In the woods to her left she thought she heard a horse neigh; then she saw shadows moving in that direction; and again, from the road, she heard the brief debate of the two men as to the whereabouts of "Bill"; and it struck Jerry humorously that he would not soon see his friends unless they came and helped him out of his predicament.
It may help to an understanding of Miss Jerry Dangerfield's character if it is recorded here that never in her short life had she failed to respond to the call of impulse. She was lost in the woods, and strange men lurked about; a man had been attacked, seized, and left sitting in a state of absurd helplessness on a horse presumably his own, and there was no guessing what dire penalty his captors had in store for him. He certainly looked deliciously funny as he sat there in the shadows, vigorously twisting his arms and head in an effort to free himself.
Quiet reigned in the neighborhood of the church; the lights had blinked out; the bang of the closing shutters reassured Jerry, and she crept on her knees toward the unconscious captive, loosed his horse's rein and led it rapidly toward her own horse, a little farther back in the woods. Her blindfolded prisoner, thinking his original captors were carrying him off, renewed his efforts to free himself. He tested the ropes and straps with which he was fastened by throwing himself first to one side, then to the other, as far as his gyves would permit, at the same time frothily chewing his gag.
Jerry gained her own saddle in the least bit of a panic, and when she had mounted and made sure of the leading-strap with which her prisoner's horse was provided, she rode on at a rapid walk until she reached the clearing, where the stumps again grimly mocked her. She stopped to listen, and heard through the still night first one cry and then many voices in various keys of alarm and rage. Then she bent toward the prisoner, tore the bandage from his eyes, and with more difficulty freed him of the gag. He blinked and spluttered at this unexpected deliverance, then blinked and spluttered afresh at seeing that his captor was a young woman, who was plainly not of his world. Jerry watched him wonderingly, then addressed him in her most agreeable tone.
"You were caught and tied by two men over there by a church. I saw them, and when they went off and left you, I came along and brought you with me, thinking to save your life. I want to get home as quickly as possible, and though I do not know you, and am quite sure we never met before, I hope you will kindly guide me to Ardsley, and thereby render me a service I shall always deeply appreciate."
Mr. Bill Appleweight, alias Poteet, was well hardened to the shocks of time, but this pleasant-voiced girl, coolly sitting her horse, and holding his own lank steed by a strap, was the most amazing human being that had yet dawned on his horizon. He was not stupid, but Jerry's manner of speech had baffled more sophisticated minds than Appleweight's, and the sweet sincerity of her tone, and her frank countenance, hallowed as it was by the moonlight, wrought in the outlaw's mind a befuddlement not wholly unlike that which had possessed the wits of many young gallants south of the Potomac who had laid siege to Jerry Dangerfield's heart. But the cries behind them were more pronounced, and Appleweight was nothing if not a man of action.
"Take these things off'n me," he commanded fiercely, "and I'll see y' safe to Ardsley."
"Not in the least," replied Jerry, who was herself not unmindful of the voices behind. "You will kindly tell me the way, and I will accommodate my pace to that of your own somewhat ill-nourished beast. And as there's a mob looking for you back there, all ready to hang you to one of these noble forest trees, I advise you to use more haste and less caution in pointing the way."
Appleweight lifted his head and took his bearings. Then he nodded toward one of the three trails which had so baffled Jerry when first she broke into the clearing.
"Thet's the nighest," said Appleweight, "and we'd better git."
She set the pace at a trot, and was relieved in a few minutes to pass one or two landmarks which she remembered from her flight through the woods. As they splashed through the brook she had forded, she was quite confident that the captive was playing her no trick, but that in due course she should strike the highroad to Ardsley which she had abandoned to throw off the Duke of Ballywinkle.
It was now ten o'clock, and the moon was sinking behind the forest trees. Jerry took advantage of an occasional straight strip of road to go forward at a gallop, but these stretches did not offer frequently, and the two riders kept pretty steadily to a smart trot. They presented a droll picture as they moved through the forest—the girl, riding cross-saddle, with the stolen captive trailing after. Occasionally Mr. Appleweight seemed to be talking to himself, but whether he was praying or swearing Jerry did not trouble herself to decide. It was enough for her that she had found a guide out of the wilderness by stealing a prisoner from his enemies, and this was amusing, and sent bubbling in her heart those quiet springs of mirth that accounted for so much in Jerry Dangerfield.
As they walked their horses through a bit of sand, the prisoner spoke:
"Who air y'u, little gal?"
Jerry turned in the saddle, so that Appleweight enjoyed a full view of her face.
"I am perfectly willing to tell you my name, but first it would be more courteous for you to tell me yours, particularly as I am delivering you from a band of outlaws who undoubtedly intended to do you harm."
"I reckon they air skeered to foller us, gal. They air afeard to tackle th' ole man, onless they jump in two t' one; and they cain't tell who helped me git away."
He laughed—a curious, chuckling laugh. He had ceased to struggle at his bonds, but seemed resigned to his strange fate. He had not answered Jerry's question, and had no intention of doing so. The sudden attack at the church had aroused all his cunning. Appleweight, alias Poteet, was an old wolf, and knew well the ways of the trapper; but the bold attempt to kidnap him was a new feature of the game as heretofore played along the border. He did not make it out; nor was he wholly satisfied with the girl's explanation of her own presence in that out-of-the-way place. She might be a guest at Ardsley, as she pretended, but women folk were rarely seen on the estate, and never in such remote corners of it as Mount Nebo Church. As he pondered the matter, it seemed incredible that this remarkable young person, whose innocence was so beguiling, should be in any way leagued with his foes.
He had several times called out directions as they crossed other paths in the forest, and they now reached the main trunk road of the estate. The red bungalow, Jerry knew, was not far away. Her prisoner spoke again.
"Little gal, I'm an ole man, and I hain't never done y'u no harm. Your haouse is only a leetle way up thar, and I cain't be no more use to y'u. I want t' go home, and if y'u'll holp me ontie this yere harness—" and he grinned as he viewed his bonds in the fuller light of the open road.
Then hoof-beats thumped the soft earth of another of the trails that converged at this point, and Ardmore and Collins flashed out upon Jerry and her captive, amid a wild panic of horses.
Appleweight twisted and turned in his saddle but Jerry instantly held up her hand and arrested the inquiries of her deliverers.
"Mr. Ardmore, this gentleman was most rudely set upon by two strangers as he was leaving a church over there somewhere in the woods. I was lost, and as his appearance at the time and place seemed almost providential, I begged him to guide me toward home, which he has most courteously done," and Jerry, to give the proper touch to her explanation, twitched the strap by which she held her prisoner's horse, so that it danced, adding a fresh absurdity to the wobbling figure of its bound rider.
