ilroad ties, anything wooden within reach. The termite is a
ghastly menace. When they move in--men eventually move out! And their
appearance here in California has got many a nationally famous man half
crazy. That's what they mean to the average person!"

Jim, scratched his head. "I didn't think of that angle of it," he
admitted.

"Well, it's time you thought of something besides fantastic ways of
risking your life. The termite has been kept in place, till now, by only
two things: ants, which are its bitterest enemies, and constantly attack
and hamper its development; and climatic conditions, which bar it from
the temperate zones. Now suppose, with all their intelligence and force
of organization--not to mention that mysterious and terrible unknown
intelligence that leads them--they find a way to whip the ants once for
all, and to immunize themselves to climatic changes? Mankind will
probably be doomed."

"Gosh," said Jim, with exaggerated terror.

* * * * *

"Laugh if you want to," said Dennis, "but I tell you the termite is a
very real menace. Even in its present stage of development. And the
maddening thing is that we can't observe them and so discover how best
to fight them.

"To get away from the light that is fatal to them, they build mounds
like that behind us, of silicated, half-digested wood, which hardens
into a sort of cement that will turn the cutting edge of steel. If you
pry away some of the wall to spy on them, you get the fiasco I was just
rewarded with. If you try to penetrate to the depths of the mystery,
yards underground, by blowing up the termitary with gun powder, the only
way of getting to the heart of things--you destroy the termites. Strays
are seldom seen; in order, again, to avoid light and air-exposure, they
tunnel underground or build tubes above ground to every destination.
Always they keep hidden and secret. Always they work from within, which
is why walls and boards they have devoured look whole: the outer shell
has been left untouched and all the core consumed."

"Can't you get at the beasts in the laboratory?" asked Jim.

"No. If you put them into glass boxes to watch them, they manage to
corrode the glass so it ceases to be transparent. And they can bore
their way out of any wood, or even metal, containers you try to keep
them in. The termite seems destined to remain a gruesome, marvelous,
possibly deadly mystery."

* * *