Terry was strong on facts--geography and meteorology and
those; Jeff could beat him any time on biology, and I didn't care
what it was they talked about, so long as it connected with
human life, somehow. There are few things that don't.

We three had a chance to join a big scientific expedition. They
needed a doctor, and that gave Jeff an excuse for dropping his just
opening practice; they needed Terry's experience, his machine,
and his money; and as for me, I got in through Terry's influence.

The expedition was up among the thousand tributaries and
enormous hinterland of a great river, up where the maps had to
be made, savage dialects studied, and all manner of strange flora
and fauna expected.

But this story is not about that expedition. That was only the
merest starter for ours.


My interest was first roused by talk among our guides. I'm
quick at languages, know a good many, and pick them up readily.
What with that and a really good interpreter we took with us,
I made out quite a few legends and folk myths of these scattered
tribes.

And as we got farther and farther upstream, in a dark tangle
of rivers, lakes, morasses, and dense forests, with here and there
an unexpected long spur running out from the big mountains beyond,
I noticed that more and more of these savages had a story about a