said Mr. Trinkle, infuriated. Sayre looked up.
"The poem gets the hook!" he snarled. "Go on!"
"The next," continued young Sayre, referring to his edible note-book, "is the case of De Lancy Smith. On May 16th he left his camp, taking with him his rod with the intention of trying for some of the larger, wilder, and more dangerous trout which it is feared still infest the remoter streams of the State forest.
"His luncheon, consisting of truffled patés and champagne, was found by a searching party, but De Lancy Smith has never again been seen or heard of. He was young, well built, handsome, and – "
"In excellent physical condition!" snapped Mr. Trinkle. "That's the third Adonis you've described. Quit it!"
"But that is the exact description of those three young men – "
"Every one of 'em?"
"Every one. They all seem to have been exceptionally handsome and healthy."
"Well, does that suggest any clue to you? Think! Use your mind. Do you see any clue?"
"In what?"
"In the probably similar fate of so much masculine beauty?"
The young men looked at him, perplexed, silent.
Mr. Trinkle waved his hands in desperation.
"Wake up!" he shouted. "Doesn't it strike you as odd that every one of them so far has been Gibsonian perfection itself? Doesn't that seem funny? Doesn't it suggest some connection with the present Franchise strike?"
"It is odd," said Langdon, thoughtfully.
"You notice," bellowed Mr. Trinkle, "that no young man disappears who isn't a physical Adonis, do you? No thin-shanked, stoop-shouldered, scant-haired highbrow has yet vanished. You notice that, don't you, Sayre? Open your mouth and speak! Say anything! Say pip! if you like – only say something!"
The young man nodded, bewildered, and his mouth remained open.
"All right, all right – as long as you do notice it," yelled the city editor, "it looks safe for you; I guess you both will come back, all right – in case any of these suffragettes have become desperate and have started kidnapping operations."
Langdon was rather thin; he glanced sideways at Sayre, who wore glasses and whose locks were prematurely scant.
"Go on, William," he said, with a crisp precision of diction which betrayed irritation and Harvard.
Sayre examined his notes, and presently read from them:
"The fourth and last victim of the Adirondack wilderness disappeared very recently – May 24th. His name was Alphonso W. Green, a wealthy amateur artist. When last seen he was followed by his valet, who carried a white umbrella, a folding stool, a box of colours, and several canvases. After luncheon the valet went back to the Gilded Dome Hotel to fetch some cigarettes. When he returned to where he had left his master painting a picture of something, which he thinks was a tree, but which may have been cows in bathing, Mr. Green had vanished… Hum – hum! – ahem! He was young, well built, handsome, and – "
"Kill it!" thundered the city editor, purple with passion.
"But it's the official descrip – "
"I don't believe it! I won't! I can't! How the devil can a whole bunch of perfect Apollos disappear that way? There are not four such men in this State, anyway – outside of fiction and the stage – "
"I'm only reading you the official – "
Mr. Trinkle gulped; the chewing muscles worked in his cheeks, then calmness came, and his low and anxiously lined brow cleared.
"All right," he said. "Show me, that's all I ask. Go ahead and find just one of these disappearing Apollos. That's all I ask."
He shook an inky finger at them impressively, timing its wagging to his parting admonition:
"We want two things, do you understand? We want a story, and we want to print it before any other paper. Never mind reporting progress and the natural scenery; never mind telegraphing the condition of the local colour or the dialect of northern New York, or your adventures with nature, or how you went up against big game, or any other kind of game. I don't want to hear from you until you've got something to say. All you're to do is to prowl and mouse and slink and lurk and hunt and snoop and explore those woods until you find one or more of these Adonises; and then get the story to us by chain-lightning, if," he added indifferently, "it breaks both your silly necks to do it."
They passed out with calm dignity, saying "Good-bye, sir," in haughtily modulated voices.
As they closed the door they heard him grunt a parting injury.
"What an animal!" observed Sayre. "If it wasn't for the glory of being on the N. Y. Star– "
"Sure," said Langdon, "it's a great paper; besides, we've got to – if we want to remain next to Uncle Augustus."
It was a great newspaper; for ethical authority its editorials might be compared only to the Herald's; for disinterested principle the Sun alone could compare with it; it had all the lively enterprise and virile, restless energy of the Tribune; all the gay, inconsequent, and frothy sparkle of the Evening Post; all the risky popularity of the Outlook. It was a very, very great New York daily. What on earth has become of it!
II
LANGDON, very greasy with fly ointment, very sleepy from a mosquitoful night, squatted cross-legged by the camp fire, nodding drowsily. Sayre fought off mosquitoes with one grimy hand; with the other he turned flapjacks on the blade of his hunting-knife. All around them lay the desolate Adirondack wilderness. The wire fence of a game preserve obstructed their advance. It was almost three-quarters of a mile to the nearest hotel. Here and there in the forest immense boulders reared their prehistoric bulk. Many bore the inscription: "Votes for Women!"
"I tell you I did see her," repeated Sayre, setting the coffee-pot on the ashes and inspecting the frying pork.
"The chances are," yawned Langdon, rousing himself and feebly sucking at his empty pipe, "that you fell asleep waiting for a bite – as I did just now. Now I've got my bite and I'm awake. It was a horse-fly. Aren't those flapjacks ready?"
"If you're so hungry, help yourself to a ream of fish-wafer," snapped Sayre. "I'm not a Hindoo god, so I can't cook everything at once."
Langdon waked up still more.
"I want to tell you," he said fiercely, "that I'd rather gnaw circles in a daisy field than eat any more of your accursed fish-wafer. Do you realise that I've already consumed six entire pads, one ledger, and two note-books?"
Sayre struck frantically at a mosquito.
"I wonder," he said, "whether it might help matters to fry it?"
"That mosquito?"
"No, you idiot! A fish-wafer."
"You'd better get busy and fry a few trout."
"Where are they?"
"In some of these devilish brooks. It's up to you to catch
