The greatest adventure
"On that beach another thought disturbed me greatly. All those monsters
gave me the impression of being badly botched jobs. Suppose you were
aiming to create a harmless toad and achieved a deadly rattlesnake. You
wouldn't consider yourself a master of the technique of life, would
you? Well, neither can the beings whose scientific blundering millions
of years ago started the evolution of all those hideous monsters on the
beach.
"What those misguided experimenters intended to do I don't know.
What they did start, I do know, and I pronounce its fruit an obscene
abomination. Not one of those huge creatures had intelligence above a
worm's and not one of them ever could be of any possible value to the
world. They are merely gigantic feeding, breeding and fighting machines
with just a spark of intelligence--enough to make them exceedingly
dangerous and no more.
"I suspect that all those huge brutes are, as I have tried to make
clear, the result of minute seeds first created and sown millions of
years ago. Further, I believe that nature, taking the artificially
created seeds, has grown from them, through countless mutations, the
changing shapes whose perfected, dangerous uselessness infests the
secret places of this continent. The beginning was unnatural, the
development and its conclusion are the work of natural laws.
"Finally I believe that the original creators of those monstrosities
realized when it was too late what they were doing, foresaw its
consequences, became terrified, tried to undo their blundering work
and perished in a war to destroy their own creations. This, however,
belongs to Drake's part of the investigation. He can tell it better
than I.
"Now last, let me say exactly what I expect to get from this
expedition. I hope from close study of the anatomy, habits and
environment of these strange creatures to rediscover their origin.
See what this implies. If I am successful I shall be able to create
artificially a true living seed of life. Whether or not I shall wish to
do so depends upon what we discover in the next few days.
"Mind, I am not expecting to make a gigantic lizard out of dead slime
or anything of that fantastic sort. But I do hope to rediscover the
lost secret which started all those monstrosities. A mere speck of
living matter, a single cell visible only under a high power microscope
is all that I shall achieve, if anything. For I am convinced that the
originators of that aborted creation on the beach achieved no more.
One spark starts the forest fire; their invisible specks of artificial
living matter started the self-imposed catastrophe that wiped them out."
"But Doctor," Ole objected, "if they only made those very small specks
of living matter how were they wiped out? You say it took millions of
years to evolve dangerous animals out of those bad beginnings. The
things were too small, according to you, to bother a flea. If I get
your meaning they were nothing better than pieces of jelly invisible to
the naked eye. How could such things fight anybody?"
"That is what I hope to find out, definitely and in detail. Drake and I
already have a rational theory."
"Is it your theory that they were disease germs when first created?"
"No, Ole, nothing so romantic. As I tried to make plain a robin's egg
will never hatch crocodiles. Nor will a disease germ ever evolve into a
three hundred foot brute with a head and body like a bad dream."
"Then what is your theory?"
"On that point, if I understand your question, I have none. Before
indulging in hypotheses on the origin of life I shall find out the
facts."
"Listen, Doctor. I have a theory. Those things were first created--"
"Oh, pipe down, Ole." The Captain was back on the job. "Now Drake, let
us have your side of it."
"It is so late," Drake yawned, "that I shall have to beg off this time.
We start at five in the morning. Good-night, everybody."
16
ATTACK
By forced marches the party reached the north shore of the oil lake
early the third morning after leaving the ship. Lane, Anderson, Ole and
Drake had gone by land. Edith was to arrive at the base by air. While
the men marched she flew back and forth to the ship for last minute
supplies which she dropped conveniently near the southern boundary of
the oil lake.
No detail that might increase the safety of the expedition had been
neglected. Between the ship and the north shore of the lake a chain
of provision caches made starvation impossible no matter what might
happen. The party of five might all have hung onto the plane somehow,
and so have reached their goal more quickly. But for several reasons
they decided to march, carrying with them the essentials of a light
prospecting outfit. Anderson half expected to find indications of oil
by zigzagging slightly across the line of caches. He was nothing if not
optimistic.
In case of an accident to the ship, Bronson's men had deposited
provisions in caches parallel to the inlet north a distance of forty
miles. As a final measure of safety they had landed every gallon of
petrol, storing it a mile inland in a deep dugout. Even if forced to
flee on foot the expedition would have sufficient provisions. Each
man could pack on his back a sleeping bag and short rations enough
from the northerly caches to last him to the coast. Should no whaling
vessel appear within two weeks to take them off, Edith or Ole was to
fly northeast to the nearest whaling station for help. No member of the
party expected the worst to happen. But Anderson disbelieved in luck,
preferring arduous certainty to easy going chance.
At this moment the Captain, speechless with cupidity, was gazing over
the thirty-mile expanse of bubbling black oil. With a hundred huge
fortunes before his eyes he was beginning to regret that Ole and
the crew had been promised a share of the profits. More potential
gold bubbled and swirled in that vast bowl than the most ingeniously
dissolute debauchee could squander in fifty lifetimes. Yet the Captain
wished that Ole and the crew were in Halifax. Such is human nature.
