Diane of the Green Van

CHAPTER V

THE PHANTOM THAT ROSE FROM THE BOTTLE

The demon of the flute laughed and fell silent. The house grew very quiet. A fresh log built its ragged shell of color within the library and Carl drank again and again, watching the play of firelight upon the amber liquor in his glass. It pleased him idly to build up a philosophy of whiskey, an impudent, fearless reverie of fact and fancy.

"So," he finished carelessly, "every bottle is a crystal temple to the great god Bacchus and who may know what phantom lurks within, ready to rise and grow from the fumes of its fragrant incense into a nebulous wraith of gigantic proportions. Many a bottle such as this has made history and destroyed it. A sparkling essence of tears and jest, of romance and passion and war and grotesquerie, of treachery and irony and blood and death, whose temper no man may know until he tests it through the alchemy of his brain and soul!"

To Starrett it gave a heavy courtesy; to Payson a mad buffoonery; to Wherry pathos; to Carl himself—ah!—there was the rub! To Carl its message was as capricious as the wind—a moon-mad chameleon changing its color with the fickle light. And in the bottle to-night lay a fierce, unreasoning resentment against Diane.

"Fool!" said Carl. "One mad, eloquent lie of love and she would have softened. Women are all like that. Tell me," Carl stared whimsically into his glass as if it were a magic crystal of revelation, "why is it that when I am scrupulously honest no one understands? … Why that mad stir of love-hunger to-night as Diane stood in the doorway? Why the swift black flash of hatred now? Are love and hatred then akin?"

The clock struck three. Carl's brain, flaming, keen, master of the bottle save for its subtle inspiration of wounded pride and resentment, brooded morosely over Diane, over the defection of his parasitic companions, over the final leap into the abyss of parsimony and Diane's flash of contempt at the mention of his mother. Half of Diane's money was rightly his—his mother's portion. And he could love vehemently, cleanly, if he willed, with the delicate white fire which few men were fine enough to know… In the soft hollow of Diane's hand had lain the destiny of a man who had the will to go unerringly the way he chose… Love and hunger—they were the great trenchant appetites of the human race: one for its creation, the other for its perpetuation… To every man came first the call of passion; then the love-hunger for a perfect mate. The latter had come to him to-night as Diane stood in the doorway, a slender, vibrant flame of life keyed exquisitely for the finer, subtler things and hating everything else.

Still he drank, but the fires of hell were rising now in his eyes. There was treachery in the bottle… Diane, he chose to fancy, had refused him justice, salvation, respect to the memory of his mother! … So be it! … His to wrench from the mocking, gold-hungry world whatever he could and however he would… Only his mother had understood… And Diane had mocked her memory. Still there had been thrilling moments of tenderness for him in Diane's life… But Diane was like that—a flash of fire and then bewildering sweetness. There was the spot Starrett's glass had struck; there the ancient carven chair in which Diane had mocked his mother; there was red—blood-red in the dying log—and gold. Blood and gold—they were indissolubly linked one with the other and the demon of the bottle had danced wild dances with each of them. A mad trio! After all, there was only one beside his mother who had ever understood him—Philip Poynter, his roommate at Yale. And Philip's lazy voice somehow floated from the fire to-night.

"Carl," he had said, "you've bigger individual problems to solve than any man I know. You could head a blood revolution in South America that would outrage the world; or devise a hellish philosophy of hedonism that by its very ingenuity would seduce a continent into barking after false gods. You've an inexplicable chemistry of ungovernable passions and wild whims and you may go through hell first but when the final test comes—you'll ring true. Mark that, old man, you'll ring true. I tell you I know! There's sanity and will and grit to balance the rest."

Well, Philip Poynter was a staunch optimist with oppressive ideals, a splendid, free-handed fellow with brains and will and infernal persistence.

Four o'clock and the log dying! The city outside was a dark, clinking world of milkmen and doubtful stragglers, Carl finished the whiskey in his glass and rose. His brain was very drunk—that he knew—for every life current in his body swept dizzily to his forehead, focusing there into whirling inferno, but his legs he could always trust. He stepped to the table and lurched heavily. Mocking, treacherous demon of the bottle! His legs had failed him. Fiercely he flung out his arm to regain his balance. It struck a candelabrum, a giant relic of ancient wood as tall as himself. It toppled and fell with its candled branches in the fire. Where the log broke a flame shot forth, lapping the dark wood with avid tongue. With a crackle the age-old wood began to burn.

