It

shore came the eddy, but still the big bull elephant stood spraying himself, unconscious of all danger. Then dimly through the clear lake Captain Jackson could make out some huge creature rushing toward the shore. A flurry of waves, and with a splash and road a gigantic head broke through the water. was followed by a snaky, twisting neck, nearly forty feet long. Then came the body, like that of a turtle, but far larger than that of any turtle since the ages when geological monsters, beside whom the largest animals of to-day are small, ruled land and sea. Too late the big elephant saw his terrible peril and turned to rush toward the shore. The snaky head shot out, the big jaws opened and then closed with a snap, grasping the elephant about his body as a cat snatches

a mouse.

Over and over in the water, kicking with his feet, striking with his trunk, and trying in vain to thrust with his tusks, the elephant rolled. No creature in the African jungle could have matched him in strength, but against the survival of a past age even the elephant was helpless. Nearer and nearer in shore came the Lake Devil, clutching the big elephant in his unbreakable grip. The water was churned to foam by the desperate efforts of the elephant to free himself. But still the Lake Devil pushed forward until all his body was resting on the bottom. The elephant had also succeeded in getting all four feet firmly planted on solid ground and threw all his strength into one supreme effort to get away. Failing in this, he twisted his body around and began striking fierce, lashing blows with his trunk at the head of the monster. Then the Lake Devil exerted all his tremendous strength. The snaky neck and huge. head swung around, the elephant being lifted clear off his feet. For a second the air vibrated with the shrill, agonized trumpetings of the elephant. Then the

Lake Devil gave a little push with his fins and his body moved toward the deeper water. The big head sank under, carrying the shrieking elephant with

it. Another instant and, with a rush like the launching of a battleship, the Lake Devil shot out toward the middle of the lake and sank down into its unfathomable depths.

"It is death to go out on the lake,' said Lasca sullenly. "Our bullets will not hurt him. Why throw our lives away? When even the big rogue elephant was helpless, what can men do against the Lake Devil?"

"It would be suicide to go on the lake," answered Captain Jackson decidedly. "That fellow could sink anything smaller than an ocean liner. Our only hope will be to get him to attack us on land.

Then we can try our bullets on him. If they don't work, we can use the dynamite. But we won't try that unless it is a case of life or death, for it would blow him to pieces and destroy the skeleton."

The little party moved slowly around the side of the lake to the pathway between the cliffs. Even Captain Jackson felt nervous as they approached the lake, the lair of the great plesiosaurus, the prehistoric monster before whose might the strongest and fiercest of modern animals would be helpless. Lasca glanced apprehensively at the smooth sides of the roadway.

"They have been worn smooth by the journeyings of the Lake Devil," he murmured. "The guide said that although he is clumsy on land, he can outstrip the swiftest runner."

Captain Jackson halted his men about a hundred yards from the shore of the lake.

"There is no use in going any nearer. I wish he was hungry, so that we could decoy him to the shore."

"The Lake Devil is always hungry and always angry," said Lasca decidedly.

"We have only to disturb the water in some manner and he will show himself. "Then may Allah protect us!"

The captain ordered his men to get their rifles in readiness for instant use. Then he unstrapped a little bag, and drew out three dynamite cartridges. One of them he handed to Lasca, another he slipped into his own pocket.

"These two will explode if we throw them," he said. "But we don't want to do that until it is absolutely necessary. I'll fix a fuse on the third one and throw it out into the lake. The explosion will probably disturb his majesty and he will come to the surface to see what is the matter. Then we can use our rifles. If he makes a rush at us on land we will have a good target, and finally, if the bullets don't seem to have any effect, we can try the dynamite. That probably will be too much even for a plesiosaurus.”

He adjusted a fuse to the dynamite cartridge, and walking to the shore, lighted it and threw the cartridge far out into the lake. The explosion came just as the cartridge reached the surface and sent up a big column of water. Then he ran back to where his men were standing. All seized their rifles and stood anxiously watching the lake for indications of the appearance of the plesiosaurus.

For a moment there was nothing but the waves tossed up by the dynamite to show that anything unusual had taken place. Suddenly a big head and huge, snaky neck broke through the water. The plesiosaurus had risen to see who had dared disturb his domain. The head waved back and forth uncertainly. Then he saw the intruders and began to swim at terrific speed toward the shore.

"Here he comes," said Captain Jackson grimly. "Cool is the word now. Try and hit him in the eyes."

