doolittle Batt. "I wonder, " she murmured, "whatbecame of those two gentlemen. "

It was evident that we had betrayed ourselves to this young girl. 

She glanced at us again, and perhaps she noticed in our fascinated gazean expression akin to terror, for suddenly she laughed--such a clear, sweet, silvery little laugh!

"For my part, " she said, "I wish they had come with us. I like--men. "

With that she bade us goodnight very politely and went off to her tent, leaving us with our hats pressed against our stomachs, attempting by theprofundity of our bows to indicate the depth of our gratitude. 

"_There's_ a girl!" exclaimed Brown, as soon as she had disappearedbehind her tent flaps. "She'll never let on to Medusa, Xantippe, Cassandra and Company. I _like_ that girl, Smith. "

"You're not the only one imbued by such sentiments, " said I. 

He smiled a fatuous and reminiscent smile. He certainly was good-looking. Presently he said:

"She has the most delightful way of gazing at a man--"

"I've noticed, " I said pleasantly. 

"Oh. Did she happen to glance at _you_ that way?" he inquired. I wantedto beat him. 

All I said was:

"She's certainly some kitten. " Which bottled that young man for a while. 

We lay on the bank of the tiny lake, our backs against a huge pine-tree, watching the last traces of colour fading from peak and tree-top. 

"Isn't it queer, " I said, "that not a trout has splashed? It can't bethat there are no fish in the lake. "

"There _are_ such lakes. "

"Yes, very deep ones. I wonder how deep this is. "

"We'll be out at sunrise with our reel of piano wire and take soundings, "he said. "The heavy artillery won't wake until they're ready to be loadedwith flap-jacks. "

I shuddered:

"They're fearsome creatures, Brown. Somehow, that resolute and bony onehas inspired me with a terror unutterable. "

"Mrs. Batt?"

"Yes. "

He said seriously:

"She'll make a horrid outcry when she asks for her knitting. What are yougoing to tell her?"

"I shall say that Indians ambuscaded us while she was asleep, and carriedoff all those things. "

"You lie very nicely, don't you?" he remarked admiringly. 

"_In vitium ducit culpæ fuga_, " said I. "Besides, they don't really needthose articles. "

He laughed. He didn't seem to be very much afraid of Mrs. Batt. 

It had grown deliciously dusky, and myriads of stars were coming out. Little by little the lake lost its shape in the darkness, until only anirregular, star-set area of quiet water indicated that there was any lakethere at all. 

I remember that Brown and I, reclining at the foot of the tree, werelooking at the still and starry surface of the lake, over which numbersof bats were darting after insects; and I recollect that I was just aboutto speak, when, of a sudden, the silent and luminous surface of the waterwas shattered as with a subterranean explosion; a geyser of scintillatingspray shot upward flashing, foaming, towering a hundred feet into theair. And through it I seemed to catch a glimpse of a vast, quivering, twisting mass of silver falling back with a crash into the lake, whilethe huge fountain rained spray on every side and the little lake rockedand heaved from shore to shore, sending great sheets of surf up over therocks so high that the very tree-tops dripped. 

Petrified, dumb, our senses almost paralyzed by the shock, our ears stilldeafened by the watery crash of that gigantic something that had falleninto the lake, and our eyes starting from their sockets, we stared at thedarkness. 

Slap--slash--slush went the waves, hitting the shore with a clashingsound almost metallic. Vision and hearing told us that the water in thelake was rocking like the contents of a bath-tub. 

"G-g-good Lord!" whispered Brown. "Is there a v-volcano under that lake?"

"Did you see that huge, glittering shape that seemed to fall into thewater?" I gasped. 

"Yes. What was it? A meteor?"

"No. It was something that first came out of the lake and fell back--theway a trout leaps. Heavens! It couldn't have been alive, could it?"

"W-wh-what do you mean?" stammered Brown. 

"It couldn't have been a f-f-fish, could it?" I asked with chatteringteeth. 

"No! _No!_ It was as big as a Pullman car! It must have been a fallingstar. Did you ever hear of a fish as big as a sleeping car?"

I was too thoroughly unnerved to reply. The roaring of the surf hadsubsided somewhat, enough for another sound to reach our ears--a raucous, gallinacious, squawking sound. 

I sprang up and looked at the row of tents. White-robed figures loomed infront of them. The heavy artillery was evidently frightened. 

[Illustration: "The heavy artillery was evidently frightened. "]

We went over to them, and when we got nearer they chastely scuttledinto their tents and thrust out a row of heads--heads hideous withcurl-papers. 

"What was that awful noise? An earthquake?" shrilled the Reverend Dr. Jones. "I think I'll go home. "

"Was it an avalanche?" demanded Mrs. Batt, in a deep and shaky voice. "Are we in any immediate danger, young man?"

I said that it was probably a flying-star which had happened to strikethe lake and explode. 

"What an awful region!" wailed Miss Dingleheimer. "I've had my money'sworth. I wish to go back to New York at once. I'll begin to dressimmediately--"

"It might be a million years before another meteor falls in thislatitude, " I said, soothingly. 

"Or it might be ten minutes, " sobbed Miss Dingleheimer. "What do _you_know about it, anyway! I want to go home. I'm putting on my stockingsnow. I'm getting dressed as fast as I can--"

Her voice was blotted out in a mighty crash from the lake. Appalled, Iwhirled on my heel, just in time to see another huge jet of water risehigh in the starlight, another, another, until the entire lake was buta cluster of gigantic geysers exploding a hundred feet in the air, whilethrough them, falling back into the smother of furious foam, greatsilvery bulks dropped crashing, one after another. 

I don't know how long the incredible vision lasted; the woods roared withthe infernal pandemonium, echoed and re-echoed from mountain to mountain;the tree-tops fairly stormed spray, driving it in sheets through theleaves; and the shores of the lake spouted surf long after the last vast, silvery shape had fallen back again into the water. 

As my senses gradually recovered, I found myself supporting Mrs. Batt onone arm and the Reverend Dr. Jones upon my bosom. Both had fainted. Ireleased them with a shudder and turned to look for Brown. 

Somebody had swooned in his arms, too. 

[Illustration: "Somebody had swooned in his arms, too. "]

He was not noticing me, and as I approached him I heard him say somethingresembling the word "kitten. "

In spite of my demoralization, another fear seized me, and I drew nearerand peered closely at what he was holding so nobly in his arms. It was, as I supposed, Angelica White. 

I don't know whether my arrival occultly revived her, for as I stumbledover a tent-peg she opened her blue eyes, and then disengaged herselffrom Brown's arms. 

"Oh, I am _so_ frightened, " she murmured. She looked at me sideways whenshe said it. 

"Come, " said I coldly to Brown, "let Miss White retire and lie down. Thismeteoric shower is over and so is the danger. "

He evinced a desire to further soothe and minister to Miss White, but shesaid, with considerable composure, that she was feeling better; and Browncame unwillingly with me to inspect the heavy artillery lines. 

That formidable battery was wrecked, the pieces dismounted and lyingtumbled about in their emplacements. 

But a vigorous course of cold water in dippers revived them, and weherded them into one tent and quieted them with some soothingprevarication, the details of which I have forgotten; but it wassomething about a flock of meteors which hit the earth every twelvebillion years, and that it was now all over for another such interim, andeverybody could sleep soundly with the consciousness of having assistedat a spectacle never before beheld except by a primordial protoplasmiccell. 

Which flattered them, I think, for, seated once more at the base of ourtree, presently we heard weird noises from the reconcentrados, like themoaning of the harbour bar. 

They slept, the heavy guns, like unawakened engines of destruction alla-row in battery. But Brown and I, fearfully excited, still dazed andbewildered, sat with our fascinated eyes fixed on the lake, asking eachother what in the name of miracles it was that we had witnessed andheard. 

On one thing we were agreed. A scientific discovery of the most enormousimportance awaited our investigation. 

This was no time for temporising, for deception, for any species ofpolite shilly-shallying. We must, on the morrow, tear off our masks andappear before these misguided and feminine victims of our duplicity inour own characters as scientists. We must boldly avow our identities andflatly refuse to stir from this spot until the mystery of this astoundinglake had been thoroughly investigated. 

And so, discussing our policy, our plans for the morrow, and mutuallyreassuring each other concerning our common ability to successfully defythe heavy artillery, we finally fell asleep. 

III

Dawn awoke me, and I sat up in my blanket and aroused Brown. 

No birds were singing. It seemed unusual, and I spoke of it to Brown. Never have I witnessed such a still, strange daybreak. Mountains, woods, and water were curiously silent. There was not a sound to be heard, nothing stirred except the thin veil of vapour over the water, shredsof which were now parting from the shore and steaming slowly upward. 

There was, it seemed to me, something slightly uncanny about this lake, even in repose. The water seemed as translucent as a dark crystal, andas motionless as the surface of a mirror. Nothing stirred its placidsurface, not a ripple, not an insect, not a leaf floating. 

Brown had lugged the pneumatic raft down to the shore where he was nowpumping it full: I followed with the paddles, pole, and hydroscope. Whenthe raft had been pumped up and was afloat, we carried the reel ofgossamer piano-wire aboard, followed it, pushed off, and paddled quietlythrough the level cobwebs of mist toward the centre of the lake. Fromthe shore I heard a gruesome noise. It originated under one of the row oftents of the heavy artillery. Medusa, snoring, was an awesome sound inthat wilderness and solitude of dawn. 

I was unscrewing the centre-plug from the raft and screwing into theempty socket the lens of the hydroscope and attaching the battery, whileBrown started his sounding; and I was still busy when an exclamation frommy companion started me:

"We're breaking some records! Do you know it, Smith?"

"Where is the lead?"

"Three hundred fathoms and still running!"

"Nonsense!"

"Look at it yourself! It goes on unreeling: I've put the drag on. Hurryand adjust the hydroscope!"

I sighted the powerful instrument for two thousand feet, altering it fromminute to minute as Brown excitedly announced the amazing depth of thelake. When he called out four thousand feet, I stared at him. 

"There's something wrong--" I began. 

"There's _nothing_ wrong!" he interrupted. "Four thousand five hundred!Five thousand! Five thousand five hundred--"

"Are you squatting there and trying to tell me that this lake is over amile deep!"

"Look for yourself!" he said in an unsteady voice. "Here is the tape! Youcan read, can't you? Six thousand feet--and running evenly. Six thousandfive hundred!. .. Seven thousand! Seven thousand five--"

"It _can't_ be!" I protested. 

But it was true. Astounded, I continued to adjust the hydroscope to arange incredible, turning the screw to focus at a mile and a half, at twomiles, at two and a quarter, a half, three-quarters, three miles, threemiles and a quarter--click!

"Good Heavens!" he whispered. "This lake is three miles and a quarterdeep!"

Mechanically I set the lachet, screwed the hood firm, drew out the blackeye-mask, locked it, then, kneeling on the raft I rested my face in themask, felt for the lever, and switched on the electric light. 

Quicker than thought the solid lance of dazzling light plunged downthrough profundity, and the vast abyss of water was revealed along itspathway. 

Nothing moved in those tremendous depths except, nearly two miles below, a few spots of tinsel glittered and drifted like flakes of mica. 

At first I scarcely noticed them, supposing them to be vast beds ofsilvery bottom sand glittering under the electric pencil of thehydroscope. But presently it occurred to me that these brilliant specksin motion were not on the bottom--were a little less than two miles deep, and therefore suspended. 

To be seen at all, at two miles' depth, whatever they were they must haveconsiderable bulk. 

"Do you see anything?" demanded Brown. 

"Some silvery specks at a depth of two miles. "

"What do they look like?"

"Specks. "

"Are they in motion?"

"They seem to be. "

"Do they come any nearer?"

After a while I answered:

"One of the specks seems to be growing larger. .. . I believe it isin motion and is floating slowly upward. .. . It's certainly gettingbigger. .. . It's getting longer. "

"Is it a fish?"

"It can't be. "

"Why not?"

"It's impossible. Fish don't attain the size of whales in mountainponds. "

There was a silence. After an interval I said:

"Brown, I don't know what to make of that thing. "

"Is it coming any nearer?"

"Yes. "

"What does it look like now?"

"It _looks_ like a fish. But it can't be. It looks like a tiny, silverminnow. But it can't be. Why, if it resembles a minnow in size at thisdistance--what can be its actual dimensions?"

"Let me look, " he said. 

Unwillingly I raised my head from the mask and yielded him my place. 

A long silence followed. The western mountain-tops reddened under therising sun; the sky grew faintly bluer. Yet, there was not a bird-note inthat still place, not a flash of wings, nothing stirring. 

Here and there along the lake shore I noticed unusual-looking trees--veryodd-looking trees indeed, for their trunks seemed bleached and dead, andas though no bark covered them, yet every stark limb was covered withfoliage--a thick foliage so dark in colour that it seemed black to me. 

I glanced at my motionless companion where he knelt with his face in themask, then I unslung my field-glasses and focussed them on the nearest ofthe curious trees. 

At first I could not quite make out what I was looking at; then, to myastonishment, I saw that these stark, gray trees were indeed lifeless, and that what I had mistaken for dark foliage were velvety clusters ofbats hanging there asleep--thousands of them thickly infesting andclotting the dead branches with a sombre and horrid effect of foliage. 

I don't mind bats in ordinary numbers. But in such soft, motionlessmasses they slightly sickened me. There must have been literally tonsof them hanging to the dead trees. 

"This is pleasant, " I said. "Look at those bats, Brown. "

When Brown spoke without lifting his head, his voice was so shaken, soaltered, that the mere sound of it scared me:

"Smith, " he said, "there is a fish in here, shaped exactly like a brookminnow. And I should judge, by the depth it is swimming in, that it isabout as long as an ordinary Pullman car. "

His voice shook, but his words were calm to the point of commonplace. Which made the effect of his statement all the more terrific. 

"A--a _minnow_--as big as a Pullman car?" I repeated, dazed. 

"Larger, I think. .. . It looks to me through the hydroscope, atthis distance, exactly like a tiny, silvery minnow. It's half a miledown. .. . Swimming about. .. . I can see its eyes; they must be about tenfeet in diameter. I can see its fins moving. And there are about a dozenothers, much deeper, swimming around. .. . This is easily the mostoverwhelming contribution made to science since the discovery of thepurple-spotted dingle-bock, _Bukkus dinglii_. .. . We've got to catch oneof those gigantic fish!"

"How?" I gasped. "How are we going to catch a minnow as large as asleeping car?"

"I don't know, but we've got to do it. We've got to manage it, somehow. "

"It would require a steel cable to hold such a fish and a donkey engineto reel him in! And what about a hook? And if we had hook, line, steam-winch, and everything else, _what_ about bait?"

He knelt for some time longer, watching the fish, before he resigned thehydroscope to me. Then I watched it; but it came no nearer, seemingcontented to swim about at the depth of a little more than half a mile. Deep under this fish I could see others glittering as they sailed ordarted to and fro. 

Presently I raised my head and sat thinking. The sun now gilded thewater; a little breeze ruffled it here and there where dainty cat's-pawsplayed over the surface. 

"What on earth do you suppose those gigantic fish feed on?" asked Brownunder his breath. 

I thought a moment longer, then it came to me in a flash ofunderstanding, and I pointed at the dead trees. 

"Bats!" I muttered. "They feed on bats as other fish feed on the little, gauzy-winged flies which dance over ponds! You saw those bats flying overthe pond last night, didn't you? That explains the whole thing! Don't youunderstand? Why, what we saw were these gigantic fish leaping like troutafter the bats. It was their feeding time!"

I do not imagine that two more excited scientists ever existed than Brownand I. The joy of discovery transfigured us. Here we had discovered alake in the Thunder Mountains which was the deepest lake in the world;and it was inhabited by a few gigantic fish of the minnow species, theexistence of which, hitherto, had never even been dreamed of by science. 

"Kitten, " I said, my voice broken by emotion, "which will you have namedafter you, the lake or the fish? Shall it be Lake Kitten Brown, or shallit be _Minnius kittenii_? Speak!"

"What about that old party whose name you said had already been given tothe lake?" he asked piteously. 

"Who? Mrs. Batt? Do you think I'd name such an important lake after_her_? Anyway, she has declined the honour. "

"Very well, " he said, "I'll accept it. And the fish shall be known as_Minnius Smithii_!"

Too deeply moved to speak, we bent over and shook hands with each other. In that solemn and holy moment, surcharged with ecstatic emotion, a deep, distant reverberation came across the water to our ears. It was the heavyartillery, snoring. 

Never can I forget that scene; sunshine glittering on the pond, thesilent forests and towering peaks, the blue sky overhead, the dead treeswhere thousands of bats hung in nauseating clusters, thicker than theleaves in Valembrosa--and Kitten Brown and I, cross-legged upon ourpneumatic raft, hands clasped in pledge of deathless devotion to scienceand a fraternity unending. 

"And how about that girl?" he asked. 

"What girl?"

"Angelica White?"

"Well, " said I, "_what_ about her?"

"Does she go with the lake or with the fish?"

"What do you mean?" I asked coldly, withdrawing my hand from his clasp. 

"I mean, which of us gets the first chance to win her?" he said, blushing. "There's no use denying that we both have been bowled overby her; is there?"

I pondered for several moments. 

"She is an extremely intelligent girl, " I said, stalling. 

"Yes, and then some. "

After a few minutes' further thought, I said:

"Possibly I am in error, but at moments it has seemed to me that mymarked attentions to Miss White are not wholly displeasing to her. I maybe mistaken--"

"I think you are, Smith. "

"Why?"

