The flying death
Samuel Hopkins Adams, Charles Raymond Macauley


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Class of 1922
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THE FLYING DEATH





CHAPTER ONE
THE INSOMNIAC
STANLEY RICHARD COLTON, M. D.,
heaved his powerful form to and fro in his
bed and cursed the day he had come to Mon-
tauk Point, which chanced to be the day just
ended. All the world had been open to him, and his
father's yacht to bear him to whatsoever corner
thereof he might elect, in search of that which, once
forfeited, no mere millions may buy back, the knack
of peaceful sleep. But his wise old family physi-
cian had prescribed the tip-end of Long Island.
"Go down there to that suburban wilderness,
Dick," he had said, "and devote yourself to filling
your lungs with the narcotic ocean air. Practise
feeding, breathing and loafing, and forget that
you've ever practised medicine."
Too much medicine was what ailed Dick Colton.
Not that he had been taking it. On the contrary
he had been administering it to others. Amid the
unbounded amazement of his friends, who couldn't
see why the heir of the great Colton interests should
want to devote his energies otherwhere, he had in-


TI IF.
YING 1)E,
S t Ml'EL HOPKINS .\ i, , ■
A.itLor wuh .Si u-i-: I'.iu ..; ■ • r

JI.Ll STRATED HY C. K. MAC.i I'l.I V
NEW YORK
THE McCLURE COMPANY
M C M V 111



it >•>.' ■'


THE
FLYING DEATH
BY
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
Author with Stewart Edward White of
The Mystery

ILLUSTRATED BY C. R. MACAULEY
THE
NEW YORK
MCCLURE COMPANY
MCM VIII


Copyright, 1908, by The McClure Company
Published, January, 1908
Copyright, 1905, by Samuel Hopkins Adams


To
^c&upler C. TSranDt
in token of a friendship which, begun
at old Hamilton, has endured
and strengthened, as only col-
lege friendships can, for
an unbroken twenty
years, this book
is dedicated.





CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Insomniac 3
II. The Voice in the Night 15
III. The Sea-Waif 23
IV. The Death in the Buoy 32
V. The Cry in the Dusk 49
VI. Helga 61
VII. The Wonderful Whalley 72
VIII. The Unhorsed Nightfarer .... 81
IX. Cross-purposes 95
X. The Terror by Night 112
XI. The Body on the Sand 128
XII. The Senatus 143
XIII. The New Evidence 162
XIV. The Early Excursion 172
XV. The Professor Acts ...... 183
XVI. The Lost Clue 195
XVII. The Professor's Sermon 201
XVIII. Readjustments 212
XIX. The Lone Survivor 221





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
"Great God of Wonders!" Frontispiece
In the Soft Glow Stood a Girl 12
He Made a Motion as of a Winged Creature
Swooping 34
The Outline of a Huge Claw 136


THE PLYING DEATH
i
i





CHAPTER ONE
THE INSOMNIAC
STANLEY RICHARD COLTON, M. D.,
heaved his powerful form to and fro in his
bed and cursed the day he had come to Mon-
tauk Point, which chanced to be the day just
ended. All the world had been open to him, and his
father's yacht to bear him to whatsoever corner
thereof he might elect, in search of that which, once
forfeited, no mere millions may buy back, the knack
of peaceful sleep. But his wise old family physi-
cian had prescribed the tip-end of Long Island.
"Go down there to that suburban wilderness,
Dick," he had said, "and devote yourself to filling
your lungs with the narcotic ocean air. Practise
feeding, breathing and loafing, and forget that
you've ever practised medicine."
Too much medicine was what ailed Dick Colton.
Not that he had been taking it. On the contrary
he had been administering it to others. Amid the
unbounded amazement of his friends, who couldn't
see why the heir of the great Colton interests should
want to devote his energies otherwhere, he had in-


4 THE FLYING DEATH
sisted on graduating from medical school, and, with
a fashionable practice fairly yearning for him, had
entered upon the grimy and malodorous duties of a
dispensary among the tenement-folk. There, because
the chances of birth had given him a good intelli-
gence which his own efforts had kept brightened and
sharpened, because Providence had equipped him
with a comely and powerful body, which his own
manner of life had kept attuned to strength and
vigour, and because Heaven had blessed him with
the heart and the face of a boy, whereof his own
fineness and enthusiasm had kept the one untainted
and the other defiant of care and lines, he had be-
come a power in the slums. It was only by eternal
vigilance that he had kept himself from being
elected an alderman from one of the worst districts
in New York.
There came a week of terrible heat when the
tenements vented forth their half-naked sufferers
nightly upon the smoking asphalt, and the Angel
of Death smote his daily hundreds with a sword
of flame. Dick Colton fought for the lives of his
people, and was already at the limit of endurance
when Fate, employing as its dismayed instrument
a contractor with liberal views on the subject of
dynamite, reduced the dispensary outfit in one fell


THE INSOMNIAC 5
shock to a mass of shattered glass and a mephitic
compound of tinctures, extracts and powders.
Only one thing was to be done, and the young
physician did it. He stocked up again, attending
to all details himself, using his own money and his
own energy freely, and proving to his own satisfac-
tion that strong coffee and wet towels about the
head would enable a man to live and toil on four
hours' sleep a night.
When, at length, a two days' rain had drenched
the fevered city to coolness, Dick Colton drew a
deep breath and said: "Now I'll go to sleep and
sleep for a week."
But the drugs which for so many weary days had
filled his entire attention declined now to be evicted
from his thoughts. Disposing themselves in neatly
labelled bottles, all of a size, they marched in
monotonous and nauseating files before his closed
eyes, each individual of the passing show introduc-
ing itself by some outrageous and incredible title
utterly unknown to the art and practice of
pharmacy. To think upon sheep jumping in un-
dulatory procession over a stone wall, so the wis-
dom of our forebears tell us, is to invite slumber.
To contemplate misnamed medicine bottles inter-
minably hurdling the bridge of one's nose, operates


6 THE FLYING DEATH
otherwise. From the family doctor Colton had
carried his vision to Montauk Point with him.
Now, on this cool September midnight he rose,
struck a light, and found himself facing two neat,
little, beribboned perfume jars, representing the
decorative ideas of little Mrs. Johnston, the hostess
of Third House. It was too much. Resentment at
this shabby practical joke of Fate rose in his soul.
Seizing the pair of bottles, he hurled them mightily,
one after the other, into outer darkness. The crash
of the second upon the stone wall surrounding the
little hotel was rather startlingly followed by an
exclamation.
"I beg your pardon," cried Colton, rather
abashed. "Hope I didn't hit you."
"You did not—with the second missile," said the
voice dryly.
"It was very stupid of me. The fact is," Colton
continued, groping for an excuse, "I heard some
kind of a noise outside and I thought it was a
cat."
"Where did you hear it? " interrupted the voice
rather sharply. "Did it seem to be on the ground,
or in mid-air?"
Colton's frazzled nerves jumped all together,
and in different directions. "Have I been sent to


THE INSOMNIAC 7
a private lunatic asylum?" he inquired of him-
self.
"Lest my manner of inquiry may seem strange
to you," continued the voice, "I may state that I
am Professor Ravenden, formerly connected with
the National Museum at Washington, D. C, and
that your remark as to an unrecognised noise may
have an important bearing upon certain phe-
nomena in which I am scientifically interested."
Dick Colton groaned in spirit. "Here I've told a
polite and innocent lie to this mysterious pedant,"
he said to himself, "and of course I get caught at
it." He leaned out of the window, when a broad,
spreading flare of lightning from the south showed,
on the lawn beneath him, the figure of a slight, com-
pactly built man of fifty-odd, dressed with rigorous
neatness in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, and
carrying a broken lantern and a butterfly net. His
thin, prim and tanned face was as indicative of
character as his precise and meticulous mode of
speech.
"Did I break your lantern?" asked the young
doctor contritely.
"As I do not carry my lantern in the small of my
back, you did not, sir," returned the professor with
an asperity which reminded Colton that he had put


8 THE FLYING DEATH
considerable muscle into his throw. "A loose rock
which turned under my foot upset me," he con-
tinued, "and the glass of my lantern was broken
in the fall. The rising gale prevented my relighting
it. Your opportune light, I may add, alone enabled
me to locate the house."
"Perhaps my unintended rudeness may be par-
doned because of my involuntary service, then,"
said Colton, with the courtesy which was natural
to him.
There was a moment's pause. Then, "If I may
venture to impose upon your kindness," said the
man on the lawn, " will you put on some clothes and
join me here? It is a matter of considerable possible
importance—scientifically."
"Anything to avoid monotony," said the other,
rather grimly. "I'm here for excitement, appar-
ently."
Worming his way into a sweater, trousers and
shoes, he went downstairs and joined his new ac-
quaintance on the veranda.
"My name is Colton, Dr. Stanley Colton," he
said. "What is it you want me for?"
"I wish the testimony of your younger eyes and
ears," said the other. "Would you object to a walk
of a third of a mile?"


THE INSOMNIAC 9
"Not at all," returned the other, becoming in-
terested. " Shall I see if I can rustle up a lantern?"
"No," said the professor thoughtfully. "I think
it would be better not. Yes; decidedly we are better
without a light. Come."
He led the way, swiftly and sure-footedly, though
it was pitch-dark except when the lightning lent its
swift radiance.
"I was out in search of a rare species of Catocala
—a moth of this locality—when I heard the—the
curious sound to which I hope to call your
attention," he paused to explain.
He hurried on in silence, Colton following in
puzzled expectation. At the top of a mound they
stopped, and were almost swept off their feet by a
furious gust of wind which died down, only to be
succeeded by a second, hardly less violent. In a
glare of lightning that spread across the south,
Colton saw the fretted waters of a little lake below
them.
"We're going to get that storm, I think," he said.
No reply came from his companion. In silence
they stood, for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes.
Then the wind dropped temporarily. Colton was
wondering whether courtesy to the peculiar indi-
vidual who had haled him forth on this errand of


10 THE FLYING DEATH
darkness was going to cost him a wetting, when the
wind dropped and the night fell silent.
"There! Did you hear it?" the professor ex-
claimed suddenly.
Colton had heard, and now he heard again, a
strange sound, from overhead and seeming to come
from a considerable distance; faintly harsh, and
strident, with a metallic sonance.
"Almost overhead and to the west, was it not?"
pursued the other. "Watch there for the lightning
flash."
The lightning came, in one of those broad, sheet-
like flickers that seem to irradiate the world for
countable seconds. Professor Ravenden's arm shot
out.
"Did you see? " he cried.
Darkness fell as the query was completed. "I
saw nothing," replied Colton. "Did you? What
did you see?"
A clap of wind blew away the reply, if there was
any. This time the wind rose steadily. They
waited another quarter of an hour, the gale blow-
ing without pause.
"This is profitless," said Professor Ravenden, at
length. "We had best go home."
Thankful for the respite, the younger man rose


THE INSOMNIAC 11
from the little depression where he had crouched
for shelter from the wind. With a thrill of sur-
prised delight, he realised that he was healthily
sleepy. The quick, hard walk, the unwonted exer-
cise, and the soft, fresh sweetness of the air, had
produced an anodyne effect. But was the air so
sweet? Colton turned and sniffed up wind.
"Do you smell anything peculiar?" he asked his
companion.
"Unfortunately I am troubled with a catarrh
which deadens my sense of smell," replied the
scientist.
"There's a peculiar reek in the air. I caught it
with that last shift of wind. It's like something
I've come across before. There!"
"Can you not describe it?"
"Why, it's—it's a sickish, acid sort of odour,"
said Colton hesitantly. "Where have I Oh,
well, it's probably a dead animal up to windward."
As they reached the house, he turned to the other.
"What was it you thought you saw?" he asked
bluntly. "What are you looking for?"
"I am not satisfied that I saw anything," an-
swered Professor Ravenden evasively. "Imagina-
tion is a powerful factor, when the eye must accom-
plish its search in the instantaneous revelation of a


12 THE FLYING DEATH
lightning flash. As for what I am seeking, you
heard as much as I. I thank you for your
help, and, if you will pardon me, I will bid you
good-night here, as I wish to make a few notes be-
fore retiring."
Leaving the professor busied by candle light at
the desk in the main room, Dick Colton cautiously
tiptoed up the stairs. At the top he stopped dead.
From an open door at the end of the hall issued a
shaft of light. In the soft glow stood a girl. Her
face was toward Colton. Her eyes met his, but un-
seeingly, for he was in the shadow, and her vision
was dazzled by the light she had just made. Her
face was softly flushed with sleep and her dark eyes
were liquid under the heavy lids. She was dressed
in some filmy, fluffy garment, the like of which
Colton did not know existed. Nor had he realised
that such creatures as this girl who had so
suddenly stepped into his world, existed. He held
his breath lest the sweetest, softest, most radiant
vision that had ever met his eyes, should vanish.
The Vision pushed a mass of heavy black hair back
from its forehead, and spoke.
"Father," it said.
In his sheltering shadow Colton stood rigid as a
statue.



In the soft glow stood a girl





THE INSOMNIAC 13
"Father," she said again. Then with a note of
petulance in the soft, rippling voice. "Oh, Dad,
you're not going out again."
"I beg your pardon," said Colton in a husky
voice that belonged to someone whom he didn't
know. Your father is downstairs. I'll call him."
But the Vision had flashed out of his range. The
light was shut out, and all that remained to him was
the echo of a soft, dismayed, frightened little
exclamation.
Having delivered the message to Professor Rav-
enden, and received his absent-minded, "In a
minute," the insomniac returned to his room.
Strangely enough, it was while he was striving to
fix on the photographic lens of his brain every
light and shadow of that radiant girl-figure, that
the solution of the strange noise came, unsought, to
him. He went to the foot of the stairs to tell the
professor, who was still writing.
"I think I know what the sound was that we
heard, Professor Ravenden," he said. "It was very
like the rubbing of one wire on another."
"Very like," agreed the professor.
"Probably a telegraph or telephone wire, broken
and grating in the gale, against the others."
The professor continued to write.


14 THE FLYING DEATH
"Good-night," said Colton.
"Good-night, Dr. Colton," said the scientist
quietly, "and thank you again. By the way, there
is no wire of any kind within half a mile of where
we stood."
Two problems Dick Colton took with him as
exorcisers of the processional medicine bottles,
when he threw himself on his bed and closed his
eye. It was not the sound in the darkness, however,
but the face in the light that prevailed as he
dropped to sleep.


CHAPTER TWO
THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT
BEFORE the dream had fairly enchained him
Colton was buffeted back to consciousness
by a slamming of doors and a general bus-
tling about in the house. He sat up in bed, and
looked out over the ocean just in time to see a
fiery serpent writhe up through the blackness and
thrust into the clouds a head which burst into wind-
driven fragments of radiance, before the vaster
glory of the lightning surrounded and wiped it out.
"A wreck, I fear," said Professor Ravenden in
the hall outside. "I shall go down to the shore, in
case I can be of assistance."
"Indeed you shall not!" came a quick contradic-
tion from the room at the end of the hall. "Not
until I'm ready to go with you.'"
It was the voice of the Vision. Colton observed
that, soft as the tones were, a certain quality of
decisiveness inhered in them.
"Can't Mr. Haynes bring you?" suggested the
professor mildly. "I see a light in his room."
15


16 THE FLYING DEATH
"He'll have his hands full with Helga. Please
wait, Dad. I won't be ten minutes."
From downstairs rose a banging of doors, a
tramping of feet and the gruff voice of Johnston,
the host, mingled with the gentle remonstrances of
his wife, in which a certain insistence upon rubber
boots was discernible. On the other side of Colton
there was a swishing and thumping, as of one in
hasty search for some article that had declined to
stay put. "Where the devil is that sweater?" came
in a sort of growling appeal to whatever Powers of
Detection might be within hearing.
"Don't swear, Mr. Haynes," sounded in tones of
soft gaiety from the end room, and the sweaterless
one responded: "The half of it hath not been told
you. Got a sweater to lend a poor man with a weak
chest, Miss Ravenden?"
"I'm just getting into my one and only garment
of the kind," was the muffled answer.
A second woman's voice, low, but with a wonder-
ful, deep, full-throated sonance in it, broke in:
"My dream has come true," it said gravely. "The
ship is coming in on Graveyard Point. How long,
Petit Pere?"
"With you in a minute, Princess. Just let me get
into my boots," returned the voice of the seeker, but


THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT 17
so altered by a certain caressing fellowship that
Colton was half-minded to think he heard a new
participant.
"Are you dressed already, Helga?" demanded
Miss Ravenden. "How do you do it?"
"I hadn't undressed, Dolly," said the other girl,
gravely. "I knew—I felt that something"
She paused.
"Helga's dreams always come to pass, you
know," said the man of the elusive sweater half
banteringly. "What infernal kind of a knot has
that shoe lace tied itself into?"
"Pray God this dream doesn't come to pass,"
said the girl outside, under her breath as she passed
Colton's door.
Another rocket and a third pierced the night and
the response came, in a rising glow of light from
the beach. "The life-savers are at hand," observed
the professor below. "Make haste, daughter. If we
A burst of thunder drowned him out.
"This," said Colton with conviction, as he dove
into his heavy jersey jacket and seized a cap from a
peg, "is going to be a grand place for an insomnia
patient! I can see that, right at the start."
As he ran out of his door he collided violently


18 THE FLYING DEATH
with a small, dark, sinewy man who had hurriedly
emerged from the opposite room.
"Don't apologise, and I won't," said Colton as
they clutched each other. "My name is Colton.
Yours is Haynes. May I go to the shore with you?
I don't know the way."
"Apparently you don't know the way to the
stairs," returned the other a trifle tartly. Looking
at his keen, pallid and deeply lined face, the young
doctor set him down as a rather irritable fellow,
and suspected dyspepsia. "Everybody will be go-
ing to the beach," he added. "If you follow along
you'll probably get there."
"Thanks," said Dick undisturbedly. It was a
principle of his that the ill-temper of others was
no logical reason for ill-temper in himself. In this
case his principle worked well, for Haynes said with
tolerable civility:
"You just came in this evening, didn't you?"
"Yes. I seem to have met the market for excite-
ment."
By this time they had reached the large living-
room, where they found Mrs. Johnston presiding
with ill-directed advice over the struggles of her
grey-bearded husband to insert himself into a pair
of boots of insufficient calibre.


THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT 19
"Twenty-five years o' service in the life-savin'
corps an' ain't let to go out now without these
der-r-r-ratted contraptions!" he fumed.
A splendid, tawny-haired girl in an oilskin jacket
stood looking out into the night, her eyes vivid with
a brooding excitement. She turned as Haynes came
in.
"Are you ready, Petit PSre? I'm smothering in
these things."
Expressively she passed her hands down along
the oilskins, which covered her dress without con-
cealing the sumptuous beauty of her young figure.
Filled as was Colton's mind with the image of
another face, he looked at her with astonished ad-
miration. Such, thought he, must have been the
superb maids in whose inspiration the Vikings
fought and conquered.
"If you knew what a gallant wet-weather figure
you make," Haynes answered her (Colton wondered
how he could ever have thought the face disagree-
able, so complete was the change of expression),
"your vanity would keep you comfortable."
"Dinna blether," returned the girl, smiling with
affectionate comradeship, and slipping her arm
through his to draw him to the door. "Father's
boots are on at last."


20 THE FLYING DEATH
"We're to have company," said Haynes. "Mr.
Colton—I think you said your name was Colton—
wants to come along."
"I'm sorry that you should have been awakened,"
said the girl, turning to him. "You don't mind
rough weather?"
"At least I'm not likely to blow away," returned
the young man good-humouredly, looking down at
her from his six-feet-one of height. Inwardly he was
saying: "You are never the daughter of that
weather-beaten old shore man and that mild and
ancient hen of a woman."
Haynes, who had caught up a lantern and was
moving toward the door, turned and said to him:
"You had better keep between Mr. Johnston and
myself. What are you waiting for?"
"Aren't there others coming? I thought I heard
someone upstairs speak of it." He paused in some
embarrassment, as he realised the intensity of his
own wish to see that dark and lovely face again.
"Oh, Dolly Ravenden. Her father will bring
her," said Miss Johnston. "We shall meet them at
the beach."
With heads bent, the four plunged out into the
storm. The wind now was blowing furiously, but
there was little rain. Over the sea hung a black


22 THE FLYING DEATH
"Nervous! I never knew I had nerves—until
now." She turned to Colton.
"Did you hear it too?"
"Yes. What was it?"
A furious flurry of the gale intervened. The girl
shook her head. Johnston in the lead now turned
to climb a grassy knoll, and conversation became
impossible.
At the top they came in view of a score of busy
figures outlined sharply against a lurid back-
ground as the lightning spread its shining drapery
from horizon to zenith. Presently the four peo-
ple from Third House stood on the cliff over-
hanging the sledge-hammer surf, and watched the
life-saving crews of two stations, Bow Hill to the
east, Sand Spit to the west, play their desperate
game for a hazard of human lives. Straining their
eyes, they could discern, in the whiteness of the
whipped seas, a dull, undefined lump, which ever
and anon flashed, like a magician's trick, into the
clean, pencilled outlines of a schooner, lying on her
beam ends, and swept by every giant comber that
rolled in from the wide Atlantic. She lay broad-
side to the surges, harpooned and held by the deadly
pinnacled reef of Graveyard Point.