"You are safe!" cried Ardmore in a low tone, to which Jerry nodded carelessly, in a way that directed attention to the more immediate business at hand. He was not at once sure of his cue, but there seemed to be something familiar in the outlines of the man on horseback, and full identification broke upon him now with astounding vividness.
"Jugs," he began, addressing the prisoner smilingly, "dear old Jugs, to think we should meet again! Since you handed me that jug on the rear end of the train, a few nights ago, life has had new meanings for me, and I'm just as sorry as can be that I gave you the buttermilk. I wouldn't have done such a thing for billions in real money. And now that you have fallen into the excellent hands of Miss Dangerfield—"
"Dangerfield!" screamed the prisoner, lifting himself as high in the saddle as his bonds would permit.
"Certainly," replied Ardmore. "Your rescuer is none other than Miss Geraldine Dangerfield."
"Why, gal," began the outlaw, "ef your pa's the guv'nor of No'th Caroline, him an' me's old frien's."
"Then will you kindly tell me your name?" asked Jerry.
"Allow me to complete the introductions," interrupted Collins, who had hung back in silence. "Unless my eyes deceive me, which is wholly improbable, this is a gentleman whom I once interviewed in the county jail at Raleigh, and he was known at that time as William Appleweight, alias Poteet."
"You air right," admitted the prisoner without hesitation, and then, addressing Jerry: "Yer pa would be glad to know his dorter had helped an ole frien' like me, gal. Ye may hev heard him speak o' me."
"But how about that message in the cork of the jug you put on the train at Kildare?" demanded Ardmore. "And why did you send your brother to try to scare me to death at Raleigh?"
"That is not the slightest importance," interrupted Jerry, gently playing with the tether which held Mr. Appleweight; "nor does it matter that papa and this gentleman are friends. If this is, indeed, the famous outlaw, Mr. William Appleweight, then, papa or no papa, friend or no friend, he is a prisoner of the state of North Carolina."
"Pris'ner!" bawled Appleweight,—"an' you the guv'nor's gal—"
"You have hit the situation exactly, Mr. Appleweight; and as far as the office of governor is concerned, it is capably filled by the young gentleman on your left, Mr. Thomas Ardmore. Let us now adjourn to his house, where, if I am not mistaken, a bit of cold fowl is usually to be found on the sideboard at this hour. But hold"—and Jerry checked her horse—"where can we lodge this gentleman, Mr. Ardmore, until we decide upon his further fate?"
"We might put him in the wine cellar," suggested Ardmore.
"No," interposed Collins. "I fancy that much of your fluid stock has paid revenue tax, and most of it has passed none too lightly through the custom-house. It would be unwarrantably cruel to lock Mr. Appleweight in such quarters, with the visible marks of taxation all around him. Still, the sight of the stamps would probably destroy his thirst, though his rugged independence might so far assert itself that he would smash a few of your most expensive importations out of sheer deviltry."
"He shall be treated with the greatest consideration," said Jerry, and thereafter, no further adventure befalling them, they reached Ardsley, where their arrival occasioned the greatest excitement.
Habersham's men had proved exceedingly timid when it came to the business of threshing the woods for Appleweight, whom they regarded with a new awe, now that he had vanished so mysteriously. They had searched the woods guardedly, but the narrow paths that led away into the dim fastnesses of Ardsley were forbidding, and these men were not without their superstitions. They had awaited for years an opportunity to strike at the Appleweight faction; they had at last taken their shot, and had seemingly brought down their bird; but their lack of spirit in retrieving the game had been their undoing. They had only aroused their most formidable enemy, who would undoubtedly lose no time in seeking revenge. They were a dolorous band who, after warily beating the woods, dispersed in the small hours of the morning, having found nothing but Appleweight's wool hat, which only added to their mystification.
"We ought to have taken him away on the run," said Habersham bitterly, as he and Griswold discussed the matter on the veranda of the prosecutor's house and watched the coming of the dawn. "I didn't realize that those fellows lived in such mortal terror of the old man; but they refused to make off with him until the last of his friends had got well out of the way. I ought to have had more sense myself than to have expected the old fox to sit tied up like a calf ready for market. We had all his friends accounted for—those that weren't at prayer meeting were marked down somewhere else, and we had a line flung pretty well round the church. Appleweight's deliverance must have come from somewhere inside the Ardmore property. Perhaps the game warden picked him up."
"Perhaps the Indians captured him," suggested Griswold, yawning, "or maybe some Martian came down on a parachute and hauled him up. Or, as scarlet fever is raging at Mr. Ardmore's castle,"—and his tone was icy—"Appleweight was probably seized all of a sudden, and broke away in his delirium. Let's go to bed."
At eight o'clock he and Habersham rode into Turner Court House, and Griswold went at once to the inn to change his clothes. No further steps could be taken until some definite report was received as to Appleweight's whereabouts. The men who had attempted the outlaw's capture had returned to their farms, and were most demurely cultivating the soil. Griswold was thoroughly disgusted at the ridiculous failure of Habersham's plans, and not less severe upon himself for failing to push matters to a conclusion the moment the outlaw was caught, instead of hanging back to await the safe dispersion of the Mount Nebo congregation.
It had been the most puerile transaction possible, and he was aware that a report of it, which he must wire at once to Miss Barbara Osborne, would not impress that young woman with his capacity or trustworthiness in difficult occasions. The iron that had already entered into his soul drove deeper. He had ordered a fresh horse, and was resolved to return to Mount Nebo Church for a personal study of the ground in broad daylight.
As he crossed the musty parlor of the little hotel, to his great astonishment Miss Osborne's black Phœbe, stationed where her eyes ranged the whole lower floor of the inn, drew attention to herself in an elaborate courtesy.
"Miss Barb'ra wish me t' say she done come heah on business, and she like fo' to see yo' all right away. She done bring huh seddle, and war a-gwine ridin' twell you come back. She's a-gittin' ready, and I'll go tell huh you done come. She got a heap o' trubble, thet young missis, so she hev," and the black woman's pursed lips seemed to imply that Professor Griswold was in some measure responsible for Miss Osborne's difficulties.
As he stared out into the street a negro brought a horse bearing a better saddle than Mingo County had ever boasted, and hitched it near the horse he had secured for himself. An instant later he heard a quick step above, and Miss Osborne, sedately followed by the black woman, came down-stairs. She smiled and greeted him cordially, but there was trouble in her brown eyes.
"I didn't warn you of my coming. I didn't want to be a nuisance to you; but there's a new—a most unaccountable perplexity. It doesn't seem right to burden you with it—you have already been so kind about helping me; but I dare not turn to our oldest friends—I have been afraid to trust father's friends at all since Mr. Bosworth acted so traitorously."
