ped to his side and his fingers came in contact with a big
knife in the belt of the diving suit. Here was a weapon he had forgotten
all about.

He drew forth the blade. It seemed a small one with which to attack so
large and terrible a creature as the octupus. Yet to remain there,
knowing the boys were being killed was more than old Andy could stand.
Grasping the handle with a firm grip he started toward the cave. His
foot caught in something, and he nearly fell.

Looking down to see what had tripped him he saw a long thin pole,
straight as a lance. It had once been a tree limb, but all the branches
were stripped off.

"Now if I only had an iron point for that," Andy thought. Then he
recollected the knife in his hand.

"The very thing," he remarked aloud, the words sounding startlingly loud
in the confinement of the copper helmet. "If I only had something to
fasten the knife on the pole I could make a spear to attack the
octupus."

Then he saw long streamers of sea weed growing up from the ocean bed.
They were very tough, a kind of wirey grass that was as strong as rope.
Andy cut several streamers and, with a hunter's skill bound the knife to
the end of the staff.

Now he had a weapon formidable enough to venture in and give battle to
the monster. He hesitated no longer, fearing that even the short delay
might have been too much and that the boys were dead. He entered the
cave. At first he could perceive nothing for it was quite dark. Then, as
his eyes became used to the gloom, which the lamp in his helmet faintly
illuminated, he saw, far back in the rear, the horrible octupus.

Two dark objects, around which were wrapped several folds of the
terrible arms, Andy guessed to be Mark and Jack, and when he was a faint
glow coming from them he was sure they were the boys, the gleams coming
from the lamps in their helmets.

Warily the hunter approached the creature. If he had hoped to take it
unawares he was disappointed, for, when he had come within ten feet,
holding his improvised lance outstretched ready for a deadly thrust, the
creature shot out two long arms toward Andy.

Now the battle began. The snake-like feelers, armed with big saucer
shaped suckers, lashed about in the water, seeking to clasp the hunter
in their deadly embrace. But Andy, who had fought many kinds of wild
animals on land, did not lose his presence of mind in confronting this
beast of the sea.

Nimbly, in spite of the handicap of the heav