THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 . Ben B. Lindsey 
 
 b
 
 Diane of the Green Van
 
 " Excellency, at a gentleman who is not <i 
 it behoove* you to explain!'' ' l'<i<i<
 
 DIANE OF THE 
 GREEN VAN 
 
 BY 
 
 LEONA DALRYMPLE 
 
 "In Arcadie, the Land of Hearte's Desire, 
 Letle us linger whiles with Luveres fond ; 
 
 A sparklynge Comedie they play e with Fire 
 
 Unwyttynge Fate stands waytynge with hir Wande." 
 
 Illustrations by Reginald Birch 
 
 Chicago 
 The Reilly & Hritton Co.
 
 Copyright, 1914, 
 
 by 
 The Reilly & Britton Co. 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Diane of the Green Van was awarded the 
 $10,000.00 prize in a novel contest in which 
 over five hundred manuscripts were submitted
 
 55-07 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Of a Great White Bird Upon a Lake 9 
 
 II An Indoor Tempest 17 
 
 HI A Whim 24 
 
 IV The Voice of the Open Country . . 30 
 V The Phantom that Rose from the Bot 
 tle ..... 38 
 
 VI Baron Tregar 46 
 
 VII Themar 55 
 
 VIII After Sunset 60 
 
 IX In a Storm-Haunted Wood ... 64 
 
 X On the Ridge Road 68 
 
 XI In the Camp of the Gypsy Lady . 80 
 
 XII A Bullet in Arcadia 90 
 
 XIII A Woodland Guest 97 
 
 XIV By the Backwater Pool 105 
 
 XV Jokai of Vienna 113 
 
 XVI The Young Man of the Sea ... 125 
 
 XVII In Which the Baron Pays ... 131 
 
 XVIII Nomads 138 
 
 XIX A Nomadic Minstrel 151 
 
 XX The Romance of Minstrelsy . . . 157 
 
 XXI At the Gray of Dawn 162 
 
 XXII Sylvan Suitors 168 
 
 XXIII Letters 178 
 
 XXIV The Lonely Camper 183 
 
 XXV A December Snowstorm 194 
 
 11G8254
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXVI An Accounting 210 
 
 XXVII The Song of the Pine-Wood Sparrow 19 
 
 XXVIII The Nomad of the Fire-Wheel . . 225 
 
 XXIX The Black Palmer 236 
 
 XXX The Unmasking 244 
 
 XXXI The Reckoning 253 
 
 XXXII Forest Friends 261 
 
 XXXIII By the Winding Creek 269 
 
 XXXIV The Moon Above the Marsh . . .278 
 XXXV The Wind of the Okeechobee . . .284 
 
 XXXVI Under the Live Oaks 290 
 
 XXXVII In the Glades 296 
 
 XXXVIII In Philip's Wigwam 304 
 
 XXXIX Under the Wild March Moon ... 313 
 
 XL The Victory 317 
 
 XLI In Mic-co's Lodge 324 
 
 XLII The Rain Upon the Wigwam . . .333 
 
 XLIII The Rival Campers 340 
 
 XLIV The Tale of a Candlestick .... 347 
 
 XLV The Gypsy Blood 363 
 
 XLVI In the Forest 368 
 
 XLVII " The Marshes of Glynn " . . . 377 
 
 XLVIIt On the Lake Shore 388 
 
 XLIX Mr. Dorrigan 396 
 
 L The Other Candlestick .... 404 
 
 LI In the Adirondacks 411 
 
 LII Extracts from the Letters of Norman 
 
 Westfall 415 
 
 LIII By Mic-co's Pool 424 
 
 LIV On the Westfall Lake 435
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " Excellency, as a gentleman who is not a coward it 
 
 behooves you to explain." . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Diane swung lightly up the forest path. ... 80 
 White girl and Indian maid then clasped hands. 224< 
 " No, I may not take your hand." 320
 
 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OF A GREAT WHITE BIRD UPON A T,AKK 
 
 SPRING was stealing lightly over the Con 
 necticut hills, a shy, tender thing of delicate 
 green winging its way with witch-rod over the 
 wooded ridges and the sylvan paths of Diane 
 Westf all's farm. And with the spring had come 
 a great hammering by the sheepfold and the 
 stables where a smiling horde of metropolitan 
 workmen, sheltered by night in the rambling 
 old farmhouse, built an ingenious house upon 
 wheels and flirted with the house-maids. 
 
 Radiantly the spring swept from delicate shy 
 ness into a bolder glow of leaf and flower. Dog 
 wood snowed along the ridges, Solomon's seal 
 flowered thickly in the bogs, and following the 
 path to the lake one morning with Rex, a favor 
 ite St. Bernard, at her heels, Diane felt with a 
 thrill that the summer itself had come in the 
 night with a wind-flutter of wild flower and the 
 fluting of nesting birds. 
 
 The woodland was deliciously green and cool
 
 10 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 and alive with the piping of robins. Over the 
 lake which glimmered faintly through the trees 
 ahead came the whir and hum of a giant bird 
 which skimmed the lake with snowy wing and 
 came to rest like a truant gull. Of the habits of 
 this extraordinary bird Rex, barking, frankly 
 disapproved, but finding his mistress's attention 
 held unduly by a chirping, bright-winged caucus 
 of birds of inferior size and interest, he barked 
 and galloped off ahead. 
 
 When presently Diane emerged from the lake 
 path and halted on the shore, he was greatly ex 
 cited. 
 
 There was an aeroplane upon the water and 
 in the aeroplane a tall young man with consid 
 erable length of sinewy limb, lazily rolling a 
 cigarette. Diane unconsciously approved the 
 clear bronze of his lean, burned face and his eyes, 
 blue, steady, calm as the waters of the lake he 
 rode. 
 
 The aviator met her astonished glance with 
 one of laughing deference even as she marveled 
 at his genial air of staunch philosophy. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," stammered Diane, " but 
 but are you by any chance waiting to be 
 rescued ? " 
 
 " Why I - - I believe I am! " exclaimed the 
 young man readily, apparently greatly pleased
 
 Of a Great White Bird 11 
 
 at her common sense. " At your convenience, of 
 course! " 
 
 " Are you er sinking or merely there? " 
 
 " Merely here ! " nodded the young man with 
 a charming smile of reassurance. "This con 
 traption is a er I I think Dick calls it an 
 hydro-aeroplane. It has pontoons and things 
 growing all over it for duck stunts and if the 
 water wasn't so infernally still, I'd be floating 
 and smoking and likely in time I'd make shore. 
 That's a delightful pastime for you now," he 
 added with a lazy smile of the utmost good hu 
 mor, " to float and smoke on a summer day and 
 grab at the shore." 
 
 " I was under the impression," commented Di 
 ane critically, "that in an hydro-aeroplane one 
 could rise from the water like a bird. I've read 
 so recently." 
 
 "One can," smiled the shipwrecked philoso 
 pher readily, " provided his motor isn't deaf and 
 dumb and insanely indifferent to suggestion. 
 When it grows shy and silent, one swims eventu 
 ally and drips home, unless a dog barks and a 
 rescuer emerges from the trees equipped with 
 sympathy and common sense. I've a mechani 
 cian back there," he added sociably. "He he's 
 in a tree, I think. I er mislaid him in a very 
 dangerous air current."
 
 12 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " Are you aware," inquired the girl, biting her 
 lip, "that you're trespassing?" 
 
 "Lord, no!" exclaimed the aviator. "You 
 don't mean it. Have you by any chance a repu 
 table rope anywhere about you? " 
 
 " No," said Diane maliciously, " I haven't. As 
 a rule, I do go about equipped with ropes and 
 hooks and things to rescue trespassing hydro- 
 aviators, but " she regarded him thoughtfully. 
 " Do you like to float about and smoke? " 
 
 The sun-browned skin of the young aviator 
 reddened a trifle, but his eyes laughed. 
 
 " I'm an incurable optimist," he lightly coun 
 tered, " or I wouldn't have tried to fly over a 
 private lake in a borrowed aeroplane." 
 
 " I believe," said Diane disapprovingly, " that 
 you were cutting giddy circles over the water and 
 dipping and skimming, weren't you?" 
 
 "I did cut a monkeyshine or two," admitted 
 the young man. " I was having a devil of a time 
 until you until the er catastrophe oc 
 curred." 
 
 " And Miss West fall, the owner," murmured 
 Diane with sympathy, "is addicted to firearms. 
 Hadn't you heard? She hunts! The Westfalls 
 are all very erratic and quick-tempered. Didn't 
 you know she was at the farm? " 
 
 The young man looked exceedingly uncom 
 fortable.
 
 Of a Great White Bird 13 
 
 " Great guns, no ! " he exclaimed. " I pre 
 sumed she was safe in New York. . . . And 
 this is her lake and her water and her waves, when 
 there are any, and no matter how I engineer it, 
 I've got to poach some of her property. Some 
 of it," he added conversationally, " is in my shoe. 
 Lord, I am in a pickle! Are you a guest of 
 hers?" 
 
 " Yes," said Diane calmly. 
 
 " I'm staying over yonder on the hill there with 
 
 Dick Sherrill," offered the young man cordially. 
 
 ' They are opening their place with a party of 
 
 men, some crack amateur aviators and myself. 
 
 Do you know the Sherrills ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I do," said Diane discouragingly. 
 ' Why didn't you float about and smoke on Mr. 
 Sherrill's lake? " she added curiously. " It's ever 
 so much bigger than this." 
 
 " Circumstances," began the young man with 
 dignity, and lighted another cigarette. " My 
 mechanician," he added volubly, after an uncom 
 fortable interval of silence, " is an exceedingly 
 bold young man. He'll fly over anything, even 
 a cow. Isn't really mine either; he's borrowed, 
 too. Dick keeps a few extra mechanicians on 
 hand, like extra cigars. It's Dick's fault I'm out 
 alone. He lent my mechanician to another chap 
 and nobody else would come with me." 
 
 "I thought," flashed Diane pointedly, "I
 
 14 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 thought your mechanician was somewhere in a 
 tree." 
 
 The aviator coughed and reddened uncom 
 fortably. 
 
 "Doubtless he is," he said lamely. "He he 
 most always is. Do you know, he spends a large 
 part of his spare time in trees and swamps - 
 and once, I believe, he was discovered in a chim 
 ney. I - - I'd like to tell you more about him," 
 he went on affably. " Once - 
 
 ' Thank you," said Diane politely, " but you've 
 really entertained me more now than one could 
 expect from a gentleman in your distressing 
 plight. Come, Rex." She turned back again at 
 the hemlocks which flanked the forest path. 
 " I'll ask Miss Westfall to send some men," she 
 added and halted. 
 
 For Diane had surprised a look of such keen 
 regret in the young aviator's face that they both 
 colored hotly. 
 
 " Beastly luck ! " stammered the young man 
 lamely. " I am disappointed. I - - 1 don't seem 
 to have another match." 
 
 " Your cigarette is burning splendidly," hinted 
 Diane coolly, " and you've a match in your 
 hand." 
 
 For a tense, magnetic instant the keen blue 
 eyes flashed a curious message of pleading and 
 apology, then the aviator fell to whistling softly,
 
 Of a Great White Bird 15 
 
 struck the match and finding no immediate func 
 tion for it, dropped it in the water. 
 
 " I don't in the least mind floating about," he 
 stammered, his eyes sparkling with silent laugh 
 ter, "and possibly I'll make shore directly; but 
 Lord love us! don't send the sharp-shooteress 
 please ! Better abandon me to my fate." 
 
 Slim and straight as the silver birches by the 
 water, Diane hurried away up the lake-path. 
 
 " The young man," she flashed with a stamp 
 of her foot, " is a very great fool." 
 
 " Johnny," she said a little later to a little, be- 
 whiskered man with cheeks like hard red winter 
 apples, " there's a sociable, happy-go-lucky 
 young man perched on an aeroplane in the mid 
 dle of our lake. Better take a rope and rescue 
 him. I don't think he knows enough about aero 
 planes to be flying so promiscuously about the 
 country." 
 
 Johnny Jutes collected a band of enthusiasts 
 and departed. 
 
 " Nobody there, Miss Diane," reported young 
 Allan Carmody upon returning; "leastwise no 
 body that couldn't take care of himself. Only 
 a chap buzzin' almighty swift over the trees. 
 Swooped down like a hawk when he saw us an' 
 waved his hand, laughin' fit to kill himself, an' 
 dropped Johnny a fiver an' gee! Miss Diane, 
 but he could drive some! Swift and cool-headed
 
 16 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 as a bird. He's whizzin' off like mad toward 
 the Sherrill place, with his motor a-hummin' an' 
 a-purrin' like a cat. Leanish, sunburnt chap 
 with eyes that 'pear to be laughin' a lot." 
 
 Diane's eyes flashed resentfully and as she 
 walked away to the house her expression was 
 distinctly thoughtful.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AN INDOOR TEMPEST 
 
 "TF YOU'RE broke," said Starrett, leering, 
 
 * " why don't you marry your cousin? " 
 
 Carl Cranberry stared insolently across the 
 table. 
 
 " Pass the buck," he reminded coolly. " And 
 pour yourself some more whiskey. You're only 
 a gentleman when you're drunk, Starrett. You're 
 sober now." 
 
 Payson and Wherry laughed. Starrett, not 
 yet in the wine-flush of his heavy courtesy, 
 passed the buck with a frown of annoyance. 
 
 A log blazed in the library fireplace, staining 
 with warm, rich shadows the square-paneled 
 ceiling of oak and the huge war-beaten slab of 
 table-wood about which the men were gathered, 
 both feudal relics brought to the New York home 
 of Carl Cranberry's uncle from a ruined castle 
 in Spain. 
 
 "If you've gone through all your money," 
 resumed Starrett offensively, "I'd marry 
 Diane." 
 
 "Miss Westfall!" purred Carl correctively. 
 'You've forgotten, Starrett, my cousin's name 
 is Westfall, Miss Westfall." 
 
 17
 
 18 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Diane!" persisted Starrett. 
 
 With one of his incomprehensible whims, Carl 
 swept the cards into a disorderly heap and 
 shrugged. 
 
 " I'm through," he said curtly. " Wherry, take 
 the pot. You need it." 
 
 "Damned irregular!" snapped Starrett 
 sourly. 
 
 "So?" said Carl, and stared the recalcitrant 
 into sullen silence. Rising, he crossed to the 
 fire, his dark, impudent eyes lingering reflectively 
 upon Starrett's moody face. 
 
 " Starrett," he mused, " I wonder what I ever 
 saw in you anyway. You're infernally shallow 
 and alcoholic and your notions of poker are as 
 distorted as your morals. I'm not sure but I 
 think you'd cheat." He shrugged wearily. " Get 
 out," he said collectively. " I'm tired." 
 
 Starrett rose, sneering. There had been a 
 subtle change to-night in his customary attitude 
 of parasitic good-fellowship. 
 
 "I'm tired, too! ".he exclaimed viciously. 
 "Tired of your infernal whims and insults. 
 You're as full of inconsistencies as a lunatic. 
 When you ought to be insulted, you laugh, and 
 when a fellow least expects it, you blaze and 
 rave and stare him out of countenance. And 
 I'm tired of drifting in here nights at your beck 
 and call, to be sent home like a kid when your
 
 An Indoor Tempest 19 
 
 mood changes. Mighty amusing for us! If 
 you're not vivisecting our lives and characters 
 for us in that impudent, philosophical way you 
 have, you're preaching a sermon that you couldn't 
 and wouldn't follow yourself. And then you 
 end by messing everybody's cards in a heap and 
 sending us home with the last pot in Dick Wher 
 ry's pocket whether it belongs there or not. I 
 tell you, I'm tired of it." 
 
 Carl laughed, a singularly musical laugh with 
 a note of mockery in it. 
 
 "Who," he demanded elaborately, "who ever 
 heard of a treasonous barnacle before? A bar 
 nacle, Starrett, adheres and adheres, parasite to 
 the end as long as there's liquid, even as you 
 adhered while the ship was keeled in gold. Nev 
 ertheless, you're right. I'm all of what you say 
 and more that you haven't brains enough to 
 fathom. And some that you can't fathom is to 
 my credit and some of it isn't. As, for in 
 stance, my inexplicable poker penchant for you." 
 
 To Starrett, hot of temper and impulse, his 
 graceful mockery was maddening. Cursing 
 under his breath, he seized a glass and flung it 
 furiously at his host, who laughed and moved 
 aside with the litheness of a panther. The glass 
 crashed into fragments upon the wall of the 
 marble fireplace. Payson and Wherry hurriedly
 
 20 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 pushed back their chairs. Then, suddenly con 
 scious of a rustle in the doorway, they all turned. 
 
 Wide dark eyes flashing with contempt, Diane 
 Westfall stood motionless upon the threshold. 
 The aesthete in Carl thrilled irresistibly to her 
 vivid beauty, intensified to-night by the angry 
 flame in her cheeks and the curling scarlet of her 
 lips. There were no semi-tones in Diane's dark 
 beauty, Carl reflected. It was a thing of sable 
 and scarlet, and the gold-brown satin of her 
 gypsy skin was warm with the tints of an autumn 
 forest. Carelessly at his ease, Carl noted how 
 the bold eyes of the painted Spanish grandee 
 above the mantel, the mild eyes of the saint in 
 the Tintoretto panel across the room and the 
 flashing eyes of Diane seemed oddly to converge 
 to a common center which was Starrett, white 
 and ill at ease. And of these the eyes of Diane 
 were loveliest. 
 
 With the swift grace which to Carl's eyes 
 always bore in it something of the primitive, 
 Diane swept away, and the staring tableau dis 
 solved into a trio of discomfited men of whom 
 Carl seemed but an indifferent onlooker. 
 
 "Well," fumed Starrett irritably, "why in 
 thunder don't you say something?" 
 
 " Permit me," drawled Carl impudently, with 
 a lazy flicker of his lashes, " to apologize for my 
 cousin's untimely intrusion. I really fancied she
 
 An Indoor Tempest 21 
 
 was safe at the farm. Unfortunately, the house 
 belongs to her. Besides, your crystal gymnas 
 tics, Starrett, were as unscheduled as her arrival. 
 As it is, you've nobly demonstrated an unalter 
 able scientific fact. The collision of marble and 
 glass is unvaryingly eventful." 
 
 Bellowing indignantly, Starrett charged into 
 the hallway, followed by Payson. Presently the 
 outer door slammed violently behind them. 
 Wherry lingered. 
 
 Carl glanced curiously at his flushed and boy 
 ish face. 
 
 "Well?" he queried lightly. 
 
 Wherry colored. 
 
 "Carl," he stammered, "you've been talking 
 a lot about parasites to-night and I'd like you 
 to know that money hasn't made a jot of dif 
 ference to me." He met Carl's laughing glance 
 with dogged directness and for a second some 
 thing flamed boyishly in his face from which 
 Carl, frowning, turned away. 
 
 "Why don't you break away from this sort 
 of thing, Dick?" he demanded irritably. "Star 
 rett and myself and all the rest of it. You're 
 sapping the splendid fires of your youth and 
 inherent decency in unholy furnaces. Yes, I 
 know Starrett drags you about with him and 
 you daren't offend him because he's your chief, 
 but you're clever and you can get another job.
 
 22 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 In ten years, as you're going now, you'll be an 
 alcoholic ash-heap of jaded passions. What's 
 more, you have infernal luck at cards and you 
 haven't money enough to keep on losing so heav 
 ily. Half of the poker sermons Starrett's been 
 growling about were preached for you." 
 
 Now there were mad, irreverent moments when 
 Carl Cranberry delivered his poker sermons with 
 the eloquent mannerisms of the pulpit, save, as 
 Payson held, they were infinitely more logical 
 and eloquent, but to-night, husking his logic of 
 these externals, he fell flatly to preaching an un 
 adorned philosophy of continence acutely at vari 
 ance with his own habits. 
 
 Wherry stared wonderingly at the tall, lithe 
 figure by the fire. 
 
 " Carl," he said at last, " tell me, are you hon 
 estly in earnest when you rag the fellows so 
 about work and decency and all that sort of 
 thing?" 
 
 Carl yawned and lighted a cigar. 
 
 "I believe," said he, "in the eternal efficacy 
 of good. I believe in the telepathic potency of 
 moral force. I believe in physical conservation 
 for the eugenic good of the race and mental dom 
 inance over matter. But I'm infernally lazy my 
 self, and it's easy to preach. It's even easier to 
 create a counter-philosophy of condonance and 
 individualism, and I'm alternately an ethical ego-
 
 An Indoor Tempest 23 
 
 1st, a Fabian socialist and a cynic. Moreover, I'm 
 a creature of whims and inconsistencies and 
 there are black nights in my temperament when 
 John Barleycorn lightens the gloom; and there 
 are other nights when he treacherously deepens 
 it but I'm peculiarly balanced and subject to 
 irresistible fits of moral atrophy. All of which 
 has nothing at all to do with the soundness of 
 my impersonal philosophy. Wherefore," with 
 a flash of his easy impudence, " when I preach, I 
 mean it for the other fellow." 
 
 Wherry glanced at the handsome face of his 
 erratic friend with frank allegiance in his eyes. 
 
 Carl flung his cigar into the fire, poured him 
 self some whiskey and pushed the decanter across 
 the table. 
 
 " Have a drink," he said whimsically. 
 
 Dick obeyed. It was an inconsistent supple 
 ment to the sermon but characteristic. 
 
 "Carl," he said, flushing under the ironical 
 battery of the other's eyes, " I don't think I un 
 derstand you- 
 
 Carl laughed. 
 
 " Nobody does," he said. " I don't myself."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A WHIM 
 
 THE fire in the marble fireplace died down, 
 leaping in fitful shadow over the iron- 
 bound doors riveted in nail-heads. They too were 
 relics from the Spanish castle which Norman 
 Westfall had stripped of its ancient appurte 
 nances to fashion an appropriate setting for the 
 beautiful young Spanish wife whose death at 
 the birth of Diane had goaded him to suicide. 
 That Norman Westfall had regarded the vital 
 spark within him as an indifferent thing to be 
 snuffed out at the will of the clay it dominated, 
 was consistent with the Westfall intolerance of 
 custom and convention. 
 