"My time is entirely at your service, Miss Osborne; but I have a shameful report to make of myself. I must tell you how miserably I have failed, before you trust me any further. We—that is to say, the prosecuting attorney of this county and a party he got together of Appleweight's enemies—caught the outlaw last night—took him with the greatest ease—but he got away from us! It was all my fault, and I'm deeply disgusted with myself!"
He described the capture and the subsequent mysterious disappearance of Appleweight, and confessed the obvious necessity for great caution in further attempts to take the outlaw, now that he was on guard. Barbara laughed reassuringly at the end of the story.
"Those men must have felt funny when they went back to get the prisoner and found that he had gone up into the air. But there's a new feature of the case that's more serious than the loss of this man—" and the trouble again possessed her eyes.
"Well, it's better not to have our problems too simple. Any lawyer can win an easy case—though I seem to have lost my first one for you," he added penitently.
She made no reply, but drew from her purse a cutting from a newspaper and handed it to him.
"That's from last night's Columbia Vidette, which is very hostile to my father."
He was already running over the heavily leaded column that set forth without equivocation the fact that Governor Osborne had not been in Columbia since he went to New Orleans. It scouted the story that he was abroad in the state on official business connected with the Appleweight case—the yarn which Griswold had forced upon the friendly reporter at the telegraph office in Columbia. The governor of a state, the Vidette went on to elaborate, could not vanish without leaving some trace of himself, and a Vidette representative had traced the steps of Governor Osborne from New Orleans until—the italics are the Vidette's—he had again entered South Carolina under cover of night and for purposes which, for the honor of the state, the Vidette hesitated to disclose.
The writer of the article had exhausted the possibilities of gentle suggestion and vague innuendo in an effort to create an impression of mystery and to pique curiosity as to further developments, which were promised at any hour. Griswold's wrath was aroused, not so much against the newspaper, which he assumed had some fire for its smothered trifle of smoke, but against the governor of South Carolina himself, who was causing the finest and noblest girl in the world infinite anxiety and pain.
"The thing is preposterous," he said lightly. "The idea that your father would attempt to enter his own state surreptitiously is inconceivable in these days when public men are denied all privacy, and when it's any man's right to deceive the press if he finds it essential to his own comfort and peace; but the intimation that your father is in South Carolina for any dishonorable purpose is preposterous. One thing, however, is certain, Miss Osborne, and that is that we must produce your father at the earliest possible moment."
"But"—and Barbara hesitated, and her eyes, near tears as they were, wrought great havoc in Griswold's soul—"but father must not be found until this Appleweight matter is settled. You understand without making me speak the words—that he might not exactly view the matter as we do."
It was a painful subject; and the fact that she was driven by sheer force of circumstances to appeal to him, a stranger, to aid her to perform a public service in her father's name rallied all his good impulses to her standard. It was too delicate a matter for discussion; it was a thing to be ignored; and he assumed at once a lighter tone.
"Come! We must solve the riddle of the lost prisoner at once, and your father will undoubtedly give an excellent account of himself when he gets ready. Meanwhile the fiction that he is personally carrying the war into the Appleweight country must be maintained, and I shall step to the railway station and wire the Columbia newspaper in his name that he is in Mingo County on the trail of the outlaws."
The messages were composed by their joint efforts at the station, with not so much haste but that an associate professor of admiralty, twenty-nine years old, could defer in the most trifling matters to the superior literary taste of a girl of twenty whose brown eyes were very pleasant to meet in moments of uncertainty and appeal.
He signed the messages Charles Osborne, Governor, with a flourish indicative of the increased confidence and daring which Miss Osborne's arrival had brought to the situation.
"And now," said Griswold, as they rode through the meager streets of Turner's, "we will go to Mount Nebo Church and see what we can learn of Appleweight's disappearance."
"The North Carolina papers are making a great deal of Governor Dangerfield's activity in trying to put down outlawry on the border," said Barbara. "Marked copies of the newspapers are pouring into papa's office. I can but hold Mr. Bosworth responsible for that. We may count upon it that he will do all in his power to annoy us"—and then, as Griswold looked at her quickly, he was aware that she had colored and averted her eyes; and while, as a lawyer, he was aware that words of two letters might be provocative of endless litigation of the bitterest sort, he had never known before that us, in itself the homeliest of words, could cause so sweet a distress. It seemed that an interval of several years passed before either spoke again.
"We are quite near the estate of your friend, Mr. Ardmore, aren't we?" asked Barbara presently.
"I fancy we are," replied Griswold, but with a tone so coldly at variance with his previous cordial references to the master of Ardsley that Barbara looked at him inquiringly.
"I'm sorry that I should have given you the impression, Miss Osborne, that Mr. Ardmore and I are friends, as I undoubtedly did at Columbia. He has, for some unaccountable reason, cut my acquaintance in a manner so unlike him that I do not pretend to explain it; nor, I may add, is it of the least importance."
"I was a little surprised," returned Barbara, with truly feminine instinct for mingling in the balm of consolation the bitterest and most poisonous herbs, "that you should have had for a friend a man who frankly follows girls whose appearance he fancies. Even Mr. Ardmore's democratic enthusiasm for the down-trodden laundry girl does not wholly mitigate the winking episode."
"He had, only a few days ago, invited me to visit him, though I had been to his house so often that the obscurest servant knew that I was privileged even beyond the members of Mr. Ardmore's own family in my freedom of the place. When I saw that his house would be a convenient point from which to study the Appleweight situation, I wired him that I was on the way, and to my utter amazement he replied that he could not entertain me—that scarlet fever was epidemic on the estate—on those almost uncounted acres!"
And with a gulp and a mist in his eyes, Griswold drew rein and pointed, from a hill that had now borne them to a considerable height, toward Ardsley itself, dreamily basking in the bright morning sunlight within its cincture of hills, meadows and forest.
"I never saw the place before! It's perfectly splendid!" cried Barbara, forgetting that Griswold must be gazing upon it with the eyes of an exile viewing grim, forbidding battlements that once hailed him in welcome.
"It's one of the most interesting houses in America," observed Griswold, who strove at all times to be just.
"There's a flag flying—I can't make out what it is," said Barbara.
"It's probably to give warning of the scarlet fever; it would be like Ardy to do that. But we must hurry on to Mount Nebo."
He knew the ways of Ardsley thoroughly; better, in fact, than its owner ever had in old times; but in his anger at Ardmore he would not set foot on the estate if he could possibly avoid doing so in reaching the scene of the night's contretemps. He found without difficulty the trail taken by Habersham's men, and in due course of time they left their horses a short distance from the church and proceeded on foot.
