LAUGHING SICKNESS "Is it confined to the natives?" "l can't say," and Bland smiled a queer sort of smile-- "I did not stay long enough. One wouldn't, unless one was obliged." Mainprice looked across at me. "What about it, Vereker? Isn't the doctor in you interested?" "Naturally." "The scientific sleuth on the track of a new disease! What a chance for you to make your name" He was an uncomfortable person was Mainprice--and I was wondering what to say to him when Mary inter- posed. "It geems to interest you, Mr. Main- price--this disease." "Of course it does, Miss Hill, We came out here to explore and to col lect, and we have done rothing--abso- lutely nothing. And here is a prob- lem, one of those problems that a white man feels it his duty to tackle." His eyes were on me, and his sen tentious heroics were aimed at my head. I turned to Bland. "How far up country is the district where laughing sickness originated?" Bland hesitated, looking at me with kind eyes. "Oh--about five hundred miles. The Loma country. Scattered villages in the farest Country on the edge of the His, "Is it easy to get there?" "Perfectly easy for three hundred miles, and then you would have to take porters and a guide. You might manage with mules or ponies. I don't know." I heard Mary's voice, and when 1 glanced at her I found that her eyes were on Mainprice. "If you are so interested, Mr. Main- price----" « He took up the challenge and passed it on' to me. "Certainly. I'll go, like a shot. But I am not a doctor, though I am some- thing of a bacteriologist--, If Vereker would join me?--1I think it is up to us, you know." I felt that he had been playing for this very point, but my decision was obvious. "Quite. I'm ready to go. I can fit up a little travelling 'lab.' Instead of hunting insects we can hunt out the cause of this beastly disease." Mainprice smiled at me. hg man, Vercker. I knew you were not the sort of chap to hang back." Hill looked grave, but there was no- thing that he could say against she en- terprise, though it had originated in his house. After all, we were the very men to attack such a problem, and as Mainprice had said--""It was up to us." Bland sat and gloomed, and Mary said nothing, but before the evening was over she spoke words that I was not likely to forget. . We were standing along 'at the end of the loggia, watching the moonlight shining upon the Bimbasa valley, "Jim--must you go?" 1 held my breath. "Of course. It's a point-of honor." "But--he-----" "I know.' That's why" We both of us felt someone behind us, and we furned and found Main- price there. He must have walked like a cat over the matting. He held out a hand and smiled. "Good-night, Miss Hill. I will take great care of Vereker." 3 We went off together, and as we rode out of the gate I caught him looking at me and I knew that he had heard 'what Mary Hill had said. From the very beginning of the ad- venture I knew that Mainprice and I were at war, and that the test between us was to be one of courage and en- durance. We were polite to each oth- er; we discussed all the details of the 3 Goldberg had let us down, : . 'He was a man of whims, and since = he could afford to be whimsical and © had written each of us 2 comfortable cheque we' had nothing, serious to complain of. Goldberg's hobby was entomology. He had spent six months in organizing an expedition into Pon- land; he had transported us all to SHimbase, and then--one night after dinner at the Imperial Club--he had suddenly announced that the whole ad- venture was cancelled. He had given ue no reasons; he had said that he was home. ; ES home and I stayed on at Bim- by We put up at Latter's Hotel. rice, who was a sort of scientific Leiper-man and who flattered himself his facial resemblance to Huxley, of undertaking some research his own. "Plenty for me to do here, you ow, Vereker. 1 suppose you will be back to England." did not like Mainprice. He was $00 complacent, too learned, and too sarcastic. He was a zoologist, and a, palaecontologist, and also; I thought, a 'majestic prig. I was just an ordinary -man with some knowledge of steriology, but Mainprice treated me though I were a raw student. There occasions when I lusted to kick +1 told him that 1 was in no hurry to home. : "Hill suggested I might stop out There is an opening, and itisa fine life and a fine climate." 'Mainprice looked at me with one of his super-wise smirks. 1 see" ; think we both knew why Bim- held us, for we were interested in the same woman. Goldberg had ta- ¥en us out to visit Geoffrey Hill's use and plantation on Table Keep. was a delightful person, and he i a daughter, a tall, slim, long- young woman, who moved as h life were a dance. The flick her ankles, and the way she moved feet had made a boy of me. And 1 % right to be a boy, but it had ed to me that Mainprice had no : for being interested in her. Hill was alive; she wasn't an ol- yor a thing to be pinned out and d, or to be'fhade love to by this rather simian and superior person. made it my business to get in his , And 1 must say that he respond- We were always riding up to Table p, and sitting in the big white log- and trying to make fierce but po- pn of each other while Mary gave was a most vital person, To see a horse was a delight. Her n eyes were both bright and soft the eyes of a bird. She was charm- both of us in her easy, happy showed no preference, and a time when I doubted whe- took either of us very serious- 'was devoted to her father, e