He slowly lifted his tough young face and gave me a doglike glance. They were hard eyes, but there was gratitude in them. "You'll get your throat slit," whispered Lesard. "Not while Billy's with me," I replied, cheerfully. Late that night, as I was preparing for pleasant dreams, a knock came on my door and a telegraph-messenger handed me a note, which I read, shivering in my bare feet, although the thermometer marked eighty Fahrenheit: "You will immediately leave for the Hudson Mountains via Wellman Bay, Labrador, there to await further instructions. Equipment for yourself and one assistant will include following articles" [here began a list of camping utensils, scientific paraphernalia, and provisions]. "The steamer _Penguin_ sails at five o'clock to-morrow morning. Kindly find yourself on board at that hour. Any excuse for not complying with these orders will be accepted as your resignation. "SUSAN SMAWL, "President Bronx Zoological Society." "Lesard!" I shouted, trembling with fury. He appeared at his door, chastely draped in pajamas; and he read the insolent letter with terrified alacrity. "What are you going to do--resign?" he asked, much frightened. "Do!" I snarled, grinding my teeth; "I'm going--that's what I'm going to do!" "But--but you can't get ready and catch that steamer, too," he stammered. He did not know me. VII And so it came about that one calm evening towards the end of June, William Spike and I went into camp under the southerly shelter of that vast granite wall called the Hudson Mountains, there to await the promised "further instructions." It had been a tiresome trip by steamer to Anticosti, from there by schooner to Widgeon Bay, then down the coast and up the Cape Clear River to Port Porpoise. There we bought three pack-mules and started due north on the Great Fur Trail. The second day out we passed Fort Boise, the last outpost of civilization, and on the sixth day we were travelling eastward under the granite mountain parapets. On the evening of the sixth day out from Fort Boise we went into camp for the last time before entering the unknown land. I could see it already through my field-glasses, and while William was building the fire I climbed up among the rocks above and sat down, glasses levelled, to study the prospect. There was nothing either extraordinary or forbidding in the landscape which stretched out beyond; to the right the solid palisade of granite cut off the view; to the left the palisade continued, an endless barrier of sheer cliffs crowned with pine and hemlock. But the interesting section of the landscape lay almost directly in front of me--a rent in the mountain-wall through which appeared to run a level, arid plain, miles wide, and as smooth and even as a highroad.