"It seems all the stupider in broad daylight," said Griswold, after he had explained just what had occurred, and how the captors, in their superstitious awe of Appleweight, had been afraid to carry him off the moment they were sure of him, but had slipped back among their fellows to wait until the coast was perfectly clear. To ease his deep chagrin Barbara laughed a good deal at the occurrence as they tramped over the scene discussing it. They went into the woods back of the church, where Griswold began to exercise his reasoning powers.
"Some one must have come in from this direction and freed the man and taken him away," he declared.
He knelt and marked the hoof-prints where Appleweight had been left tied; but the grass here was much trampled, and Griswold was misled by the fact, not knowing that news of Appleweight's strange disappearance had passed among the outlaw's friends by the swift telegraphy of the border, and that the whole neighborhood had been threshed over hours before. It might have been some small consolation to Griswold had he known that Appleweight's friends and accomplices were as much at a loss to know what had become of the chieftain as the men who had tried so ineffectually to kidnap him. From the appearance of the trampled grass many men had taken a hand in releasing the prisoner, and this impression did not clarify matters for Griswold.
"Where does this path lead?" asked Barbara.
"This is Ardsley land here, this side of the church, and that trail leads on, if I remember, to the main Ardsley highway, with which various other roads are connected—many miles in all. It's inconceivable that the deliverers of this outlaw should have taken him into the estate, where a sort of police system is maintained by the forestry corps. I don't at all make it out."
He went off to explore the heavy woods on each side of the trail that led into Ardsley, but without result. When he came gloomily back he found that in his absence Barbara had followed the bridle-path for a considerable distance, and she held out to him a diminutive pocket handkerchief, which had evidently been snatched away from its owner—so Barbara explained—by a low-hanging branch of an oak, and flung into a blackberry bush, where she had found it. It was a trifle, indeed, the slightest bit of linen, which they held between them by its four corners and gravely inspected.
"Feminine, beyond a doubt," pronounced Griswold sagely.
"It's a good handkerchief, and here are two initials worked in the corner that may tell us something—'G. D.' It probably belongs to some guest at Ardsley. And there's a very faint suggestion of orris—it's a city handkerchief," said Barbara with finality, "but it has suffered a trifle in the laundry, as this edge is the least bit out of drawing from careless ironing."
"And I should say, from a certain crispness it still retains, that it hasn't been in the forest long. It hasn't been rained on, at any rate," added Griswold.
"But even the handkerchief doesn't tell us anything," said Barbara, spreading it out, "except that some woman visitor has ridden here within a few days and played drop the handkerchief with herself or somebody else to us unknown."
"She may have been a scarlet fever patient from Ardsley; you'd better have a care!" And Griswold's tone was bitter.
"I'm not afraid; and as I have never been so near Ardsley before, I should like to ride in and steal a glimpse. There's little danger of meeting the lord of the manor, I suppose, or any of his guests at this hour, and we need not go near the house."
He saw that she was really curious, and it was not in his heart to refuse her, so they followed the bridle-path through the cool forest, and came in due course to the clearing where Jerry had first confessed herself lost, and thereafter had suffered the captured outlaw to point her the way home.
"The timber has been cut here since my last visit, but I remember the bridle-paths very well. They all reach the highroad of the estate ultimately. We may safely take this one, which has been the most used and which climbs a hill that gives a fine outlook."
The path he chose had really been beaten into better condition than either of the others, and they rode side by side now. A deer feeding on a grassy slope raised its head and stared at them, and a fox scampered wildly before them. It seemed that they were shut in from all the world, these two, who but a few days before had never seen each other, and it was a relief to him to find that she threw off her troubles and became more animated and cheerful than he had yet seen her. His comments on her mount, which was sorry enough, were amusing; and she paused now and then to peer into the tops of the tallest trees, under the pretense that Appleweight had probably reverted to the primordial and might be found at any minute in one of the branches above them. Her dark green habit, and the soft hat to match, with its little feather thrust into the side, spoke for real usage; and the gauntleted hand that swung lightly at her side inadvertently brushed his own once—and he knew that this must not happen again! When their eyes met it was with frank confidence on her part, and it seemed to him that they were very old friends, and that they had been riding through this forest, or one identical with it, since the world began. It is thus that a man with any imagination feels first about a woman who begins to interest him—that there was never any beginning to their acquaintance that can be reckoned as time and experience are measured, but that he has known her for countless years; and if there be a poetic vein in him, he will indulge in such fancies as that he has seen her as a priestess of Aphrodite in the long ago, dreaming upon the temple steps; or that he has watched her skipping pebbles upon the violet storied sea against a hazy background of cities long crumbled into dust. Such fancies as these are a part of love's gentle madness, and luckier than she knows is the girl who awakens in a lover this eager idealization. If he can turn a verse for her in which she is added to the sacred Nine, personifying all sweet, gentle and gracious things, so much the better.
Just what he, on the other hand, may mean to her; just what form of deification he evokes in her, he can never know; for the women who write of such matters have never been those who are sincere or worth heeding, and they never will be, so long as woman's heart remains what it has been from the beginning—far-hidden, and filled with incommunicable secret beliefs and longings, and tremulous with fears that are beyond man's power to understand.
Griswold had missed the white rose that he had begun to associate with Barbara, and he grew suddenly daring and spoke of it.
"You haven't your rose to-day."
"Oh, I'm beyond the source of supply! I have a young friend, a girl, who makes her living as a florist—not a purely commercial enterprise, for she experiments and develops new varieties, and is quite wonderful; and that white rose is her own creation—it is becoming well known. She named it for me, and she sends me at least one every day—she says it's my royalty—if that's what you lawyers call that sort of thing."
"We lawyers rarely have anything so interesting as that to apply the word to! So that rose is the Barbara?" and it gave him a feeling of recklessness to find himself speaking her name aloud. "There are large conservatories on the estate, over there somewhere; I might risk the scarlet fever by attacking the gardener and demanding a Barbara for you."
"I'm afraid my little flower hasn't attained to the grandeur of Ardsley," she laughed. "But pray, where are we?"
They had reached the highroad much sooner than Griswold had expected, and he checked his horse abruptly, remembering that he was persona non grata on this soil.
"We must go back; I mustn't be seen here. The workmen are scattered all about the place, and they all know me."
"Oh, just a little farther! I want to see the towers of the castle!"
If she had asked him to jump into the sea he would not have hesitated; and he was so happy at being with her that his heart sang defiance to Ardmore and the splendors of Ardsley.