 By the fire Carl smoked and stared at the dying 
 embers. For all his insolent habit of dominance 
 and mockery he was keenly sensitive and to-night 
 the significant defection of Starrett and Pay- 
 son after months of sycophantic friendship, had 
 made him quiver inwardly like a hurt child. Only 
 Wherry had stayed with him when his career 
 of reckless expenditure had arrived at its inev 
 itable goal of ruin. 
 
 There remained, financially, what? Barely 
 
 24
 
 A Whim 25 
 
 four thousand a year in securities so iron-bound 
 by his mother's will that he could not touch them. 
 
 Black resentment flamed hotly up in his heart 
 at the memory of the Westfall custom of willing 
 the bulk of the great estate to the oldest son. It 
 had left his mother with a patrimony which Carl, 
 inheriting, had chosen contemptuously to regard 
 as a dwarfish thing of gold sufficient only for 
 the heedless purchase of one flaming, brilliant 
 hour of life. That husbanded it might purchase 
 a lifetime of gray hours tinged intermittently 
 with rose or crimson, Carl had dismissed with a 
 cynical laugh, quoting Omar Khayyam. 
 
 Starrett had sneeringly suggested that, to rem 
 edy his fallen fortunes he might marry Diane ! 
 Carl laughed softly but recalling suddenly how 
 Diane had looked as she stood in the doorway, 
 the flame of her honest anger setting off her prim 
 itive grace, he frowned thoughtfully at the fire, 
 swayed by one of the mad, reckless whims which 
 frequently rocketed through his brain to heed 
 less consummation. Wherefore he presently dis 
 patched a servant to Diane with a note scribbled 
 carelessly upon the face of the ace of diamonds. 
 
 "May I see you?" it ran. "I am still in the 
 library. If you like, I'll come up." 
 
 She came to the library, frankly surprised. 
 Carl rarely saw fit to apologize or seek advice. 
 
 With his ready gallantry, habitually colored
 
 26 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 by a subtle sex-mockery, Carl rose, drew a cliair 
 for her and leaned against the mantel, smiling. 
 
 " I'm sorry," said he civilly, " I'm sorry Star- 
 rett so far forgot himself." 
 
 " So am I," said Diane. " Bacchanalian tab- 
 leaus are not at all to my liking." 
 
 " Nor mine," admitted Carl. " As an aesthete 
 I must own that Starrett is too fat for a really 
 graceful villain. I fancied you were indefinitely 
 domiciled at the farm. Aunt Agatha has been 
 fussing " 
 
 "I was," nodded Diane. "A whim of mine 
 brought me home." 
 
 Carl dropped easily into a chair and glanced at 
 his cousin's profile. The delicate oval of her 
 face was firelit ; her night-black hair one with the 
 deeper shadows of the room. There was mystery 
 in the lovely dusk of Diane's eyes and discon 
 tent and something mute and wistful crying 
 for expression. 
 
 " I've a proposition to make," said Carl lightly. 
 "It's partly commercial, partly belated justice, 
 partly eugenic and partly personal." 
 
 'Your money is quite gone, is it not?" asked 
 Diane, raising finely arched expressive eyebrows. 
 
 " It is," admitted Carl ruefully. " My career 
 as a bibulous meteor is over. Last night, after 
 an exquisite shower of golden fire, I came tum 
 bling to earth in the fashion of meteors, n disil-
 
 A Whim 27 
 
 lusioned stone. In other words stone broke. 
 May I smoke?" 
 
 "Assuredly." 
 
 Carl lighted a cigarette. 
 
 "And the proposition which is at the same 
 time commercial, eugenic and er personal?" 
 reminded Diane curiously. Carl ignored the deli 
 cate note of sarcasm. 
 
 " It is merely," he said with a flash of impu 
 dence, " that you will marry me." 
 
 Diane's eyes widened. 
 
 "How frankly commercial!" she murmured. 
 
 "Isn't it?" said Carl. "And an excellent op 
 portunity for belated justice as well. My mother, 
 save for our infernal Salic law of inheritance, 
 was entitled to half the Westfall estate." 
 
 Diane stared curiously at the fire-rimmed hem 
 of her satin skirt. There was something of Carl's 
 lazy impudence in the arch of her eyebrows. 
 
 " There yet remains the eugenic inducement 
 and, I believe, a personal one! " she hinted. 
 
 "Thank heaven," exclaimed Carl devoutly, 
 "that we're both logicians. The eugenic con 
 sideration is that by birth and brains and breed 
 ing I am your logical mate." 
 
 Diane's eyes flashed with swift contempt. 
 
 " Birth ! " she repeated. 
 
 The black demon of ungovernable temper 
 leaped brutally from Carl's eyes. Leaning for-
 
 28 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ward he caught the girl's hands in a vicious grip 
 that hurt her cruelly though for all her swift 
 color she did not flinch. 
 
 "Listen, Diane," he said, his face very white; 
 " if there is one thing in this rotten world of cus 
 tom and convention and immoral morality which 
 I honestly respect, it is the memory of my mother. 
 Therefore you will please abstain from contemp 
 tuous reference to her by look or word." 
 
 Diane met the clear, compelling rebuke of his 
 fine eyes with unwavering directness. 
 
 " My mother," said Carl steadily, " was a fine, 
 big, splendid woman, unconventional like all the 
 Westfalls, and a century ahead of her time. 
 Moreover, she had a code of morality quite her 
 own. If Aunt Agatha's shocked sensibilities had 
 not eliminated her from your life so early, con 
 tact with her broad understanding of things would 
 have tempered your sex insularity." He glanced 
 pityingly at Diane. * You've fire and vision, 
 Diane," he said bluntly, "but you're intolerant. 
 It's a Westf all trait." He laughed softly. "How 
 scornfully you used to laugh and jeer at boys, 
 because you were swifter of foot and keener of 
 vision than any of them, because you could leap 
 and run and swim like a wild thing! Intolerance 
 again, Diane, even as a youngster!" 
 
 He rose restlessly, smiling down at her with 
 a lazy expression of deference in his eyes. 
 "Wonderful, beautiful lady of fire and
 
 A Whim 29 
 
 ebony! " he said gently, with a bewildering change 
 of mood which brought the vivid color to Diane's 
 dark cheek. " There's the wild, sweet wine of the 
 forest in your very blood! And it's always 
 calling!" 
 
 'Yes," nodded Diane wistfully, "it's always 
 calling. How did you know?" 
 
 "By the wizardry of eye and intuition!" he 
 laughed lightly. "And the personal considera 
 tion," he added pleasantly; " we've come at last to 
 that." 
 
 A tide of color swept brightly over Diane's face. 
 
 " Surely, Carl," she exclaimed with a swift, 
 level glance, " you don't mean that you care? " 
 
 " No," said Carl honestly, " I don't. I mean 
 just this. Will you permit me to care ? To-night 
 as you stood there in the doorway I knew for the 
 first time that, if I chose, I could love you very 
 greatly." 
 
 "Love isn't like that," flashed Diane. "It 
 comes unbidden." 
 
 " To different natures come different dawnings 
 of the immortal white fire ! " shrugged Carl. " My 
 love will be largely a matter of will. I'm armored 
 heavily." 
 
 " For a golden key ! " scoffed Diane, rising. 
 
 " Ah, well," said Carl impudently, " it was well 
 worth a try! I'm sure I could love with all the 
 fiery appurtenances of the Devil himself if I shed 
 the armor."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE OPEN COUNTBY 
 
 " A UNT Agatha!" Diane rapped lightly at 
 
 ^T\. her aunt's bedroom door. "Are you 
 asleep?" 
 
 "No, no indeed!" puffed Aunt Agatha for 
 lornly. " Certainly not. When in the world did 
 you come back from the farm, child? I've wor 
 ried so ! And like you, too, to come back as unex 
 pectedly as you went." She opened the door 
 wider for her niece to enter. " But as for sleep, 
 Diane, I hope I'm not as callous as that. I shan't 
 sleep a wink to-night, I'm sure of it." 
 
 Aunt Agatha dabbed ineffectually at her 
 round, aggrieved eyes. 
 
 " Carl's a terrible responsibility for me, Diane," 
 she went on, " though to be sure there have been 
 wild nights when I've put cotton in my ears and 
 locked the door and if I'd only remembered to do 
 that I wouldn't have heard the glass crash one 
 of the Florentine set, too, I haven't the ghost 
 of a doubt. I feel those things, Diane. Mamma, 
 too, had a gift of feeling things she didn't know 
 for sure mamma did! and the servants talk 
 of course they do! who wouldn't? I must 
 
 so
 
 The Voice of the Open Country 31 
 
 say, though, Carl's always kind to me ; I will say 
 that for him but " 
 
 The excellent lady whose mental convolutions 
 permitted her to speculate wildly in words with 
 the least possible investment of ideas, rambled 
 by serpentine paths of complaint to a conversa 
 tional cul-de-sac and trailed off in a tragic sniff. 
 
 Diane resolutely smothered her impatience. 
 
 "I I only ran down overnight, Aunt 
 Agatha," she said, "to to tell you some 
 thing'* 
 
 'You can't mean it!" puffed Aunt Agatha 
 helplessly. "What in the world are you going 
 back to the farm for? Dear me, Diane, you're 
 growing notional and farms are very damp in 
 spring." 
 
 Diane walked away to the window and stood 
 staring thoughtfully out at the metropolitan glit 
 ter of lights beyond. 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Agatha!" she exclaimed restlessly, 
 "you can't imagine how very tired I grow of it 
 all of lights and cities and restaurants and 
 everything artificial ! Surely these city days and 
 nights of silly frivolity are only the froth of life ! 
 Have you ever longed to sleep in the woods," she 
 added abruptly, "with stars twinkling overhead 
 and the moonlight showering softly through the 
 trees?" 
 
 "I'm very sure I never have!" said Aunt
 
 32 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Agatha with considerable decision. " And it's 
 not at all likely I ever shall. There are bugs and 
 things," she added vaguely, "and snakes that 
 wriggle about." 
 
 "I've always wanted to lie and dream by a 
 camp fire," mused Diane, unconscious of a cer 
 tain startled flutter of Aunt Agatha's dressing 
 gown, " to hear the wind rising in the forest and 
 the lap of the lake against the shore." She 
 wheeled abruptly, her eyes bright with excite 
 ment. " And I'm going to try it." 
 
 "To sleep by a lake in springtime!" gasped 
 Aunt Agatha in great distress. " Diane, I beg of 
 you, don't do it ! I once knew a man who slept out 
 somewhere such a nice man, too! and some 
 thing bit him a heron, I think, or a herring. 
 No! It couldn't have been either. Isn't it funny 
 how I do forget ! Strangest thing! But to sleep 
 by a lake in springtime, think of that ! " 
 
 "Oh, no, no, no, Aunt Agatha!" laughed 
 Diane. " I didn't mean quite that. I'm merely 
 going back to the Glade farm to-morrow to 
 she glanced with furtive uncertainty at her aunt 
 and halted. " Aunt Agatha, I've been planning 
 a gypsy cart! There! It's out at last and I 
 dreaded the telling! When the summer comes, 
 I'm going to travel about in my wonderful house 
 on wheels and live in the free, wild, open 
 country!"
 
 The Voice of the Open Country 33 
 
 "I can't believe itl" said Aunt Agatha, star 
 ing. "I can't I won't believe it!" 
 
 "Don't be a goose!" begged the girl happily. 
 "All winter the voice of the open country has 
 been calling calling ! There's quicksilver in my 
 veins. See, Aunt Agatha, see the spring moon 
 the ' Planting Moon ' an Indian girl I used to 
 know in college called it ! How gloriously it must 
 be shining over silent woods and lakes, flashing 
 silver on the pines and the ripples by the shore. 
 And the sea, the great, wide, beautiful, mysterious 
 sea droning under a million stars!" 
 
 "Think of that!" breathed Aunt Agatha in 
 credulously. " A million stars ! I can't believe it. 
 But dear me, Diane, there are seas and stars and 
 moons and things right here in New York." 
 
 With a swift flash of tenderness Diane 
 slipped her arm about Aunt Agatha's perturbed 
 shoulders. 
 
 'You're not going to mind at all!" she whee 
 dled gently. " I'm sure of it. I'd have to go any 
 way. It's in my blood like the hint of summer in 
 the air to-night." 
 
 Aunt Agatha merely stared. The Westfalls 
 were congenital enigmas. 
 
 " A gypsy cart ! " she gurgled presently, rising 
 phoenix-like at last from a dumb-struck supine- 
 ness. "A gypsy cart! Well! A wheelbarrow
 
 84 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 wouldn't have surprised me more, Diane, a wheel 
 barrow with a motor 1 " 
 
 "Don't you remember Mrs. Jarley's wagon?" 
 reminded Diane. " It had windows and cur 
 tains" 
 
 " Surely," broke in Aunt Agatha with strained 
 dignity, " you're not going in for waxworks like 
 Mrs. Jarley!" 
 
 "Dear, no!" laughed Diane, with a sparkle of 
 amusement in her eyes. " There are so many wild 
 flowers and birds and legends to study I shouldn't 
 have time!" 
 
 "Great heavens," murmured Aunt Agatha 
 faintly, " my ears have gone queer like mother's." 
 
 "And maybe I'll not be back for a year," 
 offered Diane calmly. "I can work south 
 through the winter " 
 
 Aunt Agatha fell tragically back in her chair 
 and gasped. 
 
 "Didn't we take a whole year to motor over 
 Europe? " demanded Diane impetuously. " And 
 that was nothing like so fascinating as my gypsy 
 house on wheels." 
 
 " If I could only have looked ahead ! " breathed 
 Aunt Agatha, shuddering. "If only I could have 
 foreseen what notions you and Carl were fated 
 to take in your heads, I'd have refused your 
 grandfather's legacy. I would indeed. Here I 
 no more than get Carl safely home from hunting
 
 The Voice of the Open Country 35 
 
 Esquimaux or whatever it was up there by the 
 North Pole walravens, wasn't it, Diane? 
 well, walrus then ! than you decide to become 
 a gypsy and sleep by a lake in springtime under 
 a planting moon and stay outdoors all winter, 
 collecting birds, when I fancied you were safely 
 launched in society until you were married." 
 
 "But Aunt Agatha," flashed the girl, "I'm 
 not at all anxious to marry." 
 
 Aunt Agatha burst into a calamitous shower of 
 tears. 
 
 " Aunt Agatha," said Diane kindly, " why not 
 remember that you're no longer burdened with the 
 terrible responsibility of bringing Carl and me 
 up? We're both mature, responsible beings." 
 
 Aunt Agatha dabbed defiantly at her eyes. 
 
 " Well," she said flatly, " I shan't worry, I just 
 shan't. I'm past that. There was a time, but at 
 my time of life I just can't afford it. You can do 
 as you please. You can go shoot alligators if you 
 want to, Diane, I shan't interpose another objec 
 tion. But the trials that I've endured in my life 
 through the Westfalls, nobody knows. I was a 
 cheerful, happy person until I knew the West- 
 falls. And your father was notional too. I was 
 a Gregg, Diane, until I married your uncle he 
 wasn't really your uncle, but a sort of cousin 
 and the Greggs, thank heavens! are mild and 
 quiet and never wander about. Dear me, if a
 
 36 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Gregg should take to sleeping by a lake in spring 
 time under a planting moon, I would be surprised, 
 I would indeed ! There was only one in our whole 
 family who ever galloped about to any extent 
 Uncle Peter Gregg and you really couldn't 
 blame him. Bulls were perpetually running into 
 him, and once he fell overboard and a whale chased 
 him to shore. Isn't it funny? Strangest thing! 
 But there, Diane, I wonder your poor dear grand 
 father doesn't turn straight over in his grave 
 I do indeed. Many and many a time your poor 
 father tried him sorely and Carl's mother too." 
 Aunt Agatha sniffed meekly. 
 
 "Will you go alone?" she ventured, wiping 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Bless your heart, Aunt Agatha, no ! " laughed 
 Diane radiantly. " I'm going to take old Johnny 
 Jutes with me!" 
 
 Diane kissed her aunt lightly on the forehead. 
 
 " Well," said Aunt Agatha in melancholy resig 
 nation, "if you must turn gypsy, my dear, and 
 wander about the country, Johnny Jutes is the 
 best one to go along. He's old and faithful and 
 used to your whims and surely after thirty years 
 of service, he won't break into tantrums." 
 
 Silver-sweet through the quiet house came the 
 careless ripple of a flute, showering light and 
 sensuous music. There was a dare-devil lilt and
 
 The Voice of the Open Country 37 
 
 sway to the flippant strains and Aunt Agatha 
 covered her face with her hands. 
 
 " Oh, Diane," she whispered, shuddering, 
 "when he plays like that he drinks and drinks 
 and drinks until morning." 
 
 " Poor Aunt Agatha! " said the girl pityingly. 
 " What troublesome folk we Westf alls are ! And 
 I no less than Carl." 
 
 " No, no, my dear! " murmured Aunt Agatha. 
 "It's only when Carl plays like that that I 
 grow afraid." 
 
 Aunt Agatha went to bed to listen tremblingly 
 while the dare-devil dance of the flute tripped 
 ghostlike through the corridors. And falling 
 asleep with the laughing demon of wind and 
 melody cascading wildly through the mad scene 
 from Lucia, she dreamt that Carl had captured 
 an Esquimau with his flute and weaving a suit 
 of basket armor for him, had dispatched him by 
 aeroplane to lead Diane's gypsy cart into the 
 Everglades of Florida, the home-state of Nor 
 man Westf all until his ill-fated marriage.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PHANTOM THAT ROSE FKOM 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 phil 
 osophy 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 in 
 cense into a nebulous wraith of gigantic propor 
 tions. 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 gro- 
 tesquerie, 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- 
 
 38
 
 The Phantom from the Bottle 39 
 
 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 revela 
 tion, "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
 
 40 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the call of passion ; then the love-hunger for a per 
 fect 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 room 
 mate at Yale. And Philip's lazy voice somehow 
 floated from the fire to-night. 
 
 " Carl," he had said, " you've bigger individual
 
 The Phantom from the Bottle 41 
 
 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 un 
 governable 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 persis 
 tence. 
 
 Four o'clock and the log dying! The city out 
 side 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 can 
 dled branches in the fire. Where the log broke
 
 42 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 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 re 
 ceptacle below the branches ... a charred 
 paper. Well, there was always some insane 
 whim of Norman WestfalTs coming to light 
 somewhere and this doubtless was one of them. 
 
 The paper was very old and yellow, the hand 
 writing 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
 
 The Phantom from the Bottle 43 
 
 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 super 
 human 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 gal 
 loping 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 moun 
 tains. Houdania! yes that was it of course. 
 Houdania! A Lilliputian monarchy of ardent 
 patriots. There had been a flaming sunset be 
 hind 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
 
 44 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 mountain, a gray and lonely monastery had of 
 fered 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 quanti 
 ties 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 con-
 
 The Phantom from the Bottle 45 
 
 flict 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 glitter 
 ing 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 unend 
 ing, romance and passion, treachery and irony 
 blood and the shadow of Death.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BARON TREGAE 
 
 LILAC and wistaria flowered royally. Car 
 penter, 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 Aga 
 tha 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." 
 
 46
 
 Baron Tregar 47 
 
 The boy shifted a slim, bare leg and sniggered. 
 
 " Miss Westf all," 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-f ollerin' 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 ca 
 lamitous possibilities of the journey. 
 
 But the restless young nomad on the road 
 ahead, sniffing the rare, sweet air of early sum 
 mer, 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
 
 48 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 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 mead- 
 owlands 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. Star 
 ing 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 nar 
 rowed, thoughtful eyes, unaware that his 
 companion's eyes had wandered somewhat ex 
 pectantly to the Westfall lake. 
 
 "Baron Tregar!" whispered Ann Sherrill in 
 a remote corner of the veranda to a girl she had
 
 Baron Tregar 49 
 
 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 1" 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 re 
 fused 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
 
 50 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 huffily to some ridiculous little mountain king 
 dom in Europe that he was awfully keen about 
 Houdania and rented himself out as a secre 
 tary 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 grand 
 father 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 com 
 fortably, ' 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 re-
 
 Baron Tregar 51 
 
 garding as a private den of work and consulta 
 tion 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 con 
 cerns 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 arous 
 ing undue interest, requires, I think, an Ameri 
 can of brains and breeding, a compatriot of the
 
 52 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 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 activ 
 ities 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 with 
 out immediate significance to the lady herself, I 
 am sure that you will not feel bound to withhold 
 your hum your cooperation 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 Westf all Diane Westfall." 
 
 "Impossible!" exclaimed Philip and savagely 
 bit his lip. 
 
 " Ah, then you know the lady ! " said the Baron 
 softly.
 
 Baron Tregar 53 
 
 " 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 slen 
 der 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.
 
 54 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "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 inval 
 uable." 
 
 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 
 
 door which led into the Baron's bedroom 
 J. 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 con 
 tents of a paper which lay uppermost in the 
 drawer of a small portable desk. 
 
 Catlike, Philip stole across the room. The- 
 mar'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 un 
 consciously 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, 
 
 55
 
 56 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 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 desper 
 ately, " I found it this morning on the rug." 
 
 "But," purred the Baron, "why seek a key 
 hole?" 
 
 Themar's dark face was ashen.
 
 Themar 57 
 
 Philip, with a wholesome distaste for scenes, 
 slipped away. 
 
