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Show "I don't know that, either," laughed Godfrey; '1 found it clinging to the box that this gold serpent was brought in. 1 suppose my old Reuben is responsible." re-sponsible." "If the Cardinal Woods are the lurking lurk-ing places for things like this," said I, I am sorry that 1 am going to the Cardinal W oods." j "Are you'.'" asked Godfrey; "for the shooting?" j "Yes, with Barris and Pierpont. Why don't you kill that creature?" "Go off on your shooting trip and let me alone," laughed Godfrey. 1 shuddered at the "crab" and bade Godfrey good-by until December. That night Pierpont, Barris and I sat chatting in the smoking car of the Quebec express when the long train pulled out of the Grand Central depot. de-pot. Old David had gone forward with the dogs; poor things, they hated to ride in the baggage car, but the Quebec Que-bec - & Northern road provides no sportsmen's cars, and David and the three Gordon setters were in for an uncomfortable night. Except for Pierpont, Barris and myself my-self the car was empty. Barris, trim, stout, ruddy and bronzed, sat drumming drum-ming on the window-ledge, puffing a short fragrant pipe. His gun-case lay beside him on the floor. "When I have white hair and years of discretion," said Pierpont, languidly. languid-ly. "I'll not flirt with pretty serving-maids; serving-maids; will you, Roy?" "No," said I, looking at Barris. "You mean the maid with the cap, in the Pullman car?" said Pierpont. "Yes," sat'd Pierpont. I smiled, for I had seen it also. Barris twisted his crisp gray mustache mus-tache and yawned. "You children .had better be toddling tod-dling off to bed," he said. "That lady's maid is a member of the secret service." ser-vice." "Oh," said Pierpont, "one of your colleagues?" "You might present us, you know," I said; "the journey is monotonous." "Wrong! Billy Pierpont," said Barris. Bar-ris. coolly. "Gold was an element when I went to school," said L ."It has not been an element for two weeks." said Barris; "and. except Gen. Drummond. Prof. La Grange and myself, my-self, you two youngsters are the only people except one in the world who know it or have known it." "Do you mean to say that gold is a composite metal?" said Pierpont, slowly. "I do. La Grange has made it. He produced a scale of pure gold day before be-fore yesterday. That nugget was manufactured man-ufactured gold." Could Barris be joking? Was this a colossal hoax? .1 looked at Pierpont. He muttered something about that settling set-tling the silver question, and turned his head to Barris, but there was that in Barris' face which forbade jesting, and Pierpont and I sat silently pondering. ponder-ing. "Don't ask me how it's made," said Barris, quietly; "I don't know. But I do know that somewhere in the region re-gion of the Cardinal Woods there is a gang of people who do know how gold is made, and who make it. You understand under-stand the danger this is to every civi lized nation. It's got to be stopped, of course. Drummond and I have decided de-cided that I am the man to stop it. Wherever and whoever these people are these gold-makers they must be caught, every one of them caught or shot." "Or shot," repeated Pierpont, who was owner of the Cross-Cut gold mine and found his income too small; "Prof La Grange will of course be prudent science need not know things that would upset the world!" "Little Willy," said Barris, laughing, "your income is safe." "I suppose," said I, "some flaw in the nugget gave Prof. La Grange the tip." "Exactly. He cut the flaw out before be-fore sending the nugget to be tested. 7 SERIAL ?' STORY gV J j THE MAKER ! OF MOONS . r ., x X j By I ROBERT W. CHAMBERS I I I I I i x Illustrations by J. J. Sheridan S (Copyright, O. P. Putnam's Sons.) CHAPTER I. Concerning Yue-Laou and the Xin 1 know nothing more than you shall know. I am miserably anxious to clear the matter up. Perhaps what I write may save the United States government govern-ment money and lives, perhaps it may arouse the scientific world to action; at any rate it will put an end to the terrible suspense of two people. Certainty Cer-tainty is better than suspense. If the government dares to disregard disre-gard the warning and refuses to send a thoroughly equipped expedition at once, the people of the state may take swift vengeance on the whole regions and leave a blackened, devastated waste where to-day forest and flowering flower-ing meadow land border the lake in the Cardinal Woods. You already know part of the story; the New York papers have been full of alleged details. This much is true: Barris caught the "Shiner," red-handed, red-handed, or rather yellow handed, for his pockets and boots and dirty fists were stuffed with lumps of gold. I say gold advisedly. You may call it what you please. You also know how Barris was but unless I begin at the beginning of my own experiences you will be none. the wiser after all. On the 3d of August of this present year I was standing in Tiffany's chatting chat-ting with George Godfrey of the designing de-signing department. On the glass counter coun-ter between us lay a coiled serpent, an exquisite specimen of