They were riding now toward the red bungalow, where he had often sprawled on the broad benches and chaffed with Ardmore for hours at a time. Tea was served here sometimes when there were guests at the house; and Griswold wondered just who were included in the party that his quondam friend was entertaining, and how Mrs. Atchison was progressing in her efforts to effect a match between Daisy Waters and her brother.
The drives were nearly all open to the public, so that by the letter of the law he was no intruder; but beyond the bungalow he must not go. Sobered by the thought of his breach with Ardmore, he resolved not to pass the bungalow whose red roof was now in sight.
"It's like a fairy place, and I feel that there can be no end to it," Barbara was saying. "But it isn't kind to urge you in. We certainly are doing nothing to find Appleweight, and it must be nearly noon."
It was just then—he vividly recalls the moment—as Griswold felt in his waistcoat for his watch—that Miss Jerry Dangerfield, with Thomas Ardmore at her side, galloped into view. They were racing madly, like irresponsible children, and bore boisterously down upon the two pilgrims.
Jerry and Ardmore, hatless and warm, were pardonably indignant at thus being arrested in their flight, and the master of Ardsley, feeling for once the dignity of his proprietorship, broke out stormily.
"I would have you know—I would have you know—" he roared, and then his voice failed him. He stared; he spluttered; he busied himself with his horse, which was dancing in eagerness to resume the race. He quieted the beast, which nevertheless arched and pawed like a war-horse, and then the master of Ardsley bawled:
"Grissy! I say, Grissy!"
Miss Osborne and Professor Griswold, on their drooping Mingo County nondescripts, made a tame picture before Ardmore and his fair companion on their Ardsley hunters. The daughter of the governor of South Carolina looked upon the daughter of the governor of North Carolina with high disdain, and it need hardly be said that this feeling, as expressed by glacial glances, was evenly reciprocal, and that in the contemptuous upward tilt of two charming chins the nicest judgment would have been necessary to any fair opinion as to which state had the better argument.
The associate professor of admiralty was known as a ready debater, and he quickly returned his former friend's salutation, and in much the contumelious tone he would have used in withering an adversary before a jury.
"Pardon me, but are you one of the employees here?"
"Why, Grissy, old man, don't look at me like that! How did you—"
"I owe your master an apology for riding upon his property at a time when pestilence is giving you cause for so much concern. The death-rate from scarlet fever is deplorably high—"
"Oh, Grissy!" cried Ardmore.
"You have addressed me familiarly, by a nickname sometimes used by intimate friends, though I can't for the life of me recall you. I want you to know that I am here in an official capacity, on an errand for the state of South Carolina."
Miss Dangerfield's chin, which had dropped a trifle, pointed again into the blue ether.
"You will pardon me," she said, "but an agent of the state of South Carolina is far exceeding his powers when he intrudes upon North Carolina soil."
"The state of South Carolina does what it pleases and goes where it likes," declared Miss Barbara Osborne warmly, whereupon Mr. Ardmore, at a glance from his coadjutor, waxed righteously indignant.
"It's one thing, sir, for you to ride in here as a sight-seer, but quite another for you to come representing an unfriendly state. You will please choose which view of the matter I shall take, and I shall act accordingly."
Griswold's companion spoke to him earnestly in a low tone for a moment, and then Griswold addressed Ardmore incisively.
"I don't know what you pretend to be, sir; but it may interest you to know that I am the governor of South Carolina!"
"And this gentleman," cried Jerry, pointing to Ardmore with her riding-crop, "though his hair is mussed and his scarf visibly untied, is none other than the governor of North Carolina, and he is not only on his own property, but in the sovereign state of which he is the chief executive."
Professor Griswold lifted his hat with the least flourish.
"I congratulate the state of North Carolina on having reposed authority in hands so capable. If this young lady is correct, sir, I will serve official notice on you that I have reason to believe that a person named Appleweight, a fugitive from justice, is hiding on your property and in your state, and I now formally demand that you surrender him forthwith."
"If I may introduce myself," interposed Jerry, "I will say to you that my name is Geraldine Dangerfield, and that this Appleweight person is now at Mr. Ardmore's house."
"I suppose," replied Miss Osborne with gentle irony, "that he has the pink parlor and leads the conversation at table."
"You are quite mistaken," replied Ardmore; "but if it would afford you any satisfaction to see the outlaw you may look upon him in my wine cellar, where, only an hour ago, I left him sitting on a case of Chateau Bizet '82. My further intentions touching this scoundrelly South Carolinian I need not now disclose; but I give you warning that the Appleweight issue will soon and forever be terminated and in a manner that will greatly redound to the credit and the glory of the Old North State."
Professor Griswold's hand went to his mustache with a gesture that smote Ardmore, for he knew that it hid that inscrutable smile that had always baffled him.
"I trust," said Griswold, "that the prisoner, whom we can not for a moment concede to be the real Appleweight, will not be exposed to scarlet fever, pending a settlement of this matter. It is my understanding that the Bizet '82 is a fraudulent vintage that has never been nearer France than Paris, Illinois, and if the prisoner in your cellar drinks of it I shall hold you officially responsible for the consequences. And now, I have the honor to bid you both good morning."
He and Barbara swung their horses round and retraced their way, leaving Ardmore and Jerry gazing after them.
When the shabby beasts from the stable at Turner Court House had borne Miss Osborne and Griswold out of sight beyond the bungalow, Ardmore turned blankly to Jerry.
"Have I gone blind or anything? Unless I'm crazy that was dear old Grissy, but who is that girl?"
"That is Miss Barbara Osborne, and I hope she has learned such a lesson that she will not be snippy to me any more, if she is the president-general of the Daughters of the Seminole War."
"But where do you suppose she found Grissy?"
"I don't know, I'm sure; nor, Mr. Ardmore, do I care."
"He said he represented the state of South Carolina—do you suppose the governor has really employed him?"
"I do not," said Jerry emphatically; "for he appears intelligent, and intelligence is something that would never appeal to Governor Osborne. It is quite possible," mused Jerry aloud, "that Miss Osborne's father has disappeared like mine, and that she is running his office with Mr. Griswold's aid. If so, we shall probably have some fun before we get through with this."
"If that's true we shall have more than fun!" exclaimed Ardmore, thoroughly aroused. "You don't know Grissy. He's the smartest man alive, and if he's running this Appleweight case for Governor Osborne, he'll keep us guessing. Why did I ever send him that scarlet fever telegram, anyhow? He'll fight harder than ever for that and all I wanted was to keep him away until we had got all through with this business here so I could show him what a great man I had been and how I had been equal to an opportunity when it offered."
"I wish you to remember, Mr. Ardmore, that you still have your opportunity, and that I expect you to carry this matter through to a safe conclusion and to the honor of the Old North State."
