The Monster of Lake Lametrie | Page 6

The north wind has risen with the fall of night, and
out there in the darkness I hear the mighty organ pipe-tones of his
tremendous, magnificent voice, chanting the solemn notes of the
Gregorian, the full throated Latin words mingling with the roaring of
the wind in a wild and weird harmony.
To-day he attempted to find the connection between the lake and the
interior of the earth, but the great well that sinks down in the centre of
the lake is choked with rocks and he has discovered nothing. He is
tormented by the fear that I will leave him, and that he will perish of
loneliness. But I shall not leave him. I feel too much pity for the
loneliness he would endure, and besides, I wish to be on the spot
should another of those mysterious convulsions open the connection
between the lake and the lower world.
He is beset with the idea that should other men discover him, he may
be captured and exhibited in a circus or museum, and declares that he
will fight for his liberty even to the extent of taking the lives of those
attempting to capture him. As a wild animal, he is the property of
whomsoever captures him, though perhaps I can set up a title to him on
the ground of having tamed him.
JULY 6TH.
One of Framingham's fears has been realised. I was at the pass leading
into the basin, watching the clouds grow heavy and pendulous net
appear over a knoll in the pass, followed by its bearer, a small man,
unmistakably a scientist, but I did not note him well, for as he looked
down into the valley, suddenly there burst forth with all the power and
volume of a steam calliope, the tremendous voice of Framingham,
singing a Greek song of Anacreon to the tune of "Where did you get
that hat?" and the singer appeared in a little cove, the black column of
his great neck raised aloft, his jagged jaws wide open.

He turned and sped through the pass at all speed.
That poor little scientist. He stood transfixed, his butterfly net dropped
from his hand, and as Framingham ceased his singing, curvetted and
leaped from the water and came down with a splash that set the whole
cove swashing, and laughed a guffaw that echoed among the cliffs like
the laughing of a dozen demons, he turned and sped through the pass at
all speed.
I skip all entries for nearly a year. They are unimportant.
JUNE 30TH, 1897.
A change is certainly coming over my friend. I began to see it some
time ago, but refused to believe it and set it down to imagination. A
catastrophe threatens, the absorption of the human intellect by the brute
body. There are precedents for believing it possible. The human body
has more influence over the mind than the mind has over the body. The
invalid, delicate Framingham with refined mind, is no more. In his
stead is a roistering monster, whose boisterous and commonplace
conversation betrays a constantly growing coarseness of mind.
No longer is he interested in my scientific investigations, but
pronounces them all bosh. No longer is his conversation such as an
educated man can enjoy, but slangy and diffuse iterations concerning
the trivial happenings of our uneventful life. Where will it end? In the
absorption of the human mind by the brute body? In the final triumph
of matter over mind and the degradation of the most mundane force and
the extinction of the celestial spark? Then, indeed, will Edward
Framingham be dead, and over the grave of his human body can I
fittingly erect a headstone, and then will my vigil in this valley be over.
FORT D. A. RUSSELL, WYOMING,
APRIL 15TH, 1899.
Prof. William G. Breyfogle. DEAR SIR, -- the inclosed intact
manuscript and the fragments which accompany it, came into my

possession in the manner I am about to relate and I inclose them to you,
for whom they were intended by their late author. Two weeks ago, I
was dispatched into the mountains after some Indians who had left their
reservation, having under my command a company of infantry and two
squads of cavalrymen with mountain howitzers. On the seventh day of
our pursuit, which led us into a wild and unknown part of the
mountains, we were startled at hearing from somewhere in front us a
succession of bellowings of a very unusual nature, mingled with the
cries of a human being apparently in the last extremity, and rushing
over a rise before us, we looked down upon a lake and saw a colossal,
indescribable thing engaged in rending the body of a man. Observing
us, it stretched its jaws and laughed, and in saying