"This story that I've picked up begins rather oddly, but it runs this way: On an island--I think it's called Muciana, at the mouth of the Amazon, a surveying party found a mysterious skeleton, or rather portions of a mysterious skeleton, half buried in a sand-bar. This skeleton puzzled biologists very much; it seemed to indicate there was some possibility that the once mythical creature known as the man-eating vampire really existed--that somewhere about the head waters of the Amazon actually lived or had lived pterodactyli of enormous size, much larger than the common enough blood-sucking bats of the lower river--which to-day, as you know, rather relish a sip or two of any warm-blooded animal. Many of these bones were strangely human in appearance, but attached to what remained of the skeleton were a pair of powerful and perfectly formed pterodactyl wings. All efforts to piece together this strange creature were a failure, and in the end it was given up as impossible. But am I boring you?" "No; it's interesting." "Well, now we have to go back to the beginning of our story, and perhaps to the most interesting part of it. We find a professor of zoology--a German--somewhere up about the head waters of that mysterious river. Devotion to his beloved science has brought him to that dark corner of the globe. We find him drifting happily about the twilight forests in search of the man-eating vampire about which he must have heard strange rumors from the natives of the lower Amazon. We find him alone in a small boat, making his desolate way along some unknown tributary of the upper river. I needn't stop to describe his loneliness or the hardships and suffering and days of doubt through which he passed. But finally in some dark and undiscovered land of solitude he and his vampire came face to face. They closed in on one another, and he in the end captured it, though only after a bitter struggle. Yet, gently as he had treated his foe in that struggle, he could not help injuring it a little--in fact, it _had_ to be subdued. His one object then was to get down to the seacoast and back to the world with his prize, of course, while it was still alive. And his one fear was that it would die on his hands. He took it in his little boat with him and treated its wounds and fed it, and together the strange couple made their way down the river. But the journey was a long one. Before it was half over his provisions began to give out. He had not counted on the vampire, you see. But still he kept on, hoping against hope that he would reach help in time. His one dread still was that his prize would die. So day by day he ate a little less and gave a little more to his prize. But day by day his strength was failing him, and day by day, I suppose, he grew more afraid of the vampire. Then the time came when he had to decide whether he or the other should have the last scrap of his food. Finally he flung it to the Vampire.