FOG

A story of medico-science

by C. C. Campbell

THE SUBJECT was staring up into the lights above him, shuddering, while the two doctors scrubbed themselves thoroughly with green soap and donned sterile clothing, masks and rubber gloves. “You will please attend to the anaesthesia, Dr. Rollins,” Dr. Cobb said, switching on the great operating lights. The seven bulbs were suspended so that no matter where the surgeon held his hand, there was no shadow cast.

Rollins placed the ether cone over the patient’s face. There was a hiss of ether, oxygen and nitrous oxide mixing in a slight rush. The rubberized-leather bellows inflated and deflated rapidly, as the subject breathed powerfully. Six seconds later he was completely anaesthetized, and lay breathing deeply and evenly.

Immediately Cobb put on his thick glasses. With his weak old eyes close to the head of the patient, he cut through the skin of the scalp, just above the orbital ridge, back above the ears, and stopped at a point three inches apart just over the base of the skull. He flapped the scalp back to bare the bone. At each temple and the sides back of the ears he bored a hole. Then, from each hole he cut through the intervening bone until he connected the four holes, sawing regularly with a small blade attached to the frame of a surgical jig saw.

When there was danger of touching the brain, he drew out the saw and inserted his fingers in the two holes at the temples and jerked up sharply. The bone snapped at the sides and back; he used a bone clipper to cut the hanging edges. Rapidly, his old hands acting automatically, he spread bone wax over the cut surfaces of the skull, both on the head and on the part he held in his hand, to prevent excess bleeding from the bone, which would prevent rapid mending.

Now the pulsating, gray brain was exposed to his cold gaze. Beneath the colorless, gelatinlike covering, purple veins and bright-crimson arteries pulsed in time with the brain and heart.

He cut through the quivering, gelatinlike covering, consisting of three membranes—the dura mater, or outer membrane; the araelmoid, middle; and the pia nutter, innermost layer.

As he cut, he waited for the spinal fluid that filled the spaces between the membranes, protecting the delicate brain from injury, to drain off. The three membranes he flapped back as he had flapped back the scalp.

The dull-gray brain continued to pulse steadily, in time with the heart. Its two hemispheres and eight of the lobes were clearly visible, the four other lobes hidden by the remainder of the skull.

His keen scalpel poised just over the two frontal lobes, near the fissure Sylvius.

With a deep groan, muffled by the ether cone, the subject tossed uneasily, as if some instinct had warned him to move. Rollins jumped away from the ether tank to pin him down. He was too late.

Before Cobb could pull his terrified hand away, the patient’s head rearing in dumb agony, had hit the scalpel. Dr. Cobb jerked his hand away—too late.

They stared in horror at the severed lobes as the knife sheared through them and they dropped to the table. Cobb tore his eyes away from the terrible sight, gazed vacantly at Rollins for a moment, and watched the bellows in fascination. It deflated rapidly—filled again—slowly—

His hands flashed as he picked up a hypodermic of adrenaline and plunged it into the heart. For hours it seemed they stared in fear, until respiration gradually resumed its normal rate. Only then did they breathe naturally again and—

Rollins saw the old man’s hands shaking tremulously. When he looked down, his own, which he could not feel, were shaking as badly. His heart beat wildly at a tremendous rate.

“He’s done for, isn’t he?” he asked softly, dreading the answer.

“Yes,” Cobb nodded quietly. “Too bad, because I expected a lot from this experiment. But no man ever lived with his frontal lobes cut off.”

“But he’s breathing normally,” Rollins pointed out.

Cobb shrugged. “What’s the difference? He can’t live. We can go on, though, just as if he were going to live.”

THE GRAY LUMP of tissue lay inertly on the table, containing every impression and memory of the patient—the victim now. Rollins tore his eyes away from the morbid fascination and watched Cobb. He wandered absently from the operating table, hypodermic in hand, and searched vaguely over rows of bottles standing on the shelves against the wall. As if not certain which one he wanted, he picked one, almost at random it seemed, and charged his hypodermic.

“What’s that?” Rollins asked.

Cobb looked up at him. “Pineal extract,” he muttered.

“What’re you going to do with it?”

