Small paper bundles fell out, and among them was a folded piece of paper. This she grasped up first, unfolded, and found to be a note signed Inman Shonto. She read, while the tears brimmed in her eyes:
“My Dear Charmian:
“This is the fourth brass cylinder that I have thrown in Lost River in the hope that it will float through the underground passages to the Valley of Arcana, where you may find it. A note accompanied its three predecessors, and each one instructed you to build two signal fires if you found the cylinder so that I would know it had reached you. For several days I have watched the stream of smoke from your fire, longing always to see the second stream ascend. And I have suffered because no second stream came.
“I have about decided, therefore, that Lost River does not run through the valley, or that my cylinders have caught on something and failed to reach you. For in some strange way it seems to me that, if they did float into the Valley of Arcana, you would find them. Which is childish of me, I suppose. But it bolsters up my courage nevertheless. I have only three more cylinders to send, and will send them two days apart unless I see the second stream of smoke.
“Now follows a repetition of what the other messages contained:
“Build another signal fire as soon as you have read this, so that I will know you have received my message and are again in command of the situation. By this time, I think, Andy Jerome will have lapsed into a terrible state, and you will be almost insane. But in the cylinder you will find more tablets. Give him one a day regularly—no more—and if he is not too far gone he will come back to normalcy with surprising swiftness. It may seem incredible to you, but it is the truth.
“Andy Jerome, Charmian, is a cretin. A cretin, you perhaps must be told, is an hereditary idiot. Cretinism is most prevalent in the Swiss Alps, where Andy’s ancestors lived—on his mother’s side, I mean. Up until recently cretinism has been considered incurable by the medical profession; but the discovery that man is regulated by his gland secretions had done away with that theory. Cretins are only human beings suffering from a lack of thyroid in their systems. Their other glands may be functioning properly, but when the secretions of the thyroid are deficient they are hopeless idiots. However, science has discovered that if they are fed daily a tablet composed of the extract of the thyroid glands of sheep they will, to all intents and purposes, become normal. But in a few days after the treatment is stopped they will quickly slip back into cretinism again, with all its degradation. Then let the treatment be renewed, and in a short while the patient will have lost all of the symptoms of cretinism and gradually will come back. It seems incomprehensible, I realize, but it is nevertheless a thoroughly demonstrated scientific fact.
“Cretinism runs in Andy’s family. Certain children of a generation ago in his mother’s family were born cretins. Others escaped to a certain extent. Andy’s mother, for instance, is perfectly normal in every way. But the taint cropped up in her child when he was about eight years of age, at which time I was working hardest on my theory regarding the significance of the gland secretions as determinants of human personality. I myself brought Andy out of cretinism and made him appear like other men.
“We have been careful with him and have encouraged an outdoor life. While he seems to learn readily, he takes no particular interest in his studies, is irresponsible, and unsettled in his habits. He has never missed a day in taking his medicine, for I refused to experiment with him. I am not sure now that he has lapsed back into cretinism; but, considering the time that I have been away, it seems almost certain that he should be pretty far gone.
“My delay in returning to you was unavoidable. I think that I could have made it back ahead of the snows if I had not encountered our old friends Leach and Morley, who kidnapped me, blindfolded me, and led me into a series of strange adventures.”