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But both Beatrice and the engineer understood, even at the first moment of their exit there, that they had entered an adventure whereof the end could not be foreseen; that here before them lay possibilities infinitely , they had underestiht, perhaps, there ht be five hundred in all

The torches had certainly numbered no more than that But now they realized that the torch-bearers had been but a very small fraction of the whole; for, as their eyes swept out through the forest, whence the fog had al mass of the creatures on every hand A mass that seemed to extend on, on to indefinite vistas A runted, stank, snarled, quarreled A htful hideousness, of inconceivable irl's first i once e checked it For Stern, she saw, had no such purpose

Surprised though he was, he stood there like a rock, head up, revolver ready, every h the girl flashed a thrill of ad with every difficulty, facing every peril--for her sake

Yet the words he uttered noere not of classic heroisant For Stern, his eyes blazing, said only: "We're in bad, girl! They're on--we've got to bluff--bluff like the devil!"

Have you ever seen a herd of cattle on the prairie, a herd of thousands, shift and face and, as by instinct, lower their horned heads against some enemy--a wolf-pack, maybe?

You know then, how this Horde of dwarfish, blue, warty, misformed little horrors woke to the presence of the unknown eneiven by the one, which, near the crack in the wall, had sniffed the intruders and had howled, the pack now broke into co, a shifting and a tuan to bristle

And all at once, as a dull, ugly hornet-huh the wood, they knew the oes!" cried Stern, raging "Let's see how this will strike the hell-hounds!"

His face white with passion and with loathing hate, he raised the autory as he was he realized that the ti, if othercould possibly avail