"Ten years!" he murmured, at last. "Ten years, and I thought that
at the most it could be scarce more than one!" That night he told
me his story--the story that I give you here as nearly in his own
words as I can recall them.



I

TOWARD THE ETERNAL FIRES


I WAS BORN IN CONNECTICUT ABOUT THIRTY YEARS ago. My name is David
Innes. My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen
he died. All his property was to be mine when I had attained my
majority--provided that I had devoted the two years intervening in
close application to the great business I was to inherit.

I did my best to fulfil the last wishes of my parent--not because
of the inheritance, but because I loved and honored my father. For
six months I toiled in the mines and in the counting-rooms, for I
wished to know every minute detail of the business.

Then Perry interested me in his invention. He was an old fellow
who had devoted the better part of a long life to the perfection
of a mechanical subterranean prospector. As relaxation he studied
paleontology. I looked over his plans, listened to his arguments,
inspected his working model--and then, convinced, I advanced the
funds necessary to construct a full-sized, practical prospector.