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What Went Before

THE teller of this story discovers a quart thermos bottle urning and twisting in the surf of a small island on Cape Farewell at the southern extremity of Greenland. He rescues it and finds that it contains a manuscript, neatly written and tightly folded, which tells the following story:

A young American, with his Airedale, Nobs, while floating on a raft, apparently the lone survivors of a ship torpedoed by a German submarine, discovers a beautiful young girl, seemingly dead, floating on the sea. He rescues her, she returns to consciousness, and later they both are picked up by an English vessel. Soon that vessel also is attacked by the same submarine, but the English captain tries to maneuver his ship to safety and a battle ensues. The ship sinks, but the crew, together with the American and the girl, Lys La Rue, gain control of the submarine and the Germans. Because it is a German submarine, no neutral or friendly boat will answer their call for help, and naturally they ask for none from a German ship.

Benson, who later confesses himself a traitor to the group, manipulates the compass so that they swerve far from their intended course and finally find themselves near an island, which they decide must be Caprona. On account of its tremendous inacessible cliffs, they cannot gain access to the interior. After much investigation and searching, they discover what seems a subterranean river. They submerge and soon find themselves in an open interior sea. Because they are in a submarine, they are able to go with comparative safety past the monstrous sea and air reptiles, which are plentiful and dangerous in warmer waters. They soon come to what seems a good landing place and an advance party lands to find a good camping place. They meet with a band of beings, closely resembling the Neanderthal man, who are quickly scared off by the sound of the dicharging rifle. One, a little more highly developed, is captured and brought back to the party. They soon learn something of his language and find him a great help around the island while they are building their camp.

Later, some of the group discover oil and the Germans are permitted to stay on the grounds, well provisioned and with plenty of ammunition, while they are refining the oil. When they have enough for their purposes, they surreptitiously return to the submarine and start for home, leaving the others stranded on the island.

Ahm, the Neanderthal man, tells of the "evolution" of his people—a process of graduation, whereby each one leaves his tribe and goes to the next one somewhat higher in the stage of development, "when the call comes." He expects some day to become a Galu—the highest stage, most nearly approximating the civilized man.

One morning, Lys La Rue fails to appear and Ahm has disappeared. Bowen Tyler, the young American, alarmed, goes to Lys' room and finds her gorie, apparently having been kidnapped. He immediately makes preparations to attempt a search and a rescue.

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT

By EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS Part II CHAPTER VIII horse, the latter ranging in size from a creature T WAS a sad leave-taking as in silence about as large as Nobs to a magnificent animal I shook hands with each of the three fourteen to sixteen hands high. These creatures remaining men. Even poor Nobs ap- fed together in perfect amity; nor did they show peared dejected as we quit the com- any great indications of terror when Nobs and I pound and set out upon the well-marked approached. They moved out of our way and kept their eyes upon us until spoor of the abductor. i m ^ m n we had passed; then they Not once did I turn my e y e s backward toward resumed their feeding. Fort Dinosaur. I have f O try to give you any idea of the second installment The path led straight task to giving a résumé not looked upon it since— of in a few lines ofwould be aRome akin several across the clearing into the history ancient in paragraphs. nor in all likelihood shall It can not be done. Burroughs has such a tremendous another forest, lying upon I ever look upon it again. imagination, and so many different things happen cm the verge of which I saw The trail led northwest almost every page, that he leaves you bewildered at the a bit of white. It aprichness of his imaginative outpouring. until it reached the westpeared to stand out in Perhaps the outstanding feature in this installment is ern end of the sandstone the depiction of evolution, which, although it taxes our marked contrast and incliffs to the north of the credulity, nevertheless is not wholly impossible, and it congruity to all its surfort; there it ran into a gives us a pretty good insight into a subject that has been roundings, and when I discussed, but which has not made much headwell-defined path which much thus far. stopped to examine it, T way _ found that it was a small wound northward into a country we had not as yet — — — — M i ^ — — s t r i p of muslin — part of explored. It was a beauthe hem of a garment. tiful, gently rolling country, broken by occasional At once I was all excitement, for I knew that it was outcroppings of sandstone and by patches of dense a sign left by Lys that she had been carried this forest relieved by open, parklike stretches and way; it was a tiny bit torn from the hem of the broad meadows whereon grazed countless herbivor- undergarment that she wore in lieu of the nightous animals—red deer, aurochs, and infinite variety robes she had lost with the sinking of the liner. of antelope and at least three distinct species of Crushing the bit of fabric to my lips, I pressed

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