Cobb walked over to the operating table, lecturing as he went. “Suppose I were to stimulate the pineal gland—what would happen? Nobody knows. But this much is believed: the pineal gland controls the racial memory of man; in other words the instincts. Now, with complete amnesia there is only loss of memory, but an attempt at ratiocination. With the instincts stimulated until they have gained complete control over the brain and body, we have a pure beast, an omnivorous brute, activated solely by instinct.”

Rollins thought a moment. “What’d be the advantage of that?”

“Very little practical advantage,” Cobb admitted. “But so very little is known about the functions of the brain —of the various portions that is—that the establishment of proof that the frontal lobes do control memory and the pineal gland the instincts, is vastly important both to surgery and psychology. It may be possible at some time, basing the experiment on the results of this one, to stimulate the racial memory, and even to divide it minutely into aeons, centuries, or even—though the possibility is small—into single events.

“Reason is based on the memory of the animal. We don’t know how primitive beast-men would react to a given stimulus, because we’ve never had a real beast-man to work with. Now, experimenting on the reactions of this subject, if he lives, we can perhaps solve the mystery of thought. The individual memory, contained in these two lobes, can never be solved. I think.”

“How’re you going to stimulate the pineal gland?”

“Well, I can’t inject it into the pineal gland itself, because it’s down at the very base of the brain, and to reach it I’d have to cut through the entire brain. Besides, it’s only about fourteen millimeters in length, and quite hard to find. So I stimulate it in the same way any gland is stimulated—by glandular extract injected intravenously.”

He inserted the point of the hypodermic into a vein in the left arm, and pressed the plunger. Withdrawing the hypodermic, Dr. Cobb placed it on the tray at his elbow and prepared to close the skull. First he removed the thin layer of bone wax; then set the top of the skull into place, after throwing the three membranes back into position. Stitching the scalp was a routine task that took him only a short time. He then bandaged the head tightly.

Rollins removed the ether cone. Tired after the ordeal with its discouraging complications, Cobb pulled off his powerful glasses and switched off the operating lights. As they turned to go to the wash room, Rollins glanced back. The weird, white scene, centering on the still patient, became normal once more. He looked again at the victim’s face, a twinge of guilt torturing him. It was white; the features had relaxed into a vacuous, brutal expression, like nothing he had ever seen on an anaesthetized person. He shuddered and followed Dr. Cobb.

The tiny operating laboratory down in the cellar of the old yellow brick house near Central Park, was quiet. But the subject, even without his frontal lobes, breathed normally

FOR DAYS after that, Cobb was unable to leave his bed. He was completely exhausted. Rollins had to remain in the house, taking care of the old surgeon and his patient. A friend, meanwhile, took care of his tiny practice in his absence. It was a small job.

Even after Cobb was able to walk around, he insisted that Rollins stay with him. The first day he was strong enough to examine his patient—a week after the operation—he was astounded.

“Why, his recuperative powers are remarkable!” he exclaimed to Rollins. “What are you feeding him?”

“Raw meat,” Rollins said quietly, smiling calmly.

Cobb stared unbelievingly. “Raw meat! You’re jesting. He shouldn’t be able to hold more than soft vegetables.”

“Tell him that. Maybe he’ll believe you. I gave him cereals, milk, broth, vegetables—everything—and he almost starved to death, until I found he would eat nothing but raw meat. I had to give it to him. Fresh, of course, and quite raw and bloody.”

Cobb shrugged helplessly. “His organs are functioning properly, though?”

“All of them,” Rollins said animatedly. “He isn’t strong enough to stand of course, but he can wiggle his toes when I tickle them. Genuflection superperfect, and every other reflex the same. Only, he can’t talk.”

Dr. Cobb stared at him. “You didn’t really expect him to, did you? That was merely an unnecessary proof,” Cobb said a trifle smugly, “that the frontal lobes do control memory. Have you a sharp knife?”

Rollins handed him a pointed knife. The old doctor hefted it a moment and stabbed it swiftly toward the patient’s heart. Rollins cried out—grabbed at Cobb’s arm to stop him. But just before it reached the skin, it slowed suddenly. Dr. Cobb’s nerves were marvelous. He pricked the skin a little, purposely.

The subject, watching vacantly the preliminaries of the test, made no move until the sharp point touched him. He jerked away from it, his hands clenched weakly. A pistol pointed at his head signified no danger to him. He turned his head and looked directly into the barrel. Similarly, he grasped lighted matches and yelped with pain when they burned him. Books and pictures, held before his eyes, had no meaning for him. His memory was gone completely. There was no doubt of that.