Carl watched it with a slight smile. It pleased him to watch it burn. That would hurt Diane, for everything in this beautiful old Spanish room linked her subtly to her mother. Yes, it would hurt her cruelly. Beyond, at the other end of the table, stood a mate to the burning candlestick, doubtless a silent sentry at many a drinking bout of old when roistering knights gathered about the scarred slab of table-wood beneath his fingers. A pity though! Artistically the carven thing was splendid.

Cursing himself for a notional fool, Carl jerked the candlestick from the fire and beat out the flames. The heavy top snapped off in his hands. The falling wood disclosed a hollow receptacle below the branches … a charred paper. Well, there was always some insane whim of Norman Westfall's coming to light somewhere and this doubtless was one of them.

The paper was very old and yellow, the handwriting unmistakably foreign. French, was it not? The firelight was too fitful to tell. Carl switched on the light in the cluster of old iron lanterns above the table and frowned heavily at the paper. No, it was the precise, formal English of a foreigner, with here and there a ludicrous error among the stilted phrases. And as Carl read, a gust of wild, incredulous laughter echoed suddenly through the quiet room. Again he read, cursing the dizzy fever of his head. Houdania! Houdania! Where was Houdania? Surely the name was familiar. With a superhuman effort of will he clenched his hands and jaws and sat motionless, seeking the difficult boon of concentration. Out of the maelstrom of his mind haltingly it came, and with it memory in panoramic flashes.

Once more he heard the clatter of cavalry galloping up a winding mountain road to a gabled city whose roofs and turrets glinted ruddily in the westering sun. There had been royalty abroad with a brilliant escort, handsome, dark-skinned men with a lingering trace of Arab about the eyes, who galloped rapidly by him up the winding road to the little kingdom in the mountains. Houdania!—yes that was it—of course. Houdania! A Lilliputian monarchy of ardent patriots. There had been a flaming sunset behind the turrets of a castle and he had climbed up—up—up to the gabled kingdom, seeking, away from the track of the tourist, relief from the exotic gayety of his rocketing over Europe. And high above the elfin kingdom on a wooded ravine where a silver rivulet leaped and sang along the mountain, a gray and lonely monastery had offered him a cell of retreat.

Houdania! Yes, he had found Houdania. Philip Poynter had told him of the monastery months before. Philip liked to seek and find the picturesque. Thus had he come into Andorra in the Pyrenees and Wisby in the Baltic. And he—Carl—had found Houdania. But what of it? Ah, yes, the burning candlestick—the paper—the paper! And again a gust of laughter drowned the fitful crackle of the fire. There was gold at his hand—great, tempting quantities of it!

"When the test comes, you'll ring true," came the crackle of Philip's voice from the fire. "Mark that, old man, you'll ring true. I tell you, I know." Well, Philip Poynter was his only friend. But Philip was off somewhere, gone out of his life this many a day in a characteristic burst of quixotism.

Carl laughed and shuddered, for a mad instant he held the tempting yellow paper above the fire—and drew it back, stared at the charred candlestick and laughed again—but there was nothing of laughter in his eyes. They were darkly ironic and triumphant. There was blood in the fire—and gold—and Diane had mocked his mother. With a groan Carl flung his arms out passionately upon the table, torn by a conflict of the strangely warring forces within him. And with his head drooping heavily forward upon his hands he lay there until the melancholy dawn grayed the room into shadowy distinctness, his angle of vision twisted and maimed by the demon of the bottle. The candlestick loomed strangely forth from the still grayness; the bottle took form; the yellowed paper glimmered on the table. Carl stirred and a spasm of mirthless laughter shook him.

"So," he said, "Philip Poynter loses—and I—I write to Houdania!"

So from the bottle rose a phantom of glittering gold and temptation to grow in time to a wraith of gigantic proportions. In the bottle to-night had lain tears and jest and love unending, romance and passion, treachery and irony—blood and the shadow of Death.

