* * * * *

Childhood is a mixed blessing.

Call that a cynical observation, based on 20/20 hindsight, if you like. But, it's an accurate observation, none-the-less. For children, in their innocence, believe everything they see without question! Whereas, we so-called "mature adults" (admittedly, through no fault of our own) are often, unavoidably, more narrow of vision.

And, thus (on occasion), more tragically self-deluded.

For example: some parents tell those of their children who awaken from a bad dream, in the middle of the night, that nothing exists in the dark that isn't already present in the light. Nothing dangerous, anyway. And, certainly, nothing dangerous in the vicinity of that youngster's bedroom, at that particular moment!

In the end, most children are successfully led into believing this. Yet, as a medical man, I can vouch for the fact that there are certain disease-carrying vermin which never come into the light. At least, not willingly. But, they are still ever-present; and they are not alone. There are other--far more dangerous-- exceptions to that rule in this world.

Allow me to elaborate.

It was the summer of 1921. I had just returned to my rooms, at the Manhattan Lodge of the Knights of Melion, from my rounds at Queens Mercy Hospital. Upon changing out of my sweaty work clothes, and donning cleaner leisure wear, I went down to the ornate saloon in the lodge's basement for an ice-cold drink. Non-alcoholic, of course!

Unfortunately, for me, I was diverted from that pleasantly anticpated thought by the desk clerk in the lobby.

"Excuse me, Dr. Thorpe. But, Sir Anthony would like to see you in the library, right away. He said something about...wondering where Death has its sting?"

At hearing the recognition code (signifying a possible recurrence of the threat the Knights had primarily been founded to combat), I headed straight for the in-house library as if it were the end of the world.

Which it just might be!

* * * * *

As soon as I entered, I saw Sir Anthony sitting in his favorite chair. The one that allowed him to sit with his back to the fireplace. Above the mantle of which was our organization's emblem; a yellow shield with the motto "Noblesse oblige," scrawled across the bottom of it. And, with an image of Blind Lady Justice (just above the motto) using her free hand to pet the head of a gray wolf!

Sir Anthony Banfield was a retired Scotland Yard inspector, whose knighthood had been bestowed upon him, thirty years earlier. The result of he and a Federal marshal named McGee helping to rescue a British diplomat's daughter (inadvertently abducted during a hunting trip to Montana) from a gang of border-hopping French Canadian cattle rustlers!

That young woman had ultimately married him. Yet, while their union had been a long and loving one, it had never resulted in any children. So, after Dame Banfield had succumbed to the Spanish flu, two years earlier, her husband decided to emigrate to New York City, permanently. There, he became a mystery novelist who occasionally moon-lighted as a special consultant for the NYPD.

That was how I first met him. I occasionally performed autopsies for them. And, just last year, he had helped me solve a string of Chinatown murders that had borne uncanny similarities to the ones committed in the Whitechapel District of London, England, in 1888! A solution, I hasten to add, that led to our being inducted into the Knights of Melion in order to secure our co-operative silence with regard to the killer's...true nature.

We had been roommates ever since.

Sir Anthony now looked up as I closed and locked the library's soundproof doors.

"Ah, Peter!" he exclaimed: "You're just in time. Dr. Peter Thorpe? Allow me to introduce Mr. David Berkhart. The good doctor is my most trusted friend and colleague. And, Mr. Berkhart is personal assistant to the President of the Detroit Lodge."

We shook hands, accordingly. I then looked at Sir Anthony.

"The desk clerk sort of paraphrased the recognition code," I replied: "Does this mean...?"

"Possibly. But, I think it would be best to allow Mr. Berkhart to explain in his own words. Please, proceed, sir...and pray be precise as to details."

The other man (who was about my age; late thirties/early forties) nervously nodded, and sat down opposite Sir Anthony.

"As you know," he began: "...our lodges conceal their true activities by supporting many public philanthropies. Such as the National Children's Aid Society. And, last week...? Well, to put it bluntly, gentlemen; one of their orphan trains is missing!"

To be continued?

* * * * *

"Missing?" I echoed: "I take it you don't mean; 'seized at gunpoint and forcibly taken to an unknown alternate destination?'"

Mr. Berkhart chuckled, quite ruefully.

"Would that I did, Doctor. Would that I did!"

"Please, Peter," Sir Anthony gently chided me: "Let him continue."

I apologized; he nodded his acceptance; and, then, he resumed.

"For almost twenty years (due, of course, to the rude interruptions caused by the World War and the Spanish flu), the Detroit Lodge has helped send parentless, under-privileged youth to a summer camp jointly run by the N.C.A.S. and the Young Woodcrafters of America. It's called Camp New Hope, and it lies on the shores of Lake Yo-Tel-T'til. A body of water roughly one mile north of the point-of-equidistance between the Upper Peninsula townships of Rudyard and Kipling, Michigan.* "

"Now, as you might imagine, the aforementioned recent unpleasantnesses have led to a figurative bumper crop of orphans, this year! So, this particular train would be taking a more circuitous route than usual. From Detroit to Chicago, via Michigan City, Indiana. Then, northeastwards to Menominee County, Michigan (the gateway to the Upper Peninsula), via Wisconsin. Picking up all the local orphans possible, en route, so that they could be presented to prospective parents on the camp's opening day! What you might call 'two birds with one charitable stone.' "

"Where and when did these travel plans go awry?" Sir Anthony asked.

"Somewhere between Oshkosh and Green Bay, Wisconsin," Mr. Berkhart replied: "The signalman at Marinette reported them as overdue for passing his tower. So, a two-man hand car was sent out to see if (God forbid!) the train had derailed for some reason. What they found, however, was most unexpected. To say the least!"

"And, what--precisely--did they find?"

"A one-mile long stretch of track, torn in two like a piece of carnival licorice! But, with the ends facing away from each other like a pair of back-to-back parentheses. And, with the gap in between them marked by...footprints. Gigantic...UNSHOD...footprints!"

We quietly waited until Mr. Berkhart had recomposed himself.

"Not knowing what else to do, the two men reported what they found to the nearest stationmaster. He, in turn, reported it to his immediate supervisor, who telephoned the local authorities, who eventually contacted the Milwaukee Lodge."

"And, the President, thereof, contacted your employer," concluded Sir Anthony.

Mr. Berkhart nodded, again.

"Who specifically requested the doctor and I?"

"Mr. Chelgi, sir. The President of the Detroit Lodge. He was most impressed with what he read in that discretely-circulated special report concerning your adroit handling of the... 'Chinatown Chopper' affair."

Whereupon, Sir Anthony finally looked at me.

"Well, how about it, Peter? Do you think you're up for a trip to the North Woods?"

I confess it; my smirk was completely shameless.

"I think the chief administrator, at Queens Mercy Hospital, is about to get another phone call from the police commissioner, requesting my personal assistance on a most 'delicate matter.' "

Within twenty-four hours, we were packed and ready to go.

tbc

* * * * *

We initially journeyed by train to Buffalo, New York. From there, we flew aboard a war-surplus Handley/Page bomber (accordingly modified for passenger service) to a runway in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. A relatively short car trip across the bridge separating the latter from Detroit? And, we were soon shaking hands with George Chelgi.

He'd been born Gyorgy Urivitch Chelgikov, in Sitka, Alaska, in 1867, to Crimean War refugees of the Doukhobor faith.* Raised in Holland, Michigan, from the age of three onward, he was nicknamed "Chelgie" by his classmates at the Western Theological Seminary. And, after his discharge from the U.S. Army (in which he had served, as a chaplain, during the Spanish-American War), he legally changed his name to its present Americanized form.

We met in his sound-proofed office at the local lodge. There, he introduced us to Sheriff Andrew Nellis of Winnebago County, Wisconsin.

"The orphan train disappeared in his jurisdiction. So, he is representing the Milwaukee Lodge in this matter."

"Then, I take that to mean he's a _full_ member-in-good-standing of the Knights of Melion?" Sir Anthony pointedly asked.

Sheriff Nellis held up his right hand. On the fourth finger of which was a gold ring adorned with a wolf's head surmounted by a Celtic cross.

" 'O Death, where is thy sting?' " he quoted.

Duly reassured, Sir Anthony asked the sheriff what he had in the way of forensic evidence for us. The latter promptly removed some black-and-white photographs from a beige folder on Mr. Chelgi's desk. And, the images captured within them...

...were just as Mr. Berkhart had described.

"What was the measurement of the footprints?" Sir Anthony inquired.

"Eleven feet long by four feet wide."

"Hmmmmm! As I'm sure you gentlemen already know, the Melissae's Amazon adherents had an average height of six feet/one inch. With eleven inch-long feet!"

I nodded: "That's what made them so intimidating to their contemporary male adversaries. Most ancient peoples were shorter, by comparison, due to vitamin-deficient diets."

"True," Sir Anthony replied: "But, the chief hand-maidens of the Melissae were more than just lesbian love-slaves. They were also trained in shapeshifting sorcery! So, if one such modern Amazon used that power to increase her height by a factor of ten...?"

"I see what you're driving at, Sir Anthony," Sheriff Nellis interrupted: "And, I agree that a sixty-one-foot tall giantess might have the muscle mass to do this."

He pointed to the photo of the bent railroad tracks before continuing.

"They'd also be able kidnap a couple handfuls of people paralyzed with fright. But, to make off with an entire train?! She'd have to double her size, at least! And, that'd be a tad incautious, even for one of them. Don't you think?"

"The sheriff is right," said Mr. Chelgi: "Even in this sparsely populated region of the Badger State, a naked female giant, over a hundred feet tall, and carrying an entire steam train, would be inevitably noticed!"

"Unless," I hastened to counter (raising my right index finger for emphasis): "...she shrank back down to six-foot-one. And, in the process, shrank the orphan train, too!"

"Good show, Peter!" exclaimed Sir Anthony, with a slap on my back: "At this rate, you'll probably wind up ghost-writing my mysteries."

"That still doesn't explain how she fled the scene," insisted the sheriff: "There were no other footprints (normal-sized or otherwise). No tire tracks from a get-away vehicle. Nothing!"

"Shapeshifting sorcery, again, Sheriff," I replied:

Sir Anthony nodded in agreement, adding: "Have there been any recent reports of...unusually large birds, sighted in the tri-state area?"

Mr. Chelgi smiled: "I'll contact our man in the local Audobon Society, and see."

Whereupon, the meeting broke up, and our host rang for someone to show us to our guest rooms. Needless to say, our two straight days of very intense travel resulted in our having a very deep and relaxing sleep.

Unfortunately, for us, such relaxation would become a fond memory all too soon.

tbc

* * * * *

The next morning, we had breakfast in our guest room. And, as I sipped my coffee, I could not help but chuckle at the article I read on the front page of THE DETROIT FREE PRESS.

"Editorial cartoon or comic strip?" asked Sir Anthony, as he came out of the bathroom from his morning ablutions.

"Neither one," I replied: "It seems the FBI have been called in, to solve the Mystery of the Missing Orphan Train. And, you'll never guess who they recruited to be _their_ special consultant on the case!"

"Would it, by any chance, be...Harry Houdini?"

He smirked as I dropped the paper to the floor.

"Now, how on Earth...?"

"Elementary, my dear Peter. He has made a name for himself, exposing those who prey on the grief-stricken as frauds and charlatans. Appleton, Wisconsin, is where he grew up after his family emigrated here, from Hungary. And, the town of Oshkosh is practically (if you'll pardon my use of the vernacular) within spitting distance of it! Ergo; who more logical to consult than the man originally known as 'Erich Weiss?' "

I picked the paper back up and resumed reading.

"Well, he's outdone himself, for showmanship, this time. Listen to this! 'Said Mr. Houdini at a press conference in Washington, yesterday: 'At this point, boys, you're guess is as good as mine. For all I know, right now, the train could have been carried off by some...super-zeppelin!' "

Sir Anthony shrugged: "That's certainly more plausible, to the common man, than a glorified were-harpy."

After I had finished eating, and taken care of my own ablutions, we went down to the office of the Lodge President. And, true to his word (which he had given us the night before, after supper), Mr. Chelgi was waiting for us.

"I'm sure you've already seen the morning headlines," he began: "So, it should come as no surprise that Sheriff Nellis had to return home, earlier than expected. He will be acting as local liason for the FBI, while Mr. Houdini re-examines the crime scene on their behalf."

Sir Anthony and I nodded our understanding.

"Any word from your man in the local Audobon Society, as yet?" the former now asked.

This time, Mr. Chelgi nodded. And, his expression was most grim.

"For a week prior to the orphan train's disappearance, reports were phoned into the society of an abnormally huge golden eagle that kept flying northwest-to-southeast, then back again. With the southeastern terminus of that flight path being the Lake Oshkosh region."

"And, the northwestern terminus?" inquired Sir Anthony.

"Chronological analysis of the sightings indicates the Sibley Peninsula region of Ontario," replied our host: "More specifically? The geological formation quaintly referred to as...Sleepy Giant Mountain!"

Needless to say, we were packed and ready to go within an hour. We were driven back across the bridge, to the airport where we had left the chartered Handley/Page. And, in less time than it takes to tell, we were bound northwestward in the direction of Lake Superior.

tbc

* * * * *

By sundown, we had landed at the Northgate Aerodrome. Northgate being a small unincorporated community that derived its name from lying just north of Fort William. The latter, which had started out as a fur-trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, was located on the western shore of the Kaministiquia River. Directly across from its twin city of Port Arthur, which served as the administrative seat of Thunder Bay (a geopolitical district named, itself, for a nearby arm of Lake Superior).

The river was used mostly for the transportation of freight and local inhabitants. Whereas, the aerodrome was used mostly by bush pilots taking city-slickers, from Montreal and Toronto, on hunting trips into the Northwest Territories. And, one could say that Sir Anthony and I qualified as hunters!

But, instead of another aircraft or a 1919 Pierce-Arrow limousine (such as had chauffered us in and out of Detroit), we were greeted by the sight of a Hornsby/Holt tractor with continuous traction treads!

"Welcome to Thunder Bay, gentlemen," declared the tractor's driver: "I'm Byron Charles Weir. Constable with the RCMP. And, when my superiors in Ottawa told me you were coming here, Sir Anthony, I was more than glad to volunteer to serve as your guide!"

"Thank you, Constable. And, I see you've already arranged suitable means of conveyance for us."

Sir Anthony politely gestured to the hay-filled buckboard attached to the rear of the tractor.

"Yes, sir! It's the only way, short of horseback or winter-time dogsled, to get to Sleepy Giant. But, seeing how late it is, we'll go to my house, first. That way, you can get some much-needed sleep for the exhausting trip, tomorrow."

"You mean, the mountain is that distant?" I asked.

"No, sir. I mean, it's that steep to climb!"

All conversation ceased after that, because the tractor's engine was just too loud to permit it, en route.

Constable Weir was a most hospitable host, that evening. Half-jokingly telling us how nice it was to finally have overnight vistiors who were _not_ also occupants of his office's jail cells!

Then, came the subject I had been partially dreading.

"My superiors weren't too clear as to the reason _why_ you wanted to visit Sleepy Giant, Sir Anthony. Only that it had something to do with that missing trainload of children I heard about on the wireless."

Sir Anthony and I looked each other. But, he gave me a reassuring smile.

"Yes, well; what I'm about to tell you, Constable, must never be repeated to anyone of your local acquaintances. Because, I'm afraid it is considered top secret by both our governments!"

I swear, the constable's eyes became as round as table tennis balls. He remained calm enough, however, to nod his assent.

"We have evidence that the train was made off with by some kind of...super-zeppelin."

I hurriedly put the glass of water I had been about to sip from back on the kitchen table. Lest I spit it out in disbelief!

"We also have evidence that it was built by the Communists in Moscow. And, that its purpose is to piratically disrupt maritime traffic on the Great Lakes."

The constable was so open-mouthed with astonishment, I was momentarily afraid I'd have to treat him for a dislocated jaw.

tbc

* * * * *

"You can't be serious!" Constable Weir finally managed to retort.

"Would that I were anything else," replied Sir Anthony: "The evidence I speak of us has allowed us to discern that this super-zeppelin is based on Big Diomede Island, in the Bering Strait. And, that it's kept abreast of precious cargoes through the use of a string of wireless relay operators. One of whom is camped atop Sleepy Giant Mountain within a cave system accessible through...What's the local name for that nose-shaped pinnacle of rock?"

"The Nostrils of Nanabozho," muttered the constable, in reply.

"Quite right. So, what Dr. Thorpe and I plan to do (with your help, of course) is surprise that blackguard; capture him; and interrogate him as to when that airborne monstrosity is due to strike next. That way, we can prepare a suitable trap for it!"

Constable Weir shook his head: "I still can't believe it. I mean; even if what you've told me is true, why would the Commies tip their hand like that? By abducting a train load of children?"

"Making a test run, I suppose. After all; if they can abscond with a whole train, what trouble could they have with one single freighter?"

Two hours later, as I lay in one of the two British army-surplus cots Constable Weir had provided us, I looked over at Sir Anthony and grudgingly complimented him on his improvisionational skills.

He shrugged, somewhat apologetically.

"As I said, back in Detroit," he whispered: "It's more plausible, to the common man, than a glorified were-harpy."

The next morning, after breakfast, we set out for Sleepy Giant Mountain. With the constable explaining (before he turned on the tractor's engine) the Canadian Indian legend behind its name.

"Nanabozho, whose emblem is a giant sturgeon, used to provide all the fish caught and eaten by the Algonquian tribes of the Great Lakes. But, he warned them never to reveal the where-abouts of certain silver deposits to the White Man. Otherwise, he would probably faint and become petrified with horror at such betrayal!"

"And, that's precisely what happened?" I asked.

Constable Weir nodded: "According to the legend."

"Hence, the presence of that silver mine we flew over on our way in? The one on that rocky islet, near the mouth of the Kaministiquia?" Sir Anthony now asked.

