craft
and nature. Are you?"

"We've been reading up," began Langdon confidently; "we have a dozen
pocket volumes to take into the woods with us."

"Haven't I already warned you that every ounce of superfluous luggage
will weigh a ton in the woods?" interrupted the city editor scornfully.
"Are you two youthful guys under the impression that you can stroll
through the wilderness loaded down with a five-foot shelf of assorted
junk?"

"Sayre arranged that," said Langdon. "He has invented a wonderful
system, Mr. Trinkle. You know that thin, white stuff, which resembles
sheets of paper, that they give goldfish to eat. Well, Sayre and I tasted
it; and it wasn't very bad; so we had them make up twelve thousand sheets
of it, flavoured with vanilla, and then we got Dribble & Co., the
publishers, to print one set of their Nature Library on the sheets and
bind 'em up in edible cassava covers. As soon as we thoroughly master a
volume we can masticate it, pages, binding, everything. William, show Mr.
Trinkle your note-book," he added, turning to Sayre, who hastily produced
a pad and displayed it with pardonable pride.

"Made entirely of fish food, sugar, pemmican, and cassava," he said
modestly. "Takes pencil, ink, stylograph, indelible pencil, crayon,
chalk--"

The city editor regarded the two young men and then the edible pad in
amazement.

"What?" he barked. "Say it again!"

"It's made of perfectly good fish-wafer, Mr. Trinkle. We had it analysed
by Professor Smawl, and he says it is mildly nutritious. So we added
other ingredients----"

"You mean to say that this pad is fit to eat?"

"Certainly," said Langdon. "Bite into it, William, and show him."

Sayre bit out a page from the pad and began to masticate it. The city
editor regarded him with intense hostility.

"Oh, very well," he said. "I haven't any further suggestions to offer.
Your uncle has picked you for the job. But it's my private opinion that
here is where you make good or hunt another outlet for your genius--even
if your uncle does own the _Star_."

Then he rose and laid his hands on their shoulders:

"It's a wild and desolate region," he said, with an irony they did not
immediately perceive; "nothing but woods and rocks and air and earth and
mountains and madly rushing torrents and weird, silent lakes--nothing but
trails, macadam roads, and sign-posts and hotels and camps and tourists,
and telephones. If you find yourself in any very terrible solitude