deserved. it. . : absurd part of it was that Maju: and 1 always rode up together came way tonether. People might taken us for two cronies, but I now that he hated my cheerful face, and I know that I hated nkey one. ened on the night when 1 Te ar Mainprice and met in the lounge of "Latter's," and n he saw that I was dressed his seemed to snap at me. "course!" they said. Keep we found a tired and ned looking man lying in a long in the loggia and talking to the His name was Bland. He moved jvily and held out a thin hand when re introduced to him. heard about you two," he ell, if you came out here to mtific, I think I. could find you » 3 s % a THE of them had seen the spoor of a lion. Ali and our "boys" were preparing supper. Mainprice and I sat down under a tree and looked at the swarthy plain below us. Jt was growing dim and mysterious. The air had a slight tang like the air of an autumn evening in England. Mainprice spoke, his arms over his knees. "Noticed anything lately?" '1 had. ¢ "For the last three days we haven't seen anything human." "Exactly." Hardly had he uttered the word when a sound came up to us from the darkening country below, laughter, queer solitary laughter like the barks ing of a solitary jackal. A tremor went through me. "Hear that?" He gave me a strange look. "Rattled--? Listen " For that solitary laughter had pro- voked a weird outburst of false merri- ment. It was like the spasmodic coughing of a crowd of "gassed" men during thesWar, but far more terrible because of the mockery of its mirth. I glanced over my shoulder. The chatter about the camp fire had ceased, and I saw our men standing like so many polished black marble statues. The whites of their eyes gleamed. There was fear in them. Mainprice was smiling. "We are in luck. Tumbled right on it." His smirk annoyed me, for he seem- ed less scared than I felt. "Just look over your shoulder," I said. He looked and saw the blacks. "If we are not careful we shan't have a 'boy' within twenty miles of us to- morrow morning." He pretended to be patronising. "Don't get windy, Vereker, I'll get Ali to tell the fellows that they can sit tight here, and that we shall not ex- pect them to go any further." . I was feeling hot about the ears. "After supper," I said, "we might go down---there. A full moon, I expect there is a village." He nodded his head at me. "Right you are. I'm game." We went, after cautioning Ali to keep an eye on the men and to allay any alarm that might have developed in their thick heads. A full moon was swimming up over a silent world, sil- ent so far as men were concerned, for the night cries of the wild creatures were beginning. And then, half way \down the slope of the hill, we heard laughter, sudden and weird, and a whole chorus of it broke out upon us. We came to the village. It had a ditch and a hedge of thorns, but we found one of the rude gates open. We stood there looking in. There was a square space between the huts, and the full. moon showed us the figures of men and women. Some lay flat; others were sitting up; others had their heads on their crossed arms and bent knees,, land when we first came to the gate they were silent. Suddenly one of the seated figures threw up its head and be gan to laugh, wild spasmodic laughter, and it seemed to provoke the same | spasm in the others, Some writhed on the ground and laughed; others, sup- porting themselves on their arms, laughed at the face of the moon. I think it was the most unearthly sound I had ever heard, the laughter of these doomed people-who had dragged them selves out into the open to die. Mainprice expectorated. the ones who d run boltel into the left + It 'will come to he Sams thing." . i is was edged with disgust. He looked me full in' the eyes. We were each feared show fear before the other. afraid, but we fought our fear, because "Like to take their temperatures, Vereker?". . The ironical beast in him sneered. * "I'll do it in the morning. Daylight." "Quite so. We'll investigate by day- dliness ; HERG" © We retraced our steps towards our camp fire. It looked like a flame-col- "Good lord," he said; "I suppose] $tay. D Logi men were lighting 2 fire, for one instead of that it set us further apart J------ I had my moments of fear and of horror, but I beat them back. I tried to thinl: steadily of Mary Hill and of all the charm 'and wholesomeness of the house on Table Keep. I worked as I had worked sometimes during the war, smoking inuumerable pipes, and eating like a savage. Mainprice was a pretty good misroscopist, and we spent hours making blood films and. staining them, and examining them in my tent. We tested the sick people's secretions searched the huts and clothing, exam- ined the water, kept alert eyes on ey- ery sort of fly and insect. Mainprice would have it that the dis- ease was fly-born, "It can't be in the food or the water --or it would have happened long ago. Some particular insect has developed a sudden taste for man, and the germ of the disease must be planted by the ite." I was inclined to agree with him. We had begun to notice a peculiar species of hover-fly with & blotch of red on its body, and peculiarly irides- cent wings, and one evening while we were sitting outside the tents I heard Mainprice utter an excla#mation 'and strike the flat of one hand against the back of the other. "Damn! I've been bitten." He had killed the fly, and while he searched for it in the grass I sat and wondered. "One of those flies we have noticed." His voice