te of Bowen Tyler at college,
and a fraternity brother, and before, that he had been an impoverished
and improvident cow-puncher on one of the great Tyler ranches. Tyler,
Sr., had picked him out of thousands of employees and made him; or
rather Tyler had given him the opportunity, and then Billings had made
himself. Tyler, Jr., as good a judge of men as his father, had taken
him into his friendship, and between the two of them they had turned
out a man who would have died for a Tyler as quickly as he would have
for his flag. Yet there was none of the sycophant or fawner in
Billings; ordinarily I do not wax enthusiastic about men, but this man
Billings comes as close to my conception of what a regular man should
be as any I have ever met. I venture to say that before Bowen J. Tyler
sent him to college he had never heard the word ethics, and yet I am
equally sure that in all his life he never has transgressed a single
tenet of the code of ethics of an American gentleman.

Ten days after they brought Mr. Tyler's body off the Toreador, we
steamed out into the Pacific in search of Caprona. There were forty in
the party, including the master and crew of the Toreador; and Billings
the indomitable was in command. We had a long and uninteresting search
for Caprona, for the old map upon which the assistant secretary had
finally located it was most inaccurate. When its grim walls finally
rose out of the ocean's mists before us, we were so far south that it
was a question as to whether we were in the South Pacific or the
Antarctic. Bergs were numerous, and it was very cold.

All during the trip Billings had steadfastly evaded questions as to how
we were to enter Caspak after we had found Caprona. Bowen Tyler's
manuscript had made it perfectly evident to all that the subterranean
outlet of the Caspakian River was the only means of ingress or egress
to the crater world beyond the impregnable cliffs. Tyler's party had
been able to navigate this channel because their craft had been a
submarine; but the Toreador could as easily have flown over the cliffs
as sailed under them. Jimmy Hollis and Colin Short whiled away many an
hour inventing schemes for surmounting the obstacle presented by the
barrier cliffs, and making ridiculous wagers as to which one Tom
Billings had in mind; but immediately we were all assured that we had
raised Caprona, Billings called us together.

"There was no use in talking about these things," he sa