In the two months that followed, Rollins had to devote only three hours to his practice; three hours coinciding with the afternoon naps of the old doctor and his patient. The rest of the day he had to spend feeding and sunning the two of them on the flat roof. It was midsummer and warm.

The subject seemed perfectly content to spend the daylight hours on the roof, sleeping in the sun and eating his raw meat at three-hour intervals.

His appearance was growing more and more startling every day. Hair was covering his entire face and body. It was impossible to shave him, for he moved uneasily under the razor and threatened to cut himself. They tried a cream depilatory, which he liked because it was cool. He got great pleasure out of pulling away, with the greatest ease, handfuls of the hair that covered every part of his face. He learned to use it himself, and carried it around in the pocket of a suit they had made for him, smearing it on at various odd intervals. It kept him looking human, at least.

The suit, underwear, socks and shoes they bought for him he wore without noticing. He tore ties from around his neck, however, nearly strangling himself, until they took no more chances and put none on him. Nevertheless, he was unable to dress himself. This process, as well as almost everything else, was Rollins’ daily duty. Curiously, the restriction of clothing came naturally to him. He offered no resistance when being dressed.

His physical progress was remarkable. By the end of three months he was completely well; the bone healed perfectly, and other than a prominently raised cicatrix, the scalp wound was entirely mended. His habit of smearing the depilatory all over his face and head left the scar naked and ugly.

Wilhelrnina, the old housekeeper who had been with Dr. Cobb’s family for years, was frightened by his vacuous stare and his hairy paws. He had to he kept out of her sight.

At night he slept on the floor of his room, which was on the first story, for fear he would walk out of the bedroom windows on the second floor. Though he spent most of his time in eating and sleeping, the muscles of his body became extremely hard and powerful.

In nearly all matters, as the time of eating and sleeping and obedience to simple orders, he was singularly docile. So unresisting was he that they often left him alone for hours at a tithe. This was safe enough, for, unlike a child, he displayed no curiosity, but like an animal, took his surroundings as a matter of course.

They did this once too often, however.

THE MORNING had dawned darkly, with the sun hidden by many heavy clouds drifting in from the east. Rollins hoped it would clear, because his subject became fretful and restless when kept in the house during the day.

Rollins had been called away directly after lunch. Before leaving, he made certain that the beast-man was in his room, as peaceful as he could be indoors.

The subject was moving up and down restlessly, and to take no chances, Rollins locked the doors and window. The patient roved about the room after Rollins left. He was hungry and he wanted the sun. They had offered him a piece of meat, part of which he ate through sheer hunger; the rest he hurled aside. It was perfectly fresh, but dry.

Upstairs Dr. Cobb napped after a good lunch.

To the patient, the door appeared no different from the rest of the wall. The color was not the same; that was all. If he thought at all about entering and leaving a room, the doors apparently were not connected in his mind with those processes.

The window, however, facing the street, seemed to his brute mind a natural exit, since through it he could see the light. He walked toward it and attempted to climb through. The glass resisted. In a certain degree of wonder, the same as a cat or dog will demonstrate on walking into a pane of glass, he poked his hand at it. He pushed the pane out of the frame effortlessly, but escaped cutting his hand. Squeezing through was a bit difficult for his bulky, muscled body, but he managed to force his great shoulders out and followed them in a heap, landing in a tangle with a bush five feet below the window.

As he looked about, trying to determine which way to go, he saw the green of the park and smelled the breath of trees. It attracted him. He shuffled clumsily toward it. Hunger still annoyed him. The traffic was heavy. He was baffled and frightened by the roaring, honking noises the rushing cars made. Shuddering fearfully, he stood huddled against the wall of a house until the torrent of cars stopped suddenly. He darted madly across the street.

On the safe side he wandered along a great stretch of iron fence that puzzled him, for he could push his arm through and yet not his body. Eventually he found a path leading into the park; he followed this until he came out beyond the trees, to an open grassy place, where he stepped over the low railing and stamped gratefully on the soft ground.

Hunger bothered him. His quick eyes caught the image of a squirrel, almost bidden in the grass, sitting erect on its haunches, stripping the shell off a nut. He crouched, moving swiftly and silently toward it.

