ork on the farm, he wished to go and visit his
friend Harry, and learn why he had not come to the Irvine merry-making.
He could not understand his absence, for Harry was not a man who would
willingly promise and not perform. It was unlikely, too, that the son of
the old overman had not heard of the wreck of the MOTALA, as it was in
all the papers. He must know the part Jack had taken in it, and what had
happened to him, and it was unlike Harry not to hasten to the farm and
see how his old chum was going on.

As Harry had not come, there must have been something to prevent him.
Jack Ryan would as soon deny the existence of the Fire-Maidens as
believe in Harry's indifference.

Two days after the catastrophe Jack left the farm merily, feeling
nothing of his wounds. Singing in the fullness of his heart, he awoke
the echoes of the cliff, as he walked to the station of the railway,
which VIA Glasgow would take him to Stirling and Callander.

As he was waiting for his train, his attention was attracted by a bill
posted up on the walls, containing the following notice:

"On the 4th of December, the engineer, James Starr, of Edinburgh,
embarked from Granton Pier, on board the Prince of Wales. He disembarked
the same day at Stirling. From that time nothing further has been heard
of him.

"Any information concerning him is requested to be sent to the President
of the Royal Institution, Edinburgh."

Jack Ryan, stopping before one of these advertisements, read it twice
over, with extreme surprise.

"Mr. Starr!" he exclaimed. "Why, on the 4th of December I met him with
Harry on the ladder of the Dochart pit! That was ten days ago! And he
has not been seen from that time! That explains why my chum didn't come
to Irvine."

And without taking time to inform the President of the Royal Institution
by letter, what he knew relative to James Starr, Jack jumped into the
train, determining to go first of all to the Yarrow shaft. There he
would descend to the depths of the pit, if necessary, to find Harry, and
with him was sure to be the engineer James Starr.

"They haven't turned up again," said he to himself. "Why? Has anything
prevented them? Could any work of importance keep them still at the
bottom of the mine? I must find out!" and Ryan, hastening his steps,
arrived in less than an hour at the Yarrow shaft.

Externally nothing was changed. The same silence around. Not a living
creature was moving in that desert region. Jack en