ations of life stripped to the bone of its
savagery and brutality. I realize as never before how cheap and
valueless a thing is life. Life seems a joke, a cruel, grim joke. You
are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less
powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses
your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything
but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle
to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble--we take ourselves too
seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that." She paused and
laughed.

"You have evolved a beautiful philosophy," I said. "It fills such a
longing in the human breast. It is full, it is satisfying, it is
ennobling. What wonderous strides toward perfection the human race
might have made if the first man had evolved it and it had persisted
until now as the creed of humanity."

"I don't like irony," she said; "it indicates a small soul."

"What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from `a comic little
figure hopping from the cradle to the grave'?" I inquired. "And what
difference does it make, anyway, what you like and what you don't like?
You are here for but an instant, and you mustn't take yourself too
seriously."

She looked up at me with a smile. "I imagine that I am frightened and
blue," she said, "and I know that I am very, very homesick and lonely."
There was almost a sob in her voice as she concluded. It was the first
time that she had spoken thus to me. Involuntarily, I laid my hand
upon hers where it rested on the rail.

"I know how difficult your position is," I said; "but don't feel that
you are alone. There is--is one here who--who would do anything in the
world for you," I ended lamely. She did not withdraw her hand, and she
looked up into my face with tears on her cheeks and I read in her eyes
the thanks her lips could not voice. Then she looked away across the
weird moonlit landscape and sighed. Evidently her new-found philosophy
had tumbled about her ears, for she was seemingly taking herself
seriously. I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her how I loved
her, and had taken her hand from the rail and started to draw her
toward me when Olson came blundering up on deck with his bedding.

The following morning we started building operations in earnest, and
things progressed finely. The Neanderthal man was something of a care,
for we had to keep him in irons al