24 THE FLYING DEATH
in Colton's ear: "Come down to the beach. When
she smashes, some of 'em may come in there."
"Not alive surely?" cried Col ton, glancing at
the surf.
"Yes," the girl's clear voice answered, with an
accent of absolute certainty. "We must watch."
Down a sharp declivity they made their way to
the gully, which debouched upon a sand beach.
Johnston, the veteran, who had preceded them, was
gathering driftwood for a fire, with a practical ap-
preciation of the possibilities.
"Bear a hand, Helga!" he shouted. "And you,
Mr. Haynes!"
Almost before he knew it, Colton too was hard at
work dragging timber to the centre marked by the
lanterns. A clutch on his arm called his attention
to what was going on above him, as Johnston
pointed seaward. In the glint of the lightning, he
saw clear against the windy void a huddled mass,
at which the waves leaped and clutched, as it moved
steadily shoreward. Another glimpse showed it
risen above the reach of the breakers. It was a
breeches-buoy, bearing its first burden.
"Line's working all right!" yelled the old coast-
guard. "They ought to get 'em all in."
Presently another traveller came in foot by foot


THE SEA-WAIF 25'
over that slender and hopeful thread, then a third
and a fourth, until seven of the crew were huddled
on the cliff. Out went the breeches-buoy again, for
there were three lives yet to be saved, when in a
broad electric glare a monster surge could be seen
sweeping the schooner up. There was a crash of
timbers, a wild cry, and the line fell slack from the
cliff-head. Old Johnston dropped to his knees on
the sand and bared his head, but only for a mo-
ment; for he was up again and had set the pile of
fuel burning with a cleverly placed twist of paper.
Up leaped the flames. A brilliant glow wavered
and spread. Colton, stupid with horror, stood en-
tranced, while Johnston, Helga and Haynes ran, as
if to established stations, along the surfs edge, the
old man nearest the wreck, then Haynes, and finally
the girl. Of a sudden, Colton came to himself with
a dismal and unaccustomed sensation of being out
of it. No one had asked him to help. He was just
a guest, a negligible quantity when men's and
women's work was to be done.
"What a useless thing the average summer
boarder must be!" he thought, as he passed beyond
the girl and bent his attention on the boiling
cauldron of the ocean.
He had not long to wait. On the foaming crest


THE SEA-WAIF 27
jumped to his feet and turned. He saw, with a sick-
ening recollection of the waves' power, which he
had just experienced, the girl up to her knees in
water, her strong young frame braced back and her
arms clasping a body. A fringed comber, breaking
heavily, was driving a vortex of white water in upon
her. It boiled up beyond her, and the two figures
were gone. As Colton, with a shout of horror,
leaped forward, like a sprinter from the mark, he
saw Haynes, running with terrific speed, launch
himself head foremost into the swirl of waters, at
a rolling mass there.
"Lord! What a tackle!" thought Colton as he
ran. "Yet they say that a foot-ball education is
of no practical use."
His own was to come swiftly into play. For
though Haynes had caught Helga about the knees,
he had no purchase for resistance, and the deadly
undertow was dragging them out.
Colton had the athlete's virtue of thinking
swiftly in the stress of action. His was the cool
courage that appreciates peril and reasons out
the most advantageous encounter. The human
flotsam was far beyond his grasp now; but he
figured that an approaching surge, sweeping them
in shoreward again, would give him his chance,—


28 THE FLYING DEATH
the only chance,—for the recession in all prob-
ability would carry them beyond help. He must
meet them feet forward, as a trained player meets
and falls upon a foot-ball rolling toward him;
thus he might get his heels into the sand, and so
anchor them all against the back-drift. If he
could not—well, there were no materia medica
bottles out there beyond the surf anyhow, and an
ocean lullaby would be the sure cure for all sleep-
lessness.
Fortunately the coming wave was a broad-backed
one, on which the tangled figures rode in plain
view, and Colton saw, with that thrill of pride in
his fellow-being which courage wakes in the cour-
ageous, that the girl's arms still clasped her trove,
clinging below the life-preserver which was fast-
ened around the man's body. Calculating the drift
down the beach, Colton moved forward. In they
came—nearer—nearer—and to his amazement Col-
ton heard a strangled shout from the waves:
"Get Helga! Never mind me. Get Helga in!"
"I'll get you too, or break something," muttered
the young man, as with a rush and a leap he plunged
feet forward to meet the onset.
It was Haynes that he caught, just above the
knees. His heels sunk in the sand. The surge


THE SEA-WAIF 29
spread, stood, receded. "Here's tug-of-war in
earnest," thought Colton, as he set the muscles
which had helped to win many a victory for his
college. The next instant it seemed as if those
muscles must rend apart; as if all the might of the
unbounded ocean was straining to drag away his
prize of lives. He set his face grimly toward the
savage waves. His chest was bursting. One heart-
beat more he would hold out. Human endeavour
could go no further. That heart-throb sledged
against his ribs, passed and found the bulldog grip
unrelaxed. One more, then! surely the last; after
that—abruptly the strain slacked.
A sob of compressed breath burst from Colton.
Oh, how good was the full, deep inhalation that
followed! How it filled the muscles and inspired
the will to the final effort! With a mighty heave
he rolled the three clear over his own body up the
beach. Then he lay still, for he was tired and sleepy
and didn't care what became of him. He had made
a touch-down—anyway. Why didn't—somebody—
pull—them off—him?
"I've got 'em!" twittered a voice in his ear, a
dim and ridiculous voice, that nevertheless was
like old Johnston's. "You saved the lot, God bless
you!"


THE SEA-WAIF 31
glow of the fire, and Colton, his hungry eyes fixed
on hers, thought of the moon emerging from behind
a filmy cloud.
"How did you dare?" she pursued. "You saved
them all! I—I—want you to take this."
Mechanically he stretched forth his hand to meet
hers, and she pressed into it something light and
soft.
"It was nothing," he said dazedly, wondering.
"Thank you. I—my head feels queer—but I—
think—I—could—go to sleep—now."
He lay gently down on the soft sand, which
seemed to rise to meet him. Half swooning and
wholly engulfed in sleep, he stretched his great bulk
and lay gratefully down, and the materia medica
bottles trooped out into the troubled night and
were lost in its depths.
Dolly Ravenden stood and looked down, musing
upon the strong-limbed figure, and at the hand
whose fingers, alone of all the frame, were unre-
laxed.
"I wonder if I've made a mistake," she said with
misgivings which were strange to her positive and
rather self-willed character. "Pshaw! No; it is all
right."


CHAPTER FOUR
THE DEATH IN THE BUOY
HALF an hour's sleep is short rations for a
man who has experienced little untroubled
. unconsciousness for five weeks. Colton
struggled angrily against the flask.
"I don't want it, I tell you! Go to the devil and
take it with you." He struck out blindly, angrily.
A cool, firm hand, closed around his wrist.
"You must get up," said Helga Johnston's voice
firmly. "Swallow some of this brandy."
"I'm sorry," said Colton penitently. "Did I
curse you out? Please let me sleep."
The girl was quick-witted. "We want your help,"
she said.
Colton sat up. She had struck the right note.
Docilely he took the brandy, and got to his feet.
Haynes came up and steadied him. "Miss Johns-
ton and I have our lives to thank you for," he said
briefly. "You'd better get home. Some of the life-
savers will help you."
"No, I'm all right," declared Colton. "Where's
32


THE DEATH IN THE BUOY 33
the man Miss Johnston saved? Let's have a peep at
him. I'm a physician."
"Are you? " said Haynes eagerly. "Then I want
you to look at one of the men on the cliff, as soon as
you've finished with Helga's waif."
Colton looked around him, memory now aroused.
"Professor Ravenden!" he said. "I want to thank
him for getting me out."
"He and Miss Ravenden have gone to the
station," said Helga, "to help care for the rescued
men. The captain and the mate have been washed
in, dead."
"Oh," said Colton blankly. His mind was still
blurred. He looked at his tight-clutched left hand
and wondered if there was something inside.
Cautiously he opened it, looked, started, choked
down an exclamation, and thrust the hand into the
pocket of his dripping trousers. Then he walked
over to the man whom Miss Johnston had saved.
Someone had stripped the life-preserver from the
castaway's body, and as he lay sprawled upon the
ground Colton noted the breadth and depth of the
chest, remarkable in so small a man. He was swart,
so swart as obviously to be of Southern European
extraction. In spite of the sea's terrific battering,
he apparently had escaped any serious injury, and


34 THE FLYING DEATH
already had regained consciousness; but, to Col-
ton's surprise, kept his head buried in his arms.
From time to time a convulsive shudder ran through
him.
"Seems to be kind of crazy-like," volunteered old
Johnston, who stood beside him. "Begged me, with
his hands clasped, to help him out of the light of the
fire, first thing."
"How do you feel, my friend? " asked the young
doctor, bending over the survivor.
The man lifted a dark and haggard face. "To a
house! Take me to a house! I weesh to go inside!"
His voice was a mere wheeze of terror.
"We'll get you to a house presently," Colton as-
sured him, presenting the brandy flask to his lips,
"Can you make out to climb that cliff?"
"Up there? So plain to be see? No, no!" cried
the man vehemently, roving the dark heavens with
his eyes.
Colton looked at him in perplexity. The man got
painfully to his feet, and cupped a hand to his
windward ear.
"I t'ink I hear eet again," he whispered,
and shook like a rag in the wind.
"What are you talking about?" asked Colton.
"Somesing up zere," said the stranger, thrusting



made a motion as of a toinged creature swooping





THE DEATH IN THE BUOY 35
both hands in an uncouth and fearful gesture up-
ward and outward.
"Oh, you're not quite yourself yet," said Col-
ton.
"I tell you I hear eet!" broke out the man with
extraordinary vehemence. "I feel eet! What? I do
not know. But when eet come back "—he made a
motion as of a winged creature swooping—" I fear
an' I jump into ze waves." A harsh tremour went
through his frame and left him panting.
"You jumped?" said Johnston. "When she
broke up?"
"No. Before. Before she break."
"He's crazy," said the old life-saver. "What'd
you jump for?"
u Eet come after me," shuddered the man. Again
he made that extraordinary gesture. "Take me to a
house—out of ze night."
"Someone must go with him to the station,"
said Colton.
"Let me," Helga Johnston volunteered.
The stranger faced the girl, and advanced a swift
step. It was a meeting of satyr and goddess. Sud-
denly the satyr cast himself at the goddess' feet and
kissed them. Startled, she drew back.
"Eet is you that safe me!" he cried, lifting wild


36 THE FLYING DEATH
and adoring eyes to her. "I see you just before all
go black. You walk out on ze wave to reach me."
"Come along, you!" cried old Johnston, lifting
him to his feet. "No such heathen goin's-on for my
Helga. Not that I think you know what you're
doin'," he added.
"You mustn't go with him alone, Princess," said
Haynes quickly. "He seems to be insane."
"Father will go with me," she replied; "though
I'm safe enough. It isn't there the danger lies."
"Helga," said Haynes seriously, "I wish you
wouldn't let yourself be so influenced by your
dreams."
"I'll try not to, Petit Pere," said the girl gently.
"But, look how it has all come about. Yet I can't
see how a strange creature like that could possibly
influence all our lives."
"You don't half believe it yourself," said Haynes
positively.
"Sometimes I don't," she agreed. "But we who
are born of the sea, dream the sea's dreams, you
know, Petit Pere."
"Well, get into dry clothes as soon as you get
to the station, Princess. Oh, and get me that fel-
low's name and address, will you?"
"Yes," said the girl, as, with her father, she led


THE DEATH IN THE BUOY 37
her strange charge away toward the Sand Spit
station.
"Now," said Haynes to Colton, "will you come
up on the cliff and look at my man?"
Together they clambered to the top. In the light
of the dying fire they saw the man stretched out
near the brink of the cliff.
Another of the wrecked sailors and two life-
savers stood over him. One of the life-savers Col-
ton recognised as the guard who had come over to
speak to Helga Johnston, a hulking, handsome fel-
law named Serdholm, from the Sand Spit station.
The other was a quiet-looking young fellow of the
Blue Hill corps, Bruce by name. As Haynes and
Colton approached, Bruce drew away a coat which
was spread over the prostrate figure, and lifted his
lantern.
"He is dead," said Colton at once.
"Yes," replied Haynes; " but see how he came by
his death."
Boiling the body over, he exposed a deep, broad,
clean-driven wound through the back. "What do
you make of that?" he asked.
Colton examined it carefully. "I don't make
anything of it," he said frankly, "except that the
poor fellow never knew what struck him."


38 THE FLYING DEATH
"What did strike him?"
"A very large blade, sent home with tremen-
dous force, apparently."
"By some other person?"
"Certainly not by himself; and it doesn't seem
like accident. Was he washed ashore this way?"
il Supposing I told you that the man left the ship,
alive and sound in the breeches-buoy, and got here
in this condition."
"Does the buoy carry more than one at a
time?"
"No."
"Then it isn't possible."
"Well, there's plenty of evidence as to his ar-
rival. Now let's see about his departure. Were you
aboard when this man left the schooner?" Haynes
asked, turning to one of the two sailors at hand.
"Yes, sir. Me an' Darky John came after him.
We helped fasten him in."
"Who else was there?"
"The Old Man, an' Buckley the mate, an' that
queer Dago feller."
"There wasn't any fight or trouble about who
should come first?"
"No, sir. The Old Man gave his orders. Petersen,
here, he leaves fifth, I think. 'Good-bye, boys. See


40 THE FLYING DEATH
most too clean an incision for anything except
steel," he said. "Besides, wood leaves splinters."
"You saw the man come in?" Haynes asked
Bruce.
"Helped to lift him out. Look!" He held out
his hands, showing great stains of blood.
"You didn't see anything that would give a
clue?"
"No, I didn't see anything," returned Bruce after
a moment's consideration; "but some of the men
thought they heard a scream, when he was about
halfway in. It was just after a lightning flash.
They thought a bolt might have gone through
him."
"Lightning doesn't wound that way," said
Colton.
"No, I didn't think so. But I thought I'd better
tell you. Only in the noises of a gale you can hear
all sorts of voices."
"They didn't say anything about a kind of rasp-
ing, creaking sound?" asked Haynes after a
moment's hesitation.
"No, sir," said the man, surprised. "Nothing
like that."
Haynes turned away impatiently. "Come down
to the Blue Hill station," he said to Colton. "We'll


THE DEATH IN THE BUOY 41
see if Miss Johnston's patient can throw any light
on this."
During the walk Haynes was so deeply in thought
and replied to Colton's questions so curtly that the
latter fell into silence. At the door of the station
they were met by Helga.
"How's your salvage, Princess?" queried
Haynes. "Able to stand a cross-examination?"
"More than able—willing," replied the girl with
a smile. "He's been telling us all about himself.
Nothing queerer than he ever came ashore on Mon-
tauk. I'm afraid the sea-water has got into his
brain a little."
"Tell us what he said."
"In the first place, he is some sort of a travelling
juggler and magician. As soon as he is recovered
he will give us a private exhibition in honour of his
rescue. He calls himself ' The Wonderful Whalley,'
though his real name is something like Cardonaro.
An injury to his hand stranded him in Maine, and
he took passage on the Milly Esham because it was
a cheap way to New York. Age, forty-two; nation-
ality, Portuguese; occupation, the theatrical pro-
fession. Anything else, Petit Pere?"
"Good work! Did he say anything of a man's
being killed on board!"


THE DEATH IN THE BUOY 43
has terrified him. Perhaps one of the sails tore loose
and blew on him. Or it may have been the light-
ning."
"That might be it, and in his panic he may have
struck out and killed Petersen by accident. But in
that case, why should the other sailors, who must
have seen it, shield him? I guess the best thing is
to put it to him straight," concluded Haynes.
Followed by Colton, he went into the room where
the suspect lay.
"See here!" began Haynes abruptly. "We want
to know why you killed Petersen the sailor."
The stranger's dark eyes widened. He stared at
his questioner with dropped jaw.
"Yes; why you killed him—with this." Haynes
touched the hilt of one of the knives that protruded
from the man's belt.
"No, no!" protested the man. "I not got noth-
ing against Petersen. I not know Petersen."
"You were on board when he left?"
"Yes; I see zem go—one—two—three—so many
—seven. Not me; I haf to stay. No one care to safe
ze wonderful Whalley."
"Did you see anyone fight with Petersen or strike
him?" asked Colton.
"No; see nothing."


44 THE FLYING DEATH
After fifteen minutes of fruitless cross-question-
ing the investigators called in the negro, Hawkins.
"Him kill Petersen?" repeated Hawkins. "No
—sir—ee, boss! He wa'n't nowheyah nigh when
Petersen went off, safe an' wavin' his hand good-
bye."
"Someone killed him," said Haynes. "This
man, yourself, Corliss and the captain and mate
were the only ones aboard."
"That's right, boss. Corliss and the Old Man
and I stood right by and saw him off. No, sir, if
he wa'n't killed by the lightnin' or on the cliff,
somethin' got him on the way in."
"You think he may have met his death after he
landed, then?"
"No, sir; that cain't hardly be," replied the
negro after a moment's consideration. "Some of
our crew was in a'ready. The life-savers was there.
Couldn't anyone a-give it to him without the othahs
seein' it."
"So, you see, he must have been dead when he
left the ship. Now, Hawkins, you'll save yourself
trouble by telling me what you know of this."
"'Fo' Heaven, boss, I do' know a livin' thing!"
And nothing more could Haynes get from the negro.
After dismissing him, Haynes said to Colton:


THE DEATH IN THE BUOY 45
"You go around, and under pretence of looking
after their injuries, question all the sailors as to
whether there was bad blood between the dead man
and any of his shipmates. I've got some work to
do."
At another time the young doctor might have
resented the assumption of authority, but now he
was too deeply interested in the case. Half an hour
later he returned empty of results.
"Not a bit of trouble that I can get wind vf.
What's that you're writing, a report for the
coroner?"
"No; this will never get to the coroner. I'm cer-
tain it's a murder; but I'm equally certain that
there's no case against any individual. I'm writing
up the wreck for my paper."
"Are you down here working?" asked Colton.
"No, I'm on vacation; but a reporter is always
on duty for an emergency like this."
"You're Harris Haynes of The New Era, aren't
you? " asked Colton. "You're the man that proved
the celebrated Bellows suicide and saved Dr.
Senderton."
"He saved himself by telling a straight story,
even though it seemed damaging, where most men
would have tried to lie," said Haynes. "Anyone


46 THE FLYING DEATH
except a Central Office detective would have had
the sense to know that the letter was written to bear
out a grudge. They never should have arrested
him."
"I was one of the men called in on the case.
You've shaved your beard, or I should have remem-
bered you."
"Well, we shan't have any such satisfactory
result in this case," said the reporter. "Hello!
What's Bruce doing down here?"
The life-guard from the Bow Hill station came
hurrying to him. "They've just got in the life-line,
Mr. Haynes," he said, "and I examined it as you
told me. It's blood-soaked in the middle, and there
are blood-stains all along the shoreward half.
There's nothing on the end toward the ship."
"Great Scott!" cried Colton, as the meaning of
this poured light into his mind. "Then the poor
fellow was killed between the ship and the shore!"
"It looks that way," said Haynes, scowling
thoughtfully. "No, by Jove, it can't be! I've missed
a trick somewhere. There's some other explana-
tion."
"Mightn't the blood-stains have got washed
out?" suggested the guard.
"Why should half of the rope be clean and not


THE DEATH IN THE BUOY 47
the other half, then?" countered Haynes. "You
didn't make a mistake as to which was the shore
end of the buoy rope? " he cried in sudden hopeful-
ness.
"Bit o' spar came in with the clean end," re-
turned Bruce briefly, and that hope was gone.
"It's at least curious," observed Colton thought-
fully, "that the juggler's shrinking from some
aerial terror should so correspond with a murder
in mid-air."
"You're becoming pretty imaginative," retorted
the other disagreeably. "This crazy Whalley
stabbed Petersen aboard the ship. What his motive
was, or how he got away with it, or why the others
don't give him away, is beyond me. But he did the
job, and this bogy-man scare of his is the weak cun-
ning of a disordered mind to divert suspicion. Cir-
cumstantial evidence to the contrary, that's what's
what!" Then, with his quick change of tone:
"Princess! Oh, Princess!"
"What is it, Petit Pere? " said the girl.
"Will you come along home with us?"
"Right away. We don't always welcome our
guests with so much excitement, Dr. Colton," she
added, as she slipped her arm through Haynes'.
After a moment's pause she asked him:


CHAPTER FIVE
THE CEY m THE DUSK
MONTAUK POINT rises and falls like a
procession of mighty swells fixed in
eternal quietude and grown over with the
most luxurious of grasses and field-blooms. One
walks from hill to hill, passing between the down-
curving slopes to hollows wherein flourish all-but-
impenetrable thickets of the stunted scrub-oak, and
abruptly walks forth upon a noble cliff-line over-
looking the limitless ocean to the far-off southern
horizon. Steep and narrow gullies at intervals
give rock-studded access to the beach. Outside of
the miniature forests in the hollows there is no
tree-growth on the whole forty square miles of
land, excepting the deep-shaded tangle of the
Hither Wood on the far northwest, into which none
makes his way except an occasional sportsman on a
coon hunt.
Except for the lighthouse family at the eastern
tip, the three life-saving stations with their attend-
ant houses, and a little huddle of fisher-huts on a
reach of the Sound, there were no habitants in the
49


50 THE FLYING DEATH
mid-September of 1902, the few summer cottagers
having fled the sharpened air. All day long the
pasturing sheep of the interior might rove without
the alarm of a single human. Short of the prairies,
a lonelier stretch of land would be difficult of
discovery.
To Dick Colton, rising late with a thankful heart
after a sleep unvexed of labelled bottles, this loneli-
ness was a balm, provided only it proved to be lone-
liness for two. For, with an eagerness strange and
disquieting to his straightforward and rather un-
sentimental soul, he longed to look again upon the
girl whose eyes had met his when he staggered
back from the clutching hands of death. And with
that longing was mingled an amused curiosity to
clear up the puzzle of the impetuous souvenir she
had left him. Within himself he resolved to solve
this problem at the first opportunity; but just at
this moment the opportunity was receding.
Far and clear against the sky-line, he could see
from his window two mounted figures. Miss Rav-
enden and her father were riding to Amagansett, to
be gone, as he learned later with disgust, all day.
Helga Johnston had gone up to the lighthouse to
stay until the following morning, and Haynes was
working on his investigation of Petersen's death.