 "Excellency," burst forth Themar passion 
 ately 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 una 
 ware of our peculiar relations. He is laboring at 
 present under the necessary delusion that your 
 arrival here was entirely the result of my fastid 
 ious 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 Eng 
 lish makes you an invaluable ally and one not 
 easily replaced I would send you back to Hou- 
 dania disgraced ! As it is, we are hedged about
 
 58 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 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. "More 
 over," he added icily, " you will confine your pro 
 fessional attentions to the other sex. You are 
 sure about the paper?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 * Your trip to Xew York last night was hum 
 uneventful?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 Themar 59 
 
 'You will go again to-night?" 
 
 " It is unnecessary. Cranberry is at the West- 
 fall 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 val 
 ley, 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 gath 
 ering 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 hiero- 
 glyphical 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 uncom- 
 
 60
 
 After Sunset 61 
 
 fortably 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 com 
 panion of your extraordinary reticence and dis 
 cretion 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 casu 
 ally 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,
 
 62 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 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 pres 
 ently 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 pres 
 ently 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 re 
 spect 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
 
 After Sunset 63 
 
 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, sting 
 ing 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 
 
 "fTlHE storm is coming!" exclaimed Diane 
 
 JL 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 tear 
 fully 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. 
 
 64
 
 In a Storm -Haunted Wood 65 
 
 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 as 
 sailant 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 un 
 mistakable 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,
 
 66 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 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."
 
 In a Storm-Haunted Wood 67 
 
 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 your 
 self, 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. More 
 over, 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.
 
 A 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ON THE RIDGE ROAD 
 
 T THE Westfall farm as the electric van 
 guard of the storm flashed brightly over 
 the valley, the telephone had tinkled. In con 
 siderable distress of mind Aunt Agatha an 
 swered it. 
 
 "I I'm sure I don't know when he will be 
 home," she said helplessly after a while. . . . 
 " He went barely a minute ago and very foolish 
 too, I said, with the storm coming. ... At 
 dinner he spoke some of going to the camp 
 Miss Westf all's camp. . . . I I really don't 
 know. ... I wish I did but I don't." 
 
 The lightning blazed at the window and left 
 it black. Beyond in the lane, a car with glaring 
 headlights was rolling rapidly toward the gate 
 way. Aunt Agatha hung up with an aggrieved 
 sniff. 
 
 Catching the reflection of the headlights she 
 hurried to the window. 
 
 " Carl ! Carl ! " she called through the noise of 
 wind and thunder. 
 
 The car came to a halt with a grinding shudder 
 of brakes. 
 
 68
 
 On the Ridge Road 69 
 
 " Yes? " said Carl patiently. " What is it, Aunt 
 Agatha?" 
 
 "Dick Sherrill phoned," said his aunt plain 
 tively. " I thought you'd gone. He wanted you 
 to come up and play bridge. Oh, Carl, I I 
 do wish you wouldn't motor about in a thunder 
 shower. I once knew a man such a nice, quiet 
 fellow too and very domestic in his habits 
 but he would ramble about and the lightning tore 
 his collar off and printed a picture of a tree on 
 his spine. Think of that!" 
 
 Carl laughed. He was raincoated and hatless. 
 
 "An arboreal spine!" said he, rolling on. 
 "Lord, Aunt Agatha, that was tough! Moral 
 don't be domestic!" 
 
 "Carl!" quavered his aunt tearfully. 
 
 Again, throbbing like a giant heart in the dark 
 ness, the car halted. Carl tossed his hair back 
 from his forehead with a smothered groan, but 
 said nothing. He was always kinder and less 
 impatient to Aunt Agatha in a careless way than 
 Diane. 
 
 "Will you take Diane an extra raincoat and 
 rubbers?" appealed Aunt Agatha pathetically. 
 " Like as not the pockets of the other are full of 
 bugs and things." 
 
 " Aunt Agatha," grumbled Carl kindly, " why 
 fuss so? Diane's equipped with nerve and grit 
 and independence enough to look out for herself."
 
 70 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Aunt Agatha sniffed and closed the window. 
 
 "I shan't worry!" she said flatly. "I shan't 
 do it. If Carl comes home with a tree on his 
 spine, it's his own concern. Why / should have 
 to endure all this, however, I can't for the life 
 of me see. I've one consolation anyway. A good 
 part of my life's over. Death will be a welcome 
 relief after what I've gone through I" 
 
 Shrugging as the window closed Carl drove 
 on rapidly down the driveway. 
 
 It pleased him to ride madly with the wind 
 and storm. The gale, laden with dust and grit, 
 bit and stung and tore rudely at his coat and 
 hair. The great lamps of the car flashed bril 
 liantly ahead, revealing the wind-beaten grasses 
 by the wayside. Somewhere back in his mind 
 there was a troublesome stir of conscience. It 
 had bothered him for days. It had driven him 
 irresistibly to-night at dinner to speak of visiting 
 his cousin's camp, though he bit his lip immedi 
 ately afterward in a flash of indecision. The tur 
 bulent night had seemed of a sort to think things 
 over. Moonlit fields and roads were enervating. 
 Storm whipping a man's blood into fire and en 
 ergy biting his brain into relentless activity! 
 there was a thing for you. 
 
 Whiskey did not help. Last night it had 
 treacherously magnified the voice of conscience 
 into a gibing roar.
 
 On the Ridge Road 71 
 
 Money ! Money ! The ray of the lamps ahead, 
 the fork of the lightning, the flickering gaslight 
 there at the crossroads, they were all the color 
 of gold and like gold of a flame that burned. 
 Yes, he must have money. No matter what the 
 voice, he must have money. 
 
 At the crossroads he halted suddenly. To the 
 south now lay his cousin's camp, to the north the 
 storm. 
 
 Perversely Carl wheeled about and drove to 
 the north. A conscience was a luxury for a rich 
 man. Let the thing he had done, sired by the 
 demon of the bottle and mothered by the hell-pit 
 of his flaming passions, breed its own results. 
 
 It was a fitful nerve-straining task, waiting, 
 and he had waited now for weeks. Waiting had 
 bred the Voice in his conscience, waiting had 
 bored insidious holes in his armor of flippant 
 philosophy through which had crept remorse and 
 bitter self-contempt ; once it had brought a flam 
 ing resolve brutally to lay it all before his cousin 
 and taunt her with a crouching ghost buried for 
 years in a candlestick. 
 
 Then there were nights like to-night when the 
 ghastly hell-pit was covered, and when to tell her 
 squarely what the future held, without taunt or 
 apology, stirred him on to ardent resolution. 
 
 But alas! the last was but an intermittent 
 witch-fire leading him through the marsh after
 
 72 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the elusive ghosts of finer things, to flicker for 
 lornly out at the end and abandon him in a pit 
 of blackness and mockery. 
 
 Very well, then; he would tell Diane of the 
 yellowed paper ; he would tell her to-night. How 
 ever he played the game there was gold at the 
 end. 
 
 He laughed suddenly and shrugged and swept 
 erratically into a lighter mood of impudence and 
 daring. There was rain beating furiously in his 
 face and his hair was wet. Well, the car pound 
 ing along beneath him had known many such 
 nights of storm and wild adventure. It had 
 pleased him frequently to mock and gibe at 
 death, with the wheel in his hand and a song on 
 his lips, and now wind and storm were tempting 
 him to ride with the devil. 
 
 So, dashing wildly through the whirl of dirt 
 and wind, heavy with the odor of burnt oil, he 
 bent to the wheel, every nerve alert and leaping. 
 As the great car jumped to its limit of speed, he 
 fell to singing an elaborate sketch of opera in 
 an insolent, dare-devil voice of splendid timbre, 
 the exhaust, unmuffled, pounding forth an 
 obligato. 
 
 The lightning flared. It glittered wickedly 
 upon the unlighted lamps of a car rolling rapidly 
 toward him. With a squirt of mud and a scatter 
 of flying pebbles, Carl swung far to the side of
 
 On the Ridge Road 73 
 
 the road and slammed on his brakes, skidding 
 dangerously. The other car, heading wildly to 
 the left, went crashing headlong into a ditch from 
 which a man crawled, cursing viciously in a for 
 eign tongue. 
 
 " You damned fool ! " thundered Carl in a flash 
 of temper. "Where are your lights?" 
 
 The man did not reply. 
 
 Carl, whose normal instincts were friendly, 
 sprang solicitously from the car. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said he carelessly. " Are 
 you hurt?" 
 
 "No," said the other curtly. 
 
 "French," decided Carl, marking the Euro 
 pean intonation. " Badly shaken up, poor devil ! 
 and not sure of his English. That accounts 
 for his peculiar silence. Monsieur," said he civ 
 illy in French. " I am not prepared to deliver a 
 homily upon wild driving, but it's well to drive 
 with lights when roads are dark and storm 
 abroad." 
 
 "I have driven so few times," said the other 
 coldly in excellent English, " and the storm and 
 erratic manner of your approach were dis 
 quieting." 
 
 "Touch6!" admitted Carl indifferently. "You 
 have me there. Your choice of a practice night, 
 however," he added dryly, "was unique, to say 
 the least.'
 
 74 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 He crossed the road, frowned curiously down 
 at the wrecked machine and struck a match. 
 
 "Voila!" he exclaimed, staring aghast at the 
 bent and splintered mass, " c'est magmfique, 
 Monsieur!" 
 
 A sheet of flame shot suddenly from the match 
 downward and wrapped the wreck in fire. Con 
 scious now of the fumes of leaking gasoline, 
 Carl leaped back. 
 
 " Monsieur," said he ruefully, and turned. 
 
 The reflection of the burning oil revealed Mon 
 sieur some feet away, running rapidly. Angered 
 by the man's unaccountable indifference, Carl 
 leaped after him. He was much the better run 
 ner of the two and presently swung his prisoner 
 about in a brutal grip and marched him savagely 
 back to the blazing car. Again there was an 
 indefinable peculiarity about the manner of the 
 man's surrender. 
 
 "It is conventional, Monsieur," said Carl 
 evenly, "to betray interest and concern in the 
 wreck of one's property. Voila! I have effect 
 ively completed what you had begun. If I am 
 not indifferent, surely one may with reason look 
 for a glimmer of concern from you." 
 
 Shrugging, the man stared sullenly at the car, 
 a hopeless torch now suffusing the lonely road 
 with light. There was a certain suggestion of 
 racial subtlety in the careful immobility of his
 
 On the Ridge Road 75 
 
 face, but his dark, inscrutable eyes were blazing 
 dangerously. 
 
 Carl's careless air of interest altered indefina 
 bly. Inspecting his chafing prisoner now with 
 narrowed, speculative eyes which glinted keenly, 
 he fell presently to whistling softly, laughed and 
 with tantalizing abruptness fell silent again. Im 
 mobile and subtle now as his silent companion, 
 he stared curiously at the other's fastidiously 
 pointed beard, at the dark eyes and tightly com 
 pressed lips, and impudently proffered his cigar 
 ettes. They were impatiently declined. 
 
 "Monsieur is pleased," said Carl easily, "to 
 reveal many marked peculiarities of manner, ow 
 ing to the unbalancing fact, I take it, that his 
 mind is relentlessly pursuing one channel. Mon 
 sieur," went on Carl, lazily lighting his own cigar 
 ette and staring into his companion's face with 
 a look of level-eyed interest, " Monsieur has been 
 praying ardently for opportunities, is it not 
 so? 'I will humor this mad fool who motors 
 about in the rain like an operatic comet!' says 
 Monsieur inwardly, 'for I am, of course, a 
 stranger to him. Then, without arousing undue 
 interest, I may presently escape into the storm 
 whence I came er driving atrociously." 
 
 The man stared. 
 
 "Monsieur," purred Carl audaciously, "is 
 doubtless more interested in let us say camp
 
 76 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 fires for instance, than such a vulgar blaze as 
 yonder car." 
 
 " One is powerless," returned the other haugh 
 tily, "to answer riddles." 
 
 Carl bowed with curiously graceful insolence. 
 
 "As if one could even hope to break such 
 splendid nerve as that!" he murmured appre 
 ciatively. "It is an impassiveness that comes 
 only with training. Monsieur," he added imper- 
 turbably, "I have had the pleasure of seeing 
 you before." 
 
 "It is possible I " shrugged the other politely. 
 
 "Under strikingly different conditions!" pur 
 sued Carl reminiscently. There was a disap 
 pointing lack of interest in the other's face. 
 
 " Even that is possible," assented the foreigner 
 stiffly. " Environment is a shifting circumstance 
 of many colors. The honor of your acquaintance, 
 however, I fear is not mine." 
 
 Carl's eyes, dark and cold as agate, compelled 
 attention. 
 
 "My name," said he deliberately, "is Gran- 
 berry, Carl Westfall Cranberry." 
 
 The brief interval of silence was electric. 
 
 " It is a pity," said the other formally, " that 
 the name is unfamiliar. Monsieur Granberi, the 
 storm increases. My ill-fated car, I take it, re 
 quires no further attention." He stopped short, 
 staring with peculiar intentness at the road be-
 
 On the Ridge Road 77 
 
 yond. In the faint sputtering glow of the embers 
 by the wayside his face looked white and strained. 
 
 A slight smile dangerously edged the Ameri 
 can's lips. With a careless feint of glancing over 
 his shoulder, he tightened every muscle and 
 leaped ahead. The violent impact of his body 
 bore his victim, cursing, to the ground. 
 
 "Ah!" said Carl wresting a revolver from the 
 other's hand, "I thought so! My friend, when 
 you try a trick like that again, guard your hands 
 before you fall to staring. A fool might have 
 turned and been shot in the back for his pains, 
 eh? Monsieur," he murmured softly, pinioning 
 the other with his weight and smiling insolently, 
 "we've a long ride ahead of us. Privacy, I 
 think, is essential to the perfect adjustment of 
 our future relations. There are one or two inex 
 plicable features 
 
 The eyes of the other met his with a level 
 glance of desperate hostility. 
 
 With an undisciplined flash of temper, Carl 
 brutally clubbed his assailant into insensibility 
 with the revolver butt and dragged him heavily 
 to the tonneau of his car, throbbing unheeded in 
 the darkness. Having assured himself of his 
 guest's continued docility by the sinister adjust 
 ment of a handkerchief, an indifferent rag or 
 so from the repair kit and a dirty rope, he cov 
 ered the motionless figure carelessly with a robe
 
 78 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 and sprang to the wheel, whistling softly. With 
 a throb, the great car leaped, humming, to the 
 road. 
 
 At midnight the lights of Harlem lay ahead. 
 The ride from the hills, three hours of storm and 
 squirting gravel, had been made with the per 
 sistent whir and drone of a speeding engine. 
 But once had it rested black and silent in a lonely 
 road of dripping trees, while the driver hurried 
 into a roadside tavern and telephoned. 
 
 Now, with a purring sigh as a bridge loomed 
 ahead, the car slackened and stopped. Carl 
 slowly lighted a cigarette. At the end of the 
 bridge a straggler struck a match and flung it 
 lightly in the river, the disc of his cigar a fire- 
 point in the shadows. 
 
 The car rolled on again and halted. 
 
 A stocky young man behind the fire-point 
 emerged from the darkness and climbed briskly 
 into the tonneau. 
 
 " Hello, Hunch," said Carl. 
 
 " 'Lo ! " said Hunch and stared intently at the 
 robe. 
 
 " Take a look at him," invited Carl carelessly. 
 " It's not often you have an opportunity of rid 
 ing with one of his brand. He's in the Almanack 
 de Gotha." 
 
 "T'ell yuh say!" said Hunch largely, though
 
 On the Ridge Road 79 
 
 the term had conveyed no impression whatever 
 to his democratic mind. 
 
 Cautiously raising the robe Hunch Dorrigan 
 stared with interest at the prisoner he was incon 
 spicuously to assist into the empty town house of 
 the Westfalls.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN THE CAMP OF THE GYPSY LADY 
 
 FROM a garish dream of startling unpleas 
 antness, Philip Poynter stirred and opened 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Well, now," he mused uncomfortably, " this 
 is more like it ! This is the sort of dream to have ! 
 I wonder I never had sufficient wit to carve out 
 one like this before. Birds and trees and wind 
 fussing pleasantly around a fellow's bed and 
 by George! those birds are making coffee!" 
 
 There was a cheerful sound of flapping canvas 
 and vanishing glimpses of a woodland shot with 
 sun-gold, of a camp fire and a pair of dogs romp 
 ing boisterously. Moreover, though his bed was 
 barely an inch from the ground to which it was 
 staked over a couple of poles, it was exceedingly 
 springy and comfortable. Not yet thoroughly 
 awake, Philip put out an exploring hand. 
 
 "Flexible willow shoots!" said he drowsily, 
 "and a rush mat! Oberon had nothing on me. 
 Hello!" A dog romped joyfully through the 
 flapping canvas and barked. Philip's dream boat 
 docked with a painful thud of memory. Winc 
 ing painfully he sat up. 
 
 "Easy, old top!" he advised ruefully, as 
 
 80
 
 I 
 
 Diane swung lightly up the forest path.
 
 In the Camp of the Gypsy Lady 81 
 
 the dog bounded against him. " It would seem 
 that we're an invalid with an infernal bump on 
 the back of our head and a bandaged shoulder." 
 He peered curiously through the tent flap and 
 whistled softly. "By George, Nero," he added 
 under his breath, " we're in the camp of my beau 
 tiful gypsy lady ! " 
 
 There was a bucket of water by the tent flap. 
 Philip painfully made a meager toilet, glanced 
 doubtfully at the coarse cotton garment which 
 by one of the mystifying events of the previous 
 night had replaced the silk shirt he had worn 
 from Sherrill's, and emerged from the tent. 
 
 It was early morning. A fresh fire was crack 
 ling merrily about a pot of coffee. Beyond 
 through the trees a river of swollen amber 
 laughed in the morning sunlight under a cloud 
 less sky. The ridge of a distant woodland was 
 deeply golden, the rolling meadow lands of 
 clover beyond the river bright with iridescent 
 dew. But the storm had left its trail of broken 
 rush and grasses and the heavy boughs of the 
 woodland dripped forgotten rain. 
 
 A girl presently emerged from the trees by 
 the river and swung lightly up the forest path, 
 her scarlet sweater a vivid patch in the lesser 
 life and color all about her. 
 
 " Surely," she exclaimed, meeting Philip's 
 glance with one of frank and very pleasant con-
 
 82 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 cern, " surely you must be very weak! Why not 
 stay in bed and let Johnny bring your breakfast 
 to you?" 
 
 "Lord, no!" protested Philip, reddening. "I 
 feel ever so much better than I look." 
 
 " I'm glad of that," said Diane, smiling. " You 
 lost a lot of blood and bumped your head dread 
 fully on a jagged rock. Would you mind," her 
 wonderful black eyes met his in a glance of frank 
 inquiry, "would you mind explaining? There 
 was so much excitement and storm last night that 
 we haven't the slightest notion what happened." 
 
 " Neither have I ! " exclaimed Philip ruefully. 
 
 The girl's eyes widened. 
 
 "How very singular!" she said. 
 
 "It is indeed!" admitted Philip. 
 
 'You must be an exceedingly hapless young 
 man!" she commented with serious disapproval. 
 " I imagine your life must be a monotonous round 
 of disaster and excitement ! " 
 
 "Fortuitously," owned Philip, "it's im 
 proving!" 
 
 Piqued by his irresistible good humor in adver 
 sity, Diane eyed him severely. 
 
 " Are you so in the habit of being mysteriously 
 stabbed in the shoulder whenever it storms," she 
 demanded with mild sarcasm, " that you can 
 retain an altogether pernicious good humor?" 
 
 Philip's eyes glinted oddly.
 
 In the Camp of the Gypsy Lady 83 
 
 " I'm a mere novice," he admitted lightly. " If 
 my shoulder didn't throb so infernally," he added 
 thoughtfully, " I'd lose all faith in the escapade 
 it's so weird and mysterious. A crackle a 
 lunge a knife in the dark and behold! I am 
 here, exceedingly grateful and hungry despite 
 the melodrama." 
 
 To which Diane, raising beautifully arched and 
 wondering eyebrows, did not reply. Philip, fur 
 tively marking the firm brown throat above the 
 scarlet sweater, and the vivid gypsy color be 
 neath the laughing dusk of Diane's eyes, de 
 voutly thanked his lucky star that Fate had seen 
 fit to curb the air of delicate hostility with which 
 she had left him on the Westfall lake. Well, 
 Emerson was right, decided Philip. There is an 
 inevitable law of compensation. Even a knife 
 in the dark has compensations. 
 
 "Johnny," said Diane presently, briskly dis 
 interring some baked potatoes and a baked fish 
 from a cairn of hot stones covered with grass, 
 "is off examining last night's trail of melo 
 drama. He's greatly excited. Let me pour you 
 some coffee. I sincerely hope you're not too fas 
 tidious for tin cups?" 
 
 "A tin cup," said Philip with engaging can 
 dor, "has always been a secret ambition of mine. 
 I once acquired one at somebody's spring but 
 er circumstances compelled me to relinquish
 
 84 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 it. It was really a very nice cup too and very 
 new and shiny. Since then, until now, my life, 
 alas! has been tin-cupless." 
 
 Diane carved the smoking fish in ominous 
 silence. 
 
 " Do you know," she said at length, " I've felt 
 once or twice that your anecdotes are too apt and 
 er sparkling to be overburdened with truth. 
 Your mechanician, for instance 
 
 Philip laughed and reddened. The mechani 
 cian, as a desperate means of prolonging conver 
 sation, had served his purpose somewhat disas 
 trously. 
 
 "Hum!" said he lamely. 
 
 " I shan't forget that mechanician ! " said Diane 
 decidedly. 
 
 " This now," vowed Philip uncomfortably," is 
 a real fish ! " 
 
 Diane laughed, a soft clear laugh that to 
 Philip's prejudiced ears had more of music in it 
 than the murmur of the river or the clear, sweet 
 piping of the woodland birds. 
 
 " It is," she agreed readily. " Johnny caught 
 him in the river and I cooked him." 
 
 "Great Scott!" exclaimed Philip, inspecting 
 the morsel on his wooden plate with altered in 
 terest, " you don't you can't mean it ! " 
 
 "Why not?" inquired Diane with lifted eye 
 brows.
 
