Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1917-12-19

the old captain was crazed upon the
subject of deep-sea life; but he knew,
too. the facts that Tnderlay his letters
to the newspapers
He had sent paper embodying this
subject TO the magazine of the Inven-
tors club. Unfortunately, Hatfield
had won the ballot for the editorship
that month. Mastermans scholarly
contribution had been consigned to the
waste basket, and the articles in the
magazine had been as follows: "a
King in Masquerade" 'King James /
as Universal Man." Shakespeare and
the JIM cipher" Bacon and the NIL
Cipher" "What Civilization Owes to
James l."
When Masterman's proxy ballot won
the editorship during his absence, the
printers, instead of inserting his latest
paper, as he had requested, used
quantity of his old, unpublished ma
terial.
Secretly MacBeard had known that
the carapace which Masterman had
brought back from the North was not
that of a stegosaurus. His attack upon
Masterman had been inspired by envy
and hatred. He had examined the
relic, and admitted to himself that it
was that of an unknown deep-water
animal.
His respect for Masterman's abili-
ties increased tenfold.
He had begun spying upon the cap
tain. He broke into his house while
he was away and read his papers, with
out, however, learning anything of use
to him. Incidentally, he stole gold
presentation watch, a Chinese vase of
the Ming dynasty, and a pair of lapis-
laZuli earrings which had belonged to
Masterman's wife.
When MacBeard heard the first ru-
mors to the effect that Masterman's
ship had been wrecked, and that all
on board had persisted, he planned to
fit out secret expedition to go to the
scene of the disaster and see what was
to be discovered. Then he had seen
the captain in the dining room of the
club.
He had been thrown off his guard
by Master1nan's unexpected return,
had followed him and Donald to the
door of the card room, and had heard
the greater part of the story. He had
been unable to restrain his eagerneSS,
and had been detected spying.
Baked in his scheme to get posses
sion of Masterman's letter, he had fol-
lowed Donald to the house in Balti-
more. There he had assaulted him
and taken the papers from him. he
had had no intention of killing Don
aid, whom he despised heartily. Once
the secret, in which he now firmly be-
lieved, was in his possession, there
would come no reckoning for the as
sault. He saw his way to immediate
rulership over the world.
To do MacBeard justice, he had been
scared away, not by fear of the mon
ster, but by the realization that Mas
terman's terrific story was true. After
Donald had left the house MacBeard
crept back. He discovered the mon
ster upon the floor, where it had pre-
cipitated itself in it's death agony. 1t
had been disrupted by the internal
pressure, under a normal atmosphere.
He made a quick examination of 1t,
sat down in the kitchen, and spent the
remainder of the night porting over
Masterman's papers. In these he
learned much that was essential to his
success.
He read that the creature in the
tank was a young one, which had not
yet acquired the power of resistance
to an ordinary atmosphere. Nature
was still in process of modifying her
creation, and, as is always the case,
the young retained the atavistic dis
abilities, just as the young of flatfish
swim like other fishes and have one
eve on either side of the head. The
notifications In the physiological
structure come with maturity.
The adult monsters, MacBeard
learned, had already acquired the abil-
ity to exist for an indefinite period
upon the surface of the sea. While
the young had gills, these became mod
flied into q species of lung, capable OF
breathing both above and under wa
ter. This was a new adaptation OF ma
ture. MacBeard hurried back to the
dead monster, and found the lung al
ready partly formed. That satisfied
him that Efasterman was an accurate
observer.
III IT. ~,,hn, rinA sinkA PaoetS Ill