THE CRY IN THE DUSK 51
Nothing was left for the lone guest except to amuse
himself as best he might.
The morning he spent in wandering meditation.
Leisure for thought is a quick developer of certain
processes. The Ravendens were to be at Third
House for the month, he understood. One might
get very well acquainted in a month, under favour-
able circumstances. At present the immediate cir-
cumstances were far from favourable. But Dick
slapped the pocketbook to which he had transferred
his keepsake from Miss Ravenden.
"That'll break some ice, I guess," he observed.
At dinner he contemplated a vacant place with an
expression of such unhappiness that old Johnston
took pity on him.
"The white perch'll likely be risin' in the lake
yonder this evening," he said.
Here was antidote for any bane. Dick took his
rod and went. The fish nobly fulfilled Johnston's
word of them, and Dick had just landed a handsome
one, when glancing up he saw a net moving along
the line of a small ridge.
"The bug-hunter," he surmised.
"Oh, Professor Ravenden!" he called; and was
instantly stricken with the dilemma: "What the
dickens shall I say to him?"


52 THE FLYING DEATH
The net paused, half-revolved and ascended, and
Dick gasped as not Professor Ravenden, but his
daughter, mounted the ridge.
"Did you want my father?" she asked.
"Oh—er—ah, good-evening, Miss Ravenden,"
stammered Colton. "I—I—I've been wanting to
see you."
"There is some mistake," said she coldly. "I
don't know who you are."
"My name is Colton," he said. "I'm staying at
Third House, and"
"Does the mere fact of your staying at the same
hotel give you the privilege of forcing your ac-
quaintance upon people?" she asked sharply.
Then—for Dick Colton was good for the eye of
woman to look upon, and not at all the sort of man
in appearance to force a vulgar flirtation—she
added:
"I don't want to be unpleasant about it, but
really, don't you think you take things a little too
much for granted?"
"But you spoke to me first," blurted out Dick.
"I'm awfully sorry to have you think me rude, but
I want to know what this is."
Curiosity drew Dorothy Ravenden as powerfully
as it commonly draws less imperious natures.


THE CRY IN THE DUSK 53
Somewhat peculiar this man might be, but it seemed
a harmless aberration, and it certainly took an in-
teresting guise. She bent forward to look at the
object extended to her.
"Why, it's a twenty-dollar bill!"
"Then my eye-sight is still good," he observed
contentedly. "Question number two: Why did you
give it to me?"
"To you?" To Dick Colton, as she stood there
poised, the gracious colour flushing up into her
cheeks, her lips half-opened, she was the loveliest
thing he ever had seen. The hand that held the bill
shook. "To you? " she repeated. "I didn't."
"It was just like an operatic setting," he ex-
pounded slowly. "Background of cliffs, firelight in
the middle, ocean surf in front. Out of the magic
circle of fire steps the Fairy Queen and hands to the
poor but deserving toiler what in common parlance
is known as a double saw-buck. Please, your
Majesty, why? And do you want a receipt?"
"Oh!" she said in charming dismay. And again
"Oh!" Then it came out: "I took you for one of
the life-savers."
"The life-savers? " repeated Dick.
"Yes. Is that strange? You were so big and
shaggy and "she stopped short of the word


54 THE FLYING DEATH
"splendid " which was on her lips. "How could I
tell? You looked as much like a seal as a man."
The ripple of her laughter, full of joyousness, yet
with a little catch of some underlying feeling in it,
was a patent of fellowship, which would have as-
tonished most of Miss Ravenden's hundreds of ad-
mirers, among whom she was regarded as a rather
haughty beauty. "I don't know many men who
would have done it—or could have done it," she
added simply, and gave him her eyes, full.
Dick turned red. "Anyone would have," he said.
"It was the only thing to do."
She nodded slowly as if an impression had been
confirmed to her satisfaction.
"As for this," he continued, looking from her
to the greenback, and striving to speak calmly,
when his heart was a-thrill with the desire to tell
her how altogether lovely and lovable she was, " if
it's intended as a reward of merit, I'll turn it over
to Miss Johnston."
"Wasn't she magnificent?" cried the girl. "I'll
slay Helga!" she added with a sudden change of
tone. "She's a beast of the field. She knew about
the—the bill and she never told me."
"That'll cost her just twenty dollars," declared
Colton judicially, "because now I won't turn it
over to her."


THE CRY IN THE DUSK 55
"Give it back to me, please," said the girl, hold-
ing out a tanned and slender hand.
"Give it back?" cried Colton in assumed
chagrin. "Why, I already had spent that twenty in
imagination."
"On what? " asked the girl rather impatiently.
"It's a long list," replied Colton cunningly.
"You'd better sit down while I tell it over." He
threw his coat over a rock, and she perched herself
on it daintily.
"First, a hundred packages of plug tobacco. All
coast-guards use plug, I believe. Then five dollars'
worth of prints of prominent actors and actresses
in gaudy colours. The rest in Mexican lottery
tickets," he concluded lamely, his invention giving
out.
"It wasn't worth sitting down for," she said dis-
paragingly. "If you had intended to get something
really useful, I might have let you keep it. Please!"
The little hand went forth again.
Hastily he produced a ten-dollar bill and two
fives. "You don't mind having it in change?" he
said anxiously. "You see, this is the first money I
ever earned outside of my profession, and I mean
to frame it."
"If twenty dollars means so little to you that you
can have it hanging around framed"


THE CRY IN THE DUSK 57
ward, and like most awkward men, was shy about
women. Therefore, it was with a sort of stunned
amazement and admiration for his own audacity
that he found himself looking straight into Doro-
thy Ravenden's unfathomable eyes as he replied
briefly:
"Fate."
"Well, upon my soul!" gasped that much-
habituated young woman of the world, surprised
for a brief instant out of her poise. Quickly recov-
ering, she added: "A fortunate fate for Helga,
surely. Except for you, she and Mr. Haynes must
have been drowned."
"You knew her before, didn't you?"
"Yes; we visit at the same house in Philadelphia,
and father and I have been coming down here for
several years. I know her well. If I were a man, I
should go the world over for Helga Johnston."
"She and Haynes are engaged, are they not?"
"No, not engaged," said the girl. "She is every-
thing in the world to Mr. Haynes; but she isn't in
love with him. He has never tried to make her.
There is some reason; I don't know what. Some-
times I think he doesn't care for her in that way
either. Or perhaps he doesn't realise it."
"Surely she seems fond of him."


58 THE FLYING DEATH
"She is devoted to him. Why shouldn't she be?
He has done everything for her."
"How happens that?"
"It's the kind of story that makes you love your
kind," said the girl dreamily. "When Mr. Haynes
first came here he was a young reporter with a
small income, and Helga was a child of twelve with
an eager mind and the promise of a lovely voice.
He gave her books and got the Johnstons to send
her to a good school. Then as she grew up and he
came to be ' star man' (I think they call it) on his
paper, he went to the Johnstons, who had come to
know him well, and asked them to let him send
Helga to preparatory school and then to college. It
was agreed that she was not to know of the money
that he put in their hands, and she never would
have known except for something that happened in
her freshman year. She held her tongue to save a
classmate. They were going to expel her, when Mr.
Haynes got wind of it, took the first train, ferreted
out the truth, and went to the president.
"' Here are the facts,' he said. 'I'll leave them
for you to act on, or I'll take them with me for
publication, as you decide.'
"The case was hushed up; but in the adjustment
Helga found out about Mr. Haynes' part in her edu-


THE CRY IN THE DUSK 59
cation. Now he is arranging for her musical educa-
tion. He has no family, nor anyone dependent on
him; all his interests in life are centred in her.
And the best of it is that she is worthy of it."
"It must be a great deal to such a man to in-
spire such absolute trust in a woman as he has in
her," said Colton after a pause. "' I knew he would
come after me,' she said when I asked her how she
dared take so desperate a chance."
Miss Ravenden nodded at him appreciatively.
"Yes; you see it too," she said. "You did some-
thing worth while when you saved those two. But
what about your Portuguese? Do you really think
he had anything to do with killing that poor sailor?
Helga told me about it. What an extraordinary
case it is!"
"What puzzles Haynes with his trained mind is
surely too much for me," said Colton. "It seems
that the man—great Heaven! What was that?"
From the direction of the beach came a long-
drawn, dreadful scream of agony, unhuman, yet
with something of an appeal in it, too. The pair
turned blanched faces toward each other.
"I must go over there at once," said Colton.
"Someone is in trouble. Miss Ravenden, can you
make your way to the house alone?"


60 THE FLYING DEATH
The girl's small, rounded chin went up and out-
ward. "I shall go with you," she said.
"You must not. There's no telling what may
have happened. Please!"
With a swift, deft movement she parted the
heavy handle of her net-stock, disclosing an ingen-
iously set revolver, which she pressed into his hand.
"I'm going with you," she repeated, with the
most alluring obstinacy.
"Come, then," said Colton, and her pulses stirred
to the tone. He caught her by the hand, and they
ran, reaching the cliff-top breathless.
Barely discernible, on the sand, a quarter of a
mile east of Graveyard Point where the wreck had
struck, was a dark body. They hurried down into
the ravine and out of it, Colton in advance. Sud-
denly he burst into a laugh of nervous relief.
"It's a dead sheep," he said. "I thought it was
a man."
He bent over it and his jaw dropped. "Look at
that!" he cried.
Across the back of the animal's neck, half-sever-
ing it from the head, was a great gash, still bleed-
ing slightly. They peered out into the dusk. As far
as the eye could see, nothing moved along the sand.


CHAPTER SIX
HELGA
GALLOPING easily, an early riser may come
p from Montauk Light over to Third House
in time for breakfast. Helga was an early
riser and a skilled horsewoman. Flushed like the
dawn, she came bursting into the living-room
upon Dick Colton who, his mind being absent on
another engagement, had forgotten to wind his
watch when he went to bed the evening previous,
and consequently had risen, on suspicion, one hour
too early.
"I haven't had a chance to speak to you since
the wreck," she said, giving him her firm young
hand. "Are you any the worse for the rough usage
our ocean gave you? And how can I half thank
you for your courage?"
"Don't try," said Dick uncomfortably. "And
don't talk to me about courage," he added. "I wish
I could tell you how I choked all up with three
cheers when you went in after that fellow."
"Oh," said the girl quietly, "we Montauk folk
61


62 THE FLYING DEATH
are bred to that sort of thing. Besides, I only paid a
debt."
"A debt? To that Portuguese?"
"No, indeed! I never set eyes on the poor man
before. It's just one of our local proverbs. Our
fisher people here have a saying that those who are
rescued from the sea can never find their heart's
happiness until they have evened the tally by sav-
ing a life."
"Then you've had your own shipwreck adven-
ture? " asked Dick.
"Twenty years ago I was washed to shore in just
such a storm. Father Johnston was nearly killed,
getting me. The only name I could tell them was
Helga. They adopted me. Ah, they have been good
to me, they and Petit Pere."
"Haynes? He's a full-size man!" declared Col-
ton warmly. "' Save Helga!' he called to me, when
he saw me floundering in."
"Yes, I knew he would come after me," said the
girl simply; "but I didn't know you would come
after him. So there's the chain," she added gaily.
"I went in to clear off my debt and win my heart's
happiness—though I do hope it isn't the Portu-
guese man. Petit Pere went in to get me. And you,"
she paused and looked him between the eyes, "I


HELGA 63
think you came after us because you couldn't help
it; because that is the sort of man you are. Why,"
she cried with a ring of laughter, "you're actually
blushing!"
"I'm not used to the praises of full-blown
heroines," retorted Dick. "I wondered what you
meant when you said that the children of the sea
dream the sea's dreams?"
"As for the dreams," began Helga. She did not
conclude the sentence, but said gravely, "Yes, I'm
a true sea-waif."
"I'd like to adopt you for a sister," said Dick,
smiling, but with such an honesty of admiration
that it was the girl's turn to blush.
"Haven't you any of your own? " she asked.
"' I am all the sisters of my father's house,' " he
misquoted cheerily.
"And all the brothers too?" she capped the
perversion.
"No; I've a brother a year younger than I. There
may be in this universe," he continued reflectively,
"people who don't like Everard. If there are, they
live in Mars. Everybody on this old earth—and he
seems to know pretty much all of 'em—takes to him
like a duck to water. He's a wonder, that youth!"
"Everard? " said the girl. There was a quick and


64 THE FLYING DEATH
subtle change in her tone. "Is Everard Colton your
brother? I should never have guessed it. You don't
resemble each other in the least."
"No; he's the ornament of the family. I'm the
plodder. And we're the greatest chums ever. Where
did you know him?"
"Oh, he used to ride over to Bryn Mawr while I
was at college," she said carelessly, " in an abomin-
able yellow automobile and kill the gardener's
chickens on an average of one a trip. The girls
called his machine 'The Feathered Juggernaut.'"
"Bryn Mawr? " exclaimed Dick. "What an idiot
I am! You're the Helga Johnston that "He
broke off short and regarded his feet with a colour
so vividly growing as to suggest that they had sud-
denly occasioned him an agony of shame.
"Yes, I'm the girl that so alarmed your family
lest I should marry your brother," she said calmly.
"You need not have feared. I have not"
"Don't say' you'!" interrupted Colton. "Please
don't! I had no part in that. I hadn't the faintest
idea who the girl was, but when I saw how Ev
steadied down and settled to work I knew it was a
good influence, and I told the family so. Now that
I've met you "he broke off suddenly. "Poor
Ev!" he said in a low tone.


HELGA 65
Had his boots been less demanding of attention,
Colton would have seen the deep blue of her eyes
dimmed to grey by a sudden rush of tears.
"Let us agree to leave your brother out of future
conversations, Dr. Colton," she said decisively.
"Good-morning, Petit Pere," she greeted Haynes
as he came into the room.
"I salute you, Princess," said Haynes with a low
bow. "You beat me in."
"Have you been out trying to gather more evi-
dence against my poor juggler?"
"If I have, it's been with no success."
"I wish you failure," she returned as she left the
room.
"Here's something that may interest you," said
Colton to Haynes, and related the episode of the
sheep.
The reporter sat down. Colton thought he looked
white and worn. Haynes meditated, frowning.
"You say the sheep lay on the hard sand?" he
said at length.
"Yes; halfway between the cliff-line and the
ocean."
"That ought to help a lot," said Haynes de-
cisively. "What marks were around it?"
"Marks?" repeated Colton vacantly.


66 THE FLYING DEATH
"Yes; marks, footmarks," impatiently.
"Why, the fact is, I don't know what I could have
been thinking of, but I didn't look."
"The Lord forgive you!"
"I'll go back now and find them."
"An elephant's spoor wouldn't have survived
half an hour of the rain we had last night," Haynes
said with evident exasperation.
"Miss Kavenden might have noticed something,"
suggested Colton hopefully.
On the word Haynes was out in the hallway, up
the stairs, and knocking at the girl's door.
"Oh, Miss Dolly!" he called. "I want your
help."
"What can I do for the great Dupin, Jr.? " asked
the girl, coming out into the hall.
"Show that you've profited by his learned in-
structions. Did you see any marks on the sand
around the dead sheep?"
"I'm an idiot!" said the girl contritely. "I never
thought to look."
"It's well that your eyes are ornamental; they're
not always useful," said Haynes in accents of
raillery which did not conceal his disappointment.
"What have the great Dupin, Jr.'s eyes discov-
ered to-day? " she asked.


HELGA 67
"Nothing. You and Colton have provided an un-
satisfactory ending to an unsatisfactory day. I've
been talking with the survivors of the wreck and
couldn't get any light at all. They've all left ex-
cept 'the Wonderful Whalley.' He's pretty badly
bruised, and anyway he won't go before paying his
respects to Helga."
"I should think not, indeed!" said Miss Raven-
den. "And to you."
"It's a curious thing, but he doesn't seem to be
inspired by that devotion to me which my highly
attractive character would seem to warrant. In fact
he looks at me as if he would like to stick me with
one of those particularly long, lean and unpre-
possessing knives which he cherishes so fondly."
"You don't really think," said Miss Ravenden in
concern, " that there is any"
"Figure of speech," interrupted Haynes. "But
the man certainly isn't normal. I'll have to trace
his movements of yesterday evening. First, how-
ever, I'll have a look at that sheep."
"Surely the Portuguese had nothing to do
with that? Why should he kill a harmless ani-
mal?"
"There is such a thing as murderous mania," said
Haynes after some hesitation.


68 THE FLYING DEATH
Here Professor Ravenden entered. "I had rather
a strange experience yesterday evening," he said.
"Did you hear the sheep too?" asked Colton
eagerly.
"Not unless sheep fly, sir. What it was I heard
I should be glad to have explained. To liken it to
a rasping hinge of great size would hardly give a
proper idea of its animate quality; yet I can find
no better simile. Were any of the local inhabitants
given to nocturnal aeronautics, however, I should
unhesitatingly aver that they had passed close over
me not half an hour since, and that their machinery
needed oiling."
"I have heard such a noise," said Haynes quietly.
"Did it affect you unpleasantly?"
"No, sir. I cannot say it did. But it roused my
interest. I shall make a point of pursuing it
further."
"Miss Johnston is calling us to breakfast," said
Colton.
"I'm just going to take a quick jump to the
beach and a glimpse at the sheep," said Haynes,
and a moment later they saw him passing on his
horse.
From her place at the head of the breakfast-
table Helga Johnston called Dr. Colton to sit next


70 THE FLYING DEATH
alone, he said: "Princess, another of your cour-
tiers is coming over this evening to display his
talents."
"Who, Petit Pere?"
"Your juggler, 'The Wonderful Whalley.'"
"Did you find out anything about him, Monsieur
Dupin?" asked Miss Ravenden.
"Nothing worth while. If he was out last night,
no one knows it,"
"And the dead sheep?"
But Haynes only shook his head and attacked
his breakfast.
After breakfast the party separated, Haynes rid-
ing over to see some of the fishermen, Helga busying
herself with household affairs, Miss Ravenden join-
ing her father in a butterfly expedition to the Hither
Wood, and Colton going off alone in ill-humour
after a signal discomfiture.
He had endeavoured to convince Miss Ravenden
that he cherished a passionate fondness for ento-
mology, hoping thereby to gain an invitation to
join the party. Unfortunately he undertook the
role of a semi-expert, and being by nature the most
honest and open of men had fallen into the pit she
dug. Upon his profession of faith she at once, so
he flattered himself, accepted him as a fellow en-


HELGA 71
thusiast, and began to describe to him a procession
of Arachnidae across a swamp.
"In the lead was one great, tiger-striped fellow,"
she said. "Are you familiar with the beautiful, big
arachnid with the yellow-and-black wings?"
"Yes, indeed!" said Colton eagerly. "I used to
see 'em flitting around the roses at our summer
place."
"Then," she said mischievously, "you ought to
alter your habits. The arachnids are spiders. Any-
one who sees winged spiders is safer fishing than on
a butterfly hunt. Good-bye, Dr. Colton."


THE WONDERFUL WHALLEY 73
over the hill, caused a hasty withdrawal of
currency.
The reporter seemed tired and worried. In an-
swer to the physician's inquiry whether anything
new had developed, he shook his head. Colton dis-
missed that subject, and with his accustomed
straightforwardness went on to another, upon which
he had been deliberating with an uneasy mind.
"Mr. Haynes," he said, " I want to speak to you
on rather a difficult subject."
The reporter looked at him keenly. "Most
difficult subjects are better let alone," he said
shortly.
"In fairness to you I can't let this one alone. It
concerns Miss Johnston."
"Whom you have known since Monday, I be-
lieve." Haynes' face was disagreeable.
"Pardon me," said the other. "My interest is
in my brother."
"I can't pretend to share it," returned Haynes.
"His name is Everard Colton. Do you know
him?"
"Perhaps when I tell you that I know something
of your family's entirely unnecessary solicitude as
to Miss Johnston, you will appreciate the bad taste
of pursuing the subject," said Haynes.


