lightning, Chick drew up on the narrow footway amo

t!" he m

could reach in the flashes, tall,

a wrong path," C

, fumbling at the b

lling himself 'the Thing that never was, and the Man wh

de his garment to

out his momentary shudder of fear o

cing!" cried Chick to

in exulta

tead of getting the tracing I had folded down on itself, h

loose lot of assorted postage stamps, ready to "trade"

at envelope, crushed down as Chick had pinned in the other paper. Released, it

rip of the pocket allowing it to drop out, "and if he can make anything by selling a hundred cancelled American two-cent stamps, he will do better

"I guess I'd better go back there, and n

path, pushing through clutching clumps of the soggy, clinging grass that had hidden the way

the best of a bad condition by righting an old, rickety chai

hers! I remember that I was sorting out the drawings of the new, all-metal ship, to make blue-prints in the morning. Scott

Doc, sweeping up, to find t

s any money to buy big bottles of alcohol. If he had been paid by anybody for the new designs,

ed ghost? Chick wondered, clutching his torn, soggy coat as tightly about him as possible. Not that it

nt to that dark, gloom-cr

ling, slapping, like water against pilings. It was too

re was a trap do

m that had concealed it, an unclosed flap of the flooring, leaning back against the wall. In t

man can get down to the dories he keep

plore the mysterious

on the fury of the water bene

told me all that made-up stuff, and then went out. He came back, over the dories, maybe, under the place, and

an equally sensible explanation for the spectre that h

" Chick objected to his own hopeful

wet garb, wondering how long the success

flailed his arms and did gymnastic exercises to pr

tfully, rain ceased, thunder grumbled and ceased to crash,

attering shreds of the tempest, "maybe I ought to try to get home. They'll be wor

but far up

n to make itsel

squitos, made ferocious by the cooling air, attacked Chick in swarms. He ret

f several cases of people, lost in marshy country, who had been dangerous

g out and spreading the m

e. He wondered, as he studied it, why Doc had ch

he new pontoon design, the special tail construction plans, the details of the way the plates would fit together for strength and li

ed up,

he asked himself,

curled paper back into his coat, butto

humping came to

wondered. "Where i

use-still,

at the

was in h

Something-or someone-was fumbling at the

pook had been only a man made horrible by light and q

tch cl

door bega

-Chick fixed his gaze

door came inward, banging

are-there was n

to the door. He looked out. The path, the planking, the platfo

it, bracing it against another strange attack. He stood over

flame flared up,

ed Chick's ears as he cowered in the dar

ross the floor, the