The Elk Mountain pilot., 1917-12-20

of the monster, situated in the midst
OF the waving arms. appeared, the
wicked eyes alight with lust of their
prey. The parrot beak opened and shut
as If in anticipation of its meal.
Jerry raised his knife and thrust
downward, not at the tentacles, but "a
the face. He slashed and cut, piercing
it in half a dozen places.
Slowly the wounded monster re-
leased him and dived down to its
death on the ocean bottom, leaving Jer-
ry clinging to the rock and sasping for
air.
When Jerry had recovered little
strength he swan for the shore. He
reached safety and flung himself down
upon the sand above high-water level.
1t was hours later when he awak-
ened, to see the dead body of the huge
octopus lying on the sand beside him.
In the revulsion of feeling occasioned
by his escape from death, Jerry re-
solved that his deliverance should not
have been in vain.
He set to work with the single end
in view of achieving his original pur-
pose, finding the treasure of Sir Henry
Morgan, and using 1t to win LeOntine.
He decently Inferred the body of
Dexter in the sand, placing a heavy
cairn above the grave. Then, reading
the journal, he discovered that his
plan had not been aimless. The treas
ure eXisted-nOt, indeed, to the extent
that he had imagined, but in sufficient
amount to make him independent for
life.
He found it-heaps of antique gold
coins, gold bars, ornaments of gold.
The buccaneer had kept his spoil in
II convenient form. Jerry, used to
dumbbell exercise, was able to esti-
mate that the total weighed some three
hundred pounds, being, roughly, little
over eighty thousand dollars in value.
The whole amount was buried in a
Golfer within the cave. Dexter had
hardly troubled himself about it. He
had devoted all his energies to the
discovery of his absolute black"
Jerry read the secret of this in the
scientists journal. In his loneliness,
despairing of every being rescued, Dex-
ter had given all his enterprise to the
Va NhS SSSASt VIZ WbANh AC
had stumbled almost fortuitously. The
result was the three pellets with which
Jerry, us Ravengar, had outwitted Sc
bnstian.
II black inks and paints were alb
solute black they would be invisible.
The blacks we know, said the journal.
are a combination of other colors, re-
flected and refracted through the par
ticles of the pigments. Theoretical
black. or the absence of color, reflects
no light rays and cannot be seen.
Dexter had not given the infOrma-
ton that would lead to the discovery
of the secret. And to stumble upon it
would have been u coincidence that
could hardly happen again. Certainly
Jerry could not learn the secret,
though he worked on it unremittingly
for weeks.
But Jerry had the three black pei
lets, and by means of these he es-
capped from Ravengar's ledge.
For about year after he had been
washed ashore a party of Brazilian
whalers landed from their ship, to pro-
cure a fresh supply of water. A num-
ber of sea elephants were killed on
the beach and the Oil extracted was
conveyed to the ship in the boats. this
occupying several trips. Jerry, having
painted himself absolutely black, and
also the sacks containing the bullion,
which he had fashioned from his cloth
ing. Travelled, unseen, in the whaling
boat. The sailors, cursing at the
weight as they pulled on their oars,
little suspected that they were taking
an invisible man and a fortune to the
ship.
Aboard the whaler. Jerry had mer-
ry game of hide and seek. He was
forced to steal clothes and provisions,
but he left n few gold pieces in n
place where they would be discovered
in payment. And practice soon enabled
him to accustom himself to 'fnvisible"
living and to hair-breadth escapes-a
lesson which he put to good use later
in the episodes with Blanca.
The rest of the story that he told
Leontine was familiar to her. He had
assumed the guise of Ravenger and,
learning of her marriage to Sebastian,
had devoted his life to protecting her
as the "Shielding Shadow"
John Walcott stepped off the boat
Mt the wharf and looked about him in
amazement. 1t was so years since he
had set foot on American soil, and now
that he had come home tc stay, he felt
like stranger in the land of his ma
t4ity.
For 80 years he had made his home
in Porto Delgado, in the Argentine re-
public, laying the foundations of his
fortune. After many vicissitudes he
had grown rich. One thing alone had
troubled him.
That was his daughter Leontine. He
had never approved of her engagement
to Jerry Carson. He had fought bitter