Unafraid, the tiny animal glanced up at him, and’ went on, its small paws clasping the nut and its sharp teeth flashing, cutting the tough shell.

When he was five feet away from the squirrel, he crouched slowly, not to alarm the animal, and sprang, hurling his whole body at it. The squirrel was quicker than he was. It darted out from under the arc of his spring, dropping its nut and scampering swiftly up a tree.

Recovering his balance immediately, he tore after it, clambering up the tree trunk clumsily, hampered by his shoes. He ripped at the leather with his strong fingers, tearing it away with great effort; then pulled his socks off. Now he was able to climb more rapidly.

The squirrel scampered ahead of him, darting out on a thin limb at the top of the tree, and shrilling complaints at him. He jumped at it, his trouser cuff catching in a sharp bough. He fell heavily to the ground, bringing down the thin limb and the squirrel with him.

Ripping the trousers off, he limped after the animal, which was badly hurt and made a weak attempt to get away from him. He caught it without much trouble. His powerful hands and teeth made short work of the tiny squirrel.

He ate quickly, hungrily, tossing the clean-stripped bones away.

It was cold and moist. He got up, limping, tried to find a warm, dry spot to sleep. He had eaten, and the fresh, clean meat rested comfortably on his stomach.

At seven o’clock it began raining heavily—a chilly downpour. When lightning flashed and thunder roared, he grew afraid, cowering under the trees when the lightning burst across the sky; dashing madly on when it had ceased, toward the lights across the park. For four and a half hours he ran on and on, after he had struck a road, which he followed. It led him around the park, in large half circles. Sometimes he neared the street; more often he darted farther away.

THE NEWS that their subject had escaped affected Dr. Cobb like a terrible blow over the heart. Rollins came back at half past four, from his office, and looked in to see if the beast-man was warm enough, for it was getting colder toward sundown. The window was pushed out of the frame, and the cold wind and heavy rain beat into the dank, miserable room. The beast-man was gone—he had been gone nearly three hours by that time

Rollins rushed up the stairs to Cobb, who was still sleeping.

“He’s gone!” Rollins cried, shaking the old doctor wildly.

“Who? What? He’s gone?”

“Broke the window and climbed out and—”

Cobb caught hold of Rollins’ lapel and shook him. “You don’t think there’s any danger, do you?” he wheezed fearfully.

“I doubt it. Who knows? He was docile enough here. But out in all that noise and traffic he may go wild—”

“Good Lord! I hope not!” Cobb cried out. “Where is he eating? What’s happening to him? And it’s raining. A cold’ll be deadly to him, you know. If he catches a cold—it will kill him!” Rollins stared out the window. Cobb paced back and forth. It unnerved him. He could not think. He did not want to think—a primitive beast-man loose in the streets of New York. A beast-man with the instincts, minus the memory, of an animal, and the strength of—a savage ?—an ape ?— Cornered, starved, frightened—

His mind painted a fearsome picture of mangled bodies, screams and wild shots.

“I’m going to call the police,” Rollins declared. “It may become dangerous after all.”

Cobb clutched his sleeve, forcing him to stand still. “You can’t!”

“Why not?” Rollins demanded coldly.

Cobb sank down heavily on the bed, clasping his head with his trembling hands. “Don’t you understand?” he wailed. “We experimented on a live man! It’s illegal. If we’re caught, it means a life sentence; and if he dies, we’ll get the death sentence!”

“What do you mean—we?” Rollins snapped harshly.

“You assisted at the operation. You took charge of the anaesthesia.”

Rollins seized the old doctor by the collar and hauled him up fiercely. “Why, you old—you—” he struggled with emotion, threw the old man back on the bed.

“You won’t gain anything by killing me,” Cobb pointed out. “It’s too late for that now. The only thing we can do is stick together and find him, before he dies or is found by the police or attacks some one.”

“Well, what’re we going to do?”

Cobb stumbled over to the window and stared out, leaning weakly on the sill. The chill rain swept in on him. He shuddered and drew back, shutting the window. “Nothing now. We can’t. Not until the rain lets up, anyhow. We’d never find him in this weather—He’s probably shivering in some out-of-the-way hole in a house or subway—or Heaven knows what!”

A blinding flash of lightning burst across the sky, lighting up the dark city.