Constable Weir nodded again. Adding that, in hindsight, it now made sense why the Communists would aerially go after shipping along this stretch of Lake Superior. Whereupon, as the tractor pulled out, I gave Sir Anthony a reproving glare. To which he responded with a note that he hurriedly scribbled on a page torn out of his little black book.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Our journey by tractor ended at the foot of a trail that wound its way upward from what one might call "the Waistline of Nanabozho." And, even though it was summer, we were each dressed in fur-lined red plaid jackets and beaver hats with ear flaps. Mostly, because Constable Weir had assured us that it would be very cool and windy atop Sleepy Giant.

So, our ascent began. Constable Weir first; followed by Sir Anthony and, then, myself. Each of us testing the narrow trail in front of us with an alpenstock.

It was about two o'clock when we finally reached the summit. And, Constable Weir had not exaggerated the steepness of our climb one iota! So, we doffed our backpacks and had an ersatz lunch (jerked beef and tepid, canteen-borne water) around a shallow circular depression one might call "the Navel of Nanabozho."

Having duly refreshed ourselves, we continued on toward the aforementioned Nostrils. Upon arriving there, I looked in the cavern mouth to my right. And, the battery-powered electric lantern I held in my right hand (one of two Constable Weir had supplied us with) showed a very narrow tunnel that dropped down almost vertically.

Then, Sir Anthony called to me from my left. So, I went over to him.

"She was definitely here," he said.

Slowly and carefully, he backed his way out of the other cavern mouth. And, when he turned around, I immediately saw why.

Held in both his hands was what looked like a scale model train from the Toy Department at Macy's.

"OH, MY GOD!" the constable shouted: "Sir Anthony; Dr. Thorpe! Look out!"

This was followed by three shots from his Colt .45 "Alaskan Model" Peacemaker, what sounded like the flapping of giant wings, and then an agonizing scream. In that order!

We spun as one. Sir Anthony drawing his Colt Model 1911. While I drew my .38 caliber Colt Police Positive revolver. But, neither of us fired right away. Primarily, because we were just too stunned by the sight before us.

On the ground was the ill-fated constable. A look of indescribable terror on his face. And, his life's blood staining the rocky surface around him.

While standing atop him--with one taloned foot having already disemboweled his upper torso--was our culprit. Eleven feet tall if she was an inch! With the feathered legs of a giant golden eagle below the waist.

And, with the breasts of a beautiful, naked, raven-haired woman above it.

tbc

* * * * *

"Is..." I stammered: "Is th-that...Labia?"

Sir Anthony shook his head.

"More likely an indigenous acolyte. Similar to the viragos of that were-jaguar cult in post-Civil War Texas.* "

For what felt like an eternity, the three of us just stared at each other. Then, suddenly, came a noise that startled all of us.

"A-Arbor..."

The three of us looked down at Constable Weir's body. For that gasping utterance had come from him! And as startling as it had been for Sir Anthony and myself to hear it, it was evidently twice so for the feathered demi-giantess across from us.

For, she jumped straight up into the air, screeching like the proverbial banshee! The undersides of her arms instantly sprouting feathery membranes that reached to her hips.

"Now!" shouted Sir Anthony: "Open fire! Wing her! Wing her!"

He immediately demonstrated what he meant, as he began shooting to wound her in her partially transformed upper arms. So, I did the same. My double-action revolver reporting slightly more slowly than his semi-automatic. But, our hours of spare time practice on the NYPD target range proved a blessing in disguise.

For our blessed steeljackets struck true at each spot we aimed at. And, as anticipated, the blessing upon each bullet proved excruciatingly painful to her. So much so, that she could not concentrate enough to complete her transformation!

Ergo, she fell back down to earth.

Quickly we reloaded and ran over to them. I, to cover the demi-giantess. And, Sir Anthony, to kneel by the constable's head.

"I'm sorry to have deceived you, Weir," the latter began, his face mirroring the regret in his voice: "But, we didn't think you'd believe the truth. In this world, there is what most people deem reality. And, what they wishfully think of as pure fantasy! We (myself, Dr. Thorpe, and certain others) are all that stand between them. We are...the thin line."

Constable Weir feebly smiled and nodded his understanding. Then, his face grew serious, as he struggled to speak, again.

"A-Arbor...Vitae."

With that, he died.

We neither of us spoke for several moments. Then, we looked at each other.

"Arbor vitae," repeated Sir Anthony: "What do you think he meant by that?"

I shrugged: "I know it's Latin for 'tree of life.' And, I know that--in medical science--it refers to both a region of the human brain and the female cervical canal."

Sir Anthony half-smiled: "It's also a Victorian-era double-entendre for the male reproductive organ! In reference to a species of ornamental evergreen related to the cypress that's customarily trimmed into a teardrop shape by professional gardeners."

"But, why would poor Constable Weir struggle to make those his last words?" I replied.

Sir Anthony slowly regained his feet.

"We know, from our probationary studies, that the Melissae had a unique form of psychical power. One that allowed them to divine potentially valuable information from those they consumed."

I nodded: "Gastronomancy."

"Correct. And, in certain rare cases, that transfer of knowledge could be a two-way street. So, it could be that, in his final moments, Constable Weir had a revelation as to where the missing children are. For, they most definitely weren't still aboard that shrunken train!"

I nodded at the wounded demi-giantess glaring up at us from on the ground.

"Why don't we try asking her?"

"Because, she wouldn't understand a word of English."

That reply did not come from Sir Anthony! Subsequently, the latter half-spun, aiming his Colt M-1911 towards the narrow trail head. While I wavered, my Colt Police Positive alternating between our captive and this new arrival. A rather short figure dressed like any other woodsman of this region. Right down to the slouch-brimmed Stetson hat obscuring the upper half of his face.

"Who are you?" Sir Anthony demanded.

"Henriette Ebeur" replied the other, in an unmistakably female voice: "A metis of the Nipissing First Nation. And, a lay sister of the Canadian Benandanti!"

Then, she smirked as she added: "Just call me 'Hank.' "

tbc

* * * * *

"Enchante', mademoiselle," replied Sir Anthony: "Normally, I'd return the courtesy. But, if you are who say you are, I've a feeling introducing ourselves would be superfluous."

Hank arched her eyebrows in amusement.

"And, why _wouldn't_ I be who I say I am?"

"Well, I'm the first to admit that I am not the world's leading expert on Canada. But, it was my impression that the Nipissings lived _much further_ eastward from here!"

She nodded: "They do. My father, however, who is half-Nipissing, married into the Wolf Clan of the Dog River Ojibwe. So, while I was born and raised among my mother's people, by patriarchal tribal law, I'm obligated to call myself a Nipissing, too. And, of the Beaver Clan, at that!"

"I see," replied Sir Anthony: "Well, then, how is it (if you'll forgive my persistence in not granting you the benefit of the doubt) that you've managed to arrive on this tragic scene, so fortuitously?"

Hank pointed out that where the Knights of Melion have Lodges throughout the United States, the Benandanti have affiliated Franciscan missions throughout Canada.

"The Apostolic Delegate in Ottawa sent word to all of them," she continued: "...to be on the look-out for an American and an Englishman. Working together to investigate anything strange and/or unusual. And, I think you'd be the first to agree, Sir Anthony, that this woman obviously classifies as both!"

"Very well," he replied: "Then, ask her who she is and where those missing children are. Be wary, though!"

"Don't worry," replie Hank: "You and Dr. Thorpe aren't the only ones with blessed steeljacket ammo."

Whereupon, she unslung a .35 caliber Remington Model 8 autoloader from her right shoulder...and pointed it at the bird woman. Then, she fired off Sir Anthony's question in Algonquian. And, using a tone of voice just as sharp as his!

I must confess; it was more-than-a-little disconcerting to hear the bird woman reply, in a normal-sounding human voice, after those unearthly shrieks, minutes earlier.

"She refuses to give us her true name. For that would give us power over her. As for the missing children? She claims they're safe. Far safer, in fact, than they would be at that summer camp in Michigan!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" I heatedly demanded (unable to resist butting in).

More translation followed.

"She says she's a Daughter of the Thunderbird Clan. And, that the Thunderbird Clan are eternal enemies of demons like the Melissae. For the Melissae are abominations! Disguising themselves as innocent creatures, such as true bees, in order to enslave (and ultimately devour) other innocent creatures. Like human children!"

"If she's on the side of the angels," I countered: "...then, why did she kill Constable Weir?"

Yet more translation.

"She claims it was self-defense! After all, he shot first. And, technically, the three of you _were_ trespassing in her nest."

"That still doesn't explain what she meant about Camp New Hope," Sir Anthony replied: "So, ask her if she'd be so kind as to elaborate."

Hank repeated Sir Anthony's first question. And, this time, the translated reply was slightly more vociferous.

"She says one of the white people at that camp is secretly in league with the Melissae."

tbc

* * * * *

"What white man?" Sir Anthony demanded: "What's his name?"

Once more, a good deal of pausing for translation.

"She says that she doesn't know his name. She knows only what she saw in a vision that forewarned her about the fate that awaited those children at that summer camp, if the orphan train made it through."

"Well, did this alleged vision at least show her where this white man lives?"

Still more translating. With the verbal reply preceded by a frenetic amount of nodding.

"She says the white man in question lives in a town called...'Tree of Life.' "

Sir Anthony and I looked at each other in wide-eyed astonishment. But, we quickly collected ourselves.

"How do we know she's telling the truth?"

A heated reply, with a certain undertone of righteous indignation.

"She swears by Binesi that everything she's told you is true!"

"Binesi?" echoed Sir Anthony.

"The Cree term for 'Thunderbird.' He's basically the personal messenger for the Great Spirit. So, the Children of the Thunderbird Clan do _not_ swear by him, lightly!"

Sir Anthony looked at me and nodded, as he reholstered his M-1911. So, I did the same with my revolver (albeit, more reluctantly). But, Sir Anthony's suspicions had not been completely allayed.

"Tell 'Mademoiselle L'Enfant De Binesi' that we shall transport Constable Weir's body back to his office, where we will consult every geopolitical map we can find. And, if we cannot locate a town with such a name on any of them? Then, we will return here, with many more men, to search her nest. In force!"

That parting translation produced a very angry glare. But, the bird woman nodded. Whereupon (her wounds having finally regenerated), she transformed into a giant golden eagle and flew off!

And, while we watched her depart, Hank put down her rifle and took off her backpack. Withdrawing from the latter a much-folded Chilkat blanket and two lengths of rope.* The former, she subsequently spread next to the ill-fated constable's body. She then looked at us, and asked for our help in wrapping it inside the blanket.

In less time than it takes to tell, we had improvised a body bag for transporting Constable Weir down off the mountain. Would that the descent, itself, could have been just as relatively swift. Alas! It was well after sundown by the time Hank had driven us back to the RCMP station.

We--that is, Hank and I--put the body in one of the jail cells, before returning to the office. There, we saw Sir Anthony intently staring at a map of North America.

And, he was ruefully half-smiling.

"Beginner's luck?" I remarked.

"Well, let's just say that I might owe 'Mademoiselle L'Enfant' a rather huge apology. Look, here."

He pointed to northern Wisconsin. And, once again, I felt my eyes start to bulge with astonishment. For there, roughly southwest of a town called "Manitowish Waters," was another town...bearing the name of "Arbor Vitae."

"It seems we shall be returning to the Lower Forty-eight much sooner than we anticipated," he said to me.

"What about Constable Weir?" I countered: "We have to make some kind of arrangements for the poor man."

"I'll radio the Apostolic Delegate in Ottawa," offered Hank: "He can see to everything...including notification of the next-of-kin. I'll also go to Northgate, and have your pilot standing by, at the aerodrome, first thing in the morning. What's his name, again?"

"Robert Gabriel," replied Sir Anthony.

And, with that, we settled in for the night.


tbc

* * * * *

The next morning, we found (much to our surprise) that a small group of Dog River Ojibwe had rendezvoused outside the RCMP station, just before sunrise. Whereupon, they built a funeral pyre.

All without Sir Anthony or myself hearing anything!

The pre-cremation service was officiated by Father Trent. Head of the Franciscan mission along the Lac Du Chien Portage (between Big Dog Lake and the headwaters of the Whitefish River). Following the cremation, he reassured us that Constable Weir's urn of ashes would be delivered to his next-of-kin in short order.

"Of course," he added: "...to assuage any curiosity regarding such a quick cremation, they will have to be told he was attacked and killed by a...rabid wolverine."

I told him that we understood.

"After all," I could not help adding: "...an alibi like that is more plausible for the common man."

Sir Anthony gave me a bemused smile.

An hour later, we were all packed and once more aboard the buckboard, being towed back to the Northgate Aerodrome. And, exactly as Hank had promised, Bob Gabriel was waiting for us. With the Handley/Page all gassed up, and ready to go.

"So!" I asked, once we were airborne: "How do you want to proceed, once we get to Milwaukee?"

"I think it would behoove us to have the local Lodge President look up the names of Camp New Hope's staff. That way, we can see which of them live in Arbor Vitae, and investigate, accordingly."

* * * * *

The flight, from Thunder Bay to Milwaukee, took up most of the day. As a result, we rested up at the local Lodge, just as we had in Detroit. The next morning, after some much-needed sleep and a hearty breakfast, we met up with Lodge President Austin Galstaff in his sound-proofed office.

We gave him an oral report of the tragic affair up in Canada. Including the accusation of complicity leveled by the bird-woman. Mr. Galstaff was silent for a few seconds, after the conclusion of our report. His steepled index fingers beating a nervous tattoo against each other.

"Do you believe that claim?" he finally asked.

Sir Anthony shrugged: "Let us just say that I have grudgingly accepted it. If only because of the constable's dying declaration!"

"Very well," he replied: "I'll have my assistant start going through our copies of those files, immediately. Hopefully, he'll have the list ready no later than five, this evening."

"Splendid!" Sir Anthony exclaimed: "In the meantime, Dr. Thorpe and I shall catch the nearest bus, and tour this magnificent city."

We were as good as our word. We spent the next three hours touring every building of local historical interest. Then, we lunched at a restaurant personally recommended by Mr. Galstaff. Following which, we took in a vaudeville matinee at the Bijou Theatre.

The first few acts were entertaining enough: bicycling acrobats; trained seals; comedic duos; and a little girl singer. But, it was the act which followed her that really caught Sir Anthony's interest. Because, out on stage, came a belly-dancing snake charmer billed as "Stymphalia Limnades."

And, she was ten feet tall, if she was an inch!

tbc

* * * * *

I think I am safe in diagnosing that there wasn't a man in the entire theater who did not stare, transfixed, at this demi-giantess' gyrations. For my part, I raised my foldable opera glasses up to my eyes, and adjusted them for a closer-seeming view!

Alas! Her face was veiled below the bridge of her nose. The veil being the same shade of black as her Turkish pantaloons. And, yet, where the latter were opaque, the former was translucent. That is; except for an emblem that looked to be made of gold leaf.

A strange emblem...shaped like a winged serpent.

I turned to Sir Anthony, who was looking through his own opera glasses.

"What do you think? A genuine acolyte, this time?"

"Possibly. That emblem is of the Egyptian goddess, Nekhebuto. The conflation of the patron goddesses of pre-dynastic Upper and Lower Egypt.* Yet, her stage name is a double reference to Greek mythology. 'Limnades' being the water nymphs who had charge of marshes and other wetlands. And, Stymphalia being the lake where Herakles performed his Sixth Labour: the killing of those bronze-feathered birds of prey. But, that's not half as fascinating as what this woman has belted around her waist. Look downward!"

I did as directed...and I instinctively gasped.

"Good Lord! That's no theatrical prop. That's a real, live snake!!"

"Yes," he replied: "A Malayan blood python, to be exact. A species that's reputedly untameable! Yet, this one seems to be acting as docile as the spotted Queensland python she's got draped across her shoulders. Not to mention, the African ball python she's sporting like a flesh-and-blood turban!"

"How do you want to handle this?" I whispered to him.

"I think we should leave, post-haste, and head for the nearest florist shop."

I was puzzled by this last statement, but I refrained from questioning it. And, a good thing, as it turns out. For, when we got to the back door of the theater, thirty minutes later, we were just barely ahead of half a dozen other men.

Each one carrying a bouquet of roses, just like Sir Anthony.

"Excuse me, my good man," he said to the burly stage-hand guarding the door: "Would you be so kind as to tell Miss Limnades that Sir Anthony Banfield would be honored to call upon her?"

"You and every other gent, Mac!" grunted the stage-hand, indicating our "rivals" with a movement of his chin.

Suddenly, the back door opened up and a slightly scrawnier stage-hand leaned out to whisper in the burly one's ear. The latter's eyes arched in shock. Then, he looked at Sir Anthony with the utmost suspicion.

"What'd you say your moniker was?"

"Sir---Anthony---Banfield," repeated my comrade, albeit a little more slowly. As if he were a geriatrist talking to a near-deaf novagenarian!

"Miss L done sent word she'd like to see you. Your friend, too! It seems she spotted how extra-hard you was lookin' at her, from the audience. Thought it was real flatterin'!"

"In that case," Sir Anthony replied: "...and with all due respect? Stand aside!"

There were protests of angry frustration from the other gentlemen-callers. But, once we were through the door, our new acquaintance resumed being as much an immoveable obstacle to them as he had, to us, moments earlier. While his scrawny co-worker led us straight to Stymphalia Limnades' dressing room.

He knocked on the door, two or three times. Following which, there came a decidely female voice from within.

"Entre'!"

Seconds later, Sir Anthony was introducing the two of us. I let him do most of the talking, for two reasons. Firstly; because he was naturally more erudite than I was. And, secondly; I was struck speechless. Not only because of this woman's exotic beauty.

But, also, because she was no longer ten feet tall!

tbc

* * * * *

It's true! Somehow, this woman had shrunken down to approximately five feet/seven inches in her bare feet. Which made her about four inches shorter than me.

Furthermore, she was wearing a black dressing gown with a sash that was not too tightly secured. I could therefore tell that she was wearing scandalously short shorts that were the same shade of black as her bustier (also partially visible beneath the dressing gown).