CHAPTER, VI

BARON TREGAR

Lilac and wistaria flowered royally. Carpenter, wheelwright and painter departed. The trim green wagon, picked out gayly in white, windowed and curtained and splendidly equipped for the fortunes of the road, creaked briskly away upon its pilgrimage, behind a pair of big-boned piebald horses from the Westfall stables, with Johnny at the reins. On the seat beside him Diane radiantly waved adieu to her aunt, who promptly collapsed in a chair on the porch and dabbed violently at her eyes.

"I shall never get over it," sniffed Aunt Agatha tragically. "Carl may say what he will, I never shall. But now that I've come up here to see her off, I've done my duty, I have indeed. And I do hope Carl hasn't any wild ideas for the summer—I couldn't stand it. Allan, as long as Miss Diane is camping within reasonable distance of the farm, you'd better take the run-about each night and find her and see if she's all right—and brush the snakes and bugs and things out of camp. If everything wild in the forest collected around the camp fire, like as not she wouldn't see them until they bit her."

The boy shifted a slim, bare leg and sniggered.

"Miss Westfall," he said, "Miss Diane she says she's a-goin' to a spot by the river and camp a week an'—an' if she finds anybody a-follerin' or spyin' on her from the farm, she'll skin him alive an'—an' them black eyes o' her'n snapped fire when she said it. An' Johnny, he's got weepons 'nough with him to fight pirutes."

Aunt Agatha groaned and rocking dolorously back and forth upon the porch reviewed the calamitous possibilities of the journey.

But the restless young nomad on the road ahead, sniffing the rare, sweet air of early summer, had already relegated the memory of her long-suffering aunt to the forgotten things of civilization. For the summer world, sweet with the scent of wild flowers, was very young, with young leaves, young grass and flowering, sun-warm hedges, and beyond the Sherrill place on the wooded hill, the sun flamed yellow through the hemlocks.

"Oh, Johnny Jutes! Oh, Johnny Jutes!" sang the girl happily, with the color of the wild rose in her sun-brown cheeks. "It's good—it's good to be alive!"

With a chuckle of enthusiasm Johnny cracked his whip and opined that it was.

Now even as the great green van rolled forth upon the country roads, bound for an idyllic spot by the river where Diane had planned to camp a week, two men appeared upon the wide, white-pillared Sherrill porch, smoking and idly admiring the bluish hills and the rolling meadowlands below bright with morning sunlight. To the east lay the silver glimmer of a tree-fringed lake; beyond, a church spire among the trees and a winding country road traveled by the solitary van of green and white.

"A singular conveyance, is it not, Poynter?" inquired the older man, his careful articulation blurred by a pronounced foreign accent. Staring intently at the sunlit road, he added: "Is it a common mode of travel—here in America?"

The younger man, a lean, sinewy chap with singularly fine eyes of blue above lean, tanned cheeks, frowned thoughtfully.

"By no means," said he pleasantly. "Indeed it's quite new to me. Seems to have blowy white things at the sides like window curtains, doesn't it?"

"A nomadic young woman, I am told," shrugged the older man carelessly. He stood watching the dusty trail of the nomad with narrowed, thoughtful eyes, unaware that his companion's eyes had wandered somewhat expectantly to the Westfall lake.

"Baron Tregar!" whispered Ann Sherrill in a remote corner of the veranda to a girl she had brought up to the farm with her late the night before. "Has a real air of distinction, hasn't he, Susanne? And such deep, dark, compelling eyes. Rather Arabic, I think, but mother says Magyar. Dick says he's immensely interested in the war possibilities of aeroplanes and fearfully patriotic. Touring the States, I believe. Dad picked him up in Washington. Philip's teaching him to fly. Philip was up once before, you know, in the spring and Dad urged him to come up again and bring the Baron along to learn aeroplaning. Philip Poynter, of course, the Baron's secretary!" in scandalized italics. "Didn't you know, really? … The Philip Poynter… And I say it's absolutely sinful for a man to be so good-looking as long as the world's monogamous."

"Quarreled with his father or something, didn't he?" asked Susanne vaguely.