74 THE FLYING DEATH
Dick's equable temper and habituated self-con-
trol stood him in good stead now.
"I am regarding you as standing in the place of
Helga Johnston's brother," he said.
"Are you appealing to me for help in your fam-
ily affairs?" asked the reporter rather contempt-
uously.
"I am trying to be as frank with you as I should
like you to be with me," returned the other stead-
ily. "I want your consent to my sending for
Everard to come down here."
Haynes stared at him, amazed. "JVhat do you
mean by that?"
"Exactly what I say. There have been some hot-
headed and unfortunate judgments on the part of
my family, which report has greatly magnified. I
realise now the full extent of the error."
"And what has brought about this change of
heart? " sneered the other.
"My acquaintance with Miss Johnston. There
are some women who carry the impress of fineness
and of character in their faces and their smallest
actions. Even if I had learned nothing else about
her, after seeing Helga Johnston I would think it
an honour for any family to welcome her."
Haynes' face softened, but it still was with some


THE WONDERFUL. WHALLEY 75
harshness that he said: "There are other Coltons
who think otherwise."
"That is because they don't know," was the
quick reply. "I want Everard to have his chance,
and I've put this case before you because I know
and respect your relation to Miss Johnston, and
because I believe it is your right."
"Yes, you're fair about it," said Haynes, and fell
into deep thought.
"Of course," said Dick uneasily, "if having
Everard here is going to be—er—painful to you, I
won't ask him. I should have thought of that first.
I don't know that Everard would have a chance
anyway."
"Dr. Colton, I believe that Helga did care for
your brother."
"But is it an open field?" asked Dick impul-
sively.
A slight smile appeared on Haynes' lined face.
"You mean, do I want to marry Helga myself?
She has never thought of me in that way. In a way
it would be painful, yet I should be glad to know,
while I have time, that she was going to marry some
good man—but not any man whose family could
not accept her as she deserves."
"While you have time," said the young physician


76 THE FLYING DEATH
slowly. "While you have "He broke off, ad-
vanced a step and peered into the other's face.
Haynes bore the scrutiny with a grim calmness.
As Colton scrutinised, the harsh lines that he
had translated into irritable temperament leaped
forth into the terrible significance of long-repressed
pain.
"I don't want to be professionally intrusive,"
said the young doctor slowly, "but I think—I'm
afraid—I know what you mean."
"Ah, I see you are something of a diagnostician,"
said Haynes quietly.
"How long has it been going on?"
"Nearly a year. It's just behind the left armpit.
Rather an unusual case, I believe. You see, I'm not
on the lists as a marrying man."
Colton walked to and fro on the little level
stretch, half a dozen times. He had seen sickness
and suffering in its most helpless forms; but this
calm acceptance of fate affected him beyond his pro-
fessional bearing.
"Do your people know?"
"I have no people. It hasn't seemed worth while
to mention it to my friends. So you will regard this
as a professional confidence?"
"Oh, look here!" burst out Colton. "I can't sit


THE WONDERFUL WHALLEY 77
around and watch this go on. I've got more money
than I can rightly use. You don't know me much,
and you don't like me much, but try to put that
aside. Let me pay your "he glanced at Haynes
and swiftly amended—" let me lend you enough to
take you abroad for a year. I'll write to some people
in Vienna and Berlin. They're away ahead of us
in cancerous affections. I'd go with you, only"
He stopped short, as he realised that the contro-
verting reason was Miss Dorothy Ravenden's pres-
ence on the American side of the ocean.
The reporter walked over and put his hand on
Colton's shoulder. His harsh voice softened to
something of the tone that he used toward Helga,
as he said: "My dear Colton, all the money in the
world won't do it. If it would, well," with a sudden,
rare smile, "I'm not sure I wouldn't take yours,
provided I needed it."
"Try it," urged the other. "You don't know how
much those foreign experts may help you."
Haynes shook his head. "O, terque quaterque
beati, quels ante ora patrum contigit oppetere," he
quoted. "That's one of my few remnants of Virgil.
It means a great deal to me. I shall not die in exile.
Well, Colton, send for your brother."
"And what will you do?"


78 THE FLYING DEATH
"Stay here and work. There's something in life
besides pain when inexplicable strokes from the
void kill men and sheep. I'm going over to do some
more investigating."
"And I to wire my brother," said Colton.
"Don't forget that < The Wonderful Whalley' is
to give his exhibition this evening."
They met at dinner, and before they had finished
the juggler was announced. The whole party joined
him outside, where he had been arranging his simple
paraphernalia. Running to Helga, he dropped on
his knee in exaggerated and theatrical courtliness.
"Mademoiselle, I am your adoring slave for al-
ways," he said, lifting his brilliant, unsteady eyes
to her for a moment. "Weeth your kind permis-
sion I exheebit my powers."
He led them to the barnyard, where there was a
favourable open space, and began with some simple
acrobatics. His audience was Mr. and Mrs. Johns-
ton, Helga, Haynes, Colton, and the servants. Pro-
fessor Ravenden and his daughter had not returned.
After the acrobatics came sleight-of-hand with
cards and handkerchiefs.
"Now I show you ze real genius," said the per-
former.
Prom his belt he drew the two heavy blades


THE WONDERFUL WHALLEY 79
which had so interested Haynes. These he supple-
mented with smaller knives, until he held half a
dozen in hand. Facing the great barn door, he
dexterously slanted a card into the air. As it rose
he poised one of the smaller knives. Down came
the card, paralleling the surface of the door. Swish!
The knife shot through the air and nailed the card
to the wood. Another card flew. Thud! It was
pinned fast. A third, less accurately reckoned, flut-
tered by one corner.
"Now, ze ace of hearts!" cried the juggler.
"We shall face it."
Forward he flipped it. It turned in air, showing
the central spot. It struck the door at a slight angle
and was about turning when the knife met it.
Straight through the single heart passed the blade.
"The Wonderful Whalley " struck an attitude.
"Well, by Jove!" exclaimed Colton. "I've seen
knife-play in Mexico by the best of the Greasers,
but nothing like this."
"Zere is no one like 'Ze Wonderful Whalley,'"
declared that artist coolly, as he gathered his
knives, all except the one that held the ace of hearts.
He stepped back. "You look at ze spot," he added,
addressing Haynes.
Haynes moved forward to draw out the blade.


80 THE FLYING DEATH
There was a cry from Helga and Colton. Something
struck the wood so close to his ear that he felt the
wind of it, and the handle of one of the big blades
quivered against his cheek.
"Eet is for warning," said "The Wonderful
Whalley " urbanely. "Ze heart, eet could"
He choked as the powerful grasp of Johnston
closed on his throat. Haynes and Colton ran for-
ward; but there was no need. The man was passive.
"Eeet was onlee a trick," he said. "I am insult.
I go home."
"Shall we let him go?" said Haynes undecid-
edly.
The question was settled for them. With a sud-
den blow, the juggler knocked down Johnston,
dodged between Haynes and Colton, caught his
knife from the door as he ran with great swiftness,
and threatening back pursuit at the ready point,
disappeared not toward the Sand Spit station, but
straight over the hills. The baffled captors looked at
each other in dismay.
"We've got a loose wild animal to deal with
now," said Colton.


CHAPTER EIGHT
THE UNHOESED NIGHTFAEEE
ROUND the big fireplace with its decorations
of blue-and-white Colonial china, which
-A. JL. many a guest by vast but vain inducements
had tried to buy from the little hostelry, sat Dick
Colton, Haynes and old Johnston. The clock had
struck nine some minutes earlier.
"Your brother couldn't have caught the after-
noon train," remarked Haynes. "Was he to ride
over?"
"Yes, I arranged for a saddle-horse to meet him
at Amagansett," answered Colton.
"Reckon the Professor and Miss Dolly stopped
at the fishermen's for dinner," opined the old man,
as a soft and sudden breeze stirred the curtains.
"If they ain't in pretty quick they'll get wet.
There's somebody now!"
A tramp of feet clumped on the porch, the door
was thrown open and a young man limped in. He
was tall, almost as tall as Dick Colton, but much
slenderer, and extremely dark. Despite his un-

81


82 THE FLYING DEATH
steady gait, he bore himself with an inimitably
buoyant and jocund carriage. His well-made riding-
suit was muddied and torn, his head was bare, and
from a long but shallow cut on his forehead blood
had trickled down one side of his handsome face,
giving him an appearance of almost theatrical
rakishness.
"Hello, Dick, old man!" he cried. "How goes
the quest for slumber?"
"Good Lord, Ev!" responded Dick Colton,
hurrying to meet him. "What's the matter with
you? Are you hurt?"
Keenly watching the greeting, Haynes noted the
evident and open affection between the two
brothers.
"Just a twisted knee," said the younger.
"Thrown, Dick—thrown like a riding-school
novice. I'd hate to have it get back to the troop."
"It must have been something extraordinary to
get you out of the saddle," said Dick, for Everard
Colton was one of the best of the younger polo men.
"It was extraordinary enough, all right," ac-
quiesced the younger man, "Let me clean up and
I'll tell you about it."
"Wait a moment," said Dick Colton, and intro-
duced his brother to the other men. "Several queer


THE UNHORSED NIGHTFARER 83
things have been happening here lately," he con-
tinued. "We're all interested in them, particularly
Mr. Haynes. Tell us now—unless you're in pain,"
added Dick anxiously. "Let's look at your knee."
"Oh, that's nothing. I'm not suffering any except
in my temper. Things I don't understand disturb
my judicial poise."
"Did your horse roll into one of the gullies?"
asked Haynes. "There are some nasty slides if you
get off the road."
"No, my horse didn't; but I did," replied the
other. "The Professor of Prevarication who keeps
the Amagansett livery stable told me that the mare
knew the road. If she did know it, she carefully
concealed her knowledge, for as soon as the pitch
darkness fell (by the way, I don't remember a
blacker night) she began to stroll across the ver-
dant meads like a man chewing a straw and think-
ing of his troubles. Except for the sound of the
surf, I had no way to steer her, so I just said to
her: 'If you lug me back to Amagansett, I'll break
every rib in your umbrella,' and let her amble.
About half an hour ago I sighted your light here.
Without any cause that I could make out, my lady
friend began to toss her head upward and sniff the
air and tremble."


84 THE FLYING DEATH
"You think the horse heard something?" asked
Haynes.
"If I'd been in a big game country I should have
said she scented something. It was a dead calm, and
I could have heard any noise, I think. Well, Jezebel
began to buck-jump, and I was rather enjoying my-
self when suddenly she did a thing that was new to
me in the equine line. Her legs just seemed to give
way from under her, and she slumped so completely
that I was flipped off sidewise. As I got to my feet
I felt a little gust of air that brought a curious
odour very plainly to me."
"That's a new development," said Haynes
quietly. "What was it like?"
"Did you ever smell a copperhead snake?"
"Often. Like ripe cucumbers."
"Yes. Well, this was something on that order,
only much stronger and pretty sickening. Are there
any copperheads in Montauk?"
"No, nor ever was," said Johnston positively.
"Anyway, I think it was a snake. The mare
thought it was something uncanny. She went crazy,
and began to rave and tear like a bucking auto-
mobile. Just as I thought I was getting her calmed
I stepped on a round stone, that slid me down into
a gully on one side of my face. Again I felt that


THE UNHORSED NIGHTFABER 85
strange rush of foul air. Jezebel gave a yell and
broke away, and I was adrift on the broad prairies.
There's one thing I noticed—oh, well, I suppose I
imagined it."
"No. Go on. Tell us what it was."
"Well, the draft of wind seemed to come from
opposite directions. It seemed as if something had
passed and repassed above me."
Dick Colton turned to Haynes. "' The Wonder-
ful Whalley' is somewhere on the knolls," he said.
"Yes; but he isn't flying around in the air on a
broomstick."
"One could almost believe he had other attri-
butes of the vampire besides the blood-thirst,"
replied Colton. "Ev, Mr. Johnston will show you
your room. Come down when you're ready. I've got
something to look after."
"You're worried about Miss—about the Eaven-
dens," said Haynes to Dick as the junior Colton left
the room. "Wait a moment, till I get lanterns. I'm
going with you."
"Thank you," said Dick quietly. "I thought
you would. Ev won't like it much when he finds
there's something afoot and he has been left out."
"He's had his share. I've an idea that your
brother has been near to death to-night."


86 THE PLYING DEATH
"The more reason for haste, then."
"I'll strike off inland. You take the sea side,"
said Haynes, as the two lighted lanterns and passed
out into the dead blackness. "And, by the way," he
added, "I wouldn't make my light any more con-
spicuous than necessary."
"All right," said Dick. "I've no particular de-
sire to attract Whalley's attention."
Within ten minutes the young doctor heard
voices, and called. Professor Ravenden's dry
accents answered him. With a hail to Haynes, Col-
ton ran forward. He almost plunged into Dolly
Ravenden's horse, which reared and snorted.
"What is it? " cried the girl. "Oh, it's Dr. Col-
ton. Are you hunting the night-flying arach-
nidaf"
"I was looking for you."
"Has anything happened?" asked the girl
quickly, sobered by his tone. "Helga? Mr.
Haynes?"
"No, all are safe." He laid his hand on the neck
of her mount . "But you must come home at once.
There is danger abroad."
"Why, Dr. Colton, you're trembling! I wouldn't
have believed you knew what it was to be afraid."
"You don't know what it is to care "he cut


THE UNHORSED NIGHTFARER 87
off the words with something like a sob. "Thank
God, we found you!"
Then the girl had cause to bless the darkness, for
from her heart there surged a flood to her face, and
with it woman's first doubt and fear and glory.
"Perhaps I do know," she thought. For an in-
stant, she closed her eyes and saw him as he had
come draggled and staggering from the sea. She
opened them upon his stalwart figure and the clean-
cut, manly face, still drawn with anxiety, clear in
the light of the lantern.
"It was good of you to brave the danger," she
said sweetly. "I have had a premonition of some
tragedy overhanging, since we found the sheep."
"Well, Professor! Hello, Miss Dolly!" called
Haynes, as he swung up on a trot. "Are you all
right? Better hurry in. There's a storm coming."
"It is something besides a storm that brought
you gentlemen out on a search for us," said Profes-
sor Ravenden shrewdly. "While properly appre-
ciative, I should be glad to have an explanation."
The explanation came swiftly, from the direction
of the sea. It was a long-drawn, high-pitched
scream. There was in it a cadence of mortal terror;
the last agony rang shrill and unmistakable from
its quivering echoes. Miss Ravenden's horse


THE UNHORSED NIGHTFARER 89
be present. Mr. and Mrs. Johnston, Helga and
Everard Colton were sent for. In the stress of the
moment Haynes had forgotten that Helga had not
been warned of the younger Colton's coming.
Everard came into the room first, and provided his
brother with a surprise, by rushing at Miss Raven-
den as if bent on devouring her.
"Little Dot, the butterfly's Nemesis!" he cried.
"When did you get here, and how? And Professor
too! Well, this is a lark!" To which greeting the
Ravendens responded with equal warmth.
"Dick, you scoundrel, why didn't you tell me they
were here? " cried Everard.
"I didn't know you knew them," returned the be-
wildered Dick.
"Know them? Why, I've spent a week of my lat-
est vacation on their house-boat. The Lepidopterce
of half the Southern States shriek aloud when they
see Miss Ravenden and me approaching. Besides,
I'm useful, am I not, Dolly?"
"Not in terms that could be reduced to an esti-
mate," said that young woman.
"Ungrateful maiden! Don't I shoo off your
swarming adorers, comprising all the polyglot of
Washington and most of the blue blood of Phila-
delphia? I'm the only man in America who can be


90 THE FLYING DEATH
with Miss Dorothy Ravenden for three consecutive
days without falling desperately in love with her.
I escape only because I know it's hopeless."
"Oh, is that it?" said Dolly demurely. "I had
heard there was a more tangible reason for my
bereavement. Vardy, you're looking serious in spite
of all your nonsense. I believe, upon my soul, the
stories are true."
"Oh, Dick," said Everard hastily, " I nearly for-
got about that package of books. I dropped 'em
outside. Here they are and they'll cost you just
eight dollars and eighty cents and the price of a
drink for my trouble in bringing them. Don't know
what they are, because I turned over your telegram
to Towney; but by their weight they're worth the
money. Let's have a look at them."
Before Dick could protest he had opened the
package.
"' Summer reading for a young physician,'"
he began, looking at the titles. ".What have
we here? Harris' 'Insects Injurious to Vegeta-
tion'; < The Butterfly Book,' by Holland; ' Special
Report on the Spiders of Long Island'; 'North
American '—well, by my proud ancestral halls!"
"Give me those books, Ev!" said Dick sharply.
"Little Everard, the Boy Wonder, has put a


THE UNHORSED NIGHTFARER 91
dainty foot in it again!" He laughed banteringly,
looking from Dorothy Ravenden to Dick and back
again. "Dick, too? Oh, Dolly, couldn't you leave
the family alone for my sake? Case of 'Love me,
love my bugs '!"
But even the much-allowanced Everard had gone
too far. Dolly Ravenden turned upon him with an
expression which boded ill for the venturesome
young man, when a volume of song from the hall-
way, that seemed, controlled and effortless as it
was, to fill full and permeate every farthest nook
and corner of the house, stopped her. It was Helga
singing a quaint and stirring old ballad.
"Where there is no place
For the glow-worm to He,
Where there is no space
For receipt of a fly;
Where the midge dare not venture
Lest "herself fast she lay,
If Love come he will enter
And will find out the way."
"Heavens!" exclaimed Dick Colton. "What a
voice! Who is it?"
"Haven't you heard Helga sing?" said Dolly
Ravenden, in surprise. "Isn't it superb!"
Everard had risen and was looking hungrily to-
ward the door. Dolly looked keenly at him, and


THE UNHORSED NIGHTPARER 93
fluttered toward her breast, and fell again. Her
colour faded; but instantly she was mistress of
herself.
"Good-evening, Mr. Colton," she said quietly, and
gave him her hand as she came forward. "Did you
come in this evening? It always is wiser to write
ahead for rooms."
"I don't understand," he stammered. "Are you
—do you live here?"
"This is my father's hotel," she explained.
"Father, this is Mr. Everard Colton. Is there a
room for him?"
"I've found my room," said Everard hoarsely,
and there followed a silence which Miss Ravenden
maliciously enjoyed, her eyes sparkling at her erst-
while tormentor's discomfiture.
Haynes broke the silence. "This is all very pleas-
ant," he said sharply and with an effort, "but it
isn't business. And we have business of a rather
serious nature on hand. There is just this to say:
Somewhere on the point is this juggler. He is
armed, and there is at least a strong suspicion that
he is murderous. The death of the sailor, the killing
of the sheep, and Mr. Colton's adventure show
plainly enough that there is peril abroad. It may
or may not have to do with the juggler. But until


94 THE FLYING DEATH
the man is captured, I think the ladies should not
leave the house alone; and none of us should go far
alone or unarmed. Is that agreed?"
"I agree for myself and my daughter to your
very well-judged suggestion," said Professor Rav-
enden, "and I have in my room an extra revolver
which I will gladly lend to anyone."
The others also assented to the plan, and at
Haynes' suggestion the weapon went to Helga's
adopted father. Dick Colton had a navy revolver,
Everard had his cavalry arm, and Haynes had writ-
ten for a pistol.
"Would it not be well," suggested the professor,
"to notify the authorities?"
"The average town constable is appointed to
keep him out of the imbecile asylum," said Haynes.
"I believe we can organise a vigilance committee
right here and see it through. Besides," he added
with a smile, " I want the story exclusively for my
paper."


CHAPTER NINE
CEOSS-PURPOSES
HAS the generalissimo been disobeying his
own orders? " called out Dolly Ravenden
from the porch, as Haynes came up the
pathway early the next morning. He did not re-
spond to the rallying tone, habitual between them,
which covered a well-founded friendship. Instead
he said:
"Miss Dolly, you heard that horse last night.
[What did you think of the cry?"
u It went through me like a knife," said the girl,
shuddering. "I thought it was a death scream.
The horse I was on thought so, too."
"I'd have sworn to it myself," said Haynes, and
fell into deep thought.
"Well?" queried the girl after waiting impati-
ently. "It isn't a secret, is it?"
"Something in that line. I've just been all over
the ground between the place where Mr. Colton
was assailed and the beach, without finding hide or
hair of the horse. It must have escaped."
"I for one won't believe that until I see it alive."
M


96 THE FLYING DEATH
Haynes glanced at her sharply. "Woman's in-
tuition," he said. "I won't either. Well, I'm going
to breakfast."
The girl lingered, looking out into the ruddy-
golden morning. It was late September weather, a
day burnished with sunlight. A faint haze softened
the splendour of the knolls. The air was instinct
with the rare, fine quality of the vanishing summer.
It was the falling cadence of the season, one of the
last few perfect, fulfilling notes of the year's love-
melody. With all the knowledge that death and
horror lurked somewhere in the lovely expanse
spread before her, Dolly Ravenden yearned to it.
Soon she would be back amid the cosmopolitan
gaieties of the Capital. She loved that too, but with
a different and shallower part of her nature.
Sharply it came to her that this year she would
leave with a deeper regret than ever before, and the
nature of that regret was formulating itself against
the stern veto of her will. "A man I've not seen
half a dozen times!" she half incredulously re-
proached herself.
A certain feminine exasperation against herself
was illogically and perversely turned upon Dick
Colton as he strode around the corner of the piazza.
The experienced wager of love-tilts might have in-


CROSS-PURPOSES 97
terpreted the expression she turned to him, and
have fled the stricken field. Poor Dick was the
merest novice. His attitude toward women had al-
ways been much the same as toward men, varying
in degree according to the charm or quality of the
individual, but all of a kind, until he had en-
countered Dolly Ravenden. To his unsuspecting
mind it seemed that at the present moment he was
in the greatest luck. The sun was shining with a
special, even a personal, lustre. Abruptly it dark-
ened several million candle-power as Miss Raven-
den gave him the most casual of greetings and the
curve of a shoulder while she scanned the spread-
ing landscape.
"Have I done anything, Miss Dol—Miss Raven-
den?" asked blundering Dick.
"Done anything? " repeated she with indifferent
inquiry. "I'm sure I don't know."
This fairly nonplussed him. He sat down and
wondered what to do next. Unfortunately his
thoughts turned upon his brother.
"Isn't it great that you know Ev? " he pursued.
"I'm so glad that I sent for him to come down."
"You sent for him? " cried the girl in a tone that
straightened up Dick like a pin.
"Certainly. Why not?"