"I have no intention of failing, Miss Dangerfield;" and with this they turned and rode slowly back toward the house.
Professor Griswold and Miss Osborne were silent until the forest again shut them in.
Then, in a sequestered spot, Griswold suddenly threw up his head and laughed long and loud.
"It doesn't strike me as being so amusing," remarked Miss Osborne. "They have Appleweight in their wine cellar and I don't see for the life of me how we are going to get him out."
"What's funny, Miss Osborne, is Ardy—that he and I should be pitted against each other in a thing of this kind is too utterly ridiculous. Ardy acting as governor of North Carolina beats anything that ever happened on this continent. But how do you suppose he ever met Miss Dangerfield, who certainly is a self-contained young woman?"
"The answer to that riddle is so simple," replied Miss Osborne, "that I am amazed that you fail to see it for yourself. Miss Dangerfield is undoubtedly the girl with the winking eye."
"Oh, no!" protested Griswold.
"I don't hesitate to announce that as a fact. Miss Geraldine Dangerfield, beyond any question, is the young lady whom Mr. Ardmore, your knight errant friend, went forth for to seek. Just how they met we shall perhaps learn later on. But just now it seems rather necessary for us to adopt some plan of action, unless you feel that you do not wish to oppose your friend."
"Oppose him! I have got to whip him to the dust if I shake down the very towers of his stronghold! It's well we have the militia on the road. With the state army at our back we can show Tommy Ardmore a few things in state administration that are not dreamed of in his philosophy."
"Do you suppose they really have Appleweight?" asked Barbara.
"Not for a minute! They told us that story merely to annoy us when they found what we were looking for. That touch about the wine cellar is characteristically Ardmoresque. If they had Appleweight you may be sure they wouldn't keep him on the premises."
Whereupon, they rode back to Turner Court House much faster than they had come.
Jerry and Ardmore sat at a long table in the commodious Ardsley library, which was a modification of a Gothic chapel. It was on the upper floor, with broad windows that had the effect of bringing the landscape indoors, and the North Carolina sky is, we must concede, a pleasant thing to have at one's elbow. A large accumulation of mail from the governor's office at Raleigh had been forwarded, and Jerry insisted that it must be opened and disposed of in some way. Governor Dangerfield was, it appeared, a subscriber to a clipping bureau, and they had been examining critically a batch of cuttings relating to the New Orleans incident. Most of them were in a frivolous key, playfully reviving the ancient query as to what the governor of North Carolina really said to the governor of South Carolina. Others sought causes for the widely-reported disappearance of the two governors; and still other reports boldly maintained that Governors Dangerfield and Osborne were at their capitals engaged in the duties of their respective offices.
"It's a good thing we got hold of Collins" observed Ardmore, putting down a clipping from a New York paper in which the reports of Governor Dangerfield's disappearance were analyzed and tersely dismissed; "for he knows how to write and he's done a splendid picture of your father on his throne attending to business; and his little stingers for Osborne are the work of genius."
"There's a certain finish about Mr. Collins' lying that is refreshing," replied Jerry, "and I can not help thinking that he has a brilliant future before him if he enters politics. Nothing pains me more than a careless, ill-considered, silly lie, which is the best that most people can do. But it would be very interesting to know whether Governor Osborne has really disappeared, or just how your friend the Virginia professor has seized the reins of state. Do you suppose he got a jug from somewhere, and met Miss Osborne and—"
"Do you think—do you think—she may have—er possibly—closed one eye in his direction?" asked Ardmore dubiously.
"Mr. Ardmore"—and Jerry pointed at him with a bronze paper-cutter to make sure of his attention—"Mr. Ardmore, if you ever imply again by act, word or deed that I winked at you I shall never, never speak to you again. I should think that a man with a nice sister like Mrs. Atchison would have a better opinion of women than you seem to have. I never saw you until you came to my father's house to tell me about the jug—and you know I didn't. And as for that Barbara Osborne, while I don't doubt that even in South Carolina a Daughter of the Seminole War might wink at a gentleman in a moment of extreme provocation, I doubt if she did, for she lacks animation, and has no more soul than a gum overshoe."
The obvious inconsistency of this pronouncement caused Ardmore to frown in the stress of his thought; and he stared helplessly along the line of the accusing paper-cutter into Jerry's eyes.
"Oh, cheer up!" she cried in her despair of him; "and forget it, forget it, forget it! I'll say this to you, Mr. Ardmore, that if I ever winked at you—and I never, never did—I'm sorry I did it! Some time when you haven't so much work on your hands as you have this morning just think that over and let me know where you land. And now, look at these things, please."
"What is all this stuff?" he demanded, as she tossed him a pile of papers.
"They refer to the application for pardon of a poor man who's going to be hanged for murder to-morrow unless we do something for him; and he has a wife and three little children, and he has never committed any other crime but to break into a smoke-house and steal a side of bacon."
"Did he shoot in self-defense, or how was it?" asked Ardmore judicially.
"He killed a painless dentist who pulled the wrong tooth," answered Jerry, referring to the papers.
"If that's all I don't think we can stand for hanging him. I read a piece against capital punishment in a magazine once and the arguments were very strong. The killing of a dentist should not be a crime anyhow, and if you know how to pardon a man, why let's do it; but we'd better wait until the last minute, and then send telegram to the sheriff to stop the proceedings just before he pulls the string, which makes it most impressive, and gives a better effect."
"I believe you are right about it," said Jerry. "There's an old pardon right here in this bundle which we can use. It was made out for another man who stole a horse that afterwards died, which papa said was a mitigating circumstance; but the week before his execution the man escaped from jail before papa could pardon him."
"Suppose we don't let them hang anybody while we're running the state," suggested Ardmore; "it's almost as though you murdered a man yourself, and I couldn't tie my neckties afterwards without a guilty feeling. I can't imagine anything more disagreeable than to be hanged. I heard all of Tristan und Isolde once, and I have seen half an Ibsen play, and those were hard things to bear, but I suppose hanging would be just as painful and there would be no supper afterwards to cheer you up."
"You shouldn't speak in that tone of Afterwards, Mr. Ardmore," said Jerry severely. "It isn't religious. And while we're on the subject of religion, may I ask the really, truly wherefore of Miss Daisy Waters' sudden return to Newport?" and Jerry's tone and manner were carelessly demure.
"She went home," replied Ardmore, grinning; "she left Ardsley for two reasons, one of which she stated at the breakfast table and the other she handed me privately."
"She said at the breakfast table that she was called home by incipient whooping cough in the household of her brother-in-law's cousin's family."