"Because--well, because I seem to think so. "

I said coldly:

"Because she happened to faint away in your arms last night is no symptomthat she prefers you. Is it?"

"No. "

"Then why do you seem to think that tactful, delicate, and assiduousattentions on my part may prove not entirely unwelcome to this unusuallyintelligent--"

"Smith!"

"What?"

"Miss White is not only a trained nurse, but she also is about to receiveher diploma as a physician. "

"How do you know?"

"She told me. "

"When?"

"When you were building the fire last night. Also, she informed me thatshe had relentlessly dedicated herself to a eugenic marriage. "

"When did she tell you _that_?"

"While you were bringing in a bucket of water from the lake last night. And furthermore, she told me that _I_ was perfectly suited for a eugenicmarriage. "

"_When_ did she tell you _that_?" I demanded. 

"When she had--fainted--in my arms. "

"How the devil did she come to say a thing like that?"

He became conspicuously red about the ears:

"Well, I had just told her that I had fallen in love with her--"

"Damn!" I said. And that's all I said; and seizing a paddle I madefuriously for shore. Behind me I heard the whirr of the piano wire asBrown started the electric reel. Later I heard him clamping the hood onthe hydroscope; but I was too disgusted for any further words, and I dugaway at the water with my paddle. 

In various and weird stages of morning déshabillé the heavy artillerycame down to the shore for morning ablutions, all a-row like a file ofducks. 

They glared at me as I leaped ashore:

"I want my breakfast!" snapped Mrs. Batt. "Do you hear what I say, guide?And I don't wish to be kept waiting for it either! I desire to get out ofthis place as soon as possible. "

"I'm sorry, " I said, "but I intend to stay here for some time. "

"What!" bawled the heavy artillery in booming unison. 

But my temper had been sorely tried, and I was in a mood to tell thetruth and make short work of it, too. 

"Ladies, " I said, "I'll not mince matters. Mr. Brown and I are notguides; we are scientists from Bronx Park, and we don't know a ballything about this wilderness we're in!"

"Swindler!" shouted Mrs. Batt, in an enraged voice. "I knew very wellthat the United States Government would never have named that puddle ofwater after _me_!"

"Don't worry, madam! I've named it after Mr. Brown. And the new speciesof gigantic fish which I discovered in this lake I have named aftermyself. As for leaving this spot until I have concluded my scientificstudy of these fish, I simply won't. I intend to observe their habits andto capture one of them if it requires the remainder of my natural life todo so. I shall be sorry to detain you here during such a period, but itcan't be helped. And now you know what the situation is, and you are atliberty to think it over after you have washed your countenances in LakeKitten Brown. "

Rage possessed the heavy artillery, and a fury indescribable seized themwhen they discovered that Indians had raided their half ton of feminineperquisites. I went up a tree. 

When the tumult had calmed sufficiently for them to distinguish what Isaid, I made a speech to them. From the higher branches of a neighboringtree Kitten Brown applauded and cried, "Hear! Hear!"

"Ladies, " I said, "you know the worst, now. If you keep me up this treeand starve me to death it will be murder. Also, you don't know enough toget out of these forests, but I can guide you back the way you came. I'lldo it if you cease your dangerous demonstrations and permit Mr. Brown andmyself to remain here and study these giant fish for a week or two. "

[Illustration: "'If you keep me up this tree and starve me to deathit will be murder. '"]

They now seemed disposed to consider the idea. There was nothing else forthem to do. So after an hour or two, Brown and I ventured to descend fromour trees, and we went among them to placate them and ingratiateourselves as best we might. 

"Think, " I argued, "what a matchless opportunity for you to be among thefirst discoverers of a totally new and undescribed species of giant fish!Think what a legacy it will be to leave such a record to posterity! Thinkhow proud and happy your descendants will be to know that their ancestorsassisted at the discovery of _Minnius Smithii_!"

"Why can't they be named after _me_?" demanded Mrs. Batt. 

"Because, " I explained patiently, "they have already been named after_me_!"

"Couldn't _something_ be named after me?" inquired that fearsome lady. 

"The bats, " suggested Brown politely, "we could name a bat after you withpleasure--"

I thought for a moment she meant to swing on him. He thought so, too, andducked. 

"A bat!" she shouted. "Name a _bat_ after _me_!"

"Many a celebrated scientist has been honoured by having his nameconferred upon humbler fauna, " I explained. 

But she remained dangerous, so I went and built the fire, and squattedthere, frying bacon, while on the other side of the fire, sitting sideby side, Kitten Brown and Angelica White gazed upon each other withenraptured eyes. It was slightly sickening--but let that pass. I wasbeginning to understand that science is a jealous mistress and that anycontemplated infidelity of mine stood every chance of being squelched. No; evidently I had not been fashioned for the joys of legal domesticity. Science, the wanton jade, had not yet finished her dance with me. Apparently my maxixe with her was to be external. _Fides servanda est. _

 * * * * *

That afternoon the heavy artillery held a council of war, and evidentlycame to a conclusion to make the best of the situation, for towardsundown they accosted me with a request for the raft, explaining thatthey desired to picnic aboard and afterward row about the lake andindulge in song. 

So Brown and I put aboard the craft a substantial cold supper; and theheavy artillery embarked, taking aboard a guitar to be worked by MissDingleheimer, and knitting for the others. 

It was a lovely evening. Brown and I had been discussing a plan todynamite the lake and stun the fish, that method appealing to us as theonly possible way to secure a specimen of the stupendous minnows whichinhabited the depths. In fact, it was our only hope of possessing one ofthese creatures--fishing with a donkey engine, steel cable, and a hookbaited with a bat being too uncertain and far more laborious andexpensive. 

I was still smoking my pipe, seated at the foot of the big pine-tree, watching the water turn from gold to pink: Brown sat higher up the slope, his arm around Angelica White. I carefully kept my back toward them. 

On the lake the heavy artillery were revelling loudly, banqueting, singing, strumming the guitar, and trailing their hands overboard acrossthe sunset-tinted water. 

I was thinking of nothing in particular as I now remember, except that Inoticed the bats beginning to flit over the lake; when Brown called to mefrom the slope above, asking whether it was perfectly safe for the heavyartillery to remain out so late. 

"Why?" I demanded. 

"Suppose, " he shouted, "that those fish should begin to jump and feed onthe bats again?"

I had never thought of that. 

I rose and hurried nervously down to the shore, and, making a megaphoneof my hands, I shouted:

"Come in! It isn't safe to remain out any longer!"

Scornful laughter from the artillery answered my appeal. 

"You'd better come in!" I called. "You can't tell what might happen ifany of those fish should jump. "

"Mind your business!" retorted Mrs. Batt. "We've had enough of yourprevarications--"

Then, suddenly, without the faintest shadow of warning, from the centreof the lake a vast geyser of water towered a hundred feet in the air. 

For one dreadful second I saw the raft hurled skyward, balanced on thecrest of the stupendous fountain, spilling ladies, supper, guitars, andknitting in every direction. 

Then a horrible thing occurred; fish after fish shot up out of the stormof water and foam, seizing, as they fell, ladies, luncheon, and knittingin mid-air, falling back with a crashing shock which seemed to rock thevery mountains. 

[Illustration: "Then a horrible thing occurred. "]

"Help!" I screamed. And fainted dead away. 

 * * * * *

Is it necessary to proceed? Literature nods; Science shakes her head. No, nothing but literature lies beyond the ripples which splashed musicallyupon the shore, terminating forever the last vibration from thatimmeasurable catastrophe. 

Why should I go on? The newspapers of the nation have recorded the lastscenes of the tragedy. 

We know that tons of dynamite are being forwarded to that solitary lake. We know that it is the determination of the Government to rid the worldof those gigantic minnows. 

And yet, somehow, it seems to me as I sit writing here in my office, amidthe verdure of Bronx Park, that the destruction of these enormous fish isa mistake. 

What more splendid sarcophagus could the ladies of the lake desire thanthese huge, silvery, itinerant and living tombs?

What reward more sumptuous could anybody wish for than to rest at lastwithin the interior dimness of an absolutely new species of anything?

For me, such a final repose as this would represent the highest pinnacleof sublimity, the uttermost zenith of mortal dignity. 

 * * * * *

So what more is there for me to say?

As for Angelica--but no matter. I hope she may be comparatively happywith Kitten Brown. Yet, as I have said before, handsome men never last. But she should have thought of that in time. 

I absolve myself of all responsibility. She had her chance. 

ONE OVER

I

Professor Farrago had remarked to me that morning:

"The city of New York always reminds me of a slovenly, fat woman with herdress unbuttoned behind. "

I nodded. 

"New York's architecture, " said I, "--or what popularly passes forit--is all in front. The minute you get to the rear a pitiable conditionis exposed. "

He said: "Professor Jane Bottomly is all façade; the remainder of her ismerely an occiputal backyard full of theoretical tin cans and brokenbottles. I think we all had better resign. "

It was a fearsome description. I trembled as I lighted an inexpensivecigar. 

The sentimental feminist movement in America was clearly at the bottom ofthe Bottomly affair. 

Long ago, in a reactionary burst of hysteria, the North enfranchised theEthiopian. In a similar sentimental explosion of dementia, some sixtyyears later, the United States wept violently over the immemorial wrongsperpetrated upon the restless sex, opened the front and back doors ofopportunity, and sobbed out, "Go to it, ladies!"

They are still going. 

Professor Jane Bottomly was wished on us out of a pleasant April sky. Shefell like a meteoric mass of molten metal upon the Bronx Park ZoölogicalSociety splashing her excoriating personality over everybody untileverybody writhed. 

I had not yet seen the lady. I did not care to. Sooner or later I'd beobliged to meet her but I was not impatient. 

Now the Field Expeditionary Force of the Bronx Park Zoölogical Societyis, perhaps, the most important arm of the service. Professor Bottomlyhad just been appointed official head of all field work. Why? Nobodyknew. It is true that she had written several combination nature and loveromances. In these popular volumes trees, flowers, butterflies, birds, animals, dialect, sobs, and sun-bonnets were stirred up together into asaccharine mess eagerly gulped down by a provincial reading public, whichimmediately protruded its tongue for more. 

The news of her impending arrival among us was an awful blow to everybodyat the Bronx. Professor Farrago fainted in the arms of his prettystenographer; Professor Cornelius Lezard of the Batrachian Department ranaround his desk all day long in narrowing circles and was discovered onhis stomach still feebly squirming like an expiring top; Dr. Hans Fooss, our beloved Professor of Pachydermatology sat for hours weeping into hisnoodle soup. As for me, I was both furious and frightened, for, withinthe hearing of several people, Professor Bottomly had remarked in a veryclear voice to her new assistant, Dr. Daisy Delmour, that she intended toget rid of me for the good of the Bronx because of my reputation forindiscreet gallantry among the feminine employees of the Bronx Society. 

Professor Lezard overhead that outrageous remark and he hastened torepeat it to me. 

I was lunching at the time in my private office in the AdministrationBuilding with Dr. Hans Fooss--he and I being too busy dissecting anunusually fine specimen of Dingue to go to the Rolling Stone Inn forluncheon--when Professor Lezard rushed in with the scandalous libel stillsizzling in his ears. 

"Everybody heard her say it!" he went on, wringing his hands. "It was amost unfortunate thing for anybody to say about you before all thoseyoung ladies. Every stenographer and typewriter there turned pale andthen red. "

"What!" I exclaimed, conscious that my own ears were growing large andhot. "Did that outrageous woman have the bad taste to say such a thingbefore all those sensitive girls!"

"She did. She glared at them when she said it. Several blondes and onebrunette began to cry. "

"I hope, " said I, a trifle tremulously, "that no typewriter so far forgotherself as to admit noticing playfulness on my part. "

"They all were tearfully unanimous in declaring you to be a perfectgentleman!"

"I am, " I said. "I am also a married man--irrevocably wedded to science. I desire no other spouse. I am ineligible; and everybody knows it. If attimes a purely scientific curiosity leads me into a detached andimpersonally psychological investigation of certain--ah--feminineidiosyncrasies--"

"Certainly, " said Lezard. "To investigate the feminine is more than ascience; it is a duty!"

"Of a surety!" nodded Dr. Fooss. 

I looked proudly upon my two loyal friends and bit into my cheesesandwich. Only men know men. A jury of my peers had exonerated me. Whatdid I care for Professor Bottomly!

"All the same, " added Lezard, "you'd better be careful or ProfessorBottomly will put one over on you yet. "

"I am always careful, " I said with dignity. 

"All men should be. It is the only protection of a defenseless coastline, " nodded Lezard. 

"Und neffer, neffer commid nodding to paper, " added Dr. Fooss. "Don'dneffer write it, 'I lofe you like I was going to blow up alretty!' Ach, nein! Don'd you write down somedings. Effery man he iss entitled toprotection; und so iss it he iss protected. "

Stein in hand he beamed upon us benevolently over his knifeful ofsauerfisch, then he fed himself and rammed it down with a hearty draughtof Pilsner. We gazed with reverence upon Kultur as embodied in this greatTeuton. 

"That woman, " remarked Lezard to me, "certainly means to get rid of you. It seems to me that there are only two possible ways for you to hold downyour job at the Bronx. You know it, don't you?"

I nodded. "Yes, " I said; "either I must pay marked masculine attention toProfessor Bottomly or I must manage to put one over on her. "

"Of course, " said Lezard, "the first method is the easier for _you_--"

"Not for a minute!" I said, hastily; "I simply couldn't become frolicsomewith her. You say she's got a voice like a drill-sergeant and shegoose-steps when she walks; and I don't mind admitting she has me badlyscared already. No; she must be scientifically ruined. It is the onlymethod which makes her elimination certain. "

"But if her popular nature books didn't ruin her scientifically, how canwe hope to lead her astray?" inquired Lezard. 

"There is, " I said, thoughtfully, "only one thing that can really ruin ascientist. Ridicule! I have braved it many a time, taking my scientificlife in my hands in pursuit of unknown specimens which might have provedonly imaginary. Public ridicule would have ended my scientific career insuch an event. I know of no better way to end Professor Bottomly'sscientific career and capability for mischief than to start her out aftersomething which doesn't exist, inform the newspapers, and let her sufferthe agonising consequences. "

Dr. Fooss began to shout:

"The idea iss schön! colossal! prachtvol! ausgezeichnet! wunderbar!wunderschön! gemütlich--" A large, tough noodle checked him. While helabored with Teutonic imperturbability to master it Lezard and Iexchanged suggestions regarding the proposed annihilation of thisfearsome woman who had come ravening among us amid the peaceful andsoporific environment of Bronx Park. 

It was a dreadful thing for us to have our balmy Lotus-eaters' paradiseso startlingly invaded by a large, loquacious, loud-voiced lady who hadalready stirred us all out of our agreeable, traditional and leisurelyinertia. Inertia begets cogitation, and cogitation begets ideas, andideas beget reflexion, and profound reflexion is the fundamentalcornerstone of that immortal temple in which the goddess Science sitsasleep between her dozing sisters, Custom and Religion. 

This thought seemed to me so unusually beautiful that I wrote it with apencil upon my cuff. 

While I was writing it, quietly happy in the deep pleasure that myintellectual allegory afforded me, Dr. Fooss swabbed the last morsel ofnourishment from his plate with a wad of rye bread, then bolting thebread and wiping his beard with his fingers and his fingers on hiswaistcoat, he made several guttural observations too profoundly Germanto be immediately intelligible, and lighted his porcelain pipe. 

"Ach wass!" he remarked in ruminative fashion. "Dot Frauenzimmer she issto raise hell alretty determined. Von Pachydermatology she knows nodding. Maybe she leaves me alone, maybe it is to be 'raus mit me. I' weis' ni'!It iss aber besser one over on dat lady to put, yess?"

"It certainly is advisable, " replied Lezard. 

"Let us try to think of something sufficiently disastrous to terminateher scientific career, " said I. And I bowed my rather striking head andrested the point of my forefinger upon my forehead. Thought crystallisesmore quickly for me when I assume this attitude. 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lezard fold his arms and sit frowningat infinity. 

Dr. Fooss lay back in a big, deeply padded armchair and closed hisprominent eyes. His pipe went out presently, and now and then he madelong-drawn nasal remarks, in German, too complicated for either Lezard orfor me to entirely comprehend. 

"We must try to get her as far away from here as possible, " mused Lezard. "Is Oyster Bay _too_ far and too cruel?"

I pondered darkly upon the suggestion. But it seemed unpleasantly likemurder. 

"Lezard, " said I, "come, let us reason together. Now _what_ is woman'sbesetting emotion?"

"Curiosity?"

"Very well; assuming that to be true, what--ah--quality particularlycharacterizes woman when so beset. "

"Ruthless determination. "

"Then, " said I, "we ought to begin my exciting the curiosity of ProfessorBottomly; and her ruthless determination to satisfy that curiosity shouldlogically follow. "

"How, " he asked, "are we to arouse her curiosity?"

"By pretending that we have knowledge of something hitherto undiscovered, the discovery of which would redound to our scientific glory. "

"I see. She'd want the glory for herself. She'd swipe it. "

"She would, " said I. 

"Tee--hee!" he giggled; "Wouldn't it be funny to plant something phony onher--"

I waved my arms rather gracefully in my excitement:

"That is the germ of an idea!" I said. "If we could plantsomething--something--far away from here--very far away--if we couldbury something--like the Cardiff Giant--"

"Hundreds and hundreds of miles away!"

"Thousands!" I insisted, enthusiastically. 