98 THE FLYING DEATH
"To see Helga, I suppose."
"Yea."
"Of course you assumed that she was dying to
see him."
"Not in the least," said Dick, with some spirit.
"Just to give him his fair chance."
"You didn't think of being fair toward anyone
else?"
"Toward whom?"
"Miss Johnston herself, in the first place. One
expects a certain degree of delicacy even from—
from"
"Don't smooth it down on my account," said
Dick grimly. "You seem to be in a fairly frank
mood to-day."
The imp of the perverse indeed was guiding
Dolly's words now. "From a man one knows noth-
ing whatever about," she concluded.
"And isn't interested in knowing," suggested he.
"I'm as fond of Helga as of my own sister," she
went on vehemently. "She is only a year younger
than I, but I've been about so much more that I—
well, I assume some responsibility for her." Her
tone challenged Dick. He merely bowed.
"You know how it is between Helga and your
brother?"


CROSS-PURPOSES 99
"Something of it."
"And knowing, do you think it was right to
bring him down here?"
"Why not?"
"Because," said Miss Ravenden hotly, "your
family became panic-stricken at the thought of
Everard's marrying Helga, before they even took
the trouble to find out anything about her. To in-
sult a woman whom they have never seen! Why—
why—Helga is as— If I had a brother, and Helga
Johnston was willing to marry him I should count
it an honour to the Ravendens."
All the imperious pride of a family who had been
landed gentry in the South, while Colton's sturdy
forebears were wielding pick and shovel in the far
West, who had signed the Declaration of Independ-
ence before the first American Colton had worked
a toilsome passage across from his North Country
hovel to the land of sudden riches, shone in her
eyes.
"So should I!" returned Dick quietly. "But
surely Helga Johnston did not tell you all this?"
"No, she did not. It was the same meddlesome
friend who first told her of your family's objections.
Oh, if I were Everard I would tell his family to—


100 THE FLYING DEATH
"To go to the devil," suggested Dick helpfully.
"Please not to put words into my mouth! Yes,
I should!" she returned hotly. Then, illogically
and severely added, " particularly such words. And
after what I told you about Harris Haynes I should
have thought that an ordinary sense of justice—
Oh, it was unmanly of you!"
Dolly's imp now had spurred her into a respect-
able state of rage, and Dick's wrath rose to meet
hers.
"Just a moment," he said. "What was that
about Haynes?" Two wrinkled lines appeared be-
tween his eyes. His mouth altered in its set, giving
to his naturally pleasant face an aspect of almost
savage determination.
"Why," thought Dolly, " he's looking at me as if
I wasn't a girl at all, but just something in his
path to beat down." And her quick pang of alarm
had something pleasurable in it.
"I want that again about Haynes."
"I say you were not fair to him. You know per-
fectly well that whatever chance Mr. Haynes may
have with Helga"
"Chance of what? Of marrying her?"
"Certainly," said Dolly boldly.
"Do you think she loves Haynes?"


CROSS-PURPOSES 101
"I don't know."
"You do know. You think that she doesn't. And
do you think he loves her?"
"Why should I tell you, when you will only brow-
beat and contradict me? I know this, that there is
the most beautiful affection between them that I
have ever known between a man and a girl. With
two people less fine than Helga and Harris Haynes
it could not be so. You aren't capable of under-
standing that sort of thing. And so you would
destroy this for the mere whim of a boy!"
"It is not the whim of a boy," returned Dick
sternly. "It has made Everard a man. I think she
loves him."
"What if she does?" said the girl recklessly.
"You mean you would have her marry Haynes
without love?"
"Yes," said Dolly, too far committed to back
down now; but within herself she was saying: "Oh,
you wretched little liar!"
"Ah!" observed Dick with a change to cold
courtesy that stung her more than his wrath. "I
haven't had the good fortune to meet many girls so
advanced in their views. Myself, both as a physi-
cian and unprofessionally, I am simple enough to
think that loveless marriages are unfortunate."


CROSS-PURPOSES 103
peated itself over and over. How readily he could
have defended himself with Haynes' own words
against the charge of unmanly treachery to Haynes!
How easily he could have refuted!—but to what
purpose, since she was unworthy? Hatless and aim-
less, he wandered out upon the grass-land.
Almost before he knew it he had reached the
beach and was approaching Graveyard Point. Com-
ing around a jut in the cliff he was amazed to see
Professor Ravenden digging energetically at the
sand with an improvised shovel. At once the pro-
fessor hailed him for help. Now, the normal man,
no matter how miserable his mood, will rouse to
the solution of a mystery, and when Dick Colton
saw the form of a horse partly revealed, he pitched
in heartily.
"How did you find it?" he asked the pro-
fessor.
"In passing I noticed that the cliff had given
way above," was the reply. "As there had been no
rain, some unusual occurrence must have caused
this. Closer examination revealed the leg of a horse,
upon which I inferred that here was buried the
mare ridden by my young friend, your brother.
Doubtless we soon shall perceive some clue as to
the manner of death."


104 THE PLYING DEATH
But the body being wholly uncovered revealed
no wound.
"Must have run off the cliff in her flight," sug-
gested Colton.
"An almost untenable hypothesis," said Profes-
sor Ravenden argumentatively. "The place where
your brother was unhorsed is a mile from here, at
least. We heard the animal's death-cry an hour
after your brother's encounter. Could you devise
any form of terror which would so afflict a horse
as to drive it over a hundred-foot cliff, a full hour
after the origin of the panic?"
"No, I couldn't. Whatever it was that terrified,
the poor brute must have followed it. The juggler,
I suppose."
"But for what purpose? However, I think we
would best climb the cliff, and taking opposite di-
rections examine the ground for any possible indi-
cations."
So the professor struck off westward, while Col-
ton took the line toward the lighthouse. Soon his
path led him down into one of the precipitous
gullies. Inland from him a sharp turn shielded by
large rocks cut off the view, beyond which appeared
the upper foliage of a scrub-oak patch. From among
the rocks Dick heard a strange sound, like a gasp.


CROSS-PURPOSES 105
His hand went to his revolver, and he stepped short.
Again the sound came in a succession of cadences,
like interrupted breathing. Dick moved forward.
A stone slipped under his foot and rattled down
among other stones. There was instant silence.
Keeping himself sheltered, he walked firmly for-
ward. Before a large rock he paused, then holding
the weapon ready he stepped around it. Helga
Johnston stood there, her hands pressed to her
breast, her face tear-stained. She gave a little cry
of relief.
"Ah, it is you!" she said.
"Did I frighten you? " asked Dick. "I'm awfully
sorry. You've been crying."
"Yes," said the girl.
"Was it as bad as that? I must have alarmed
you very much."
"No," said the girl with the simple directness
which he had admired in her from the first. "I was
frightened; but that was not why I was crying."
"Has Everard been with you?"
"Yes."
"Miss Helga," said Dick soberly, "will you be-
lieve that I am your friend?"
"I don't know," replied the girl dubiously.
"Why did you bring your brother down here?"


106 THE FLYING DEATH
"Do you remember, I said to you that I wished I
had a sister like you? That is why."
Helga flushed deeply. "It was not fair," she said.
"Miss Johnston, is there any reason why you
should not marry my brother?"
"Yes."
"Is it because some day you may marry Mr.
Haynes?"
"There has never been the suggestion of such a
thing. Why you and Dolly Ravenden both insist
on believing that Petit Pere wants to marry me, is
—it's stupid!" said the girl indignantly.
"Ah! And Miss Ravenden has been advising
you to marry Mr. Haynes?"
"She has been advising me not to," retorted
Helga. "Harris Haynes is the best man I have ever
known, and I owe him everything; but Dolly knows
that I don't—really, Dr. Colton, I don't know why
I should be telling you all these things."
Dick, thunderstruck at the new light on Miss
Ravenden's views, paid no attention to this mild
suggestion that he mind his own business. Indeed
it suddenly had become his own business with a
vengeance.
"Miss Ravenden advised you not to marry
Haynes? It can't be. She told me"


CROSS-PURPOSES 107
"You and Dolly seem to be very much interested
in my affairs."
"I beg your pardon," said Dick. "Some day I
hope to explain to you. Let us get back to Everard,
You say there is a reason why you should not
marry him?"
"Yes."
"Don't you care for him?"
"That is a question you have no right to ask."
"Ah!" said Dick with satisfaction. "Then it is
that wretched business of the family's opposition."
Helga made no reply.
"Listen, Miss Helga," said Dick after a few
moments' thought. "Someone told my mother lies
about you. I don't know what they were; but I do
know that they gave Mother a wrong impression.
My mother is the best mother in the world, and a
good and noble woman, only she has one attribute
of the domestic hen. When alarmed she moves
hurriedly, and usually in the wrong direction. The
liar in this case alarmed her. Now, then: my father
is a broken man; he has not long to live. I am vir-
tually the head of the family. In this case the
family will accept my decision. I ask you in their
name if you will honour us by marrying my
brother? Will you shake hands on the promise?"


110 THE FLYING DEATH
Petit Pere angry, and cause trouble, and I've felt
some danger overhanging him. Dr. Colton, do you
believe in dreams?"
"We men whose business it is to deal with the
human body, get to realise how much of mystery
there is in the human soul," said Dick. "Is that an
answer?"
"I don't know," replied the girl doubtfully-
"Some day, perhaps, I shall tell you. Mean-
time," she added, as they approached Third House,
"you won't forget your promise, will you?"
"No."
"As you've been interesting yourself in my af-
fairs a good deal," said the girl with friendly
raillery, "I'll just give you a bit of free advice.
Don't take everything about Dolly Ravenden too
seriously. She's had loads of attention and seen a
great deal of the world, and she is pretty high-
spirited; but she is in every way a splendid girl and
a right-minded one. I imagine she is not always
easy to understand."
"Heaven knows I've made one awful blunder!"
groaned Dick.
"Then don't apologise for it too soon," said the
girl quickly. "There, I've been a traitor to my sex.
But I like you, Dick Colton. And," she added as


CROSS-PURPOSES 111
they reached the door, "if you can sue as well for
yourself as for another I think you might well win
any woman."
"Well, Heaven bless you for that!" said Dick
Colton to the closing door.


CHAPTER TEN
THE TEEROR BY NIGHT
IN every department of scientific inquiry, Profes-
sor Ravenden was, above all else, methodical.
The extraordinary or unusual he set aside for
calm analysis. When he came to a dark passage in
his investigations, he made full notes and relied on
patience and his reasoning powers for light. Facts
of ascertained relations and proportions he cata-
logued. In crises of doubt, after exerting his own
best efforts, he was not too proud to ask counsel,
were there any at hand in whose judgment he felt
confidence. But first he strove to make his own
mind master of the problem.
Thus it was that on the night of September 19,
after an evening's moth-hunt, he went to his room
and sat down to write. First, however, he changed
to pyjamas and dressing-gown, for a sudden shower
had soaked his clothing. He then selected from a
box a cigar of a brand whose housing and apparel
proclaimed it of high price and special flavour,
lighted it, and smoked with deep, long puffs. To
113


THE TERROR BY NIGHT 113
his daughter or any other who knew him well this
would have signified some unusual mental condi-
tion, for the abstemious professor used tobacco
most sparingly. On this occasion he needed it as a
sedative. Professor Ravenden had undergone a
severe shock.
For more than three hours he wrote, with long
pauses for consideration. Once he rose, strode on
slippered feet up and down the room and com-
muned aloud with himself:
"Undeniably I was terrified. . . . Why other-
wise should I have fled? ... An object that may
well have been harmless and must inevitably have
presented aspects of scientific interest. . . . Per-
haps the repetition . . . the instinct of peril de-
ceived me, fostered by the previous inexplicable oc-
currences . . . yet, even in my fright, I incline to
believe that I preserved my powers of observa-
tion."
When he slept upon the conclusion of his work,
there lay amid the wreckage of scriptive revision
upon his table three closely written sheets of manu-
script.
Waking early the next morning, he aroused
Haynes and Dick Colton, and asked them to come
to his room as soon as they had dressed. Upon their


THE TERROR BY NIGHT 115
"Absolutely none, sir," replied the physician
promptly. "I should estimate your temperament to
be an unusually calm and rational one."
"Then I shall proceed," said Professor Raven-
den, and turning to his manuscript he read:
"Report on certain events noted by Willis Raven-
den, F. R. S., Sc.D., at Montauk Point, Long
Island, on the evening of September 18, 1902.
"On the evening named I had set forth from
Third House with the purpose of seeking a specimen
of the Catocala. Besides my capturing net, a can of
molasses and rum for an insect lure, and the poison
jar, I carried, in pursuance of general agreement, a
thirty-two-calibre revolver. Passing around the
south end of the lake, I selected for my operations
a patch of Quercus ilicifolia several hundred feet
beyond the western shore and perhaps a mile distant
from my point of departure, and smeared the
leaves with the adhesive mixture. Some success was
rewarding my efforts, among other captives being
fine specimens of the Saturnia maia and the Dryo-
campa imperialis, when a cloud-bank obscured the
moon, and the wind which had been blowing lightly
from the north became capricious and gusty. Con-
ditions such as these are unfavourable to the pur-
suit of the nocturnal lepidopterce. Moreover, the


THE TERROR BY NIGHT 117
make no concealment or palliation of the emotion.
As it seemed, without volition, I then leaped back-
ward, and ran toward the end of the lake. Thus I
avoided the advancing object, but only to run into
further danger (if danger-there was), for I heard
another crackling noise of passage, and this time
dimly saw in the void a great body pass swiftly
above my head. Of the dimensions or shape of
this phenomenon I can give no accurate descrip-
tion; but it seemed larger and of more solid bulk
than any bird known to me as inhabiting this local-
ity, and its movement suggested rather a skimming
progress, borne by the wind, than a measured flight
Throwing myself upon the ground to avoid its
notice, I remained until a heavy splash told of its
having reached the lake. Then I rose and ran.
"With my first exhaustion of breath came reason.
I turned, and while one hardly can answer for his
own performances, I intended to return and inves-
tigate, for shame burned hot within me. Indeed, I
already had retraced my steps for perhaps a hun-
dred feet when there burst upon me a rain-squall so
furious that I lost my way completely and was soon
floundering in the edge of the lake. Realising my
helplessness in this onslaught of the elements, I set
out for home, and after an hour's wandering, ac-


118 THE FLYING DEATH
cording to my estimate, reached Third House at ten
minutes past eleven.
"Conclusions: That the two objects were pre-
sumably a pair of living creatures; that they were
either in a state of panic flight, or were water-
creatures hastening to refuge, since at least one of
them terminated its course in the lake; that they
probably were the same creatures whose presence
has been noted overhead previously by myself, Mr.
Haynes, Mr. Everard Colton and others.
"Query: What relation, if any, do they bear to
the death of the sheep on the beach and of the sailor
Petersen?"
Professor Ravenden laid his manuscript on the
table and looked at his auditors. Haynes had been
making notes. Colton sat in rapt attention. Each
drew a long breath as the reading closed, and the
professor said:
"Gentlemen, have you any suggestions that will
throw light upon these phenomena?"
Colton spoke first. "You suggested, before, an
air-craft of some kind, perhaps in joke."
"Partly," agreed the professor. "But these were
by no means large enough. Air-ships, as you doubt-
less are aware, are of vast extent."


THE TERROR BY NIGHT 119
"Besides, they usually don't travel in pairs,"
said Haynes. "You can locate the spot where you
saw the things, I suppose, Professor?"
u Approximately."
"Then let's start at once," said the reporter,
rising.
They made good speed to the lake, and examined
its western shore without making any discovery.
Spreading out, they scouted carefully, and had
gone perhaps fifty yards, studying the ground
for possible signs, when Dick Colton, who was in
the middle, gave a shout and began to exhibit signs
of strangulation. The others ran to him, and he
turned a suffused and twitching face toward them,
pointing to an oak patch near by.
"Excuse me," he gasped; "but look at that!"
Tangled in the patch was the dilapidated ruin of
a large kite of the Malay or tailless type. Most of
the paper had blown away, but what remained was
of an oily finish, and exhaled a slight odour. Profes-
sor Ravenden looked at it carefully, and an expres-
sion of deep humiliation overspread his mild face.
"I do not resent your amusement, Dr. Colton," he
said. "To you gentlemen I must seem, as indeed I
do to myself, an unworthy and fearful disciple of
science."


THE TERROR BY NIGHT 121
line. Therefore the string has not parted at the
point of greatest tension."
"And it's as badly crumpled up," added Colton,
"as if it had collided with a brick block."
"Its mate ought to have drifted to the opposite
shore of the lake," said Haynes. "I'll go look."
Presently he returned with the second kite. It
was twin in size and type to the first. The skeleton
was intact, though the paper showed signs of its
rough trip across the ground before it reached the
lake.
"About sixty feet of string left on this one," said
the reporter. "Cut clean, just like the other." He
laughed nervously. "Begins to look pretty interest-
ing, doesn't it?"
"How many kites do you think there were in the
string? " Colton asked the professor.
"Seven is by no means an unusual number in
experiments of this nature."
"Then where are the rest?"
u If the main line was severed they may well have
been carried out over the ocean. Particularly this
would be true if these were the two lowest sub-
sidiary kites."
"Hello! What's this?" said Colton, looking up.
Over the breast of the hill toward the Sound


THE TERROR BY NIGHT 123
"Is that one of his kites?" asked the reporter,
pointing to the broken rhomboid which he had laid
in the long grass.
"Certain, sure!" said the fisherman. "Where'd
you find it?"
"It came down near here. So did one of the
others."
"That so?" said the fisherman, seeming some-
what concerned. "Hope he ain't come to no harm."
While they were talking Professor Ravenden had
been making a rapid calculation on a pad.
"I believe that I can lead you approximately to
the point whence these kites were flown," he said.
"Will you follow me?"
For more than a mile the small and slight pro-
fessor set them an astonishing pace. Presently he
stopped short and picked up the end of a string
at the foot of a small hillock.
"This also seems to have been cut," he said, and
followed its course.
Beyond the knoll was a hollow, and on the slope
of this a small windlass.
"That's his'n!" cried the fisherman. "But
where's he?"
Haynes walked over to a small oak patch beyond.
For several yards in from the edge the shrubbery


124 THE FLYING DEATH
showed, by its bent twigs, the passage of a large
body. Patches of cloth on the twigs told that a man
had torn through in hot haste. On the soil under-
neath were footprints. But at the end of the path
and the footprints was nothing.
"Look here!" Haynes exclaimed. "He rushed in
here to escape something. Here's where the trail
ends. You can see"
"My God! Come quick!"
It was the fisherman on the other side of the oak
patch. They ran around and found him bending
over a body almost hidden in the edge of the thicket,
where the scrub was low.
"That's Mr. Ely!" he cried. "He's been
murdered!"
The head was crushed in as by a terrific blow.
Near the right shoulder the arm-bone protruded
from the flesh. Colton lifted the corpse, and there
through the breast was the same kind of gash that
had slain Petersen.
"It's that cursed juggler," said Haynes bitterly.
"Why did we let him get away?"
"This man has been dead for several hours," said
the young doctor in a low tone.
"As long ago as ten o'clock last night?" asked
Haynes.


126 THE FLYING DEATH
take me all day. In that case, I'll see yon this
evening."
He took the fisherman by the arm. The man
seemed dazed with horror, and went along with
hanging jaw. Colton and Professor Ravenden re-
turned to Third House, in pondering silence.
At the house Dick found himself suffering from
a return of his old restlessness. In the afternoon he
saw Miss Ravenden, but she evaded even the neces-
sity of speaking to him. With a vague hope of
diverting his mind and perhaps of finding some
fresh clue, he returned to the lake, and studied the
land not only near the spot where the kites had
fallen, but between there and the sea-cliff, without
finding anything to lighten the mystery.
At nine o'clock Haynes came in, pale and tired,
and stopped at Dick's room.
"They have arranged to ship Mr. Ely's body back
to Connecticut where he lived," he said. "The fish-
ermen are in a state of almost superstitious terror."
"Anything new?"
"Yes and no. It's too indefinite to talk about.
What little there is only tends to make the whole
question more fantastic and less possible."
Colton looked at him. "You need sleep, and you
need it badly," he said. "Any pain?"


THE TERROR BY NIGHT 127
"Oh, the usual. A little more, perhaps."
"Take this," said the other, giving him a powder.
"That'll fix you. I wish it would me; I feel to-
night as if sleep had become a lost art."
Nodding his thanks, the reporter left Dick threw
himself on his bed; but the strange events of the
few days at Montauk crowded his brain and fevered
it with empty conjectures. When finally he closed
his eyes there returned upon him the nauseating
procession of medicine bottles. Then came a bloody
sheep, which fled screaming from some impending
horror. The sheep became a man frantically
struggling in an oak patch, and the man be-
came Dick himself. Almost he could discern the
horror; almost the secret was solved. Blackness
descended upon him. He threw himself upward
with a shriek—and was awake again. When at
length he lay back, the visions were gone; a soft
drowsiness overcame him, and at the end the deep
eyes of Dorothy Ravenden blessed him with peace.


CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE BODY ON THE SAND
FOUR days had passed since the schooner
came ashore on Graveyard Point. It now
was the twentieth of September. The little
community in Third House, which had bade fair to
be such a happy family, was in rather a split-up
state. After their tilt of the day before, Dolly Rav-
enden and Dick Colton were in a condition of armed
neutrality. Dolly was ashamed that her guardian
imp had led her to so misrepresent herself to Dick,
ashamed too of the warm glow at her heart because
he cared so deeply. Thus a double manifestation
of her woman's pride kept her from making amends.
Dick was longing to abase himself, but wisely took
Helga's advice, which he wholly failed to under-
stand. Helga's beautiful voice rang like an invo-
cation to happiness through the house, but Everard
Colton sat in gloom and reviled himself because he
had promised Dick to stay several days longer.
Haynes was irritable because the puzzle was getting
on his nerves. Professor Ravenden brooded over
the loss of a fine specimen of Lyccena which had


THE BODY ON THE SAND 129
proved too agile for him, after a stern chase which
developed into a long chase early that morning.
Breakfast was not a lively meal.
The morning was thick. A still mist hung over
the knolls. It was an ideal day for quiet and secret
reconnoissance.
"This is our chance," said Haynes after break-
fast to Dick Colton and Professor Ravenden.
"We'll get the horses and ride out across the point.
We may happen on something."
The others readily agreed, and soon they had dis-
appeared in the greyness. Their tacit purpose was
to find some trace of the Wonderful Whalley. All
the morning they rode, keeping a keen outlook from
every hilltop, but without avail. They lunched late
at First House and started back well along in the
afternoon.
"He may be in any one of those thousand scrub-
oak patches," said Haynes as they remounted. "It's
like hunting a crook on the Bowery. This fog is
thickening. Let's hustle along."
To hustle along was not so easy, for presently a
fine rain came driving down, involving the whole
world in a grey blur. For an hour the three circled
about, lost. From the professor came the first
suggestion:


130 THE FLYING DEATH
"I believe that I hear the surf," said he. "Guid-
ing our course by the sound, we may gain the cliff,
by following the line of which we easily should
reach our destination."
"Bravo, Professor!" said Haynes, and they
made for the sea.
As they reached the crest of the sand-cliff some
eighty feet above the beach, the rain ceased, a brisk
puff of wind blew away the mist, and they found
themselves a quarter of a mile west of Graveyard
Point.
A short distance toward the point a steep gully
debouched upon the shore, and a few rods out from
its mouth the riders saw the body of a man stretched
on the hard sand.
The face was hidden. Something in the huddled
posture struck the eye with a shock as of violence.
With every reason for assuming, at first sight, the
body to have been washed up, they immediately felt
that the man had not met death by the waves.
Where they stood, the cliff fell too precipitously to
admit of descent; but the ravine farther on offered
easy access. Half-falling, half-slipping, they made
their way down the abrupt declivity to the gully's
opening, which was partly blocked by a great
boulder, and came upon a soft and pebbly beach,


THE BODY ON THE SAND 131
beyond which the hard clean level of sand stretched
to the receding waves. As they reached the open a
man appeared around the point to the eastward,
sighted the body, and broke into a run. Haynes rec-
ognised him as Bruce, the Bow Hill station patrol,
who had been on the cliff the night of the wreck.
Dick Colton also started forward, but Haynes
called to him:
"Hold on, Colton. Don't go out on the sand for
a moment."
"Why not," he asked in surprise.
"No use marking it all up with footsteps."
At this moment the coast-guard hailed them.
"How long has that been there?"
"We've just found it," said Colton.
"I'm on patrol duty from the Bow Hill station,"
said the other. "Oh, it's you, Mr. Haynes," he
added, recognising the reporter.
"These gentlemen are guests at Third House,
Bruce," said Haynes. "Here's fresh evidence in our
mystery, I fear."
"Looks so," said the patrol. "Let's have a closer
look." He walked toward the body, which lay with
the head toward the waves. Suddenly he stood still,
shaking.
"Good God! it's Paul Serdholm!" he cried. Then


132 THE FLYING DEATH
he sprang forward with a great cry: "He's heen
murdered!"
"Oh, surely not murdered!" expostulated Pro-
fessor Ravenden. "He's been drowned and"
"Drowned?" cried the man in a heat of con-
tempt. "And how about that gash in the back of
his neck? It's his day on patrol from the Sand Spit
station, and this is where the Bow Hill and Sand
Spit lines meet. Three hours ago I saw him on the
cliff yonder. Since then he's come and gone betwixt
here and his station. And "he gulped suddenly
and turned upon the others so sharply that the
professor jumped—" what's he met with?"
"Perhaps the surf dashing him on a rock made
the wound," suggested Haynes.
"No, sir!" declared the guard with emphasis.
"The tide ain't this high in a month. It's murder,
that's what it is—bloody murder!" and he bent
over the dead man with twitching shoulders.
"He's right," said Colton, who had been examin-
ing the corpse hastily. "This is no drowning case,
The man was stabbed and died instantly."
"Was the unfortunate a friend of yours?" asked
Professor Ravenden benevolently of the coast-
guard.
"No, nor of nobody's, was Paul Serdholm. No


134 THE FLYING DEATH
As the three started away, Haynes moved up to
Colton and said in a low tone: "The same wound?"
Dick nodded. "Without a shadow of doubt. It's
Whalley of course. What will you do?"
"Stay here and collect the evidence we shall
need."
No sooner had the searchers disappeared up the
gully than Haynes set himself whole-heartedly to
the work he loved. His nerves were tense with the
certainty that the answer was writ large for him
to read. Indeed, it should have been almost ridic-
ulously simple. On three sides was the beach, ex-
tending eastward and westward along the cliff and
southward to the water-line. Inland from where he
stood over the body, the hard sand stretched north-
ward, terminating in the rubble at the gully's
mouth. In this mass of rubble, footprints would be
indeterminable. Anywhere else they would stand
out like the mark on a coin.
On their way forward to meet the patrolman the
party from Third House had passed along the pebble
beach and stepped out on the hard sand at a point
east of the body, making a circuitous route. Haynes
had contrived this, and as he approached he noted
that there were no trail marks on that side. To-
ward the ocean there was nothing except numerous


136 THE FLYING DEATH
Step by step, with starting eyes and shuddering
mind, Haynes followed the trail. Then he became
aware of a second, confusing the first, the track of
the same creature. At first the second track was
distinct, then it merged with the first, only to
diverge again. The talons were turned in the direc-
tion opposite to the first spoor. From the body
of Serdholm to the soft sand stretched the un-
broken lines. Nowhere else within a radius of many
yards was there any other indication. The sand lay
blank as a white sheet of paper; as blank as the
observer's mind, which struggled with one stupefy-
ing thought: that between the body of the dead life-
saver and the refuge of the cliff no creature had
passed except one that stalked on monstrous,
taloned feet.
Sitting down upon the beach, Haynes reasoned
with himself aloud: "This thing," he said, "can-
not be so. You ought not to have sent the others
away. Someone in full command of his eyesight
and faculties should be here."
Then, the detective instinct holding faithful, he
hastily gathered some flat rocks and covered the
nearest tracks, in case of rain. A field sparrow
hopped out on the rubble and watched him.
"To-morrow," said Haynes to the sparrow, "I'll








THE BODY ON THE SAND 137
pick up those rocks and find nothing under them.
Then I'll know that this was a phantasm. I wonder
if you're an illusion."
Selecting the smallest stone, he threw it at the
sparrow. With a shriek of insulted surprise the
bird flew away. Haynes produced a pencil, with
which he drew, upon the back of an envelope, a
rough but pretty accurate map of the surround-
ings. He was putting on his shoes when Bruce
came out of the gully.
"See anything? " called Haynes.
"Nothing moving to the northward," re-
plied Bruce, approaching. "Have you found any-
thing?"
"Not that you could call definite. Don't cross
the sand there. Keep along down. We'll go to Sand
Spit and report this."
But the man was staring beyond the little column
of rock shelters.
"What's that thing?" he said, pointing to the
nearest unsheltered print. "My God! It looks like
a bird track. And it leads straight to the body!"
he cried in a voice that jangled on Haynes' nerves.
But when he began to look fearfully overhead, into
the gathering darkness, drawing in his shoulders
like one shrinking from a blow, that was too much.


138 THE FLYING DEATH
Haynes jumped up, grabbed him by the arm and
started him along.
"Don't be a fool!" he said. "Keep this to your-
self. I won't have a lot of idiots prowling around
those tracks. Understand? You're to report this
murder, and say nothing about what you don't
know. Later we'll take it up again."
The man seemed stunned. He walked along
quietly, close to his companion, to whom it was no
comfort to feel him, now and again, shaken by a
violent shudder. They had nearly reached the
station, when Professor Ravenden and Colton came
down to the beach in front of them. Colton had
nothing to tell. The professor reported having
started up a fine specimen of sky-blue butterfly,
which led him astray. This went to show, he ob-
served, that a man never should venture out lack-
ing his net.
"Whalley might have bumped into him, and he
probably wouldn't have noticed it," remarked
Haynes aside to Colton. "It takes something really
important, like a bug, to attract the scientific
notice. A mere murderer doesn't count."
"Then you've found evidence against the jug-
gler? " asked Colton eagerly.


THE BODY ON THE SAND 139
"I've found nothing," returned the reporter,
"that's any clearer than a bucket of mud."
He refused to say anything more until they were
close to the station. Then he tested a hopeless
theory.
"The man wasn't stabbed; he was shot," he
observed.
"What's the use?" said Col ton. "You know
that's no bullet wound. You've seen the same thing
twice before, not counting the sheep, and you ought
to know. The bullet was never cast that could open
such a gap in a man's head. It was a broad-bladed,
sharp instrument with power behind it."
"To Dr. Colton's opinion I must add my own for
what it is worth," said Professor Ravenden.
"Can you qualify as an expert?" asked the re-
porter with the rudeness of rasped nerves. He was
surprised at the tone of certainty in the scientist's
voice as he replied:
"When in search of a sub-species of the Papi-
lionidce in the Orinoco region, my party was at-
tacked by the Indians that infest the river. After
we had beaten them off, it fell to my lot to attend
the wounded. I thus had opportunity to observe the
wounds made by their slender spears. The incision


140 THE FLYING DEATH
under consideration bears a rather striking resem-
blance to the spear gashes which I saw then. I may
add that I brought away my specimens of Papi-
lionidce intact, although we lost most of our provi-
sions."
"No man has been near enough the spot where
Serdholm was struck down to stab him," Haynes
said. "Our footprints are plain: so are his. There
are no others. What do you make of that?" He was
not yet ready to reveal the whole astounding cir-
cumstance.
"Didn't I hear somethin' about that juggler that
was cast ashore from the Milly Esham bein' a knife-
thrower? " asked Bruce timidly. "Maybe he spiked
Serdholm from the gully."
"Then where's the knife!" said Haynes. "He'd
have to walk out to get it, wouldn't he?"
"You must have overlooked some vestigia," said
the professor quietly. "The foot may have left a
very faint mark, but it must have pressed there."
"No; I'm not mistaken. Had you used your eyes,
you would have seen."
"How far did Bruce's footprints go?" asked
Colton.
The three looked at the coast-guard, who stirred
uneasily. "Gentlemen," said he, " I'm afraid there's


THE BODY ON THE SAND 141
likely to be trouble for me over this." His harassed
eyes roved from one to the other.
"Quite likely," said Haynes. "They may arrest
you."
"God knows, I never thought of killing Serd-
holm or any other man!" he said earnestly. "But
I had a grudge against him, and I wasn't far away
when he was killed. Your evidence will help me,
unless "he swallowed hard.
"No; I don't believe you had any part in it," said
Haynes, answering the unfinished part of the
sentence. "I don't see how you could have unless
you can fly."
The man smiled dismally. "And then about those
queer tracks"
"Nothing about that now," interrupted Haynes
quickly. "You'd better report to your captain and
keep quiet about this thing."
"All right," said Bruce. "Good-night, gentle-
men."
"What's that about tracks?" asked Col ton.
"I want you and the professor to come to my
room sometime this evening," said the reporter.
"I'll have a full map drawn out by then, and I
want your views. Perhaps you'd better feel my
pulse first," he added, with a slant smile.


142 THE FLYING DEATH
Colton looked at him hard. "You're excited,
Haynes," he said. "I haven't seen you this much
worked up. You've got something big, haven't
you?"
"Just how big I don't know. But it's too big for
me."
"Well, after you've got it off your mind on paper
you'll probably feel better."
"On paper?"
"Yes; you'll report it for your office, won't you?"
"Colton," said the reporter earnestly, "if I sent
in this story as I now see it, it would hit old Deacon
Stilley on the telegraph desk. The Deacon would
say: 'Another good man gone wrong,' and he'd take
it over to Mr. Clare, the managing editor. Mr.
Clare would read it and say: 'Too bad, too bad!'
Then he'd work one of the many pulls that he's al-
ways using for his friends and never for himself,
and get board and lodging for one, for an indefinite
period at reduced rates, in some first-class private
sanitarium. The ' one ' would be I. Let's go inside."
For two hours Haynes talked with the men in the
life-saving station. Then he and Professor Raven-
den and Colton walked home in silence, broken
only by the professor.
"I wish I could have captured that Lyccena" he
said wistfully.


CHAPTER TWELVE
THE SENATUS
A LL five of the men who composed, the male
/JL populace of Third House gathered in
■A- Haynes' room at ten o'clock that night.
Everard Colton and old Johnston had been told
briefly of the killing of Serdholm.
"Thus far," said Haynes, addressing the meet-
ing, "this vigilance committee has been a dismal
failure. Had anyone told me that five intelligent
men could fail in finding the murderer, with all
the evidence at hand, I should have laughed at
him."
"Some features which might be regarded as un-
usual have presented themselves," suggested Pro-
fessor Ravenden mildly.
"Unusual? They're absurd, insane, impossible!
But there are the dead bodies, man and brute.
We've got to explain them, or no one knows who
may come next."
"We've got to be careful, certainly," said Colton;
"but I think if we can capture Whalley, we'll have
no more mysterious killings."
143


144 THE FLYING DEATH
"Oh, that does very well in part; but it doesn't
fill out the requirements," said the reporter im-
patiently. "Now, I'm going to -run over my notes
briefly, and if anyone can add anything, speak up.
First, the killing of the seaman, Petersen, on the
night of the shipwreck. That was on the thirteenth,
an uncanny date, sure enough. Next, the killing of
the sheep by the same wound, on the fourteenth,
and on the same evening Professor Ravenden's
experience with some threatening object over-
head."
"Pardon me; I did not ascribe any threatening
motive or purpose to the manifestation," put in the
professor. "Indeed, if I may challenge your
memory, I suggested an air-ship. It seems that the
unhappy aero-expert's kites well may have been the
source of the sound I heard."
"Let us assume so for the present. Next we come
to Mr. Colton's encounter and the death of the mare
on the evening of the fifteenth."
"The kites again, of course," said Everard.
"Even allowing that—and I expect to get con-
clusive proof against it later—what, then, chased
the animal over the cliff?"
"Maybe the kites came down later and blew
along the ground after her. If you were a horse, and


THE SENATUS 145
a string of six-foot kites came bounding along in
the darkness after you, wouldn't you jump a
cliff?"
"Ask Professor Ravenden," suggested Haynes
maliciously.
"The jest is not an unfair one," said the scientist
good-humouredly. "I fear that I should."
"Charge the death of the mare to the kites, then.
Pity we can't lay the sheep to their account too.
The third count against them is Professor Raven-
den's adventure of the eighteenth, and the death of
the aeronaut. As to Professor Ravenden's part,
there remains to be explained the cutting of the
kite strings, 'if they were cut."
"That must have been done, it would seem, in
mid-air, just as Petersen the sailor was killed," said
Dick Colton.
Haynes looked at him quickly. "Colton, you're
beginning to show signs of reasoning powers," he
said. "I think I'd better appoint you my legatee for
the work, if my turn should come next."
"My dear Haynes," Professor Ravenden pro-
tested, "under the circumstances that remark at
least is somewhat discomforting."
"You're quite right, Professor. Down with pre-
sentiments! Well, as Dr. Colton suggests, there's


146 THE FLYING DEATH
a rather interesting parallel between the mid-air
killing of the sailor and the mid-air cutting of the
kite cord. Let that go, for the present. Mr. Ely's
death we can hardly ascribe to his own kites.
There's the cutting of the string near his hand."
"That blasted Portuguese murderer, Whalley,"
said Johnston.
"Most probably. The wound is such as his big
knife would make; we know he's abroad on the
knolls. But why should he kill Mr. Ely, whom he
never saw before, and why in the name of all that's
dark should he cut the kite strings?"
"Murderous mania; the same motive that drove
him to kill the sheep," said Dick Colton. "As for
the kite string, perhaps he got tangled in it."
"There is no tangle," replied the reporter, "ex-
cept in the evidence. But we'll call that Whalley's
work. We come to to-day's murder now. Who did
that?"
"Without assuming any certainty in the matter,
I should assume the suspicion to rest upon the jug-
gler," said Professor Ravenden.
"Motive is there," said Dick Colton. "What
Serdholm told us about his thumping Whalley
shows that."
"Yes; but there is motive in the case of Bruce


THE SENATTTS 147
also. And we know that Bruce was there. More-
over, he was on the cliff-head when Petersen came
in, and the two wounds are the same."
"Surely," began the young doctor, "you don't
believe that Bruce"
"No, I don't believe it," interrupted the reporter;
"but it's a hypothesis we've got to consider. Sup-
pose Bruce and Serdholm recognised this man
Petersen as an enemy, and Bruce slipped a knife
into him as he took him from the buoy?"
"But I thought Petersen was killed halfway to
the shore."
"So we suppose; but it is partly on the testimony
of these two that we believe it, corroborated by cir-
cumstantial evidence. Now, if Bruce killed the
sailor, Serdholm knew it. The two guards quarrelled
and fought. Bruce had reason to fear Serdholm.
There's the motive for the murder of Serdholm.
He met him alone—there is opportunity. I think
the case against him is stronger than that against
Whalley, in this instance. I've looked into his move-
ments on the night of the sheep-killing and the mur-
der of Mr. Ely. He was out on the former, and in
on the latter."
"That weakens the case," said Everard Colton.
"Yes; but what ruins the case against both Bruce


148 THE FLYING DEATH
and Whalley in the killing of Serdholm is this."
Haynes spread out on his table a map which he had
drawn. "There is the situation, sketched on the
spot. You will see that there are no footprints other
than our own leading to or going down from the
body. Gentlemen, as sure as my name is Haynes,
the thing that killed Paul Serdholm never walked
on human feet!"
There was a dead silence in the room. Dick Col-
ton's eyes, narrowed to a mere slit, were fixed on
the reporter's face. Johnston's jaw dropped and
hung. Everard Colton gave a little nervous laugh.
Professor Ravenden bent over the map and studied
it with calm interest.
"No," continued Haynes, "I'm perfectly sane.
There are the facts. I'd like to see anyone make
anything else out of it."
"There is only one other solution," said Profes-
sor Ravenden presently: "the fallibility of the
human senses. May I venture to suggest again that
there may be evidences present which you, in your
natural perturbation, failed to note?"
"No," said the reporter positively. "I know my
business. I missed nothing. Here's one thing I
didn't fail to note. Johnston, you know this neck
of land?"


