"I had this leave," said Cobb, as he took it from Craft, after the latter had read it, "while I was talking to you last night, but I preferred not to show it to you until this evening. Any time after the first of next month I can leave the service and return when I wish, and my commission will be secured to me." Craft and Hathaway both told him that though they thought his undertaking was a very foolish one, nevertheless they would give him all the assistance in their power, as they had promised. Cobb and his friends talked a little longer on various things to be done, and finally separated for the night; the two latter going home to wonder over this great scheme of their friend, the former seating himself in his easy-chair to deliberate upon the thousand and one incidentals necessary to carry it out. CHAPTER III In order to carry into effect this great and ambitious idea, Cobb had commenced operations as early as July. He knew that he must find some place in which to lay his body, that would be perfectly safe from any possible disturbance. It would not do to select any house, or any particular piece of ground, nor could he go to any island or distant part of the globe. A hundred years would make such changes that it was impossible to foretell what places would not be disturbed in that time. It was a most difficult problem to solve. Was there a place on earth that he was sure would not be reached by human hands, and its contents and secrets made known, in a hundred years! It was imperative that he should find such a place, and with all the assurance that one has in life of anything, that it would remain unmolested. What would not happen in a hundred years! Were he to take the most unfrequented and out-of-the-way place he could conceive of, it might be the very place of all others that would be the first to be explored by some enterprising genius in the future. Cobb knew this, and realized the necessity of selecting such a spot as would give the utmost assurance that no one would desire to destroy, enter, or molest it in any way. After many hours of reflection upon the subject, he at last decided upon what he considered to be the best place possible to select--the place that would, in all probability, remain in its primitive state for the period desired. There was being built upon Mount Olympus, some three miles from the city of San Francisco, by a Mr. Sutro, a generous gentleman of that city, a reduced copy of the statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World," then in position on Bedloe's Island, New York harbor. This statue was to be about thirty feet in height, resting upon a pedestal some forty by thirty feet in area, and twenty-five feet high.