"Tee-hee! In Tasmania, for example! Maybe a Tasmanian Devil might acquireher!"

"There exists a gnat, " said I, "in Borneo--_Gnatus soporificus_--andwhen this tiny gnat stings people they never entirely wake up. It'sreally rather a pleasurable catastrophe, I understand. Life becomesone endless cat-nap--one delightful siesta, with intervals for lightnourishment. .. . She--ah--could sit very comfortably in some pleasantretreat and rock in a rocking-chair and doze quite happily through theyears to come. .. . And from your description of her I should say thatthe Soldiers' Home might receive her. "

"It won't do, " he said, gloomily. 

"Why? Is it too much like crime?"

"Oh not at all. Only if she went to Borneo she'd be sure to take amosquito-bar with her. "

In the depressed silence which ensued Dr. Fooss suddenly made severalFuturist observations through his nose with monotonous but authoritativeregularity. I tried to catch his meaning and his eye. The one remainedcryptic, the other shut. 

Lezard sat thinking very hard. And as I fidgetted in my chair, fiddlingnervously with various objects lying on my desk I chanced to pick up aletter from the pile of still unopened mail at my elbow. 

Still pondering on Professor Bottomly's proposed destruction, I turnedthe letter over idly and my preoccupied gaze rested on the postmark. After a moment I leaned forward and examined it more attentively. Theletter directed to me was postmarked Fort Carcajou, Cook's Peninsula, Baffin Land; and now I recalled the handwriting, having already seen itthree or four times within the last month or so. 

"Lezard, " I said, "that lunatic trapper from Baffin Land has written tome again. What do you suppose is the matter with him? Is he just plaincrazy or does he think he can be funny with me?"

Lezard gazed at me absently. Then, all at once a gleam of savage interestlighted his somewhat solemn features. 

"Read the letter to me, " he said, with an evil smile which instantlyanimated my own latent imagination. And immediately it occurred to methat perhaps, in the humble letter from the wilds of Baffin Land, which Iwas now opening with eager and unsteady fingers, might lie concealed theprofessional undoing of Professor Jane Bottomly, and the only hope of myown ultimate and scientific salvation. 

The room became hideously still as I unfolded the pencil-scrawled sheetsof cheap, ruled letter paper. 

Dr. Fooss opened his eyes, looked at me, made porcine sounds indicativeof personal well-being, relighted his pipe, and disposed himself tolisten. But just as I was about to begin, Lezard suddenly laid hisforefinger across his lips conjuring us to densest silence. 

For a moment or two I heard nothing except the buzzing of flies. ThenI stole a startled glance at my door. It was opening slowly, almostimperceptibly. 

But it did not open very far--just a crack remained. Then, listening withall our might, we heard the cautiously suppressed breathing of somebodyin the hallway just outside of my door. 

Lezard turned and cast at me a glance of horrified intelligence. In dumbpantomime he outlined in the air, with one hand, the large and feminineamplification of his own person, conveying to us the certainty of hissuspicions concerning the unseen eavesdropper. 

We nodded. We understood perfectly that _she_ was out there prepared tolisten to every word we uttered. 

A flicker of ferocious joy disturbed Lezard's otherwise innocuousfeatures; he winked horribly at Dr. Fooss and at me, and uttered a faintclick with his teeth and tongue like the snap of a closing trap. 

"Gentlemen, " he said, in the guarded yet excited voice of a man who isconfident of not being overheard, "the matter under discussion admits ofonly one interpretation: a discovery--perhaps the most vitally importantdiscovery of all the centuries--is imminent. 

"Secrecy is imperative; the scientific glory is to be shared by us alone, and there is enough of glory to go around. 

"Mr. Chairman, I move that epoch-making letter be read aloud!"

"I second dot motion!" said Dr. Fooss, winking so violently at me thathis glasses wabbled. 

"Gentlemen, " said I, "it has been moved and seconded that thisepoch-making letter be read aloud. All those in favor will kindlysay 'aye. '"

"Aye! Aye!" they exclaimed, fairly wriggling in their furtive joy. 

"The contrary-minded will kindly emit the usual negation, " I wenton. .. . "It seems to be carried. .. . It _is_ carried. The chairman willproceed to the reading of the epoch-making letter. "

I quietly lighted a five-cent cigar, unfolded the letter and read aloud:

 "Joneses Shack, Golden Glacier, Cook's Peninsula, Baffin Land, March 15, 1915. 

 "Professor, Dear Sir:

 "I already wrote you three times no answer having been rec'd perhaps you think I'm kiddin' you're a dam' liar I ain't. 

 "Hoping to tempt you to come I will hereby tell you more'n I told you in my other letters, the terminal moraine of this here Golden Glacier finishes into a marsh, nothing to see for miles excep' frozen tussock and mud and all flat as hell for fifty miles which is where I am trappin' it for mink and otter and now ready to go back to Fort Carcajou. I told you what I seen stickin' in under this here marsh, where anything sticks out the wolves have eat it, but most of them there ellerphants is in under the ice and mud too far for the wolves to git 'em. 

 "i ain't kiddin' you, there is a whole herd of furry ellerphants in the marsh like as they were stuck there and all lay down and was drownded like. Some has tusks and some hasn't. Two ellerphants stuck out of the ice, I eat onto one, the meat was good and sweet and joosy, the damn wolves eat it up that night, I had cut stakes and rost for three months though and am eating off it yet. 

 "Thinking as how ellerphants and all like that is your graft, I being a keeper in the Mouse House once in the Bronx and seein' you nosin' around like you was full of scientific thinks, it comes to me to write you and put you next. 

 "If you say so I'll wait here and help you with them ellerphants. Livin' wages is all I ask also eleven thousand dollars for tippin' you wise. I won't tell nobody till I hear from you. I'm hones' you can trus' me. Write me to Fort Carcajou if you mean bizness. So no more respectfully, James Skaw. "

When I finished reading I cautiously glanced at the door, and, finding itstill on the crack, turned and smiled subtly upon Lezard and Fooss. 

In their slowly spreading grins I saw they agreed with me that somebody, signing himself James Skaw, was still trying to hoax the Great ZoölogicalSociety of Bronx Park. 

"Gentlemen, " I said aloud, injecting innocent enthusiasm into my voice, "this secret expedition to Baffin Land which we three are about toorganise is destined to be without doubt the most scientifically prolificfield expedition ever organised by man. 

"Imagine an entire herd of mammoths preserved in mud and ice through allthese thousands of years!

"Gentlemen, no discovery ever made has even remotely approached inimportance the discovery made by this simple, illiterate trapper, JamesSkaw. "

"I thought, " protested Lezard, "that _we_ are to be announced as thediscoverers. "

"We are, " said I, "the discoverers of James Skaw, which makesus technically the finders of the ice-preserved herd ofmammoths--_technically_, you understand. A few thousand dollars, "I added, carelessly, "ought to satiate James Skaw. "

"We could name dot glacier after him, " suggested Dr. Fooss. 

"Certainly--the Skaw Glacier. That ought to be enough glory for him. Itought to satisfy him and prevent any indiscreet remarks, " nodded Lezard. 

"Gentlemen, " said I, "there is only one detail that really troubles me. Ought we to notify our honoured and respected Chief of Divisionconcerning this discovery?"

"Do you mean, should we tell that accomplished and fascinating lady, Professor Bottomly, about this herd of mammoths?" I asked in a loud, clear voice. And immediately answered my own question: "No, " I said, "no, dear friends. Professor Bottomly already has too much responsibilityweighing upon her distinguished mind. No, dear brothers in science, weshould steal away unobserved as though setting out upon an ordinary fieldexpedition. And when we return with fresh and immortal laurels such as noman before has ever worn, no doubt that our generous-minded Chief ofDivision will weave for us further wreaths to crown our brows--thepriceless garlands of professional approval!" And I made a horrible faceat my co-conspirators. 

Before I finished Lezard had taken his own face in his hands for thepurpose of stifling raucous and untimely mirth. As for Dr. Fooss, hissmall, porcine eyes snapped and twinkled madly behind his spectacles, buthe seemed rather inclined to approve my flowers of rhetoric. 

"Ja, " said he, "so iss it besser oursellufs dot gefrozenss herd vonelephanten to discover, und, by and by, die elephanten bei der Pronx Barkhome yet again once more to bring. We shall therefore much praise therebybekommen. Ach wass!"

"Gentlemen, " said I, distinctly, "it is decided, then, that we shall saynothing concerning the true object of this expedition to ProfessorBottomly. "

Lezard and Fooss nodded assent. Then, in the silence, we all strained ourears to listen. And presently we detected the scarcely heard sound ofcautiously retreating footsteps down the corridor. 

When it was safe to do so I arose and closed my door. 

"I think, " said I, with a sort of infernal cheerfulness in my tones, "that we are about to do something jocose to Jane Bottomly. "

"A few, " said Professor Lezard. He rose and silently executed acomplicated ballet-step. 

"I shall laff, " said Dr. Fooss, earnestly, "und I shall laff, und I shalllaff--ach Gott how I shall laff my pally head off!"

I folded my arms and turned romanesquely toward the direction in whichProfessor Bottomly had retreated. 

"Viper!" I said. "The Bronx shall nourish you in its bosom no more! Fadeaway, Ophidian!"

The sentiment was applauded by all. There chanced to be in my desk abottle marked: "That's all!" On the label somebody had written: "Do itnow!" We did. 

III

It was given out at the Bronx that our field expedition to BaffinLand was to be undertaken solely for the purpose of bringing backliving specimens of the five-spotted Arctic woodcock--_Philohelaquinquemaculata_--in order to add to our onomatology and our glossaryof onomatopoeia an ontogenesis of this important but hitherto unstudiedsub-species. 

I trust I make myself clear. Scientific statements should be as clear asthe Spuyten Duyvil. _Sola in stagno salus!_

But two things immediately occurred which worried us; Professor Bottomlysent us official notification that she approved our expedition to BaffinLand, designated the steamer we were to take, and enclosed tickets. Thatscared us. Then to add to our perplexity Professor Bottomly disappeared, leaving Dr. Daisy Delmour in charge of her department during what sheannounced might be "a somewhat prolonged absence on business. "

And during the four feverish weeks of our pretended preparations forBaffin Land not one word did we hear from Jane Bottomly, which caused uspainful inquietude as the hour approached for our departure. 

Was this formidable woman actually intending to let us depart alonefor the Golden Glacier? Was she too lazy to rob us of the secretlycontemplated glory which we had pretended awaited us?

We had been so absolutely convinced that she would forbid our expedition, pack us off elsewhere, and take charge herself of an exploring party toBaffin Land, that, as the time for our leaving drew near we became firstuneasy, and then really alarmed. 

It would be a dreadful jest on us if she made us swallow our ownconcoction; if she revealed to our colleagues our pretended knowledge ofthe Golden Glacier and James Skaw and the supposedly ice-imbedded herd ofmammoths, and then publicly forced us to investigate this hoax. 

More horrible still would it be if she informed the newspapers and gavethem a hint to make merry over the three wise men of the Bronx who wentto Baffin Land in a boat. 

"_What_ do you suppose that devious and secretive female is up to?"inquired Lezard who, within the last few days, had grown thin with worry. "Is it possible that she is sufficiently degraded to suspect us of tryingto put one over on her? Is that what she is now doing to us?"

"_Terminus est_--it is the limit!" said I. 

He turned a morbid eye upon me. "She is making a monkey of us. That'swhat!"

"_Suspendenda omnia naso_, " I nodded; "_tarde sed tute_. When I thinkaloud in Latin it means that I am deeply troubled. _Suum quemque scelusagitat. _ Do you get me, Professor? I'm sorry I attempted to be sportivewith this terrible woman. The curse of my scientific career has beenperiodical excesses of frivolity. See where this frolicsome impulsehas landed me!--_super abyssum ambulans. Trahit sua quemque voluptas;transeat in exemplum!_ She means to let us go to our destruction on thismammoth frappé affair. "

But Dr. Fooss was optimistic:

"I tink she iss alretty herselluf by dot Baffin Land ge-gone, " he said. "I tink she has der bait ge-swallowed. Ve vait; ve see; und so iss it veknow. "

"But why hasn't she stopped our preparations?" I demanded. "If she wantsall the glory herself why does she permit us to incur this expense ingetting ready?"

"No mans can to know der vorkings of der mental brocess by aFrauenzimmer, " said Dr. Fooss, wagging his head. 

The suspense became nerve-racking; we were obliged to pack our campingkits; and it began to look as though we would have either to sail thenext morning or to resign from the Bronx Park Zoölogical Society, becauseall the evening papers had the story in big type--the details and objectsof the expedition, the discovery of the herd of mammoths in cold storage, the prompt organization of an expedition to secure this unparalleleddeposit of prehistoric mammalia--everything was there staring at us inviolent print, excepting only the name of the discoverer and the names ofthose composing the field expedition. 

"She means to betray us after we have sailed, " said Lezard, greatlydepressed. "We might just as well resign now before this hoax explodesand bespatters us. We can take our chances in vaudeville or as lecturingprofessors with the movies. "

I thought so, too, in point of fact we all had gathered in my study towrite out our resignations, when there came a knock at the door and Dr. Daisy Delmour walked in. 

Oddly enough I had not before met Dr. Delmour personally; only formalwritten communications had hitherto passed between us. My idea of herhad doubtless been inspired by the physical and intellectual aberrationsof her chief; I naturally supposed her to be either impossible andcorporeally redundant, or intellectually and otherwise as weazened aslast year's Li-che nut. 

I was criminally mistaken. And why Lezard, who knew her, had never set meright I could not then understand. I comprehended later. 

For the feminine assistant of Professor Jane Bottomly, who sauntered intomy study and announced herself, had the features of Athene, the smile ofAphrodite, and the figure of Psyche. I believe I do not exaggerate thesescientific details, although it has been said of me that any pretty girldistorts my vision and my intellectual balance to the detriment of mycalmer reason and my differentiating ability. 

"Gentlemen, " said Dr. Delmour, while we stood in a respectful semi-circlebefore her, modestly conscious of our worth, our toes turned out, andeach man's features wreathed with that politely unnatural smirk whichmasculine features assume when confronted by feminine beauty. "Gentlemen, on the eve of your proposed departure for Baffin Land in quest of livingspecimens of the five-spotted _Philohela quinquemaculata_, I have beeninstructed by Professor Bottomly to announce to you a great good fortunefor her, for you, for the Bronx, for America, for the entire civilizedworld. 

"It has come to Professor Bottomly's knowledge, recently I believe, thatan entire herd of mammoths lie encased in the mud and ice of the vastflat marshes which lie south of the terminal moraine of the GoldenGlacier in that part of Baffin Land known as Dr. Cook's Peninsula. 

"The credit of this epoch-making discovery is Professor Bottomly'sentirely. How it happened, she did not inform me. One month ago today shesailed in great haste for Baffin Land. At this very hour she is doubtlessstanding all alone upon the frozen surface of that wondrous marsh, contemplating with reverence and awe and similar holy emotions the fruitsof her own unsurpassed discovery!"

Dr. Delmour's lovely features became delicately suffused and transfiguredas she spoke; her exquisite voice thrilled with generous emotion; sheclasped her snowy hands and gazed, enraptured, at the picture of Dr. Bottomly which her mind was so charmingly evoking. 

"Perhaps, " she whispered, "perhaps at this very instant, in the midst ofthat vast and flat and solemn desolation the only protuberance visiblefor miles and miles is Professor Bottomly. Perhaps the pallid Arctic sunis setting behind the majestic figure of Professor Bottomly, radiating ablinding glory to the zenith, illuminating the crowning act of her careerwith its unearthly aura!"

She gazed at us out of dimmed and violet eyes. 

"Gentlemen, " she said, "I am ordered to take command of this expeditionof yours; I am ordered to sail with you tomorrow morning on the Labradorand Baffin Line steamer _Dr. Cook_. 

"The object of your expedition, therefore, is not to be the quest of_Philohela quinquemaculata_; your duty now is to corroborate the almostmiraculous discovery of Professor Bottomly, and to disinter for her thevast herd of frozen mammoths, pack and pickle them, and get them to theBronx. 

"Tomorrow's morning papers will have the entire story: the credit andresponsibility for the discovery and the expedition belong to ProfessorBottomly, and will be given to her by the press and the populace of ourgreat republic. 

"It is her wish that no other names be mentioned. Which is right. To thediscoverer belongs the glory. Therefore, the marsh is to be namedBottomly's Marsh, and the Glacier, Bottomly's Glacier. 

"Yours and mine is to be the glory of laboring incognito under thedirection of the towering scientific intellect of the age, ProfessorBottomly. 

"And the most precious legacy you can leave your children--if you getmarried and have any--is that you once wielded the humble pick and shovelfor Jane Bottomly on the bottomless marsh which bears her name!"

 * * * * *

After a moment's silence we three men ventured to look sideways ateach other. We had certainly killed Professor Bottomly, scientificallyspeaking. The lady was practically dead. The morning papers wouldconsummate the murder. We didn't know whether we wanted to laugh or not. 

She was now virtually done for; that seemed certain. So greedily had thisegotistical female swallowed the silly bait we offered, so arrogantly hadshe planned to eliminate everybody excepting herself from the credit ofthe discovery, that there seemed now nothing left for us to do except towatch her hurdling deliriously toward destruction. _Should_ we burst intohellish laughter?

We looked hard at Dr. Delmour and we decided not to--yet. 