"Quarreled!" exclaimed Ann righteously. "Well, I should say he did. My dear, the young man's temper simply splintered into a million pieces and he hasn't found them yet. Flatly refused to take a cent of his father's money because he'd discovered it was made dishonestly. Think of it! And Dad says it's true. Old Poynter is a pirate, an unscrupulous, money-mad, villainous old pirate and he did something or other most unpleasant to Dad in Wall Street. And would you believe it, Susanne, Philip went fuming off huffily to some ridiculous little mountain kingdom in Europe that he was awfully keen about—Houdania—and rented himself out as a secretary to Baron Tregar. Just imagine! Dick says he organized an aviation department there and won some kind of a prize for an improved model and in the midst of it all, Susanne, Philip's grandfather up and died, after quarreling for years and years with the whole family, and left Philip all his money! I think Philip's quarrel with his father pleased him. But the very queerest part is that Philip actually likes to work and dabble in foreign politics and he flatly refused to give up his job! Isn't it romantic? Philip was always keen for adventure. Dick says you never could put your finger on a spot on the map and say comfortably, 'Philip Poynter's here!' for most likely Philip Poynter was bolting furiously somewhere else!"

Unaware of Susanne's furtive interest in his career, Philip scanned the calm, unruffled waters of the Westfall lake and sighing turned back to his chief. There was a tempting drone of motors back among the hangars.

"We fly this morning?" he inquired smiling.

"Unfortunately not," regretted the Baron, and led the way indoors to a room which Mrs. Sherrill had hospitably insisted upon regarding as a private den of work and consultation for the Baron and his secretary.

"There is a mission of exceeding delicacy," began Baron Tregar slowly, "which I feel I must inflict upon you." His deep, penetrating eyes lingered intently upon Philip's face. "It concerns the singular conveyance of green and white and the lady within it."

Philip looked frankly astonished.

"I take it then," he suggested, "that you know the nomadic lady, Baron Tregar?"

"No," said the Baron.

Philip stared.

"Your Excellency is pleased to jest," he said politely.

"On the contrary," said the Baron, "I am at a loss for suitable words in which to express my singular request. I am assured of your interest, Poynter?"

"Of my interest, assuredly!" admitted Philip. "My compliance," he added fairly, "depends, of course, upon the nature of the mission."

"It is absurdly simple," said the Houdanian suavely. "Merely to discover whether or not the nomadic lady feels any exceptional interest—in Houdania. For the information to be acquired in a careless, disinterested manner without arousing undue interest, requires, I think, an American of brains and breeding, a compatriot of the nomad. It has occurred to me that you are equipped by a habit of courtesy and tact to—arrive accidentally in the path of the caravan—"

"I thank you!" said Philip dryly. "I prefer," he added stiffly, "to confine my diplomatic activities to more conventional channels."

"When I assure you," purred the Baron with his maddening precision of speech, "that this information is of peculiar value to me and without immediate significance to the lady herself, I am sure that you will not feel bound to withhold your—hum—your coöperation in so slight a personal inconvenience, singular as it may all seem to you, I am right?"

Philip reddened uncomfortably.

"I am to understand that I would undertake this peculiar mission equipped with no further information than you have offered?"

"Exactly so," said the Baron. "I must beg of you to undertake it without question."

"Pray believe," flashed Philip, "that I am not inclined to question. That fact," he added coldly, "is in itself a handicap."

"The lady's name," explained the Baron quietly, "is Westfall—Diane Westfall."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Philip and savagely bit his lip.

"Ah, then you know the lady!" said the Baron softly.

"I regret," said Philip formally, "that I have not had the honor of meeting Miss Westfall." But he saw vividly again a girl straight and slender as a silver birch, with firm, wind-bright skin and dark, mocking eyes. There were hemlocks and a dog—and Dick Sherrill had been talkative over billiards the night before.

"Miss Westfall," added Philip guilelessly, "is the owner of the Glade Farm below here in the valley."

"Ah, yes," nodded Tregar. "It is so I have heard." His glance lingered still upon Philip's face in subtle inquiry. Bending its Circean head, Temptation laughed lightly in Philip Poynter's eyes. The girl in the caravan was winding away by dusty roads—out of his life perhaps. And singular as the mission was, its aim was harmless.

"Our lady," said the Baron smoothly, "camps by night. From an aeroplane one may see much—a camp—a curl of smoke—a caravan. Later one may walk and, walking, one may lose his way—to find it again with perfect ease by means of a forest camp fire."

Somehow on the Baron's tongue the escapade became insidious duplicity. Philip flushed, acutely conscious of a significant stirring of his conscience.

"I may fly with Sherrill this afternoon," he said with marked reluctance.

"And at sunset?"