Thunder roared deafeningly directly overhead. The house shook terrifyingly—

IT WAS close to midnight when the rain stopped. In the terrible darkness he had lost the road, and now he stood trembling with cold, the chilling water dripping from the trees above soaking him even more completely. The blackness lessened. Through the steaming trees he saw a black mass of shadow huddling, a great blotch of gloom, near a small lake. He slushed through the thick mud and grass toward it.

Inside it was damp and chilly, but there was a tiny office where it was a little warmer and drier than outside. He tore his wet clothing from him and stretched out on the cold table. There was a huge canvas tarpaulin, that had been used to cover the rowboats, but it never occurred to him to cover himself with it. He shivered and drew himself together in a huddle, until the cold wood of the table was warmed by his body. He fell asleep.

The boathouse on the little lake never saw a stranger sight than the tall, powerful beast-man, covered with short, thick, straight hair all over his brute body, and breathing heavily, shivering now and again with the penetrating cold, and drawing himself into a tight ball to protect himself from the damp cold.

There was little sleep in Dr. Cobb’s house that night. First they waited for the rain to stop, and when it did they determined to wait for the sun to come up.

Dr. Cobb sat, his head in his hands. Dr. Rollins stared out of the window or paced furiously up and down. The’ hours passed slowly—more slowly than Rollins thought they could ever move. Splendidly, after long hours of deepest darkness, the sun rose. The day promised magnificence.

Rollins turned swiftly on the old doctor. “Now what do we do?” he asked with drawling sarcasm.

Dr. Cobb did not answer. He was asleep. The deadening vigil of the long night had exhausted him. Rollins stared thoughtfully at him.

They were both in the same boat, he knew. If one got caught, the other would also. And when the police had proved their crime, it would mean life. If their beast-man should kill some one—

They had to stick together. There was no sense in antagonizing old Cobb. To save himself he had to save the old doctor too. They would have to work together.

He shook Dr. Cobb gently by the shoulder until he awoke. “The sun’s up,” he said, softly. “Now what do we do?”

Cobb stretched himself slowly. “What do you mean—what do we do?” he yawned. He started. “I forgot all about—him!”

Rollins shrugged. “I didn’t. I’ve been thinking all night. We’ve got a damned big piece of territory to search. We’d better call the police and take our chances.”

“Are you crazy?” Dr. Cobb cried. “We’d never get away with this—it’s too serious! We can’t call the police. Not until we find we can’t get him ourselves, at least.”

“Well,” Rollins said quietly, sitting down and lighting the last cigarette of the two packs he had smoked during the night, “we’ll probably hear from the papers soon.”

“What do you mean?” Cobb asked hoarsely.

“We’ll hear from them soon. That is, unless your beast-man behaves himself and keeps on acting like a domestic animal—which he won’t—you can depend on that.”

Cobb clutched tremblingly at his own throat. “Why?” he wheezed.

“Because he’s a beast-man. That’s why. And the longer we leave him on his own the more dangerous he’ll become. Just let him get hungry and start searching for his raw meat! You’ll find out in the papers just what happens—”

AT NINE o’clock that morning the keeper of the boathouse walked down the path, searching in his pocket for the key. A number of people were waiting for him.

It was unnecessary to use the key. The door was open.

“Hey! What’s this?” he shouted, sticking his head cautiously in at the door.

The beast-man awoke with a start and jumped off the table.

“Get back!” the keeper screamed in fright. “An ape! Get back!”

Every one leaped out of the way and started running. Startled, the beast-man rushed out of the boathouse to the security of the trees. He gathered himself together, and leaping to a bough swung himself from tree to tree, out of sight.

The boathouse keeper scampered into the office and banged the telephone hook up and down until he got an answer. “Give me the police!” he yelled. “Police! Police! There’s an ape loose in the park. A gorilla—an enormous gorilla! He started to attack us but we scared him off—”

Two radio cars arrived within three minutes.

“What’s happened here?” the driver of the first car shouted.

“A gorilla’s loose in the park!” the boathouse keeper yelled.

“Where’d he get loose from?” the cop sneered.

Trembling, the keeper shrugged his shoulders. “How d’ I know? And I don’t care. All I know is there’s an ape in the park.”

The four cops looked around vaguely.

“Ask them people.” The keeper waved his hand toward the path outside the boathouse. “They seen him same’s I did. They’ll tell you.”

