had anchored to a
cedar-tree had torn loose from the bullets and had winged its way
heavily out to sea. The professor answered: 'Yes, the ekaf-bird; the
others were ool-ylliks. I'd have given my right arm to have secured
them.' Then for a time I heard no more; but the jolting of the wagon
over the dunes roused me to keenest pain, and I held out my right hand
to Daisy. She clasped it in both of hers, and kissed it again and
again.

* * * * *

"There is little more to add, I think. Professor Bruce Stoddard's
scientific pamphlet will be published soon, to be followed by
Professor Holroyd's sixteen volumes. In a few days the stuffed and
mounted thermosaurus will be placed on free public exhibition in the
arena of Madison Square Garden, the only building in the city large
enough to contain the body of this immense winged reptile."

* * * * *

The young man hesitated, looking long and earnestly at Miss Barrison.

"Did you marry her?" she asked, softly.

"You wouldn't believe it," said the young man, earnestly--"you
wouldn't believe it, after all that happened, if I should tell you
that she married Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia--would you?"

"Yes, I would," said Miss Barrison. "You never can tell what a girl
will do."

"That story of yours," I said, "is to me the most wonderful and
valuable contribution to nature study that it has ever been my fortune
to listen to. You are fitted to write; it is your sacred mission to
produce. Are you going to?"

"I am writing," said the young man, quietly, "a nature book. Sir Peter
Grebe's magnificent monograph on the speckled titmouse inspired me.
But nature study is not what I have chosen as my life's mission."

He looked dreamily across at Miss Barrison. "No, not natural
phenomena," he repeated, "but unnatural phenomena. What Professor
Hyssop has done for Columbia, I shall attempt to do for Harvard. In
fact, I have already accepted the chair of Psychical Phenomena at
Cambridge."

I gazed upon him with intense respect.

"A personal experience revealed to me my life's work," he, went on,
thoughtfully stroking his blond mustache. "If Miss Barrison would care
to hear it--"

"Please tell it," she said, sweetly.

"I shall have to relate it clothed in that artificial garb known as
literary style," he explained, deprecatingly.

"It doesn't matter," I said, "I never noticed any style at all in your
story of