Sir Anthony, of course, had already noticed this paradoxical diminuition, and diplomatically commented on it.

"I must confess, my dear! I thought your dressing room would be a lot...bigger."

The woman laughed and asked us if we could keep a secret. When we both nodded, she pointed to the upper right corner of her dressing room, which was immediately to the right of her vanity table.

There, leaning against the wall, were a pair of stilts.

"Ah!" Sir Anthony exclaimed: "So, you're a stilt walker, too? You truly are versatile, Miss Limnades."

The woman laughed, again.

"My real name is Pam. Pamela Plaisantine, from Port Manteau, Louisiana."

"Regretfully, I'm afraid I've never heard of it."

"Most people haven't. It's just a small hick town on the shores of the Red River, somewhere between Shreveport and Alexandria. I doubt even Randy McNally, himself, could find it on any map!"

Neither one of us corrected her mistake. I had a strong feeling that she was only pretending to be semi-literate. And, from the polite half-smile on his face, I had no doubt that Sir Anthony thought the same thing. So, I let him continue being the chief combatant in this duel of wits.

"Where did you learn how to stilt-walk?" he asked.

"From Papa! He comes from a long line of sheep farmers, in Gascony. And, according to him? They had to resort to it, every rainy spring, in order to follow the sheep around through the mud."

"And, you're superb terpsichore. Where did you pick that up? Or, is that a secret, too?"

She smiled: "Not at all! I worked as a doughtnut dolly, in London, during the World War. And, I shared a flat with this Egyptian girl who was a Red Crescent nurse, from Cairo. We eventually became good enough friends that she gave me some dance lessons."

"Lessons you obviously learned very well," I commented.

"Why, thank you!" she replied: "I just knew, from the way you two were eyeing me through those little binoculars, that you had a special interest in me. But, I must confess. I thought you might be talent agents from Hollywood! You see, there's been talk, up and down the circuit, that one of the big studios is looking for a suitable leading lady for a movie version of THE THOUSAND AND ONE ARABIAN NIGHTS."

Sir Anthony developed a melodramatic frown.

"Then, in that regard, I'm afraid we must disappoint you. The good doctor and I are merely co-workers on summer holiday. And, we deigned to call on you, post-performance, simply to express our admiration for your..."

The rest of his flowery speech was interrupted by the slamming open of the dressing room door.

"Button your lip, Shakespeare, and beat it! The little lady has other plans."

This unquestionably rude comment was uttered by the nearer of the two men who had barged into the dressing room. And, the tommy guns they were toting prevented any kind of immediate rejoinder!

tbc

* * * * *

Sir Anthony looked at the snake charmer.

"Do you know these ruffians?"

She nodded: "The one with the big mouth is Ace Corona. He works for Moustache Pete...!"

The two yeggs raised their tommy guns to eye level.*

"No names, you ditzy dame!"

But, it was too late.

"Moustache Pete Taliaferro?" I exclaimed: "I thought he only ran Detroit."

"One more word out of you, buddy," he snarled: "And, you're gonna have more holes than the Swiss cheese from Fondue Lac. As for you, girlie? Follow Jamie, here, out to the car without another peep. Otherwise, I'll sap you with the butt of this!"

He hefted the tommy gun for emphasis.

As he clearly wasn't going to let her even stop to get properly dressed, she reluctantly nodded and complied.

When it was just the three of us left, Ace Corona smiled.

"Another time, gents."

He then walked backwards to the door, before running off through it. Sir Anthony and I looked at each other for a second. Then, we ran in pursuit!

It was no use, however. A Ford Model A pick-up (with a ribbed and canvas-covered roof) was already speeding away from the mouth of the alley, towards our left. By the time we got to the same point, it was lost to sight.

Naturally, we returned to the theater, to call the police from one of the house phones back stage. Or, rather, Sir Anthony did the calling. I tended to the two stage-hands, who I found in a nearby scenery closet, with reddish-purple lumps on their heads. Evidently, pistol-whipped unconscious by Ace Corona and his friend!

We gave our statements to a local plain-clothes man, Detective Sergeant Barry Stone. When we had finished, Sir Anthony asked a question or two of his own.

"What possible reason could these men have had for abducting Miss Plaisantine? Does this Taliaferro have some kind of romantic obsession with her?"

"Moustache Pete???" exclaimed Sergeant Stone: "Nah! He's married. And, if there's one thing he's not dishonest about, it's his marriage vows. More likely, she was taken as leverage."

"Leverage for what?" I now asked.

"Taking over the Bijou. Not all the employees, thereof, are unionized, if you catch my drift!"

It was at this point that Sir Anthony looked at his pocket watch and then turned its face to me. Making the time of 5:30 P.M. plainly visible.

"Dr. Thorpe and I have a prior appointment for which we are already half an hour late, Sergeant. If you don't need us for anything else...?"

"Well, we might need you to look at some mug shots, tomorrow, so we can get out a good description of this Jamie character. But, until then, you're free to go. Just don't leave town, right away."

Sgt. Stone had a pair of uniformed policemen drop us off at the Milwaukee Lodge. There, in the lobby, we found Mr. Galstaff personally waiting for us. In reply to his understandably anxious inquiries, we told him what had happened at the Bijou. And, at the mention of the names "Taliaferro" and "Corona," his face went quite pale.

"What's wrong?" Sir Anthony bluntly asked (the concern in his voice quite obvious).

Mr. Galstaff shook his head and beckoned for us to follow him to his office. And, once he had closed the sound-proof doors, he showed us a beige file folder. The top page of that file contained a long list of names.

"These are all the volunteer staff members, of Camp New Hope, who come from Wisconsin. But, only one of them lives in Arbor Vitae."

He pointed to the name circled in pen. That of...Cassandra White.

"Who's she?" I asked.

"Among other things?" Mr. Galstaff replied: "She was born and raised in Detroit as Cassandra Langobardi. But, in more recent years, she was better known as Signora Cassandra Bianco. As in; the widow of Daniello 'Tiny Dan' Bianco! The Milwaukee crime boss recently...deposed...by Moustache Pete."

"So?" I prompted.

"So, ever since she changed her name and moved to Arbor Vitae, Miss White has been a big contributor to a certain feminist organization that's become very popular the last few years. An organization composed mostly of women who lost husbands, fathers, brothers and/or sons in the World War! It's called...the Sisterhood of Bellona."

Now, it was Sir Anthony's turn to grow pale.

"I take it you know that name?"

It was more a statement than a question. He nodded, and added that I should, too.

"According to our probationary studies? That was the name of a Melissae sub-sect that arose in New Orleans...nearly sixty years ago."

tbc

* * * * *

I pondered this for a couple seconds. Then, I snapped my fingers as realization hit me.

"Was that the cult that tried to pass itself off as a memorial association composed of Confederate widows?"

"Precisely!" exclaimed Sir Anthony: "But, Father Cypriano of the St. Hubert Society exposed them for what they truly were, and destroyed them! With considerable help, of course, from one Capt. Lancer of the Union Army of Occupation."

"It's too late for you to investigate this new lead, today," observed Mr. Galstaff: "Why not wait until tomorrow?"

"A very sound suggestion," replied Sir Anthony.

An hour later, we were eating steak with French-fried potatoes in our guest room. Or, rather, I was eating. Sir Anthony merely tapped on the edge of his dinner plate with his fork. A nervous habit I had long since learned was a sign of his mental gears turning at full speed.

"You really should finish those before they get cold," I remarked: "If only to keep from being distracted by the growls of a stomach protesting its emptiness."

"Peter, my boy?" he replied: "Rapunzel's hair, in a gale-force wind, could not become more entangled than have the different aspects of this case!"

I grinned: "You're preaching to the choir, in that regard, Sir Anthony."

"Let's see," he mused aloud (as if he hadn't heard me): "We have a gangster's widow who's apparently funding a Melissae sub-sect that was supposedly destroyed at the tail end of the War Between the States. We have a snake-charming belly dancer who was abducted by employees of the aforementioned gangster's alleged murderer. And, we have a train load of missing orphans who were abducted by a Red Indian bird-woman, who claims they're better off with her than at Camp New Hope!"

He paused long enough to shovel some of the French fries, and one piece of steak, into his mouth. During which interval, I agreed that he had given an accurate summary of the known facts.

"The only common denominator I can see," I added: "...is that both the abducted woman and the cult are originally from Louisiana."

"Botheration!" he exclaimed, banging the tray top with the handle of his fork: "You're right. Why didn't I see that sooner?"

"Blinded with hunger, perhaps?" I gently chided him, as I ate some more of my own steak.

"I'm serious. Detective Sgt. Stone said Taliaferro was one gangster who took his marriage vows, seriously. Yet, what about the late 'Tiny Dan' Bianco?"

"You've lost me," I confessed.

"You saw how popular she is with her male fans! What if she was recruited, by Taliaferro, as part of some master plan aimed at seductively luring 'Tiny Dan' into a death-trap?"

"It would have to be a mighty big trap," I replied: "According to my contacts, back in Manhattan, the man was close to seven feet tall! Hence, his nickname was actually a sarcastic misnomer. Similar to calling a chubby man 'Skinny.' "

Sir Anthony shook his head: "You don't understand. I'm saying; what if Pamela Plaisantine was part of a revived Sisterhood of Bellona? And, what if she was trying to somehow exploit Taliaferro's crime syndicate as a power base for further expansion?"

"Then, why have her abducted at gunpoint?" I countered.

"Perhaps, she had outlived her usefulness to him. But, even if I'm wrong, I think it doubly behooves us to leave here, for Arbor Vitae, first thing tomorrow morning."

As if on cue, we suddenly heard a growing commotion outside our guest room window.

"Extra! Extra ! Read all about it," some paper boy cried out at the top of his lungs: "Bianco Mob strikes back! Two Taliaferro men found brutally murdered."

I ordered Sir Anthony to finish eating, while I went outside to buy that extra edition of THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL. When I finally managed to make my way to the front of the ensuing crowd, I gave the paperboy a dollar and told him to keep the change.

"Gee! Thanks, mister!" he exclaimed with delight (before returning to his ritual recitation).

I brought it back upstairs, and grimly read it over Sir Anthony's shoulder. To briefly summarize it? The Ford Model A we had seen drive off, from the alley behind the Bijou Theater, had been found in a warehouse somewhere along the waterfront. With a large hole in the warehouse roof; and the truck looking like a peeled banana!

More over, the truck had only had three occupants. Two of them (Ace Corona and Jamie Hillborne) having bled to death...after somehow being crushed below the waist!!

The truck's driver, on the other hand, was alive. But, in a state of mental shock. As whatever he had witnessed had proven so frightening, he had become a white-haired babbling idiot!!!

Incessantly muttering something about a giant snake-woman.

tbc

* * * * *

As it turns out, our next person-of-interest, Cassandra White, did not live within the munincipal confines of Arbor Vitae proper. Rather, she now resided within a former hunting-and-fishing lodge, on the island of Minocqua, on Big Arbor Lake. The aforementioned body of water straddled the boundary between Vilas and Oneida Counties, Wisconsin. So, upon arriving in Arbor Vitae, we would have to charter a motorboat to get to the island. And, that's assuming the Widow White would even deign to see us!

For the lodge was heavily guarded, at all times, by the most hard core of her late husband's loyal subordinates.

Fortunately, for us, Sheriff Nellis of Winnebago County was good friends with the sheriff of Vilas County. And, the latter had not only supplied the former with all of the above information. He had also agreed to act as our intermediary in requesting an audience with Widow White.

As a result, when Bob Gabriel landed us in a small cropduster's airfield near Arbor Vitae, we were personally met by Sheriff B.B.L. Zimmer. When I naturally inquired what the first three initials stood for, he smirked and replied:

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Twenty minutes later, we departed from a small boathouse in the back yard of Sheriff Zimmer's own house. Half an hour after that, we were pulling up to a brown-painted ladder hanging off a matching-colored dock. Waiting for us atop that dock were three men. Two of whom were armed with Springfield M-1897 pump-action shotguns!

The man standing in front and between them was the one who helped us over the top of the ladder.

"Welcome to Minocqua. I'm Sid Pixis."

Sir Anthony was quick to seize on that.

"Pixis? Isn't that a Greek surname?"

"Greco-Sicilian, actually," the spokesman replied: "My family emigrated here from Siracusa. Santo Dionisio Pixis; at your service. My friends call me 'Sid.' But, you can just call me Mr. P!"

"Very well, Mr. P," Sir Anthony replied (immediately getting the point): "I'm..."

"I already know who you are, l---y!" he snapped: "Dona Cassandra's a big fan of your books. That's the only reason she agreed to see you two. Pat'em down, Mugsy!"

The guard to Mr. P's right handed the spokesman his shotgun. Following which, he frisked both of us quite efficiently. Confiscating both of our pistols.

"You'll get these back when it's time for you to leave," Mr. P declared, handing Mugsy's shotgun back to him.

Whereupon, he gestured with his head for us to follow him. Which we did; with Mugsy and his compatriot bringing up the rear.

The woman we were subsequently introduced to sat on a rocking chair in her quite spacious ground-floor living room. And, in stark contrast to her name, she was dressed all in black. Up to, and including, the translucent veil that she now lifted from her face.

"Greetings, Sir Anthony," she said with a well-practiced smile.

"Buon Giorno, Signora Bianco," Sir Anthony replied, as we both bowed: "Allow me to introduce my staunch friend and ally; Dr. Peter Thorpe."

"Benevenuto, Doctore!"

"Graci prego, signora."

She then got right to the point.

"Dionisio has no doubt told you that I highly value my privacy. So, whatever questions you went to so much trouble to get permission to ask? Please, ask them. Then, leave as soon as I have answered them!"

"Very well, Signora," replied Sir Anthony: "Question Number One. Do you know, as we do, the true nature of the Sisterhood of Bellona?"

The widow's smile disappeared faster than the memory of a re-elected Republican. And, her reply was more of a harsh whisper.

"All too well, I'm afraid."

"Then, why contribute so much to their coffers? Especially, when they aided your husband's arch-enemy in killing him?"

Here, her smile not only returned. It became a grin that I can only describe as "predatory."

"Are you familiar with the expression: 'Keep your friends close. But, your enemies, closer?' "

Sir Anthony nodded: "It refers to the setting and springing of two-sided traps."

"Precisely! I intend to lull those pagan hussies into a false sense of security. And, when the time is right, I will avenge what they did to my husband! Although, I must confess; the reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated."

Sir Anthony and I looked at each other in puzzlement.

"I'm afraid we don't follow you."

The Widow White barked an order in Italian. Following which, one of her bodyguards brought in a rhinestone-studded jewelry box. Whereupon, she turned a skeleton key in the lock of its bottom half, and opened the lid.

There, sitting in the center of its red velvet-lined interior...was a three inch-tall man.

"Sir Anthony? Doctore? Meet my husband; the now literally 'Tiny Dan' Bianco."

tbc

* * * * *

Initially, Sir Anthony and I could only stare, transfixed, as the "Widow" White removed her shrunken husband from the wooden box. And, following its removal, she placed the little man on her lap like a ventriloquist's dummy!

"Forgive me, gentlemen," she said with a smile: "But, it is time for Daniello to eat. And, he cannot handle the great quantities he used to."

Whereupon, a bowl of soup was brought out, upon a wooden serving tray with collapsible legs. Into this soup, she periodically dipped an eye dropper. And, the now aptly-named Tiny Dan drained its contents as fast as he was able.

It was like watching the world's smallest baby suckling from his mother's breast!

"Extraordinary!" I muttered, half-aloud.

And, Sir Anthony nodded in agreement. He then politely cleared his throat.

"Forgive me, Signora Bianco. But, might I inquire as to how this came about?"

She briefly looked up, and wistfully smiled.

"Combined with his wealth and power, my hubsand's previous physical stature made him...socially magnetic...to women younger than myself. Nor was he averse to their attentions, in that regard. And, last month, it finally proved his undoing."

It seems that Cato Manelli, one of Tiny Dan's lieutenants, had gotten engaged. So, a bachelor party had been held for him, within the private second-floor banquet room of Cassadria's Ristorante. A party replete with the customary female "entertainer."

"I am not so naive as to think my husband could resist such provocative undulations! Thus, he left Milwaukee in the wee morning hours. Accompanied here only by his two most trusted bodyguards...and that snake charmer."

She looked at Mugsy and Sid Pixis as she said this. Then, she told us how the two aforementioned bodyguards had soon heard screams coming from the master bedroom of this former hunting lodge!

"It is a mixed blessing of their profession that they can differentiate between screams of carnal pleasure...and those generated by sheer terror. They rushed upstairs from the kitchen; broke down the bedroom door; and saw Daniello as you now see him. Albeit, dangling over the wide-open jaws of that...that...that empusa!"

Somehow, they overcame their shock and quickly drew their Smith and Wesson revolvers. Sending a total of twelve .38 caliber bullets into the naked torso of Pamela Plaisantine! Yet, all that happened was that she screamed; stuck her forked tongue out at them; and then dove through the bedroom window without even opening it!!

The two bodyguards, upon mentally reliving this, crossed themselves while whispering prayers to the Virgin Mary.

"Now, you see why I have retreated here, with my husband," said the erstwhile widow: "While letting the outside world think he is dead. For, if that empusa decides to redeem her failure..."

"...she'll get a snakeskin full of twelve-gauge buckshot for her trouble," Mugsy declared (with blatant smugness).

As if in perverse rebuttal, the air outside the front door of the lodge was suddenly filled with screams and thunderous blasts. Prompting Sir Anthony and I to run to the living room windows.

There, we saw a creature come out of the water. A creature that I can only describe as a wingless wyvern. Approximately one hundred feet long, with green skin...and raven-black hair.

tbc



tbc

* * * * *

From the front window of the living room, we watched in slack-jawed horror as the giant snake-woman's black hair seemed to come to life. The strands reshaping themselves so that they now resembled the two halves of a cobra's fully-spread hood!