Said I: "To assist at the final apotheosis of Professor Bottomly makes usvery, very happy. We are happy to remain incognito, mere ciphers blottedout by the fierce white light which is about to beat upon ProfessorBottomly, fore and aft. We are happy that our participation in thisastonishing affair shall never be known to science. 

"But, happiest of all are we, dear Dr. Delmour, in the knowledge that_you_ are to be with us and of us, incognito on this voyage now imminent;that you are to be our revered and beloved leader. 

"And I, for one, promise you personally the undivided devotion of a manwhose entire and austere career has been dedicated to science--in _all_its branches. "

I stepped forward rather gracefully and raised her little hand to my lipsto let her see that even the science of gallantry had not been neglectedby me. 

Dr. Daisy Delmour blushed. 

"Therefore, " said I, "considering the fact that our names are not tofigure in this expedition; and, furthermore, in consideration of the factthat _you_ are going, we shall be very, very happy to accompany you, Dr. Delmour. " I again saluted her hand, and again Dr. Delmour blushed andlooked sideways at Professor Lezard. 

IV

It was, to be accurate, exactly twenty-three days later that our voyageby sea and land ended one Monday morning upon the gigantic terminalmoraine of the Golden Glacier, Cook's Peninsula, Baffin Land. 

Four pack-mules carried our luggage, four more bore our persons; anarctic dicky-bird sat on a bowlder and said, "Pilly-willy-willy! Tweet!Tweet!"

As we rode out to the bowlder-strewn edge of the moraine the rising sungreeted us cordially, illuminating below us the flat surface of the marshwhich stretched away to the east and south as far as the eye could see. 

So flat was it that we immediately made out the silhouettes of two mulestethered below us a quarter of a mile away. 

Something about the attitude of these mules arrested our attention, and, gazing upon them through our field-glasses we beheld Professor Bottomly. 

That resourceful lady had mounted a pneumatic hammock upon the two mules, their saddles had sockets to fit the legs of the galvanized iron tripod. 

No matter in which way the mules turned, sliding swivels on the hollowsteel frames regulated the hammock slung between them. It was an infernalinvention. 

There lay Jane Bottomly asleep, her black hair drying over the hammock'sedge, gilded to a peroxide lustre by the rays of the rising sun. 

I gazed upon her with a sort of ferocious pity. Her professional dayswere numbered. _I_ also had her number!

"How majestically she slumbers, " whispered Dr. Delmour to me, "dreaming, doubtless, of her approaching triumph. "

Dr. Fooss and Professor Lezard, driving the pack-mules ahead of them, were already riding out across the marsh. 

"Daisy, " I said, leaning from my saddle and taking one of her glovedhands into mine, "the time has come for me to disillusion you. There areno mammoths in that mud down there. "

She looked at me in blue-eyed amazement. 

"You are mistaken, " she said; "Professor Bottomly is celebrated for theabsolute and painstaking accuracy of her deductions and the boldness andthe imagination of her scientific investigations. She is the mostcautious scientist in America; she would never announce such a discoveryto the newspapers unless she were perfectly certain of its truth. "

I was sorry for this young girl. I pressed her hand because I was sorryfor her. After a few moments of deepest thought I felt so sorry for herthat I kissed her. 

[Illustration: "I felt so sorry for her that I kissed her. "]

"You mustn't, " said Dr. Delmour, blushing. 

The things we mustn't do are so many that I can't always remember all ofthem. 

"Daisy, " I said, "shall we pledge ourselves to each other foreternity--here in the presence of this immemorial glacier which moves athousand inches a year--I mean an inch every thousand years--here inthese awful solitudes where incalculable calculations could not enlightenus concerning the number of cubic tons of mud in that marsh--here in thepresence of these innocent mules--"

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Dr. Delmour, lifting her flushed cheek from myshoulder. "There is a man in the hammock with Professor Bottomly!"

I levelled my field-glasses incredulously. Good Heavens! There _was_ aman there. He was sitting on the edge of the hammock in a dejectedattitude, his booted legs dangling. 

And, as I gazed, I saw the arm of Professor Bottomly raised as thoughgroping instinctively for something in her slumber--saw her fingers closeupon the blue-flannel shirt of her companion, saw his timid futileattempts to elude her, saw him inexorably hauled back and his headforcibly pillowed upon her ample chest. 

"Daisy!" I faltered, "what does yonder scene of presumable domesticitymean?"

"I--I haven't the faintest idea!" she stammered. 

"Is that lady married! Or is this revelry?" I asked, sternly. 

"She wasn't married when she sailed from N-New-York, " faltered Dr. Delmour. 

We rode forward in pained silence, spurring on until we caught up withLezard and Fooss and the pack-mules; then we all pressed ahead, a prey, now, to the deepest moral anxiety and agitation. 

The splashing of our mule's feet on the partly melted surface of the mudaroused the man as we rode up and he scrambled madly to get out of thehammock as soon as he saw us. 

A detaining feminine hand reached mechanically for his collar, gropedaimlessly for a moment, and fell across the hammock's edge. Evidently itsowner was too sleepy for effort. 

Meanwhile the man who had floundered free from the hammock, leapedoverboard and came hopping stiffly over the slush toward us like abadly-winged snipe. 

"Who are you?" I demanded, drawing bridle so suddenly that I found myselfastride of my mule's ears. Sliding back into the saddle, I repeated thechallenge haughtily, inwardly cursing my horsemanship. 

He stood balancing his lank six feet six of bony altitude for a fewmoments without replying. His large gentle eyes of baby blue were fixedon me. 

"Speak!" I said. "The reputation of a lady is at stake! Who are you? Weask, before we shoot you, for purpose of future identification. "

He gazed at me wildly. "I dunno who I be, " he replied. "My name _was_James Skaw before that there lady went an' changed it on me. She says shehas changed my name to hers. I dunno. All I know is I'm married. "

"_Married!_" echoed Dr. Delmour. 

He looked dully at the girl, then fixed his large mild eyes on me. 

"A mission priest done it for her a month ago when we was hikin' towardsFort Carcajou. Hoon-hel are you?" he added. 

I informed him with dignity; he blinked at me, at the others, at themules. Then he said with infinite bitterness:

"You're a fine guy, ain't you, a-wishin' this here lady onto a porepelt-hunter what ain't never done nothin' to you!"

"Who did you say I wished on you?" I demanded, bewildered. 

"That there lady a-sleepin' into the nuptool hammick! You wished her ontome--yaas you did! Whatnhel have I done to you, hey?"

We were dumb. He shoved his hand into his pocket, produced a slug oftwist, slowly gnawed off a portion, and buried the remains in his vastjaw. 

"All I done to you, " he said, "was to write you them letters sayin's ashow I found a lot of ellerphants into the mud. 

"What you done to me was to send that there lady here. Was thatgratitood? Man to man I ask you?"

A loud snore from the hammock startled us all. James Skaw twisted hisneck turkey-like, and looked warily at the hammock, then turning towardme:

"Aw, " he said, "she don't never wake up till I have breakfast ready. "

"James Skaw, " I said, "tell me what has happened. On my word of honor Idon't know. "

He regarded me with lack-lustre eyes. 

"I was a-settin' onto a bowlder, " said he, "a-fig-urin' out whether youwas a-comin' or not, when that there lady rides up with her led-mule atrailin'. 

"Sez she: 'Are you James Skaw?'

"Yes, marm, ' sez I, kinder scared an' puzzled. 

"'Where is them ellerphants?' sez she, reachin' down from her saddle an'takin' me by the shirt collar, an' beatin' me with her umbrella. 

"Sez I, 'I have wrote to a certain gent that I would show him themellerphants for a price. Bein' strictly hones' I can't show 'em to no oneelse until I hear from him. '

"With that she continood to argoo the case with her umbrella, neverlettin' go of my shirt collar. Sir, she argood until dinner time, an'then she resoomed the debate until I fell asleep. The last I knowed shewas still conversin'. 

"An' so it went next day, all day long, an' the next day. I couldn'tstand it no longer so I started for Fort Carcajau. But she bein' onto amule, run me down easy, an' kep' beside me conversin' volooble. 

"Sir, do you know what it is to listen to umbrella argooment every day, all day long, from sun-up to night-fall? An' then some more?

"I was loony, I tell you, when we met the mission priest. 'Marry me, ' sezshe, 'or I'll talk you to death!' I didn't realise what she was sayin'an' what I answered. But them words I uttered done the job, it seems. 

"We camped there an' slep' for two days without wakin. ' When I waked upI was convalescent. 

"She was good to me. She made soup an' she wrapped blankets onto me an'she didn't talk no more until I was well enough to endoor it. 

"An' by'm'by she brooke the nooze to me that we was married an' that shehad went as far as to marry me in the sacred cause of science because manan' wife is one, an' what I knowed about them ellerphants she now had aright to know. 

"Sir, she had put one over on me. So bein' strickly hones' I had to showher where them ellerphants lay froze up under the marsh. "

V

Where the ambition of this infatuated woman had led her appalled us all. The personal sacrifice she had made in the name of science awed us. 

Still when I remembered that detaining arm sleepily lifted from thenuptual hammock, I was not so certain concerning her continued martyrdom. 

I cast an involuntary glance of critical appraisal upon James Skaw. Hehad the golden hair and beard of the early Christian martyr. His featureswere classically regular; he stood six feet six; he was lean because fit, sound as a hound's tooth, and really a superb specimen of masculinehealth. 

Curry him and trim him and clothe him in evening dress and his physicalappearance would make a sensation at the Court of St. James. Only hisEnglish required manicuring. 

The longer I looked at him the better I comprehended that detaining handfrom the hammock. _Fabas indulcet fames_. 

Then, with a shock, it rushed over me that there evidently had been someground for this man's letters to me concerning a herd of frozen mammoths. 

Professor Bottomly had not only married him to obtain the information buthere she was still camping on the marsh!

"James Skaw, " I said, tremulously, "where are those mammoths?"

He looked at me, then made a vague gesture:

"Under the mud--everywhere--all around us. "

"Has _she_ seen them?"

"Yes, I showed her about a hundred. There's one under you. Look! you cansee him through the slush. "

"Ach Gott!" burst from Dr. Fooss, and he tottered in his saddle. Lezard, frightfully pale, passed a shaking hand over his brow. As for me my hairbecame dank with misery, for there directly under my feet, the vast hairybulk of a mammoth lay dimly visible through the muddy ice. 

What I had done to myself when I was planning to do Professor Bottomlysuddenly burst upon me in all its hideous proportions. Fame, the plauditsof the world, the highest scientific honours--all these in my effort toannihilate her, I had deliberately thrust upon this woman to my owneverlasting detriment and disgrace. 

A sort of howl escaped from Dr. Fooss, who had dismounted and who hadbeen scratching in the slush with his feet like a hen. For already thisslight gallinaceous effort of his had laid bare a hairy section of frozenmammoth. 

Lezard, weeping bitterly, squatted beside him clawing at the thin skin ofice with a pick-axe. 

It seemed more than I could bear and I flung myself from my mule andseizing a spade, fell violently to work, the tears of rage andmortification coursing down my cheeks. 

"Hurrah!" cried Dr. Delmour, excitedly, scrambling down from her mule andlifting a box of dynamite from her saddle-bags. 

Transfigured with enthusiasm she seized a crowbar, traced in the slushthe huge outlines of the buried beast, then, measuring with practiced eyethe irregular zone of cleavage, she marked out a vast oval, dug holesalong it with her bar, dropped into each hole a stick of dynamite, gotout the batteries and wires, attached the fuses, covered each charge, and retired on a run toward the moraine, unreeling wire as she spedupward among the bowlders. 

Half frantic with grief and half mad with the excitement of the moment westill had sense enough to shoulder our tools and drive our mules backacross the moraine. 

Only the mule-hammock in which reposed Professor Bottomly remained on themarsh. For one horrid instant temptation assailed me to press the buttonbefore James Skaw could lead the hammock-mules up to the moraine. It wasmy closest approach to crime. 

With a shudder I viewed the approach of the mules. James Skaw led them bythe head; the hammock on its bar and swivels swung gently between them;Professor Bottomly slept, lulled, no doubt, to deeper slumber by thegently swaying hammock. 

When the hammock came up, one by one we gazed upon its unconsciousoccupant. 

And, even amid dark and revengeful thoughts, amid a mental chaos of griefand fury and frantic self-reproach, I had to admit to myself that JaneBottomly was a fine figure of a woman, and good-looking, too, and thather hair was all her own and almost magnificent at that. 

With a modiste to advise her, a maid to dress her, I myself mighthave--but let that pass. Only as I gazed upon her fresh complexion andthe softly parted red lips of Professor Bottomly, and as I noted thebeautiful white throat and prettily shaped hands, a newer, bitterer, andmore overwhelming despair seized me; and I realized now that perhaps Ihad thrown away more than fame, honours, applause; I had perhaps thrownaway love!

At that moment Professor Bottomly awoke. For a moment her lilac-tintedeyes had a dazed expression, then they widened, and she lay very quietlylooking from one to another of us, cradled in the golden glory of herhair, perfectly mistress of herself, and her mind as clear as a bell. 

"Well, " she said, "so you have arrived at last. " And to Dr. Delmour shesmilingly extended a cool, fresh hand. 

"Have you met my husband?" she inquired. 

We admitted that we had. 

"James!" she called. 

At the sound of her voice James Skaw hopped nimbly to do her bidding. Atender smile came into her face as she gazed upon her husband. She madeno explanation concerning him, no apology for him. And, watching her, itslowly filtered into my mind that she liked him. 

With one hand in her husband's and one on Dr. Delmour's arm she listenedto Daisy's account of what we were about to do to the imbedded mammoth, and nodded approval. 

James Skaw turned the mules so that she might watch the explosion. Shetwisted up her hair, then sat up in her hammock; Daisy Delmour pressedthe electric button; there came a deep jarring sound, a vast upheaval, and up out of the mud rose _five or six dozen mammoths_ and toppledgently over upon the surface of the ice. 

[Illustration: "Out of the mud rose _five or six dozen mammoths_. "]

Miserable as we were at such an astonishing spectacle we raised a tragiccheer as Professor Bottomly sprang out of her hammock and, telling Dr. Delmour to get a camera, seized her husband and sped down to where one ofthe great, hairy frozen beasts lay on the ice in full sunshine. 

And then we tasted the last drop of gall which our over-slopping cup ofbitterness held for us; Professor Bottomly climbed up the sides of thefrozen mammoth, dragging her husband with her, and stood there waving alittle American flag while Dr. Delmour used up every film in the camerato record the scientific triumph of the ages. 

[Illustration: "Dr. Delmour used up every film in the camera to recordthe scientific triumph of the ages. "]

Almost idiotic with the shock of my great grief I reeled and totteredaway among the bowlders. Fooss came to find me; and when he found me hekicked me violently for some time. "Esel dumkopf!" he said. 

When he was tired Lezard came and fell upon me, showering me with kicksand anathema. 

When he went away I beat my head with my fists for a while. Every littlehelped. 

After a time I smelled cooking, and presently Dr. Delmour came to where Isat huddled up miserably in the sun behind the bowlder. 

"Luncheon is ready, " she said. 

I groaned. 

"Don't you feel well?"

I said that I did not. 

She lingered apparently with the idea of cheering me up. "It's beensuch fun, " she said. "Professor Lezard and I have already located overa hundred and fifty mammoths within a short distance of here, andapparently there are hundreds, if not thousands, more in the vicinity. The ivory alone is worth over a million dollars. Isn't it wonderful!"

She laughed excitedly and danced away to join the others. Then, out ofthe black depth of my misery a feeble gleam illuminated the Stygianobscurity. There was one way left to stay my approaching downfall--onlyone. Professor Bottomly meant to get rid of me, "for the good of theBronx, " but there remained a way to ward off impending disaster. Andthough I had lost the opportunity of my life by disbelieving the simplehonesty of James Skaw, --and though the honors and emoluments and applausewhich ought to have been mine were destined for this determined woman, still, if I kept my head, I should be able to hold my job at the Bronx. 

Dr. Delmour was immovable in the good graces of Professor Bottomly; andthe only way for me to retain my position was to marry her. 

The thought comforted me. After a while I felt well enough to arise andpartake of some luncheon. 

They were all seated around the campfire when I approached. I waswelcomed politely, inquiries concerning my health were offered; but thecoldly malevolent glare of Dr. Fooss and the calm contempt in Lezard'sgaze chilled me; and I squatted down by Daisy Delmour and accepted a dishof soup from her in mortified silence. 

Professor Bottomly and James Skaw were feasting connubially side by side, and she was selecting titbits for him which he dutifully swallowed, hislarge mild eyes gazing at vacancy in a gentle, surprised sort of way ashe gulped down what she offered him. 

Neither of them paid any attention to anybody else. 

Fooss gobbled his lunch in a sort of raging silence; Lezard, on the otherside of Dr. Delmour, conversed with her continually in undertones. 

After a while his persistent murmuring began to make me uneasy, evensuspicious, and I glared at him sideways. 

Daisy Delmour, catching my eye, blushed, hesitated, then leaning overtoward me with delightful confusion she whispered:

"I know that you will be glad to hear that I have just promised to marryyour closest friend, Professor Lezard--"

"What!" I shouted with all my might, "have _you_ put one over on me, too?"

Lezard and Fooss seized me, for I had risen and was jumping up and downand splashing them with soup. 

"Everybody has put one over on me!" I shrieked. "Everybody! Now I'm goingto put one over on myself!"

[Illustration: "'Everybody has put one over on me!' I shrieked. "]

And I lifted my plate of soup and reversed it on my head. 

