“Not know about it? With a crew of men picked up here in New York, and coming back to New York? Not know about it? Bless my soul, the papers would be full of it before your men were an hour on shore. In the first place, you’d never find the rock.” “Then what’s the harm of going in search of it?” demanded his daughter. “Besides that, Johnson knows exactly where it is.” “Johnson, Johnson! You’re surely not silly enough to believe Johnson’s cock-and-bull story?” “I believe every syllable he uttered. The man’s face showed that he was speaking the truth.” “But, my dear Kate, you didn’t see him at all, as I understand the yarn. He was here alone with you, was he not, Dorothy?” Dorothy smiled sadly. “I told Kate all about it, and gave my own impression of the man’s appearance.” “You are too sensible a girl to place any credit in what he said, surely?” “I did believe him, nevertheless,” replied Dorothy. “Why, look you here. False in one thing, false in all. I’ll just take a single point. He speaks of a spring sending water through the cells up there in the rock. Now, that is an impossibility. Wherever a spring exists, it comes from a source higher than itself.” “There are lots of springs up in the mountains,” interrupted Katherine. “I know one on Mount Washington that is ten times as high as the rock in the Baltic.” “Quite so, Katherine, quite so, but nevertheless there is a lake, subterraneous or above ground, which feeds your White Mountain spring, and such a lake must be situated higher than the spring is. Why, girl, you ought to study hydrometeorology as well as chemistry. Here is a rock jutting up in midocean--” “It’s in the Baltic, near the Russian coast,” snapped Kate, “and I’ve no doubt there are mountains in Finland that contain the lake which feeds the spring.” “How far is that rock from the Finnish coast, then?” “Two miles and a half,” said Kate, quick as an arrow speeding from a bow. “Captain, we don’t know how far it is from the coast,” amended Dorothy. “I’ll never believe the thing exists at all.” “Why, yes it does, father. How can you speak like that? Don’t you know Lieutenant Drummond fired at it?” “How do you know it was the same rock?” “Because the rock fired back at him. There can’t be two like that in the Baltic.” “No, nor one either,” said the Captain, nearing the end of his patience. “Captain Kempt,” said Dorothy very soothingly, as if she desired to quell the rising storm, “you take the allegation about the spring of water to prove that Johnson was telling untruths. I expect him here within an hour, and I will arrange that you have an opportunity, privately, of cross-examining him. I think when you see the man, and listen to him, you will believe. What makes me so sure that he is telling the truth is the fact that he mentioned the foreign vessel firing at this rock, which I knew to be true, and which he could not possibly have learned anything about.”