ud,
now; the irreverent Holden was for the moment nonexistent.

"And the something, the unknown intelligence, that seems to rule each
termitary! The something that seems able to combine oxygen from the air
with hydrogen from the wood they eat and make necessary moisture; the
something that directs all the blind subjects in their marvelous
underground architecture; the something that, at will, hatches a dozen
different kinds of beings from the common stock of eggs--what can it be?
A sort of super-termite? A super-intellect set in the minute head of an
insect, yet equal to the best brains of mankind? We'll probably never
know, for, whatever the unknown intelligence is, it lurks in the
foundations of the termitaries, yards beneath the surface, where we
cannot penetrate without blowing up the whole mound--and at the same
time destroying all the inhabitants."

Jim helped Denny gather up his scientific apparatus. They started across
the fields toward Denny's roadster, several hundred yards away--Jim,
blond and bulking, a hundred and ninety pounds of hardy muscle and bone;
Denny wiry and slender, dark-eyed and dark-haired. The sledge-hammer and
the rapier; the human bull, and the human panther; the one a student
kept fit by outdoor studies, and the other a careless, rich young
time-killer groomed to the pink by the big-game hunting and South Sea
sailing and other adventurous ways of living he preferred.

"This stuff is all very interesting," he said perfunctorily, "but what
has it to do with practical living? How will the study of bugs, no
matter how remarkable the bug, be of benefit to the average man? What I
mean is, your burning zeal--your really bitter disappointment a minute
ago--seem a bit out of place. A bit--well, exaggerated don't you know."

* * * * *

Denny halted; and Jim, perforce, stopped, too. Denny's dark eyes burned
into Jim's blue ones.

"How does it affect practical living? You, who have been in the tropics
many times on your lion-spearing and snake-hunting jaunts, ask such a
thing? Haven't you ever seen the damage these infernal things can do?"

Jim shook his head. "I've never happened to be in termite country,
though I've heard tales about them."

"If you've heard stories, you have at least in idea of their deadliness
when they're allowed to multiply. You must have heard how they literally
eat up houses and the furnishings within, how they consume telegraph
poles, ra