They told me later that I screamed for half an hour before I swooned. 

Afterward, my intellect being impaired, instead of being dismissed frommy department, I was promoted to the position which I now hold asPresident Emeritus of the Consolidated Art Museums and Zoölogical Gardensof the City of New York. 

I have easy hours, little to do, and twenty ornamental stenographers andtypewriters engaged upon my memoirs which I dictate when I feel like it, steeped in the aroma of the most inexpensive cigar I can buy at theRolling Stone Inn. 

There is one typist in particular--but let that pass. 

_Vir sapit qui pauca loquitor. _

UN PEU D'AMOUR

When I returned to the plateau from my investigation of the crater, Irealized that I had descended the grassy pit as far as any human beingcould descend. No living creature could pass that barrier of flame andvapour. Of that I was convinced. 

Now, not only the crater but its steaming effluvia was utterly unlikeanything I had ever before beheld. There was no trace of lava to beseen, or of pumice, ashes, or of volcanic rejecta in any form whatever. There were no sulphuric odours, no pungent fumes, nothing to teach theolfactory nerves what might be the nature of the silvery steam risingfrom the crater incessantly in a vast circle, ringing its circumferencehalfway down the slope. 

Under this thin curtain of steam a ring of pale yellow flames played andsparkled, completely encircling the slope. 

The crater was about half a mile deep; the sides sloped gently to thebottom. 

But the odd feature of the entire phenomenon was this: the bottom ofthe crater seemed to be entirely free from fire and vapour. It wasdisk-shaped, sandy, and flat, about a quarter of a mile in diameter. Through my field-glasses I could see patches of grass and wild flowersgrowing in the sand here and there, and the sparkle of water, and a crowor two, feeding and walking about. 

I looked at the girl who was standing beside me, then cast a glancearound at the very unusual landscape. 

We were standing on the summit of a mountain some two thousand feet high, looking into a cup-shaped depression or crater, on the edges of which westood. 

This low, flat-topped mountain, as I say, was grassy and quite treeless, although it rose like a truncated sugar-cone out of a wilderness of treeswhich stretched for miles below us, north, south, east, and west, bordered on the horizon by towering blue mountains, their distant rangesenclosing the forests as in a vast amphitheatre. 

From the centre of this enormous green floor of foliage rose our grassyhill, and it appeared to be the only irregularity which broke the levelwilderness as far as the base of the dim blue ranges encircling thehorizon. 

Except for the log bungalow of Mr. Blythe on the eastern edge of thisgrassy plateau, there was not a human habitation in sight, nor a trace ofman's devastating presence in the wilderness around us. 

Again I looked questioningly at the girl beside me and she looked back atme rather seriously. 

"Shall we seat ourselves here in the sun?" she asked. 

I nodded. 

Very gravely we settled down side by side on the thick green grass. 

"Now, " she said, "I shall tell you why I wrote you to come out here. Shall I?"

"By all means, Miss Blythe. "

Sitting cross-legged, she gathered her ankles into her hands, settlingherself as snugly on the grass as a bird settles on its nest. 

"The phenomena of nature, " she said, "have always interested meintensely, not only from the artistic angle but from the scientific pointof view. 

"It is different with father. He is a painter; he cares only for theartistic aspects of nature. Phenomena of a scientific nature bore him. Also, you may have noticed that he is of a--a slightly impatientdisposition. "

I had noticed it. He had been anything but civil to me when I arrived thenight before, after a five-hundred mile trip on a mule, from the nearestrailroad--a journey performed entirely alone and by compass, there beingno trail after the first fifty miles. 

To characterize Blythe as slightly impatient was letting him down easy. He was a selfish, bad-tempered old pig. 

"Yes, " I said, answering her, "I did notice a negligible trace ofimpatience about your father. "

She flushed. 

"You see I did not inform my father that I had written to you. He doesn'tlike strangers; he doesn't like scientists. I did not dare tell him thatI had asked you to come out here. It was entirely my own idea. I feltthat I _must_ write you because I am positive that what is happening inthis wilderness is of vital scientific importance. "

"How did you get a letter out of this distant and desolate place?" Iasked. 

"Every two months the storekeeper at Windflower Station sends in a manand a string of mules with staples for us. The man takes our furtherorders and our letters back to civilization. "

I nodded. 

"He took my letter to you--among one or two others I sent----"

A charming colour came into her cheeks. She was really extremely pretty. I liked that girl. When a girl blushes when she speaks to a man heimmediately accepts her heightened colour as a personal tribute. Thisis not vanity: it is merely a proper sense of personal worthiness. 

She said thoughtfully:

"The mail bag which that man brought to us last week contained a letterwhich, had I received it earlier, would have made my invitation to youunnecessary. I'm sorry I disturbed you. "

"_I_ am not, " said I, looking into her beautiful eyes. 

I twisted my mustache into two attractive points, shot my cuffs, andglanced at her again, receptively. 

She had a far-away expression in her eyes. I straightened my necktie. Aman, without being vain, ought to be conscious of his own worth. 

"And now, " she continued, "I am going to tell you the various reasons whyI asked so celebrated a scientist as yourself to come here. "

I thanked her for her encomium. 

"Ever since my father retired from Boston to purchase this hill and thewilderness surrounding it, " she went on, "ever since he came here to livea hermit's life--a life devoted solely to painting landscapes--I alsohave lived here all alone with him. 

"That is three years, now. And from the very beginning--from the veryfirst day of our arrival, somehow or other I was conscious that therewas something abnormal about this corner of the world. "

She bent forward, lowering her voice a trifle:

"Have you noticed, " she asked, "that so many things seem to be _circular_out here?"

"Circular?" I repeated, surprised. 

"Yes. That crater is circular; so is the bottom of it; so is thisplateau, and the hill; and the forests surrounding us; and the mountainranges on the horizon. "

"But all this is natural. "

"Perhaps. But in those woods, down there, there are, here and there, great circles of crumbling soil--_perfect_ circles a mile in diameter. "

"Mounds built by prehistoric man, no doubt. "

She shook her head:

"These are not prehistoric mounds. "

"Why not?"

"Because they have been freshly made. "

"How do you know?"

"The earth is freshly upheaved; great trees, partly uprooted, slant atevery angle from the sides of the enormous piles of newly upturned earth;sand and stones are still sliding from the raw ridges. "

She leaned nearer and dropped her voice still lower:

"More than that, " she said, "my father and I both have seen one of thesehuge circles _in the making_!"

"What!" I exclaimed, incredulously. 

"It is true. We have seen several. And it enrages father. "

"Enrages?"

"Yes, because it upsets the trees where he is painting landscapes, andtilts them in every direction. Which, of course, ruins his picture; andhe is obliged to start another, which vexes him dreadfully. "

I think I must have gaped at her in sheer astonishment. 

"But there is something more singular than that for you to investigate, "she said calmly. "Look down at that circle of steam which makes a perfectring around the bowl of the crater, halfway down. Do you see the flickerof fire under the vapour?"

"Yes. "

She leaned so near and spoke in such a low voice that her fragrant breathfell upon my cheek:

"In the fire, under the vapours, there are little animals. "

"What!!"

"Little beasts live in the fire--slim, furry creatures, smallerthan a weasel. I've seen them peep out of the fire and scurry backinto it. .. . _Now_ are you sorry that I wrote you to come? And willyou forgive me for bringing you out here?"

An indescribable excitement seized me, endowing me with a fluency andeloquence unusual:

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart!" I cried; "--from the depths ofa heart the emotions of which are entirely and exclusively of scientificorigin!"

In the impulse of the moment I held out my hand; she laid hers in it withcharming diffidence. 

"Yours is the discovery, " I said. "Yours shall be the glory. Fame shallcrown you; and perhaps if there remains any reflected light in the formof a by-product, some modest and negligible little ray may chance toilluminate me. "

Surprised and deeply moved by my eloquence, I bent over her hand andsaluted it with my lips. 

She thanked me. Her pretty face was rosy. 

It appeared that she had three cows to milk, new-laid eggs to gather, andthe construction of some fresh butter to be accomplished. 

At the bars of the grassy pasture slope she dropped me a curtsey, declining very shyly to let me carry her lacteal paraphernalia. 

So I continued on to the bungalow garden, where Blythe sat on a campstool under a green umbrella, painting a picture of something or other. 

"Mr. Blythe!" I cried, striving to subdue my enthusiasm. "The eyes of thescientific world are now open upon this house! The searchlight of Fame isabout to be turned upon you--"

"I prefer privacy, " he interrupted. "That's why I came here. I'll beobliged if you'll turn off that searchlight. "

"But, my dear Mr. Blythe--"

"I want to be let alone, " he repeated irritably. "I came out here topaint and to enjoy privately my own paintings. "

If what stood on his easel was a sample of his pictures, nobody waslikely to share his enjoyment. 

"Your work, " said I, politely, "is--is----"

"Is what!" he snapped. "_What_ is it--if you think you know?"

"It is entirely, so to speak, _per se_--by itself--"

"What the devil do you mean by that?"

I looked at his picture, appalled. The entire canvas was one monotonousvermillion conflagration. I examined it with my head on one side, then onthe other side; I made a funnel with both hands and peered intentlythrough it at the picture. A menacing murmuring sound came from him. 

"Satisfying--exquisitely satisfying, " I concluded. "I have often seensuch sunsets--"

"What!"

"I mean such prairie fires--"

"Damnation!" he exclaimed. "I'm painting a bowl of nasturtiums!"

"I was speaking purely in metaphor, " said I with a sickly smile. "To mea nasturtium by the river brink is more than a simple flower. It is abroader, grander, more magnificent, more stupendous symbol. It may meananything, everything--such as sunsets and conflagrations andGötterdämmerungs! Or--" and my voice was subtly modulated to anappealing and persuasive softness--"it may mean nothing at all--chaos, void, vacuum, negation, the exquisite annihilation of what has never evenexisted. "

He glared at me over his shoulder. If he was infected by Cubisttendencies he evidently had not understood what I said. 

"If you won't talk about my pictures I don't mind your investigating thisdistrict, " he grunted, dabbing at his palette and plastering a wad ofvermilion upon his canvas; "but I object to any public invasion of myartistic privacy until I am ready for it. "

"When will that be?"

He pointed with one vermilion-soaked brush toward a long, low, logbuilding. 

"In that structure, " he said, "are packed one thousand and ninety-fivepaintings--all signed by me. I have executed one or two every day since Icame here. When I have painted exactly ten thousand pictures, no more, noless, I shall erect here a gallery large enough to contain them all. 

"Only real lovers of art will ever come here to study them. It is fivehundred miles from the railroad. Therefore, I shall never have to endurethe praises of the dilettante, the patronage of the idler, the vapidrhapsodies of the vulgar. Only those who understand will care to make thepilgrimage. "

He waved his brushes at me:

"The conservation of national resources is all well enough--the settingaside of timber reserves, game preserves, bird refuges, all theseprojects are very good in a way. But I have dedicated this wildernessas a last and only refuge in all the world for true Art! Becausetrue Art, except for my pictures, is, I believe, now practicallyextinct!. .. You're in my way. Would you mind getting out?"

I had sidled around between him and his bowl of nasturtiums, and Ihastily stepped aside. He squinted at the flowers, mixed up a flamboyantmess of colour on his palette, and daubed away with unfeignedsatisfaction, no longer noticing me until I started to go. Then:

"What is it you're here for, anyway?" he demanded abruptly. I said withdignity:

"I am here to investigate those huge rings of earth thrown up in theforest as by a gigantic mole. " He continued to paint for a few moments:

"Well, go and investigate 'em, " he snapped. "I'm not infatuated with yoursociety. "

"What do you think they are?" I asked, mildly ignoring his wretchedmanners. 

"I don't know and I don't care, except, that sometimes when I begin topaint several trees, the very trees I'm painting are suddenly heaved upand tilted in every direction, and all my work goes for nothing. _That_makes me mad! Otherwise, the matter has no interest for me. "

"But what in the world could cause--"

"I don't know and I don't care!" he shouted, waving palette and brushesangrily. "Maybe it's an army of moles working all together under theground; maybe it's some species of circular earthquake. I don't know! Idon't care! But it annoys me. And if you can devise any scientific meansto stop it, I'll be much obliged to you. Otherwise, to be perfectlyfrank, you bore me. "

"The mission of Science, " said I solemnly, "is to alleviate theinconveniences of mundane existence. Science, therefore, shall extenda helping hand to her frailer sister, Art--"

"Science can't patronize Art while I'm around!" he retorted. "I won'thave it!"

"But, my dear Mr. Blythe--"

"I won't dispute with you, either! I don't like to dispute!" he shouted. "Don't try to make me. Don't attempt to inveigle me into discussion! Iknow all I want to know. I don't want to know anything you want me toknow, either!"

I looked at the old pig in haughty silence, nauseated by his conceit. 

After he had plastered a few more tubes of vermilion over his canvas hequieted down, and presently gave me an oblique glance over his shoulder. 

"Well, " he said, "what else are you intending to investigate?"

"Those little animals that live in the crater fires, " I said bluntly. 

"Yes, " he nodded, indifferently, "there are creatures which livesomewhere in the fires of that crater. "

"Do you realize what an astounding statement you are making?" I asked. 

"It doesn't astound _me_. What do I care whether it astounds you oranybody else? Nothing interests me except Art. "

"But--"

"I tell you nothing interests me except Art!" he yelled. "Don't disputeit! Don't answer me! Don't irritate me! I don't care whether anythinglives in the fire or not! Let it live there!"

"But have you actually seen live creatures in the flames?"

"Plenty! _Plenty!_ What of it? What about it? Let 'em live there, for allI care. I've painted pictures of 'em, too. That's all that interests me. "

"What do they look like, Mr. Blythe?"

"Look like? _I_ don't know! They look like weasels or rats or bats orcats or--stop asking me questions! It irritates me! It depresses me!Don't ask any more! Why don't you go in to lunch? And--tell my daughterto bring me a bowl of salad out here. _I've_ no time to stuff myself. Some people have. _I_ haven't. You'd better go in to lunch. .. . And tellmy daughter to bring me seven tubes of Chinese vermilion with my salad!"

"You don't mean to mix--" I began, then checked myself before his fury. 

"I'd rather eat vermilion paint on my salad than sit here talking to_you_!" he shouted. 

I cast a pitying glance at this impossible man, and went into the house. After all, he was _her_ father. I _had_ to endure him. 

 * * * * *

After Miss Blythe had carried to her father a large bucket of lettuceleaves, she returned to the veranda of the bungalow. 

[Illustration: "Miss Blythe had carried to her father a large bucket oflettuce leaves. "]

A delightful luncheon awaited us; I seated her, then took the chairopposite. 

A delicious omelette, fresh biscuit, salad, and strawberry preserves, anda tall tumbler of iced tea imbued me with a sort of mild exhilaration. 

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Blythe down in the garden, munching his lettuce leaves like an ill-tempered rabbit, and daubing awayat his picture while he munched. 

"Your father, " said I politely, "is something of a genius. "

"I am so glad you think so, " she said gratefully. "But don't tell him so. He has been surfeited with praise in Boston. That is why we came outhere. "

"Art, " said I, "is like science, or tobacco, or tooth-wash. Every manto his own brand. Personally, I don't care for his kind. But who can saywhich is the best kind of anything? Only the consumer. Your father is hisown consumer. He is the best judge of what he likes. And that is the onlytrue test of art, or anything else. "

"How delightfully you reason!" she said. "How logically, how generously!"

"Reason is the handmaid of Science, Miss Blythe. "

She seemed to understand me. Her quick intelligence surprised me, becauseI myself was not perfectly sure whether I had emitted piffle or anepigram. 

As we ate our strawberry preserves we discussed ways and means ofcapturing a specimen of the little fire creatures which, as sheexplained, so frequently peeped out at her from the crater fires, and, at her slightest movement, scurried back again into the flames. Of courseI believed that this was only her imagination. Yet, for years I hadentertained a theory that fire supported certain unknown forms of life. 

"I have long believed, " said I, "that fire is inhabited by livingorganisms which require the elements and temperature of active combustionfor their existence--microörganisms, but not, " I added smilingly, "anyhigher type of life. "

"In the fireplace, " she ventured diffidently, "I sometimes see curiousthings--dragons and snakes and creatures of grotesque and peculiarshapes. "

I smiled indulgently, charmed by this innocently offered contributionto science. Then she rose, and I rose and took her hand in mine, and wewandered over the grass toward the crater, while I explained to her thedifference between what we imagine we see in the glowing coals of a gratefire and my own theory that fire is the abode of living animalculae. 

On the grassy edge of the crater we paused and looked down the slope, where the circle of steam rose, partly veiling the pale flash of fireunderneath. 

"How near can we go?" I inquired. 

"Quite near. Come; I'll guide you. "

Leading me by the hand, she stepped over the brink and we began todescend the easy grass slope together. 

There was no difficulty about it at all. Down we went, nearer and nearerto the wall of steam, until at last, when but fifteen feet away from it, I felt the heat from the flames which sparkled below the wall of vapour. 

Here we seated ourselves upon the grass, and I knitted my brows and fixedmy eyes upon this curious phenomenon, striving to discover some reasonfor it. 

Except for the vapour and the fires, there was nothing whatever volcanicabout this spectacle, or in the surroundings. 

From where I sat I could see that the bed of fire which encircled thecrater; and the wall of vapour which crowned the flames, were about threehundred feet wide. Of course this barrier was absolutely impassable. There was no way of getting through it into the bottom of the crater. 

