A lost daughter leads a father on a search into the deepest parts of the forest, were strange creatures and stranger men live.
excerpt
Walker impatiently tossed aside the magazine he had been reading. "Why can't people write stories which are plausible?" he exclaimed in disgusted tones. "It's an insult to common sense and intelligence to print such rot—such things never happen."
"What things?" asked Blake. "What's the yarn that arouses your ire?"
Walker snorted. "About a crusty millionaire,” he replied. "Gets shipwrecked and floats about in mid-ocean. At the psychological moment a yacht turns up and a sailor rescues the old Croesus. Yacht belongs to a society snob engaged to millionaire's daughter. Sailor turns out to be an impecunious rival who has shipped in disguise to protect the girl from the dissolute chap who owns the yacht. Of course the latter proves to be a crook and the rescued millionaire bestows daughter, blessing and all on the sailor. As I said before, such things don't happen in real life—no such coincidences."
While Walker was talking, Belmont had entered the room. He had returned a few days previously from South America, where he had been on some sort of a scientific expedition, but this was the first time he had joined us at the club.
"I can't agree with you, Walker," he remarked, as he dropped into a chair. "And no one has a right to say what is possible and what impossible," he added. "Moreover, even more remarkable coincidences than those in your story do happen. I've seen a lot of things which you would declare impossible if they were written as fiction. There was the case of Meredith, for example. Not one of you would credit the story if you read it in a magazine."
"We can judge better when we've heard it," said Thurston. "Go ahead; lot's have the yarn."