Even as they did so, however, the mafiosi posted outside continued pumping away on their shotguns. Round after twelve-gauge round of buckshot lodging itself in her waistline. And, yet, all to no harmful effect.

Indeed, I could swear this reptilian giantess was silently laughing at their efforts!

Then, it was her turn. First, she lashed out with her tail, sending all those on her right literally flying in all directions. Then, she did the same to those on her left...with one exception.

That one was grabbed up by her suddenly prehensile tail, and slowly drawn upward to her gaping jaws. As if she was savoring his current screams of terror!

Screams that ended only when she had closed her jaws and swallowed him. The tell-tale gulp all too visible from our lower vantage point.

"Signora Bianco!" Sir Anthony now exclaimed: "There's only one way to drive her off. Our pistols have blessed steeljacket ammunition. Have Mugsy return them to us. Now, before it's too late!"

To her credit, "Cassandra White" swiftly nodded in compliance. Whereupon, Mugsy personally re-armed Sir Anthony and myself.

"Upstairs bedroom windows?" I suggested.

Sir Anthony nodded. And, our hostess quickly told us which second floor doorway faced our mutual enemy. Ten seconds later, we had achieved slightly higher ground. Making the velocity of our bullets less prone to diminuition by distance.

Unfortunately, ten seconds had proven enough time to devour most of the remaining sentries out front. So that the snake-woman was now free to turn her attention on the occupants of the lodge.

"Aim for the base of her throat," Sir Anthony instructed.

I grimly nodded. We then counted backwards from three, in unison, before he shouted:

"Open fire!"

As we had, up in Canada, we fired every round dead on target. Unfortunately, for us, they all lodged in the snake-woman's pendulous giant breasts! And, though she reared upwards, clutching them in agony, that seemed to be the only effect our blessed bullets had on her.

"Not to worry," Sir Anthony replied, when I noted as much, aloud: "In looking for the source of the fusillade, she'll no doubt lower her head to inspect these windows. When she does..."

"...we empty our re-loads right into her eyes," I finished (clicking the cylinder of my revolver back into place).

Now, it was Sir Anthony who grimly nodded. A few moments later, we were looking at our reflections in the biggest, blackest pair of eyes we had ever seen.

"Fire!"

The ensuing shriek of pain was so loud, it drowned out even the muzzle reports of our hand guns! Unfortunately, that same pain also caused the snake-woman to convulse and thrash about. And, as a result? Her giant tail came crashing through the southward-facing wall of the lodge's first floor. Which, in turn, collapsed two of the weight-bearing wooden columns of the living room. Causing the second floor bedroom containing us...

...to drop out from beneath our feet.

tbc

* * * * *

At first, all was black. Then, slowly, I opened my eyes. And, I had a momentary twinge of panic as I beheld six fingers on my left hand!

But, my vision cleared, a moment later. And, I saw that Sir Anthony was holding three fingers of his right hand.

"Seeing a little clearer, now, are we?"

I gingerly nodded: "What...? How...?"

He helped me up and showed me the remains of the bed that previously separated us during our small arms sniping.

"That broke our fall. Unfortunately, I don't think Widow White and the others were so lucky."

He pointed to the rubble that had formerly been the back wall of the living room.

"What about the giantess?"

He shook his head: "I don't know. But, as we lost our pistols in that fall, I think we had better find someplace to hide before..."

As if on cue, a pair of giant, green-skinned hands suddenly swooped down on either side of us. Sweeping aside the rubble that flanked us before lifting us off the ground (by the collars of our disheveled shirts) with two pairs of black-clawed fingers.

The giant, reptilian visage we were brought up to eye level with was etched with malevolent glee. And, the voice that issued from it, though naturally sibilant, was none-the-less recognizable.

"Hello, boysssssss."

"Plaisantine?!" I exclaimed.

She fiendishly grinned and nodded.

"Did you misssssss me?"

"Does a dental patient miss an impacted wisdom tooth, once extracted?" Sir Anthony countered.

The snake-woman's gloating turned to angry glaring.

"Everybody'sssssss a comedian! Well, I'm the one who'll be laughing lasssssssst, little man. The moment I feel you hit my digessssssssssstive tract!"

Whereupon, she opened wide her massive jaws. Positioning Sir Anthony just above them! Before she could drop him in, however, I heard a sound shatter the unnatural stillness around us. A sound I had not heard since my days as a medical officer with the Lafayette Escadrille.*

The sound of a fighter plane in a power dive...prepatory to strafing the enemy.

Sure enough; the dirt behind our serpentine assailant developed twin rows of dust devils, before the machine gun bullets reached her giant tail and inched up towards her waist!

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!"

Her ensuing scream of pain was of such volume that I instinctively closed my eyes and covered my ears. Ergo; I did not see her release me from her grip until I felt the wind blowing past my face. Yet, once again, I seemed to have a guardian angel watching over me. For, I landed on her wounded tail and, then, bounced off of it. Like a gymnast off an obscene trampoline!

I then wildly looked round to see if Sir Anthony had been similarly released. But, I couldn't spy him, anywhere.

"Peter! Up here!"

I looked skyward...and beheld him desperately holding on to Plaisantine's right nipple!

"Catch me! Hurry!"

I ran forward, as he let go. And, though I braced myself as best I could, when I skidded to a stop, the speed of his descent still toppled both of us to the ground with a collective "ooooof!"

That's when I heard the plane, again. It was coming back. No doubt to make another strafing run!

So, I half-dragged/half-carried Sir Anthony further to our right. And, just in time. Because, now, the twin trail of machine gun bullets started stitching a pattern above her waist. Straight up to where her cobra-like hood met the base of her throat!

Plaisantine's hands clutched her breasts in pain. Making me wonder if the machine gun bullets were blessed. Whatever their nature, though, the giant snake-woman still tried to flee. Back to the depths of Big Arbor Lake. But, she found no safety in those waters.

For, parked in the shallows, was another biplane. The floatplane version of a "Jenny Ericsson" three-seater, to be exact! And, in the center seat, there was a man armed with a .30-06 B.A.R. One that he quickly proved to be lethally proficient with, as he began opening fire at the bridge of Plaisantine's nose. Literally, right between her eyes!


Between his fusillade, and that of the first biplane (a Thomas/Morse MB-3, which had doubled back for a third strafing run!), she did not stand a chance. Because, she issued another, near-deafening scream of pain, one final time, before collapsing to the ground.

Moments later, the occupants of the Jenny came over to us. With her pilot making the introductions.

"I'm Captain Larry Biggs (USMC). The sharpshooter, here, is my little brother; Special Agent Jim Biggs of the FBI. And, the gentleman accompanying us..."

"...can handle his own intros, thank you," that other interrupted (before doffing his leather helmet and goggles with a melodramatic bow): "Harry Houdini, at your service! And, believe me; I'm no gentleman."

tbc

* * * * *

Now, to be honest, Captain Biggs and Special Agent Biggs were identical twins! Yet, the light-hearted way in which the former had referred to the latter as his "little" brother, made it fairly easy to deduce that they had probably come into the world just minutes apart.

It was at this point that I was hit by a much harder realization.

"Not to sound ungrateful, gentlemen. But, your well-armed arrival, in the nick of time, indicates you had a pretty good idea what you might find when you got here!"

Sir Anthony smiled: "Elementary, my dear Peter. The American military have known about the existence of the Melissae for the last nine years!"

I snapped my fingers: "Of course! The survivors of the 'Mother Carey's Chicken.' "

Sir Anthony nodded.

In 1913 (after one year of quarantine at Fort Jay, New York*), those poor shrunken souls had been secretly transferred to the American Medical Museum of the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. There, they were extensively studied and examined by the finest minds from the Harvard Medical School, in Massachusetts; the Columbia University Faculty of Medicine, in Manhattan; and the Medical College of Virginia. With some of the Harvard alumni having been ex-naval doctors who'd seen action in Cuba, China, and the Phillipines!

Unfortunately, for them, this unique line of research was soon interrupted by both the World War and the Spanish flu pandemic. So, naturally, their progress reports had ground to a halt.

That still didn't explain Harry Houdini's presence, however. And, I said as much out loud.

"I thought you and the FBI were trying to prove the existence of a Russian super-zeppelin," I added.

"A semi-facetious cover story," replied Captain Biggs: "Inspired by Uncle Sam's own work on the XZR-1 dirigible. Which, incidentally, is where that MB-3 returned to!"

"As for my involvement?" said Houdini: "Well, two months ago, I was working with an NYPD bunco squad detective to get the goods on a Coney Island 'medium' who called herself 'Madame Chulu.' Calling himself 'Chris Denton,' the detective pretended that he wanted to get in touch with his father (a doughboy killed in the Argonne Offensive). When it came time for the 'dearly departed' to make his appearance, however, I barged in with an electric lantern and a newspaper photographer!"

"That was when it happened. As soon as the detective identified himself, and told Madame Chulu that she and her henchman were under arrest, she...transformed!"

"Transformed, as in shape-shifted?" inquired Sir Anthony.

Houdini nodded: "Except for being eight feet tall, at most, she could have been a twin sister of this ill-fated wench!"

He pointed to the late, unlamented Pamela Plaisantine (who was slowly resuming a more bipedal humanoid shape).

"Before you can say 'Abracadabra,' both the photographer and the detective were dead!! And, I might have been next, if not for the fortuitous intervention of a Chinatown tong hatchet man. Or, rather, somebody dressed like one. Somebody who concealed his face beneath a tiger-striped mask...of comedy!"

"The hatchets he threw hit their target with unerring accuracy. And, after Madame Chulu's death-throes had ceased, my mysterious benefactor removed them. Revealing the axe heads to be made of pure silver."

"And, is it safe to assume that this heroic individual never identified himself?" I rhetorically asked.

"Yes and no," Houdini replied: "When I _insisted_ he tell me his name, so I could at least make a proper report to the authorities, he said I should contact the FBI and ask for Special Agent Biggs. Telling him that... Oishi had sent me!"

tbc

* * * * *

"...he said that I should contact the FBI and ask for Special Agent Biggs. Telling him that...Oishi had sent me!"

Now, there are two things I have to make clear, rather hurriedly. First of all, for the more anal-retentive among my readers? I am well aware that the FBI were officially called the Bureau of Investigation (Department of Justice), back in 1921. But, this is not some collegiate historical treatise. And, I am dictating this during my dotage. So, I have taken the liberty of using literary anachronism purely (and unapologetically) for my own convenience.

Secondly? The Biggs brothers had served in separate branches of the U.S. Armed Forces during the World War. Larry Biggs had won his captaincy on the battlefields of France, leading a company of the 5th Marines attached to the Second Infantry Division.

Master Sergeant Jim Biggs, however, was serving in China (with the Golden Dragons of the 15th Infantry Regiment) when he was first recruited by G-2, for a special assignment, in 1914. The latter wanted him to pose as a a foreign correspondent for a Pacific Northwest newspaper called THE OREGONIAN. In that capacity, he would be passed certain information--about the German naval base in Tsingtao--by a certain Japanese spy. Jim would then relay that information to the military attache' at the American embassy in Tokyo, etc. etc. etc.

Needless to say, that Japanese spy had been Oishi Nakafusa.

Oishi had been born and raised on the island of Formosa. So, he had ultimately learned to speak Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese as easily as his parents drank sake!

But, their next drink might have been at Oishi's funeral if not for M/Sgt. Biggs. Earth Tiger Tong hatchet men, secretly working for the Germans, ambushed the duo at their scheduled rendezvous! And, it was only the "younger" Biggs' marksmanship, combined with Oishi's mastery of unarmed combat, that allowed them to escape.

That incident, in turn, led the Bureau to recruit the young master sergeant, following his honorable discharge, in 1920. With all of the above kindly explained to Houdini by Special Agent Biggs, himself.

"An intriguing story," Sir Anthony finally remarked: "But, that still doesn't answer the question of how a Japanese spy wound up in Coney Island, just in time to save your life, sir."

"It's quite simple, Sir Anthony," replied the special agent: "History seems to have repeated itself. Three months ago, an orphan train--en route from Seattle to Milwaukee via Frisco--failed to arrive at its ultimate destination. And, some of the children on it...were Issei!"

Sir Anthony and I looked at each other, aghast.

"Why on Earth didn't Mr. Chelgi tell us that, himself, when we first met him?" I finally demanded.

Capt. Biggs shrugged: "At this point, your guess is as good as ours. All we know for sure is that the Japanese Consulate, in Seattle, is holding Uncle Sam responsible for those missing kids. And, if we can't find them? Then, every American in Japan will be lucky if they're merely kicked out!"


tbc

* * * * *

For a few seconds, Sir Anthony and I just stood there in open-mouthed shock. So stunned we were by the implied threat, to our fellow Americans, in that under-statement.

"B-But," I finally managed to stammer: "That makes no sense! Japan is a modern, civilized society, now. Why would they...?"

"Because," Sir Anthony replied: "...despite their modernization, they are still as class-conscious as any Park Avenue plutocrat!* So, if their government is this desperate to recover a missing trainload of Issei orphans, it can only mean one thing. There was a high-ranking Japanese personage aboard, as well!"

"Bingo!" exclaimed Captain Biggs: "Those kids had a consular chaperone. The grandniece of the Japanese Foreign Minister, himself!"

"Oh, Dear Lord!" I sighed, running my left hand through my hair: "And, how does this Madame Chulu tie into it?"

"One of the first things Nakafusa found out," the captain's brother replied: "...is that the Seattle orphan train had been privately chartered. By a bereaved railroad magnate who'd lost his wife to the Spanish flu, and his only son to the World War."

"And guess who was acting as his 'spirtual advisor' with regard to keeping him in touch with the dearly departed?" Houdini now added.

So, the first thing Special Agent Biggs did, after arriving in New York City, was to supervise the police search of Madame Chulu's residence and personal effects (following her untimely demise from "cardiac failure"). It was as the result of this search that they found the correspondence between her and a Midwestern widow named...Cassandra White.

"Knowing who her husband had really been," the special agent continued: "...and fearful of any kind of alliance between organized crime and this unholy cult, the Attorney General immediately contacted the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Personally requesting the fastest available means of transport for Mr. Houdini, my brother, Nakafusa, and myself."

As if on cue, the five of us were suddenly--and quite literally--overshadowed by something massive, right above us. At the same time, all conversation was drowned out by the noise, and the dust, kicked up by the propellers of the largest dirigible I had ever seen!

Sir Anthony looked at me and slowly mouthed the letters:

"X--Z--R!"

I nodded in understanding.

A minute later, some kind of vertical breeches buoy was lowered down to us. Captain Biggs motioned to Sir Anthony and I to climb within the cage-like mesh of thickly coiled rope. We nodded, as one, and grabbed on to the ropes as tightly as possible. A good thing, too.

For within ninety seconds, we had been hauled aboard the XZR-1 like a pair of rainbow trout in a net!

It took us one more minute for our stomachs to readjust. Then, we took note of our surroundings. We were, for lack of a better term, in a veritable floating hangar. Surrounded by Thomas/Morse biplanes just like the one that had saved our hides from Pamela Plaisantine!

Emerging from that maze of planes was a military officer who quickly identified himself as:

"Jonathan Hopkins (Major General; USMC). Sir Anthony? Dr. Thorpe? It's a pleasure and privilege to meet the both of you."

We thanked him, and took turns shaking his hand.

"I must admit, general," Sir Anthony then remarked: "...this is quite the marvel you're commanding, here."

He smiled and nodded, in appreciation.

"It was built in Germany, as part of their war reparations. But, there's one feature that was loaned to us, by the Regular Navy, only more recently."

He pointed to a large, four-wheeled cart that had been positioned near the still-open trap doors we had ascended through, just five minutes earlier. Upon that cart stood what looked like five-gallon drums of oil.

When I openly asked if such was the case, the general's smile turned into a feral grin.

"They're actually a new kind of depth charge. Specifically modified for just this contigency. You'll see what I mean once Messrs Biggs and Houdini are out of the way."

Moments later, the "Jenny Ericsson" was once again airborne. Following which, General Hopkins ordered two nearby deckhands to "commence the mop-up."

One at a time, those depth charges were hurled through the trap doors. And, one at a time, they landed on either side of the dead giantess' head. We saw that much through two pairs of binoculars the general had handed us. Yet, when the depth charges went off?

Such was the ensuing fiery brilliance that we had to look away!

When the glow had faded enough, that we could finally look back, the giantess' body was gone. Only a large scattering of ash remained in its place.

tbc

* * * * *

For a few seconds we stood there, aghast. Then, we turned as one to General Hopkins, and we asked:

"How...?"

"I'm sorry," he replied (with a half-smug/half-sympathetic) grin: "But, that's top secret. Speaking of secrets, though, we should adjourn to the captain's mess to plan further strategy in this matter. Captain Biggs? Would you lead the way?"

We nodded our understanding and followed our hosts. But, as we did so, I turned to Sir Anthony and whipsered:

"Have you figured it out, yet?"

He grinned, nodded, and whispered back:

"One depth charge probably contained powdered magnesium, while the other probably contained a combination of holy water and white phosphorous. The explosion of the latter led to the water igniting the magnesium from the former. Which, in turn, explosively ignited the white phosporous! Combine that with the spiritual energy endowed upon the water by blessing it in the first place? And, voila! No more corpus diaboli."

We finally reached the captain's mess. General Hopkins took the chair at the head of the table. Special Agent Biggs positioned himself to the general's left, followed by Mr. Houdini. Captain Biggs positioned himself to the general's right. Before choosing our own seats, however, Sir Anthony and I found ourselves having a most unexpected reunion.

The pilot who had strafed the giant snake demoness from the air had been our own Bob Gabriel!

"How in blazes...?" I began.

Now, it was his turn to grin.

"They picked me up--quite literally!--back at the local airfield. Needless to say, I was quite impressed with what I saw."

The general meaningfully cleared his throat, and gestured for everyone to be seated.