A slight pressure from Miss Blythe's fingers engaged my attention; Iturned toward her, and she said:

"There is one more thing about which I have not told you. I feel a littleguilty, because _that_ is the real reason I asked you to come here. "

"What is it?"

"I think there are emeralds on the floor of that crater. "

"Emeralds!"

"I _think_ so. " She felt in the ruffled pocket of her apron, drew out afragment of mineral, and passed it to me. 

I screwed a jeweler's glass into my eye and examined it in astonishedsilence. It was an emerald; a fine, large, immensely valuable stone, ifmy experience counted for anything. One side of it was thickly coatedwith vermilion paint. 

"Where did this come from?" I asked in an agitated voice. 

"From the floor of the crater. Is it _really_ an emerald?"

I lifted my head and stared at the girl incredulously. 

"It happened this way, " she said excitedly. "Father was painting apicture up there by the edge of the crater. He left his palette on thegrass to go to the bungalow for some more tubes of colour. While he wasin the house, hunting for the colours which he wanted, I stepped out onthe veranda, and I saw some crows alight near the palette and beginto stalk about in the grass. One bird walked right over his wet palette;I stepped out and waved my sun-bonnet to frighten him off, but he hadboth feet in a sticky mass of Chinese vermilion, and for a moment wasunable to free himself. 

"I almost caught him, but he flapped away over the edge of the crater, high above the wall of vapour, sailed down onto the crater floor, andalighted. 

"But his feet bothered him; he kept hopping about on the bottom of thecrater, half running, half flying; and finally he took wing and rose upover the hill. 

"As he flew above me, and while I was looking up at his vermilion feet, something dropped from his claws and nearly struck me. It was thatemerald. "

When I had recovered sufficient composure to speak steadily, I took herbeautiful little hand in mine. 

"This, " said I, "is the most exciting locality I have ever visited forpurposes of scientific research. Within this crater may lie millions ofvalue in emeralds. You are probably, today, the wealthiest heiress uponthe face of the globe!"

I gave her a winning glance. She smiled, shyly, and blushingly withdrewher hand. 

For several exquisite minutes I sat there beside her in a sort ofheavenly trance. How beautiful she was! How engaging--how sweet--howmodestly appreciative of the man beside her, who had little beside hisscientific learning, his fame, and a kind heart to appeal to such youthand loveliness as hers!

There was something about her that delicately appealed to me. SometimesI pondered what this might be; sometimes I wondered how many emeralds layon that floor of sandy gravel below us. 

Yes, I loved her. I realised it now. I could even endure her father forher sake. I should make a good husband. I was quite certain of that. 

I turned and gazed upon her, meltingly. But I did not wish to startleher, so I remained silent, permitting the chaste language of my eyes tointerpret for her what my lips had not yet murmured. It was a brief butbeautiful moment in my life. 

"The way to do, " said I, "is to trap several dozen crows, smear theirfeet with glue, tie a ball of Indian twine to the ankle of every bird, then liberate them. Some are certain to fly into the crater and try toscrape the glue off in the sand. Then, " I added, triumphantly, "all wehave to do is to haul in our birds and detach the wealth of Midas fromtheir sticky claws!"

"That is an excellent suggestion, " she said gratefully, "but I can dothat after you have gone. All I wanted you to tell me was whether thestone is a genuine emerald. "

I gazed at her blankly. 

"You are here for purposes of scientific investigation, " she added, sweetly. "I should not think of taking your time for the mere sake ofaccumulating wealth for my father and me. "

There didn't seem to be anything for me to say at that moment. Chilled, I gazed at the flashing ring of fire. 

And, as I gazed, suddenly I became aware of a little, pointed muzzle, twopricked-up ears, and two ruby-red eyes gazing intently out at me from themass of flames. 

The girl beside me saw it, too. 

"Don't move!" she whispered. "That is one of the flame creatures. It mayventure out if you keep perfectly still. "

Rigid with amazement, I sat like a stone image, staring at the mostastonishing sight I had ever beheld. 

For several minutes the ferret-like creature never stirred from where itcrouched in the crater fire; the alert head remained pointed toward us; Icould even see that its thick fur must have possessed the qualities ofasbestos, because here and there a hair or two glimmered incandescent;and its eyes, nose, and whiskers glowed and glowed as the flames pulsatedaround it. 

After a long while it began to move out of the fire, slowly, cautiously, cunning eyes fixed on us--a small, slim, wiry, weasel-like creature onwhich the sunlight fell with a vitreous glitter as it crept forward intothe grass. 

Then, from the fire behind, another creature of the same sort appeared, another, others, then dozens of eager, lithe, little animals appearedeverywhere from the flames and began to frisk and play and run about inthe grass and nibble the fresh, green, succulent herbage with a snippingsound quite audible to us. 

One came so near my feet that I could examine it minutely. 

Its fur and whiskers seemed heavy and dense and like asbestos fibre, yetso fine as to appear silky. Its eyes, nose, and claws were scarlet, andseemed to possess a glassy surface. 

I waited my opportunity, and when the little thing came nosing alongwithin reach, I seized it. 

Instantly it emitted a bewildering series of whistling shrieks, andtwisted around to bite me. Its body was icy. 

"Don't let it bite!" cried the girl. "Be careful, Mr. Smith!"

[Illustration: "'Don't let it bite!' cried the girl. 'Be careful, Mr. Smith!'"]

But its jaws were toothless; only soft, cold gums pinched me, and I heldit twisting and writhing, while the icy temperature of its body began tobenumb my fingers and creep up my wrist, paralyzing my arm; and itsincessant and piercing shrieks deafened me. 

In vain I transferred it to the other hand, and then passed it from onehand to the other, as one shifts a lump of ice or a hot potato, in anattempt to endure the temperature: it shrieked and squirmed and doubled, and finally wriggled out of my stiffened and useless hands, and scuttledaway into the fire. 

It was an overwhelming disappointment. For a moment it seemedunendurable. 

"Never mind, " I said, huskily, "if I caught one in my hands, I can surelycatch another in a trap. "

"I am so sorry for your disappointment, " she said, pitifully. 

"Do _you_ care, Miss Blythe?" I asked. 

She blushed. 

"Of course I care, " she murmured. 

My hands were too badly frost-nipped to become eloquent. I merely sighedand thrust them into my pockets. Even my arm was too stiff to encircleher shapeful waist. Devotion to Science had temporarily crippled me. Lovemust wait. But, as we ascended the grassy slope together, I promisedmyself that I would make her a good husband, and that I should spend atleast part of every day of my life in trapping crows and smearing theirclaws with glue. 

That evening I was seated on the veranda beside Wilna--Miss Blythe's namewas Wilna--and what with gazing at her and fitting together some of thefolding box-traps which I always carried with me--and what with trying torealise the pecuniary magnificence of our future existence together, Iwas exceedingly busy when Blythe came in to display, as I supposed, hismost recent daub to me. 

The canvas he carried presented a series of crimson speckles, out ofwhich burst an eruption of green streaks--and it made me think ofstepping on a caterpillar. 

My instinct was to placate this impossible man. He was _her_ father. Imeant to honour him if I had to assault him to do it. 

"Supremely satisfying!" I nodded, chary of naming the subject. "It is astride beyond the art of the future: it is a flying leap out of the NotYet into the Possibly Perhaps! I thank you for enlightening me, Mr. Blythe. I am your debtor. "

He fairly snarled at me:

"What are _you_ talking about!" he demanded. 

I remained modestly mute. 

To Wilna he said, pointing passionately at his canvas:

"The crows have been walking all over it again! I'm going to paint in thewoods after this, earthquakes or no earthquakes. Have the trees beenheaved up anywhere recently?"

"Not since last week, " she said, soothingly. "It usually happens after arain. "

"I think I'll risk it then--although it did rain early this morning. I'lldo a moonlight down there this evening. " And, turning to me: "If you knowas much about science as you do about art you won't have to remain herelong--I trust. "

"What?" said I, very red. 

He laughed a highly disagreeable laugh, and marched into the house. Presently he bawled for dinner, and Wilna went away. For her sake I hadremained calm and dignified, but presently I went out and kicked up theturf two or three times; and, having foozled my wrath, I went back todinner, realising that I might as well begin to accustom myself to myfuture father-in-law. 

It seemed that he had a mania for prunes, and that's all he permittedanybody to have for dinner. 

Disgusted, I attempted to swallow the loathly stewed fruit, watchingBlythe askance as he hurriedly stuffed himself, using a tablespoon, withevery symptom of relish. 

"Now, " he cried, shoving back his chair, "I'm going to paint a moonlightby moonlight. Wilna, if Billy arrives, make him comfortable, and tell himI'll return by midnight. " And without taking the trouble to notice me atall, he strode away toward the veranda, chewing vigorously upon his lastprune. 

"Your father, " said I, "is eccentric. Genius usually is. But he is a mostinteresting and estimable man. I revere him. "

"It is kind of you to say so, " said the girl, in a low voice. 

I thought deeply for a few moments, then:

"Who is 'Billy?'" I inquired, casually. 

I couldn't tell whether it was a sudden gleam of sunset light on herface, or whether she blushed. 

"Billy, " she said softly, "is a friend of father's. His name is WilliamGreen. "

"Oh. "

"He is coming out here to visit--father--I believe. "

"Oh. An artist; and doubtless of mature years. "

"He is a mineralogist by profession, " she said, "--and somewhat young. "

"Oh. "

"Twenty-four years old, " she added. Upon her pretty face was an absentexpression, vaguely pleasant. Her blue eyes became dreamy and exquisitelyremote. 

I pondered deeply for a while:

"Wilna?" I said. 

"Yes, Mr. Smith?" as though aroused from agreeable meditation. 

But I didn't know exactly what to say, and I remained uneasily silent, thinking about that man Green and his twenty-four years, and hisprofession, and the bottom of the crater, and Wilna--and striving tosatisfy myself that there was no logical connection between any of these. 

"I think, " said I, "that I'll take a bucket of salad to your father. "

Why I should have so suddenly determined to ingratiate myself with theold grouch I scarcely understood: for the construction of a salad was myvery best accomplishment. 

Wilna looked at me in a peculiar manner, almost as though she werecontrolling a sudden and not unpleasant inward desire to laugh. 

Evidently the finer and more delicate instincts of a woman were diviningmy motive and sympathizing with my mental and sentimental perplexity. 

So when she said: "I don't think you had better go near my father, " I wasconvinced of her gentle solicitude in my behalf. 

"With a bucket of salad, " I whispered softly, "much may be accomplished, Wilna. " And I took her little hand and pressed it gently andrespectfully. "Trust all to me, " I murmured. 

She stood with her head turned away from me, her slim hand resting limplyin mine. From the slight tremor of her shoulders I became aware howdeeply her emotion was now swaying her. Evidently she was nearly ready tobecome mine. 

But I remained calm and alert. The time was not yet. Her father had hadhis prunes, in which he delighted. And when pleasantly approached with abucket of salad he could not listen otherwise than politely to what Ihad to say to him. Quick action was necessary--quick but diplomaticaction--in view of the imminence of this young man Green, who evidentlywas _persona grata_ at the bungalow of this irritable old dodo. 

Tenderly pressing the pretty hand which I held, and saluting thefinger-tips with a gesture which was, perhaps, not wholly ungraceful, I stepped into the kitchen, washed out several heads of lettuce, deftlychopped up some youthful onions, constructed a seductive French dressing, and, stirring together the crisp ingredients, set the savoury masterpieceaway in the ice-box, after tasting it. It was delicious enough to drawsobs from any pig. 

When I went out to the veranda, Wilna had disappeared. So I unfolded andset up some more box-traps, determined to lose no time. 

Sunset still lingered beyond the chain of western mountains as I went outacross the grassy plateau to the cornfield. 

Here I set and baited several dozen aluminium crow-traps, padding thejaws so that no injury could be done to the birds when the springssnapped on their legs. 

Then I went over to the crater and descended its gentle, grassy slope. And there, all along the borders of the vapoury wall, I set box-traps forthe lithe little denizens of the fire, baiting every trap with a handfulof fresh, sweet clover which I had pulled up from the pasture beyond thecornfield. 

My task ended, I ascended the slope again, and for a while stood thereimmersed in pleasurable premonitions. 

Everything had been accomplished swiftly and methodically withinthe few hours in which I had first set eyes upon this extraordinaryplace--everything!--love at first sight, the delightfully lightning-likewooing and winning of an incomparable maiden and heiress; the discoveryof the fire creatures; the solving of the emerald problem. 

And now everything was ready, crow-traps, fire-traps, a bucket ofirresistible salad for Blythe, a modest and tremulous avowal for Wilna assoon as her father tasted the salad and I had pleasantly notified him ofmy intentions concerning his lovely offspring. 

Daylight faded from rose to lilac; already the mountains were growingfairy-like under that vague, diffuse lustre which heralds the rise of thefull moon. It rose, enormous, yellow, unreal, becoming imperceptiblysilvery as it climbed the sky and hung aloft like a stupendous arc-lightflooding the world with a radiance so white and clear that I could veryeasily have written verses by it, if I wrote verses. 

Down on the edge of the forest I could see Blythe on his camp-stool, madly besmearing his moonlit canvas, but I could not see Wilna anywhere. Maybe she had shyly retired somewhere by herself to think of me. 

So I went back to the house, filled a bucket with my salad, and startedtoward the edge of the woods, singing happily as I sped on feet so lightand frolicsome that they seemed to skim the ground. How wonderful is thepower of love!

When I approached Blythe he heard me coming and turned around. 

"What the devil do _you_ want?" he asked with characteristic civility. 

"I have brought you, " said I gaily, "a bucket of salad. "

"I don't want any salad!"

"W-what?"

"I never eat it at night. "

I said confidently:

"Mr. Blythe, if you will taste this salad I am sure you will not regretit. " And with hideous cunning I set the bucket beside him on the grassand seated myself near it. The old dodo grunted and continued to daub thecanvas; but presently, as though forgetfully, and from sheer instinct, hereached down into the bucket, pulled out a leaf of lettuce, and shoved itinto his mouth. 

My heart leaped exultantly. I had him!

"Mr. Blythe, " I began in a winningly modulated voice, and, at the sameinstant, he sprang from his camp-chair, his face distorted. 

"There are onions in this salad!" he yelled. "What the devil do you mean!Are you trying to poison me! What are you following me about for, anyway?Why are you running about under foot every minute!"

"My dear Mr. Blythe, " I protested--but he barked at me, kicked over thebucket of salad, and began to dance with rage. 

[Illustration: "Kicked over the bucket of salad, and began to dancewith rage. "]

"What's the matter with you, anyway!" he bawled. "Why are you trying tofeed me? What do you mean by trying to be attentive to me!"

"I--I admire and revere you--"

"No you don't!" he shouted. "I don't want you to admire me! I don'tdesire to be revered! I don't like attention and politeness! Do you hear!It's artificial--out of date--ridiculous! The only thing that recommendsa man to me is his bad manners, bad temper, and violent habits. There'ssome meaning to such a man, none at all to men like you!"

He ran at the salad bucket and kicked it again. 

"They all fawned on me in Boston!" he panted. "They ran about under foot!They bought my pictures! And they made me sick! I came out here to be ridof 'em!"

I rose from the grass, pale and determined. 

"You listen to me, you old grouch!" I hissed. "I'll go. But before I goI'll tell you why I've been civil to you. There's only one reason in theworld: I want to marry your daughter! And I'm going to do it!"

I stepped nearer him, menacing him with outstretched hand:

"As for you, you pitiable old dodo, with your bad manners and your worsepictures, and your degraded mania for prunes, you are a necessary evilthat's all, and I haven't the slightest respect for either you or yourart!"

"Is that true?" he said in an altered voice. 

"True?" I laughed bitterly. "Of course it's true, you miserable dauber!"

"D-dauber!" he stammered. 

"Certainly! I _said_ 'dauber, ' and I mean it. Why, your work would shamethe pictures on a child's slate!"

"Smith, " he said unsteadily, "I believe I have utterly misjudged you. I believe you are a good deal of a man, after all--"

"I'm man enough, " said I, fiercely, "to go back, saddle my mule, kidnapyour daughter, and start for home. And I'm going to do it!"

"Wait!" he cried. "I don't want you to go. If you'll remain I'll be veryglad. I'll do anything you like. I'll quarrel with you, and you caninsult my pictures. It will agreeably stimulate us both. Don't go, Smith--"

"If I stay, may I marry Wilna?"

"If you ask me I won't let you!"

"Very well!" I retorted, angrily. "Then I'll marry her anyway!"

"That's the way to talk! Don't go, Smith. I'm really beginning to likeyou. And when Billy Green arrives you and he will have a delightfullyviolent scene--"

"What!"

He rubbed his hands gleefully. 

"He's in love with Wilna. You and he won't get on. It is going to be verystimulating for me--I can see that! You and he are going to behave mostdisagreeably to each other. And I shall be exceedingly unpleasant to youboth! Come, Smith, promise me that you'll stay!"

Profoundly worried, I stood staring at him in the moonlight, gnawing mymustache. 

"Very well, " I said, "I'll remain if--"

Something checked me, I did not quite know what for a moment. Blythe, too, was staring at me in an odd, apprehensive way. Suddenly I realisedthat under my feet the ground was stirring. 

"Look out!" I cried; but speech froze on my lips as beneath me the solidearth began to rock and crack and billow up into a high, crumbling ridge, moving continually, as the sod cracks, heaves up, and crumbles above thesubterranean progress of a mole. 

