th America, for, unless our friend the Professor is
a madman or a liar, we may see some queer things before we get back.
What gun have you?"

He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I caught a
glimpse of glistening rows of parallel barrels, like the pipes of an
organ.

"I'll see what I can spare you out of my own battery," said he.

One by one he took out a succession of beautiful rifles, opening and
shutting them with a snap and a clang, and then patting them as he put
them back into the rack as tenderly as a mother would fondle her
children.

"This is a Bland's .577 axite express," said he. "I got that big
fellow with it." He glanced up at the white rhinoceros. "Ten more
yards, and he'd would have added me to HIS collection.

'On that conical bullet his one chance hangs,
'Tis the weak one's advantage fair.'

Hope you know your Gordon, for he's the poet of the horse and the gun
and the man that handles both. Now, here's a useful tool--.470,
telescopic sight, double ejector, point-blank up to three-fifty.
That's the rifle I used against the Peruvian slave-drivers three years
ago. I was the flail of the Lord up in those parts, I may tell you,
though you won't find it in any Blue-book. There are times, young
fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and
justice, or you never feel clean again. That's why I made a little war
on my own. Declared it myself, waged it myself, ended it myself. Each
of those nicks is for a slave murderer--a good row of them--what? That
big one is for Pedro Lopez, the king of them all, that I killed in a
backwater of the Putomayo River. Now, here's something that would do
for you." He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle. "Well
rubbered at the stock, sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip.
You can trust your life to that." He handed it to me and closed the
door of his oak cabinet.

"By the way," he continued, coming back to his chair, "what do you know
of this Professor Challenger?"

"I never saw him till to-day."

"Well, neither did I. It's funny we should both sail under sealed
orders from a man we don't know. He seemed an uppish old bird. His
brothers of science don't seem too fond of him, either. How came you
to take an interest in the affair?"

I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listened
intently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on the
table.

"I be