It stopped, turned its head and looked back, and, with another roar, waddled to the water and slipped in with a tremendous splash, the commotion nearly swamping the rubber canoe, which Charley drove up on the beach heedless of any ill effect the sharp stones might have on the bottom. An instant later and it was all over. The monster had disappeared and Dick, Doctor Dan and Charley Nicholson stood together on the shore. We pass over the explanations which naturally followed. Charley was fairly wild with joy at the meeting. “I gave you up for dead, sure,” he said, “but Doctor Dan wouldn’t have it. It was he who insisted upon getting the canoe out and coming to look for you. What sort of a creature was it, Dick? I thought I must have gone mad when I first saw it crawling up on the shore.” But Dick was in no mood to talk science then. He hastily explained about Clara and they hurried toward the hut, fully expecting to find her a prisoner inside. To their astonishment the hut proved to be unoccupied. There could be no mistake about it, either, for the interior consisted of but a single room. There were several bunks against the wall and on a table in the middle of the room was a whisky bottle and three glasses, but there was absolutely nothing to show that Clara had ever been there. “Well, where’s your girl, Dick?” asked Charley, staring around. “Strange. That horse out there is certainly the one she rode,” replied Dick, and the horrible fear seized him that Martin Mudd might have made way with Clara on the road up to the lake. They searched in all directions, shouting Miss Eglinton’s name, but all to no purpose. Then they returned to the hut and began discussing the new monster, as a matter of course. “In some respects it resembles the Ichthyosaurus,” said Dick, “but still its short legs don’t fill the bill at all in that direction. It is probably entirely unknown to science.” “And immensely valuable if it could only be taken alive,” said Dr. Dan. “I wish I had either one of those monsters in a tank in New York or Chicago and could charge ten cents a head to show them,” cried Charley. “I shouldn’t want any better fortune than that.” “They can never be taken alive,” said Dick, decidedly. “It is the merest nonsense to think of such a thing. This is a wonderful place, though, Doc. If the National Museum will only take possession of this lake there may be money in these discoveries for some of us yet.” “Do you think they will?” asked Doctor Dan. “I’m sure of it. The land must belong to the government as it is.” “It undoubtedly does,” replied the guide. “Well, there may be something in it for Ike Izard and myself, after all. Now, then, what are we going to do?” “I don’t leave here till I know what has become of Miss Eglinton,” said Dick, decidedly. “Let me see,” said Dr. Dan. “I know that name. She must be the daughter of Colonel Eglinton, who owns a big gold mine back here in the mountains over toward the Black Hills.”