"As she has no brother-in-law, that can not be true. What she said to me privately was that the house party had grown very much larger than Mrs. Atchison had originally planned it, and that I am so busy that so many guests must be a burden."
Jerry stroked her cheek reflectively.
"I thought Miss Waters wouldn't last long after I asked her if rusty nail water really would remove freckles. My own freckles are exactly seven in number and I am not ashamed of them, but Miss Waters seemed very sensitive on the subject, though I thought her freckles useful in diverting attention from her drugstore hair."
"Did you say seven?" inquired Ardmore, gazing eagerly into Jerry's face. "I make it only six, and there's one away over there under your left eye that seems very lonesome, as though it suffered keenly from being so far away from its brothers and sisters on the other side of your nose."
"Mr. Ardmore"—and Jerry again indicated the person addressed by pointing with the paper-cutter—"Mr. Ardmore, it is downright impudent of you to talk to me about my appearance in any terms, but when you speak of my face as though it were a map in a geography and of my freckles as though they were county seats, or lakes, or strange places in China, then I must protest with all my strength. If you don't change the subject immediately I shall refuse to pardon this person who killed the painless dentist, and he shall be hanged by the neck till he be dead; and you, Mr. Thomas Ardmore, will be guilty of his murder."
The discussion of Miss Jerry Dangerfield's freckles ceased abruptly on the appearance of Big Paul, the forester.
"A body of South Carolina militia is marching across country from the south. One of my men heard of it down at Turner Court House last night and rode to where the troops were encamped. He learned that it was a practice march for the militia. There's several companies of infantry, so he reports, and a piece of artillery."
"Bully for old Grissy!" exclaimed Ardmore. "They're coming this way, are they, Paul?" And the three bent over the map.
"That is the place, sir. They seem to be planning to get around Turner's without stirring up the town. But it would take a good deal to wake up Turner's," laughed the big German.
Jerry placed her finger on the state line.
"If they dare cross that—if they as much as dare!"
"If they dare we shall show them a few things. Take all the men you need, Paul, to watch their movements. That will do."
The forester lingered.
"You remember that we spoke the other day of the log house on Raccoon Creek, where the Appleweights had driven off our man?"
"Yes, Paul. It is where the state line crosses the heavy woods and the farthest outpost, so to speak, on my property. When you cross the little creek, you're in South Carolina. You said some of these Appleweight fellows had been cutting off the timber down there, if I remember rightly."
"Yes, sir," replied the forester, twirling his cap awkwardly. "But some of the people on the estate have said—"
He broke off in an embarrassment so unlike him that Jerry and Ardmore looked at him curiously.
"Well, Paul, what's the matter? If the cabin has been burned down it's no serious matter."
"Why, sir; some of the men passing there at night say they see lights and hear sounds in the cabin, though no one from the estate goes there. A child died in the house last spring and—well, you know how some of these people are!"
"Ghosts!" cried Ardmore. "The property is growing more valuable all the time! Tell them that whoever captures the ghost and brings it here shall have a handsome present. So far it's only a light in an abandoned house—is that it?"
"Well, they say it's very strange," and it was clear that the German was not wholly satisfied to have his employer laugh off the story.
"Cheer up, Paul. We have bigger business on hand than the chasing of ghosts just now. When we get through with these other things I'll go over there myself and take a look at the spook."
As Paul hurried away, Jerry seized a pen and wrote this message:
Rutherford Gillingwater,
Adjutant-General, Camp Dangerfield,
Azbell, N. C.:Move all available troops by shortest route to Kildare at once and report to me personally at Ardsley. Make no statements to newspapers. Answer.
Dangerfield,
Governor.
"I guess that will bring him running," said Ardmore, calling a servant and ordering the message despatched immediately. "But when he comes, expecting to report to the governor and finds that he isn't here, what do you suppose he will do?"
"Mr. Ardmore," began Jerry, in the tone of sweet tolerance with which one arraigns a hopeless child, "Mr. Ardmore, there are times when you tax my patience severely. You don't seem to grasp the idea that we are not making explanations to inferiors in our administration. Colonel Gillingwater will undoubtedly be a good deal surprised to get that message, but when the first shock is over he will obey the orders of his commander-in-chief. And the fact that he is ordered to report to Ardsley will not be lost on him, for he will see in that a possible social opportunity, and a chance to wear some of his uniforms that he has never worn before. He will think that papa is really here to test the efficiency of the troops, and that as papa is a guest at Ardsley, which we know he isn't, there will probably be some great social functions in this house, with papa's staff dressed up and all shiny in gold braid. Since Rutherford Gillingwater had the typhoid fever during the Spanish War I have not been sure that he is as much interested in fighting as he is in the purely circus work of being a soldier. I just now recall that when papa was about to order out the troops to stop a railroad strike last spring, Rutherford Gillingwater went to all the trouble of having tonsilitis and was so ill that he could hardly leave his room even after the strike had been settled by arbitration. If he knew that there was likely to be a terrible battle over here instead of nice long dinners and toasts to "The Old North State," "Our Governor," and "The Governor's Daughter," his old wounds, that he never had, might trouble him so that they'd have to wrap him up in cotton and carry him home."
Before luncheon a message was received from Gillingwater, to this effect:
Governor William Dangerfield,
Ardsley, N. C.:En route with our entire available force in the field. I am riding ahead with all speed, and will report at Ardsley at nine o'clock. Is full military dress de rigueur?
Gillingwater, Adjutant-General.
"Isn't that just like Rutherford! He's afraid he won't be dressy enough; but if he knew that the South Carolina troops might shoot holes in his uniform he wouldn't be due here for a couple of weeks, instead of at nine o'clock to-night;" and Jerry laughed merrily.
They debated more seriously this telegram from Collins at Raleigh sent the previous evening:
Can't maintain this bluff much longer. Even the friendly newspapers are growing suspicious. State credit jeopardized by disappearance of Treasurer Foster. Billings, of Bronx Loan and Trust, here in a great fury over bond matter. Do you know governor's whereabouts?
"Things are certainly growing more exciting," was Ardmore's comment. "I suppose even a gifted liar like Collins can't muzzle the press forever."
"You can't go on fooling all North Carolina all the time, either," said Jerry, "and I suppose when papa gets tired of being scared he will turn up in Raleigh and tell some plausible story about where he has been and what has happened. When it comes to being plausible no one can touch papa."
"Maybe he's dead," suggested Ardmore gloomily.
"That's a real inspiration on your part, Mr. Ardmore; and it's very sweet of you to mention it, but I have no idea that any harm has come to papa. It's too much trouble to get elected governor, without dying in office, and besides, papa is none too friendly with the lieutenant governor and would never think of allowing such a person to succeed him. But those bonds seem rather serious and I don't like the idea of your Mr. Billings making a fuss at Raleigh."