"I think we should begin this planning session with a brief recap of the facts as both parties individually know them. Sir Anthony; if you would do the honors?"

The latter nodded and stood back up.

"It began with a Midwestern orphan train that was intercepted, and absconded with, by a giant bird woman. Purportedly, to protect its young passengers from a sisterhood of demonic snake women! While, two months earlier, a privately-chartered counterpart in the Far West might or might not have met the same fate for similar reasons."

"Then, we have Mr. Houdini, who was almost killed by one of the aforementioned snake-women during her imposture as a spirit-channeling medium for (among others) a certain bereaved railroad magnate."

"Then, we have you, General Hopkins, and this airborne task force, secretly investigating the connection between these snake women and the missing train from the Far West."

"And, lastly? We have the good doctor and myself. We, ourselves, were almost killed by another snake giantess while talking to the widow of a Mafia don concerning the identity of a certain man at the summer camp for which the Midwestern train was originally bound. A man whom the aforementioned bird woman claimed was secretly in league with the snake women! That the snake giantess who attacked us, at Big Arbor Lake, had come there to prevent that (at any cost) should naturally be regarded as indisputable."

"As indisputable," I added: "...as our debt to you, General Hopkins, for saving our lives."

The general nooded, appreciatively. Then, he grew business-like, again.

"From your concise summary of the facts, Sir Anthony, it is obvious we have two over-lapping mysteries. And, while I would be amenable to joining forces with you and Dr. Thorpe, under other circumstances? In this instance, I don't think it's logistically possible. You see, the XZR-1 is bound directly for Arizona, where Oishi Nakafusa has uncovered a clue to the location of the Seattle orphan train. We will, however, first drop you off back at that small airfield so Mr. Gabriel can reclaim possession of his Handley/Page."

"We would be most grateful for that, general," Sir Anthony replied: "As I think it would behoove Robert, Dr. Thorpe, and myself to make our next stop...Lake Yo-Tel-T'til, Michigan!"

tbc

* * * * *

We departed from Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin, a little after sunrise, the next day. By noon, we had reached Delta County, Michigan. With Bob setting us down at the Happy Rock Aerodrome. The owners of the latter had so named their business as a punning reference to the nearby county seat of Gladstone, Michigan! And, it was there that the three of us caught a train to our next destination.

The train in question belonged to the Soo Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway. "Soo" being the anglophonic way the local Michiganians pronounced the French word "sault." As in, "Sault Sainte Marie!" The French-Canadian name for the white water rapids at the head of the St. Mary's River, as it flows from Lake Superior to Lake Huron.

The point of our disembarkation was (as pointed out much earlier in this chronicle) half-way between the quaintly named towns of Rudyard and Kipling. More specifically; the unincorporated community of Deepayintinee. Originally, a village of the Saulteaux Ojibwas (prior to the War of 1812) that marked the southern terminus of a portage around St. Mary's Rapids. But, now, the site of a general store that marked the head of the hiking trail to spring-fed Lake Yo-Tel-T'til.

At the risk of sounding condescending, the hike was a little harder on Sir Anthony's stamina than it was on Bob's or mine. He did not complain once, however. And, with staunchness like that, I have no doubt there will always be an England!

We three had not made the hike unprepared, though. Via radiotelephony, we had contacted Mr. Galstaff (President of the Milwaukee Lodge) from the XZR-1. Giving him an update on the status of our mission. And, asking for the name of Camp New Hope's chief administrator. Upon obtaining the latter, we spent the remainder of the 28th making ready for the hike.

This included military-issue canteens, already filled to the brim with water. Plus, three "broom-handle" Mauser machine pistols!

"Don't worry, gents," General Hopkins had assured us: "The steeljacket bullets in the ammo clips have been blessed by the Chief of Chaplains, himself! So, in the unlikely event you do run into more of these giant snake-women, while at that summer camp, you'll be well-protected."

"In light of the fact that we lost our original small arms back on Minocqua," Sir Anthony had replied: "...we are deeply grateful, general."

Now, we were on a dock upon the southern shore of Lake Yo-Tel-T'til. Waiting for a ferry that was powered by a team of eight Clydesdales cantering on a treadmill!

"A little eighteenth century, isn't it?" I asked (semi-rhetorically).

Sir Anthony shrugged: "I must admit, it has a certain nostalgic charm to it. And, it does seem in keeping with the camp director's faith!"

"His faith?" echoed Bob: "What is he; Amish?"

"Not quite. He's descended from Volga River Mennonites who emigrated to California during the 1850's. And, his name is..."

Sir Anthony was cut off by the arrival of the horse-powered ferry. We boarded the craft; dutifully paid our fares; and, then, with a roughly fifteen minute trip ahead of us, we leaned on the starboard bow railing to admire the view. Upon finally reaching the other side, however, we immediately became alert to the fact that we had a reception committee awaiting us.

Namely, a whole bunch of teenagers and two adults. One man and one woman. The former beaming with adulation as he called out:

"Hello, there! Welcome to Camp New Hope. I'm the director; Boris Draconicov. At your service!"

tbc

* * * * *

The three of us ate dinner with the director in his cabin. The latter was attached to the camp's main administrative office via breeze-way. And, when Mr. Draconicov returned from there, to join us for dinner, the first thing I noticed was his appearance. Slightly taller and thinner than me. Roughly my age (give or take three years). And, sporting the moustache-free beard typical of Mennonites and Amish both.

During dinner, he explained to us that the name of the lake, "Yo-Tel-T'til," was an Ojibwa word that roughly translated as "small play thing."

"Apparently, there is a local legend about a giantess who bestowed that name upon an Ojibwa brave she captured while he was living off the land (as part of his tribal rite of manhood). The legend goes on to say that the two fell in love. Her widowed mother did not approve. She crushed him beneath her feet. And, the present-day lake was formed from her grieving daughter's tears."

It was while sipping some freshly brewed after-dinner coffee that Sir Anthony broached an interesting subject.

"Forgive me if I'm being too personal, Mr. Draconicov. But, I could not help noticing that your surname sounds more typical of someone who's of straight Slavic descent. Rather than from a Germanic sub-culture like the Volgadeutsch."

Mr. Draconicov chuckled: "Very astute, Sir Anthony! And, quite correct. My ancestors were originally surnamed 'Drachenhof.' After their village of origin, in Steiermark, on the Austro-Slovenian border.* But, almost ninety years after they had settled in Russia (at the invitation of Catherine the Great), the Crimean War broke out. And, to protect all their young people, twelve and over, from forced conscription by Cossack press gangs, they fled to America via Canada. Slavicizing their surnames and posing as Doukhobors!"

"Some settled here, in Michigan, while the rest moved on to Fresno, California. In both cases, they retained the alias as an added precaution. A wise one, too, given the anti-German sentiment that was understandably-yet-sadly so prevalent in the United States during the recent World War."

"A truly inspirational anecdote, sir," I replied.

"I quite agree," Sir Anthony added: "For, it's all too easy to be a fair-weather pacifist. But, to sincerely uphold one's pacifist beliefs, at all costs? Even during war time?? That must truly be a test of faith. One worthy of Job, himself!"

"You are too kind, gentlemen," Mr. Draconicov replied: "Personally, I do not regard myself as anyone special. If for no other reason than I am highly skeptical about the recent World War living up to its hyperbole as the first and last such military conflict. Not with the penchant mankind has exhibited for semi-militaristic expansion, in general, these past sixty years. Indeed; the recent civil war in Russia, alone, would seem to be proof that my fears are not groundless!"

"If, however, our children truly are our best hope for a better future, then I can think of no better _way_ to insure such a future than by instilling an _abhorrence_ of war in the hearts and minds of all the youngsters who come here. For, with all due respect to the late President Roosevelt, the diplomat should _never_ be the servant of the soldier. Rather, they should be equal partners! With the latter bodyguarding the former until such time as all wars (and the need for standing armies to fight them) have gone the way of the dinosaur."

After dinner, we were shown to a guest cabin, where we freshened ourselves up for bed.

"After that little speech of his," Bob Gabriel commented: "...I feel slightly guilty about packing this Mauser."

"I empathize," Sir Anthony countered: "Believe me! But, experience has shown me that there is no such thing as a Garden of Eden that doesn't get infested with snakes, sooner or later. And, in the case of Camp New Hope, that is more than a figure of speech! Better we should be toting these things, and not need them, than the other way round."

"In the meantime," I interjected (in an attempt to get the last word, for once): "I heartily prescribe we hit the sack, right now. As our hosts are all early risers, and we have a lot of ground to tour."

As a doctor, I was naturally highly gratified to see them take my advice.

tbc

* * * * *

The peacefulness of our sleep ended (just as I had diagnosed) very early, Thursday morning, with the blaring call of a bugle!

Evidently, it was the custom for two male youths to volunteer for reveille duty. One to blow on the bugle; the other to hold a coxswain-style megaphone in front of its bell. Just to be certain everyone else heard it and awoke!

Upon getting dressed, Bob Gabriel, Sir Anthony, and I went over to the mess hall for breakfast. There, Mr. Draconicov introduced us to the rest of his staff. Not to mention, the cabin monitors. That is; the older youngsters who supervised the younger boys and girls in each sleep-away cabin.

The cabins that housed the girls were about a hundred yards eastward, down an obviously well-worn path. And, as soon as they arrived, breakfast started getting served. Thirty minutes later, after everyone had eaten their fill, the dishes were cleared away by those youngsters who were on kitchen duty. Whereupon, the three of us accompanied Mr. Draconicov back to his office.

"So!" he exclaimed: "What would you gentlemen like to see, first?"

"I think it would behoove us to start with your administrative files," replied Sir Anthony: "To see who among them is from Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin. We went there to see a woman who claimed to know the name of a man complicit in the disappearance of the orphan train. Unfortunately, for us, she was...rather brutally murdered before she could identify him for us! So, we must find that out, the hard way."

"And, you think that man is on staff, here?"

Mr. Draconicov seemed genuinely horrified by the idea.

"Such is what we've been led to believe," Sir Anthony replied: "So, we must pursue that avenue of investigation. Even it leads to a dead end!"

Mr. Draconicov nodded and asserted he understood.

"Luckily, for you," he added (with a slightly mischievous smile): "...we cross-reference our staff members by state and home town."

Yes, that was lucky, indeed. For what I had dreaded would take us, literally, all day actually only took us one-twelfth that long! With Bob handing me the geographically arranged files. While Sir Anthony was handed those that had been alphabetically arranged.

Finally, about twenty minutes before lunch, we had narrowed down our list of suspects to three. Tobias Blair; Thomas Schmidt; and Theophilus Wiseman.

"Hmmmmmmmm!" Sir Anthony mused, partially, to himself: "Quite an assortment we've compiled. Thomas Schmidt is a Pennsylvania Dutchman who moved to Arbor Vitae after being sentenced to shunning, for some reason not specified. He teaches woodworking."

"Tobias Blair, on the other hand," added Bob: "...is a retired soldier-of-fortune who initially served with the French Foreign Legion, following his less-than-honorable discharge from the U.S. Army. He teaches archery."

"And, Theo Wiseman," I joined in: "...spent a lot of time overseas, as a back country missionary, before ending up here as the camp chaplain."

Sir Anthony consulted his pocket watch.

"It's about ten minutes before noon. Why don't we wait for lunch call? Then, we'll all have them in one place. Three of them; three of us. Giving each of us someone to personally question."

Bob and I shrugged, good-naturedly.

"Sounds like a plan," I said.

tbc

* * * * *

We met up again, right after lunch hour, to compare notes. Bob volunteered to go first.

"I sat down next to Thomas Schmidt. And, at one point, I asked him to pass me some butter. As soon as he had, I remarked about the calluses on his hands. Asking him if he did any kind of woodworking. And, he affirmed that he ran a woodshop right here in camp."

"So, I told him that I whittled in my spare time. Mostly, mantlepiece models of Allied biplanes, from the World War, that my dad could sell out of his souvenir shop on Coney Island. So, he nods and says..."

" 'Whittling. Ja! Das ist gut enough hobby to usefully fill one's spare time. But, in mein family? Woodworking was a vocation! Passed down from vater to sohn.' "

"So, as I see him smiling, I figure it's safe to ask my question."

" 'Are you thinking of expanding on that tradition? Is that why you moved to Wisconsin from Pennsylvania?' "

"Suddenly, he lost that smile as he replied that it was a little more complicated than that. And, then, he clammed up for the rest of lunch! How did you do, Sir Anthony?"

The latter replied that he had been seated next to Tobias Blair. Whereupon, he had broached the subject of Blair being an archery teacher.

"I told him that I had learned it from my late wife, who had learned it from her father, who had learned it from his favorite Red Indian hunting guide in Canada.* So, he replied that he had learned his archery from Red Indians, too!"

" 'I was born and raised at Fort Apache, Arizona, where my old man was top sergeant of the reservation police force,' he had added. So, I remarked that such an exotic upbringing must have contributed greatly to his own military career. At which point, he suddenly developed a most suspicious frown!"

" 'How did you know I was in the army?' he demanded to know. So, I pointed out that he was obviously still accustomed to coiffing himself in the American military style. Pretending, as I did so, that I had half-forgotten the colloquial term of 'crew cut!' "

"He then gave a mildly embarrassed laugh before telling me that I was correct. But, that he had left the army a long time ago. Over a slight 'disagreement' with a so-called 'superior' officer. His bitter words! Not mine."

"Anyway, I sensed that he was reluctant to discuss the matter any further, right then and there. So, I pretended to acquiesce. Fear not, though! I intend to challenge him to a good-natured archery match, one on one, much later this afternoon. Perhaps that will relax him enough to open up, much further."

Concluding his report, he now turned to me. Asking me if I had had better luck with Theo Wisemann. I shrugged.

"That depends on your definition of the word. I pretended that he looked familiar to me. Asking him if he had ever been a patient of mine during the war. Adding, of course, that I'd been a medical officer with the Lafayette Escadrille."

"He immediately shook his head. Telling me that he hadn't even been in Europe at that time! That he'd been in SouthEast Asia, working as a missionary among the hill tribes of Cambodia. So, I replied..."

" 'Really? What church were you working for? I mean, you must have had some success over there, if they've called you back home to work among under-privileged kids.' "

"That's when he became real taciturn."

We were quiet for the next few moments, trying to figure out a slyer approach to questioning these guys, when something suddenly occurred to me.

"Sir Anthony! When Mr. Galstaff first showed us Cassandra White's name, back in Milwaukee, he specified that she was a _volunteer_ staff member! Yet, we had asked for the names of _all_ the summer camp staff members who lived in Arbor Vitae. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but..."

He shook his head: "You're not wrong. Semantically, such a request would automatically be taken to mean the inclusion of names of salary drawers, as well as volunteers! Which raises the question: why were those three names withheld from us at that earlier juncture?"

"Assuming there was even a list, at all," countered Bob: "What you should be asking is _who_ withheld those names. The guy who compiled it? Or the one who _ordered_ him to compile it?"

This was true. Because, there were only two people who fit that description. Milwaukee Lodge President Austin Galstaff...and his assistant.

tbc

* * * * *

"So, how should we handle this?" I asked Sir Anthony.

"Very delicately," he replied: "Tonight, before lights out, I shall write a letter to Mr. Chelgi at the Detroit Lodge. Requesting that he conduct a most discrete integrity check on Mr. Galstaff and his assistant. Along with a statement of our reasons for same. I will also ask that he mail his findings to us, via special delivery. For, as you know, the general store at Deepayintinee has no telegraph, and only local telephone service."

"That's a pretty long walk, from the south shore landing to the trail head," remarked Bob: "You want me to take that letter there for you, tomorrow?"

"A capital idea, Robert! Yes, thank you."

We then resumed our deliberations on how to ask our three immediate suspects a second round of questions without tipping our hands. During that interval, I half-consciously registered the voices of youngsters raised in song. And, I vaguely recognized one of the numbers as an accapella rendition of "My Country, 'Tis Of Thee." Evidently, some of the children were rehearsing a number for the Fourth of July celebrations, this coming Monday night, when some of the prospective adoptive parents from Opening Day would be returning.

My reverie was interrupted, however, by the sound of another youngster's voice shrilly calling for help!

The three of us hurriedly ran outside, and saw a girl about nine or ten years of age running into the courtyard of the main camp from a westward-facing hiking trail. Mr. Draconicov, the chief administrator, reached her first, and just barely caught her in time as she collapsed in a near-faint.

"Bob! Smelling salts; in my knapsack. Quick!"

He merely nodded, and had returned with them in short order. I then held one of the ampules under the girl's nose, while Draconicov and the camp nurse held her up. One at each shoulder. Faster than it takes time to tell, she was sitting up and coughing. I then looked at the camp nurse, and softly asked for the girl's name.

"Stacy Bishop," she whispered back.

"Stacy?" I now asked, slightly louder: "My name is Dr. Thorpe. What happened, dear? Why were you calling for help?"

Stammering and stuttering, the poor shaken waif gradually made it clear that she and her cabin mates--along with the girls from neighboring cabins--had been taken for a nature hike around the lake by their section leader. Upon reaching the southeast corner of the lake, they stopped to rest. Choosing to cool off their aching feet on a good-sized sandbar.

Suddenly, however, the water had begun to stir and bubble, quite strangely!

"Miss Stepwicz..."(and, here, Tomas Schmidt became deathly pale), "...she made us stand back up and put our shoes back on! As she was afraid it might be muskies hunting trout in the shallows, or something. But, it wasn't. It was...it was a beautiful lady in white."

"A lady in white?" I echoed: "Are you sure?"

Stacy nodded: "She introduced herself as Meleusina. And, she said she had come to take us to our new home. Because, even the most beautiful home on land was just plain ugly compared to the underwater castle where she and her sisters lived! And, what orphan girl wouldn't want to live like a princess?"

Stacy added how this Meleusina had not said of any of this in a normal tone of voice. It was more like she had heard the strange woman's voice in her head, while the woman, herself, kept on humming some indescribable tune.

