finished my communication, Elias Smith gazed at me for some moments in silence. Then he said, softly, “So at Washington they wish to know what the Great Eyrie hides within its circuit?” 

 “Yes, Mr. Smith.” 

 “And you, also?” 

 “I do.” 

 “So do I, Mr. Strock.” 

 He and I were as one in our curiosity. 

 “You will understand,” added he, knocking the cinders from his pipe, “that as a land-owner, I am much interested in these stories of the Great Eyrie, and as mayor, I wish to protect my constituents.” 

 “A double reason,” I commented, “to stimulate you to discover the cause of these extraordinary occurrences! Without doubt, my dear Mr. Smith, they have appeared to you as inexplicable and as threatening as to your people.” 

 “Inexplicable, certainly, Mr. Strock. For on my part, I do not believe it possible that the Great Eyrie can be a volcano; the Alleghanies are nowhere of volcanic origins. I, myself, in our immediate district, have never found any geological traces of scoria, or lava, or any eruptive rock whatever. I do not think, therefore, that Morganton can possibly be threatened from such a source.” 

 “You really think not, Mr. Smith?” 

 “Certainly.” 

 “But these tremblings of the earth that have been felt in the neighborhood!” 

 “Yes these tremblings! These tremblings!” repeated Mr. Smith, shaking his head; “but in the first place, is it certain that there have been tremblings? At the moment when the flames showed most sharply, I was on my farm of Wildon, less than a mile from the Great Eyrie. There was certainly a tumult in the air, but I felt no quivering of the earth.” 

 “But in the reports sent to Mr. Ward—” 

 “Reports made under the impulse of the panic,” interrupted the mayor of Morganton. “I said nothing of any earth tremors in mine.” 

 “But as to the flames which rose clearly above the crest?” 

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