btful,
you may be less positive in your ideas, if you can call them ideas."

"That is one for me," Wilson said good humoredly, while the others
laughed.

"Well, I have never seen them, Doctor, except those fellows who come
around to the veranda, and I have seen conjurers at home do ever so much
better tricks than they."

"What do you think of them, Mr. Bathurst?" Isobel asked. "I suppose you
have seen some of the better sort?"

"I do not know what to think of them, Miss Hannay. I used to be rather
of Wilson's opinion, but I have seen things since that I could not
account for at all. There was a man here two or three months back who
astounded me."

"Mrs. Hunter said that the girls had had no opportunity of seeing a good
conjurer since they came out, Mr. Bathurst. I suppose they did know this
man you are speaking of being here?"

"He was only here for a few hours, Miss Hannay. I had happened to
meet him before, and he gave me a private performance, which was quite
different to anything I have ever seen, though I had often heard of the
feats he had performed. I was so impressed with them that I can assure
you that for a few days I had great difficulty in keeping my mind upon
my work."

"What did he do, Mr. Bathurst?"

Bathurst related the feat of the disappearing girl.

"She must have jumped down when you were not looking," Richards said,
with an air or conviction.

"Possibly," Bathurst replied quietly; "but as I was within three or
four yards of the pole, and it was perfectly distinct in the light of my
lamp, and as I certainly saw her till she was some thirty or forty
feet up in the air I don't see how she can have managed it. For, even
supposing she could have sprung down that distance without being hurt,
she would not have come down so noiselessly that I should not have heard
her."

"Still, if she did not come down that way, how could she have come?"
Wilson said.

"That is exactly what I can't make out," Bathurst replied. "If it should
happen to be the same man, and he will do the same thing again, I fancy
you will be as much puzzled as I was."

After dinner was over the party walked across to Mr. Hunter's bungalow,
where, in a short time, the other officers, their wives, and all the
other residents at the station were assembled. Chairs were placed in the
veranda for the ladies, and a number of lamps hung on the wall, so that
a strong light was thrown upon the ground in front of it. In addition,
four