It would seem a perfectly reasonable supposition that there must be many avaricious persons to whom the possession of untold riches would prove more attractive than a mere interest in the doings of another man. Let it be said at once that although Barraclough certainly confided the correct map reference to Isabel, that reference, for the purposes of caution and public safety, underwent several important variations before passing into my hands. The reason of this precaution will be readily appreciated by the thoughtful however great may be the disappointment it provides to the adventurous. A memory of average length will recall the high percentage of disaster, of wrecked hopes and of ruin pursuant upon the gold rush to Klondyke at the close of the last century. Barely one man in a hundred made a living--barely one in a thousand saw the yellow specks in his shovel that shone so bright among the brown. Those who had set forth, buoyed up with boundless belief, dragged back to where they had started from broken in purse and spirit, barren of hope and faith. What then would be the result if the illimitable source of wealth upon which by chance and a whisper Barraclough had stumbled should be revealed to the world? A panic--a mad headlong exodus of men and women too. Unequipped and unqualified they would pour from city and country-side, leaving desk and furrow, in a wild race to be first upon the scene--to stake a claim--any claim--to dig--to grovel--to tear up the kindly earth with fingers like the claws of beasts. Wealth, upon which our civilisation has been built, is the surest destroyer of civilisation. What it has given it takes away. Dangle a promise of gold before the young man at the ribbon counter and behold he is become a savage. Whisper it never so gently--and it will sound as the roar of torrents in our ears. Brewster's Series 19. Map 24. Square F. North 27. West 33. Look it up for yourself. It exists all right but there is no radium there, not any within a thousand miles for aught I know to the contrary. In that location and over a large stretch of surrounding country-side the earth's outer crust is mainly argillaceous with here and there an outcrop of sandstone. There is not the smallest indication of pitch-blende anywhere in the neighbourhood, and radium, as even those little versed in chemistry or geology are aware, is only to be found in that particular ore.