But there was nobody outside the house. In various stages of nervous collapse, they had all disappeared. The cops shrugged their shoulders helplessly and promised to look into the matter. There was little conviction in their voices, however.

DR. ROLLINS stopped pacing the floor suddenly and stood squarely before Cobb.

“If you don’t want to call the police, at least we ought to get a private detective agency working on the case. We’re not fitted to go searching the whole city—”

Cobb looked almost convinced. His haggard, old face was lined with suffering and worry. He wanted to get the burden off his shoulders. Even if the police had to shoot his beast-man it did not matter to him, so long as he got rid of his fear and worry.

The telephone bell jangled. Wilhelmina shuffled in.

“It’s for you, Dr. Rollins,” she said in her high, cracked voice. “It’s from your office.”

“Tell them I’m not here,” he snapped. “Tell them anything.”

“Dr. Little says he has to talk to you,” she insisted.

Rollins made a little gesture of impatient resignation and strode angrily to the telephone.

“Hello!” he barked.

“Bartholomew’s here,” Dr. Little said “He wants to see you. Jump right over.”

Rollins clapped the receiver down. “I’ve got to go,” he called to Cobb. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Cobb shuffled in. He wanted to beg Rollins not to leave him, but lacked the courage. Instead he said: “I wanted to go over to the agency.”

“Wait till I get back,” Rollins called back to him as he closed the door and hurried over to his office, only three blocks away. Old Bartholomew was his best patient, and to refuse to see him would be endangering one of his principal sources of income.

“Ah, Mr. Bartholomew,” he greeted his patient cheerily. “You’re looking well this morning.”

Mr. Bartholomew looked anything but well, and hastened to insist on the fact that he looked as bad as he felt. White and painfully drawn, his face was lined with fear, and his hands shook violently. He looked sick enough to need a doctor.

Rollins took him into his office and seated him. A glass of whisky calmed him slightly—enough to tell his story.

“You know you told me to exercise, doctor,” Bartholomew said shakily. “So I’ve been rowing an hour every morning for the last two weeks. And it’s been doing me a world of good,” he hurried to affirm. “Only this morning I went down to the lake as usual, to take out a boat. And this time I was ahead of the boathouse keeper, so I waited around. He came down the path looking for his keys, but he didn’t need his keys because the door of the office was torn right off its hinges. He looked at it, sort of baffled, and stuck his head in to see if there were any robbers hanging around yet. There weren’t any. But there was a giant ape inside and it came dashing out after us—”

“A—what!” Rollins yelled.

Bartholomew started back. “I didn’t drink last night. I swear it! And there were about ten other people around the boathouse, waiting to take out boats. They all saw it, too!”

Rollins gulped. “Here—here, you take these pills,” handing his patient a tiny box. “Stay in bed all day. You’ve had a pretty bad shock.”

“I’ll say I did!” Bartholomew agreed lustily.

“Drop in to-morrow,” Rollins added as an afterthought, when his patient was leaving. Bartholomew felt better already, but Rollins felt more and more depressed.

He took a cab to Dr. Cobb’s house. “He’s in the park!” he cried before he could close the door.

“How d’ you know?” Cobb demanded.

“A patient of mine told me. He saw him in the park. He said he was a giant ape. So he must have torn his clothes off and he’s covered with thick hair.”

“Well, what’ll we do?” Cobb wailed.

“I don’t know. All I know is we’ve got to get him out of the park before he goes crazy with hunger and attacks some one.”

“How’re we going to do it?”

“Get your detective agency working. Cover the park with men holding chunks of raw meat. He’ll smell it and come near to be fed.”

“I’ll call one up right away.”

“Get the biggest agency you can. We’ll need plenty of men.”

CHESTER, head of the City Private Detective Agency was at the house in ten minutes. He sat, listening to their story, bewildered.

“Sort of a missing link, is that it?” he asked.

Cobb and Rollins nodded quickly.

“And he’s in the park and he’s tame? And you want me to get him out for you?”

“Right,” Rollins said. “I want you to cover the park with as many men as you can get together—but they’ve got to be strong, fearless men, who won’t be afraid of a tame ape. We’ll supply the raw meat.”

“Well,” Chester shook his head doubtfully, “this sounds kind of crazy to me.

