ss for human beings to drift into this
territory--and the _Bengal Queen_ had obligingly gone down off the
coast, throwing Ellen Estabrook and Lee Bentley into Barter's power.

* * * * *

What was Barter doing now? Would he not be striving to watch the
course of his experiment? Would he not think of details hitherto
overlooked and plan further experiments, or an enlarging of this
experiment of which three creatures were the victims? Surely Barter
would not remain quietly at Barterville while the subjects of his
experiment went deeper into the jungle with the great apes. Barter was
too thorough a scientist for that. Somehow, Bentley was sure, Barter
would know what was happening, even at this very moment.

He would wish to know how a modern woman would conduct herself if
suddenly forced to live among apes. Therefore he would try in some
manner to keep watch over the conduct of Ellen Estabrook. He would
wonder how a modern man would conduct himself if he suddenly found,
himself the leader of that same group of apes, and how an ape would
behave if he suddenly discovered himself a man. It was a neat
"experiment," and Bentley was beginning to believe that there was
probably far more to it than there first had seemed.

Barter would wish to know how all three creatures would conduct
themselves in certain circumstances--Apeman, Ellen and Bentley. He
would not leave it to chance, for Bentley now realized that Barter
himself did not feel inimical to either Ellen, Apeman or Bentley. To
him they were merely an experiment. Barter would not wish for Apeman
to die, and thus deprive Barter of a certain knowledge relative to one
angle of his unholy experiment. He would not wish for Manape-Bentley
to remain forever as Manape-Bentley, lacking the power of speech,
either human speech or the gibberish of the apes.

No, all this was not being left to chance. Bentley believed that
Barter was directing the destination of these three subjects of his,
as surely as though he were right with them at this moment, driving
them to his will with that awful lash which had made him feared by the
great apes.

* * * * *

Yes, Barter was still the master mind. It made Bentley feel awfully
helpless. Yet--he was the leader of the great apes. That, too, Barter
must have foreseen. Would Barter try in any way to discover how
Bentley would behave in an emergency as leader of the apes? Would he