"I believe," he went on, "that we penetrated the Everglades farther than any white man who ever lived to return. There's nothing very dismal about the Everglades--the greater part, I mean. You get high and low hummock, marshes, creeks, lakes, and all that. If you get lost, you're a goner. If you acquire fever, you're as well off as the seraphim--and not a whit better. There are the usual animals there--bears (little black fellows) lynxes, deer, panthers, alligators, and a few stray crocodiles. As for snakes, of course they're there, moccasins a-plenty, some rattlers, but, after all, not as many snakes as one finds in Alabama, or even northern Florida and Georgia. "The Seminoles won't help you--won't even talk to you. They're a sullen pack--but not murderous, as far as I know. Beyond their inner limits lie the unknown regions." He bit the wet end from his cigarette. "I went there," he said; "I came out as soon as I could." "Why?" "Well--for one thing, my companion died of fright." "Fright? What at?" "Well, there's something in there." "What?" He fixed a penetrating gaze on me. "I don't know, Mr. Gilland." "Did you see anything to frighten you?" I insisted. "No, but I felt something." He dropped his cigarette and ground it into the sand viciously. "To cut it short," he said, "I am most unwillingly led to believe that there are--creatures--of some sort in the Everglades--living creatures quite as large as you or I--and that they are perfectly transparent--as transparent as a colorless jellyfish." Instantly the veiled import of Professor Farrago's letter was made clear to me. He, too, believed that. "It embarrasses me like the devil to say such a thing," continued Rowan, digging in the sand with his spurred heels. "It seems so--so like a whopping lie--it seems so childish and ridiculous--so cursed cheap! But I fled; and there you are. I might add," he said, indifferently, "that I have the ordinary portion of courage allotted to normal men." "But what do you believe these--these animals to be?" I asked, fascinated. "I don't know." An obstinate look came into his eyes. "I don't know, and I absolutely refuse to speculate for the benefit of anybody. I wouldn't do it for my friend Professor Farrago; and I'm not going to do it for you," he ended, laughing a rather grim laugh that somehow jarred me into realizing the amazing import of his story. For I did not doubt it, strange as it was--fantastic, incredible though it sounded in the ears of a scientist. What it was that carried conviction I do not know--perhaps the fact that my superior credited it; perhaps the manner of narration. Told in quiet, commonplace phrases, by an exceedingly practical and unimaginative young man who was plainly embarrassed in the telling, the story rang out like a shout in a canon, startling because of the absolute lack of emphasis employed in the telling.