 In the Camp of the Gypsy Lady 85 
 
 Philip didn't know and said so, but he glanced 
 furtively at the girl by the fire and marveled. 
 
 "Well," he said a little later with a sigh of 
 utter content, "this is Arcadia, isn't it!" 
 
 " It's a beautiful spot! " nodded Diane happily, 
 glancing at the scarlet tendrils of a wild grape 
 vine flaming vividly in the sunlight among the 
 trees. There was yellow star grass along the 
 forest path, she said absently, and yonder by the 
 stump of a dead tree a patch of star moss woven 
 of myriad emerald shoots ; the delicate splashes of 
 purple here and there in the forest carpet were 
 wild geranium. 
 
 " There are alders by the river," mused Diane 
 with shining eyes, "and marsh marigolds; over 
 there by a swampy hollow are a million violets, 
 white and purple; and the ridge is thick with 
 mountain laurel. More coffee?" 
 
 "Yes," said Philip. "It's delicious. I 
 wonder," he added humbly, "if you'd peel this 
 potato for me. A one cylinder activity is not a 
 conspicuous success." 
 
 "I should have remembered your arm," said 
 Diane quickly. " Does it pain much ? " 
 
 " A little," admitted Philip. " Do you know," 
 he added guilelessly, " this is a spot for singularly 
 vivid dreams. Last night, for instance, exceed 
 ingly gentle and skillful hands slit my shirt sleeve 
 with a pair of scissors and bathed my shoulder
 
 86 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 with something that stung abominably, and some 
 how I fancied I was laid up in a hospital and 
 didn't have to fuss in the least, for my earthly 
 affairs were in the hands of a nurse who was very 
 deft and businesslike and beautiful. I could 
 seem to hear her giving orders in a cool, matter- 
 of-fact way, and once I thought there was some 
 slight objection to leaving her alone and she 
 stamped her foot. Odd, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Must have been the doctor," said Diane, ris 
 ing and adding wood to the fire. " Johnny went 
 into the village for him." 
 
 "Hum!" said Philip doubtfully. 
 
 "He had very nice hands," went on Diane 
 calmly. "They were very skillful and gentle, 
 as you say. Moreover, he was young and exceed 
 ingly good-looking." 
 
 "Hum!" said Philip caustically. "With all 
 those beauty points, he must be a dub medically. 
 What stung so?" 
 
 " Strong salt brine, piping hot," said the girl 
 discouragingly. "It's a wildwood remedy for 
 washing wounds." 
 
 "Didn't the dub carry any conventional anti 
 septics?" 
 
 'You are talking too much!" flashed Diane 
 with sudden color. ' The wound is slight, but you 
 bled a lot; and the doctor made particular ref 
 erence to rest and quiet."
 
 In the Camp of the Gypsy Lady 87 
 
 "Good Lord!" said Philip in deep disgust. 
 "There's your pretty physician for you! 'Rest 
 and quiet ' for a knife scratch. Like as not he'll 
 want me to take a year off to convalesce ! " 
 
 " He left you another powder to take to-night," 
 remarked Diane severely. "Moreover, he said 
 you must be very quiet to-day and he'd be in, in 
 the morning, to see you." 
 
 Something jubilant laughed and sang in 
 Philip's veins. A day in Arcadia lay temptingly 
 at his feet. 
 
 " Great Scott," he protested feebly. " I can't. 
 I really can't, you know " 
 
 "You'll have to," said Diane with unsmiling 
 composure. " The doctor said so." 
 
 "After all," mused Philip approvingly, "it's 
 the young medical fellows who have the finest per 
 ceptions. I do need rest." 
 
 Off in the checkered shadows of the forest a 
 crow cawed derisively. 
 
 "Did you like your shirt?" asked Diane with 
 a distracting hint of raillery under her long, black 
 lashes. 
 
 " It's substantial," admitted Philip gratefully, 
 "and democratic." 
 
 * You've still another," she said smiling. 
 " Johnny bought them in the village." 
 
 "Johnny," said Philip gratefully, "is a 
 trump."
 
 88 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Diane filled a kettle from a pail of water by 
 the tree and smiled. 
 
 " There's a hammock over there by the tent," 
 she said pleasantly. "Johnny strung it up this 
 morning. The trees are drying nicely and pres 
 ently I'm going to wander about the forest with 
 a field glass and a notebook and you can take 
 a nap." 
 
 Philip demurred. Finding his assistance in 
 exorably refused, however, he repaired to the 
 hammock and watched the camp of his lady grow 
 neat and trim again. 
 
 On the bright embers of the camp fire, the 
 kettle hummed. 
 
 " There now," said Philip suddenly, mindAal of 
 the hot, stinging wound- wash, " that is the noise 
 I heard last night just after you stamped -our 
 foot and before the doctor came." 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Diane briskly. "Your 
 head's full of fanciful notions. A bump like that 
 on the back of your head is bound to tamper some 
 with your common sense." And humming lightly 
 she scalded the coffeepot and tin cups and set 
 them in the sun to dry. Philip's glance followed 
 her, a winsome gypsy, brown and happy, to the 
 green and white van, whence she presently ap 
 peared with a field glass and a notebook. 
 
 " Of course," she began, halting suddenly with 
 heightened color, " it doesn't matter in the least
 
 In the Camp of the Gypsy Lady 89 
 
 but it does facilitate conversation at times to 
 know the name of one's guest no matter how 
 accidental and mysterious he may be." 
 
 " Philip ! " he responded gravely but with 
 laughing eyes. " It's really very easy to remem 
 ber." Diane stamped her foot. 
 
 "I do think," she flashed indignantly, "that 
 you are the most trying young man I've ever 
 met." 
 
 "I'm trying of course " explained Philip, 
 " trying to tell you my name. I greatly regret," 
 he went on deferentially, "that there are a 
 number of exceptional circumstances which have 
 resulted in the brief and simple Philip. For 
 one thing, a bump which muddles a man's com 
 mon sense is very likely to muddle his memory. 
 And so, for the life of me, I can't seem to con 
 jure up a desirable form of address from you to 
 me except Philip. And Philip," he added 
 humbly, "isn't really such a bad sort of name 
 after all." 
 
 There was the whir and flash of a bird's wing 
 in the forest the color of Diane's cheek. An in 
 stant later the single vivid spot of crimson in 
 Philip's line of vision was the back of his lady's 
 sweater.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A BULLET IN ARCADIA 
 
 "TT'S time you were in bed," said Diane. 
 
 X "Johnny's out staring at the moon and 
 that's the final chore of the evening. Besides, 
 it's nine o'clock." 
 
 "I shan't go to bed," Philip protested. 
 "Johnny spread this tarpaulin by the fire ex 
 pressly for me to recline here and think and 
 smoke and b'jinks! I'm going to! After buying 
 me two shirts yesterday and tobacco to-day to 
 say nothing of bringing home an unknown 
 chicken for invalid stew, I can't with decency 
 offend him." 
 
 " I can't see why he's taken such a tremendous 
 shine to you 1 " complained Diane mockingly. 
 
 "Nor I!" agreed Philip, knocking the ashes 
 from his pipe. 
 
 ' You've been filling his pockets with money ! " 
 accused Diane indignantly. "It's the only ex 
 planation of the demented way he trots around 
 after you." 
 
 " Disposition, beauty, singular grace and com 
 mon sense all pale in the face of the ulterior 
 motive," Philip modestly told his pipe. " What 
 
 90
 
 A Bullet in Arcadia 91 
 
 a moon!" he added softly. "Great guns, what 
 a moon ! " 
 
 Beyond, through the dark of the trees, softly 
 silvered by the moon above the ridge, glimmered 
 the river, winding along by peaceful forest and 
 meadows edged with grass and mint. There was 
 moon-bright dew upon the clover and high upon 
 the ridge a tree showed dark and full against the 
 moon in lonely silhouette. It was an enchanted 
 wood of moonlit depth and noisy quiet, of shrill 
 ing crickets, the plaintive cries of tree frogs, the 
 drowsy crackle of the camp fire, or the lap of 
 water by the shore, with sometimes the lonely hoot 
 of an owl. 
 
 "A while back," mused Diane innocently, 
 " there was a shooting star above the ridge " 
 
 'Yes?" said Philip puffing comfortably at his 
 pipe. 
 
 " I meant to call your attention to it but ' Hey ! ' 
 and 'Look!' were dreadfully abrupt." 
 
 ' There is always 'Philip! ' " insinuated that 
 young man. Diane bit her lip and relapsed into 
 silence. 
 
 'You didn't tell me," said Philip presently, 
 " whether or not you found any more flowers this 
 morning." 
 
 "Only heaps of wild blackberry," Diane re 
 plied briefly. " But the trees were quite as devoid 
 of new birds as Johnny's detective trip of clues."
 
 92 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Too bad!" sympathized Philip. "I'll go 
 with you in the morning." 
 
 "The bump on your head," suggested Diane 
 pointedly, "is growing malignant!" 
 
 "By no means!" said Philip lazily. "With 
 the exception of certain memory erasures, it's 
 steadily improving." 
 
 " Why," demanded Diane with an unexpected 
 and somewhat resentful flash of reminiscence, 
 " why did you tell me your motor was deaf and 
 dumb and insane when it wasn't?" 
 
 "I didn't," said Philip honestly. "If you'll 
 recall our conversation, you'll find I worded that 
 very adroitly." 
 
 Thoroughly vexed Diane frowned at the fire. 
 
 "Was it necessary to affect callow inexperi 
 ence and such a happy-go-lucky, imbecile phil 
 osophy?" she demanded cuttingly. 
 
 "Hum!" admitted Philip humbly. "I'm a 
 salamander." 
 
 "And you said you were waiting to be res 
 cued ! " she accused indignantly. 
 
 Philip sighed. 
 
 "Well, in a sense I was. I saw you coming 
 through the trees and there are times when one 
 must talk." He met her level glance of reproach 
 with one of frank apology. "If I see a man 
 whose face I like, I speak to him. Surely Nature
 
 A Bullet in Arcadia 93 
 
 does not flash that subtle sense of magnetism for 
 nothing. If I am to live fully, then must I infuse 
 into my insular existence the electric spark of 
 sympathetic friendship. Why impoverish my 
 existence by a lost opportunity? If I had not 
 alighted that day upon the lake and waited for 
 you to come through the trees " he fell suddenly 
 quiet, knocking the ashes from his pipe upon the 
 ground beside him. 
 
 "The moon is climbing," said Diane irrelev 
 antly, " and Johnny is waiting to bandage your 
 shoulder." 
 
 "Let him wait," returned Philip imperturb- 
 ably. " And no matter what I do the moon will 
 go on climbing." He lazily pointed the stem of 
 his pipe at a firelit tree. " What glints so oddly 
 there," he wondered, "when the fire leaps?" 
 
 "It's the bullet," replied Diane absently and 
 bit her lip with a quick flush of annoyance. 
 
 "What bullet?" said Philip with instant in 
 terest. " It's odd I hadn't noticed it before." 
 
 " Some one shot in the forest last night while 
 Johnny was off chasing your assailant. Likely 
 the second man he saw cranking the car. It struck 
 the tree. Johnny and I made a compact not to 
 speak of it and I forgot. My aunt is fussy." 
 
 "Where were you?" demanded Philip ab 
 ruptly.
 
 94 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " By the tree. It-*- it grazed my hair " 
 
 Philip's face grew suddenly as changeless as 
 the white moonlight in the forest. 
 
 "Accidental knives and bullets in Arcadia!" 
 said he at length. "It jars a bit." 
 
 "I do hope," said Diane with definite disap 
 proval, "that you're not going to fuss. I didn't. 
 I was frightened of course, for at first I thought 
 it had been aimed straight at me and I was 
 quite alone but startling things do happen now 
 and then, and if you can't explain them, you might 
 as well forget them. I hope I may count on your 
 silence. If my aunt gets wind of it, she'll con 
 jure up a trail of accidental shots to follow me 
 from here to Florida and every time it storms, 
 she'll like as not hear ghost-bullets. She's like 
 that." 
 
 "Florida!" ejaculated Philip and stared. 
 
 "To be sure! "said Diane. "Why not? Must 
 I alter my plans for somebody's stray bullet?" 
 
 Philip frowned uneasily. The instinctive pro 
 test germinating irresistibly in his mind was too 
 vague and formless for utterance. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he stammered. " But I 
 fancied you were merely camping around among 
 the hills for the summer." 
 
 The girl rose and moved off toward the van 
 looming ghostlike through the trees.
 
 A Bullet in Arcadia 95 
 
 " Good night Philip I" she called lightly, her 
 voice instinct with delicate irony. 
 
 Philip stirred. His voice was very gentle. 
 
 " Thank you! " he said simply. 
 
 Diane hastily climbed the steps at the rear 
 of the van and disappeared. 
 
 "I hate men," thought Diane with burning 
 cheeks as she seated herself upon the cot by the 
 window and loosened the shining mass of her 
 straight black hair, "who ramble flippantly 
 through a conversation and turn suddenly se 
 rious when one least expects it." 
 
 By the fire, burning lower as the moon climbed 
 higher, Philip lay very quiet. Somehow the 
 moonlit stillness of the forest had altered inde 
 finably. Its depth and shadows jarred. Fair as 
 it was, it had harbored things sinister and evil. 
 And who might say there was peace of course 
 in the moon-silver rug of pine among the trees, 
 in the gossamer cobweb there among the bushes 
 jeweled lightly in dew, in the faint, sweet chirp 
 of a drowsy bird above his head but the moon- 
 ray which lingered in the heart of the wild gera 
 nium would presently cascade through the trees 
 to light the horrible thing of "lead which had 
 menaced the life of his lady. 
 
 Well, one more pipe and he would go to bed. 
 Johnny must be tired of waiting. Philip slipped 
 his hand into his pocket and whistled.
 
 96 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " So," said he softly, " the hieroglyphic cuff is 
 gone! It's the first I'd missed it." 
 
 " Like as not it dropped out of my pocket when 
 I fell last night," he reflected a little later. " I'd 
 better go to bed. I'm beginning to fuss."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A WOODLAND GUEST 
 
 THERE was gray beyond the flap of Philip's 
 tent, a velvet stillness rife with the melody 
 of twittering birds. Already the camp fire was 
 crackling. Philip rose and dressed. 
 
 Beyond, through the ghostly trees where the 
 river glimmered in the gray dawn with a pearly 
 iridescence, a girl was fishing. There were 
 deeper shadows in the hollows but the sky behind 
 the wooded ridge to the east was softly opaline. 
 As the river grew pink, mists rose and curled 
 upward and presently the glaring searchlight 
 of the sun streamed brilliantly across the river 
 and the forest, flinging a banner of shadow 
 tracery over the wakening world. 
 
 The girl by the river caught a fish, deftly 
 strung it on a willow shoot beside some others and 
 bathed her hands in the river. Turning she smiled 
 and waved. Philip went to meet her. 
 
 " Let me take your fish," he offered. 
 
 'Your arm ' began Diane. 
 
 " Pshaw! " insisted Philip. " It's ever so much 
 better. I can even use my hand." 
 
 To prove it, Philip presently armed himself 
 with a fork and developed considerable helpful 
 
 97
 
 98 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 interest in a pan of fish. Whereupon a general 
 atmosphere of industry settled over the camp. 
 Rex and Nero acrobatically locked forepaws and 
 rolled over and over in a clownish excess of con 
 geniality. Johnny trotted busily about feeding 
 the horses. Diane made the coffee, arousing 
 the frank and guileless interest of Mr. Poynter. 
 
 The fish began to sizzle violently. Considera 
 bly aggrieved by a variety of unexpected devel 
 opments in the pan, Philip harpooned the 
 smoking segments with indignant vim, burned 
 his fingers, made reckless use of the wounded arm 
 and regretfully resigned the task to Johnny who 
 furtively bestowed certain hot sable portions of 
 the rescued fish upon the dogs, thereby arousing 
 a snarling commotion of intense surprise. 
 
 " That's a wonderful bed of mine," commented 
 Philip at breakfast. "Tell me where in the 
 world did you get your camp equipment ? " 
 
 " I made the bed myself," said Diane happily, 
 "of red willow shoots from the swamp, and I 
 carved these forks and spoons out of wood 
 Johnny gathered." 
 
 "I do wish I were clever!" grumbled Philip 
 in acute discontent. " After breakfast I'm going 
 to whittle out a wildwood pipe and make a birch 
 canoe, and likely I'll weave a rush mat and a 
 willow bed and carve some spoons and forks and 
 a sundial."
 
 A Woodland Guest 99 
 
 " Will you be through by noon?" asked Diane 
 politely. 
 
 Philip laughed. 
 
 "As a matter of fact," he said easily, "I'm 
 going with you to lamp birds. I want to duck 
 that fool doctor." 
 
 'You'll do nothing of the sort," said Diane 
 with decision, "for I'm going to stay in camp 
 and bake bread." 
 
 The bread was baking odorously and a variety 
 of shavings flying ambitiously from an embryo 
 pipe by ten o'clock. At noon the doctor had 
 not yet arrived. Philip dexterously served a 
 savory fish chowder from a pot hanging within a 
 tripod of saplings and refused to dwell upon the 
 thought of his eventual departure. 
 
 A man appeared among the trees to the east, 
 switching absently at the underbrush with a cane. 
 
 Philip sniffed. 
 
 "I thought so," he nodded. "That medical 
 dub carries a cane on his professional rounds! 
 Like as not he wears a flowing tie, a monocle and 
 pink socks." 
 
 The man approached and raised his hat, smil 
 ing urbanely. It was Baron Tregar. 
 
 Philip leaped to his feet, reddening. 
 
 "Excellency!" he stammered. 
 
 "Pray be seated!" exclaimed the Baron with 
 sympathy. " Such a disturbing experience as 
 you have had affords one privileges."
 
 loo Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Permit me," said Philip uncomfortably to 
 Diane, " to present my chief, Baron Tregar. Ex 
 cellency, Miss Westfall, to whom I am eternally 
 indebted." And Philip's eyes sparkled with 
 laughter as he uttered her name. 
 
 There was an old world courtliness in the 
 Baron's bow and murmured salutation. 
 
 " Ah," said he with gallant regret, " Fate, Miss 
 Westfall, has never seen fit to temper misfortune 
 so pleasantly for me. Poynter, you have been 
 exceedingly fortunate." 
 
 Diane laughed softly. It was hers to triumph 
 now. 
 
 "Mr. Poynter" she said with relish, flashing 
 a sidelong glance at that discomfited young man, 
 " Mr. Poynter has been good enough to make the 
 chowder. It would gratify me exceedingly, 
 Baron Tregar, to have you test it." 
 
 Heartily anathematizing his chief, who was 
 gratefully expressing his interest in chowder, 
 Mr. Poynter stared perversely at his cuff. 
 
 "I wonder," he reflected uneasily, "just what 
 he wants and how in thunder he knew ! " 
 
 The Baron, gracefully adapting himself to 
 woodland exigencies, supplied the answer. 
 
 "Dr. Wingate," he boomed, "is at the Sher- 
 ril farm. Themar officiously fancied he could 
 fly and had a most distressing fall yesterday 
 from the smaller biplane." His deep, compelling
 
 A Woodland Guest 101 
 
 eyes lingered upon Philip's face. " Dr. Wingate 
 spoke some of an unlucky young man marooned 
 in a forest with a knife wound in his shoulder 
 described him and behold! my missing sec 
 retary is found after considerable bewilderment 
 and uneasiness on my part. Wingate will stop 
 here later." 
 
 Philip civilly expressed regret that he had not 
 thought to dispatch Johnny to the Sherrill farm 
 with a message. 
 
 "It is nothing!" shrugged Tregar smoothly. 
 " One forgets under less mitigating causes." 
 And, having begged the details of Philip's ad 
 venture, he listened with careful attention. 
 
 "It is exceedingly mysterious," he rumbled, 
 after a frowning interval of thought. "But 
 surely one must feel much gratitude to you, Miss 
 Westfall. A night in the storm without atten 
 tion and we have complications." 
 
 Over his coffee, which he sipped clear with the 
 appreciation of an epicure, the Baron, in his 
 suave, inscrutable way, grew reminiscent. He 
 talked well, selecting, discarding, weighing his 
 words with the fastidious precision of a jeweler 
 setting precious stones. Subtly the talk drifted 
 to Houdania. 
 
 There was a mad king Rodobald upon 
 the throne. Doubtless the Baron's hostess had 
 heard? No? Ah! So must the baffling twist
 
 102 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 of a man's brain complicate the destiny of a 
 kingdom. And Rodobald was hale at sixty-five 
 and mad as the hare of March. There had been 
 much talk of it. Singular, was it not? 
 
 Followed a sparkling anecdote or so of court 
 life and shrugging reference to the jealous 
 principality of Galituria that lay beyond in the 
 valley. To Galiturians the madness of King 
 Rodobald was an exquisite jest. 
 
 Philip grew restless. 
 
 " Confound him ! " he mused resentfully. " One 
 would think I had deliberately contrived to lin 
 ger here merely to give him a graceful opportun 
 ity to accomplish his infernal errand himself. 
 Thank Heaven this lets me out!" He glanced 
 furtively at Diane. The girl's interest was whole 
 somely without qonstraint. 
 
 "Great guns!" decided Philip fretfully. "I 
 doubt if she's ever heard of his toy kingdom be 
 fore and yet he's probing her interest with every 
 atom of skill he can command." Puzzled and 
 annoyed he fell quiet. 
 
 "It is somewhat inaccessible my country," 
 Tregar was saying smoothly. "One climbs the 
 shaggy mountain by a winding road. You have 
 climbed it perhaps touring?" 
 
 " Excellency, no! " regretted Diane. " I fear it 
 is quite unknown to me." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed the patriotic Baron, "that
 
 A Woodland Guest 103 
 
 is indeed unfortunate. For it is well worth a 
 visit." He turned to Philip. 'You are pale 
 and quiet, Poynter," he added kindly. "A day 
 or so more perhaps here where it is quiet " 
 
 Philip flushed hotly. 
 
