oice to a whisper close to
my ear: "Good heavens!" he said. "Can you reconcile such a creature as
we are starting out to hunt, with anything living known to science?"

"No," I replied in guarded tones. "And there are moments, Kemper, since
I have come into possession of Miss Grey's story, when I find myself
seriously doubting my own sanity."

"I'm doubting mine, now," he whispered, "only that girl is so fresh and
wholesome and human and sane--"

"She is a very clever girl," I said.

"And really beautiful!"

"She is intelligent," I remarked. There was a chill in my tone which
doubtless discouraged Kemper, for he ventured nothing further concerning
her superficially personal attractions.

After all, if any questions of priority were to arise, the pretty
waitress was _my_ discovery. And in the scientific world it is an
inflexible rule that he who first discovers any particular specimen of
any species whatever is first entitled to describe and comment upon that
specimen without interference or unsolicited advice from anybody.

Maybe there was in my eye something that expressed as much. For when
Kemper caught my cold gaze fixed upon him he winced and looked away like
a reproved setter dog who knew better. Which also, for the moment, put an
end to the rather gay and frivolous line of small talk which he had again
begun with the pretty waitress.

I was exceedingly surprised at Professor William Henry Kemper, D.F.

As we approached the campfire the loathsome odour of frying mullet
saluted my nostrils.

Kemper, glancing at Grue, said aside to me:

"That's an odd-looking fellow. What is he? Minorcan?"

"Oh, just a beachcomber. I don't know what he is. He strikes me as
dirty--though he can't be so, physically. I don't like him and I don't
know why. And I wish we'd engaged somebody else to guide us."

Toward dawn something awoke me and I sat up in my blanket under the moon.
But my leg had not been pulled.

Kemper snored at my side. In her little dog-tent the pretty waitress
probably was fast asleep. I knew it because the string she had tied to
one of her ornamental ankles still lay across the ground convenient to my
hand. In any emergency I had only to pull it to awake her.

A similar string, tied to my ankle, ran parallel to hers and disappeared
under the flap of her tent. This was for her to pull if she liked. She
had never yet pulled it. Nor I the other. Nevertheless I truly felt that
these humble strings were,