would we have
been, yesterday?" seriously spoke the elder Gillespie.

"I know where we wouldn't have been: inside that blessed cy-nado!"

"Nor here, where you can catch brook trout in your clothes without the
trouble of taking them off, youngster."

"And where you'll catch a precious hiding, without you let up harping on
that old string; it's way out of tune already, old man."

"Tit for tat. Excuse us, please, uncle Phaeton. We're like colts in
fresh pasture, this morning," brightly apologised Bruno, for both.

Apparently the professor paid no attention to that bit of sparring
between his nephews, staring into the glowing camp-fire with eyes which
surely saw more than yellow coals or ruddy flames could picture; eyes
which burned and sparkled with all the fires of distant youth.

"The dearest dream of all my life!" he repeated, in half dreamy tones,
only to rouse himself, with a a start and shoulder shake, an instant
later, forcing a bright smile as he glanced from face to face. "And why
not? How better could my last years be employed than in piercing the
clouds of mystery, and doubt, and superstition, with which this vast
tract has been enveloped for uncounted ages?"

"Is it really so unknown, then, uncle Phaeton?" hesitatingly asked
Bruno, touched, in spite of himself, by that intensely earnest tone and
expression. "Of course, I know what the Indians say; they are full of a
rude sort of superstitious awe, which--"

"Which is one of the surest proofs that truth forms a foundation for
that very superstition," quickly interjected the professor. "It is an
undisputed fact that there are hundreds upon hundreds of square miles of
terra incognita, lying in this corner of Washington Territory. No white
man ever fairly penetrated these wilds, even so far as we may have been
carried while riding the tornado. Or, if so, he assuredly has never
returned, or made known his discoveries."

"Provided there was anything beyond the ordinary to see or experience,
shouldn't we add, uncle?" suggested Waldo, modestly.

"There is,--there must be! No matter how wildly improbable their
traditions may seem in our judgment, it only takes calm investigation
to bring a fair foundation to light. In regard to this vast scope of
country, go where you will among the natives, question whom you see
fit, as to its secrets, and you will meet with the same results: a
deep-seated awe, a belief which cannot be shaken, that here strange
monsters bree