THE SENATUS 149
"Lived here for fifty-seven years," said the inn-
keeper.
"Ever hear of an ostrich farm hereabouts?"
"No. Couldn't keep ostriches here. Freeze the
tail-faithers off 'em before Thanksgiving."
"Professor Ravenden, would it be possible for a
wandering ostrich or other huge bird, escaped from
some zoo, to have its home on Montauk?"
"Scientifically quite possible in the summer
months. In winter, as Mr. Johnston suggests, the
climate would be too rigorous, though I doubt
whether it would have the precise effect specified by
him. May I inquire the purpose of this? Can it be
that the tracks referred to by the patrol were the
cloven hoof-prints of"
"Cloven hoofs?" Haynes cried in sharp disap-
pointment. "Is there no member of the ostrich
family that has claws?"
"None now extant. In the processes of evolution
the claws of the ostrich, like its wings, have
gradually"
"Is there any huge-clawed bird large enough and
powerful enough to kill a man with a blow of its
beak?"
"No, sir," said the professor. "I know of no
bird which would venture to attack man except the


150 THE FLYING DEATH
ostrich, emu or cassowary, and the fighting weapon
of this family is the hoof, not the heak."
"Professor," interrupted Haynes, "the only
thing that approached Serdholm within striking
distance walked on a foot armed with five great
claws. You can see the trail on this map." He pro-
duced a large sheet of paper on which was a crude
but careful drawing. "And there is its sign-
manual, life-size," he added, pushing a second sheet
across the table to the scientist.
Imagination could hardly picture a more precise,
unemotional and conventially scientific man than
Professor Ravenden. Yet, at sight of the paper his
eyes sparkled, he half started from his chair, a flush
rose in his cheeks, he looked keenly from the sketch
to the artist, and spoke in a voice that rang with a
deep under-thrill of excitement:
"Are you sure, Mr. Haynes—are you quite sure
that this is substantially correct?"
"Minor details may be inexact. In all essentials
that will correspond to the marks made by some-
thing that walked from the mouth of the gully to
the spot where we found the body and back again."
Before he had fairly finished the professor was
out of the room. He returned almost immediately
with a flat slab of considerable weight. This he laid


THE SENATUS 151
on the table, and taking the drawing, sedulously
compared it with an impression, deep-sunken into
the slab. For Haynes a single glance was enough.
That impression, stamped as it was on his brain, he
would have identified as far as the eye could see it.
"That's it!" he cried with the eagerness of
triumphant discovery. "The bird from whose foot
that cast was made is the thing that killed Serd-
holm."
"Mr. Haynes," said the entomologist dryly,
"this is not a cast."
"Not a cast? " said the reporter in bewilderment
"What is it, then?"
"It is a rock of the cretaceous period."
"A rock?" he repeated dully. "Of what
period?"
"The cretaceous. The creature whose footprint
you see there trod that rock when it was soft ooze.
That may have been one hundred million years ago.
It was at least ten million."
Haynes looked again at the rock, and superfluous
emotions stirred among the roots of his hair.
"Where did you find it?" he asked presently.
"It formed a part of Mr. Johnston's stone fence.
Probably he picked it up in his pasture yonder.
The maker of the mark inhabited the island where


152 THE FLYING DEATH
we now are—this land then was distinct from Long
Island—in the incalculably ancient ages."
"What did this bird thing call itself?" Haynes
demanded. A sense of the ghastly ridiculousness of
the affair was jostling, in the core of his brain, a
strong shudder of mental nausea born of the void
into which he was gazing.
"It was not a bird. It was a reptile. Science
knows it as the pteranodon."
"Could it kill a man with its beak?"
"The first man came millions of years later—or
so science thinks," said the professor. "However,
primeval man, unarmed, would have fallen a help-
less victim to so formidable a brute as this. The
pteranodon was a creature of prey," he continued,
with an attempt at pedantry which was obviously
a ruse to conquer his own excitement. "From what
we can reconstruct, a reptile stands forth spreading
more than twenty feet of bat-like wings, and bear-
ing a four-foot beak as terrible as a bayonet. This
monster was the undisputed lord of the air; as
dreadful as his cousins of the earth, the dino-
saurs, whose very name carries the significance of
terror."
"And you mean to tell us that this billion-years-
dead flying swordfish has flitted out of the darkness


THE SENATUS 153
of eternity to kill a miserable coast-guard within
a hundred miles of New York, in the year 1902?"
broke in Everard Colton.
"I have not said so," replied the entomologist
quickly. "But if your diagram is correct, Mr.
Haynes, if it is reasonably accurate, I can tell you
that no living bird ever made the prints which it
reproduces, that science knows no five-toed bird,
and no bird whatsoever of sufficiently formidable
beak to kill a man; furthermore, that the one crea-
ture known to science which could make that print,
and could slay a man or a creature far more power-
ful than man, is the tiger of the air, the pterano-
don."
"Evidence wanted from the doctor!" cried
Haynes. "Colton, can you add anything to this
theory that Serdholm was killed by a bayenet-
beaked ghoul that lived ten or a hundred or a
thousand million years ago?"
"I'll tell you one thing," said the doctor: "The
wound isn't unlike what a heavy, sharp beak would
make."
"And that would explain the sailor being killed
while he was coming in on the buoy!" exclaimed
Everard Colton. "But—but this pteranodon—is
that it? Oh, the deuce! I thought all those pterano-


THE SENATUS 155
"Yes, Princess, we're all going."
"Into danger?" asked the girl. She had freed
herself from Colton's grasp, but now her eyes fell
on his again.
"No; just to clear up a little point. We shall all
hang together."
"Don't go to-night, Petit Pere!" There was an
imploring intonation in the girl's flute-like voice.
Haynes crossed over to her rapidly. "Princess,
you're tired out and nervous. Go to bed, won't
you?"
"Yes; but promise me—father, you too, all of you
—promise me you won't any of you let yourselves
be alone."
"My dear child," said Professor Ravenden, "I'll
give you my word for the party, as I am the occasion
of the expedition."
"I—I suppose I am foolish," Helga said; " but I
have dreamed so persistently of some terrible
danger overhanging—floating down like a pall."
With a sudden gesture she caught Haynes' hand to
her cheek. "It hung over you, Petit Pere!" she
whispered.
"I'll throw a pebble at your window to let you
know I'm back alive and well," he said gaily. "I've
never seen you so nervous before, Princess."


THE SENATUS 157
have noted, there still remains the interior, as un-
known and mysterious as the planets. In its pos-
sible vast caverns there well may be reproduced the
conditions in which the pteranodon and its terrific
contemporaries found their suitable environment
on the earth's surface, ages ago."
"Then how would it get out?"
"The recent violent volcanic disturbances might
have opened an exit."
"Oh, that's too much!" Haynes broke in. "I
was at Martinique myself, and if you expect me to
believe that anything came out of that welter of
flame and boiling rocks alive"
"You misinterpret me again," said the professor
blandly. "What I intended to convey was that
these eruptions were indicative of great seismic
changes, in the course of which vast openings might
well have occurred in far parts of the earth. How-
ever, I am merely defending the pteranodon's sur-
vival as an interesting possibility. As I stated be-
fore, Mr. Haynes, I believe the gist of the matter
to lie in some error of your diagram."
"We'll see in a moment," said Haynes; "for
here's the place. Let it down easy, Johnston. Wait,
Professor, here's the light. Now I'll convince
you,"


158 THE FLYING DEATH
Holding the lantern with one hand, he uncovered
one of the tracks with the other. The mark was
perfectly preserved. "Good God!" said the profes-
sor under his breath.
He dropped on his hands and knees beside the
print, and as he compared the to-day's mark on the
sand with the rock print of millions of years ago,
his breath came hard. Indeed, none of the party
breathed as regularly as usual. When the scientist
lifted his head, his face was twitching nervously.
"I have to ask your pardon, Mr. Haynes," he
said. "Your drawing was faithful."
"But what in Heaven's name does it mean?"
cried Dick Colton.
"It means that we are on the verge of the most
important discovery of modern times," said the
professor. "Savants have hitherto scouted the
suggestions to be deduced from the persistent
legend of the roc and from certain almost uni-
versal North American Indian lore, notwithstand-
ing that the theory of some monstrous, winged crea-
ture widely different from any recognised existing
forms is supported by more convincing proofs. In
the north of England, in 1844, reputable witnesses
found the tracks, after a night's fall of snow, of a
creature with a pendent tail, which made flights


160 THE FLYING DEATH
to its small fore feet. Now, conceive the pteranodon
to be on the cliff's edge, about to start upon its
evening flight. Below it appears a man. Its fero-
cious nature is aroused at the sight of this unknown
being. Down it swoops, skims swiftly with patter-
ing feet toward him, impales him on its dreadful
beak, then returns to climb the cliff and again
launch itself for flight."
All this time Haynes had been holding one of
the smaller rocks in his hand. Now he flung it to-
ward the gully and turned away, saying vehe-
mently: "If the shore was covered with footprints,
I wouldn't believe it! It's too"
He never finished that sentence. From out of the
darkness there came a hoarse cry. Heavy wings
beat the air with swift strokes. In that instant
panic fell upon them. Haynes ran for the shelter
of the cliff, and after him came the Coltons. Johns-
ton dropped on hands and knees and scurried like
a crab for cover. Only the professor stood his
ground; but it was with a tremulous voice that he
called to his companions:
"That was a common marsh or short-eared owl
that rose. The Asio accipitrinus is not rare here-
abouts, nor is it dangerous to mankind. There is
nothing further to do to-night, and I believe that


THE SENATUS 161
we are in some peril remaining here, as the pterano-
don appears to be nocturnal."
The others returned to him ashamed. But all
the way home they walked under an obsession of
terror hovering in the blackness above.
It was a night of restless and troubled sleep at
Third House. For when the incredible takes the
form of undeniable reason, and demands credence,
the brain of man gropes fitfully along dim avenues
of conjecture. Helga's premonition of impending
disaster lay heavy upon the household.


CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE NEW EVIDENCE
THE morning of September 21 impended in
sullen splendour from a bank of cloud. As
the sudden sun struggled into the open it
brought a brisk blow from the southwest, dispelling
a heavy mist. The last of the fog was being scoured
from the earth's face when Dick Colton was awak-
ened from an unrefreshing sleep by a quick step
passing down the hall. Jumping out of bed, he
threw open the door and faced Haynes.
"Don't wake the others," said the reporter in a
low voice.
"Where are you off to?" inquired Colton.
"To the beach. I've got a notion that I can settle
this Serdholm question here and now."
"Wait fifteen minutes and I'll go with you."
"If you don't mind, Colton, I'd rather you
wouldn't. I want to go over the ground alone, first.
But if I'm not back for breakfast, meet me there
and I'll probably have something to tell you."
"Very well. It's your game to play. Good luck!
Oh, hold on. Have you got a gun?"
162


THE NEW EVIDENCE 167
Sickening with the certainty of what he was
to find, Everard Colton turned his eyes to the
tablet of the sand. There, exactly as the ill-fated
reporter had drawn it on his map, the grisly track
of the talons stretched in double line across the
clean beach, toward the gully's mouth. Except for
this the sand was blank.
For a few steps he followed the trail, then turned
back to the body. In the pocket he found his
brother's revolver. So Haynes had been struck
down without warning! For the moment, shock
had driven from Colton's mind the thought of
Helga. Now he rose to fend her from the sight of
this horror, and saw her moving swiftly around the
point
"Go back!" he cried. "You must not come
nearer!"
With no more heed of him than if he were a rock
in her path, the girl made a half-circle of avoid-
ance, and sinking upon the sand gazed into the
dead man's face. The eyes were closed, and from
the calm features all the expression of harshness
had fled. Gone were the lines of pain; the dead face
wore for Helga the same sweetness and gentleness
that, living, Haynes had kept for her alone, and the
lips seemed to smile to her as she lifted the head to


168 THE FLYING DEATH
her lap and smoothed back the hair from the fore-
head.
"He is dead?" she asked dully, looking up at
Everard.
"Yes," said the young man.
"I warned him," she whispered. "I saw it so
plainly—death flying across the sands to strike him.
Oh, Petit Pere, why didn't you heed me? Couldn't
you trust the loving heart of your little princess?"
In that moment Everard Colton forgot his hopes.
A great surge of pity and grief for the girl rose
within him. It came to him that she had loved the
better man, the man who lay dead on the sands, and
as the first pang of that passed there was left in him
only the sense of service. Throwing his coat across
Haynes' body, he bent over Helga.
"My dear," he said, "my dear."
That was all; but her woman's swift intuition
recognised the new feeling and responded to it.
She groped for his hand and clung to it.
"Don't leave us!" she said pitifully.
"I will wait here with you," he answered.
Slowly the tide rose toward the mournful little
group on the sand. An investigating gull swooped
down near to them, and the girl roused with a


THE NEW EVIDENCE 169
shudder from her reveries, thrusting out her hands
as if to ward off the bird.
"It was like that in my dream," she said, look-
ing up at Everard with tearless eyes. "Oh, why did
I not compel him to heed my warning! He used
to say the sea-spirits that brought me in from the
storm had given me second sight. Why did he not
trust in that?"
"He loved you very dearly," said Everard gently.
"Ah, you do not know what he was to me!"
cried the girl. "Everything that was noble, every-
thing that was generous. From the time when I
was a child—Oh, he can't be dead. Can't you do
something?"
Everard choked. Before he could command him-
self for a reply, there was a rattle of stones down
the face of the cliff. Necessity for action was a
boon to his tortured sensibilities. Catching up the
revolver from the spot where he had laid it, he
walked toward the sound. A confused noise of
voices caused him to drop the muzzle of his weapon,
as Dick Colton, Professor Ravenden and his daugh-
ter came into view.
"Too late, Dick," said Everard.
"Good God!" said Dick. "Not Haynes?"


170 THE FLYING DEATH
Everard nodded. "He was dead when we got
here."
With a little, broken cry, Dolly Ravenden flew
to Helga and threw her arms around the girl's
neck.
Dick Colton drew the coat from the body, looked
at the wound, and then followed the tracks to the
spot where they disappeared in the soft rubble.
Returning, he said to Dolly Ravenden:
"Get Miss Helga away."
"She won't come. I can't persaude her to move,"
said Dolly.
Everard came and knelt beside the girl. "Helga,"
he said, "Helga, dear, you must go back home. We
will bring him as soon as we can. Will you go
back with me now, dear?"
"Yes," said the girl.
Bending over, she kissed Haynes' forehead. She
got to her feet, and Everard and Dolly Ravenden
led her away. Dick leaned over the dead face and
looked down upon it with a great sense of sor-
row and wrath. So gazing, he recalled the reporter's
half-jesting charge that he should take up the trail,
"if my turn comes next."
"It's a promise, old man," he said softly to the
dead. "You might have left me your clue; but I'll


THE NEW EVIDENCE 171
do my best. And until I've found your slayer or
my turn comes I'll not give up the work that you've
left to me."
Meantime Professor Ravenden had been examin-
ing the marks with every mark of deep absorption.
"Professor Ravenden!" called Dick somewhat
impatiently.
The professor turned reluctantly.
"This—is—a very interesting case," he muttered
brokenly. "I—I will notify the coast-guard."
And Dick saw, with amazement, before the dry-
as-dust scientist turned again to post down the
beach, that his eyes were filled with tears.


174 THE FLYING DEATH
"Dr. Colton," she said, "I don't know what to
do about Helga. She is like a dazed person. Your
brother and I have been with her constantly. She
has not broken down once. The tears seem frozen
within her. I am frightened for her reason. She
seems to blame herself for this dreadful thing."
"There is something I want her to know," said
Dick. "Will you tell her?"
"Had you not better see her yourself?"
"I think not. You will tell her better. It is this:
Poor Haynes had not a year to live. He knew
this himself."
"How did you know?" asked the girl incredu-
lously.
"He told me of the disease that was killing him.
It was when I asked him whether I might send for
Everard to come down."
"Then you let me accuse you wrongly," she said
very low. "Why did you not tell me that Mr.
Haynes knew of Everard's coming? Was it fair in
you to let me be so unfair? I am ashamed of my-
self for the way I spoke to you. I have been
ashamed"
She raised her appealing eyes to his and moved
a step nearer him. Dick held his breath like a man
afraid of dispelling some entrancing vision.


THE EARLY EXCURSION 175
"I did not mean it," she went on bravely, though
her eyes fell before his look. "When I saw how it
hurt you I was sorry."
"It is for me to beg your pardon," said Dick
hoarsely, "for believing your words against what
my own heart told me of you. You know why it
hurt me so?"
"Yes," she said, in sweet acceptance of his
reason.
"Dolly, do you care at all?" he cried, stretching
out his hands to her.
"I don't know," she faltered. "Don't ask me yet.
It has been so short a time. I must speak of Helga
now."
"Yes," said Dick, "I shall wait, and wait hap-
pily." And—so strange a thing is the heart of
woman—a pang of disappointment accompanied
the quick thrill of admiration in Dolly's heart at her
lover's loyalty and self-repression.
"I will tell her what you say," said Dolly. She
paused for a moment, and then a wonderful smile
flickered over her sobered beauty.
"It ought to have been Helga you cared for," she
said. "But I'm glad it isn't!" And she was gone.
The evening train brought, in response to Dick's
telegram, a grave and quiet young fellow who in-


176 THE FLYING DEATH
troduced himself as Eldon Smith, a reporter from
The New Era, Haynes' paper, and an older man
with a face of singular beauty, whose name was a
national word by virtue of his gifts as an editorial
writer. Archer Melbourne had been the dead man's
only confidant. He at once took charge.
"I have heard from Mr. Haynes within a week,"
he said to Dick Colton. "If I believed in such
things, I should say that he had a premonition of
death. He is to be buried in the hill behind Third
House, so he wrote me. His property, which is con-
siderable, including his life insurance, goes to Miss
Helga Johnston, in trust, until her marriage. I am
named as one trustee, and he writes me to ask you
to act as the other."
"Surely Haynes must have had friends of older
standing," began Dick, " who"
"Haynes had few intimates. He was a quick
and keen judge of men, and you seem to have in-
spired a strong confidence. There is a peculiar
request attached. He asks that you use all your
influence to guard Miss Johnston against making
any marriage under conditions which you could
not approve for the woman you loved best in the
world."
"God helping me, I will!" said Dick solemnly.


THE EARLY EXCURSION 177
"As for the circumstances of Haynes' death, the
stories I heard are too wild for credence."
"So are the facts," said Dick briefly.
"Eldon Smith came down on the train with me.
There is no keener mind in the newspaper business
than his. Of course, he comes to represent his
paper at Haynes' funeral. The managing editor
and others of the staff will be down to-morrow.
Meantime, I think Smith will be investigating.
Perhaps you will teH him what you know."
To the two newspaper men Dick Colton recited
the facts. Smith took an occasional note, and left
with the brief comment: "I've never come across
anything like this before. If Mr. Haynes couldn't
make it out, there isn't much chance for anyone
else. But I'll do my best."
After the close of the interview, Everard Colton
came into Dick's room.
"Good Heavens, Ev," said Dick. "You look
ten years older. Brace yourself up, man."
"Dick," said his brother, "I've given up. I see
now I was a fool to think I ever could win Helga.
I'm going to stick by her until this thing is over,
and then I'll go back."
"Don't be too sure," began Dick; but checked
himself, remembering his promise to the girl.


178 THE FLYING DEATH
"That is what Dolly said," replied the other
hopelessly. "But I've had my eyes opened. I
know now what sort of fellow Haynes really was.
How could a man such as I win out against that
kind of man?"
"Anyway," said Dick, "Helga needs you at this
time; you and Miss Ravenden. You won't leave
now, Ev."
"Oh, I'll stand by," came the weary answer.
"I don't mean to whine; but I'll be glad when
I can get away. Even if I thought there was any
chance—Oh, a fellow can't fight the dead; it's too
cowardly!"
"Ev," said Dick affectionately, "you don't know
—How is she now?" he asked, breaking off sud-
denly.
"Just the same. Mr. Melbourne saw her for a
few minutes, and brought her some old letters of
Haynes'. She has them, but we can't rouse her to
read them."
"Has Miss Ravenden told her of Haynes' ill-
ness?"
"What illness? Dolly's been trying to tell her
something; but Helga doesn't seem to compre-
hend."


182 THE FLYING DEATH
Once there came a startling interruption, in the
sliding of some gravel down the gully. Pistol in
hand, Dick whirled, and for ten monstrously
elongated seconds listened to the irregular beats
of his heart as he waited. Satisfied at length that
it was only a chance avalanche in miniature, he
got down on his hands and knees above the plainest
of the vestigia. There was the secret, if he only
could read it. Had Haynes solved it and met his
death at the moment of success? For perhaps two
or three minutes the young doctor remained in his
crouched posture, his mind immersed in specula-
tion. Then he rose, facing the sea, and as he stood
and looked down there came to him a sudden glow
of illumination.
"By the heavens! I've got it!" he cried.
He started forward to the next mark. As he ad-
vanced, something sang in the air behind him. He
knew it was some swiftly flying thing; knew in the
same agonised moment that the doom of Haynes
and Serdholm was upon him: tried to turn and face
his death—and then there was a dreadful, grinding
shock, a flame with jagged edges tore through his
brain, and he fell forward into darkness.


THE PROFESSOR ACTS 185
into a state of undisturbed quietude. Thus, it was
easy presently for the hunter to net it and transfer
it to the cyanide jar. This done, he realised with a
start of conscience that he had wasted ten minutes,
and was a quarter of a mile off the track of his
engagement. With all speed, he pointed across the
knolls toward the beach.
Fog was drifting in from the ocean, giving added
incentive to haste. Wisest it would be, the profes-
sor judged, to make for the near point of the cliff,
so that he might have a line to follow should mist
blot the landscape. The beach below was just dim-
ming with the advance of the first folds of grey
when Professor Ravenden reached the brink. The
nearer sands were cut off from his vision by a rise
between himself and the rendezvous. As his eye
ranged to the west for the readiest access to the
level, it was caught and held by the outstretched
body of Dick Colton lying upon the hard sand out
from the mouth of the ravine where Serdholm and
Haynes had met their death.
For the moment the scientist was stunned into
inaction. Suddenly the body twitched, and there
swept over the unhappy entomologist a dreadful
sense of his own negligence and responsibility.
Along the heights paralleling the beach-line he ran


186 THE FLYING DEATH
at utmost speed, dipped down into a hollow where,
for the time, the prospect was shut off, and sur-
mounted the slope beyond, which brought him al-
most above the body, and a little to the east of the
gully. Meantime the fog had been closing down,
and now, as the professor reached the spot, it
spread a grey and wavering mantle between him
and what lay below.
Already he had attained the gully's edge, when
there moved out upon the hard sand a thing so out
of all conception, an apparition so monstrous, that
the professor's net fell from his hand, and a loud cry
burst from him. Through the enveloping medium
of the mist, the figure swayed vaguely, and assumed
shapes beyond comprehension. Suddenly it doubled
on itself, contracted to a compact blur, underwent a
swift inversion, and before the scientist's straining
vision there arose a man, dreadful of aspect indeed,
but still a human being, and as such, not beyond
human powers to cope with. The man had been
moving toward the body of Colton when the profes-
sor's shout arrested him. Now he whirled about
and stood facing the height with squinted eyes and
bestially gnashing teeth.
To delay him was the one chance for Colton's
life, if Colton indeed were not already beyond help.