"That will be all right," remarked Ardmore, blotting the last of a number of telegrams which he had been writing, and pressing a button. "It's much more important for us to get Appleweight into a South Carolina jail; and it's not going to be so easy to do, now that Grissy is working on the other side, and angry at me about that scarlet fever telegram."
"There may be trouble," said Ardmore to his guests as they sat at luncheon. "But I should hate to have it said that my guests could not be taken care of here perfectly. I beg that you will all remain."
"If there's to be a row, why don't you call the police and be done with it?" asked a sad young member of the company. His motor number had so often figured in reports of speed law violations that he was known as Eighteen Eighty. "I thought you came down here for quiet and not to get into trouble, Ardy."
"If I miss my steamer nine days from to-day, and meanwhile have to eat horse meat, just as they did in the siege of Paris, I shall be greatly provoked, to say the least," remarked Mrs. Atchison pleasantly; for her brother's amazing awakening delighted her and it was a cheering experience that he promised, of civil war, battle, murder and sudden death.
"I think I shall spend more time in America after this," remarked Eighteen Eighty. "I did not know that amusing things ever happened over here. What did you say the name of this state is?"
"The name of this state," replied Miss Dangerfield, "is North Carolina, and I have my opinion of any native American who runs around Europe all the time, and who can visit a place in this country without even knowing the name of the state he is in."
"But there's really no difference between North and South Carolina, is there?" persisted Eighteen Eighty.
Jerry put down her fork, and folded her hands beside her plate, while she addressed the offender.
"Mr. Number Something, the difference between the Old North State and South Carolina is not merely geographical—it is also intellectual, ethical and spiritual. But may I ask you whether you know of which state you are a citizen?"
A laugh rose as the sad young man flushed and looked inquiringly about.
"I voted you in my precinct that time I ran for alderman in New York," said Ardmore, "but that's no sign you had a right to vote there. I shot Ballywinkle through the booth at the same time. I was a reform candidate and needed votes, but I hoped Bally would get arrested and be sent to jail. My impression is that you are really a citizen of Rhode Island, which is where Newport is."
The debate as to Eighteen Eighty's legal residence was interrupted by the arrival of a summons for Ardmore, who hurriedly left the table.
Big Paul awaited him below, mounted and holding a led-horse.
"There's a line of the South Carolina militia crawling through the woods toward Raccoon Creek. They insist that it's a practice skirmish and that they've come over here because the landscape is naturally adapted to their purposes."
"It's awfully nice of them to like my scenery. You'd better send your best man out to meet Colonel Gillingwater of the North Carolina militia, and tell him to march all his troops into the estate by the north gates, and to be in a hurry. Tell him—tell him Governor Dangerfield is anxious to have the staff present in full uniform at a grand ball at Ardsley to-night."
Ardmore rode off alone toward Raccoon Creek to catch a view of the enemy. How far would Griswold go? This question he kept debating with himself. His late friend was a lawyer and a serious one whom he had not believed capable of seizing the militia of one state and using it to make a military demonstration against another. Ardmore could go as far as Griswold; yet he was puzzled to know why Griswold was in the field at all. Miss Dangerfield's suggestion that Griswold's interest in the daughter of the governor of South Carolina accounted for his presence on the border seemed plausible at first; and yet the more he thought about it the less credible it seemed, for he was sure that Griswold had talked to him about women with the frankness that had characterized all their intercourse, and Ardmore racked his brains in his effort to recall the few affairs to which the associate professor of admiralty had pleaded guilty. Memory brought these back to him slowly. There was an Old Point Comfort affair, dating back to Griswold's student days, and to which he had referred with no little feeling once or twice; and there was a York Harbor affair, that came a little later; and there was the girl he had met on a steamer, about whom Griswold had shown sensitiveness when Ardmore had made bold to twit him. But Ardmore could not account for Miss Osborne, unless his friend had been withholding his confidence while seemingly wholly frank; and the thought that this must be true widened the breach between them. And when he was saying to himself that the daughters of governors are not in the habit of picking up cavaliers and intrusting state affairs to them and that it was almost inconceivable that the conscientious Griswold, at the busiest season at the university, should have taken employment from the governor of South Carolina, he found that he had struck a stone wall, and he confessed to himself that the situation was beyond him.
These reflections carried him far toward Raccoon Creek, and when he had reached that tortuous stream he dismounted and tied his horse, the more freely to examine the frontier. The Raccoon is never more than eighty feet wide, but filled with boulders round which the water foams in many curves and splashes, running away in the merriest ripples, so that it is never wholly tranquil. By jumping from boulder to boulder he crossed the turbulent tide and gained the other side with a sense of entering the enemy's country.
"Now," he muttered, "I am in South Carolina."
He drew out his map and held it against a tree the better to study it, reassuring himself that his own property line embraced several sections of the forest on the south side of the state boundary.
"If Grissy shoots me, it will be on my own land," he said aloud.
He cautiously followed the stream until, several hundred yards farther on, and overhanging the creek, he came upon the log cabin in which big Paul had reported the presence of a ghost. Paul's story had not interested him particularly, but now that he was in the neighborhood he resolved to visit the cabin and learn if possible how ghosts amuse themselves by day. He had thrust a revolver into his pocket before leaving the house and while he had no idea that ghosts may be shot, he now made sure that the weapon was in good order. As he sat on a log slipping the cylinder through his fingers he heard whistling farther along the creek, followed quickly by the snapping of twigs under a heavy tread, and a moment later a tall, slender man broke into view.
The stranger was dressed like a countryman, but he was unmistakably not of the Ardsley force of workmen, for these wore a rough sort of uniform. His hands were thrust carelessly into the side pockets of a gray jeans coat. They were thrust in deep, so that the coat sagged at the pockets. His trousers were turned up from a pair of rough shoes and he wore a gray flannel shirt, the collar of which was guiltless of a tie. He was smooth shaven, and carried in his mouth a short pipe, which he paused to relight when about a dozen yards from Ardmore. Then, as he held the lighted match above the pipe bowl for an instant to make sure his tobacco was burning, Ardmore jumped up and covered him with the pistol.
"I beg your pardon," said the master of Ardsley, "but you're my prisoner!"
The stranger shook the flame out of the match-stick carefully and threw it away before turning toward his captor.
"Young man," he said with perfect self-possession, "don't fool with that gun; it might go off."
His drawl was characteristic of the region; his tone was one of amused tolerance. Ardmore was short of stature, and his knickerbockers, leggings and Norfolk jacket were not wholly consonant with the revolver, which, however, he leveled very steadily at the stranger's head.