Far out at sea the white gulls floated and drifted on the water, or
sailed up into the air to flap lazily for a moment and settle back
among the waves. Strings of black surf ducks passed, their strong wings
tipping the surface of the water; single wandering coots whirled from
the breakers into lonely flight toward the horizon. We lay and watched the little ring-necks running along the water's
edge, now backing away from the incoming tide, now boldly wading
after the undertow. The harmony of silence, the deep perfume, the
mystery of waiting for that something that all await--what is it? love? death? or only the miracle of another morrow?--troubled me with
vague restfulness. As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a
shadow, and the shadow is sadness. And so the morning wore away until Freda came with a cool-looking
hamper. Then delicious cold fowl and lettuce sandwiches and champagne
cup set our tongues wagging as only very young tongues can wag. Daisy
went back with Freda after luncheon, leaving me a case of cigars, with
a bantering smile. I dozed, half awake, keeping a partly closed eye
on the ocean, where a faint gray streak showed plainly amid the azure
water all around. That was the Gulf Stream loop. About four o'clock Frisby appeared with a bamboo shelter tent, for
which I was unaffectedly grateful. After he had erected it over me he stopped to chat a bit, but the
conversation bored me, for he could talk of nothing but bill-posting. "You wouldn't ruin the landscape here, would you?" I asked. "Ruin it!" repeated Frisby nervously. "It's ruined now; there ain't a
place to stick a bill." "The snipe stick bills--in the sand," I said flippantly. There was no humour about Frisby. "Do they?" he asked. I moved with a certain impatience. "Bills," said Frisby, "give spice an' variety to Nature. They break the
monotony of the everlastin' green and what-you-may-call-its." I glared at him. "Bills," he continued, "are not easy to stick, lemme tell you, sir. Sign paintin's a soft snap when it comes to bill-stickin'. Now, I guess
I've stuck more bills in New York State than ennybody." "Have you?" I said angrily. "Yes, siree! I always pick out the purtiest spots--kinder filled chuck
full of woods and brooks and things; then I h'ist my paste-pot onto a
rock, and I slather that rock with gum, and whoop she goes!" "Whoop what goes?" "The bill. I paste her onto the rock, with one swipe of the brush for
the edges and a back-handed swipe for the finish--except when a bill is
folded in two halves." "And what do you do then?" I asked, disgusted. "Swipe twice," said Frisby with enthusiasm. "And you don't think it injures the landscape?" "Injures it!" he exclaimed, convinced that I was attempting to joke. I looked wearily out to sea. He also looked at the water and sighed
sentimentally. "Floatin' buoys with bills onto 'em is a idea of mine," he observed. "That damn ocean is monotonous, ain't it?" I don't know what I might have done to Frisby--the rifle was so
convenient--if his mean yellow dog had not waddled up at this juncture. "Hi, Davy, sic 'em!" said Frisby, expectorating upon a clamshell
and hurling it seaward. The cur watched the flight of the shell
apathetically, then squatted in the sand and looked at his master. "Kinder lost his spirit," said Frisby, "ain't he? I once stuck a bill
onto Davy, an' it come off, an' the paste sorter sickened him. He was
hell on rats--once!" After a moment or two Frisby took himself off, whistling cheerfully
to Davy, who followed him when he was ready. The rifle burned in my
fingers. It was nearly six o'clock when the professor appeared, spade on
shoulder, boots smeared with mud. "Well," he said, "nothing to report, Dick, my boy?" "Nothing, professor." He wiped his shining face with his handkerchief and stared at the water. "My calculations lead me to believe," he said, "that our prize may be
due any day now. This theory I base upon the result of the report from
the last sea captain I saw. I can not understand why some of these
captains did not take the carcass in tow. They all say that they tried,
but that the body sank before they could come within half a mile. The
truth is, probably, that they did not stir a foot from their course to
examine the thing." "Have you ever cruised about for it?" I ventured. "For two years," he said grimly. "It's no use; it's accident when a
ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from
where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They
think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are teeming
with sea-serpent fol-de-rol." "Are you sure," I asked, "that it will swing in to the coast on this
Gulf Stream loop?" "I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with
a dead right whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last
summer." "I think I did," said I with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned the
air for miles around. "But," I continued, "suppose it comes in the night?" He laughed. "There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too,
the current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise
would strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not
experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs
across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that
anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be carried
so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the carcass
could float again into deep water. There are chances of its stranding
indefinitely, too, but I don't care to take those chances. That is why
I have stationed you here, Dick, my boy." He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself. "There is another question I want to ask," I said, "if you don't mind." "Of course not!" he said warmly. "What are you digging for?" "Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself
with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don't know a better
exercise. Do you?" "I suppose not," I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered whether
he'd mention fossils. "Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-maché Thermosaurus?" he asked. I shook my head. "We constructed that from measurements I took from the fossil remains
of the Thermosaurus in the Metropolitan Museum. Professor Bruce
Stoddard made the drawings. We set it up here, all ready to receive the
skin of the carcass that I am expecting." We had started toward home, walking slowly across the darkening dunes,
shoulder to shoulder. The sand was deep, and walking was not easy. "I wish," said I at last, "that I knew why Miss Holroyd asked me not to
walk on the beach. It's much less fatiguing." "That," said the professor, "is a matter that I intend to discuss with
you to-night." He spoke gravely, almost sadly. I felt that something of
unparalleled importance was soon to be revealed. So I kept very quiet,
watching the ocean out of the corners of my eyes. IV. Dinner was ended.