It’s the first time our agency ever rounded up a tame ape, but I guess we can do it, if you say so.”

“Good,” Rollins cried enthusiastically. “Get as many men as you can in the park as soon as possible. We’ll be there with a van full of raw meat!”

Chester left, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

An hour later there were fifty men, apparently from the strong-arm department, waiting for the meat van. They were powerful huskies, able to walk into any dive in the city unarmed and leave with fewer scratches than any one they had encountered. Rollins and Cobb were satisfied with the group.

“Walk through the park, among the trees,” Rollins instructed them, “waving your chunks of meat above your heads. He may come tearing out at you, but stand your ground. Don’t drop your meat and run. Just stand still and hold the meat out for him. Then leave your partner with him and call for the others. Don’t try to fight him!”

Strollers in the park were amazed to see tall, muscular bruisers waving enormous sides of raw meat above their heads, and walking swiftly through the groups of trees.

“I feel like a nut,” “Spike” Garn complained to his partner, “Smitty,” as the two bruisers walked along, waving their slabs of meat over their heads. “Who ever heard of putting the grab on a ape? Huh!—”

“Quit yer grumbling. Hey!—” Smitty shouted. “Look at that!”

“Hully chee!” Spike mumbled. “It’s the ape—”

“Stand still and hold your meat out.” The beast-man, his dense shaggy coat filthy and covered with briars, dropped out of a tree twenty paces away, and ambled toward them. Drooling, he bore down on them, his immense paws outstretched.

“I can’t stand still!” Spike quavered.

“You’ve gotta! He’ll tear you apart if you move—”

They stood trembling, holding out their huge sides of meat. The beast-man tore it out of their hands and squatted, ripping at the meat with his powerful teeth. They stared at him, fascinated.

It was then that they made their mistake. Instead of waiting for him to finish eating, they attempted to seize him and drag him to the two doctors. He snapped their strong hands away easily and growled as he bent over his meat again.

They had not learned their lesson yet. Insistently, they gripped his great arms and tried to pull him to his feet and drag him away. He grunted angrily, flailing his enormous hands and tearing at them furiously.

“Help! Help!” they screamed hoarsely.

Twelve men came running. Spike was unconscious. Smitty was bleeding from dozens of deep gashes in his face and all over his body.

The ape-man was peacefully squatting once more, eating greedily.

“Grab him!” some one shouted.

“Get back,” some one else yelled. “I’m going to plug him!”

Rollins and Cobb came running. “Stop!” Rollins screamed. “Don’t shoot him—”

Panting, the two broke into the ring of infuriated men.

“He killed Spike!” they roared. “We’re going to plug him.”

“No! No!” Cobb croaked frantically. He jumped in front of his beast-man to protect him. The brute looked up quickly, his black iris including the entire pupil of his eye, and started back slightly, ready to fight for his food again. Some one aimed a gun at the beast-man. Cobb stumbled back to cover him.

An enormous hair-covered arm shot out quickly and grabbed the weak old doctor. He was flung at the ring of men. There was a snap, and he hit two men furiously. They fell heavily. Cobb lay still. His back was broken.

“He’s a killer!” Smitty roared. “Get him!”

The ring of muscular bruisers fell on the beast-man. He was caught squatting, almost unable to get up. He clutched his chunk of meat in one hand and fought his way to a standing position.

Gun butts smashed down on his thick skull. The men were packed in tightly, almost unable to fight.

He lifted one above his head and swung him around like a club.

They were thrown back. He stood, swinging the dead man above his head, grunting and growling terribly.

Guns barked deafeningly. One simultaneous roar.

The beast-man dropped, screaming. The yelps of pain were horrible. He thrashed around, tearing up the ground with his huge paws. A moment later he lay still, gouts of blood still shooting out from bullet holes in his great shaggy chest.

“It was a great fight!” some one panted.

“Yeah,” another agreed. “But where’s the boss?”

Rollins lay under the heap of mangled, fearfully gashed men. He had been the second to be killed.

Cobb had been the first.

“Well,” Smitty grunted, staring down at the great hairy corpse lying beside the heap of his victims, “messing up a missing link’s all right. Only next time we do, we keep the bosses who are supposed to pay up, out of the fight—”

The police came running up, but there was nothing for them to do. The men who had been responsible for the horrible experiment were beyond their jurisdiction.

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