The Lee-Metfords began to talk and the bullets splashed the water all around

the swiftly advancing head. Some of them may have struck, but the monster only came at greater speed. In a seemigly incalculably short time he had reached the shallow water. The long, snaky neck appeared in plain sight, then the huge, turtle-like body, black, slimy and threatening. Over the shallows the monster scrambled, his fins carrying him forward swifter than a man could run. Inured to danger as all the party were, they could feel their hearts throbbing at the sight of the antediluvian monster, ninety feet long, and with jaws that could crush a dozen men. The plesiosaurus was plainly enraged by the bullets which kept pattering harmlessly against his thick hide. His red, bloodshot eyes glared, the slime was dropping from his lips, and he seemed rather some monster that had come up from the depths of hell, than any creature of flesh and blood.

Now he had gained the land and was still hurrying on.

"Steady, steady," said Captain Jack"Aim at his eyes."'

son.

A bullet smashed into one of the glaring eyes, making a splash as if it had struck a pool of blood. The plesiosaurus only seemed to increase his speed. He was now near enough so they could see the dark blood oozing from bullet wounds in neck and body. They appeared mere pin pricks and only angered him the more. Now he was eighty, now sixty yards from the little group. Lasca stooped and picked up his dynamite cartridge.

"Wait a second longer," gasped Captain Jackson. "I don't want to destroy the body."

As the plesiosaurus still rushed forward Lasca could not restrain himself. "Throw now!" he exclaimed. "Throw now or we are dead!"

Captain Jackson drew out his cartridge. It was time, for the waving, sanky head, forty feet from the ground.

would in an instant more be lowered for a deadly sweeping clutch.

"Drop on your faces when I throw!" shouted the English captain. And he hurled the dynamite cartridge straight towards the plesiosaurus. Lasca had already thrown his, and both Captain Jackson and Lasca dropped on the ground.

Two terrible explosions, so near together that they seemed one, and the air was full of pieces of flesh and bone and blood. Lasca's cartridge had fallen a little short, but even as it touched the ground the plesiosaurus had dropped his head, as if to grasp the deadly missile. Captain Jackson's cartridge had struck directly in front of the big, turtle-like body. Except for the blood-bespattered ground and the fragments of flesh and bones, it was hard to believe that

the strongest and most terrible monster on earth had a second before been advancing in deadly charge. Against dynamite even the champion of antediluvian ages had been helpless.

"It was dynamite or death," said Captain Jackson, mournfully. "But it was too bad we had to use it. His body would have been worth a fortune."

Lasca shook his head decidedly.

"Twice have I looked the Lake Devil in the face, and Allah has preserved me," said the old Arab. "And I am glad it is no longer possible to see him. For the sight is not a nice one, nor the memory of it pleasant to a man who has lived long, and committed many sins, and knows that the time is not far distant when Azrael, the Angel of Death, will call him to account."

A

S a listener, a reader and an observer, I reach the conclusion that a majority of my countrymen and women desire neither free trade nor free trusts. Senator Hoar, broadly patriotic and farsighted, offers a bill which transfers all corporations from state to national control, and which makes officers and directors of corporations personally responsible for the acts of the corporate bodies they control. Senator's Hoar's bill might aptly be termed, "A bill to provide corporations with souls," since it proposes for the first time to bring into their operations the element of personal responsibility.

Charles Emory Smith, writing in the Saturday Evening Post, thus epitomizes the Hoar bill:

"The transfer of the control of all corporations from the States to the Federal Government is a new departure in our American system. The assumption not merely of regulating interstate commerce in its general commercial relations, but of laying the hand of the Federal Government on all business which is done under a corporate organization, and exercising a rigorous supervisory authority, is something which on the surface is quite foreign to our American conception of liberty of action.

"This is what Senator Hoar's bill does in substance. Under our modern conditions most large business is done under corporate form. All corporations whose business passes State lines are engaged in interstate commerce. Under Senator Hoar's bill they cannot carry on their affairs without agreeing to conditions which give the Attorney-General power to enter their offices, open their books, examine their papers and exact any report he chooses. They cannot undersell

or give discounts from market rates or offer preferences or enter into any combination which may be alleged to be for the purpose of driving out of business any other person engaged therein. Any violation of the provisions of the act renders any officer or director of the corporation liable for all its debts and obligations, and any infraction of its prohibitions is punishable by fine and imprisonment."

The change from present conditions proposed in this measure is one of tremendous importance. It will probably seem to corporations at first glance to be oppressive and burdensome; but would not the corporations as well as the general public be benefited in the long run by the larger confidence, based on the increased stability in corporate affairs which must certainly ensue? At best, I suppose, the federal control of such corporations, at least, as those which have practical monopolies of universal necessities, as, say, coal and oil and transportation, is but a prelude to federal ownership. By yielding gracefully to federal control, the private citizens who now enjoy the fruits of these monopolies may reasonably hope to extend the period of their toll-taking. Persistence in their present methods, and opposition to any modification thereof, can hardly have any other result than to hasten the third stage of our social evolution, when all citizens shall be equal partners in industry, as we now are in government.