rmuch. As Zeb said, there is something queer
about it--something in the air. I don't know what, but I for one won't
be sorry when we leave it."

He fell to musing about his father waiting so many miles away for news
of the discovery that was to rehabilitate his fortunes and place the
radio telephone in the list of practical inventions that have created
an epoch in the world's history.

"Poor old dad," he thought "After all, he's really having the most
trying part of this thing. Waiting back there for he doesn't know
what, and with nothing to do but wait. I wonder if we are going to
succeed? We will, we must! But, supposing that the map was wrong and
that----"

His musing broke off suddenly and he crouched forward watching
intently. His eyes were staring wide-open and startled at the
Wondership. Its bulk lay blackly against the faint, phosphorescent
glow of the black barren.

Then he felt his scalp tighten and his mouth go dry while his heart
seemed to stop for an instant and then pound furiously, shaking his
frame.

For a second he had seen something that had almost startled him into a
cry. A dark figure was creeping round the Wondership, crouched like an
ape as it examined the craft.

The boy had hardly caught a glimpse of it before it vanished, gliding
swiftly like an animal into the brush. Jack rubbed his eyes.

"Am I seeing things?" he asked himself, "but no, I'm positive, as sure
as I stand here, that that was a human figure sneaking about down
there. Who could it have been?"

Jack did not sleep much more that night. The thought that they were
not alone on the island was a disquieting one.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THROUGH THE WOODS.

The next morning Jack watched his opportunity, and under the pretext
of hunting, left camp after breakfast and made his way to the side of
the Wondership. He wanted to examine the vicinity for footmarks. But
he found none, which was not surprising, for the ground on which the
craft had been brought to rest was hard and firm, and not likely to
take on any impressions.

In the bright, sunny glow it was hard for the boy to believe that he
had actually seen the mysterious figure in the moonlight. But although
he tried to assure himself that he had been the victim of an illusion,
and that he had mistaken the shadow of a waving tree branch for a man,
Jack knew that he was not laboring under a mistake. He was certain he
had seen rightly; but he decided, for the present, to sa