"Then, suddenly, all the other girls began walking toward her! I was the only one of them who didn't. Because, there was something about her eyes that scared me! And, Miss Stepwicz must've been scared, too. Because, she took out her Swiss army knife; set it to the biggest blade it had; and, then, held it over her head as she ran straight at this Meleusina. Screaming really loud!!"

"That's when I got twice as scared, and ran for help."

"Mein Gott!" muttered Schmidt: "Nich mein Anna! Nein!"

Whereupon, he would have run off half-cocked if Bob and Sir Anthony had not grabbed him, right away. He struggled a bit violently. But, they managed to keep hold of him until he had calmed down enough that they felt confident in releasing him. By which time, Draconicov had organized a search party from the staff members of both the boys' and girls' camps.

While he was preoccupied with that, I softly asked Stacy (at Sir Anthony's insistence) what precisely about Meleusina's eyes had scared her. She replied:

"They were black and skinny...like a snake's eyes!"

tbc

* * * * *

The search party organized went straight to the sandbar Stacy Bishop had told us about. Half by land, the other half in canoes and rowboats. The latter double-backed along the lake, from east to west, looking for any bodies. While the former combed the woods to the east of the lake, calling out the names of Anna Stepwicz and the girls she had been escorting on the nature hike.

Unfortunately, there was no response.

Finally, the summer sun went down to the far west of us, compelling our return to the camp and a desultory supper. During which, Draconicov assured us he would go to the general store in Deepayintinee, first thing in the morning, to call the sheriff's office at the county seat.

"I'll ask him to form a posse and bring along bloodhounds. As well as a case of dynamite."

There was no need to ask why the latter. Blasting would be the fastest, most effective, way to loosen any cadavers stuck to underwater debris.

Following supper, Sir Anthony dashed off the aforementioned letter. Then, after sealing it in a stamped envelope, he gave it to Bob, who had already volunteered to accompany Draconicov to the general store, the next morning. Whereupon, he turned to me and asked me to accompany him to Tomas Schmidt's cabin.

"Shouldn't we leave the poor man be, for the night? What happened today really took a toll on him."

"Agreed. Which is all the more reason we must seize this opportunity! For example; didn't you hear the way he referred to Miss Stepwicz when Stacy had finished her account?

I nodded: " 'My Anna.' "

"Precisely! Which indicates a relationship much more serious than older and younger co-workers."

When we got to Thomas Schmidt's cabin (which was next door to the camp chapel), Sir Anthony stopped me just as I was about to knock.

"Listen!" he whispered.

He put his ear to the cabin door, so I did, too. And, what I heard sent a chill down my spine. It was the metallic sound of a spinning revolver chamber!

I ought to know. I had spun them often enough, myself, at the NYPD target range.

"Shall we just barge in?" I asked.

Sir Anthony grimly nodded. So, the two of us abruptly opened the door. Catching the woodworking teacher completely by surprise...with two .45 caliber Colt Model 1917's in his possession!

One in his hands; the other on his bed. And, the former he swiftly pointed in our direction.

"Close the door behind you, mein herren. Slowly!"

I did as instructed. Sweating just a little bit, and not just from the muggy heat. Sir Anthony, however, looked as calm and unperturbable, as ever.

"Good evening, Herr Schmidt. Is this the reason why you were shunned in Pennsylvania? A sudden taste for firearms?"

The man holding us at gunpoint smiled.

"My name really is Tomas Schmidt, Herr Banfield. But, I am no Amishman, as you have quite obviously deduced. I am actually a Schwyzerdeutsche operative for Le Deauxieme Bureau.* And the missing woman I intend to continue searching for, all night if need be, is not really Anna Stepwicz. She is actually..."

"...the Grand Duchess Anastasia Alexandrovna Romanova!"

tbc

* * * * *

Needless to say, even Sir Anthony was momentarily nonplussed by Schmidt's melodramatic pronouncement. But, to his credit, he recovered much more swiftly than I did.

"Very inventive, mein herr! But, even I know that the Grand Duchess Anastasia was murdered--along with the rest of the Russian royal family--almost four years ago, exactly."

"Bolshevik propaganda," replied the self-proclaimed Swiss mercenary: "Which I do not have time to elaborate upon."

He moved to get up from his bed, now pointing both Colt M-1917's at us as he did so. But, we hadn't exactly come unarmed, ourselves!

You see, during the train ride to Deepayintinee, the three of us had agreed that, even if we concealed the Mausers General Hopkins had loaned us beneath un-tucked shirts, the midday humidity of summer would still make the fabric cling to them. Thereby revealing their outlines! So, we had decided to keep them in our knapsacks during daylight hours.

And, as I had already mentioned, it was now night time.

"I'm afraid we must insist on elaboration, Herr Schmidt," Sir Anthony replied (both our Mausers aimed right at the former's forehead).

A few tense seconds crawled by as this impasse persisted. Finally, though, Schmidt decided it would not do "his" Anna any good if he died in a needless exchange of gunfire. So, he lowered his Colts and we did likewise with the machine pistols.

"In April of 1917, the Dowager Empress Maria secretly requested the French government's help in rescuing her son and his family from their place of captivity at Ekaterinburg, in the Urals. And, they recruited me to head up the task force as I could speak fluent Russian. The result of growing up at the French embassy in Petrograd (where mein vater had been adjutant to the military attache' of same)."

"Unfortunately, by the time we initiated the rescue attempt und arrived in Ekaterinburg, only the Grand Duchess had not yet been executed. Thus, she was the only one we managed to abscond with. I will not bore you with all the details. Suffice it to say that we made our way to Murmansk, disguised as Eastern Uniate anchorites on holy pilgrimage to Campostela, Spain.* A ploy that would allow us to travel to Thurso, Scotland, via Bergen, Norway. And, from thence to Paris, by train."

"In London, however, we were met by agents of British Military Intelligence, who informed us we were being pursued by an assassin of the Cheka. So, with the discrete help of the American ambassador to the Court of St. James, the Grand Duchess and myself were...re-routed...via Canada to Erie, Pennsylvania. There, we posed as a Volgadeutsche Mennonite widower and his daughter. Shunned in Europe for converting to the Priestless rite of the Old Believers. And, it is in a local shipyard in Erie that I truly learned all I know about carpentry."

"Yet, as of last year," Sir Anthony finished for him: "...the two of you moved here to the Upper Peninsula. Why?"

"I was informed by the French ambassador to Washington, D.C., that the same assassin we had eluded, three years earlier, had resumed the hunt for us after finding fresh clues to our where-abouts. Compelling us to flee, once again."

"You're a very fine story-teller, Herr Schmidt," I retorted: "But, by this point, I think you should regard Sir Anthony and I as honorary Missourians!"

"What he means," the former added, in translation: "...is that we require some proof of your veracity. Like, for example, the name of this assassin."

"That I cannot tell you. I know him only by the nickname by which the Cheka address him; the Tatar."

I looked at Sir Anthony, peripherally.

"What do you think? Could this Tatar be the real culprit behind the disappearance of those girls?"

Sir Anthony shook his head: "A professional assassin would never have let even one witness get away from him (as young Miss Bishop did). Nor would he have posed as a snake-woman from medieval French folklore!"

"What about that bit about the underwater castle? Is Lake Yo-Tel-T'til deep enough to hide such a structure?"

Whereupon, Schmidt snorted derisively.

"The Bolsheviks brag about having total sexual equality within their armed forces. So, it is equally likely that the Tatar has a female accomplice! As to an 'underwater castle?' The girls are more likely being held hostage in an abandoned copper mine. I was told, when first I began working here, that this camp had been founded on the site of one, formerly operated by the Ojibwa."

Sir Anthony looked at me before inquiring as to where the entrance to the alleged mine might be.

"In the basement of the chapel," was the Swiss mercenary's terse reply.

So, that was where the three of us went next.

NEXT: DESCENT INTO TERROR

tbc

* * * * *

Without another word, we went over to the parsonage.

That was what the other staff members of Camp New Hope called the cabin next door to the chapel. And Theo Wisemann (as camp chaplain) was the only other person besides Mr. Draconicov who had keys to the front door of the latter.

Needless to say, the good chaplain was a bit astounded by what Schmidt told him, concerning the possible location of the missing girls. Carefully editing out, of course, the allegedly true identity of Anna Stepwicz.

"Even if you're right," Wisemann replied: "...how on Earth could they have gotten down there from the east end of the lake?"

"We shall ask them once we find them," Sir Anthony commented: "In the meantime, sir, would you be so kind as to unlock the chapel?"

Wisemann acquiesced. Grabbing a kerosene lamp and leading the way to the chapel's front porch. Once there, he handed me the lamp while he sorted through an old-fashioned brass key ring. He then took back the lamp and led us over to a short staircase in the upper left corner of the narthex.

Now, this being a summer camp, there was naturally not that much to the chapel's basement. Most of the time, it was used merely as a storage area for the extra tables and chairs set up for Independence Day celebrations. With this moment being little different!

But, it was at this point that Schmidt dropped the duffel bag he'd been carrying over his right shoulder like Santa Claus. And, what he subsequently withdrew from its interior bore no resemblance to toys what-so-ever! For example; he traded in his black slouch hat for a miner's electric battery-powered headlamp. He also handed to Sir Anthony and myself one electric lantern each.

It was by the added illumination from these that he pointed out the tell-tale outline of a square...with one of the lines containing two metallic hinges.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Wisemann: "A trap door?"

Schmidt nodded: "According to Herr Draconicov, this chapel dates back to the existence of a British army outpost on this site, prior to the War of 1812. Ostensibly founded to keep an eye on the Saulteaux Ojibwas at Deepaytinee! In any event, the military engineers uncovered the entrance to a played-out copper mine in excavating the chapel's basement. And, the garrison commander decided to use it as a brig for those of his men who made the mistake of falling asleep on guard duty. Twelve hours of freezing subterranean cold being an effective reminder to never do so again!!"

"Interesting anecdote," I replied: How does that open the trap door, though?"

His only response was to withdraw (from his right pants pocket) an object that looked like an overgrown corkscrew. Using the light from the headlamp, he found a small hole in the floor (opposite the hinges) that fit the pointed end just right. Whereupon, Schmidt began grunting and pulling. Eventually drawing the trap door upwards with the kind of protesting creaks that only old hinges can make. And, which are guaranteed to make one instinctively grit one's teeth!

When the trap door was finally wide open, Schmidt took one last set of items from out of the duffel bag. The first item being an iron spike. The second item resembling a short-handled sledge hammer. And, the third item being a lengthy coil of multi-knotted, whitish-colored rope.

The spike he hammered through the underside of the trap door. Not only to keep the latter in place. But, also, to tie one end of the rope around the spike, and thereby use it as an anchoring point while he threw the remainder of the length down the hole.

"Coming mein herren?" he inquired of Sir Anthony and myself.

The former looked at me, and I nodded. Whereupon, we reholstered our Mausers, and put the handles of of the electric lanterns over the crooks of our left elbows. So, that we might have both hands free to climb down that rope right behind Schmidt.

I went second, because Sir Anthony wanted to leave Wisemann with some precautionary instructions.

"If we are not back by dawn, wake Mr. Draconicov and Mr. Gabriel. Tell them what we've told you. Mr. Gabriel will know the appropriate steps to take."

Wisemann nodded, and added that he would pray for us.

* * * * *

Our descent was, by necessity, a slow one. For one thing, this vertical shaft became quite dark after the first ten feet or so. As a result, only our portable electric lights provided enough visibility to keep us from excessively banging our kneecaps against the shaft walls.

There was also the fact that the lower we went, the colder it got. And, as Sir Anthony and myself had not anticipated a spelunking expedition, we had naturally omitted to bring windbreakers with us! So, we had to make sure we didn't build up too much of a sweat, too fast, and make our hands too slippery to hold on to the rope.

Finally, however, we reached the bottom of the shaft.

Drawing our Mausers, again, Sir Anthony shined his electric lantern in Schmidt's direction and asked him which way we should go, first (his condensed breath highly conspicuous in the beam of light).

"You two, go in that direction," he replied (indicating the pitch-black passage behind us): "Und, I will go this way. If neither party finds anything, after ten minutes, we meet back here. Trying again after daybreak, when we have more manpower for a second descent."

Because of our nearly chattering teeth, Sir Anthony and I merely nodded.

Taking the electric lanterns off the crooks of our elbows, and clenching them firmly in our respective left hands, we slowly proceeded down our share of the tunnel. The combined brilliance of the beams showing us that the only thing one might possibly remove from the walls of this mine, now, would be moss.

Also, as we had set out, Sir Anthony and I had agreed that he would be the time keeper. With him counting out the sixty-second intervals, sotto voce.

He would tell me later on, after the resolution of this case, that he had only reached nine-and-a-half minutes before we were both startled by the sound of gunfire. Followed by the vociferous shoutings of "Alarm! Alarm!" that came reverberating down the passage behind us.

Without hesitation or discussion, we double-backed along the way we had just come with all speed. And, in less time than it takes to tell, we not only reached that white rope. We ran right past it. For both shouts and shots were getting nearer! Making me realize (and, no doubt, Sir Anthony, as well) that whatever Schmidt had found, it was definitely _not_ any of the missing girls.

This realization was confirmed, seconds later, by a blood-curdling scream. The likes of which I had not heard since our ill-fated meeting with Constable B.C. Weir back in Northgate!

The two of us rounded a corner. Sir Anthony covering my back, while I crouched in front of him. Just like one of those paintings about the Civil War, where two rows of riflemen are depicted facing down a cavalry charge. Only it was no cavalry we beheld before us. It was Tomas Schmidt. Lying face down on the floor of the tunnel...with some kind of javelin sticking out of his back!

Or, at least, that's what the beam from my electric lantern was showing. Sir Anthony's, being slightly higher, revealed the owner of that javelin. Namely; an eight-foot tall Amazon wearing a faded pink toga of some kind!

Only this eight-foot tall Amazon had scaly, greenish-colored skin--and a thick swishing tail--like some kind of bipedal reptile.

tbc

* * * * *

Though I dared not take my eyes off this virago, I still could not help observing (in a whisper not so soft as before) that she looked as if a Neanderthal had mated with a Komodo dragon!

"I daresay you're right," Sir Anthony replied: "Never-the-less, I think it would behoove us to quietly back up the way we just came."

I agreed. Sir Anthony going first, a few paces, and then stopping to let me go ahead of him. And so on and so forth. It was not quite leap-frogging, since we had to maintain such a snail's pace. Yet, such lack of speed was necessary...as the virago was following us. Step for step!

And, despite having to slightly hunch her back, due to the cave's relatively low ceiling, I had no doubt her longer legs would give her a greater advantage in a full-out foot race with us. In any event, we were soon back at the rope. Unfortunately, we found a rather discomfiting surprise waiting for us, there. The virago was not alone.

She had a small sisterhood waiting for us.

Each one of whom was wearing the same faded pink toga (that came down to tail level). And, each one was crowned with the same rudiments of human hair. Sort of like a whisk broom that had seen better days!

"What now, Sir Anthony?" I asked: "The moment we grab that rope, they'll be on us like horseflies on manure!!"

"One of us will have to take the other's Mauser, and hold them off, while the other climbs the rope to get reinforcements. As you're younger, and presumably the faster climber, I would strongly recommend that I cover your retreat."

"That'd be suicide for you!" I exclaimed.

"No less for you, dear boy."

Any further debate was suddenly cut short by an unearthly howl. A howl that came from above us...and swiftly grew louder.

"Opposite wall!" Sir Anthony shouted: "Quickly!!"

I did as instructed, and none too soon. For the second I turned around, I saw it. A creature that had the stance of a human being...and the anatomy of a timber wolf.

I don't know who was more awestruck. The viragos; or the two of us. But, the mutual startlement didn't last. For, a second later, this werewolf attacked the reptilian virago that had killed Tomas Schmidt!

Her sisters, of course, were quick to object to this. Yet, Sir Anthony and I were loath to let this near-miraculous favor go un-repaid. So, we opened fire on the other viragos. Our blessed steeljackets evidently having more of a lethal effect on these lizard-women than the .45 caliber bullets fired earlier by Schmidt.

Even so, the echoes produced by all that commotion partially deafened me. So that I was unaware the duel behind us was over until Sir Anthony patted me on the right shoulder. I turned to look at him, and he tilted his head to his left. So, I turned counter-clockwise and beheld...

...a stark naked Theo Wisemann. With blood dripping from both his hands and his jaws!

"Hurry!" he exclaimed: "Start climbing. The Buru-nagas won't stay routed for long. As soon as they pick another squad leader, they'll return in force!"

We needed no further urging than that.

Ten minutes later, we were back in the basement of the camp chapel. With Theo Wisemann the last one up. So, naturally, it was he who removed the spike from the trap door in order to close it. Follwing which, he threw the spike (rope and all) back down the shaft.

"Are you gentlemen all right?" he now asked us.

"Nothing that two strong cups of hot tea wouldn't cure," replied Sir Anthony.

"Plus, a very GOOD explanation!" I added (quite firmly).

The former we got in Theo Wisemann's parsonage, courtesy of a kerosene stove. While waiting for the water to boil, he gave each of us a blanket to wrap around ourselves (to keep warm). Simultaneously, he stepped behind a dressing screen to become once again decent!

"I suppose I should start with my religious affiliation," he said: "I used to be a Jesuit missionary in Cambodia. Stationed at the Dangrek Montagnard village of Kuy Yang, in Preah Vihear Province. That is; till the day we were attacked by the Buru-nagas. A matriarchal tribe of headhunters that originally dwelt in the Ziro Valley of northeasten India, until their expulsion by the Ap-tani!"

"They massacred everyone else. But, me? They kept me as a slave...for a whole year! I will not disgust you with the details. Suffice it to say that I regarded the gun-running opium smugglers I was ultimately traded to as the _lesser_ evil, by comparison. And, ever since my return to civilization, I have been a Hubertarian. That is; a member of the St. Hubert Society!"

