ercy," said he, "now we will have the defence built."

He dragged us with him to the narrow part of the arroyo, just before
it rose to the level of the valley.

"Here we will build the stockade-defence," he announced.

Darrow and I stared at each other blankly.

"What for, sir?" inquired the assistant.

"I haf come to be undisturbed," announced the doctor, with owl-like,
Teutonic gravity, "and I will not be disturbed."

Darrow nodded to me and drew his principal aside.

They conversed earnestly for several minutes. Then the assistant
returned to me.

"No use," he shrugged in complete return to his indifferent manner.
"Stockade it is. Better make it of fourteen foot logs, slanted out.
Dig a trench across, plant your logs three or four feet, bind them
at the top. That's his specification for it. Go at it."

"But," I expostulated, "what's the _use_ of it? Even if the men
were dangerous, that would just make them think you _did_ have
something to guard."

"I know that. Orders," replied Percy Darrow.

We built the stockade in a day. When it was finished we marched to
the beach, and never, save in the three instances of which I shall
later tell you, did I see the valley again. The next day we washed
our clothes, and moved ashore with all our belongings.

"I'm not going to have this crew aboard," stated Captain Selover
positively, "I'm going to clean her." He himself stayed, however.

We rowed in, constructed a hasty fireplace of stones, spread our
blankets, and built an unnecessary fire near the beach.

"Clean her!" grumbled Thrackles, "my eye!"

"I'd rather round the Cape," growled Pulz hopelessly.

"Come, now, it can't be as bad as all that," I tried to cheer them.
"It can't be more than a week or ten days' job, even if we careen her."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Thrackles. "It's
worse than the yellow jack. It's six weeks at least. Mind when we last
'cleaned her'?" he inquired of Handy Solomon.

"You can kiss the Book on it," replied he. "Down by the line in that
little swab of a sand island. My eye, but _don't_ I remember!
I sweated my liver white."

They smoked in silence.

"That's a main queer contrivance of the Perfessor's--that
stockade-like," ventured Solomon, after a little.

"He doesn't want any intrusion," I said. "These scientific experiments
are very delicate."

"Quite like," he commented non-committally.

We slept on the ground that night, and next morning, un