or some drug. I know
it was a drug they were compounding. Polter said so once, a
radio-active drug; I remember listening at the door. A drug, George,
capable of making a human being infinitely small!"

I did not answer when momentarily Alan paused. So strange a thing! My
mind whirled with it; struggled to encompass it. And like the
meaningless pieces of a puzzle, dropping so easily into place when the
key-piece is fitted. I saw Polter stealing that fragment of gold;
abducting Dr. Kent--perhaps because Polter himself was not fully
acquainted with the secret. And now, Polter, up here with a fabulously
rich "gold mine." And Babs, abducted by him, to be taken--where?

It set me shuddering.

"Alan!"

"That's what it was!" Alan reiterated. "And Polter, here now with what
he calls a 'mine.' It isn't a mine, it's a laboratory! He's got
father, too, hidden God knows where! And now Babs. We've got to get
them. George! The police can't help us! It's just you and me, to fight
this thing. And it's diabolical!"

CHAPTER II

_The Girl an Inch Tall_

We soared over the divided channel of the St. Lawrence, between
Orleans and the mainland. Montmorency Falls in a moment showed dimly
white through the murk to our left, a great hanging veil of ice higher
than Niagara. Further ahead, the lights of the little village of St.
Anne de Beaupre were visible with the gray-black, towering hills
behind them. Historic region! But Alan and I had no thoughts for it.

"Swing left, George. Over the mainland. That's St. Anne; we pass this
side of it. Put the mufflers on. This damn thing roars like a tower
siren."

I cut in the mufflers, and switched off our wing-lights. It was
illegal, but we were past all thought of that. We were both desperate;
the slow prudent process of acting within the law had nothing to do
with this affair. We both knew it.

Our little plane was dark, and amid the sounds of this night blizzard
our muffled engine could not be heard.

Alan touched me. "There are his lights; see them?"

We had passed St. Anne. The hills lay ahead--wild mountainous country
stretching northward to the foot of Hudson Bay. The blizzard was
roaring out of the north and we were heading into it. I saw, on what
seemed a dome-like hill perhaps a thousand feet above the river level,
a small cluster of lights which marked Polter's property.

"Fly over it once, George. Low--we can chance it. And find a place to
land outside the walls."

We p