Up into the air we were slowly pushed on the ever-growing ridge; and withus were carried rocks and bushes and sod, and even forest trees. 

I could hear their tap-roots part with pistol-like reports; see greatpines and hemlocks and oaks moving, slanting, settling, tilting crazilyin every direction as they were heaved upward in this giganticdisturbance. 

Blythe caught me by the arm; we clutched each other, balancing on thecrest of the steadily rising mound. 

"W-what is it?" he stammered. "Look! It's circular. The woods are risingin a huge circle. What's happening? Do you know?"

Over me crept a horrible certainty that _something living_ was movingunder us through the depths of the earth--something that, as itprogressed, was heaping up the surface of the world above its unseenand burrowing course--something dreadful, enormous, sinister, and_alive_!

"Look out!" screamed Blythe; and at the same instant the crumbling summitof the ridge opened under our feet and a fissure hundreds of yards longyawned ahead of us. 

And along it, shining slimily in the moonlight, a vast, viscous, ringedsurface was moving, retracting, undulating, elongating, writhing, squirming, shuddering. 

"It's a worm!" shrieked Blythe. "Oh, God! It's a mile long!"

[Illustration: "'It's a worm!' shrieked Blythe. "]

As in a nightmare we clutched each other, struggling frantically to avoidthe fissure; but the soft earth slid and gave way under us, and we fellheavily upon that ghastly, living surface. 

Instantly a violent convulsion hurled us upward; we fell on it again, rebounding from the rubbery thing, strove to regain our feet and scrambleup the edges of the fissure, strove madly while the mammoth worm slidmore rapidly through the rocking forests, carrying us forward with aspeed increasing. 

Through the forest we tore, reeling about on the slippery back of thething, as though riding on a plowshare, while trees clashed and tiltedand fell from the enormous furrow on every side; then, suddenly out ofthe woods into the moonlight, far ahead of us we could see the grassyupland heave up, cake, break, and crumble above the burrowing course ofthe monster. 

"It's making for the crater!" gasped Blythe; and horror spurred us on, and we scrambled and slipped and clawed the billowing sides of the furrowuntil we gained the heaving top of it. 

As one runs in a bad dream, heavily, half-paralyzed, so ran Blythe and I, toiling over the undulating, tumbling upheaval until, half-fainting, wefell and rolled down the shifting slope onto solid and unvexed sod on thevery edges of the crater. 

Below us we saw, with sickened eyes, the entire circumference of thecrater agitated, saw it rise and fall as avalanches of rock and earthslid into it, tons and thousands of tons rushing down the slope, blottingfrom our sight the flickering ring of flame, and extinguishing the lastfilmy jet of vapour. 

Suddenly the entire crater caved in and filled up under my anguishedeyes, quenching for all eternity the vapour wall, the fire, and buryingthe little denizens of the flames, and perhaps a billion dollars' worthof emeralds under as many billion tons of earth. 

Quieter and quieter grew the earth as the gigantic worm bored straightdown into depths immeasurable. And at last the moon shone upon a worldthat lay without a tremor in its milky lustre. 

"I shall name it _Verma gigantica_, " said I, with a hysterical sob; "butnobody will ever believe me when I tell this story!"

Still terribly shaken, we turned toward the house. And, as we approachedthe lamplit veranda, I saw a horse standing there and a young man hastilydismounting. 

And then a terrible thing occurred; for, before I could even shriek, Wilna had put both arms around that young man's neck, and both of hisarms were clasping her waist. 

Blythe was kind to me. He took me around the back way and put me to bed. 

And there I lay through the most awful night I ever experienced, listening to the piano below, where Wilna and William Green were singing, "Un Peu d'Amour. "

THE EGGS OF THE SILVER MOON

In the new white marble Administration Building at Bronx Park, my privateoffice separated the offices of Dr. Silas Quint and Professor Boomly; andit had been arranged so on purpose, because of the increasingly frequentpersonal misunderstanding between these two celebrated entomologists. It was very plain to me that a crisis in this quarrel was rapidlyapproaching. 

A bitter animosity had for some months existed on both sides, born of themost intense professional jealousy. They had been friends for years. Nounseemly rivalry disturbed this friendship as long as it was merely aquestion of collecting, preparing, and mounting for exhibition the vastnumbers of butterflies and moths which haunt this insectivorous earth. Even their zeal in the eternal hunt for new and undescribed species hadnot made them enemies. 

I am afraid that my suggestion for the construction of a great glassflying-cage for _living_ specimens of moths and butterflies started thetrouble between these hitherto godly and middle-aged men. That, and theCarnegie Educational Medal were the causes which began this deplorableaffair. 

Various field collectors, employed by both Quint and Boomly, were alwaysout all over the world foraging for specimens; also, they were constantlyreturning with spoils from every quarter of the globe. 

Now, to secure rare and beautiful living specimens of butterflies andmoths for the crystal flying-cage was a serious and delicate job. Suchtropical insects could not survive the journey of several months fromthe wilds of Australia, India, Asia, Africa, or the jungles of SouthAmerica--nor could semi-tropical species endure the captivity of a fewweeks or even days, when captured in the West Indies, Mexico, or Florida. Only our duller-coloured, smaller, and hardier native species toleratedcapture and exhibition. 

Therefore, the mode of procedure which I suggested was for our fieldexpeditions to obtain males and females of the same species of butterflyor moth, mate them, and, as soon as any female deposited her eggs, placethe tiny pearl-like eggs in cold storage to retard their hatching, whichnormally occurs, in the majority of species, within ten days or twoweeks. 

This now was the usual mode of procedure followed by the field collectorsemployed by Dr. Quint and Professor Boomly. And not only were the eggsof various butterflies and moths so packed for transportation, but asufficient store of their various native food-plants was also preserved, where such food-plants could not be procured in the United States. Sowhen the eggs arrived at Bronx Park, and were hatched there in due time, the young caterpillars had plenty of nourishment ready for them in coldstorage. 

Might I not, legitimately, have expected the Carnegie EducationalMedal for all this? I have never received it. I say this withoutindignation--even without sorrow. I merely make the statement. 

Yet, my system was really a very beautiful system; a tiny batch of eggswould arrive from Ceylon, or Sumatra, or Africa; when taken from coldstorage and placed in the herbarium they would presently hatch; thecaterpillars were fed with their accustomed food-plant--a few leavesbeing taken from cold storage every day for them--they would pass throughtheir three or four moulting periods, cease feeding in due time, transform into the chrysalis stage, and finally appear in all thesplendour and magnificence of butterfly or moth. 

The great glass flying-cage was now alive with superb moths andbutterflies, flitting, darting, fluttering among the flowering bushesor feeding along the sandy banks of the brook which flowed throughthe flying-cage, bordered by thickets of scented flowers. And it waslike looking at a meteoric shower of winged jewels, where the hugemetallic-blue _Morphos_ from South America flapped and sailed, and theorange and gold and green _Ornithoptera_ from Borneo pursued theirmajestic, bird-like flight--where big, glittering _Papilios_ flashedthrough the bushes or alighted nervously to feed for a few momentson jasmine and phlox, and where the slowly flopping _Heliconians_ wingedtheir way amid the denser tangles of tropical vegetation. 

Nothing like this flying-cage had ever before been seen in New York;thousands and thousands of men, women, and children thronged the lawnabout the flying-cage all day long. 

By night, also, the effect was wonderful; the electric lights among thefoliage broke out; the great downy-winged moths, which had been asleepall day while the butterflies flitted through the sunshine, now came outto display their crimson or peacock-spotted wings, and the butterfliesfolded their wings and went to bed for the night. 

The public was enchanted, the authorities of the Bronx proud anddelighted; all apparently was happiness and harmony. Except that nobodyoffered me the Carnegie medal. 

I was sitting one morning in my office, which, as I have said, separatedthe offices of Dr. Quint and Professor Boomly, when there came a loudrapping on my door, and, at my invitation, Dr. Quint bustled in--alittle, meagre, excitable, near-sighted man with pointed mustaches anda fleck of an imperial smudging his lower lip. 

"Last week, " he began angrily, "young Jones arrived from Singaporebringing me the eggs of _Erebia astarte_, the great Silver Moonbutterfly. Attempts to destroy them have been made. Last night I leftthem in a breeding-cage on my desk. Has anybody been in there?"

"I don't know, " I said. "What has happened?"

"I found an ichneumon fly in the cage yesterday!" he shouted; "and thismorning the eggs have either shrunk to half their size or else the eggsof another species have been secretly substituted for them and the SilverMoon eggs stolen! Has _he_ been in there?"

"Who?" I asked, pretending to misunderstand. 

"_He!_" demanded Quint fiercely. "If he has I'll kill him some day. "

_He_ meant his one-time friend, Dr. Boomly. Alas!

"For heaven's sake, why are you two perpetually squabbling?" I askedwearily. "You used to be inseparable friends. Why can't you make up?"

"Because I've come to know him. That's why! I have unmasked this--thisBorgia--this Machiavelli--this monster of duplicity! Matters areapproaching a point where something has got to be done short of murder. I've stood all his envy and jealousy and cheap imputations and hints andcontemptible innuendoes that I'm going to--"

He stopped short, glaring at the doorway, which had suddenly beendarkened by the vast bulk of Professor Boomly--a figure largely abdominalbut majestic--like the massive butt end of an elephant. For the rest, hehad a rather insignificant and peevish face and a melancholy mustachethat usually looked damp. 

"Mr. Smith, " he said to me, in his thin, high, sarcastic voice--a voiceincongruously at variance with his bulk--"has anybody had the infernalimpudence to enter my room and nose about my desk?"

"Yes, _I_ have!" replied Quint excitedly. "I've been in your room. Whatof it? What about it?"

Boomly permitted his heavy-lidded eyes to rest on Quint for a moment, then, turning to me:

"I want a patent lock put on my door. Will you speak to ProfessorFarrago?"

"I want one put on mine, too!" cried Quint. "I want a lock put on my doorwhich will keep envious, dull-minded, mentally broken-down, impertinent, and fat people out of my office!"

Boomly flushed heavily:

"Fat?" he repeated, glaring at Quint. "Did you say 'fat?'"

"Yes, fat--intellectually and corporeally fat! I want that kind ofindividual kept out. I don't trust them. I'm afraid of them. Their mindsare atrophied. They are unmoral, possibly even criminal! I don't wantthem in my room snooping about to see what I have and what I'm doing. Idon't want them to sneak in, eaten up with jealousy and envy, and try todamage the eggs of the Silver Moon butterfly because the honour and gloryof hatching them would probably procure for me the Carnegie EducationalMedal--"

"Why, you little, dried-up, protoplasmic atom!" burst out Boomly, hisface suffused with passion, "Are you insinuating that I have any designson your batch of eggs?"

"It's my belief, " shouted Quint, "that you want that medal yourself, andthat you put an ichneumon fly in my breeding-cage in hopes it would stingthe eggs of the Silver Moon. "

"If you found an ichneumon fly there, " retorted Boomly, "you probablyhatched it in mistake for a butterfly!" And he burst into a peal ofcontemptuous laughter, but his little, pig-like eyes under the heavy lidswere furious. 

"I now believe, " said Quint, trembling with rage, "that you havecriminally substituted a batch of common _Plexippus_ eggs for the SilverMoon eggs I had in my breeding-cage! I believe you are sufficientlyabandoned to do it!"

"Ha! Ha!" retorted Boomly scornfully. "I don't believe you everhad anything in your breeding-cage except a few clothes moths andcockroaches!"

Quint began to dance:

"You _did_ take them!" he yelled; "and you left me a bunch of milkweedbutterflies' eggs! Give me my eggs or I shall violently assault you!"

"Assault your grandmother!" remarked Boomly, with unscientific brevity. "What do you suppose I want of your ridiculous eggs? Haven't I enougheggs of _Heliconius salome_ hatching to give me the Carnegie medal ifI want it?"

"The Silver Moon eggs are unique!" cried Quint. "You know it! You knowthat if they hatch, pupate, and become perfect insects that I shallcertainly be awarded--"

"You'll be awarded the Matteawan medal, " remarked Boomly with venom. 

Quint ran at him with a half-suppressed howl, his momentum carrying himhalfway up Professor Boomly's person. Then, losing foothold, he fell tothe floor and began to kick in the general direction of Professor Boomly. It was a sorrowful sight to see these two celebrated scientists panting, mauling, scuffling and punching each other around the room, tables andchairs and scrapbaskets flying in every direction, and I mounted on thewindow-sill horrified, speechless, trying to keep clear of the revolvingstorm centre. 

"Where are my Silver Moon eggs!" screamed Dr. Quint. "Where are my eggsthat Jones brought me from Singapore--you entomological robber! You'vegot 'em somewhere! If you don't give 'em up I'll find means to destroyyou!"

"You insignificant pair of maxillary palpi!" bellowed Professor Boomly, galloping after Dr. Quint as he dodged around my desk. "I'll pull offthose antennæ you call whiskers if I can get hold of em--"

Dr. Quint's threatened mustaches bristled as he fled before theelephantine charge of Professor Boomly--once again around my desk, thenout into the hall, where I heard the door of his office slam, and Boomly, gasping, panting, breathing vengeance outside, and vowing to leave Quintquite whiskerless when he caught him. 

It was a painful scene for scientists to figure in or to gaze upon. Profoundly shocked and upset, I locked up the anthropological departmentoffices and went out into the Park, where the sun was shining and agentle June wind stirred the trees. 

Too completely upset to do any more work that day, I wandered about amidthe gaily dressed crowds at hazard; sometimes I contemplated the monkeys;sometimes gazed sadly upon the seals. They dashed and splashed and racedround and round their tank, or crawled up on the rocks, craned their wet, sleek necks, and barked--houp! houp! houp!

For luncheon I went over to the Rolling Stone Restaurant. There was avery pretty girl there--an unusually pretty girl--or perhaps it was oneof those days on which every girl looked unusually pretty to me. Thereare such days. 

Her voice was exquisite when she spoke. She said:

"We have, today, corned beef hash, fried ham and eggs, liver andbacon--" but let that pass, too. 

I took my tea very weak; by that time I learned that her name was MildredCase; that she had been a private detective employed in a departmentstore, and that her duties had been to nab wealthy ladies who forgot topay for objects usually discovered in their reticules, bosoms, andsometimes in their stockings. 

But the confinement of indoor work had been too much for Mildred Case, and the only outdoor job she could find was the position of ladywaitress in the rustic Rolling Stone Inn. 

She was very, very beautiful, or perhaps it was one of those days--butlet that pass, too. 

"You are the great Mr. Percy Smith, Curator of the AnthropologicalDepartment, are you not?" she asked shyly. 

"Yes, " I said modestly; and, to slightly rebuke any superfluous pride inme, I paraphrased with becoming humility, pointing upward: "but remember, Mildred, there is One greater than I. "

"Mr. Carnegie?" she nodded innocently. That was true, too. I let it go atthat. 

We chatted: she mentioned Professor Boomly and Dr. Quint, gentlydeploring the rupture of their friendship. Both gentlemen, in common withthe majority of the administration personnel, were daily customers at theRolling Stone Inn. I usually took my lunch from my boarding-house to myoffice, being too busy to go out for mere nourishment. 

That is why I had hitherto missed Mildred Case. 

"Mildred, " I said, "I do not believe it can be wholesome for a man to eatsandwiches while taking minute measurements of defunct monkeys. Also, itis not a fragrant pastime. Hereafter I shall lunch here. "

"It will be a pleasure to serve you, " said that unusually--there I goagain! It was an unusually beautiful day in June. Which careful, exact, and scientific statement, I think ought to cover the subject underconsideration. 

After luncheon I sadly selected a five-cent cigar; and, as I hesitated, lingering over the glass case, undecided still whether to give full reinto this contemplated extravagance, I looked up and found her beautifulgrey eyes gazing into mine. 

"What gentle thoughts are yours, Mildred?" I said softly. 

"The cigar you have selected, " she murmured, "is fly-specked. "

Deeply touched that this young girl should have cared--that she shouldhave expressed her solicitude so modestly, so sweetly, concerning themaculatory condition of my cigar, I thanked her and purchased, for thesame sum, a packet of cigarettes. 

That was going somewhat far for me. I had never in all my life evendreamed of smoking a cigarette. To a reserved, thoughtful, and scientificmind there is, about a packet of cigarettes, something undignified, something vaguely frolicsome. 

When I paid her for them I felt as though, for the first time in my life, I had let myself go. 

Oddly enough, in this uneasy feeling of gaiety and abandon, a curioussensation of exhilaration persisted. 

We had quite a merry little contretemps when I tried to light mycigarette and the match went out, and then _she_ struck another match, and we both laughed, and _that_ match was extinguished by her breath. 

Instantly I quoted: "'Her breath was like the new-mown hay--'"

"Mr. Smith!" she said, flushing slightly. 

"'Her eyes, ' I quoted, 'were like the stars at even!'"

"You don't mean _my_ eyes, do you?"

I took a puff at my unlighted cigarette. It also smelled like recentlymown hay. I felt that I was slipping my cables and heading toward anunknown and tempestuous sea. 

"What time are you free, Mildred?" I asked, scarcely recognising my ownvoice in such reckless apropos. 

She shyly informed me. 

I struck a match, relighted my cigarette, and took one puff. That wassufficient: I was adrift. I realised it, trembled internally, tookanother puff. 

"If, " said I carelessly, "on your way home you should chance to strollalong the path beyond the path that leads to the path which--"

I paused, checked by her bewildered eyes. We both blushed. 