 " Excellency! " he protested feebly. 
 
 The Baron bowed courteously to Diane. 
 
 "If I may crave still further hospitality and 
 indulgence," he begged regretfully. "There is 
 already much excitement at the Sherrill place 
 owing to the officious act of my man, Themar, 
 and his accident. Another invalid my secre 
 tary one flounders in a dragnet of unfortunate 
 circumstances. And I am sensitive in the dis 
 turbance of my host's guests " 
 
 Diane's eyes as they rested upon Philip were 
 very kind. 
 
 "Excellency," she said warmly, "Mr. Poyn- 
 ter's tent lies there among the trees. I trust he 
 will not hesitate to use it until he is strong again. 
 Fortunately we are equipped for emergency." 
 
 The Baron bowed gratefully. 
 
 ' You are a young woman of exceeding com 
 mon sense! " he said with deep respect. 
 
 Philip was very grateful that the Baron had 
 not misunderstood; a breath might shatter the 
 idyllic crystal into atoms. 
 
 Later, when the Baron had departed, Philip 
 flushed suddenly at the ugly suspicion rising
 
 104 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 wraithlike in his mind. He was accustomed to the 
 Baron's subtleties. 
 
 " Mr. Poynter! " called Diane. 
 
 Mr. Poynter perversely went on whittling out 
 the hollow of his wildwood pipe. 
 
 "Mr. Poynter!" 
 
 The bowl, already sufficient for a Titan's 
 smoke, grew a trifle larger and somewhat irreg 
 ular. Carving had conceivably injured Mr. 
 Poynter's hearing, for he kept on whistling. 
 
 "Philip!" said Diane and stamped her foot. 
 
 'Yes?" replied Philip respectfully, and in 
 stantly discarded the Titan's pipe to listen. 
 
 " Why are you so quiet? " flashed Diane. 
 
 " Well, for one thing," explained Philip cheer 
 fully, "I'm mighty busy and for another, I'm 
 thinking." 
 
 "Do you withdraw into a sound-proof shell 
 when you think?" 
 
 "Mr. Poynter does!" regretted Philip. "/ 
 do not." 
 
 " I do hope," said the girl demurely, " that 
 you'll be able to hear when the doctor gets here. 
 He's coining through the trees."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BY THE BACKWATER POOL 
 
 THE sun had set with a primrose glory of 
 reflection upon the river and the ridge. 
 Over there in the west now there was a pale after 
 glow of marigold. It streamed across the dark, 
 still waters of the backwater pool by the river and 
 faintly edged the drowsy petals of white and 
 yellow lilies. Already distant outline and per 
 spective were hazy, there was purple in the forest, 
 and birds were winging swiftly to the woods. 
 
 By the pool with a great mass of dripping lilies 
 at his side to carry back to camp, Philip stared 
 f rowningly at the tangled float of foliage at his 
 feet. Somehow that ugly flash of suspicion had 
 persisted. Why had the Baron wished him to stay 
 in the camp of Diane? . . . What was the 
 portent of his peculiar interest anyway? 
 
 Philip sighed. 
 
 "Do you know, Nero," he confided suddenly, 
 patting the dog's shaggy head, "my life is de 
 veloping certain elements of intrigue and mystery 
 exceedingly offensive to my spread-eagle tastes. 
 There's a knife and a bullet now, Johnny's two 
 men and the auto, and a cuff and a most mys 
 terious link between our lady and the Baron. I'll 
 
 105
 
 106 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 be hanged if I like any of it. And why in thunder 
 did Themar crib an aeroplane and bump his fool 
 head? " He fell suddenly thoughtful. 
 
 "As for you, old top," he added presently, 
 " you ought to go home. Dick will be fussing." 
 
 Nero waggled ambiguously. Philip nodded. 
 
 "Right, old man," he admitted with sudden 
 gravity. " I can always depend upon you to set 
 me right. It's nothing like so essential for you 
 to go as it is for me. You did right to mention it. 
 I ought to dig out all the more because the 
 Baron wants me to stay but I've been thinking 
 a bit this afternoon and unusual problems demand 
 unusual solutions. You'll grant that?" Nero 
 politely routed an excursive bug from his path 
 and lay down to listen. 
 
 "Mr. Poynter!" called a voice fom the dark 
 ling trees behind him. 
 
 Mr. Poynter smiled and fell deliberately to fill 
 ing the bowl of his wildwood pipe. Gnarled and 
 twisted and marvelously eccentric was this wild- 
 wood pipe and therefore an object of undoubted 
 interest. The bowl had somehow eluded Philip's 
 desperate effort to keep it of reasonable dimen 
 sions and required a Gargantuan supply of 
 tobacco. 
 
 "Mr. Poynter!" 
 
 "My Lord!" murmured Philip, staring rue 
 fully into the pipe-bowl. " the infernal thing is
 
 By the Backwater Pool 107 
 
 bottomless! Exit another can of tobacco. I'll 
 have to ask Johnny to buy me a barrel." And 
 Philip flung the empty can into the pool whence 
 a frog leaped with a frightened croak. 
 
 "Philip!" 
 
 "Mademoiselle!" said Philip pleasantly. 
 
 Darkly lovely, Diane's eyes met his with a 
 glance of indignant reproach. Somehow her lips 
 were like a scarlet wound in the gypsy brown skin 
 and her cheeks were hot with color. 
 
 "A wildwood elf of scarlet and brown!" 
 thought Philip and hospitably flicked away a twig 
 or so with his handkerchief that she might sit 
 down. 
 
 " There's water plantain over there in the bog," 
 he said lazily, "and swamp honeysuckle. And 
 see," he turned out his pockets, " swamp apples. 
 Queer, aren't they ? Johnny says they're good to 
 eat. The honeysuckle was full of them." 
 
 Diane bit daintily into the peculiar juicy pulp. 
 
 "A man of your pernicious good humor," she 
 said greatly provoked, "is a menace to civiliza 
 tion. You sap all the wholesome fire of one's 
 most cherished resentment." 
 
 " I know," admitted Philip humbly. " I'll be 
 hanged yet." 
 
 " I can't see what in the world you find so ab 
 sorbing over here," she commented with marked 
 disapproval. " All the while I was getting supper
 
 108 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 I watched you. And you merely smoked and 
 flipped pebbles in the pool and kept supper 
 waiting." 
 
 'You're wrong there," said Philip. "I've 
 been thinking, too." 
 
 "I'd like to know just why you've been think 
 ing so deeply!" 
 
 "Honest Injun?" 
 
 "Honest Injun!" 
 
 " Well," said Philip slowly, " I've been review 
 ing the possible mishaps incident to a caravan 
 trip to Florida." 
 
 "Mishaps!" Diane studied him in frank dis 
 pleasure. " Are you a fussy pessimist ? " 
 
 "By no means. Merely prudent." Philip's 
 eyes narrowed thoughtfully and he fell silent. 
 
 The iris shadows beyond the river deepened. 
 A firefly or so flickered brightly above the fields 
 of clover. In the soft clear twilight, fragrant 
 with the smell of clover and water lily and rimmed 
 now by the rising moon, Philip found his resolu 
 tion of the afternoon difficult to utter. The pool 
 at his feet was a motionless mirror of summer 
 stars. Surely there could be nothing but peace in 
 this tranquil world of tree and grass and murmur 
 ing river. And yet 
 
 "Do take that ridiculous pipe out of your 
 mouth and say something!" exclaimed Diane 
 restlessly. " You look as if you were smoking a
 
 By the Backwater Pool 109 
 
 pumpkin ! Besides, the supper's all packed up in 
 hot stones and grass to keep it hot. Why moon 
 so and shoot pebbles at the frogs?" 
 
 " Well," said Philip abruptly, " do you mind if 
 I say that your trip seems a most imprudent 
 venture?" 
 
 "By no means!" replied Diane with madden 
 ing composure. " But it's only fair to warn you 
 that my aunt's already said all there is to say on 
 the subject. The horses may drop dead," she 
 reviewed swiftly on her slim brown fingers, 
 "Johnny may fall heir to an apoplectic fit and 
 fall on a horse thereby inducing him to run away 
 into a swamp and sink in quicksand. I may be 
 kidnapped and held for ransom in the wilds of 
 Connecticut and the van may burn up some night 
 when I'm asleep in it. Then I may eat poison 
 berries in a fit of absent-mindedness, I may fall 
 into a river while I'm fishing, forget how to swim, 
 and drown, Johnny may gather amanitas and kill 
 us both, and something or other may bite me. 
 There are one or two other little things like forest 
 fires, floods and brigands " 
 
 " Help ! " murmured Philip. 
 
 "Can you add anything to that?" demanded 
 Diane politely. 
 
 Philip laughed. Diane, delicately sarcastic, 
 was irresistible. 
 
 "There is the bullet " he reminded gravely.
 
 no Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Please!" begged Diane faintly. 
 
 Philip flushed with a sense of guilt. 
 
 "Well," he owned, "I have bothered you a 
 lot about it, that's a fact! But it sticks so in 
 my mind. There's something else 
 
 'Yes?" said Diane discouragingly. 
 
 " Didn't you tell me yesterday that you'd had 
 a feeling some one had been spying on your 
 camp?" 
 
 ' Yes," said Diane in serious disapproval. " I 
 did. I get seizures of confidential lunacy once in 
 a while. Are you going to fuss about that? " 
 
 " No," said Philip gently. " But the knife and 
 the bullet and that have made me wonder a 
 lot. After all," he regretted sincerely, " my no 
 tions are very vague and formless, but I feel so 
 strongly about them that urging my friend 
 ship for Carl as my sole excuse for unasked ad 
 vice to his cousin " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Philip laid aside his pipe with a sigh. The 
 crisp music of his lady's voice was not encour 
 aging. 
 
 " I do hope you'll forgive me," he said quietly, 
 " but I'm going to urge you to abandon your trip 
 to Florida!" 
 
 "Mr. Poynter!" flashed Diane indignantly. 
 ' The bump on your head has had a relapse. Bet 
 ter let Johnny go for the doctor again."
 
 By the Backwater Pool 111 
 
 "I know I'm infernally presumptuous," ac 
 knowledged Philip flushing, " but I'm terribly in 
 earnest." 
 
 Diane's eyes, wide, black, rebuking, scanned 
 his troubled face askance. 
 
 "I ought to be exceedingly angry," she said 
 slowly, " and if it wasn't for the bump, like as not 
 I would be but I'm not." 
 
 "I'm truly grateful," said Philip with a sigh 
 of relief. And added to himself, "Philip, old 
 top, you're in for it." 
 
 "Why," exclaimed Diane, "I've never been 
 so happy in my life as I have been here by this 
 beautiful river!" 
 
 "Nor I!" said Philip truthfully. 
 
 Diane did not hear. 
 
 " Every wild thing calls," she went on im 
 petuously. " It always has. Fish bird wild 
 flower the smell of clover the hum of bees 
 I can't pretend to tell you what they all mean 
 to me. Even as a youngster I frightened my 
 aunt half to death by running away to sleep in 
 the forest. I'm sorry I'll ever have to go back 
 to civilization!" 
 
 "And yet," insisted Philip inexorably, "to 
 me it seems that you should go back- 
 to-morrow!" 
 
 "I do seem to feel a stir of temper !" said 
 Diane reflectively. "Maybe I'd better go back
 
 112 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 and look at supper. You can come after you're 
 through pelting that frog." 
 
 "There's still another reason," said Philip 
 humbly, "which I can't tell you. Indeed, I 
 ought not mention it. I can only beg you to take 
 it on trust and believe that it's another forcible 
 argument against your trip. Somehow, every 
 thing in my mind weaves into a gigantic warn 
 ing. So disturbing is the notion," added Philip 
 unquietly, "that 
 
 ' Yes ? " queried Diane politely. 
 
 "That after much thought, I have decided to 
 stay here in camp until you abandon your no 
 madic scheme and break camp for home. There'll 
 come a time, I'm sure, when you'll think as I do 
 to get rid of me." 
 
 Diane rose with suspicious mildness. 
 
 "I'm hungry," she said, "and Johnny's 
 yodeling." 
 
 " Well," said Philip provokingly, "I don't be 
 lieve I want any supper after all. The atmos 
 phere's too chilly."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 JOKAI OF VIENNA 
 
 IT WAS insolent music, a taunt in every note. 
 Carl laid aside his flute and inspected his pris 
 oner with impudent interest. 
 
 'You are the most difficult person to enter 
 tain!" he accused softly. "Here Hunch has 
 strained a sinuous spine performing our beautiful 
 native dances, the tango and the hesitation, and 
 I've fluted up all the wind in the room and still 
 you glower." 
 
 " Monsieur," broke forth the prisoner, goaded 
 beyond endurance by the stifling heat and the 
 stench of Hunch's pipe, "is it not enough to 
 imprison me here without reason, that you must 
 taunt and gibe " he choked indignantly and 
 stared desperately at the boarded windows. 
 
 "Let your voice out, do!" encouraged Carl. 
 " We dispensed with the caretaker days ago, fear 
 ing you'd feel restricted." 
 
 The other's face was livid. 
 
 "Monsieur!" he cried imperiously, his eyes 
 flashing. "Take care!" 
 
 " I know," said Carl soothingly, " that you have 
 deep, dark, sinister possibilities Within you 
 dear, yes ! You tried something of the sort on the 
 
 113
 
 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Ridge Road. That's why your august head's so 
 badly bruised. But why aggravate your blood 
 pressure now when it's so infernally hot and 
 you've work ahead. Hunch," he added carelessly 
 to the admiring henchman who had once dealt 
 away successive slices of his inheritance, " go get 
 a pitcher of ice water and rustle up another siphon 
 of seltzer and some whiskey. Likely His Nibs 
 and I will play chess again to-night." 
 
 Hunch rose from a chair by the window where 
 he had flattened his single good eye against a knot 
 hole, and slouched heavily to the door. 
 
 The face of the prisoner slowly whitened. 
 Every muscle of his body quivered suddenly in 
 horrible revulsion. Nights of enforced drunken 
 ness had left his nerves strained to the breaking 
 point. 
 
 " Monsieur," he panted, greatly agitated, " the 
 whiskey the thought of it again to-night is 
 maddening." 
 
 Carl merely raised ironical eyebrows. 
 'You are not a man," choked the other, 
 shaking. 'You are a nameless demon! Such 
 hellish originality in the conception of evil, such 
 singular indignities as you have seen fit to inflict, 
 they are the freaks of a madman ! " 
 
 " Thank you," said Carl politely. " One likes 
 to have one's little ingenuities appreciated." 
 
 "I I am ill and the room is stifling."
 
 Jokai of Vienna 
 
 " If I do not mind it," said Carl in aggrieved 
 surprise, " why should you? " 
 
 " You are a thing of steel and infernal fire. I 
 am but human." 
 
 " There is a way to stop it all," reminded Carl, 
 lazily relighting his cigar. " Why not give me a 
 logical reason for your presence in America?" 
 
 " I have done so. Have I not said again and 
 again that I am Sigimund Jokai, of Vienna, 
 touring in America?" 
 
 'You have said so," agreed Carl imperturb- 
 ably, " but you lie. There was an empty chamber 
 in your revolver, you were perilously close to my 
 cousin's camp. Why? Is it not better to tell me 
 than foolishly to waste such splendid nerve and 
 grit as you possess ? " 
 
 The prisoner moistened his bloodless lips and 
 shrugged. 
 
 "Monsieur," he accused coldly, "you tinge 
 commonplace incidents with melodrama." 
 
 "Days ago er Jokai of Vienna," went on 
 Carl thoughtfully, " I dispatched a formal com 
 munication to your country. Why has it been 
 ignored? Why did my first inkling of its effect 
 come in the sight of your face in suspicious terri 
 tory? And why, Monsieur," purred Carl softly, 
 " did you seek to kill me by a trick? " 
 
 "Monsieur, you delayed me. I am hot of 
 temper
 
 116 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "And kill whoever angers you? My dear 
 Jokai, that's absurd. As for your singular indif 
 ference to the burning car that's easy. You'd 
 stolen it. But why?" 
 
 He smiled slightly and picked up his flute. 
 With infinite softness a waltz danced lightly 
 through the quiet room. To such a fanciful, eerie 
 piping might the ghost of a child have danced. 
 Then without pause or warning it swung dramat 
 ically into a stirring melody of power and dignity. 
 
 The wretched man by the table buried his face 
 in his hands and groaned. 
 
 "Ah!" said Carl softly. "So Monsieur has 
 heard that tune before? That in itself is illum 
 inating." 
 
 With a leer Hunch entered and deposited a 
 tray upon the table. Carl poured himself some 
 whiskey and pushed the decanter toward his guest 
 with a significant glance. Jokai of Vienna 
 poured and drank with a shudder of nausea. 
 
 " We've a new chessboard," said Carl. "It's 
 most ingenious. Hunch spent a large part of his 
 valuable morning shopping for it. The board and 
 chessmen are metal and I myself have added one 
 or two unique improvements. Help yourself to 
 some more whiskey do." 
 
 "Monsieur," faltered Jokai desperately, "I 
 I can not."
 
 Jokai of Vienna 117 
 
 " Hunch," said Carl softly. " His Nibs won't 
 drink." 
 
 Instantly from the wired metal points of 
 Jokai's chair a stinging electric current swept 
 fiendishly through his body. Last night it had 
 goaded him unspeakably. To-night, with every 
 tortured nerve leaping, it was unbearable. Shak 
 ing, he poured again and drank great drops of 
 sweat starting out upon his forehead. Where the 
 rope bound his ankles the flesh was aching dully. 
 
 " Mercy ! " he choked. "I I can not bear it." 
 
 "There is a way to stop it!" reminded Carl 
 curtly. "The ivory chessmen for me, Hunch. 
 And whenever he refuses to drink start the 
 current." 
 
 With the metal chessboard before him, Carl 
 idly arranged his ivory men. Jokai touched a 
 metal pawn and shuddered violently. The metal 
 board was wired. Thenceforth every move in the 
 game he must play with the metal men would com 
 plete the circuit and send the biting needles 
 through his frame. It was delicately gauged, a 
 nerve-racking discomfort without definite pain, a 
 thing to snap the dreadful tension of a man's 
 endurance at the end. 
 
 "Ah! Monsieur!" cried Jokai wildly. "It is 
 inconceivable 
 
 "Play!" said Carl briefly. White and grim 
 his guest obeyed.
 
 118 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 In terrible silence they played the game through 
 to the end. 
 
 " Let me pour you some more whiskey," insisted 
 Carl with infernal courtesy. " Let us understand 
 each other. Whenever I drink, I expect you to 
 do the same. As for you, Hunch, you'll kindly 
 stay sober!" 
 
 Jokai gulped the nauseating torture to the end. 
 He was faint and sick. By the end of the third 
 game, every move had become convulsive. The 
 insidious bite of the current was getting horribly 
 on his nerves. Still with desperate will he played 
 on. Drunk and dizzy his veins hot and pound 
 ing, he stared in fascinated horror at the face of 
 his merciless opponent. Through the film of 
 smoke it loomed vividly dark, impudent, ironic, 
 the mobile mouth edged satirically with a slight 
 smile. 
 
 "Are you man or devil?" he whispered. 
 
 Carl laughed. His hand, for all his drinking, 
 was calm and steady, his handsome eyes clear and 
 cold and resolute. 
 
 "Hunch," he said curtly, "if you touch that 
 bottle again, I'll break it over your head. You're 
 drunk now." 
 
 To Jokai his voice trailed off into curious noth 
 ingness. Somewhere he knew in a room stifling 
 hot and hazy with the fumes of vile tobacco there 
 was a voice, musical, detached and very far away.
 
 Jokai of Vienna 119 
 
 "Monsieur," it was saying, " there are still the 
 questions." 
 
 With shaking hand Jokai touched a metal king 
 and screamed. The heat and the hell-board hard 
 upon his days and nights of enforced drinking 
 were too much. With a strangled sob, Jokai of 
 Vienna pitched forward upon the board 
 unconscious. 
 
 Carl swept the metal men away with a shrug. 
 
 "Poor devil!" he said pityingly. "All this 
 hell sooner than answer a question or two. By 
 to-morrow night, with another dose of the same 
 medicine, he'll feel differently. Likely I'll run 
 up to Connecticut to-night, Hunch, to see my 
 aunt. I'll be back by noon to-morrow. Tear off 
 the window boards and give him some more air. 
 You can move him to another room in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Hunch obeyed, and presently as the street 
 door slammed behind his chief, Hunch's single 
 eye roved expectantly to the forgotten whiskey 
 on the table. Jokai lay in a motionless stupor 
 by the window. It would be morning before the 
 hapless drinker would be quite himself again. 
 With brutal, powerful arms, Hunch bore his 
 charge to an adjoining room and consigned him 
 disrespectfully to a bed. Then with a fresh bot 
 tle of whiskey in his hand, he returned to the 
 open window, leered pleasantly at the dizzy glare
 
 120 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 of city lights beyond and henceforth devoted 
 himself to getting very drunk. Having gratified 
 this bibulous ambition to the uttermost, he fell 
 asleep. The morning sunlight flaming at last 
 on his coarse, bloated face awoke him to resent 
 ful consciousness. Glowering at the bright, 
 warm light with his single eye, Hunch rolled 
 away into the shadow and went to sleep again. 
 
 Below on the porch, with an outraged care 
 taker's letter in her hand bag, Aunt Agatha 
 turned her latchkey resolutely in the lock. 
 