The men were waiting for Edith. She was to transport them and their
packs comfortably one at a time to the south shore of the lake. They
were then to march at once for the blowholes where Edith and Ole had
seen the monsters warming themselves. Lane's objective was the ruined
crater. He and Drake were determined to inspect the black rocks at
first hand. The shattered floor being his ultimate goal, the Doctor
hoped also to penetrate the black smoke at the bottom and search for
further animal remains.
An immediate assault on the crater would, of course, be suicide. The
famished monsters would consider the party as a trifling hors d'oeuvre
vouchsafed by the generosity of Heaven for the great feast to come.
How then were the explorers to traverse the region of blowholes, scale
the crater lip, and reach the Doctor's objective? This puzzle had
exercised the wits of the party for the first two days after the return
of Edith and Ole with the devil chick. Between the oil lake and the
black rocks lay the blowholes, and round these the sociable monsters
might gather at just the most embarrassing moment.
The puzzle had indeed seemed unsolvable. Of all unpracticable beings it
was Drake who solved the problem by a brilliant flash of imagination.
And of all things that might have inspired him it actually was the
last that might occur to a practical man. Who but Drake would have
turned for inspiration to the memory of his sufferings in a dentist's
chair? Having sat for several hours with the glass hook of a long
rubber siphon under his tongue, he now remembered his discomfort with
advantage.
As a consequence Edith and Ole during the six days following had
transported every foot of hose--fire hose and other--on the ship to the
south shore of the oil lake. All the iron pipe that could be spared
also was taken to the same depot. To both ends of each section of hose
the men had tied heavy iron slugs, and the end of each pipe they bent
into a short L. This inefficient looking junk, a tangle of doubly
weighted hoses and bent pipes, constituted the entire arsenal of the
attacking party. With this alone they must overcome the army of huge
lizards. Otherwise they must turn back, provided they were not eaten
first.
"There she comes," the Doctor announced, pointing to a tiny speck
against the blue far to the north. "Ole, you fly over the first and
take our packs. Hang them on somehow."
Ole seemed nervous at the prospect of being left alone with the packs
on the south shore while Edith returned for the next passenger.
"What if those brutes come out to get warm while the plane is over on
this side?"
"But you said the blowholes end quite a distance south of the lake,"
the Doctor replied. "They won't come several miles from the heat just
to say hello to you."
"They will if they smell me."
"Cheer up, Ole," said Drake; "we will see you avenged."
"Lot of good that will do me. You go over first."
"I'm not fat enough."
The dispute was cut short by the landing of Edith.
"Captain Anderson," she began at once, "Bronson asked me to tell you
that he may be forced to steam down the inlet at any minute. A wave of
warm water came down again early this morning."
"Boiling?"
"No, just warm enough to raise a thick fog over the inlet."
"There is no great danger, I guess. If he has to run he can make it.
And we are safe with all the supplies cached and the plane. What did he
want me to do?"
"To send back word by me if he is to move at once. If he doesn't hear
from you by night he will stay where he is."
"What about it, Lane?"
"I see no immediate danger. There has been no violent earthquake."
"That's my best judgment too. He is safe enough where he is. All right,
Ole, hop in. Miss Lane will waft you over for lunch."
"For lunch?"
"Yes, idiot. Not yours, theirs."
With a fat groan Ole obeyed orders.
Arrived at the south shore of the lake they noted with alarm that the
oil had risen since their visit the previous week. The black waves
were crawling slowly up the narrow rise separating the lake from the
chain of blowholes. Should the wall of rock and ice give way under the
steadily increasing pressure, Anderson's fortune would vanish down the
blowholes in a week. The thought that even if the wall held yet a flow
of oil over the top might overspread the plain and catch fire from the
blowholes, setting the entire lake aflame, was anything but reassuring.
Leaving Ole to his dismal theories Edith skimmed back for the next
passenger.
Shortly after one o'clock the party assembled on the south shore
with their packs, ready for the opening move of their offensive. The
blowholes were still quiescent. This favoring the strategy of the
proposed attack the party decided to take advantage of it immediately.
Their first question was, who is to bell the cat? More definitely,
which members of the party should risk their lives to carry out Drake's
ingenious plan? The scheme demanded half an hour's work around the
blowholes. The workers, if seen by the reptiles, certainly would be
welcomed by the whole rookery. And no pair of human legs was a match
for the slowest of the huge lizards. Again, if the work party proceeded
on foot by daylight to the blowholes they were sure to be seen. If they
waited till dark the blowholes might flare up just at the wrong time,
and refreshments would enliven an otherwise dull gathering round the
home fires. It was clear that the party must go by airplane.
The landing on a plain spotted with bottomless wells would be difficult
enough, but the quick escape, if necessary, would be a feat for the