"The monster-hunting arm of the Vatican."

tbc

* * * * *

"A werewolf?!" I exclaimed (with great dubiousness): "Working for the Vatican as a priest?"

"We were better known in Italy as the Benandanti," Father Wisemann explained: "But, after the eighth century conversion of some our predecessors (by St. Hubert of Liege,* himself), we initially renamed ourselves 'I Domini Canes.' The Hounds of God! And, ever since then, our primary anatgonists have been the worshippers of the Melissae."

"In 1865, that included the original Sisterhood Of Bellona in New Orleans. Headed by the snake-demoness Meleusina! The Benandanti thought we had destroyed her, then. But, obviously, we were mistaken. Because, now, she has not only reorganized the cult. She's enlarged it, as well! Up to and including the recruitment of semi-demonized Amazons from Southeast Asia."

"You mean, you knew those things were down there, all this time?" Sir Anthony protested (with a most accusing glare).

"There's been a gradually increasing number of humanoid reptile sightings spreading northward from the Deep South. And, some of them might have been _smuggled_ northward, via Mississippi river boat, since the turn of the century. Yet, it wasn't until I caught the scent of them, at the top of the shaft, that my suspicions of their dwelling, in Lake Yo-Tel-T'til, were confirmed. Needless to say, I've denied them egress, through that trap door, by adhering a crucifix atop it. Using flour-paste made with holy water!"

"That's all well and good, for that particular entrance," I replied: "But, if that cave really is just one part of a played-out Amerindian copper mine, then the original entrance, being underwater, is still all-too available to them! To say nothing of the fact that those missing girls might be down there!!"

"Valid points all," agreed Sir Anthony: "We've done all we can for tonight, however. We shall have to go to bed, and enact our original plans for tomorrow with some slight revisions."

I reluctantly nodded, and followed Sir Anthony back to our cabin. There, Bob Gabriel was pacing a hole in the floor in his concern over where we had been. I let Sir Anthony provide the elucidation, while I hopped into my bunk and went to sleep.

* * * * *

July 1, 1921, dawned with the now-customary bugling. I, however, was more annoyed with it than I had been on the first day after our arrival!

Sir Anthony grinned as he helped Bob literally drag me out of bed.

"You'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after you get some coffee into your system," the former remarked (only somewhat sympathetically).

"What about those revised plans we were going to discuss?" I reminded him.

"Already done," said Bob: "Sir Anthony wrote a second letter before he joined you in drifting off. One asking for the President of the Detroit Lodge to contact the FBI, the Coast Guard, and the Army Air Corps via the Manhattan Lodge. He wants this place raided in force, ASAP!"

"In other words," I replied: "...Camp New Hope might be experiencing fireworks two days early."

Sir Anthony grimly nodded.

Half an hour later, Bob shook our hands as he pocketed both letters and boarded the ferry. We stood and we watched as the Clydesdales trotted on the conveyor belt that turned their horsepower into motive power. At the halfway point, however, something went wrong. The horses began rearing and neighing in panic! And, the two of us could only stare helplessly at the reason for it.

The emergence from the water of a fifty foot-tall female upper torso...covered with greenish-black scales.

tbc

* * * * *

For what felt like an eternity, everyone in the camp stood transfixed. Then, Stacy Bishop (who had been headed back to the other summer camp with the rest of the girls) started yelling and pointing.

"That's her! The one called Meleusina! She's the one who took Miss Stepwicz and the others!"

Her shouted identification was loud and clear, even out in the middle of the lake. And, the snake-giantess grinned...like the proverbial Cheshire cat with rabies.

"I know what you plan to do, little man. And I cannot permit that. Hand me the letters, and I will spare your life. I might even make you my personal love-slave!"

Bob Gabriel, however, was made of sterner stuff.

"I've got another kind of message for you, sweetheart. A love letter from Herr Mauser!"

No sooner had he said that than he had drawn and begun firing. Prompting Sir Anthony and I to run down to the shore and do likewise (as we had all three agreed it was no longer safe to go about in broad daylight unarmed). Unfortunately, I could tell from the splashes to Meleusina's right that our bullets were falling far short of their mark. While Bob's were lodging no higher than the underside of her buxom chest!

On the other hand, being blessed steeljackets, they still caused her considerable pain, all the same.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! You will suffer for that, little man!!"

Whereupon, Meleusina moved backward a little. Resulting in the tip of her tremendous tail rising up out of the water...and prehensilly wrapping it around Bob's neck.

In the process of lifting him into the air, however, the bulk of her tail bumped against the underside of the ferry. Completing the panic-stricken state of the horses, and causing them to launch themselves off the ferry, yoked duo by duo.

Meleusina looked at them, and then looked at everyone back in Camp.

"Don't worry! They'll make it alive to the other shore. After all; my daughters occasionally like to eat something other than fish! As do I."

Whereupon, she laughed...before slowly tilting back her head and opening wide her jaws. At the same time, the tip of her tail began to ascend even higher. With Bob still struggling to draw breath, as if he were dangling from a hangman's noose. Sir Anthony and I looked at each other. And, as if we could read each other's mind, we nodded in unison. We then commenced firing...at the fleshy part of the tail just below Bob's neck!

Her ensuing scream of pain was near-deafening. But, our desperate gambit had paid off. Her tail tip instinctively loosened enough that Bob fell straight down into the lake!

Unfortunately, we had forgotten about the Buru-nagas.

As soon as Bob resurfaced, two of those reptilian viragos surfaced on either side of him. Whereupon, they each grabbed him by one of his upper arms and dragged him back to this side of the lake. Prompting Sir Anthony and myself to each get down on one knee and aim more precisely. Before we could get off any shots, though, we found ourselves being suddenly disarmed by a pair of baseball bats!

Bats that were subsequently used to strike us in our stomachs. Resulting in our landing flat on our backs, with the wind completely knocked out of us. Consequently, we could say or do nothing but stare upward in shock at the ones who had done this to us.

Boris Draconicov, the camp director...and his female counterpart from the girls' side of the camp. One Miss Zephilia Smith.

"You have meddled enough, Sir Anthony!" declared the former: "You and your friends will now suffer the same fate as those Clydesdales."

He tilted his head to his right, indicating the opposite shore of the lake. From the woods of which, screams of equine terror were now emanating.

tbc

* * * * *

The three of us (Bob Gabriel, Sir Anthony, and myself) were each dragged by a pair of Buru-naga viragos into the office next door to Draconicov's cabin. We were followed by Zephilia Smith and Draconicov, himself. The three of us were then tied to an equal number of chairs on the latter's orders. Or, at least, I presume those were his orders.

The sibilant jargon he used was like no foreign language I had ever heard before. And, New York City is a veritable linguistic melting pot!

By the time they were done, I had just about gained my second wind. So, I used that opportunity (albeit, judiciously) to wheezingly ask my first question.

"I take it...this means...you're not...a Mennonite?"

He laughed: "An astute diagnosis, doctor! I am from the city of Oryol, on the banks of the Volga's Oka River tributary. And it was in that city that my people were truly born."

"Your people being...?"

"The Skoptsis! The story I told you and your comrades on the night of your arrival was just that. A story! The truth is, my people emigrated _to_ Drachehof, Austria, in the eighteenth century, to escape religious persecution."

"And, why...on Earth...were you being...persecuted?"

Sir Anthony now had enough breath to interrupt him.

"They mutilated...themselves...sexually! Breast...amputation...for the women. Self...castration...of the men!!"

I looked from him to Draconicov in shock. And, as if his fiendish grin was not confirmation enough, the latter added that the Skoptsis did not sterilize _all_ their adherents. A select few were allowed to remain fertile, in order to hand down the teachings of this "faith" from parent to child.

"It is how we first came to the attention of Meleusina. She had been driven out of 12th-century France by the Knights Templars. Eventually fleeing to Austria, via Switzerland, where she literally went underground. Estivating until the sounds of first construction reawoke her!* Upon learning of our plight, she took pity on us. Vowing to protect us from all further persecution, if we would but worship her, and her forebears, instead."

"Her forebears being one of the Melissae, I presume?" I stated more than asked.

Draconicov smiled and nodded, again.

"She is the biological great-granddaughter of Lamia, herself! And, under her guidance, we have not only expanded to the New World. We have also infiltrated all the necessary social strata. Government; law enforcement; high finance. We even have members amongst the ranks of the Knights of Melion! Sheriff Andrew Nellis, for instance? Not to mention, Austin Galstaff of the Milwaukee Lodge!!"

I could only shook my head, incredulously. Which permitted Sir Anthony to ask some more questions of his own.

"What about the children, here? Where do they fit into your expansionist plans?"

"Half of the orphans you so coveniently brought to us have gone home to Mother Russia, to replenish the ranks of our adherents, there. Though, of course, they and their adoptive parents will be posing as a bee-keeping sect of Priestless Old Believers!

"And, what happens if they don't go along with that pretense?" I demanded: "Do they become Buru-naga bait like Tomas Schmidt and Anna Stepwicz?"

"Miss Stepwicz is still alive," said a new voice.

I looked towards the front door of the office. As did Sir Anthony and Bob Gabriel (whose teeth were still too chattery from the cold to speak). Standing there, wearing a white bathrobe supplied by Zephilia Smith, was Meleusina, herself.

Evidently, she had transformed back to the semblance of a normal-sized woman. In any event, she continued the boasting begun by Boris Draconicov.

"As sole surviving member of the Russian royal family, she will make an invaluable figurehead for rallying the anti-Communists among the Russian population. That is why I did not kill her, even when she attacked me with that Swiss army knife, after recognizing me as what she called a 'vlodnik.' You three, however, serve no useful purpose to me. You, especially, Sir Anthony! You are the one I hold chiefly responsible for the death of my favorite acolyte; Pamela Plaisantine! Thus,.."

The rest of her threat was cut off by the sound of breaking glass. Followed by the gurgling and gasping of Boris Draconicov, after an arrow had lodged itself in his throat!

Two seconds later, another arrow had lodged itself in the small of Zephilia Smith's back as she knelt over Draconicov's body in more than Platonic concern.

Meleusina hissed in anger, and ran back outside. Her bathrope discarded as she transformed herself into the semblance of a Buru-naga. Albeit, twice the size of those that suddenly ran up to attend her!

But, the death of Camp New Hope's male and female co-directors had evidently been an elaborate ruse. For, while Meleusina had been outside, someone came inside through the window partially broken by the two arrows!

It was Father Theo Wisemann, once more in his werewolf state. And using both the confusion and his claws to free the three of us. "You three head for the girls' camp. That's where you'll find the Grand Duchess Anastasia! I'll distract Meleusina and her lizard-women by letting myself be chased through the woods. Along with Tobias Blair."

No sooner had he said this than Meleusina literally raised the roof. Sibilantly shouting in triumph...only to get a mouthful of holy water (flung from a glass canteen hanging around Wisemann's furry neck) for her trouble!

The encore of the pain-filled scream she had given out earlier gave us the opportunity to heed Wisemann's advice.

tbc

* * * * *

Our hasty exit was accomplished by means of the side door leading to the breeze-way connecting the office to Draconicov's cabin. And, as predicted, we were not immediately pursued. As most of our former captors' attention was focused on the fleeing, howling figure of the lycanthropic Father Wisemann!

Upon reaching the head of the trail leading to the girls' side of Camp New Hope, we did not proceed straight down it. Rather, we slipped into the woods. Heading northeastward, and then veering southwestward, in a roughly semi-circular arc.

Along the way, we ran into the last person we expected to meet. Tobias Blair, leaping from behind a tree, and demanding (in a harsh whisper) that we halt! And, as he had an arrow already nocked to his Osage orangewood flat bow, we complied.

"Good Lord, man!" exclaimed Sir Anthony: "What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be helping Wisemann decoy those viragos for us?"

"I already eluded the segment that was chasing me. I know these woods a lot better than they do. And, believe me; I've traipsed through jungles that make these woods look like a kindergarten class room. In fact, ten years ago, I was one of the opium-smuggling mercenaries who inadvertently rescued Wisemann from these Siamese Amazons!"

The archery instructor further explained (as we continued toward the girls' camp) that the good father had been just a choir boy, at Strasbourg Cathedral, when the Franco-Prussian War first came to Alsace. That what he had witnessed, first-hand, forever cured him of wanting to grow up to be a soldier like his father and grandfather before him. But that it was his year-long captivity, amongst the Buru-naga, that had driven home the painful truth.

"There, indeed, comes a time when everyone (no matter how pacifistic) must gather stones together. Rather than cast them away! Such being the case..."

He paused to remove something from the duffel bag he was toting next to his quiver of arrows.

"Wisemann went back down into that copper mine to salvage these after you went to bed. He spent the rest of the night cleaning and oiling them. As well as blessing the ammunition."

It was the brace of Colt M-1917 revolvers the ill-fated Tomas Schmidt had been packing.

"If the lot of us survive this," declared Sir Anthony: "...remind me to thank him, quite profusely."

As we got closer to the northward-facing side of the girls camp, however, something became amiss. Bob Gabriel's teeth began to chatter. And, yet, he was sweating like a sponge! So I insisted we stop, so I could feel his forehead.

The man was burning up with fever.

"Was it his fall in the lake?" asked Sir Anthony: "Is he catching cold?"

"N-N-N-N-N-N-No!" stuttered Bob: "B-B-Bitten! By those...v-v-viragos."

I suddenly noticed the way Bob's right hand was massaging his upper left arm. So, I immediately ordered Sir Anthony to help me remove Bob's long-sleeved shirt. Sure enough; there was a bite mark half way between his left shoulder and his elbow. And, it was becoming necrotic!

"I saw this same kind of bite mark inflicted on a rookie keeper who mishandled a Nile monitor at the Central Park Zoo. If we don't get him proper medical attention, very soon, we'll have to amputate it!"

"He's in no condition to travel, any further," Tobias Blair remarked: "At least, not right now! The two of you continue on to the girls camp, and get the Grand Duchess. I'll stay here and keep an eye on him."

I looked at Sir Anthony, who nodded in agreement. Whereupon, we donned Tomas Schmidt's gunbelts and continued on. When we arrived at our destination, though, we beheld a most disconcerting sight.

Every residential cabin was being guarded by Buru-naga viragos. But, in their human form. That of copper-skinned, barefoot women in knee-length togas; with curly black hair adorned with a white feather over each ear. Sort of like portraits I'd seen of Vikings with eagle-winged helmets!

And, worse still? Each virago was cradling a .45-caliber tommy gun in her arms.

"How on Earth...?" I began to mutter.

"Gun-running and illegal alien-smuggling," Sir Anthony replied: "Two fringe benefits of Pamela Plaisantine's association with the Taliaferro crime syndicate."

"But, that's not going to stop us," I countered (with a half-smile): "Is it?"

He just as smilingly shook his head, adding: "I believe our destination is Cabin 211."

"Then, let's going!"

NEXT: A NOBLE RESCUE

* * * * *

Cabin 211 turned out to be located at the other end of the girls' side of Camp New Hope. Occupying the start of the nature-hiking trail around Lake Yo-Tel-T'til. And Sir Anthony and I gazed at it, from the nearby woods, as we pondered how best to commence the rescue of Anna Stepwicz.

There were not many proposals that did _not_ wind up with the two of us getting killed in vain. The arguably best of those involved Sir Anthony causing a diversion.

"I'll sneak round the left side of the cabin...and put a bullet through the head of the virago guarding the front door. I will then run towards the hiking trail! Hopefully, with a good portion of her fellow Buru-nagas in pursuit. That's when you come round the right side of the cabin and rescue the Grand Duchess!"

"How do I signal you if I'm successful?" I asked.

"Don't even try. I'll simply consult my pocket watch as to when five minutes has elapsed. Then, I'll double-back towards where you and I left Bob with Tobias Blair. Hopefully, the two of them are still alive!"

To which I replied with an additional suggestion.

"Why don't you take the extra revolver and gunbelt with you. That way, I can make use of the dead virago's tommy gun! Seeing as she won't be needing it, anymore."

"A capital idea, dear boy! Let us do this."

Sir Anthony went first. Half-crouching/half-crab walking towards the left front corner of the cabin. When he arrived there, he slowly stood up. He then cocked the hammer of his revolver (with mine, still holstered in its gunbelt, slung over his left shoulder) and sidled around that corner.

KA-BLAM!

Instantly, there was a cacophony of excited shouting as Sir Anthony made himself conspicuous in his hasty retreat toward the trailhead. Thereby insuring the anticipated pursuit by the anticipated majority. And, in that confusion, I ran around my corner of the cabin and dove for the aforemntioned tommy gun!

Just in time, too. For the second I did so, I was spotted! So, with no other recourse open to me, I barged into Cabin 211. And, upon making it inside, I slammed the door shut and barricaded it with a handy two-by-four.

[I later learned that all the cabins at Camp New Hope had them. As a means of preventing unwanted nocturnal entry by wild animals...including libidonous teenagers of the opposite sex.]

The only woman in the cabin screamed. And, as she was in her early-to-mid-twenties, I felt it safe to assume the obvious.

"Miss Stepwicz? I'm a friend of Tomas Schmidt! We have to get out the back window. Now!!!"

She merely nodded, and raced to open it. Whereupon, she dove through it! Lending greater credence to the allegation of her true identity. Only someone who had been through a similar situation, once before, could have moved so swiftly and unquestioningly.

In any event, as soon as I had joined her outside, I was racing towards the woods right behind her. With one or two of the Buru-nagas following hot on my heels! And, I confess, I fully expected to be riddled across the small of my back with .45-caliber slugs any second. Instead, I heard something a little more frightening. Angry female voices that instantly deepened into unearthly bellows of anger.

Reaching the edge of the woods, I dared to stop and turn around. Beholding, as I did so, the transformation of our pursuers into bipedal monitor lizards!

Perhaps it was simply the congenital fear of reptiles we all seem to have. Perhaps, my own personal revulsion. Or, perhaps, a combination of both. But, in any case, I immediately began screaming in some kind of primal rage as I began firing the tommy gun at these two monstrosities!

