Evening star., 1912-07-07

the ganglia ran down and the dreadful things
were still.
SOME day, when have better desk than
- meat tin, and more helpful tools than
worn stub of pencil and last tattered
notebook, will write some fuller account Of
the Accala Indians, of our life among them,
and of the glimpses we had of the strange
conditions of wondrous Maple White Land.
Memory, at least, will never fail me; for SO
long as the breath of life is in me every hour
and every action of that period will stand
out as hard and clear as do the first strange
happenings of our childhood. No new i'm
pressions could efface those which are SO
deeply cut.
When the time comes, will describe that
wondrous moonlit night upon the great lake
when a young ichthyo yosaurus-a strange
creature, half seal, half fish, to look at, with
bone-covered eyes on each side of his snout,
and third eye fixed upon the top OF his
head-was entangled in an Indian net, and
nearly upset our canoe before we towed 1T
ashore; the same night that green water
snake shot out from the rushes and carried
off in its coils the steersInan of Challenger's
canoe.
| will tell, too, of the great, nocturnal
white thing-to this day we do not know
whether it was beast or reptile-which lived
in vile swamp to the east OF the lake, and
fitted about with a faint phosphorescent
glimmer in the darkness. The Indians were
so terrified of it that they would not go near
the place; and, though we twice made ex-
petitions and saw it each time, we could not
make our way through the deep marsh in
which it lived. l can only say that it seemed
to be larger than a COW and had the strangest
musky odor.
| will tell also of the huge bird which
chased Challenger to the shelter of the rocks
one day,-a great, running bird, TAR taller
than an ostrich, with vulturelike neck and
cruel head which made it walking death.
As Challenger climbed to safety, one dart of
that savage, curving beak shored off the heel
of his boot as if it had been cut with chisel
This time at least modern weapons pre-
vailed, and the great creature, twelve feet
from head to foot Phororhacus its name,
according to our painting but exultant pro-
fessor) went down before Lord Roxtons
rifle in furry of waving feathers and KICK
ing limbs, with two remorseless, yellow eyes
glaring up from the midst of it. May live
to see that fattened, vicious skull in its own
niche amid the trophies of the Albany!
Finally will surely give some account OF
the toxodon, the giant, ten-foot guinea pig
with projecting chisel teeth, which we killed
as it drank in the gray Of the morning by the
side of the lake.
All this l will some day write at fuller
length, and amid these more stirring days |
would tenderly sketch in these lovely sum-
mer evenings when, with the deep-blue sky
above us, we lay in good comradeship among
the long grasses by the wood, and marveled
at the strange fowl which swept over us and
the quaint new creatures which crept from
their burrows to watch us, while above us
the boughs were heavy with luscious fruit
and below us strange and lovely flowers
peeped at us from among the herbage; or
those long, moonlit nights when we lay out
upon the shimmering surface of the great
lake and watched with wonder and awe the
huge circles ripping out from the sudden
splash of some fantastic monster, Or the
greenish gleam far down in the deep water
of some strange creature upon the confines
of darkness These are the scenes which my
mind and my pen will dwell upon in every
detail at some future day.
RUT, you will ask, why these experiences
= and why this delay when you and your
comrades should have been occupied day
and night in the devising of some means by
which you could return to the outer world?
My answer is that there was not one of us
u,ho upoc not uorl-;po for thic apd b,,t tbat