The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1909-02-26

and body and foot, palpitating, painting
| like a pair of netted pigeons.
| And the creature on the shore be-
| low! What was my horror to see
moon, huge silvery, rise like bubble
| from between his fingers, mount high
er, higher into the still air and hang
aloft in the midnight sky, while an
other moon rose from his fingers, and
another and yet another until the vast
span of Heaven was set with moons
and the earth sparkled like diamond
in the white glare.
A great wind began to blow from
the east and it bore to our ears
| long mournful howl-a cry so I'M
earthly that for moment our hearts
stopped.
THE Yeth-hounds!" sobbed Ysonde;
do you hear!-they are passing
through the forect! The Kin is near!"
Then all around us in the dry sedge
grasses came rustic as if some small
animal were creeping, and damp
acrid odor filled the air i knew the
smell, | saw the spidery, crab-like
|
drag their soft yellow hairy bodies
across the shrinking grasses. They
passed, hundreds of them, poisoning
the air, tumblng, writing, crawling
with their blind, mouthless heads
raised Birds, half asleep and con-
fused by the darkness fiuttered away
before them in helpless flight; rab-
bits sprang from their forms, weasels
glided away like flying shadows. What
! remained of the forest creatures rose
and fled from the loathsome invasion.
| heard the squeak of terrified hare,
the short stampeding of deer and the
numbering gallop of bear; and all
the time was choking, half suffocated
by the poisoned aif.
Then, as | struggled to free myself
from the silken snare about me, cast
a glance of deadly fear at the sorcer-
err below, and at the same moment
saw him turn in his tracks,
Halt" cried a voice from the
| bushes.
"Barris!" l shouted, half leaping up
in my agony.
! saw the sorcerer spring forward,
| heard the bang! bang! bang! of
revolver, and as the sorcerer fell on
the waters edge, l saw Barris jump
| out into the white glare and fire again,
once, twice, three times, into the
writhing figure at his feet.
Then an awful thing occurred. Up
out of the black lake reared shadow,
a nameless, shapeless mass, headless,
sightless, gigantic, gaping from end
| to end.
great wave struck Barris and he
fell another washed him up on the
pebbles, another whirled him back into
the water and then-and then the
thing fell over him-and | tainted.
This, then, is all that l know con-
corning Yue-Laou and the Kin. l do
not fear the ridicule of scientists or OF
the press for | have told the truth.
Barris is gone and the thing that killed
him is alive to-day, In the Lake OF the
Stars, while the spider-like satellites
roam through the Cardinal Woods.
The game has fed, the forests around
the lake are empty of any living crea-
| lures save the reptiles that creep when
the Kin moves in the depths of the
lake.
Gen. Drummond knows what he has
lost in Barris, and we, Pierpont and
|, know what we have lost also. His
will we found in the drawer, the key
| iah 1n hnd cd
wrapped in bit Of paper on which
was written:
Yue-Laou, the sorcerer. is here In the
| Cardinal Woods. I must kill him or he
will kill me- He made and gave to me
the woman l loved-he made her-I saw
him-he made her out of a white water
lotus bud When our child was born, he
| came again before me and demanded
| from me the woman I loved. Then, when
l refused he went away, and that night
my wife and child vanished from my
| side and found upon her pillow white
! lotus bud Roy the woman of your
dream, Ysonde, may be my child. God
help you If you love her. for Yue-Laou
will give-and take away as though he
were Xangi, which Is God. / Will Kill
| Yue-Laou before l leave this forester
he will kill me.
FRANKLIN BARRIS.
Now, the world knows what BATHS
thought of the Kuen-Yuin and of Yue-
Laou. l see that the newspapers are
just becoming excited over the
glimpses that Li-Hung Chang has af-
forded them of Black Cathay and the
demons of the Kuen-Yuin. The Kuen-
YUM are on the move.
Pierpont and l have dismantled the
shooting box in the Cardinal Woods.
We hold ourselves ready at a mo-
ment's notice to join and lead the first
government party to drag the Lake of
the Stars and cleanse the forest of the
crab reptiles. But it will be necessary
that large force assemble, and a we'll
armed force, for we never have found
the body of Yue-Laou, and, living or
dead, 1 fear him. Is he living?
h.