"I may walk," said Philip, shrugging.

"Permit me," said the Baron gratefully as he rose, "to thank you. The service is—ah—invaluable."

Uncomfortably Philip accepted his release and went lightly up the stairs.

"I am a fool," said Philip. "But surely Walt Whitman must have understood for he said it all in verse. 'I am to wait, I do not doubt, I am to meet you again,'" quoted Philip under his breath; "'I am to see to it that I do not lose you!'"

CHAPTER VII

THEMAR

The door which led into the Baron's bedroom from his own was slightly ajar. Philip, about to close it, fancied he heard the stealthy rustle of paper beyond and swung it noiselessly back, halting in silent interest upon the threshold.

Themar, the Baron's Houdanian valet, was intently transcribing upon his shirt-cuff, the contents of a paper which lay uppermost in the drawer of a small portable desk.

Catlike, Philip stole across the room. The man's hand was laboriously reproducing upon the linen an intricate message in cipher.

"Difficult, too, isn't it?" sympathized Philip smoothly at his elbow.

With a sharp cry, Themar wheeled, his small, shifting eyes black with hate. They wavered and fell beneath the level, icy stare of the American. Philip's fingers slipped viselike along the other's wrists and Philip's voice grew more acidly polite.

"My dear Themar," he regretted, falling unconsciously into the language of his chief, "I must spoil the symmetry of your wardrobe. The hieroglyphical cuff, if you please."

Themar's snarl was unintelligible. Smiling, Philip unbuttoned the stiff band of linen and drew it slowly off.

"A pity!" said he with gentle, sarcastic apology in his eyes. "Such perfect work! And after all that infernal bother of stealing the key!"

Philip lightly dropped the cuff into the pocket of his coat.

"And the key, Themar," he reminded gently, "the key to the Baron's desk? … Ah, so it's still here. Excellent! And now that the drawer is locked again—"

The hall door creaked. Simultaneously Themar and Philip wheeled. The Baron stood in the doorway.

Philip smiled and bowed.

"Excellency," said he, "Themar in an over-zealous desire to rearrange your private papers has acquired your private key and I have taken the liberty of confiscating it, knowing that you prize its possession. Permit me to return it now."

"Thank you, Poynter!" said the Baron and glanced keenly at Themar. "It is but now that I had missed it."

"Excellency," burst forth Themar desperately, "I found it this morning on the rug."

"But," purred the Baron, "why seek a keyhole?"

Themar's dark face was ashen.

Philip, with a wholesome distaste for scenes, slipped away.

"Excellency," burst forth Themar passionately as the door closed, "it is unfair—"

The Baron raised his hand in a gesture of warning.

"Permit me, Themar," he said coldly as the sound of Philip's footsteps died away, "permit me to remind you that my secretary is quite unaware of our peculiar relations. He is laboring at present under the necessary delusion that your arrival here was entirely the result of my fastidious distaste for the personal services of anyone but a fellow countryman. Presumably I had cabled home for you. I prefer," he added, "that he continue to think so."

Themar's eyes flashed resentfully.

"Excellency," he said sullenly, "it is unfair that I am denied the knowledge of detail that I need. That is why I sought to read the cipher."

"And yet, Themar," said the Baron softly, "I fancy Ronador has told you—something—enough!" He shrugged, his impenetrable eyes narrowing slowly. "But that I need you," he said evenly, "but that your knowledge of English makes you an invaluable ally—and one not easily replaced—I would send you back to Houdania—disgraced! As it is, we are hedged about with peculiar difficulties and I must use—and watch you."

He glanced significantly at the desk drawer and thence to Themar's dark, unscrupulous face, resentful and defiant.

"Now as for the cryptogram which tempted you so sorely," went on the Baron smoothly. "Its chief mission, as I have repeatedly assured you, was to convert my journey of pleasure in America into one of immediate—hum—service. I have spoken to you of a certain paper—"

"There was more," said Themar sullenly.

"Merely," smiled the Baron with engaging candor, "that you are fully equipped with definite instructions which I am to see are fulfilled."

"There is a girl," said Themar bluntly.

The Baron stared.

"What?" he rumbled sharply.

"I—I learned of her and of the cipher in Houdania!" stammered Themar.

"You know something more of detail than you need to know," said the Baron dryly. "Moreover," he added icily, "you will confine your professional attentions to the other sex. You are sure about the paper?"

