hole had been bored. The agency of perforation was obvious. A
bullet had made it.

"Seen something of life, I reckon," said Trendon, as the captain turned
the volume about slowly in his hands.

"And of death," returned Captain Parkinson solemnly. "Do you know,
Trendon, I almost dread to open this."

"Pshaw!" returned the other. "What is it to us?"

He threw the cover back. Neatly lettered on the inside, in the fine and
slightly angular writing characteristic of the Teutonic scholar, was the
legend:

Karl Augustus Schermerhorn,
1409-1/2 Spruce Street,
Philadelphia, Pa.

[Illustration: With a strangled cry the sailor cast the shirt from him]

The opposite page was blank. Captain Parkinson turned half a dozen leaves.

"German!" he cried, in a note of disappointment, "Can you read German
script?"

"After a fashion," replied the other. "Let's see. _Es wonnte sechs--und--
dreissig unterjacke_," he read. "Why, blast it, was the man running a
haberdashery? What have three dozen undershirts to do with this?"

"A memorandum for outfitting, probably," suggested the captain. "Try
here."

"Chemical formulae," said Trendon. "Pages of 'em. The devil! Can't make a
thing of it."

"Well, here's something in English."

"Good," said the other. "_By combining the hyper-sulphate of iridium with
the fumes arising from oxide of copper heated to 1000 C. and combining
with picric acid in the proportions described in formula x 18, a reaction,
the nature of which I have not fully determined, follows. This must be
performed with extreme care owing to the unstable nature of the benzene
compounds._"

"Picric acid? Benzene compounds? Those are high explosives," said Captain
Parkinson. "We should have Barnett go over this."

"Here's a name under the formula. _Dr. A. Mardenter, Ann Arbor, Mich_.
That explains its being in English. Probably copied from a letter."

"This must have been one of the experiments in the valley that Slade told
us of," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Why, see here," he cried, with
something like exultation. "That's what Dr. Schermerhorn was doing here.
He has the clue to some explosive so terrific that he goes far out of the
world to experiment with its manufacture. For companions he chooses a gang
of cutthroats that the world would never miss in case anything went wrong.
Possibly it was some trial of the finished product that started the
eruption, even. Do you see?"

"Don't explai