d mounted a pneumatic hammock upon the two mules,
their saddles had sockets to fit the legs of the galvanized iron tripod.

No matter in which way the mules turned, sliding swivels on the hollow
steel frames regulated the hammock slung between them. It was an infernal
invention.

There lay Jane Bottomly asleep, her black hair drying over the hammock's
edge, gilded to a peroxide lustre by the rays of the rising sun.

I gazed upon her with a sort of ferocious pity. Her professional days
were numbered. _I_ also had her number!

"How majestically she slumbers," whispered Dr. Delmour to me, "dreaming,
doubtless, of her approaching triumph."

Dr. Fooss and Professor Lezard, driving the pack-mules ahead of them,
were already riding out across the marsh.

"Daisy," I said, leaning from my saddle and taking one of her gloved
hands into mine, "the time has come for me to disillusion you. There are
no mammoths in that mud down there."

She looked at me in blue-eyed amazement.

"You are mistaken," she said; "Professor Bottomly is celebrated for the
absolute and painstaking accuracy of her deductions and the boldness and
the imagination of her scientific investigations. She is the most
cautious scientist in America; she would never announce such a discovery
to the newspapers unless she were perfectly certain of its truth."

I was sorry for this young girl. I pressed her hand because I was sorry
for her. After a few moments of deepest thought I felt so sorry for her
that I kissed her.

[Illustration: "I felt so sorry for her that I kissed her."]

"You mustn't," said Dr. Delmour, blushing.

The things we mustn't do are so many that I can't always remember all of
them.

"Daisy," I said, "shall we pledge ourselves to each other for
eternity--here in the presence of this immemorial glacier which moves a
thousand inches a year--I mean an inch every thousand years--here in
these awful solitudes where incalculable calculations could not enlighten
us concerning the number of cubic tons of mud in that marsh--here in the
presence of these innocent mules--"

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Dr. Delmour, lifting her flushed cheek from my
shoulder. "There is a man in the hammock with Professor Bottomly!"

I levelled my field-glasses incredulously. Good Heavens! There _was_ a
man there. He was sitting on the edge of the hammock in a dejected
attitude, his booted legs dangling.

And, as I gazed, I saw the arm of Professor Bottomly raised as