"Yes."

"Your trip to New York last night was—hum—uneventful?"

"Yes."

"You will go again to-night?"

"It is unnecessary. Granberry is at the Westfall farm."

"Ah!"

"But, Excellency," reminded Themar glibly, "there is still the girl—" Deep, compelling, Tregar's eyes burned steadily into menace.

"Must I repeat—"

"Excellency," stammered Themar blanching.

"You may go!" said the Baron curtly.

There had been no word of the scribbled cuff, Themar remembered. And surely one may steal away one's own.

CHAPTER VIII

AFTER SUNSET

The sun had set. Back from his flight over the hills with Sherrill, Philip had bathed and shaved, whistling thoughtfully to himself. Now as he descended the steep Sherrill lane to the valley, ravine and hollow were already dark with twilight. From the rustling trees arching the lane overhead came the occasional sleepy chirp and flutter of a bird. Off somewhere in the gathering dusk a lonely owl hooted eerily. Still there was storm in the warm, sweet air to-night and back yonder over the hills to the north, the sky brightened fitfully with lightning.

Slipping his hand carelessly into his coat pocket for a pipe, Philip laughed.

"My Lord!" said he lightly. "The hieroglyphical cuff! I should have given that to the Baron… Themar," added Philip, packing his pipe, "is an infernal bounder!"

Diane's camp lay barely two miles to the west. Homing at sunset Philip had veered and circled over it. Now as he turned westward toward the river, the nature of his errand chafed him sorely.

"Nor can I see," mused Philip, puffing uncomfortably at his pipe, "why in the devil he wants to know!"

A soft, warm nose suddenly insinuated itself into his hand with a frank bid for attention and Philip turned. A shaggy, soft-footed shadow was waggling along at his heels, Dick's favorite setter.

"Hello, old top!" exclaimed Philip cheerfully. "When did you hit the trail?"

Old Top barked joyously but didn't appear to remember.

"Well," said Philip, lazily patting the dog's head, "you're welcome anyway. I'm a diplomat to-night," he added humorously, "bound upon a 'mission of exceeding delicacy' and only a companion of your extraordinary reticence and discretion would be welcome."

Man and dog turned aside into a crossroad. It was very dark now, the only spot of cheer save for the lightning behind the hills, the coal of Philip's pipe.

"Tell me, old man," begged Philip whimsically, "what would you do? May we not wander casually into camp and look at my beautiful gypsy lady without fussing unduly about this infernal mission? More and more do we dislike it. And in the morning we may respectfully rebel. Ah, an excellent point, Nero. To be sure our chief will be very smooth and insistent but we ourselves, you recall, have possibilities of extreme firmness. And the lady is Diane, though we only call her that, old top, among ourselves.

"Splendid decision!" exclaimed Philip presently with intense satisfaction. "Nero, you've been an umpire. We'll rebel. Nevertheless, we must assure ourselves that the camp of our lady is ready for storm."

It was. Following a forest path, Philip presently caught the flicker of a camp fire ahead. There was a huge tarpaulin over the wagon and a canopy above the horses. Storm-proof tents loomed dimly among the trees. A brisk little man whose apple cheeks and grizzled whiskers Philip instantly approved, trotted importantly about among the horses, humming a jerky melody. Johnny was fifty and looked a hundred, but those unwary ones who had felt the steely grip of his sinewy fingers were apt evermore to respect him.

Diane was piling wood upon the fire with the careless grace of a splendid young savage. The light of the camp fire danced ruddily upon her slim, brown arms and throat bared to the rising wind. A beautiful, restless gypsy of fire and wind, she looked, at one with the storm-haunted wood about her.

There came a patter of rain upon the forest leaves. The tents were flapping and the fire began to flare. There were curious wind crackles all about him, and Nero had begun to sniff and whine. Somewhere—off there among the trees—Philip fancied he caught the stealthy pad of a footfall and the crackle of underbrush. Every instinct of his body focusing wildly upon the thought of harm to Diane, he whirled swiftly about, colliding as he did so with something—vague, formless, heavy—that leaped, crouching, from the shadows and bore him to the ground. The lightning flared savagely upon steel. Philip felt a blinding thud upon his head, a sharp, stinging agony along his shoulder.