To my immense relief, the two of them instantly slid to a halt, instinctively clutching their throats in pain, before falling to the ground, face-first. I then continued my flight into the woods, where Miss Stepwicz was waiting faithfully for me. I took the lead as I guided her back towards the rendezvous with Tobias Blair.

When we got there, however, I found two shocking surprises awaiting me. A three inch-tall Bob Gabriel dangling from an arrow lodged in a tree! And, Tobias Blair aiming another arrow straight at his shrunken midsection!!

tbc

* * * * *

"What in the name of...?" I started to exclaim.

Only for Tobias Blair to cut me off.

"Drop the tommy gun, doctor, or your little friend becomes...Shishka Bob."

The heartless way he chuckled as he said that had the opposite effect on me. I raised the tommy gun higher!

"You're the Tatar! Aren't you?"

"So, Schmidt told you about me, eh? An astute diagnosis, doc! My current employers thought it a fitting alias, as it comes from a Manchu word meaning 'nomadic archer.' "

"An American, working for the Communists? I don't believe it!"

"You'd better believe I'll make good on my original threat if you don't deposit your weapon on the ground, right now. Slowly! And, then, just as slowly back away from it. Hands in the air!"

Reluctantly, I did as instructed.

"At least tell me how Bob got this way," I demanded.

"He simply passed out from the pain he was going through. I immediately knelt down to feel his pulse and see if he was still alive. Before I could do so, though, he shrank! Right down to his present size!! Then, I heard the gunfire from the girls' camp. Thinking it might be some of those viragos coming this way, I improvised some distracting bait for them. Imagine my delight at seeing it was you...and my quarry!"

"However formidable you might be with that bow," I said: "...you only have time to shoot the one arrow you presently have nocked. Kill her, as you obviously intend, and I have time to dive for the tommy gun and avenge her death. Kill me first, to prevent that, and she has time to flee back towards her captors (who want her alive)!"

Tobias Blair grinned without mirth as he slowly turned towards Anna Stepwicz. Not only aiming the arrow at her. But, simultaneously showing off the hatchet (sheathed on the right side of his belt) that he was armed with, as well.

"The Apaches also taught me about tomahawk throwing. A demonstration of which I'll give you as soon as I'm done with _her_!"

I looked at the trees behind him.

"HE might have a different opinion."

"Oh, really, doc. That one's older than Sir Anthony!"

"Yet, none-the-less true," growled a raspy voice.

What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. Tobias Blair turned his head, and instinctively gasped as he beheld Theo Wisemann (still in werewolf form) charging straight towards him! The former quickly altered his aim and let fly the arrow he'd intended for Grand Duchess Anastasia. But, it completely missed the latter and lodged in the tree behind him. Forcing the renegade archery instructor to reach for his hatchet.

By the time he had unsheathed it, though, Tobias Blair was flat on his back. With the werewolf consequently tearing out his throat! And, with the assassin's high-pitched death scream ending with a most sickening gurgle.

That's when two more joined the party. More specifically; a pair of Buru-nagas in their bipedal varanid form. Each one armed with a javelin made of some kind of gray tree bark...and tipped with some kind viscuous liquid substance.

I shouted to Wisemann to look out! Yet, even as he turned to face them, one of the viragos threw her javelin straight at him!

And, it went straight through his upper torso.

I dived for the tommy gun at once. Somersaulting into a firing position, and opening up fusillade that destroyed the javelin thrower's throat! Her comrade moved to retaliate, in like fashion to Father Wisemann's death. But, fortunately for me...

...Sir Anthony had caught up to us by that point.

He instantly opened up with both Colt revolvers! Their blessed ammunition lodging in the second virago's throat in like fashion to the first. He then holstered the revolver in his right hand, so he could go over to the tree from which Little Bob was still dangling. Taking him--arrow and all--over to Anna Stepwicz. Requesting, in fluent German, if she would look after him for the time being.

Meanwhile, I hurriedly knelt down beside Theo Wisemann (who had subsequently regained his human form).

"Is there anything I can do, padre?"

He shook his head.

"Fire-hardened...Ceylon...ironwood. Tip-dipped...in mixture...of aconite...and their own...bile! As...inimical...to werewolves...as silver...bullets. "

He pointed to the shell casings, from the tommy gun, strewn on the ground about me. Following which...

...he died.

"I'm sorry, Peter," Sir Anthony remarked: "But, we've no time to mourn him. We must be off. Now!"

I grimly nodded. But, as if to contradict us, a pair of giant, greenish-black, clawed hands suddenly parted the foliage above us! And, the mirthlessly grinning countenance of the snake giantess Meleusina looked down upon us as she replied:

"Au contraire, mon petites! This soiree has just begun!"

tbc

* * * * *

Sir Anthony aimed the twin revolvers skyward, just as I did with the tommy gun. The silver bullets in the latter, and the blessed steeljackets in the former, might not be enough to kill this snake-giantess. But, at least we could cause her a lot of discomfort. Perhaps even buy enough time for Miss Stepwicz to get Little Bob Gabriel to safety!

Then, I heard it. A sound very similar to the one that had prefaced our near-miraculous rescue at Big Arbor Lake. Only multiplied by a factor of, at least, fifty.

Because that was approxiamtely how many MB-3 biplanes suddenly descended from the clouds overhead!

"Everyone into the woods!" ordered Sir Anthony: "Now!!"

The rest of us did not need to be told twice.

The next fifteen minutes were horrendous ones, as plan after plane after plane came plummeting downward to strafe Meleusina with what I felt safe in assuming were more blessed steeljackets. For, just as Pamela Plaisantine had done at Big Arbor Lake, Meleusina, herself, screamed deafeningly loud and long each time she was hit!

This was not to say that those brave pilots managed to evade her every time attempt to grasp them. Tragically, just the opposite! The occasional fighter plane that managed to avoid being crushed between her gigantic clawed hands more often than not wound up being swatted to Earth by her huge prehensile tail. Even so, the incessant strafing began to take its toll on that verdant monstrosity.

Because, by the start of the sixteenth minute, her upper torso began to teeter.

"Everyone!" exlaimed Sir Anthony: "Run!"

Again, we heeded his advice without question. And, a good thing, too! For, after we had traversed what felt like a couple hundred yards, Meleusina collapsed...face-first.

BOOM!

The ensuing seismic vibrations resulted in our own falls forward. With Meleusina's immense head just missing our much smaller bodies!!

When we finally managed to pick ourselves up, the drone of the planes was gone. Yet, we still heard machine gun fire. And, Sir Anthony gasped.

"The boys' camp!"

Once again, we understood what he meant without the need for elaboration. And we followed behind him. Our collective breaths becoming more labored with our exertions. Yet, we dared not slow up! Not if what we feared was true.

That the Buru-nagas were now machine-gunning the innocent boys and girls of Camp New Hope out of vengeful spite.

Fortunately, we were proven wrong. Indeed, what we now witnessed was the polar opposite of what we had dreaded. The boys' side of this summer camp was now the scene of open combat between what was left of those Siamese viragos...and a large detachment of American doughboys!

It was astounding. Those Buru-nagas who tried to assault these soldiers in their humanoid reptilian form were chopped to pieces by infantry rifle squads containing at least one B.A.R.-equipped marksman apiece. While those who remained in mortal form, in an attempt to use their tommy guns, were gradually being forced into smaller and tighter groups by light cavalrymen shooting Colt M-1911's from beneath the necks of their saddle mounts!

In the end, the surviving viragos dropped their weapons and knelt down, hands behind their heads (after being ordered to do so in Mandarin Chinese).

Then, and only then, did everyone and everything else get drowned out by the engines of the XZR-1. Major General Jonathan Hopkins (USMC), commanding.

tbc

* * * * *

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
(JULY 4, 1921)

It took almost all of the ensuing three days to sort everything out.

First off? There was the matter of Austin Galstaff; the traitorous President of the Milwaukee Lodge. He was arrested by men of the FBI, led by Special Agent James Biggs. And, during his interrogation by same, it came to light that he was not as good at poker as he alluded to us, much earlier. In point of fact, he lost more often than not! And, his considerable gambling debts had ultimately been bought up by Don Pietro Taliaferro.

At Pamela Plaisantine's insistence.

The initial benefit of this leverage was the recruitment of Sheriff Andrew Nellis (a former Detroit policeman, already on Taliaferro's payroll) as the newest member of the Milwaukee Lodge. Albeit, with a less-thorough-than-usual screening process. You see, when Sir Anthony and I were first awarded probationary membership in the Manhattan Lodge, of the Knights of Melion, it was only _after_ our backgrounds had been checked...more thoroughly than the Belmont veterinarian checks out race horses!

As a result of the favoritism shown him, however, Sheriff Nellis was able to use the Milwaukee Lodge's influence to more successfully enable the smuggling of Canadian whiskey into Michigan. Said whiskey carefuly disguised as holy water in nickel-plated flasks.

"However," Sir Anthony had explained to me: "...that nickel-plating was actually made from Thunder Bay silver ore!"

I had snapped my fingers in realization.

"That's where the Buru-nagas got their silver bullets from!"

"Partly, yes. The rest of each shipment went to Taliaferro as payment for services rendered. But, once his ultimate ambition (the successful usurpation of 'Tiny Dan' Bianco's Milwaukee empire) had been achieved, the...Biblical irony of his situation must have begun to weigh quite heavily on Don Pietro's mind. Hence, the abduction of--and ill-fated attempt to murder--Pamela Plaisantine!"

"Speaking of 'witch,' " I could not resist punning: "Do you think it was Galstaff or Nellis who informed her about our meeting with Cassandra White at Big Arbor Lake?"

"More likely, the latter," Sir Anthony had replied: "But, doubtless, only after he, himself, had been similarly contacted by his good friend (and ex-Detroit partner), Sheriff B.B.L. Zimmerman."

I had then shaken my head in abject pity.

"At least their motivations, I can understand. Plain old corrupting greed. But, what about Tobias Blair? What could have driven him to betray his country and work for the Communists?"

General Hopkins had provided the answer to that one.

"In 1905, Master Sergeant Blair was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army for beating up a young shave-tail who had then-recently been acquitted of molesting Blair's younger sister (who, tragically, committed suicide after hearing of the latter verdict)! And, it further embittered him that the prosecutor, at his own court-martial, was the same shyster who had defended that aforementioned lieutenant!! A conflict of interest secretly arranged by the lieutenant's grandfather (a big-shot Congressman on the House Armed Services Committee)."

"By the time all this dirty laundry became public knowledge, though, it was too late. Blair had long since left the country to join the Foreign Legion. Becoming a self-employed mercenary, thereafter!"

"And, five years ago, he was working for the Germans when he assassinated a Japanese naval intelligence officer in Ryojin.* A misdeed that was quickly brought to the attention of a certain Communist exile from Vladivostok...who's now a high mucky-muck in the Russian Cheka."

That reference to Japan had quickly brought to my recollection the status of General Hopkin's own mission.

"I take it you finally managed to locate those missing Japanese children and their aristocratic chaperone?"

He nodded; acknowledging the considerable help they had been given by Oishi Nakafusa. Last of the Enryakuji-kiri!

tbc

* * * * *

It was not widely known, even within Japan. But, the sohei, or warrior monks, of the Enryakuji-kiri-sho ("The Order of the Nine Cutting Hands," based on the slopes of Mount Hiei) had been founded primarily to combat the Nura-shikome-oni. A race of snake women supposedly descended from an eight-headed serpent called Yamata no Orochi, via seven of the eight daughters fathered by the Hii River god Ashi-nadzuchi.

Toward that end, these sohei had usually wielded silver-headed naginatas as their chief weapons. But, after the order was disbanded by Tokugawa Iyeasu, in 1603, most of the erstwhile members went either to the Asian mainland, or neighboring island chains like the Ryukyus, and became soldiers-of-fortune (or ronin).

Oishi Nakafusa was the last living practioner of the esoteric martial arts that had been developed and perfected by the Enryakuji-kiri. And, he had been using them on behalf of the same gun-running opium smugglers that Tobias Blair had briefly been a part of, when they inadvertently rescued Father Wisemann from the "Siamazons" (Gen. Hopkin's term; not mine!) of the Buru-naga tribe.

Oishi recognized their tribal idol as being a representation of the pre-Taoist Chinese creator goddess Nuwa. Also known as "Nura-hime" (or "Snake Princess"), in Japanese. And, to his credit, he refused to leave Father Wisemann to the non-existent mercy of those head-hunting viragos one more minute!

It was that same representation he subsequently found somewhere out West, while working with General Hopkins' expedition.

"I'm afraid I can't give you the full particulars as they're top secret. And, will most likely remain so, for some time! Suffice it to say, however, that the missing Japanese youngsters and their chaperone are en route back to Japan, even as we speak, aboard one of the Navy's fastest troop ships. Yet, just as the XZR-1 was getting underway, back to DC, we got a last minute radio message from the captain of that ship."

"Apparently, one of the Japanese children is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. And, she told the chaperone that she had had a vision of you lot...about to be swallowed by these lot!"

He pointed to the corpses that were still semi-reptilian.

"Now, personally? I don't believe in such superstitious clap-trap. Despite the nature of our recent quarry! But, Nakafusa-san did believe it, and persuaded me to head for this summer camp at best possible speed. He also persuaded me to call for reinforcments!"

As a result, elements of the 101st U.S. Cavalry (New York State National Guard) were dispatched westward by special locomotive. While the Joint Chiefs of Staff were able to persuade the governor of Michigan to loan General Hopkins' marines a machine gun company of the 2nd Infantry Regiment (Michigan National Guard). Along with a transport company of same providing trucks and trailers for the cavalrymen upon their arrival in Detroit.

"They had to go by way of Wisconsin to get here on time," the general concluded: "But, by Godfrey, make it they did!"

"As did you, sir," Sir Anthony replied: "And, for that, I assure you I am most grateful."

"Ditto!" I affirmed.

Then, something occurred to me.

"Hey! What about Little Bob?"

tbc

* * * * *

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
(JULY 4, 1921)

As it turned out, there _was_ some hope of re-enlarging him. There was a Japanese legend (again, according to Nakafusa) about a race of little people who had inhabited those islands even before the coming of the Ainu!* These people were referred to as the Koro-pok-kuru; "They Who Dwell Under the Butterbur Plant."

"It is thought," he had added: "...that they avoided danger by shrinking themselves through the partaking of a soup made from this plant; Fuki-misoshiru. And, when the danger had passed, they re-enlarged by eating from a mushroom now known to Occidental botanists as Cratellus cornucopoides konradii; the golden horn-of-plenty. Unfortunately, that mushroom now grows in only one place in all Japan; the Aokigihara Forest near Mount Fuji. And, that forest is said to be cursed. Making all who venture into it take their own lives!"

"Like spending the rest of my life at doll size is a more pleasant alternative?" Bob Gabriel had countered (with the bitterest sarcasm).

"Nyet!" Anna Stepwicz had then exclaimed, picking Little Bob up off the table and hugging him like a newborn infant.

"Suicide is the one sin God does not forgive," she had continued: "You must not give into despair, little one! If you do require looking after, for the rest of your life, I will do so. Alright?"

She looked him straight in the eye as she volunteered for that duty. And Little Bob, meeting that gaze, could do nothing else but smile and slowly nod his head. Which, in hindsight, was a wise decision. As it proved surprisingly difficult for Nakafusa to find that particular color mutation of the horn-of-plenty chanterelle! Although, he never stopped trying. Making regular-as-clockwork forays for the next twenty years.

During that time, Anna and Little Bob lived at Father Trent's mission back in Northgate. Helping him look after the children "Mlle. L'Enfant de Binesi" had brought him, after pre-emptively shrink-napping them en route to Camp New Hope.

But, of course, we had no way of knowing any of that at that particular moment. We simply stood on the starboard-side observation deck of the XZR-1 and watched the beauty of the Independence Day fireworks over the Hudson River. While, over the radio, the West Point Cadet glee club sang an accapella rendition of "My Country, 'Tis Of Thee."

* * * * *

PRESIDENT'S OFFICE,
MANHATTAN LODGE,
KNIGHTS OF MELION
(SEPT. 2, 1955)

I(chabod) C(rane) MacCory, of GREATLY THRILLING STORIES, looked at me with some awe on his face.

"That was incredible, Dr. Thorp! This will be the most riveting issue-length story we've published, yet!! Although,..."

He hesitated. So, I gave him some gentle prompting.

"Although, what?"

"Well, it's just that...we're bound to get some pieces of fan mail claiming that we're plagiarizing KING KONG with that scene where Meleusina gets strafed to death."

"Ah!" I replied, nodding in understanding: "Well, I'll let you in on a little secret, young man. Though the Camp New Hope affair was classified top-secret by the Pentagon, Harry Houdini was none-the-less obsessed with doing a semi-fictionalized film version of it! So, shortly after the world premiere of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD, in June of 1925, he approached Willis O'Brien about doing another stop-motion animated film. This one, about a shipwrecked vaudeville magician who rescues a beautiful Russian princess-in-exile from sacrifice to an overgrown female python by the cannibalistic inhabitants of an uncharted South Seas island!"

"Unfortunately, the pre-production process had still not gotten past the verbal brainstorming stage, before Houdini met his tragic fate in October of 1926. It would therefore be another _eight_ years before Houdini's original story idea came to the silver screen. Albeit, in the now much better-known version executive produced by Messrs. Cooper and Schoedsack for RKO!"

"Wow!" was MacCory's only response, prior to shutting off the massive tape recorder and packing it up like a suitcase. He then turned to me and thanked me, one more time, for seeing him on such short notice.

"Don't thank me," I replied: "Thank Don Pietro Taliaferro for reminding me of it."

I pointed to the front page headline of the NEW YORK TIMES. which read:

"ORIGINAL MOUSTACHE PETE
DIES AT EIGHTY-THREE.
Smothered In Sleep By
Mercy-Killing Nurse."


THE END