no bed, no roof for us here. This
place has been completely done up. It is exhausted. To get facts we must
move on."

"Jove, you're right, old man!"

Mr. Ticks acknowledged the compliment with a slight motion of his hand.

"Yes, I have just purchased the only team to be had, for four hundred
dollars."

Swift glanced enviously at his autumnal colleague, who had already
outdone him in enterprise.

"Cyclones and tornadoes in this part of the country," proceeded Mr.
Ticks sententiously, "travel to the northeast. We will go to the north.
If there are any remains they are to be found there," Mr. Ticks had, it
would seem, embraced the tornado theory.

"We will go immediately!" exclaimed Swift.

"Hold!" cried the man of figures quietly, "I wish to test this
phenomenon. Wait for me here!"

Before Swift could utter a protest or arrest his colleague's arm, the
philosopher started up the vacant track. No one dared to follow him. The
crowd were too much stunned at his audacity. Had they not dragged a
dozen adventurers back from the same mad enterprise? Men shuddered
before this unknown fate that stretched out its relentless arms so far
and no further. A cocked pistol would have been more comfortable.

But Mr. Ticks walked on slowly, unconsciously, as if in a revery. He put
his hands out as if to feel the air. He put his tongue out as if to
taste it. He had not gone forty feet when he was observed to tremble
violently. Those on the dead line united with Swift in shrieking "Come
back!" The experimenting member of the _Planet_ staff only shook his
head. He was not twenty yards away when he stopped abruptly. He put his
hands to his head and heart, and struggled against the unseen force. It
beat upon him: but he steadied his legs the firmer and met the shock. It
smote at him, but he wearily smiled in return. He even made a motion as
if for his notebook. But such temerity was too much for the occult
fluid to suffer. It breathed upon him and felled him to the ground. As
he dropped he rested for a moment spasmodically upon one knee, and
peered into the air as if he were penetrating the secret of this baleful
agent. Then he fell back insensible.

Half an hour afterwards the newspaper man came to. Swift was bending
over him.

"We rushed you out. You'll pull through all right, old man," said his
colleague cheerily.

"Did you note the symptoms?" asked Mr. Ticks feebly.

"Yes."

"Did you wire them?"

"No; I hadn't time. I---