"My calculations lead me to believe," he said, "that our prize may be due any day now. This theory I base upon the result of the report from the last sea captain I saw. I can not understand why some of these captains did not take the carcass in tow. They all say that they tried, but that the body sank before they could come within half a mile. The truth is, probably, that they did not stir a foot from their course to examine the thing."
"Have you ever cruised about for it?" I ventured.
"For two years," he said grimly. "It's no use; it's accident when a ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are teeming with sea-serpent fol-de-rol."
"Are you sure," I asked, "that it will swing in to the coast on this Gulf Stream loop?"
"I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with a dead right whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last summer."
"I think I did," said I with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned the air for miles around.
"But," I continued, "suppose it comes in the night?"
"There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too, the current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise would strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be carried so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the carcass could float again into deep water. There are chances of its stranding indefinitely, too, but I don't care to take those chances. That is why I have stationed you here, Dick, my boy."
He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself.
"There is another question I want to ask," I said, "if you don't mind."
"Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don't know a better exercise. Do you?"
"I suppose not," I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered whether he'd mention fossils.
"Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-maché Thermosaurus?" he asked.