ill
proceed to the reading of the epoch-making letter."

I quietly lighted a five-cent cigar, unfolded the letter and read aloud:

"Joneses Shack,

Golden Glacier,
Cook's Peninsula, Baffin Land,

March 15, 1915.

"Professor, Dear Sir:

"I already wrote you three times no answer having been rec'd perhaps
you think I'm kiddin' you're a dam' liar I ain't.

"Hoping to tempt you to come I will hereby tell you more'n I told you
in my other letters, the terminal moraine of this here Golden Glacier
finishes into a marsh, nothing to see for miles excep' frozen tussock
and mud and all flat as hell for fifty miles which is where I am
trappin' it for mink and otter and now ready to go back to Fort
Carcajou. i told you what I seen stickin' in under this here marsh,
where anything sticks out the wolves have eat it, but most of them
there ellerphants is in under the ice and mud too far for the wolves to
git 'em.

"i ain't kiddin' you, there is a whole herd of furry ellerphants in the
marsh like as they were stuck there and all lay down and was drownded
like. Some has tusks and some hasn't. Two ellerphants stuck out of the
ice, I eat onto one, the meat was good and sweet and joosy, the damn
wolves eat it up that night, I had cut stakes and rost for three months
though and am eating off it yet.

"Thinking as how ellerphants and all like that is your graft, I being
a keeper in the Mouse House once in the Bronx and seein' you nosin'
around like you was full of scientific thinks, it comes to me to write
you and put you next.

"If you say so I'll wait here and help you with them ellerphants.
Livin' wages is all I ask also eleven thousand dollars for tippin' you
wise. I won't tell nobody till I hear from you. I'm hones' you can
trus' me. Write me to Fort Carcajou if you mean bizness. So no more
respectfully,

James Skaw."

When I finished reading I cautiously glanced at the door, and, finding it
still on the crack, turned and smiled subtly upon Lezard and Fooss.

In their slowly spreading grins I saw they agreed with me that somebody,
signing himself James Skaw, was still trying to hoax the Great Zooelogical
Society of Bronx Park.

"Gentlemen," I said aloud, injecting innocent enthusiasm into my voice,
"this secret expedition to Baffin Land which we three are about to
organise is destined to be without doubt the most scientifically prolific
field expedition e