 " I just will not have it ! " reflected Aunt Aga 
 tha defiantly. "I certainly will not. And I'd 
 have been here yesterday if Mary hadn't insisted 
 upon my spending the night with her. Well do 
 I remember how Carl installed himself here last 
 year with a Japanese servant and invited that 
 good-looking Wherry boy to come and scratch the 
 furniture. I don't suppose Carl invited him for 
 that purpose," added Aunt Agatha fairly, " but 
 he did it, anyway. I can't for the life of me see 
 why it is that young Mr. Wherry is perpetually 
 making scratches where his feet rest. And I'm 
 sure he left his footprint on the piano and thun 
 dered through every roll on the player, for 
 they're all out of place, and the Williston care 
 taker heard him, though like as not it was Carl 
 for that matter. He's a Westfall, and he'd do
 
 Jokai of Vienna 121 
 
 it if he felt like it, dear knows ! Though I must 
 say Carl detests bangy music." 
 
 Still rambling, Aunt Agatha, having fussed 
 considerably over the extraction of the key, 
 halted in the hallway, appalled by the utter lone 
 liness of the darkened rooms. Beyond in the 
 library a clock boomed loudly through the quiet. 
 Somewhere upstairs a dull, choking rasp broke 
 the soundless gloom. Aunt Agatha began to 
 flutter nervously up the stairway. 
 
 "It's Carl of course!" she murmured in a 
 panic. "I just know it is. I've never known him 
 to even gurgle much less snore in his sleep. 
 Like as not his windows are still boarded up and 
 he's suffocating. Only a Westfall would think 
 of such a thing." 
 
 Puffing, Aunt Agatha halted at her nephew's 
 door. That and the one adjoining were locked. 
 There was a den beyond. Making her way to 
 a door of which Hunch was ignorant, Aunt Aga 
 tha opened it and gasped. Fully clothed, a man 
 whose feet and hands were securely bound, lay 
 muttering upon the bed, his jargon incompre 
 hensibly foreign. 
 
 "God deliver us from all West falls!" wept 
 Aunt Agatha. "Carl's kidnapped an immi 
 grant!" 
 
 With unwavering determination in her round, 
 aggrieved eyes, she swept majestically to the bed 
 and shook the sleeper severely.
 
 122 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " My good man," she demanded, " what do you 
 mean by lying here on a lace spread with your 
 feet tied and your head scarred?" 
 
 Jokai of Vienna stirred and moaned. Aunt 
 Agatha fumbled for her smelling salts and ad 
 ministered a most heroic draft. Sputtering, Jokai 
 awoke from his restless stupor and stared. 
 
 From the room adjoining came again the dull, 
 choking rasp of Hunch's heavy slumber. Flut 
 tering hurriedly to the doorway, Aunt Agatha 
 stared in horror at the littered room and Hunch, 
 the latter no reassuring sight at his best, and 
 thence with fascinated gaze at Jokai of Vienna. 
 With wild imploring eyes Jokai glanced at his 
 hands and feet. Miraculously Aunt Agatha un 
 derstood. After an interval of petrified indeci 
 sion, during which she trembled violently and 
 made inarticulate noises in her throat, she flut 
 tered excitedly from the room and returned with 
 a pair of scissors. Urged to noiseless activity 
 by Jokai's fear of the sleeper in the farther room, 
 she cut the ropes which bound him and led him 
 stealthily to the hall below. 
 
 "You poor thing!" whispered Aunt Agatha 
 in hysterical sympathy. * You're as pale as a 
 ghost. I don't wonder ' 
 
 But Jokai of Vienna was already bolting wild 
 ly through the street door and down the steps. 
 Aunt Agatha burst into aggrieved tears.
 
 Jokai of Vienna 123 
 
 " I don't in the least know what it's all about," 
 she sniffed, greatly frightened, "but what with 
 the immigrant bolting out of the house in his shirt 
 sleeves without so much as a word of thanks 
 such a nice distinguished fellow as he was, too, 
 for all he smelt of liquor! and Carl nowhere in 
 sight and a fat young man, with a hairy chest 
 exposed, sleeping on a whiskey bottle and snor 
 ing like a prisoner file, it does seem most mysteri 
 ous that's a fact! And my knees have folded 
 up and I can't budge. Mother's knees used to 
 fold up this way, too. God bless my soul ! " wept 
 the unfortunate lady. " I do wish I were dead." 
 
 With a desperate effort Aunt Agatha un 
 folded her knees sufficiently to bear her weight 
 and turning, screamed wildly. Hunch Dorrigan 
 was stealing catlike down the stairs, his bloated 
 vicious face leering threateningly at her over the 
 railing. 
 
 'You old she- wolf!" roared that elegant 
 young man. "Where's His Nibs?" 
 
 Aunt Agatha moistened her dry lips and, gur 
 gling fearfully, fainted. When at length she be 
 came conscious again, Hunch, glowering fiercely, 
 was returning from a futile chase. With a re 
 sentful flash of brutality he towered suddenly 
 above her and began to curse. Aunt Agatha, 
 bristling, sat up. 
 
 "Don't you dare speak to me like that after
 
 124 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 breathing vulgar liquor fumes all over my niece's 
 house and tying up that nice foreign gentleman," 
 she quavered weakly. "Don't you dare! I live 
 in this house, young man, and Carl will see to it 
 that I'm protected. He always has. He's very 
 good to me." 
 
 Hunch glowered sullenly at her, fearful, in the 
 face of her relationship to Carl, of committing 
 still another unforgivable offense. 
 
 " I once knew a stout young man with a glass 
 eye," she gulped with increasing courage, "and 
 he was hanged by the neck until he was dead 
 quite dead and then they cut his body down 
 and his relatives took it away in a cart and on the 
 way home it came to life " 
 
 Aunt Agatha halted abruptly, vaguely con 
 scious that this somewhat felicitous ending to 
 the tragedy, as an object lesson to Hunch, left 
 much to be desired. 
 
 " Leave the house ! " she commanded with shrill 
 magnificence, for all her hair and dress were 
 awry, and her round face flushed. "Leave the 
 house." 
 
 Hunch shrugged and obeyed. It was nearly 
 noon and there was no single east-side ac 
 quaintance no, not even Link Murphy, the ter 
 rible whom he feared as he feared Carl Gran- 
 berry. 
 
 Weeping, Aunt Agatha watched him go.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN OF THE SEA 
 
 DIANE was to learn that the infernal per 
 sistence of the Old Man of the Sea of Ara 
 bian origin could find its match in youth. A week 
 slipped by. Philip wove an unsatisfactory mat of 
 sedge upon a loom of cord and stakes, whittled 
 himself a knife and fork and spoon which he in 
 itialed gorgeously with the dye of a boiled alder, 
 invented a camp rake of forked branches, made a 
 broom of twigs, and sunk a candle in the floor 
 of his tent which he covered with a bottomless 
 milk bottle. All in all, he told Nero, he was evo- 
 luting rapidly into an excellent woodsman, de 
 spite the peculiar appearance of the sedge mat. 
 
 When Diane was honestly indignant, Philip 
 was quiet and industrious, and accomplished a 
 great deal with his knife and bits of wood. When, 
 finding his cheerful good humor irresistible, she 
 was forced to fly the flag of truce, he was pro 
 foundly grateful. 
 
 "When do you think you'll go?" demanded 
 Diane pointedly one morning as she deftly 
 swung her line into the river. " Unless you con 
 trive to get stabbed again," she added doubtfully, 
 " I really don't see what's keeping you." 
 
 125
 
 126 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " When I may help you break camp and escort 
 you back to your aunt," replied Philip pleasantly, 
 " I'll pack up my two shirts and my wildwood pipe 
 and depart, exceedingly grateful for my stay in 
 Arcadia." 
 
 Diane bit her lip and frowned. 
 
 " Suppose," she flashed, with angry scarlet in 
 her cheeks, " suppose I break camp and leave you 
 behind!" 
 
 " I'll go with you," shrugged Philip. " Don't 
 you remember? I told you so before. And I'll 
 sit on the rear steps of the van all the way to 
 Florida and play a tin whistle." 
 
 Appalled by the thought of the spectacular 
 vagaries which this Young Man of the Sea might 
 develop if she took to the road, Diane said 
 nothing. 
 
 " No matter how I view you," she indignantly 
 exclaimed a little later, " you're a problem." 
 
 " Settle the problem," 'advised Philip. " It's 
 simple enough." 
 
 "He'll go presently," she told herself resent 
 fully. "He'll have to." 
 
 " How it amuses these fish to watch me murder 
 worms!" exclaimed Philip in deep disgust. 
 " Look at the audience over there! I attract 'em 
 and you get 'em ! Miss Westf all, are you a slave 
 driver?" 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Diane cautiously.
 
 The Young Man of the Sea 127 
 
 Philip's most innocent beginnings frequently led 
 into argumentative morasses for his opponent. 
 
 " Does Johnny have complete freedom in your 
 camp?" 
 
 "Certainly!" exclaimed Diane warmly. 
 " Johnny is old and faithful. He may do as he 
 pleases." 
 
 Philip changed an anaemic worm of consid 
 erable transparency for one of more interest to 
 his river audience and smiled. 
 
 "Johnny," said he cheerfully, "has been good 
 enough to invite me to stay in camp with him 
 indefinitely. I'm his guest, in fact, until you go 
 home. I imagine that as Johnny's guest I ought 
 to enjoy immunity from sarcastic shafts, but I 
 may be mistaken. I've washed and drained most 
 of these worms. Will you lend me an inch or so 
 of that stout invertebrate climbing out of the can 
 by you?" 
 
 Thoroughly out of patience, Diane reeled in 
 her line and returned to camp, whence she pres 
 ently heard Philip blithely whistling a fisherman's 
 hornpipe and urging Nero to retrieve certain 
 sticks he had thrown into the river. A little later 
 he caught a sunfish and swung into camp with 
 such a smile of irresistible pride and good humor 
 on his sun-browned face, that Diane laughed in 
 spite of herself. 
 
 " How ridiculous it is! " she mused uncomfort-
 
 128 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ably. " Here I may not depart for fear a happy- 
 go-lucky young man will play a tin whistle on the 
 steps of the van, and I will not go home. What in 
 the world am I to do with him? Are you an 
 orphan?" she asked with guileful curiosity. 
 
 "No/' said Philip. 
 
 "I'm sorry," said Diane maliciously. "For 
 then I could take out papers of adoption " 
 
 " I'll stay without them," promised Philip. 
 And Diane added wood to the fire with cheeks 
 like the scarlet sunset. 
 
 "I'm going to send for my aunt," she an 
 nounced a few days later. 
 
 "Yes? "said Philip. 
 
 " Unconventionality of any sort shocks her 
 dreadfully. Like as not she'll faint dead away 
 at the sight of you domiciled in my camp as if you 
 own it. She'll see that you go." 
 
 " Better not," advised Philip. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I'll produce credentials proving I'm a reput 
 able victim of circumstances. I'll suggest that 
 in complete concurrence with her I deem it 
 unsafe for a young and attractive girl to tour 
 about the country and that I do not feel that 
 I can conscientiously depart. Between the two 
 of us you'll likely have a most uncomfortable hour 
 or so." 
 
 Aunt Agatha was impressionable. It needed
 
 The Young Man of the Sea 129 
 
 but a spark of concurrence to arouse her dread 
 fully. Diane dismissed the project. 
 
 " I think," she said hopefully, " that you'll most 
 likely go to-night." 
 
 " In any circumstances," said Philip easily, " I 
 fear that would be impossible. Johnny's behind 
 with the laundry and I haven't a collarable shirt." 
 Whereupon he whistled for Nero and set off 
 amiably through the woods to gather an inacces 
 sible flower he knew his lady would prize. 
 
 By nine that night Diane was asleep in the van. 
 Philip, with whom she had indignantly crossed 
 swords a little earlier, lay thoughtfully by the 
 fire watching the snowy curtains of the van 
 windows billowing lazily in the warm night wind. 
 He felt restless and perturbed and presently 
 sought his tent, where he lit the bottled candle to 
 look for the predecessor of his insatiable wildwood 
 pipe, but halted suddenly with a peculiar whistle. 
 
 The silk shirt he had worn from Sherrill's lay 
 conspicuously upon the bed, washed and ironed 
 and beautifully mended up the slashed sleeve and 
 along the shoulder. As a laundress of parts, 
 Johnny was a j ewel, but he could not mend ! 
 
 Now oddly enough as Mr. Poynter stared at 
 the shirt upon the bed, his appearance was that of 
 a young man decidedly out of sorts. Presently 
 with an ominous glint of temper in his fine eyes, 
 he noiselessly rearranged his tent, viciously
 
 130 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 donned the off ending shirt, whistled for Nero and 
 leaving the camp of his lady as unexpectedly as he 
 had entered it, set out for Sherrill's. 
 
 Even the most equable of tempers, it would 
 seem, may now and then prove crotchety. 
 
 And who may say ? Mr. Poynter was a young 
 man of infinite resource. And there were other 
 ways.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IN WHICH THE BARON PAYS 
 
 "T71XCELLENCY," said Philip politely, "I 
 
 ^ have returned." 
 
 "Ah!" said the Baron cordially, marveling 
 somewhat at the forbidding glint in the young 
 man's eyes. He was to learn presently its portent. 
 
 Within doors, a few men chatted in the billiard 
 room. A girl was singing. The Baron, however, 
 was the only occupant of the comfortable porch- 
 room with the green-shaded lamp, to which Philip 
 had come, passing Themar, who had left a tray 
 of ice and creme de menthe upon the table. 
 
 With his customary deliberation the Baron 
 selected a glass, filled it with shaved ice, which 
 he as carefully covered with green creme de 
 menthe, and pushed the delectable result across 
 the table to his secretary. 
 
 Philip accepted with a formal expression of 
 thanks. 
 
 " I am delighted," rumbled the Baron, sipping 
 his iced mint with keen appreciation, " to see that 
 you are fully recovered." 
 
 " And Themar?" inquired Philip coldly. 
 
 "He was not injured so badly as I feared," 
 admitted Tregar slowly. 
 
 131
 
 132 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "His accident," commented Philip quietly, 
 "was to say the least coincidental and con 
 venient." 
 
 " Just what do you mean? " 
 
 " Just why," begged Philip icily, " did you wish 
 me to intrude further upon the hospitality of 
 Miss Westf all?" 
 
 " There was an errand," reminded the Baron 
 blandly. "Having discharged it myself, Poyn- 
 ter, I might er trust to you to report its con 
 sequences. There are possibilities of confidences 
 over a camp fire " 
 
 'You expected me to spy upon Miss 
 Westfall?" 
 
 "Even so." 
 
 "Pray believe," said Philip stiffly, "that any 
 confidence of Miss Westfall's would have been to 
 
 me as vour own." 
 
 " I am to understand then," commented His 
 Excellency suavely, "that you made absolutely 
 no effort " 
 
 'You are to understand just that," said 
 Philip quietly. " Moreover," he manfully met his 
 chief's level glance with one of inexorable deci 
 sion, " I sincerely regret that hereafter I shall be 
 unable to discharge my duties as your secretary." 
 
 The Baron stirred. 
 
 " I may be honored by your reasons, Poynter? " 
 he inquired quietly.
 
 In Which the Baron Pays 133 
 
 "The duties of a spy," flashed Philip, "are 
 peculiarly offensive to me. So is Themar." 
 
 "Themar!" 
 
 " Excellency," said Philip curtly, " to-night as 
 I entered, the lamplight fell full upon the face 
 and throat of your valet." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Themar's throat, Excellency, bears peculiar 
 scars." 
 
 "My dear Poynter! Themar's fall injured 
 him severely about the face and hands." 
 
 " I have not forgotten," insisted Philip grimly, 
 "that Miss Westf all's servant sunk his terrible 
 ringers into the throat of the man whose knife scar 
 I bear. Whether or not his knife was meant for 
 me, I can not say. Nor have I sufficient proof 
 openly to accuse him, but of this much I am con 
 vinced. Themar's presence near the camp of 
 Miss Westf all is, in the face of your peculiar and 
 secretive errand, ominously significant." 
 
 The Baron sighed. There was frank hostility 
 in Philip's eyes. 
 
 "Miss Westf all," added Philip hotly, "is the 
 unsuspecting victim of a peculiar network of 
 mystery of which I feel you hold the key. Her 
 camp is constantly spied upon. Upon the night 
 of the storm there were two men lurking mysteri 
 ously in the forest near her camp fire. The knife 
 of one I was unfortunate enough to receive. The
 
 134 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 other," Philip's eyes glinted oddly, "the other, 
 Excellency," he finished slowly, " tried, I firmly 
 believe to kill Miss Westfall." 
 
 "Impossible!" exclaimed the Baron, greatly 
 shocked. 
 
 " If I might know the nature of your peculiar 
 interest in Miss Westfall," urged Philip bluntly, 
 "I would have greater faith in your apparent 
 surprise." 
 
 The Baron reddened. 
 
 "That is quite impossible," he regretted for 
 mally. " Pray believe that you have magnified its 
 importance into exceedingly ludicrous propor 
 tions. I fear I am obliged to dispense with your 
 faith in my integrity on the conditions you men 
 tion. Your resolution to leave me that is 
 final?" 
 
 "Entirely so." 
 
 "I am sorry," said the Baron simply. And, 
 meeting his chief's eyes, Philip felt somewhat 
 ashamed of one or two of his highly colored sus 
 picions and reddened uncomfortably. 
 
 "It is at least comforting," observed the 
 Baron quietly, " to feel that whatever I may have 
 said in confidence to you will be honorably 
 forgotten." 
 
 " Excellency," said Philip with spirit, " though 
 I may not speak to Miss Westfall of your interest 
 or my suspicions, for reasons which need no nam-
 
 In Which the Baron Pays 135 
 
 ing among gentlemen, it is but fair to warn you 
 that henceforth I shall regard myself as person 
 ally responsible for her safety." 
 
 ''Gallantly spoken!" declared the older man, 
 and watched his secretary, as he bowed and with 
 drew, with more regret than he had seen fit to 
 express. -Then, lying back in his chair he listened 
 with unsmiling attention as Philip entered the 
 billiard room with a laughing shot of abuse for 
 Dick Sherrill which aroused an immediate uproar 
 of welcome. 
 
 Watching the Baron's narrowed eyes, one 
 might have wondered greatly. For Baron Tre- 
 gar looked very tired and grim. At length, hav 
 ing smoked his cigar quite to the end, he went up 
 to his room and summoned Themar. 
 
 "Ah, Themar!" said he softly, and laughed 
 with peculiar relish. 
 
 Themar shifted restlessly. 
 
 " Excellency," he began, uncomfortably aware 
 of unpleasant mockery in his chief's keen eyes. 
 
 The Baron matched the tips of his powerful 
 fingers and studied them intently. 
 
 " Themar," said he acidly, " within a fortnight 
 I have lost a car whose burned remains were found 
 several miles from here, and a secretary whose 
 friendship and invaluable service I prize more 
 highly than your life. I feel that you can to some 
 extent explain both of these disasters."
 
 136 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " Excellency knows," reminded Themar glibly, 
 "that the car was stolen from the Sherrill 
 garage." 
 
 "I have merely supposed so," corrected the 
 Baron coldly. And rising he inspected the cu 
 rious scars upon his valet's throat with interest. 
 "Odd!" he purred, "that an aeroplane may sim 
 ulate the marks of tearing fingers." Swept by a 
 sudden gust of terrible anger, he gripped The- 
 mar's shoulders and shook him until the valet's 
 face was dark with fear. 
 
 "Why," hissed the Baron, "did you lie? Why 
 did you go to the West fall camp and attack 
 Poynter? Why did you swear these scars came 
 from a disastrous flight in a stolen aeroplane? 
 Why have you been spying upon Miss Westfall 
 when I expressly forbade it? " 
 
 "Excellency," choked Themar, horrified by 
 the Baron's unprecedented display of passion, 
 "there was a blunder I dared not tell." 
 
 "Who blundered?" thundered his chief. 
 
 "I. Cranberry, I thought, was to go to his 
 cousin's camp," panted Themar quaking. "I 
 heard Sherrill telephone later he told some 
 men " 
 
 'You took the car " prompted the Baron 
 icily. 
 
 "I I did not know it was Poynter until he
 
 In Which the Baron Pays 13T 
 
 fell," urged Themar trembling. "Cranberry 
 and he are similar in build." 
 
 "Who attempted to kill Miss Westfall?" 
 blazed the Baron, shaking his valet into chatter 
 ing subjection. 
 
 "Excellency, I know not!" protested Themar 
 swallowing painfully. " There was still another 
 man he dashed ahead and stole the car." 
 
 After all, reflected the Baron wryly, in this 
 damnable muddle he must still use Themar. To 
 antagonize him now would be foolhardy. Where 
 fore, with a civil expression of regret at his loss 
 of temper and certain curt instructions, he dis 
 missed Themar, sullen and chastened, and be 
 took himself to an open window, where he sat 
 smoking thoughtfully until the house grew quiet 
 and one by one the lights in the valley faded out. 
 In the web which had engulfed one by one, him 
 self, Themar, Cranberry Miss Westfall and 
 Poynter, a murderous stranger was floundering. 
 Who and what he was, it behooved His Excel 
 lency to discover. 
 
 "It would seem," reflected the Baron with 
 grim humor as he thought of his car and his sec 
 retary, "that I am paying heavily for my part 
 in a task not greatly to my liking." 
 
 In the adjoining room behind locked doors, 
 Themar worked feverishly upon a cipher in 
 scribed upon a soiled linen cuff.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 NOMADS 
 
 " JOHNNY!" said Diane in crisp, distinct 
 J tones, " Mr. Poynter has slept long enough. 
 You'd better call him." 
 
 Now it is a regrettable fact that ordinarily this 
 attack would have provoked a reply of mild im 
 pudence from Mr. Poynter's tent, but this morn 
 ing a surprising silence lay behind the flapping 
 canvas. Diane began to hum. When presently 
 investigation proved that Mr. Poynter's tent was 
 in exemplary order that Mr. Poynter and his 
 mended shirt were missing she went on hum 
 ming but to Johnny's amazement, burned her 
 fingers on the coffeepot ; sharply reproved John 
 ny for staring, and then curtly suggested that he 
 prepare to break camp that morning, as it was 
 high time they were on the road. 
 
