"

"Probably the Manchurian devil shows itself only to you," said her
father jokingly. "Well, be careful, dear. If it takes a notion to jump
out at you, call me and I'll exorcise it for you."

Betty blushed and laughed again. She looked at Marable, expecting to see
a smile of derision on the young man's face, but his expression was
grave.

The light from above was diminishing; outside sounded the roar of
home-going traffic.

"Well, we must go home," said Professor Young. "There's a hard and
interesting day ahead of us to-morrow, and I want to read Orling's new
work on matrices before we begin chipping at the amber."

Young turned on his heel and strode toward the locker at the end of the
room where he kept his coat and hat. Betty, about to follow him, was
aware of a hand on her arm, and she turned to find Marable staring at
her.

"I saw them, too," he whispered. "Could it have been just imagination?
Was it some refraction of the light?"

* * * * *

The girl paled. "I--I don't know," she replied, in a low voice. "I
thought I saw two terrible eyes glaring at me from the inky heart. But
when father laughed at me, I was ashamed of myself and thought it was
just my fancy."

"The center is liquid, I'm sure," said Marable. "We will find that out
soon enough, when we get started."

"Anyway, you must be careful, and so must father," declared the girl.

She looked at the block again, as it towered there above them, as though
she expected it to open and the monster of the coolies' imagination leap
out.

"Come along, Betty," called her father.

She realized then that Marable was holding her hand. She pulled away and
went to join her father.

It was slow work, chipping away the matrix. Only a bit at a time could
be cut into, for they came upon many insects imbedded in the amber.
These small creatures proved intensely interesting to the
paleontologists, for some were new to science and had to be carefully
preserved for study later on.

Marable and her father labored all day. Betty, aiding them, was
obviously nervous. She kept begging her father to take care, and
finally, when he stopped work and asked her what ailed her, she could
not tell him.

"Be careful," she said, again and again.

* * * * *

Her father realized that she was afraid of the amber block, and he poked
fun at her ceaselessly. Marable said nothing.

"It's getting much softer, now