when I entered the -and-Club, in Algiers, and inquired for Mr.

Nestor. A moment later I was ushered into his presence, to find

myself clasping hands with the sort of chap that the world holds

only too few of.

He was a tall, smooth-faced man of about thirty, clean-cut, straight,

and strong, and weather-tanned to the hue of a desert Arab. I

liked him immensely from the first, and I hope that after our three

months together in the desert country--three months not entirely

lack-ing in adventure--he found that a man may be a writer of

"impossible trash" and yet have some redeem-ing qualities.

The day following my arrival at Algiers we left for the south,

Nestor having made all arrangements in advance, guessing, as he

naturally did, that I could be coming to Africa for but a single

purpose--to hasten at once to the buried telegraph-instrument and

wrest its secret from it.

In addition to our native servants, we took along an English

telegraph-operator named Frank Downes. Nothing of interest enlivened

our journey by rail and caravan till we came to the cluster of

date-palms about the ancient well upon the rim of the Sahara.

It was the very spot at which I first had seen David Innes. If he

had ever raised a cairn above the telegraph instrument no sign of

it remained now. Had it not been for the chance that caused Cogdon

Nestor to throw down his sleeping rug directly over the hidden

instru-ment, it might still be clicking there unheard--and this

story still unwritten.

When we reached the spot and unearthed the little box the instrument

was quiet, nor did repeated attempts upon the part of our telegrapher

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