THE PROFESSOR ACTS 187
"If I only could get down the gully!" thought the
professor, and dismissed the thought instantly.
Time for any course except the direct one now was
lacking. The one way lay over the cliff.
"Stand where you are!" he shouted in a voice
of command, and before the words were fairly done
he was in mid-air, a giddy terror dulling his brain
as he plunged down through the fog. Fortunately
—for the bonesi of fifty-odd years are brittle—
he landed upon a slope of soft sand. Pitching for-
ward, he threw himself completely over, and carried
to his feet by the impetus, charged down the slope
upon the man.
It was the juggler. So much the professor real-
ised as he sped forward. Mania of murder was
written unmistakably on the seamed and malig-
nant face and in the eyes, as the man turned them
on the professor. His posture was that of a
startled beast, alert and alarmed. Beyond him,
near the sprawled body of Colton, a huge knife
with an inordinately broad blade stuck, half up-
right, in the sand. Toward this the maniac had
started, but turned swiftly with a snarl", and
crouched, as the intrepid scientist ran in upon him.
Exultation, savage and keen, a most unscientific
emotion, blazed up in Professor Ravenden as he


THE PROFESSOR ACTS 189
tended with the strength of steel. Driving his
fingers deep under the chin, he tore the hideous,
distorted face from his shoulder. His right hand,
drawn back for a blow, twitched upon the cord from
which depended his heavy poison-bottle. Shouting
aloud, he swung up the formidable weapon and
brought it down upon the juggler's head with re-
peated blows. The man's grasp relaxed. Back for
a fuller swing Professor Ravenden leaped, and
crushed him to the ground. The thick glass was
shattered, and on the blood-stained sands a little
spot of heaven's blue fluttered in the breeze, in-
stantly to be trampled under foot.
Suddenly the scientist swayed and lurched for-
ward. An influence as potent for death as the
most murderous weapons of man was abroad, loosed
when the glass shattered. The deadly fumes of the
cyanide, rising from the base of the jar which its
owner still held, were doing their work. With
barely sense enough surviving to realise his new
peril, he flung it far from him. A mist fell, like a
curtain, somewhere between his eyes and his brain,
befogging the processes of thought. Heavily he
dropped to his hands and knees over the feet of
the senseless juggler, his face toward Colton.
Colton seemed to have risen. This the professor


190 THE FLYING DEATH
took to be a figment of his reeling brain. It an-
noyed him.
"Lie down! Be quiet!" he muttered. "You are
dead, and I am going to kill your murderer!"
Calling up all his will-power, he crawled to the
juggler's head and set his fingers to the palpitating
throat. Another moment and the death of a fellow-
man would have been upon the soul of the scholarly
scientist, when an arm under his chest and an in-
sistent voice in his ear brought him back to reason.
"In God's name, Professor, don't strangle the
poor devil!"
The baresark grip relaxed. Professor Ravenden
collapsed, rolled over on his back and looked up
stupidly into the white face of Dick Colton.
"Where—where—is my pseudargiolus?" he
asked plaintively.
"It's all right, professor; there wasn't any
pseudargiolus. Just lie quiet for a moment."
Professor Ravenden struggled up to a sitting
posture. "Let me rise," he cried. "I have lost my
specimen of pseudargiolus. It fell when the jar
broke."
He looked about him, and his eyes fell on the
juggler.
"The pteranodon?" he queried. The mist was


194 THE FLYING DEATH
out to the spot was the dreadful familiar double
spoor of talons.
"You did that too," accused Colton.
For refutation "The Wonderful Whalley"
dropped to his knees and laid his hand over one of
the marks. The hand more than completely covered
the prints.
"You zee? " he said triumphantly.
"Whalley, what made that mark there?" said
Professor Ravenden.
Again that strange gesture from the juggler and
the quick shuddering in-draw of the shoulders.
"Ze death-bird, maybe," he said.
Nothing more could be gotten from him. They
delivered him at the coast-guard station to be
turned over to the authorities. When he was out
of their hands, Professor Ravenden insisted on re-
turning to look for the remains of his lost speci-
men, and was relieved at finding one wing intact.
Not until he had carefully folded this in paper did
he turn to Dick Colton with the question:
"What is your opinion of our problem now?"
"I'm at my wit's end," said Dick. "Possibly
we've got on the trail of another hand-walking
knife-thrower."
"Or the death-bird, the pteranodon," returned
Professor Ravenden quietly.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE LOST CLUE
IN his own way, Professor Ravenden possessed
as keen a detective instinct as Haynes himself.
The variation of a shade of a moth's wing, the
obscurest trait in the life-habit of some uncon-
sidered larva form, was sufficient to set him to the
trail, and sometimes with results that, to his com-
peers, seemed little short of marvellous. Science
had been enriched by his acumen, in several notable
instances, and thousands of farmers who had never
heard his name owed to him the immunity of cer-
tain crops from the ravages of their most destruc-
tive insect enemy.
In this work the pedantic professor was a true
zealot. So much did his enthusiasm partake of the
ardour of the hunt that he had found himself in the
readiest sympathy with Haynes' sharp and practi-
cal capacities. Now, for the first time, he had seen
a problem in his own department assume an aspect
of immediate and tremendous human importance.
That his part in the solution should be worked out
with flawless perfection was become a matter of
195


THE LOST CLUE 197
more wits. With some difficulty he was made to
understand what was expected of him; so, having
had the barrow handles inserted in his hard
young palms, and the professor pointed out to him
he patiently trudged along in the wake of the
savant, out across the hollows.
In a brief time the professor had found indica-
tions on half a dozen of the rocks. Glowing with
enthusiasm, he loaded them into the barrow, and
set a homeward pace, that made the sturdy little
Swede gasp before he had covered half the distance.
McDale, the reporter for one of the "yellow"
papers, saw them from his window, coming into the
yard.
"A good chance to get something from the pro-
fessor," he thought, and ran down to accost him.
Henkle, the Swede boy, hung about, open-
mouthed and staring stupidly.
"Go away. You're through. Skip!" said Mc-
Dale, indicating dismissal with a sweeping gesture.
Unfortunately the sweep of his arm was toward
the field whence the pair had just come with their
find. The tired boy uncomplainingly picked up the
handles of his barrow again and trudged away, un-
noticed by the professor, who was now deep in the
study of the first rock.


200 THE FLYING DEATH
Once more the voice was raised, but subsided into
a long, sobbing moan. Then the savant staggered
into view, carrying the limp form of the young
Swede.
"He has fainted," he said. "He was rushing by
me, quite unheeding my call, when I caught him
and he fell, as if shot. I trust he is not injured."
"Unhurt," said Dick Colton, "but literally
frightened almost to death."
Henkle came to half an hour later. No explana-
tion could be had of him, other than a shuddering
indication of some overhanging terror. Once he
made a sweeping gesture of the arms, much as had
Whalley on the night of the wreck. The physician
gave him a sleeping powder and arranged to see
him early in the morning.
He never saw the boy again. With the first light
he was gone, and his little belongings with him.
Afterward they found out that he had walked to the
station, and taken the morning train.
"There's a possible clue lost," said Dick Colton
to the professor, "that might have helped us."
But Professor Ravenden was little concerned.
He had discovered a print which might possibly
indicate a rudimentary sixth toe on the pteranodon
and he was absorbed in measurements.


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE PKOFESSOE'S SEEMON
FOLLOWING the injunction left by Haynes,
they buried him in the wind-swept, knoll be-
hind Third House. A clergyman who had
been sent for from New York took charge of the
services, which were attended by the score of news-
paper men and the little Third House group.
A pompous, precise, and rather important person,
was the clergyman; encased within a shell of prej-
udice which shut him off from any true estimate
of the man over whose body he was to speak.
In Haynes he was able to see only an agent in a
rather disapproved enterprise, mighty, indeed, but,
to his unseeing eye, without the ideals which he
had formulated for himself, and for those upon
whom he imposed his standards. So his address was
purely formal; with a note of the patronising and
the exculpatory as if there were something to be
condoned in the life which the reporter had laid
down.
At the end there were sneering faces among
the newspaper men. Helga wore an expression of
201


204 THE FLYING DEATH
How strangely work the influences of sympathy!
The reporters who listened with warming hearts to
the simple man of science had come to Haynes'
funeral primarily as a mark of respect, but sec-
ondarily because of their interest in a remarkable
"story." Whispers of the professor's pteranodon
theory had passed about. One or two of the men
besides McDale of the "yellow," had questioned
him shrewdly, and had seen that he would commit
himself to that theory. This meant a big sensation.
The practice of journalism tends to dwarf the im-
agination and to make men skeptical of all that lies
beyond the bounds of the usual. Not one of the re-
porters there took the slightest stock in the theory
of a prehistoric monster. Nevertheless, the mere
word of a man so eminent in the scientific world as
the entomologist would be enough to "carry the
story," and make it a tremendous feature. Columns
of space were in it. But it meant also, as every re-
porter there believed, the downfall of Professor
Ravenden's repute in a cataract of ridicule. As soon
as the newspaper group re-gathered at Third House,
McDale spoke.
"I'm going to do what I never expected to do,"
he said. "I'm going to throw my paper down."
"On the Eavenden story?" asked Eldon Smith.


THE PROFESSOR'S SERMON 207
"I suppose it must have been done aboard the
vessel before the man left in the breeches-buoy."
"The evidence of the sailors is all against that.
However, let it go at that. How about the sheep?
Why did he kill that?"
"For food. He was camping somewhere on the
knolls, and he had to eat."
"And he was frightened away before he could
make way with the carcass? Well, that's tenable.
Now we come to the unhorsing of my brother.
That might have been caused by poor Ely's kites,
as I figure it. They broke away, came zigzagging
past and frightened the mare into insanity. After-
ward they scared her over the cliff."
"I don't think so," said Eldon Smith. "In fact,
it's impossible."
"Impossible? How?"
"Dr. Colton, did it ever occur to you to look up
the weather records for that night?"
"No."
"I've looked them up. The wind was from the
southeast. Your brother was less than a mile from
the south shore. Mr. Ely was staying on the Sound
shore, northwest of there, and almost directly
down the wind. Now, how could the kites travel up-


208 THE FLYING DEATH
wind from Ely to the plac< '"re your brother
had his alarm?"
Oolton shook his head.
"Moreover," continued the reporter, "the mare
when she rushed to destruction ran in the face of
the wind. So the loose kites couldn't have pursued
her."
"That's true; but I see no reason why Ely
mightn't have walked across the point and flown
from the ocean side that evening."
"Here is what I copied from his calendar diary
for that night: 'Sept. 17th. Temperature notes of
no value. Upper currents fluctuant. Flew from
hillock 1-4 mile from Sound. Kites moving north-
ward out over the Sound. Furled kites at 9:30.'
(The time of your brother's experience more than
two miles away.) 'Results unsatisfactory.' Is that
definite enough?"
"Certainly, it seems so."
"It certainly does. Now, about the aerologist.
What was the cause of death?"
"It might have been either the stab-wound or
the crushing of the skull."
"The skull was badly crushed?"
"Yes, and the right arm and shoulder were
fractured."


THE PROFESSOR'S SERMON 211
head and shoulders as it would strike were the man
falling headlong."
"Headlong? From the empty air?"
"From the empty air," assented the other.
"You mean that his kites were a sort of flying-
machine?"
"It may be. Or he may have become entangled
in the lines and carried up after vainly struggling
through the shrubbery."
"But the wound? Could he have struck on some
sharp-pointed stake, and wriggled off in his death
convulsions?" mused Colton.
"You're a physician. Could he?"
"No, no, a thousand times no!"
"Well?"
"It was Whalley," said Dick Colton reflectively.
"Perhaps the kite-flyer fell near him, and in his un-
reasoning terror Whalley used his knife. And his
own fear that he spoke of, of the terror impending
over him, may have driven him to the murder."
"It must be so," said the reporter. "I see noth-
ing else for it. But I don't believe it all the same."
"Well, I don't know that I do, either, for that
matter," said Colton, as they drew in at the station.


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
READJUSTMENTS
IT was a week since the burial of Harris Haynes.
What remained of the mystery as a surplus
over and above the Whalley confession was
still unenlightened by any further clue. The jug-
gler had refused steadfastly to add anything to
his statement. Little opportunity had there been
of acquiring new information, for storm had fol-
lowed storm in quick succession, and though Dick
and Everard Colton had been out on the knolls at
all hours of day and night, and the intrepid profes-
sor, eluding his daughter by stealth, had covered
many dark miles of exploration, the shrouded foul-
ness of the weather had preserved whatever secret
Montauk Point still might hold.
To Dick Colton had come a deep content, for he
and Dolly had been drawn to a close comradeship
in the high pressure of events. Yet by a subtle de-
fence she had withheld from him anything more
than comradeship. Once again he had spoken; and
she had stopped him.
m


READJUSTMENTS 213
"Please, Dr. Colton!" she said. "Nothing that
you can say will make any difference. If I come
to you," she looked at him with the adorable and
courageous straightforwardness that seemed in his
eyes the final expression of her lovableness, " I shall
come of myself. As yet, I do not know. I am
growing to know you. It has been a very brief
time."
"It has been a crowded lifetime," said Dick
earnestly. "But I can wait, Dolly. You don't mind
if I call you that?"
"Even Everard does that," she said, smiling, and
to his surprise there followed a sharp blush. She
had recalled the self-betraying exasperation with
which she had resented, the day before, Everard's
addressing her, with apparent innocence, as "Sis-
ter Dot," and that youth's meek enjoyment of her
anger.
That had been the dying effort of Everard's
gaiety. In that week he had grown worn and
morose. More than once he would have left the
place; but Dolly Ravenden urged upon him that he
should stay until Helga had regained her normal
balance. To the girl's warm and full-blooded beauty
had succeeded a wan loveliness that made Everard's
heart ache whenever he looked at her. Seldom did


READJUSTMENTS 217
oak patch, and emerging from the farther side
sprinted over the hill and disappeared.
"Has he hurt you?" cried the young man.
"Helga, my dear! tell me he has not hurt"
"No," she said very low. "He was quite peace-
able. He has escaped from jail. I think he is sane
again and remorseful."
"You must let me take you home," he said. "You
must! Good heavens, Helga, anything might have
happened."
Everard was shaking as with an ague. A won-
derful softness came into the girl's face. "Were
you coming to speak to me?"
"To say good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye?" she repeated. "So soon? Must
it"
He stopped her with a swift, savage gesture.
"Helga, I can't stand it any longer! I would give
you the last drop of my blood, gladly, willingly,
if it would help you. But to be here as I am, to
see you every day, is more than I can endure. I
must get away. There is one other thing; I know
something of what Harris Haynes did for you."
He spoke more gently, looking with a wistful re-
spect at the grave. "Now that he has gone, you
must not let that make any difference in your op-


READJUSTMENTS 219
"If I only knew what was right," said the girl.
"If only Petit Pere was here to tell me!"
"Do you mean that you didn't care for him that
way?" cried Everard. "Helga, do you mean that
I had my chance? Is there still"
They had come around the corner of the piazza,
and there sat Dick Colton, tipped back on two legs
of his chair. He rose quickly and made for the
door. Helga called him back, and spoke brokenly:
"You must write to your mother. I cannot yet.
Oh, if I only dared be happy!" she wailed. "I
know how strongly Petit Pere felt against him,
against your family. I could not"
"Helga," said Dick, catching her hands in his.
"Listen, little girl, little sister. Haynes made me
one of his trustees for you. Do you know why?
Because he trusted me. Will you trust me too?"
Helga's tear-stained eyes looked into his. "Who
would not?" she said.
"•He left this charge in my honour: 'Use your
influence to guard her against marrying under cir-
cumstances that you would not approve for the
woman you loved best in the world.' With that
charge upon me I solemnly tell you that you may
come to us as with Harris Haynes' blessing!"
He put her hand in Everard's and disappeared


222 THE FLYING DEATH
ments of eager talk. "Wreck ashore. . . . Grave-
yard Point again. . . . Won't need the lanterns.
. . . Drat the rubber boots! . . . All go together."
Then said the wizard of dreams, who mismanages
such things, to Dick Colton: "It was all a phan-
tasy, the imaginings of a moment. The crowded
wonders in which you have taken part never hap-
pened. There have been no murders; there has
been no juggler, no kite-flyer, no mystery. Haynes
is alive; you can hear him moving about. You are
back where you belong, at the night of the ship-
wreck, and I have befooled you well with an empty
panorama."
"And Dolly?" cried the unhappy dreamer in such
a pang of protest that he came broad awake at
once. The wizard fled.
From below, the magic of Helga's voice rang out,
sounding once more, as he had not heard it since
Haynes' death, the vital ring of unconquerable
youth, but with a new and deeper undertone.
"Oh-ho! Yo-ho-ho, Everard! Come down!
There's a wreck ashore!"
And the quick answer: "All right! Be with you
in a minute."
Once more Dick's mind swung back. All was so
exactly parallel to the first night he had spent


THE LONE SURVIVOR 223
there. But the next instant he was plunging into
what garments came readiest to hand. Out into the
hall he bolted and came upon Dolly Ravenden and
her father so sharply that for a moment his con-
science was in abeyance; then, stricken with the
recollection of his moment's madness, he turned
away to Everard's door and caught that impulsive
youth's charge full in the chest.
"You up, Dicky?" cried the younger brother.
"And Dolly, too! We'll have a wreck party?"
"I wouldn't take it too much as an entertain-
ment, Ev," said his brother quietly.
"Of course! What a brute I am!" cried Everard
contritely. "Not having been here for the other
wreck, I forgot all that it brought about. You go-
ing with Dolly?"
"I think I'll go with you and Helga," said Dick.
"You needn't," returned the other so promptly
that Dick laughed aloud. "Oh, of course, we'll be
glad to have you," he continued hastily, "only I
thought you meant"
"Never mind, old man. We'll probably all be
together."
The Ravendens, Helga, her father, and the two
Coltons went out together into a night of moonlit
glory. A flying cloud-fleet, sailing homeward to


224 THE FLYING DEATH
port in the eastern heavens, dappled the far-
stretched landscape with shadows. The air was
keen and clear, with an electrifying quality that
made the blood bound faster. Dick felt a wild, in-
explicable elation, as if some climax of life were
promised by this marvel of the night's beauty.
His eager glance quested for Dolly. Her eyes met
his, and she turned away to her father. Yet there
was no anger in her mein: rather a soft confusion
and a certain pathetic timidity as she put her hand
on Professor Ravenden's arm, that made Dick's
heart jump. But when he would have gone to her
she shrank; and the lover, divining something of
her unexpressed plea, turned away to lead the little
procession. Once he dropped back to speak to
Helga, fearing for the effect of the excitement and
the fresh pang of recollection upon her. Like two
trustful children, she and Everard were swinging
along, hand in hand. The girl's eyes were wet with
tears, but there was an exaltation in her face as
she looked at her companion that brought a lump
into Dick's throat.
"Ev," he said in his brother's ear, " if you aren't
all that a man could be to her to your last breath,
you'll have me to reckon with!"
The younger man looked at him with shining


THE LONE SURVIVOR 229
proached with no lessening of pace, no swerve from
his course.
"Don't come any farther. Do you want to be
shot?"
This time it was Helga's voice. Whalley checked ■
his rush. His hands clutched at his breast; he
strove for utterance against an agonised exhaus-
tion. His arms beating out into the air expressed
with shocking vividness a warning of extremest
terror. Obviously there was nothing to fear from
the man in this mood. Nevertheless, Professor
Ravenden held his pistol ready as he went forward.
"Take—her—away!" he hacked out like a man
fighting for utterance in the last stage of strangula-
tion. "Eet—comes. I—haf—seen—eet!"
"Compose yourself, my man," soothed the pro-
fessor. "Be calm and explain what has so alarmed
you."
But the juggler only flung up his arms in a wild
gesture toward the sky, and dropped.
"We must call in the others," said Professor
Ravenden.
Helga lifted her head and sent her clear and
beautiful call rolling across the hills. At the sound
the juggler crawled to her feet and brokenly begged
her to keep silence. Before they could win an ex-


230 THE FLYING DEATH
plantation from him Everard's tall figure came
speeding down the hillside, and only half a minute
later Dick's great bulk toiled up through the ravine.
Johnston came in last. No sooner had Dick set
eyes on the juggler than he advanced upon him.
"You are our prisoner," he said. "Professor, is
he armed?"
"I have not ascertained. He is suffering from
an access of unmanning terror, and I believe is not
formidable."
"Anyway," said Dick, "we had best"
He broke off as the juggler drew from his belt one
of his huge, broad-bladed knives, which he doubt-
less had cached on the point before his capture.
"Cover him, professor," cried Dick.
"Do not tak eet away," begged the man. "We
will need eet. I bring eet, for her." He turned the
dog-like adoration of his eyes upon Helga. "She
safe my life; I die for her."
"What the deuce is he talking about? " growled
Everard.
"When I hear ze gun of ze sheepwreck, somesing
tell me she weel come out. I run here an'," a strong
shudder racked him, "I see eet."
"That's all very well," said Dick sternly. "But
you must come with us."


234 THE FLYING DEATH
aloft and shook him to earth again. It made the
footprints which Whalley"
"Eet will come back!" shrieked the little jug-
gler, who had been speechless with terror. "Eet
will kill you all! Zat is not matter. But her! Eet
shall not kill her while I leef! Eet see ze kite man,
an' I see it come down, an* I run. See! Ze
moon!"
From behind the clouds the moon moved again,
and now they saw the reptile swaying back toward
them. Of a sudden it uttered a harsh, grating sound
and passed.
"That is what I heard just before my horse
bucked," said Everard.
"Raucous—metallic," said the professor in rapt
tones. "Sounded twice—or was it three times?"
He looked up from his notes, questioning the group.
Again the hideous sound was borne to their ears
as the monster whirled and soared downward, in a
long slanting line.
"It has sighted us! " said Dick. "Dolly! Helga!
Run for the gully. Find what cover you can. Ev,
go with them."
Helga reached out her hand. "Come, Dolly," she
said.
For one moment the girl hesitated. Then, with a