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Professor Maxon leaned over von Horn's shoulder. "Ah, poor Number One," he

sighed, "that you should have come to such an untimely end--my child, my

child."

Von Horn looked at him, a tinge of compassion in his rather hard face. It touched

the man that his employer was at last shocked from the obsession of his work to

a realization of the love and duty he owed his daughter; he thought that the

professor's last words referred to Virginia.

Though there are twelve more," continued Professor Maxon, "you were my first

born son and I loved you most, dear child."

The younger man was horrified.

My God, Professor!" he cried. "Are you mad? Can you call this thing 'child' and

mourn over it when you do not yet know the fate of your own daughter?"

Professor Maxon looked up sadly. "You do not understand, Dr. von Horn," he

replied coldly, "and you will oblige me, in the future, by not again referring to the

offspring of my labors as 'things.'"

With an ugly look upon his face von Horn turned his back upon the older man--

what little feeling of loyalty and affection he had ever felt for him gone forever.

Sing was looking about for evidences of the cause of Number One's death and the

probable direction in which Virginia Maxon had disappeared.

"What on earth could have killed this enormous brute, Sing? Have you any

idea?" asked von Horn.

The Chinaman shook his head.

"No savvy," he replied. "Blig flight. Look see," and he pointed to the torn and

trampled turf, the broken bushes, and to one or two small trees that had been

snapped off by the impact of the two mighty bodies that had struggled back and

forth about the little clearing.

"This way," cried Sing presently, and started off once more into the brush, but

this time in a northwesterly direction, toward camp.

In silence the three men followed the new trail, all puzzled beyond measure to

account for the death of Number One at the hands of what must have been a

creature of superhuman strength. What could it have been! It was impossible

that any of the Malays or lascars could have done the thing, and there were no

other creatures, brute or human, upon the island large enough to have coped

even for an instant with the ferocious brutality of the dead monster, except--von

The Monster Men