Somewhere in the forest—a great way off he thought—a dog was barking furiously.

CHAPTER IX

IN A STORM-HAUNTED WOOD

"The storm is coming!" exclaimed Diane with shining eyes. "Button the flaps by the horses, Johnny. We're in for it to-night. Hear the wind!"

Overhead the gale tore ragged gaps among the fire-shadowed trees, unshrouding a storm-black sky. Fearlessly—the old wild love of storm and wind singing powerfully in her heart—the girl rose from the fire and faced the tempest.

Rex pressed fearfully beside her, whining. Off there somewhere in the wind and darkness a dog had barked. It came now again, high above the noise of the wind, a furious, frightened barking.

"Johnny!" exclaimed Diane suddenly. "There must be something wrong over there. Better go see. No, not that way. More to the east." And Johnny, whose soul for thirty years had thirsted for adventure, briskly seized an ancient pistol and charged off through the forest.

But Aunt Agatha had talked long and tearfully to Johnny. Wherefore, reluctant to leave his charge alone in the rain and dark, he turned back.

"Go!" said Diane with a flash of impatience.

Johnny went. Looking back over his shoulder he saw the girl outlined vividly against the fire, skirts and hair flying stormily about her in the wind. So might the primal woman stand ere the march of civilization had over-sexed her.

The wind was growing fiercer now, driving the rain about in angry gusts. Thunder cannonaded noisily overhead.

Veering suddenly in a new direction—for in the roar of the storm the bark of the dog seemed curiously to shift—Johnny collided violently with a dark figure running wildly through the forest. Both men fell. Finding his invisible assailant disposed viciously to contest detention, Johnny fell in with his mood and buried his long, lean fingers cruelly in the other's throat.

The fortunes of war turned speedily. Johnny's victim squirmed desperately to his feet and bounded away through the forest.

Now as they ran, stumbling and finding their way as best they might in the glitter of lightning, there came from the region of the camp the unmistakable crack of a pistol. Two shots in rapid succession followed—an interval of five seconds or so—and then another. The final trio was the shot signal of the old buffalo hunters which Diane had taught to Johnny.

"Where are you?" barked the signal.

Drawing his ancient pistol as he ran, Johnny, in vain, essayed the answer. The veteran missed fire. After all, reflected Johnny uncomfortably, one signal was merely to locate him. If another came—

The lightning, flaming in a vivid sheet, revealed a lonely road ahead and on the road by the farther hedge, a man desperately cranking a long, dark car. The lamps of the car were unlighted.

With a yell of startled anger, the man who bore the bleeding marks of Johnny's fingers redoubled his speed and darted crazily for the roadway. Before he had reached it the man by the car had leaped swiftly to the wheel and rolled away.

From the forest came again the signal: "Where are you?"

Johnny groaned. Frantically he tried the rebel again. It readily spat its answer this time, an instantaneous duplicate of shots.

"I'm here. What do you want?"

In the lightning glare the man ahead made off wildly across the fields.

Running, Johnny cocked his ears for the familiar assurance of one shot.

"All right," it would mean; "I only wanted to know where you are," but it did not come.

Instead—two shots again in rapid succession—an interval—and then another.

"I am in serious trouble," barked the signal in the forest. "Come as fast as you can."

With a groan Johnny abandoned the chase and retraced his steps. Thus a perverse Fate ever snipped the thread of an embryo adventure.

A light flickered dully among the trees to the east. Johnny cupped his hands and yodeled. The light moved. A little later as he crashed hurriedly through the underbrush, Diane called to him. She was holding a lantern high above something on the ground, her face quite colorless.

"I'm glad you're here!" she said. "It's the aviator, Johnny. He's hurt—"

The aviator stirred.

"He's comin' 'round," said Johnny peering down into the white face in the aureole of lantern-light. "The rain in his face likely… Well, young fellow, what do you think of yourself, eh?"

"Not much," said Philip blankly and stared about him.

"Can you follow us to the camp fire yonder?" asked Diane compassionately.

Philip, though evidently very dizzy, thought likely he could, and he did. That his shoulder was wet and very painful, he was well aware, though somehow he had forgotten why. Moreover, his head throbbed queerly.

There came a tent and a bed and a blur of incidents.

Mr. Poynter dazedly resigned himself to a general atmosphere of unreality.