was casual, but I knew that Kirodi. I stayed outside the place and sent for him, and when he came I told him the whole tale. "I don't know the incubatioft period | of this damned disease, but I have been free for over a month. But you had better quarantine me." i He did. For a month, T lived in a tént.on a hill above 'Kirodi, with a cou- ple of black police patrolling the nei- ghbourhood. At the end of the month the doctor brought up the Local Com- missioner, and I had to make a state- ment. I showed him the hole in my sun hat. - +} you send out a search party," I said, "you will find Mainprice buried, with the top of his head blown off. He must have put the muzzle of his gun into his mouth. But is it neces- sary? Can't the dead be left--to sleep ~~untroubled?" The Commissioner was a white man. "My dear chap,--I'll think it over The doctor had wired to the Hills. 1 was wondering. when I should see them, and what I should say to Mary. But it was Mary who came to me. / "PUP AND PUP od he was afraid. And so was I. That{ night in my tent I rubbed myself with carbolic oil. If the small of it would keep the particular, deadly fly at a dis- tance--well, I might live to see---- Three tense days followed. Main- price was worried about the bite of that fly, and he grew more irritable and suspicious; I felt him watching me; at night he was restless, and I could hear him moving in his tent. We took turns at keeping the fire burn- ing, and as though he grudged me my sleep he would make a great noise over throwing on fresh wood, but it may have been that noise soothed the fear in him. On the fourth day I thought he looked flushed, and his eyes were in- jected, but he said nothing, and car- ried on with the work. At tea that day I happened to slop some boiling water from the kettle on to my trousers, It hurt me, and I swore, and Mainprice began to laugh. It seemed a silly sort of joke to me, but it amused him. "Oh, shut up," 1 said. But Mainprice went on laughing. I stared at him; I felt like throwing the kettle at his head, and thep--suddenly ~1 understood.. Mainprice could not stop making that absurd noise; Laugh- ing Sickness had him. Presently, the spasm passed. He sat gasping, looking at me with turgid eyes that were full of indescribable things. "I've got it. It must have been that damned fly. Well--that's that." {He grinned. "Suppose you will be making tracks for home. That was the understandin ~--eh?" vid * I felt grim. For T had begun to rea- lise that whatever my hatred of Main- price might be I could not leave the fellow alone to die. "I'm staying," I said. And then he cursed me. 2 "You silly, schoolboy storybook hero. Do you think I want your slob- bering magnanimity. Get out. I'm not afraid of dying." "I am," 1 said, "but I am going to tay. With the horror of the thing on me I went down to the village, where the silence had deepened day by day. I sat down on a tree stump near the gate. What was I going to do? Run away, or stick by the man I hated? J Mainprice would despise me if T ran away. And if Mary Hill were to know, she too would think me a cur. No, I had to got to stay and see it through. + The sun was setting when I began to re-climb the hill towards the twa white tents' and the fire. An inten melancholy had attacked me, and I was trying to fight 'it off. I was not "of Mainprice but of Table ¥ in the qn my seal My arms Tihsew myself for- Koil Up there I had had ainprice laying prone, mn his face, the rifle to his shoul~ "1 1 did not move. I was wondering whether he would feel sure that he had Fh w uns ign] London is buying these expres- sionful pups as Christmas gifts. Remote Police Post. Toronto, Dec. 11.--The world's most northerly post, also the most remote of any bureau habitation, is to be constructed next year for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the far end of Ellesmere Island. Building materials and two years' supplies have been cached within easy freighting distance of the point. FRENCH IVORY SETS Ted = he un of Health at the Breakfast at the Business Desk ~~ BAKER'S Has a full rich flavor delicious to the tastes it is | invigorating and sustaining, : Henry C. Sherman, Professor of Food istry, Co- lumbia University, in his book "Food Products' says: aa inaddition to the stimulating erty, due to the A thesheomides and the flavor w makes it DD py 2d in gafeeiony, WALTER BAKER & CO. Limited ESTABLISHED 1780 DORCHESTER, MASS. = CANADIAN MILLS AT MONTREAL Booklet of Choice Recipes sent free A Gift that Increases in Value ov N/A? BID YOU GIVE LAST CHRISTMAS 1 Toys for the kiddies--=most of them broken by now. "Something useful? for the grown-ups--now worn out or forgotten, Cish to your employees-- appreciated but soon spent. Other presents--hurriedly bought and perhaps ill-chosen. Are they remembered now? Suppose this year you give them each a Bank Book containing an initial deposit, and urge them to add to it regularly. Could anything be more suitable? Add * Royal Bank Pass Books" to your iss Gifts, w oa Bs oh Kingston Branch, RG. H. Travers, Manager. DRUGGIST on e Are Local Headquarters for : 5 i 'We ueeds. untae Here or * tress "081.00 up have prepared for your Christmas you shop in comfort, with | interested attention to your You may spend little or much-- Tugt Took our stock dver and see the host of things we have for you. "What To Give" is a problem we can solve for you. Your welcome at this store is always assured. v Fd " 8 aver iiies . 280, up fA Meg { Freeh $1.00