Police!!! | Page 7

of a natural actress.
She turned her flushed face to us:
"I made up my mind," she said, "that Tiger-tail's story was worth
investigating. It was perfectly easy for me to secure corroboration,
because that Seminole went back to his Everglade camp and told every
one of his people that I was a white Seminole because my ancestors
also hunted the three-eyed man and nobody except a Seminole could
know that such a thing as a three-eyed man existed.
"So, the next afternoon off, I embarked in Tiger-tail's canoe and he
took me to his camp. And there I talked to his people, men and women,
questioning, listening, putting this and that together, trying to discover
some foundation for their persistent statements concerning men, still
living in the jungles of Black Bayou, who had three eyes instead of
two.
"All told the same story; all asserted that since the time their records
ran the Seminoles had hunted and slain every three-eyed man they
could catch; and that as long as the Seminoles had lived in the
Everglades the three-eyed men had lived in the forests beyond Black
Bayou."
She paused, dramatically, cooling her cheeks in her palms and looking

from Kemper to me with eyes made starry by excitement.
"And what do you think!" she continued, under her breath. "To prove
what they said they brought for my inspection a skull. And then two
more skulls like the first one.
"Every skull had been painted with Spanish red; the coarse black hair
still stuck to the scalps. And, behind, just over where the pituitary gland
is situated, was a hollow, bony orbit--unmistakably the socket of a third
eye!"
"W-where are those skulls?" demanded Kemper, in a voice not entirely
under control.
"They wouldn't part with one of them. I tried every possible persuasion.
On my own responsibility, and even before I communicated with Mr.
Smith--" turning toward me, "--I offered them twenty thousand dollars
for a single skull, staking my word of honour that the Bronx Museum
would pay that sum.
"It was useless. Not only do the Seminoles refuse to part with one of
those skulls, but I have also learned that I am the first person with a
white skin who has ever even heard of their existence--so profoundly
have these red men of the Everglades guarded their secret through
centuries."
After a silence Kemper, rather pale, remarked:
"This is a most astonishing business, Miss Grey."
"What do you think about it?" I demanded. "Is it not worth while for us
to explore Black Bayou?"
He nodded in a dazed sort of way, but his gaze remained riveted on the
girl. Presently he said:
"Why does Miss Grey go?"
She turned in surprise:

"Why am I going? But it is my discovery--my contribution to science,
isn't it?"
"Certainly!" we exclaimed warmly and in unison. And Kemper added:
"I was only thinking of the dangers and hardships. Smith and I could do
the actual work--"
"Oh!" she cried in quick protest, "I wouldn't miss one moment of the
excitement, one pain, one pang! I love it! It would simply break my
heart not to share every chance, hazard, danger of this
expedition--every atom of hope, excitement, despair, uncertainty--and
the ultimate success--the unsurpassable thrill of exultation in the final
instant of triumph!"
She sprang to her feet in a flash of uncontrollable enthusiasm, and
stood there, aglow with courage and resolution, making a highly
agreeable picture in her apron and cuffs, the sea wind fluttering the
bright tendrils of her hair under her dainty cap.
We got to our feet much impressed; and now absolutely convinced that
there did exist, somewhere, descendants of prehistoric men in whom
the third eye--placed in the back of the head for purposes of defensive
observation--had not become obsolete and reduced to the traces which
we know only as the pituitary body or pituitary gland.
Kemper and I were, of course, aware that in the insect world the ocelli
served the same purpose that the degenerate pituitary body once served
in the occiput of man.
As we three walked slowly back to the campfire, where our evening
meal was now ready, Evelyn Grey, who walked between us, told us
what she knew about the hunting of these three-eyed men by the
Seminoles--how intense was the hatred of the Indians for these people,
how murderously they behaved toward any one of them whom they
could track down and catch.
"Tiger-tail told me," she went on, "that in all probability the strange
race was nearing extinction, but that all had not yet been exterminated

because now and then, when hunting along Black Bayou, traces of
living three-eyed men were still found by him and his people.
"No later than last week Tiger-tail himself had startled one of these
strange denizens