 " As for Mr. Philip Poynter," reflected Diane 
 with delicate disdain, as she bent over the fire and 
 rolled some baked potatoes away with a stick, 
 " what can one expect? Men are exceedingly pe 
 culiar and inconsistent and impudent. I haven't 
 the ghost of a doubt that he found that ridiculous 
 shirt and went off in a huff. And I'm very glad 
 he did very glad indeed. I meant he should, 
 
 138
 
 Nomads 139 
 
 though I didn't suppose with his unconscionable 
 nerve it would bother him in the least. If a 
 man's sufficiently erratic to blow a tin whistle all 
 the way to Florida as Philip certainly is and 
 maroon himself on somebody else's lake for fear 
 he'd miss an acquaintance, he'd very likely fly 
 into a rage when one least expected it and go 
 tramping off in the night. I do dislike people 
 who fall into huffs about nothing." 
 
 Diane burned her fingers again, felt that the 
 fire was unnecessarily hot upon her face, and in 
 dignantly resigning the preparation of breakfast 
 to Johnny, went fishing. 
 
 " He should have gone long ago," mused Di 
 ane, flinging her line with considerable force into 
 the river. " It's a great mercy as it is that Aunt 
 Agatha didn't appear and weep all over the camp 
 about him. I'm sorry I mended the shirt. Not 
 but that I was fortunate to find something that 
 would make him go, but a shirt's such a childish 
 thing to fuss about. And, anyway, I preferred 
 him to leave in a friendly, conventional sort of 
 way!" 
 
 There are times, alas, when even fish are per 
 verse! Thoroughly out of patience, Diane 
 presently un jointed her rod, emptied the can of 
 worms upon the bank, and returned to camp, 
 where she found Johnny industriously piling up 
 a heap of litter.
 
 140 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "What are you going to do with these?" de 
 manded Diane, indicating an eccentric woodland 
 broom and a rake of forked twigs and twine. 
 "Throw them out?" 
 
 Johnny nodded. 
 
 "Well, I guess you're not!" sniffed Diane in 
 dignantly. " They're mighty convenient. That 
 rake is really clever." 
 
 Johnny's round eyes showed his astonishment. 
 He had heard his perverse young mistress malign 
 these inventions of Philip's most cruelly. 
 
 Then what a woodland commotion arose after 
 breakfast! What a cautious stamping out of 
 fire and razing of tents! What a startled flut 
 ter of birds above and bugs below ! What an ex 
 cited barking on the part of Rex, who after loaf 
 ing industriously for a week or so, felt called 
 upon to sprint about and assist his mistress with 
 a dirt-brown nose ! What a trampling of horses 
 and a creaking of wheels as the great green 
 wagon wound slowly through the shadowy forest 
 road and took to the open highway with Rex at 
 his mistress's feet haughtily inspecting the way 
 side. 
 
 And what a wayside, to be sure! Past fields 
 of young rye from which a lazy silver smoke 
 seemed to rise and follow the wind-billowing 
 grain; past fields of dark red clover rife with 
 the whir and clatter of mowing machines as the
 
 Nomads 141 
 
 farmers felled the velvety stalks for clover hay; 
 past snug white farmhouses where perfumed 
 peonies drooped sleepily over brick walks; on 
 over a rustic bridge, skirting now a tiny village 
 whose church spire loomed above the trees; now 
 following a road which lay rough and deeply 
 rutted, among golden fields of buttercups 
 fringed with bunch grass. 
 
 Farmers waved and called; housewives looked 
 and disapproved; children stared and jealous ca 
 nines pettishly barked at the haughty Rex; but 
 Johnny only chuckled and cracked his whip. Day 
 by day the green and white caravan rumbled se 
 renely on, camping by night in field and forest. 
 
 A country world of peace and sunshine of 
 droning bees and the nameless fragrance of sum 
 mer fields it was ! And the struggling nomads of 
 the dusty road ! Diane felt a kindred thrill of in 
 terest in each one of them. Now a Syrian peddler 
 woman, squat and swarthy, bending heavily be 
 neath her pack amid a flurry of dust from the 
 sun-baked roads her feet had wearily padded 
 for days; now a sleepy negro on a load of hay, 
 an organ grinder with a chattering monkey or 
 a clumsy bear, another sleepy negro with another 
 load of hay, and a picturesque minstrel with an 
 elaborate musical contrivance drawn by a horse. 
 Now a capering Italian with a bagpipe, who 
 danced grotesquely to his own piping, and piped
 
 142 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the pennies out of rural pockets as if they had 
 been so many copper rats from Hamelin! 
 
 Peddlers and tramps and agents, country 
 drummers and country circuses, medicine men 
 who shouted the versatile merits of corn salve 
 by the light of flaring torches, eccentric orators 
 of eccentric theology, tent-shows of "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin," with real bloodhounds and unreal 
 painted ice, gypsies who were always expected to 
 steal some one's children and never did, peddlers 
 with creaking, clinking wagons, hucksters and 
 motorcyclists, motorists and dusty hikers one 
 by one in the days to come Diane was to meet 
 them all and learn that the nomads of the summer 
 road were a happy-go-lucky guild of peculiar 
 and cooperative good humor. 
 
 But the girl herself was a truer nomad than 
 many to whom with warm friendliness she nodded 
 and spoke. 
 
 Late one afternoon Diane espied a woodland 
 brook. Shot with gold and shadow, it laughed 
 along, under a waving canopy of green, freckled 
 with cool, clean pebbles and hiding roguishly now 
 and then beneath a trailing branch. A brook was 
 a luxury. It was mirror and spring and lullaby 
 in one. 
 
 By six the tents of the nomad were pitched by 
 the forest brook and the nomad herself was
 
 Nomads 143 
 
 smoothing back her ruffled hair over a crystalline 
 mirror. 
 
 A drowsy negro on a load of hay drove by on 
 the road beyond. 
 
 Diane studied him with critical interest. 
 
 "Johnny," she said, "just why are there so 
 many drowsy negroes about driving loads of hay? 
 Or is that the same one ? And if it is, where under 
 Heaven has he been driving that hay for the last 
 three days?" 
 
 Johnny didn't know. Wherefore he pursed 
 his lips and shook his head. 
 
 The hay wagon turned off into the forest on 
 the farther side of the road and halted. The 
 drowsy negro leisurely alighted and shuffled 
 through the trees until he stood before Diane 
 with a square of birch bark in his hand. Greatly 
 astonished for this negro was apparently too 
 lazy to talk when he deemed it unnecessary 
 Diane took the birch bark and inspected it in 
 mystification. A most amazing message was 
 duly inscribed thereon. 
 
 " Erastus has acquired a sinewy chicken from 
 somebody's barn yard," it read. !< Why not bring 
 your own plate, knife, fork, spoon and a good saw 
 over to my hay-camp and dine with me? 
 
 "Philip." 
 
 Diane stared with rising color at the load of 
 hay. From its ragged, fragrant bed, a tall, lean
 
 144 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 young man with a burned skin, was rising and 
 lazily urging a nondescript yellow dog to do 
 the same. The dog conceivably demurred, for 
 Philip removed him, yelping, by the simple pro 
 cess of seizing him by the loose skin at the back 
 of his neck and dropping him overboard. Hav 
 ing brushed his clothes, the young man came, 
 with smiling composure, through the forest, the 
 yellow dog waggling at his heels. 
 
 "I've read so much about breaking the news 
 gently," apologized Philip, smiling, "that I 
 thought I'd better try a bit of it myself. Hence 
 the sylvan note. Ras, if you go to sleep by that 
 tree, I'll like as not let you sleep there until you 
 die. Go back to camp and build a fire and hollow 
 out the feathered biped." 
 
 Ras slouched obediently off toward the hay- 
 camp. 
 
 * You've hay in your ears!" exclaimed Diane, 
 biting her lips. 
 
 "I'm a nomad!" announced Philip calmly. 
 "So's Erastus so's Dick Whittington here. 
 I'm likely to have hay in my ears for months to 
 come. Dick Whittington," explained Philip, 
 patting the dog, " is a mustard-colored orphan I 
 picked up a couple of days ago. He'd made a 
 vow to gyrate steadily in a whirlwind of dust after 
 a hermit flea who lived on the end of his tail, until 
 somebody adopted him and er cut off the
 
 Nomads 145 
 
 grasping hermit. I fell for him, but, like Ras, a 
 sleep bug seems to have bitten him." 
 
 "Most likely he unwinds in his sleep," sug 
 gested Diane politely. And added acidly, 
 "Where are you going?' 
 
 " Florida ! " said Philip amiably. 
 
 The girl stared at him with dark, accusing 
 eyes. 
 
 'The trip is really no safer now," reminded 
 Philip steadily, " than it was when I left camp." 
 
 "In a huff!" flashed Diane disparagingly. 
 
 " In a huff," admitted Philip and dismissed 
 the dangerous topic with a philosophic shrug. 
 
 " I won't have you trailing after me on a hay- 
 wagon!" exclaimed I)iane in honest indignation. 
 
 " Hum! Just how," begged Philip, " does one 
 go about effecting a national ordinance to keep 
 hay-carts off the highway?" 
 
 As Philip betokened an immediate desire to 
 name over certain rights with which he was vested 
 as a citizen of the United States, Diane was more 
 than willing to change the subject. Persistence 
 was the keynote of Mr. Poynter's existence. 
 
 "Johnny," begged Philip, "get Miss Diane 
 some chicken implements, will you, old man? 
 And lend me some salt. You see," he added 
 easily to Diane, "Ras and I are personally re 
 sponsible for an individual and very concentrated 
 grub equipment. It saves a deal of fussing. I
 
 146 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 carry mine in my pocket and Ras carries his in 
 his hat, but he wears a roomier tile than I do 
 and never climbs out of it even when he sleeps. 
 Thank you, Johnny. I'll send Ras over with 
 your supper. But if it seems to be getting late, 
 look him up. He may fall asleep." 
 
 After repeated indignant refusals which Mr. 
 Poynter characteristically splintered, Diane, in 
 tensely curious, went with Mr. Poynter to the 
 hay-camp for supper. 
 
 Now although the somnolent Ras had been 
 shuffling drowsily about a fresh fire with no 
 apparent aim, he presently contrived to produce 
 a roasted chicken, fresh cucumbers, some caviare 
 and rolls, coffee and cheese and a small freezer 
 of ice cream, all of which he appeared to take 
 at intervals from under the seat of the hay-cart. 
 
 "Ice cream and caviare!" exclaimed the girl 
 aghast. " That's treason." 
 
 " I've my own notions of camping," admitted 
 Philip, " and really our way is exceedingly simple 
 and comfortable. Ras loads up the seat pantry 
 at the nearest village and then we cast off all 
 unnecessary ballast every morning. Of course we 
 couldn't very well camp twice in the same place 
 we decorate so heavily but that's a negligible 
 factor. Oh, yes," added Philip smiling, "we've 
 blazed our trail with buns and cheese for miles 
 back. Ras thinks whole processions of birds
 
 Nomads 147 
 
 and dogs and tramps and chickens are already 
 following us. If it's true, we'll most likely eat 
 some of 'em." 
 
 "Where," demanded Diane hopelessly, "did 
 you get this ridiculous outfit?" 
 
 "Well," explained Philip comfortably, "Ras 
 was drowsing by Sherrill's on a load of hay and 
 I bought the cart and the hay and the horses and 
 Ras at a bargain and set out. Ras is a free lance 
 without an encumbrance on earth and I can't 
 imagine a more comfortable manner of getting 
 about than stretched out full length on a load of 
 hay. You can always sleep when you feel like it. 
 And every morning we peel the bed that is, 
 we dispense with a layer of mattress and presto! 
 I have a fresh bed until the hay's gone. We 
 bought a new load this morning." 
 
 Swept by an irresistible spasm of laughter, 
 Diane stared wildly about the hay-camp. 
 
 "And Ras?" she begged faintly. 
 
 "Well," said Philip slowly, "Ras is pecu 
 liarly gifted. He can sleep anywhere. Some 
 times he sleeps stretched out on the padded seat 
 of the wagon, and sometimes he sleeps under it 
 the wagon I mean; not in the pantry. And 
 then of course he sleeps all day while he's driv 
 ing and once or twice I've found him in a tree. 
 I don't like him to do that," he added with gravity,
 
 148 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " for he's so full of hay I'm afraid the birds will 
 begin to make nests in his ears and pockets." 
 
 "Mistah Poynteh," reflected Ras, scratching 
 his head through his hat, " is a lunatict. He gits 
 notions. I cain't nohow understan' him but s'long 
 as he don' get ructious I'se gwine drive dat hay- 
 cart to de Norf Pole if he say de word. I hain't 
 never had a real chanst to make my fortune 
 afore." 
 
 "And what," begged Diane presently, "do 
 you do when it rains?" 
 
 Mr. Poynter agreed that that had been a 
 problem. 
 
 "But with our accustomed ingenuity," he 
 added modestly, " we have solved it. Back there 
 in a village we induced a blacksmith with brains 
 and brawn to fit a tall iron frame around the 
 wagon and if the sun's too hot, or it showers, we 
 shed some more hay and drape a tarpaulin or so 
 over the frame. It's an excellent arrangement. 
 We can have side curtains or not just as we 
 choose. In certain wet circumstances, of course, 
 we'll most likely take to barns and inns and wood- 
 houses and corncribs and pick up the trail in the 
 morning. You can't imagine," he added, "how 
 ready pedestrians are to tell us which way the 
 green moving van went." 
 
 Whereupon the nomad of the hay-camp and 
 his ruffled guest crossed swords again over a pot
 
 Nomads 149 
 
 of coffee, with inglorious defeat for Diane, 
 who departed for her own camp in a blaze of 
 indignation. 
 
 " I'll ignore him!" she decided in the morning 
 as the green van took to the road again. " It's 
 the only way. And after a while he'll most likely 
 get tired and disgruntled and go home. He's 
 subject to huffs anyway. It's utterly useless to 
 talk to him. He thrives on opposition." 
 
 Looking furtively back, she watched Mr. 
 Poynter break camp. It was very simple. Ras, 
 yawning prodigiously, heaved a variety of unnec 
 essary provisions overboard from the seat pantry, 
 abandoned the ice-cream freezer to a desolate fate 
 by the ashes of the camp fire and peeled the hay- 
 bed. Philip slipped a small tin plate, a collapsible 
 tin cup, a wooden knife, fork and spoon into his 
 pocket. Ras put his in his hat, which immediately 
 took on a somewhat bloated appearance. Having 
 climbed languidly to the reins, the ridiculous 
 negro appeared to fall asleep immediately. Mr. 
 Poynter, looking decidedly trim and smiling, 
 summoned Dick Whittington, climbed aboard 
 and, whistling, disappeared from view with un 
 common grace and good humor. The hay- wagon 
 rumbled off. 
 
 Diane bit her lips convulsively and looked at 
 Johnny. Simultaneously they broke into an im 
 moderate fit of laughter.
 
 150 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Very well," decided the girl indignantly a 
 little later, "if I can't do anything else, I can 
 lose him ! " 
 
 But even this was easier of utterance than ac 
 complishment. Diane was soon to learn that if 
 the distance between them grew too great, Mr. 
 Poynter promptly unloaded all but a scant layer 
 of hay, took the reins himself, and thundered 
 with expedition up the trail in quest of her, with 
 Dick Whittington barking furiously. It was 
 much too spectacular a performance for a daily 
 diet. 
 
 Diane presently ordered her going and coming 
 as if the persistent hay-gypsy on the road behind 
 her did not exist, but every night she caught the 
 cheerful glimmer of his camp fire through the 
 trees, and frowned.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A NOMADIC MINSTBEL 
 
 STRIKING west into New York State, 
 Diane had come into Orange County, whence 
 she wound slowly down into northern Jersey, 
 through the Poconos. For days now the dusty 
 wanderers had followed the silver flash of the 
 Delaware, coming at length from a rugged, 
 cooler country of mountain and lake into a sunny 
 valley cleft by the singing river. It was a goodly 
 land of peaceful villages tucked away mid age- 
 old trees, of garrulous, kindly folks and covered 
 bridges, of long, lazy canals with grassy banks 
 banding each shore of the rippling river, of tow- 
 paths padded by the feet of bargemen and bell- 
 hung mules and lock-tenders. 
 
 At sunset one night Diane paid her toll at a 
 Lilliputian house built like an architectural bar 
 nacle on to the end of a covered bridge, and 
 with a rumble of boards wound slowly through 
 the dusty, twilight tunnel into Pennsylvania. A 
 little later a drowsy negro passed through with 
 a load of hay, a barking dog and a mysterious 
 voice, with a lazy drawl, which directed the pay 
 ment of the toll from among the hay. Still later 
 a musical nomad driving an angular horse /rom 
 
 151
 
 152 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the seat of a ramshackle cart, accoutered, among 
 other orchestral devices, with clashing cymbals, a 
 drum and a handle which upon being turned a 
 trifle by the curious tollgate keeper aroused a 
 fearful musical commotion in the cart. 
 
 From her camp on a wooded spot by the river, 
 Diane presently watched the hay-camp anchor 
 with maddening ease for the night. Ras built a 
 fire, unhitched the horses, produced a variety of 
 things from the seat of the pantry and took his 
 table equipment from his hat. Philip smoked, 
 removed an occasional wisp of hay from his hair 
 and shied friendly pebbles at Richard Whitting- 
 ton. 
 
 Diane was busy making coffee when the third 
 nomad appeared with his music machine, and, 
 halting near her, alighted and fell stiffly to turn 
 ing the eventful crank. 
 
 Instantly two terrible drumsticks descended 
 and with globular extremities thumped, by no 
 visible agency, upon the drum. The cymbals 
 clashed and a long music record began to un 
 fold in segments like a papier-mdch6 snake. 
 
 "Well," exclaimed Diane fervently, "I do 
 wish he'd stop! For all we've seen him so often 
 he's never bothered us like this before." 
 
 The unfortunate and frequently flagellated 
 " Glowworm," however, continued to glow fear 
 fully, impelled to eruptive scintillation by the
 
 A Nomadic Minstrel 153 
 
 crank, and the vocal lady "walked with Billy," 
 and presently the minstrel came through the trees 
 with his hat in his hand, his dark eyes very 
 humble and deferential. 
 
 Now as Diane nodded pleasantly and smiled 
 and held forth a coin, the wandering minstrel 
 suddenly swayed, clapped his hand to his fore 
 head with a choking groan and pitched forward 
 senseless upon the ground at her feet. Diane 
 jumped. 
 
 "Johnny!" she exclaimed in keen alarm, 
 "we've another invalid. Turn him over!" But 
 it was not Johnny who performed this service for 
 the unfortunate minstrel. It was Mr. Poynter. 
 
 "Hum!" said Philip dryly. "That's most 
 likely retribution. A man can't unwind all that 
 hullabaloo without feeling the strain. Water, 
 Johnny, and if you have some smelling salts 
 handy, bring 'em along." 
 
 After one or two vigorous attentions on the 
 part of Mr. Poynter, the nomad of the music 
 machine opened his eyes and stared blankly 
 about him. That he was not yet quite himself, 
 however, was readily apparent, for meeting Mr. 
 Poynter's unsmiling glance, he grew very white 
 and faint and begged for water. 
 
 Philip supplied it without a word. After an 
 interval of unsympathetic silence, during which 
 the minstrel's eyes roved uncertainly about the
 
 154 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 camp and returned each time to Philip's face in 
 a fascinated stare, he feebly strove to rise but 
 fell back groaning. 
 
 " If if I might stay here for but the night," 
 he begged pathetically, his accent slightly 
 foreign. 
 
 " That's impossible ! " said Philip curtly. " I'll 
 help you to your rumpus machine and back there 
 in the village you will find an inn. My man will 
 go with you." 
 
 " Philip ! " exclaimed Diane with spirit. " The 
 man is ill." 
 
 " I'm not denying it," averred Philip stub 
 bornly. " Nor is there any denying the existence 
 of the inn." 
 
 " How can you be so heartless 1 " 
 
 " One may also be prudent." 
 
 " He'll stay here of course if he wishes. The 
 inn is a mile back." 
 
 "Diane!" 
 
 "Is he the first?" flashed Diane impetuously. 
 
 Philip reddened but his eyes were sombre. The 
 knife and the bullet had engendered a certain 
 cynicism. 
 
 "As you will!" said he. And consigning to 
 Johnny the care of the invalid, who watched him 
 depart with furtive relief, Philip strode off 
 through the woods. Hospitality, reflected Philip
 
 A Nomadic Minstrel 155 
 
 unquietly, was all right in its place, but Diane 
 was an extremist. After supper, however for 
 Philip was inherently kind hearted and sympa 
 thetic he dispatched Has to unhitch the min 
 strel's snorting steed and remove the eccentric 
 music machine from the highway. Johnny had 
 already accomplished both. 
 
 Smoking, Philip stared at the firelit hollow 
 where his lady's fire-tinted tents glimmered spec 
 trally through the trees. He was relieved to see 
 that the camp's unbidden guest lay comfortably 
 upon his own blankets by the fire. 
 
 Somehow the minstrel's face, clean-shaven, 
 strikingly brown of skin and unmistakably for 
 eign beneath the thatch of dark hair sparsely 
 veined in grey, lingered hauntingly in his 
 memory. 
 
 "Where in thunder have I seen him before?" 
 wondered Philip restlessly. " There's something 
 about his eyes and forehead on the road prob 
 ably, for of course I've passed him a number of 
 times. Still Lord! " added Philip with a burst 
 of impatience, "what a salamander I am, to be 
 sure! Whittington, old top, ever since I've 
 known our gypsy lady, I've done nothing but 
 fuss." 
 