"Which way do you usually go home?" I asked, my ears afire. 

[Illustration: "'Which way do you usually go home?' I asked. "]

She told me. It was a suitably unfrequented path. 

So presently I strolled thither; and seated myself under the trees in abosky dell. 

Now, there is a quality in boskiness not inappropriate to romanticthoughts. Boskiness, cigarettes, a soft afternoon in June, the hum ofbees, and the distant barking of the seals, all these were delicatelyblending to inspire in me a bashful sentiment. 

A specimen of _Papilio turnus_, di-morphic form, _Glaucus_, alighted nearme; I marked its flight with scientific indifference. Yet it is a rarespecies in Bronx Park. 

A mock-orange bush was in snowy bloom behind me; great bunches ofwistaria hung over the rock beside me. 

The combination of these two exquisite perfumes seemed to make theboskiness more bosky. 

There was an unaccustomed and sportive lightness to my step when I roseto meet Mildred, where she came loitering along the shadow-dappled path. 

She seemed surprised to see me. 

She thought it rather late to sit down, but she seated herself. I talkedto her enthusiastically about anthropology. She was so interested thatafter a while she could scarcely keep still, moving her slim little feetrestlessly, biting her pretty lower lip, shifting her position--allcertain symptoms of an interest in science which even approachedexcitement. 

Warmed to the heart by her eager and sympathetic interest in the noblescience so precious, so dear to me, I took her little hand to soothe andquiet her, realizing that she might become overexcited as I described thepituitary body and why its former functions had become atrophied untilthe gland itself was nearly obsolete. 

So intense her interest had been that she seemed a little tired. Idecided to give adequate material support to her spinal process. Itseemed to rest and soothe her. I don't remember that she said anythingexcept: "Mr. _Smith_!" I don't recollect what we were saying when shementioned me by name rather abruptly. 

The afternoon was wonderfully still and calm. The month was June. 

After a while--quite a while--some little time in point of accuratefact--she detected the sound of approaching footsteps. 

I remember that she was seated at the opposite end of the bench, ratherfeverishly occupied with her hat and her hair, when young Jones camehastily along the path, caught sight of us, halted, turned violentlyred--being a shy young man--but instead of taking himself off, he seemedto recover from a momentary paralysis. 

"Mr. Smith!" he said sharply. "Professor Boomly has disappeared; there'sa pool of blood on his desk; his coat, hat, and waistcoat are lying onthe floor, the room is a wreck, and Dr. Quint is in there tearing up thecarpet and behaving like a madman. We think he suddenly went insane andmurdered Professor Boomly. What is to be done?"

Horrified, I had risen at his first word. And now, as I understood thefull purport of his dreadful message, my hair stirred under my hat andI gazed at him, appalled. 

"What is to be done?" he demanded. "Shall I telephone for the police?"

"Do you actually believe, " I faltered, "that this unfortunate man hasmurdered Boomly?"

"I don't know. I looked over the transom, but I couldn't see ProfessorBoomly. Dr. Quint has locked the door. "

"And he's tearing up the carpet?"

"Like a lunatic. I didn't want to call in the police until I'd asked you. Such a scandal in Bronx Park would be a frightful thing for us all--" Hehesitated, looked around, coldly, it seemed to me, at Mildred Case. "Ascandal, " he repeated, "is scarcely what might be expected among aharmonious and earnest band of seekers after scientific knowledge. Is it, Mil--Miss Case?"

Now, I don't know why Mildred should have blushed. There was nothing thatI could see in this young man's question to embarrass her. 

Preoccupied, still confused by the shock of this terrible news, I lookedat Jones and at Mildred; and they were staring rather oddly at eachother. 

I said: "If this affair turns out to be as ghastly as it seems topromise, we'll have to call in a detective. I'll go back immediately--"

"Why not take me, also?" asked Mildred Case, quietly. 

"What?" I asked, looking at her. 

"Why not, Mr. Smith? I was once a private detective. "

Surprised at the suggestion, I hesitated. 

"If you desire to keep this matter secret--if you wish to have it firstinvestigated privately and quietly--would it not be a good idea to let meuse my professional knowledge before you call in the police? Because assoon as the police are summoned all hope of avoiding publicity is at anend. "

She spoke so sensibly, so quietly, so modestly, that her offer ofassistance deeply impressed me. 

As for young Jones, he looked at her steadily in that odd, chillingmanner, which finally annoyed me. There was no need of his being snobbishbecause this very lovely and intelligent young girl happened to be awaitress at the Rolling Stone Inn. 

"Come, " I said unsteadily, again a prey to terrifying emotions; "let usgo to the Administration Building and learn how matters stand. If thisaffair is as terrible as I fear it to be, science has received thedeadliest blow ever dealt it since Cagliostro perished. "

As we three strode hastily along the path in the direction of theAdministration Building, I took that opportunity to read these twoyouthful fellow beings a sermon on envy, jealousy, and coveteousness. 

"See, " said I, "to what a miserable condition the desire for notorietyand fame has brought two learned and enthusiastic delvers in the vineyardof endeavor! The mad desire for the Carnegie medal completely turned thehitherto perfectly balanced brains of these devoted disciples of Science. Envy begat envy, jealousy begat jealousy, pride begat pride, hatred begathatred--"

"It's like that book in the Bible where everybody begat everybody else, "said Mildred seriously. 

At first I thought she had made an apt and clever remark; but on thinkingit over I couldn't quite see its relevancy. I turned and looked into hersweet face. Her eyes were dancing with brilliancy and her sensitive lipsquivered. I feared, she was near to tears from the reaction of the shock. Had Jones not been walking with us--but let that go, too. 

We were now entering the Administration Building, almost running; andas soon as we came to the closed door of Dr. Quint's room, I could heara commotion inside--desk drawers being pulled out and their contentsdumped, curtains being jerked from their rings, an unmistakable soundindicating the ripping up of a carpet--and through all this din theagitated scuffle of footsteps. 

I rapped on the door. No notice taken. I rapped and knocked and called ina low, distinct voice. 

Suddenly I recollected I had a general pass-key on my ring which unlockedany door in the building. I nodded to Jones and to Mildred to standaside, then, gently fitting the key, I suddenly pushed out the key whichremained on the inside, turned the lock, and flung open the door. 

A terrible sight presented itself: Dr. Quint, hair on end, both mustachespulled out, shirt, cuffs, and white waistcoat smeared with blood, kneltamid the general wreckage on the floor, in the act of ripping up thecarpet. 

"Doctor!" I cried in a trembling voice. "What have you done to ProfessorBoomly?"

He paused in his carpet ripping and looked around at us with a terrifyinglaugh. 

"I've settled _him_!" he said. "If you don't want to get all over dustyou'd better keep out--"

"Quint!" I cried. "Are you crazy?"

"Pretty nearly. Let me alone--"

"Where is Boomly!" I demanded in a tragic voice. "Where is your oldfriend, Billy Boomly? Where is he, Quint? And what does _that_ mean--thatpool of blood on the floor? Whose is it?"

"It's Bill's, " said Quint, coolly ripping up another breadth of carpetand peering under it. 

"What!" I exclaimed. "Do you admit that?"

"Certainly I admit it. I told him I'd terminate him if he meddled with mySilver Moon eggs. "

"You mean to say that you shed blood--the blood of your oldfriend--merely because he meddled with a miserable batch of butterfly'seggs?" I asked, astounded. 

"I certainly did shed his blood for just that particular thing! Andlisten; you're in my way--you're standing on a part of the carpet whichI want to tear up. Do you mind moving?"

Such cold-blooded calmness infuriated me. I sprang at Quint, seized him, and shouted to Jones to tie his hands behind him with the blood-soakedhandkerchief which lay on the floor. 

At first, while Jones and I were engaged in the operation of securingthe wretched man, Quint looked at us both as though surprised; then hegrew angry and asked us what the devil we were about. 

"Those who shed blood must answer for it!" I said solemnly. 

"What? What's the matter with you?" he demanded in a rage. "Shed blood?What if I did? What's that to you? Untie this handkerchief, youunmentionable idiot!"

I looked at Jones:

"His mind totters, " I said hoarsely. 

"What's that!" cried Quint, struggling to get off the chair whither I hadpushed him: but with my handkerchief we tied his ankles to the rung ofthe chair, heedless of his attempts to kick us, and sprang back out ofrange. 

"Now, " I said, "what have you done with the poor victim of your fury?Where is he? Where is all that remains of Professor Boomly?"

"Boomly? I don't know where he is. How the devil should I know?"

"Don't lie, " I said solemnly. 

"Lie! See here, Smith, when I get out of this chair I'll settle you, too--"

"Quint! There is another and more terrible chair which awaits suchcriminals as you!"

"You old fluff!" he shouted. "I'll knock your head off, too. Do youunderstand? I'll attend to you as I attended to Boomly--"

"Assassin!" I retorted calmly. "Only an alienist can save you now. Inthis awful moment--"

A light touch on my arm interrupted me, and, a trifle irritated, as anyman might be when checked in the full flow of eloquence, I turned to findMildred at my elbow. 

"Let me talk to him, " she said in a quiet voice. "Perhaps I may notirritate him as you seem to. "

"Very well, " I said. "Jones and I are here as witnesses. " And I folded myarms in an attitude not, perhaps, unpicturesque. 

"Dr. Quint, " said Mildred in her soft, agreeable voice, and actuallysmiling slightly at the self-confessed murderer, "is it really true thatyou are guilty of shedding the blood of Professor Boomly?"

"It is, " said Quint, coolly. 

She seemed rather taken aback at that, but presently recovered herequanimity. 

"Why?" she asked gently. 

"Because he attempted a most hellish crime!" yelled Quint. 

"W-what crime?" she asked faintly. 

"I'll tell you. He wanted the Carnegie medal, and he knew it would begiven to me if I could incubate and hatch my batch of Silver Moonbutterfly eggs. He realised well enough that his Heliconian eggs were notas valuable as my Silver Moon eggs. So first he sneaked in here and putan ichneumon fly in my breeding-cage. And next he stole the Silver Mooneggs and left in their place some common _Plexippus_ eggs, thinking thatbecause they were very similar I would not notice the substitution. 

"I did notice it! I charged him with that cataclysmic outrage. Helaughed. We came into personal collision. He chased me into my room. "

Panting, breathless with rage at the memory of the morning's defeat whichI had witnessed, Quint glared at me for a moment. Then he jerked his headtoward Mildred:

"As soon as he went to luncheon--Boomly, I mean--I climbed over thattransom and dropped into this room. I had been hunting for ten minutesbefore I found my Silver Moon eggs hidden under the carpet. So I pocketedthem, climbed back over the transom, and went to my room. "

He paused dramatically, staring from one to another of us:

"Boomly was there!" he said slowly. 

"Where?" asked Mildred with a shudder. 

"In my room. He had picked the lock. I told him to get out! He went. I shouted after him that I had recovered the Silver Moon eggs and thatI should certainly be awarded the Carnegie medal. 

"Then that monster in human form laughed a horrible laugh, avowinghimself guilty of a crime still more hideous than the theft of the SilverMoon eggs! Do you know what he had done?"

"W-what?" faltered Mildred. 

"He had stolen from cold storage and had concealed the leaves of theBimba bush, brought from Singapore to feed the Silver Moon caterpillars!_That's_ what Boomly had done!

_"And my Silver Moon eggs had already begun to hatch!!! And mycaterpillars would starve!!!!"_

His voice ended in a yell; he struggled on his chair until it nearlyupset. 

"You lunatic!" I shouted. "Was that a reason for spilling the blood of ahuman being!"

"It was reason enough for me!"

"Madman!"

"Let me loose! He's hidden those leaves somewhere or other! I've tornthis place to pieces looking for them. I've got to find them, I tellyou--"

Mildred went to the infuriated entomologist and laid a firm hand on hisshoulder:

"Listen, " she said: "how do you know that Professor Boomly has notconcealed these Bimba leaves on his own person?"

Quint ceased his contortions and gaped at her. 

"I never thought of that, " he said. 

"What have you done with him?" she asked, very pale. 

"I tell you, I don't know. "

"You must know what you did with him, " she insisted. 

Quint shook his head impatiently, apparently preoccupied with otherthoughts. We stood watching him in silence until he looked up and becameconscious of our concentrated gaze. 

"My caterpillars are starving, " he began violently. "I haven't anythingelse they'll eat. They feed only on the Bimba leaf. They _won't_ eatanything else. It's a well-known fact that they won't. Why, in Johore, where they came from, they'll travel miles over the ground to find aBimba bush--"

"What!" exclaimed Mildred. 

"Certainly--miles! They'd starve sooner than eat anything except Bimbaleaves. If there's a bush within twenty miles they'll find it--"

"Wait, " said Mildred quietly. "Where are these starving caterpillars?"

"In a glass jar in my pocket--here! What the devil are you doing!" Forthe girl had dexterously slipped the glass jar from his coat pocket andwas holding it up to the light. 

Inside it were several dozen tiny, dark caterpillars, some restingdisconsolately on the sides of the glass, some hungrily travelling overthe bottom in pitiful and hopeless quest of nourishment. 

Heedless of the shouts and threats of Dr. Quint, the girl calmly uncorkedthe jar, took on her slender forefinger a single little caterpillar, replaced the cork, and, kneeling down, gently disengaged the caterpillar. It dropped upon the floor, remained motionless for a moment, then, turning, began to travel rapidly toward the doorway behind us. 

"Now, " she said, "if poor Professor Boomly really has concealed theseBimba leaves upon his own person, this little caterpillar, according toDr. Quint, is certain to find those leaves. "

[Illustration: "'This little caterpillar . .. Is certain to find thoseleaves. '"]

Overcome with excitement and admiration for this intelligent andunusually beautiful girl, I seized her hands and congratulated her. 

"Murder, " said I to the miserable Quint, "will out! This infantcaterpillar shall lead us to that dark and secret spot where you hadhoped to conceal the horrid evidence of your guilt. Three things haveundone you--a caterpillar replete with mysterious instinct, a humblebunch of Bimba leaves, and the marvellous intelligence of this young andlovely girl. Madman, your hour has struck!"

He looked at me in a dazed sort of way, as though astonishment had lefthim unable to articulate. But I had become tired of his violence andhis shouts and yells; so I asked Jones for his handkerchief, and, beforeQuint knew what I was up to I had tied it over his mouth. 

He became a brilliant purple, but all he could utter was a furioushumming, buzzing noise. 

Meanwhile, Jones had opened the door; the little caterpillar, followed byMildred and myself, continued to hustle along as though he knew quitewell where he was going. 

Down the hallway he went in undulating haste, past my door, we allfollowing in silent excitement as we discovered that, parallel to thecaterpillar's course, ran a gruesome trail of blood drops. 

And when the little creature turned and made straight for the doorof Professor Farrago, our revered chief, the excitement among us wasterrific. 

The caterpillar halted; I gently tried the door; it was open. 

Instantly the caterpillar crossed the threshold, wriggling forward at topspeed. We followed, peering fearfully around us. Nobody was visible. 

Could Quint have dragged his victim here? By Heaven, he had! For thecaterpillar was travelling straight under the lounge upon which ProfessorFarrago was accustomed to repose after luncheon, and, dropping on oneknee, I saw a fat foot partly protruding from under the shirred edges ofthe fringed drapery. 

"He's there!" I whispered, in an awed voice to the others. 

"Courage, Miss Case! Try not to faint. "

Jones turned and looked at her with that same odd expression; then hewent over to where she stood and coolly passed one arm around her waist. 

"Try not to faint, Mildred, " he said. "It might muss your hair. "

It was a strange thing to say, but I had no time then to analyze it, forI had seized the fat foot which partly protruded from under the sofa, clad in a low-cut congress gaiter and a white sock. 

And then _I_ nearly fainted, for instead of the dreadful, inertresistance of lifeless clay, the foot wriggled and tried to kick at me. 

"Help!" came a thin but muffled voice. "Help! Help, in the name ofHeaven!"

"Boomly!" I cried, scarcely believing my ears. 

"Take that man away, Smith!" whimpered Boomly. "He's a devil! He'llmurder me! He made my nose bleed all over everything!"

"Boomly! You're _not_ dead!"

"Yes, I am!" he whined. "I'm dead enough to suit me. Keep that littlelunatic off--that's all I ask. He can have his Carnegie medal for allI care, only tie him up somewhere--"

"Professor Boomly!" cried Mildred excitedly. "Have you any Bimba leavesconcealed about your person?"

"Yes, I have, " he said sulkily. There came a hitch of the fat foot, aheavy scuffling sound, heavy panting, and then, skittering out across thefloor came a flat, sealed parcel. 

"There you are, " he said; "now, let me alone until that fiend has gonehome. "

"He won't attack you again, " I said. "Come out. "

But Professor Boomly flatly declined to stir. 

I looked at the parcel: it was marked: "Bimba leaves; Johore. "

With a sigh of unutterable relief, I picked up the ravenous littlecaterpillar, placed him on the packet, and turned to go. And didn't. 

It is a very sickening fact I have now to record. But to a scientist allfacts are sacred, sickening or otherwise. 

For what I caught a glimpse of, just outside the door in the hallway, was Jones kissing Mildred Case. And being shyly indemnified for histrouble with a gentle return in kind. Both his arms were around herwaist; both her hands rested upon his shoulders; and, as I looked--butlet it pass!--let it pass. 

Deliberately I fished in my pocket, found my packet of cigarettes, lighted one. 

_Tobacco diffugiunt mordaces curae et laetificat cor hominis!_