not do that, I felt assured, out of mere
unkindness. Perhaps then he meant to rouse my resolution. He knew me
well; and realized that I would have given anything in the world to
recoup my defeat. I waited quietly for new instructions.

Mr. Ward dropped his jesting and said to me very generously, "I know,
Strock, that you accomplished everything that depended on human
powers; and that no blame attaches to you. But we face now a matter
very different from that of the Great Eyrie. The day the government
decides to force that secret, everything is ready. We have only to
spend some thousands of dollars, and the road will be open."

"That is what I would urge."

"But at present," said Mr. Ward, shaking his head, "it is much more
important to place our hands on this fantastic inventor, who so
constantly escapes us. That is work for a detective, indeed; a master
detective!"

"He has not been heard from again?"

"No; and though there is every reason to believe that he has been,
and still continues, beneath the waters of Lake Kirdall, it has been
impossible to find any trace of him anywhere around there. One would
almost fancy he had the power of making himself invisible, this
Proteus of a mechanic!"

"It seems likely," said I, "that he will never be seen until he
wishes to be."

"True, Strock. And to my mind there is only one way of dealing with
him, and that is to offer him such an enormous price that he cannot
refuse to sell his invention."

Mr. Ward was right. Indeed, the government had already made the
effort to secure speech with this hero of the day, than whom surely
no human being has ever better merited the title. The press had
widely spread the news, and this extraordinary individual must
assuredly know what the government desired of him, and how completely
he could name the terms he wished.

"Surely," added Mr. Ward, "this invention can be of no personal use
to the man, that he should hide it from the rest of us. There is
every reason why he should sell it. Can this unknown be already some
dangerous criminal who, thanks to his machine, hopes to defy all
pursuit?"

My chief then went on to explain that it had been decided to employ
other means in search of the inventor. It was possible after all that
he had perished with his machine in some dangerous maneuver. If so,
the ruined vehicle might prove almost as valuable and instructive to
the mechanical world as the man himself. But since the accident to
the