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Back at the low-budget motor lodge where we were ensconced in Launceston, Alexis convinced us to join him in a “bowl.” We decided to take a puff each—and instantly regretted it. This was not the pot from our high school days. The effect was immediate, like getting whacked with a shovel. Over the years, Cannabis sativa had been crossbred to get stronger and stronger. The geniuses that made this weed should be hired to clone the thylacine. They could probably get the job done in weeks.

Alexis seemed to be filled with bliss after breathing in the potent smoke, but we were flooded with dread. Our tongues became dry and swollen. Swallowing became a frightening act. Paranoid ideas floated through our heads.

“Do you think the people we've met are taking a piss on us?”

“That's taking the piss,” said Alexis.

“You think they're taking our piss? Maybe they're all in cahoots.”

In our pot-induced stupor, we imagined the Tasmanians we had met were organized in a vast, interconnected cabal to …to what?

“Don't you get it?” we insisted. “The thylacine exists, but they're hiding it from us. When we get home, they'll reveal to the world the last surviving Tasmanian tigers.”

“Okay,” said Alexis. Having smoked this stuff every day, he was immune to its disorienting effects.

“Everywhere we've gone was their suggestion. We're like pawns on a chessboard. It's all a game. And while we're sent off on wild-goose chases, they're moving the tigers around from safe house to safe house. Bob Green has something to do with it.”

“Who's Bob Green?” asked Alexis.

“The zoologist guy Jim said still believed.”

“Yeah right. We'll go to his house and he'll answer the door in his bathrobe with a thylacine on a leash.”

“Exactly.” We started rooting around for a phone book to find Bob Green's address. Maybe we would just go over there and check for ourselves. “Remember that guy Carl at the Backpacker's Barn? He's probably hiding an entire population of tigers in the Tarkine. That's where they're breeding them up … Geoff King's in on it. Do you think Geoff King's in on it, Alexis?”

“Definitely.”

“Yeah, he played footie with Todd Walsh.”

The next day we were feeling like ourselves again. But Alexis insisted that we drive by Bob Green's house. Neither the zoologist nor his pet thylacine were home.

19. WAY DOWN UNDER

While driving west, we dissected Danny Soccol's sighting. Danny was a trained biologist and able to identify a host of obscure invertebrates. A five-foot-long quadruped should have been a piece of cake, but because he had not seen the animal in good light—and could not check for stripes—even he was not 100 percent sure.

“No stripes, no tiger,” Alexis said dismissively.

Still, when we looked out at the green forests and jagged hills, the landscape was infused with an extra charge. Danny's tale had added an element of uncertainty.

We were driving up into the foothills of the Great Western Tiers. This region was another of Tasmania's tiger hot spots—rife with sightings and not far from where James Malley had found his tiger tracks in 1971. Jim Nelson from the Field Naturalists Club had told us that the area harbored some other elusive creatures. There was no doubt they existed, but we would have to go underground to see them. We decided to take a detour from our tiger search.

Mole Creek Karst National Park encompassed 5.2 above-ground square miles. Below its surface were more than two hundred caves, hundreds of miles of passageways, plus subterranean rivers, sinkholes, and blind valleys.

As we got nearer to the caves, we entered a lush forest cut by a stream and filled with spreading tree ferns. The invisible world below us was carved out of 400-million-year-old limestone. Much of the erosion had been caused by meltwaters from the last Ice Age infiltrating the bedrock. The caves were still in the process of being formed. Rainwater from the terrestrial realm leached through the plants on the surface, turned acidic,