chiseled gold. "No," replied Godfrey to my question, ques-tion, "it isn't my work; I wish it was. Why, man, it's a masterpiece!" "Whose?" I asked. "Now, I should be very glad to know also," said Godfrey. "We bought it from an old jay who says he lives in the country somewhere about the Cardinal Woods. That's near Starlit lake, I believe " "Lake of the Stars?" I suggested. "Some call it Starlit lake it's all the same. Well, my rustic Reuben says that he represents the sculptor of this snake for all practical and business busi-ness purposes. He got his price, too. We hope he'll bring us something more. We have sold this already to the Metropolitan museum." I was leaning idly on the glass case, watching the keen eyes of the artist in precious metals as he stooped over he gold serpent. "A masterpiece!" lie muttered to himself, fondling the glittering coil; "look at the texture! whew!" But I was not looking at the serpent. Something was moving -crawling out of Godfrey's coat pocket the pocket nearest me something soft and yellow with crab-like legs all covered with coarse yellow hair. "What in heaven's name," said I, "have you got in your pocket? It's crawling out it's trying to creep up your coat, Godfrey!" He turned quickly and dragged the creature out with his left hand. I shrank back as he held the repulsive re-pulsive object dangling before me, and he laughed and placed it on the counter. coun-ter. "Did you ever see anything like that?" he demanded. "No," said I, truthfully, "and I hope I never shall again. What is it?" "I don't know. Ask them at the Natural History museum they can't tell you. The Smithsonian is all at sea, too. It is, I believe, the connecting connect-ing link between a sea-urchin, a spider and the devil. It looks venomous, but I can't find either fangs or mouth. Is It blind? These things may be eyes, hut they look as if they were painted. A Japanese sculptor might have produced pro-duced such an impossible beast, but it is hard to believe that God did. It looks unfinished, too. I have a mad idea that this creature is only one of the parts of some larger and more grotesque organism it looks so lonely, lone-ly, so hopelessly dependent, so cursedly cursed-ly unfinished. I'm going to use it as a model. If I don't out-Japanese the Japs my name isn't Godfrey." The creature was moving slowly across the glass case towards me. I drew back. "Godfrey," I said. "I would execute a man wrho executed any such work as you propose. What do you want to perpetuate such a reptile for? I can stand the Japanese grotesque, but I can't stand that spider " "It's a crab." "Crab or spider or blind-worm ugh! What do you want to do it for? It's a nightmare it's unclean!" I hated the thing. It was the first living creature that I had ever hated. For some time I had noticed a damp, acrid odor in the air. and Godfrey said it came from the reptile. "Then kill it and bury it." I said; "and, by the way, where did it come from?" "Except for Pierpont, Barris and Myself, the Car Was Empty." He worked on the flaw and separated gold into its three elements." "He is a great man," said Pierpont. "but he will be the greatest man in the world if he can keep his discovery to himself." "Who?" said Barris. "Prof. La Grange." "Prof. La Grange was shot through the heart two hours ago," replied Barris, Bar-ris, slowly. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Barris had drawn a telegram from his pocket, and as he sat turning it over and over between his fingers he smiled. After a moment or two he handed it to Pierpont, who read it with slightly raised eyebrows. "It's rot I suppose it's cipher," he said; " I see it's signed by Gen. Drummond Drum-mond " "Drummond, chief of the government govern-ment secret service," said Barris. "Something interesting?" I inquired, lighting a cigarette. "Something so interesting," replied i Barris, "that I'm going to look into it myself " "And break up our shooting trio "No. Do you want to hear about it? Do you, Billy Pierpont?" "Yes," replied that immaculate young man. Barris rubbed the amher mouthpiece mouth-piece of his pipe on his handkerchief, cleared the stem with a bit of wire, puffed once or twice, and leaned back in his chair. "Pierpont," he said, "do you remember re-member that evening at the United States club when Gen. Miles, Gen. Drummond and I were examining that gold nugget that Capt. Mahad had? You examined it also, I believe." "I did," said Pierpont. "Was it gold?" asked Barris, drumming drum-ming on the window. "It was," replied Pierpont. "I saw it, too," said I; "of course it was gold." "Prof. La Grange saw it also," said Barris; "he said it was gold." After a silence Pierpont asked what tests had been made. "The usual tests," replied Barris. "The United States mint is satisfied that it is gold, so is every jeweler who has seen it. But it is not gold and yet it is gold." Pierpont and I exchanged glances. "Now," said I, "for Barris' usual coup de theatre; what was the nugget?" nug-get?" "Practically it was pure gold; but," said Barris, enjoying the situation intensely, in-tensely, "really it was not gold. Pierpont, Pier-pont, what is gold?" "Gold's an element, a metal " |