 But, nevertheless, when Diane's camp finally 
 settled into quiet for the night, there was a watch-
 
 156 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ful sentry in the forest who did not retire to his 
 bed of hay until Johnny was astir at daybreak. 
 And Philip was to find his bearings in a stag 
 gering flash of memory and know no peace for 
 many a day to come.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF MINSTRELSY 
 
 "T AM glad to see that you are better," said 
 
 JL Diane pleasantly. 
 
 The minstrel, who had bathed his hands and 
 face in the river until they were darkly ruddy, 
 bowed with singular grace and ease. That he 
 was grave and courtly of manner and strikingly 
 handsome to boot, Diane had already noticed with 
 a flash of wonder. 
 
 " I owe you much," said he simply. " My life 
 perhaps - 
 
 " I am sure," protested Diane, " that you 
 greatly overrate my small service." 
 
 "Day by day," exclaimed the minstrel 
 sombrely, " I travel the summer roads in quest of 
 health." 
 
 Not a little interested, Diane raised frankly 
 sympathetic eyes to his in diffident question. 
 
 "The music?" said the minstrel with his slow, 
 grave smile. "Is there not more romance and 
 adventure in the life of a wandering minstrel 
 than in that of an idle seeker after health? In 
 the open one finds happiness, health, color and 
 life!" 
 
 Diane felt a sudden tie of sympathy link her 
 
 157
 
 158 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 subtly to this mysterious nomad of the summer 
 road. Simply and naturally she spoke of her 
 own love of the wild things that filled the sylvan 
 world with life and color. 
 
 'You look much then at the wild flowers!" 
 he exclaimed delightedly. "There was a leaf 
 back there on a mountain, the edge of white, a 
 white blossom in the heart like a patch of 
 snow 
 
 " Snow-on-the-mountain ! " exclaimed Diane. 
 " I've looked for it for days." 
 
 " It shall be my ambition to bring you some," 
 said the minstrel gallantly. " I shall not forget." 
 
 Diane glanced furtively at the picturesque 
 attire which her nomadic guest wore with a cer 
 tain dashing grace, and marveled afresh. It was 
 of ragged corduroy with a brightly colored hand 
 kerchief about the throat which foiled his vivid 
 skin artistically. Indeed there was more of 
 sophistication in the careful blending of colors 
 than even the normal seeker after health might 
 deem expedient for his purpose. 
 
 "It is to few to none indeed save you that 
 I have confided the secret of my minstrelsy," he 
 said deferentially a little later. "Illness, love 
 of adventure, a longing to brush elbows with the 
 world, a hunger for the woodland in the eyes 
 of unromantic men these things are weaknesses. 
 You and I know differently, but nevertheless 
 it is best that I seem but a poor vagrant grinding
 
 The Romance of Minstrelsy 159 
 
 forth a hapless tune for the coppers by the 
 wayside." 
 
 The minstrel gazed idly at the hay-camp. 
 
 "One does not quite understand," he sug 
 gested raising handsome eyebrows in subtle dis 
 approval; "the negro, the hay the curious 
 camp ? " 
 
 Diane recalled Philip's unfeeling attitude of 
 the night before. 
 
 "A happy-go-lucky young man with a taste 
 for hay," she said. " I know little of him." 
 
 "One treasures one's confidence from the 
 unsympathetic," ventured the minstrel. "Now 
 the young man of the hay, I take it, is intensely 
 practical and let us say unromantic. Lest he 
 laugh and scoff " he shrugged and glanced 
 furtively at the girl's face. It was brightly 
 flushed and very lovely. The velvet dusk of 
 Diane's eyes was sparkling with the zest of wood 
 land adventure. To repose a confidence in one so 
 spirited and beautiful was fascinating sport 
 and safe. 
 
 Now the minstrel found as the morning waned 
 that he was not so strong as he had fancied. 
 Wherefore he lay humbly by the fire and talked 
 of his fortunes by the roadside. Bits of philos 
 ophy, of sparkling jest, of vivid description, to 
 these Diane listened with parted lips and eyes 
 alive with wholesome interest as her guest con-
 
 160 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 trived to veil himself in a silken web of romance 
 and mystery. 
 
 It was sunset before the girl felt uncomfort 
 ably that he ought to go. A little later, on her 
 way to the van, she found a volume of Herodotus 
 in the original Greek which with a becoming air 
 of guilt the minstrel owned that he had dropped. 
 
 "Ah, Herodotus!" he murmured, smiling. 
 "After all, was he not the wandering, romantic 
 father of all of us who are nomads! " 
 
 " I wonder," said a lazy voice among the trees, 
 " I wonder now if old Herodotus ever heard of 
 a hay-camp." 
 
 Removing a wisp of hay from his shoe with a 
 certain matter-of-fact grace characteristic of 
 him, Mr. Poynter, who had been invisible all day, 
 arrived in the camp of the enemy. Diane saw 
 with a fretful flash of wonder that he was immac 
 ulate as usual. She saw too that the minstrel was 
 annoyed and that he dropped the volume of He 
 rodotus into his pocket with a flush and a frown. 
 
 " I trust," said Philip politely, " that you are 
 better?" 
 
 Save for a slight dizziness, the minstrel said, he 
 was. 
 
 " And yet," urged Philip feelingly, " I'm sure 
 you'll not take to the road to-night, feeling wob 
 bly. The inn back there in the village is im 
 mensely attractive. And a bed is the place for 
 a sick man."
 
 The Romance of Minstrelsy 161 
 
 "He will remain where he is." flashed Diane 
 perversely, " until he feels quite able to go on." 
 
 "Will you?" asked Philip pointedly. 
 
 The minstrel rose weakly and glanced at 
 Diane with profound gratitude. 
 
 "After all," he said hurriedly, "he is doubt 
 less right. Ill or not I must go on." 
 
 "An excellent notion!" approved Philip cor 
 dially. " I'll go with you." 
 
 Now whether or not the hurry and excitement 
 of rising in these somewhat frictional circum 
 stances brought on a recurrence of the nomad's 
 singular disease, Diane did not know, but cer 
 tainly he staggered and fell back, faint and 
 moaning by the fire, thereby arousing an immedi 
 ate commotion. 
 
 Philip grimly took his pulse and met Diane's 
 sympathetic glance with one of honest indigna 
 tion. 
 
 " Diane," he said in a low voice, " he is trick 
 ing you into sympathy merely for the comfort of 
 your camp. Twice now his fainting has been at 
 tended by an absolutely normal pulse. Let Has 
 and Johnny carry him back to his rumpus ma 
 chine and I'll drive him to the inn." 
 
 'You'll do nothing of the sort I" exclaimed 
 the girl with flaming color. "Why are you so 
 suspicious?" 
 
 Philip sighed.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AT THE GRAY OF DAWN 
 
 IT WAS very quiet in the wood by the river. 
 A late moon swung its golden censer above 
 the water by invisible chains, marking checkered 
 aisles of light in the silent wood, burnishing elfin 
 rosaries of dew, touching with cool, white fingers 
 of benediction the leaf -cowled heads of stately 
 trees. Like lines of solemn smoke they stood 
 listening raptly to the deep, full chant of the 
 moving river. The sylvan mass of the night was 
 a thing of infinite peace and mystery, of silence 
 and solemnity. 
 
 Into the hush of the moonlit night came pres 
 ently a jarring note, the infernal racket of a mo 
 torcycle. Philip, a lone sentry by the camp of 
 his lady, stirred and frowned. The clatter ceased. 
 Once again the lap of the restless river and the 
 rustle of trees were the only sounds in the silent 
 wood. Philip glanced at the muffled figure of 
 the minstrel asleep on the ground by the dead 
 embers of the camp fire, and leaning carelessly 
 upon his elbow, fell again into the train of 
 thought disturbed by the clatter. 
 
 "Herodotus!" said Philip. "Hum!" And 
 roused to instant alertness by the crackle of a 
 
 162
 
 At the Gray of Dawn 163 
 
 twig in the forest, he glanced sharply roadwards 
 where the trees thinned. 
 
 There was something moving stealthily along 
 in the shadows. With narrowed eyes the sentry 
 noiselessly flattened himself upon the ground 
 and fell to watching. 
 
 A stealthy crackle and silence. A moving 
 shadow a halt! 
 
 A patch of moonlight lay ahead. For an in 
 terval which to Philip seemed unending, there 
 was no sound or movement, then a figure glided 
 swiftly through the patch of moonlight and ap 
 proached the camp. It was a man in the garb of 
 a motorcyclist. 
 
 Noiselessly Philip shifted his position. The 
 cyclist crept to the shelter of a tree and halted. 
 
 The moon now hung above the wood. Its light, 
 showering softly through the trees as the night 
 wind swayed the branches, fell presently upon 
 the camp and the face of the cyclist. 
 
 It was Themar. 
 
 Now as Philip watched, Themar crouched sud 
 denly and fell to staring at the muffled figure by 
 the camp fire. For an interval he crouched mo 
 tionless; then with infinite caution he moved to 
 the right. A branch swept his cap back from his 
 forehead and Philip saw now that his face was 
 white and staring. 
 
 And in that instant as he glanced at the horri-
 
 164 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 fied face of the Houdanian, Philip knew. The 
 stained skin, the smooth-shaven chin and lip of 
 the minstrel if Themar had found them puz 
 zling, the revealment had come to him, as it had 
 come to Philip, in a flash of bewilderment. 
 
 With a bound, the startled American was on 
 his feet, stealing rapidly toward the man by the 
 tree. To the spying, the mystery, the infernal 
 trickery and masquerading which dogged his 
 lady's trail, Themar held the key, wherefore 
 
 Cursing, Philip forged ahead. The carpet of 
 dry twigs beneath him had betrayed his approach 
 and Themar was running wildly through the 
 forest. 
 
 On and on they went, stumbling and flying 
 through the moonlit wood to the towpath. But 
 Philip was much the better runner and soon 
 caught the fleeing cyclist by the collar with a grip 
 of steel. 
 
 "Poynter!" panted Themar, staring. 
 
 " At your service ! " Mr. Poynter assured him 
 and politely begged instant and accurate knowl 
 edge of a number of things, of a knife and a bul 
 let, of Themar's spying, of a cuff, of the man by 
 the fire who read Herodotus, of a motorcyclist 
 seeking for days to overtake a nomad. 
 
 "I I dare not tell," faltered Themar, moist 
 ening his lips. "I I am bound by an oath " 
 
 "To spy and steal and murder!"
 
 At the Gray of Dawn 165 
 
 Themar stared sullenly at the river, gray now 
 with the coming dawn. His dark face was drawn 
 and haggard. 
 
 And again Mr. Poynter shot a volley of ques 
 tions and awaited the answers with dangerous 
 quiet. 
 
 Shaking, Themar refused again to answer. 
 With even more quietness and courtesy Philip 
 obligingly gave him a final opportunity and find 
 ing Themar white and inexorable, smiled. 
 
 : ' Very well, then,'* said Mr. Poynter warmly, 
 " I'll take it out of your hide." Which he pro 
 ceeded to do with that consummate thoroughness 
 which characterized his every action, husbanding 
 the strength of his long, lean arms until a knife 
 appeared in Themar's hand. Then in deadly 
 silence Mr. Poynter reduced his treacherous 
 assailant to a battered hulk upon the towpath. 
 
 A mule bell tinkled in the quiet. 
 
 Upstream on the path between canal and river 
 two mules appeared with a man slouching heavily 
 behind them. The towline led to a grimy scow 
 which loomed out of the misty stillness like a 
 heavier drift of the dawn itself. 
 
 "Hello!" Philip hailed the mule driver. 
 
 " What's wantin' ? " asked the man and halted. 
 
 Philip indicated Themar with his foot. 
 
 " Here is a gentleman," he explained, " whom 
 I discovered lurking about my camp a while ago.
 
 166 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 He showed me his knife and I've mussed him up 
 a bit." 
 
 The mule-driver bent over Themar and sharply 
 scanned the dark, foreign face. 
 
 "One o' them damned black-and-tans, eh?" 
 he growled. "They're too ready with their 
 knives. What ye goin' to do with him?" 
 
 " I'm wondering," shrugged Philip, smoothing 
 his rumpled hair back from his forehead with the 
 palm of his hand, " if you'll permit me to pay his 
 passage to a hospital, the farther away, the 
 better." 
 
 The mule-driver glanced searchingly at Mr. 
 Poynter's face. Apparently satisfied, he cupped 
 his mouth with his hands and called " Ho, Jem! " 
 
 "Jem" jerked sharply at the tiller and pres 
 ently the scow scraped the shore. The mule- 
 driver consigned the care of his mules to Philip 
 and scrambled down the grassy bank to the edge 
 of the water. 
 
 "Where ye want him took?" demanded Jem, 
 scratching a bristling shock of hair which glim 
 mered through the dawn like a thicket of spikes. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Poynter indifferently, 
 "where are you going?" 
 
 Jem named a town many miles away. The 
 mule-driver looked hard again at Philip. 
 
 " Gawd, young feller," he admired, " you're a 
 cool un all right!"
 
 At the Gray of Dawn 167 
 
 " Take him there," said Philip with the utmost 
 composure. "Deliver him somewhere a reason 
 able distance off for repairs and I'll pay you fifty 
 dollars." 
 
 "See here," broke in Jem, somewhat staggered 
 by the careless manner in which Mr. Poynter 
 handled fortunes, " hain't no foul play about this 
 here, eh? Asher says he's mussed up consider 
 able." 
 
 "Asher's right," admitted Mr. Poynter 
 modestly. "I did the best I could, of course. 
 Come up and look him over. He's decorated 
 mournfully with fist marks, but nothing worse. 
 There's his knife." 
 
 After a somewhat cautious inspection, Themar 
 was hoisted aboard the scow and harnessed dis 
 creetly with ropes. Jem shared his companion's 
 distrust of black-and-tans. With a tinkle of 
 mule-bells the cortege faded away into the gray 
 of dawn. 
 
 Later, Mr. Poynter discovered an abandoned 
 motorcycle by the roadside, which with some little 
 malice he had crated at the nearest town and dis 
 patched to Baron Tregar. 
 
 Thereafter, after a warning talk with Johnny, 
 Philip slept by day and watched by night.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 SYLVAN SUITORS 
 
 SOUTHWARD wound the green and white 
 O van; southward the hay-camp with infre 
 quent scurries to inn and barn for shelter ; south 
 ward, his health still improving, went the musical 
 nomad, unwinding his musical hullabaloo for the 
 torture of musical crowds. 
 
 Now the world was a-riot with the life and 
 color of midsummer. Sleepy cows browsed 
 about in fields dotted with orange daisies, horses 
 switched their tails against the cloudless sky on 
 distant hillsides, sheep freckled the sunny pas 
 tures, and here and there beneath an apple tree 
 heavy with fruit, lumbered a mother-sow with her 
 litter of pigs. Sun-bleached dust clouded the 
 highway and the swaying fields of corn were slim 
 and tall. 
 
 The shuttle of Fate clicked and clicked as she 
 wove and crossed and tangled the threads of these 
 wandering, sun-brown nomads. How frequently 
 the path of the music machine crossed the path of 
 the van, no one knew so well perhaps as Philip, 
 but Philip at times was tantalizing and mysteri 
 ous and only evidenced his knowledge in peculiar 
 and singularly aggravating ways. 
 
 168
 
 Sylvan Suitors 169 
 
 For the friendship between Diane and the 
 handsome minstrel was steadily growing. By 
 what subtle hints, by what ingenuous bursts of 
 confidence, by what bewildering flashes of in 
 herent magnetism he contrived to cement it, who 
 may say ? But surely his romantic resources like 
 his irresistible charm of speech and manner, were 
 varied. A rare flower, an original and highly 
 commendable bit of woodland verse, some luxury 
 of fruit or camping device, in a hundred delicate 
 ways he contrived to make the girl his debtor, 
 talking much in his grave and courtly way of 
 the gratitude he owed her. Adroitly then this 
 romantic minstrel spun his shining, varicolored 
 web, linking them together as sympathetic 
 nomads of the summer road; adroitly too he 
 banned Philip, who by reason of a growing and 
 mysterious habit of sleeping by day had gained 
 for himself a blighting reputation of callous 
 indifference to the charm of the beautiful rolling 
 country all around them. 
 
 " I'm exceedingly sorry," read a scroll of birch 
 bark which Ras drowsily delivered to Diane one 
 sunset, " but I'll have to ask you to invite me to 
 supper. Ras bought an unhappy can of some 
 thing or other behind in the village and it 
 exploded. 
 
 "Philip."
 
 170 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " If I refuse," Diane wrote on the back, " you'll 
 come anyway. You always do. Why write? 
 Will you contribute enough hay for a cushion? 
 Johnny's making a new one for Rex." 
 
 It was one of the vexing problems of Diane's 
 nomadic life, just how to treat Mr. Philip Poyn- 
 ter. It was increasingly difficult to ignore or 
 quarrel with him for his memory was too 
 alarmingly porous to cherish a grudge or resent 
 ment. When a man has had a bump upon his only 
 head, held Mr. Poynter, things are apt to slip 
 away from him. Wherefore one may pardon him 
 if after repeated commands to go home, and cer 
 tain frost-bitten truths about officious young men, 
 he somehow forgot and reappeared in the camp 
 of the enemy in radiant good humor. 
 
 Philip presently arrived with a generous layer 
 of hay under his arm and a flour bag of tomatoes. 
 
 "Hello," he called warmly. "Isn't the sun 
 set bully! It even woke old Has up and he's 
 blinking and grumbling like fury." Mr. Poynter 
 fell to chatting pleasantly, meanwhile removing 
 from his clothing certain wisps of hay. 
 
 'You're always getting into hay or getting 
 out of it!" accused Diane. 
 
 Philip admitted with regret that this might be 
 so and Diane stared hopelessly at his immaculate 
 linen. Heaven alone knew by what ingenuity 
 Mr. Poynter, handicapped by the peculiar limita-
 
 Sylvan Suitors 171 
 
 tions of a hay-camp, contrived to manage his 
 wardrobe. What mysterious toilet paraphernalia 
 lay beneath the hay, what occasional laundry 
 chores Ras did by brook and river, what pur 
 chases Mr. Poynter made in every village, and 
 finally what an endless trail of shirts and cuffs 
 and collars lay behind him, doomed, like the cheese 
 and buns, as he feelingly put it, to one-night 
 stands, only Ras and Philip knew; but certainly 
 the hay-nomad combined the minimum of effort 
 with the maximum of efficiency to the marvel of 
 all who beheld him. Ras's problem was infinitely 
 simpler. He never changed. There was much 
 of the original load of hay, Philip said, dispersed 
 about his ears and pockets and fringing the back 
 of his neck. 
 
 "Where did you get tomatoes?" inquired 
 Diane at supper. 
 
 "Well," said Philip, "I hate to tell you. I 
 strongly suspect Ras of spearing 'em with a har 
 poon he made. Made it in his sleep, too. It's 
 pretty long and he can spear whatever he wants 
 from the wagon seat. Lord help the rabbits!" 
 He lazily sprinkled salt upon a large tomato and 
 bit into it with relish. " But why should I worry? " 
 he commented smiling. :< They're mighty good. 
 Johnny, old top, see if you can rustle up a loaf 
 of bread to lend me for breakfast, will you? I'm 
 willing to trade three cucumbers for it. And tell
 
 172 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Ras when you take his supper over that there's 
 a herring under the seat for Dick Whittington's 
 supper. Tell me," he added humorously to Di 
 ane, "just how do you contrive to remember 
 bread and salt?" 
 
 " I don't," said Diane, smiling. " Johnny does. 
 Did the storm get you last night, Philip ? " 
 
 "It did indeed. It's the third load of hay 
 we've had this week. We're perpetually furling 
 up the tarpaulin or unfurling it or skinning the 
 mattress or watching the clouds. I'm a wreck." 
 
 " Where have you been all day ? " 
 
 "Haying!" said Philip promptly. 
 
 "Sleeping!" corrected Diane with a critical 
 sniff. 
 
 Mr. Poynter fancied they were synonyms. 
 
 " Do you know," he added pointedly, " I imag 
 ine I'd find ever so much more romance and ad 
 venture about it if I only had some interesting 
 ailment and a music-mill. I did think I had a 
 bully cough, but it was only a wisp of hay in my 
 throat." 
 
 Philip's powers of intuition were most fearful. 
 Diane colored. 
 
 "Just what do you mean?" she inquired cau 
 tiously. 
 
 " Nothing at all," replied Philip with a charm 
 ing smile. "I never do. Why mean anything 
 when words come so easy without? It has oc-
 
 Sylvan Suitors 173 
 
 curred to me," he added innocently, "that it 
 takes an uncommonly thick-skinned and unro- 
 mantic dub to tour about covered with hay. 
 Fancy sleeping through this wild and beautiful 
 country when I might be grinding up lost chords 
 to annoy the populace." 
 
 Diane had heard something of this sort before 
 from quite another source. Acutely uncomfort 
 able, she changed the subject. There was some 
 thing uncanny in Philip's perfect comprehension 
 of the minstrel's tactics. 
 
 A little later Mr. Poynter produced a green 
 bug mounted eccentrically upon a bit of birch 
 bark. 
 
 "I found a bug," he said guilelessly. "He 
 was a very nice little bug. I thought you'd like 
 him." 
 
 Diane frowned. For every flower the minstrel 
 brought, Philip contrived a ridiculous parallel. 
 
 " How many times," she begged hopelessly, 
 " must I tell you that I am not collecting ridicu 
 lous bugs?" 
 
 Philip raised expressive eyebrows. 
 
 "Dear me!" said he in hurt surprise. "You 
 do surprise me. Why, he's the greenest bug I 
 ever saw and he matches the van. He's a nomad 
 with the wild romance of the woodland bounding 
 through him. I did think I'd score heavily with 
 him."
 
 174 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Diane discreetly ignored the inference. Whis 
 tling happily, Mr. Poynter poured the coffee and 
 leaned back against a tree trunk. Watching him 
 one might have read in his fine eyes a keener ap 
 preciation of nomadic life and nomads than 
 he ever expressed. 
 
 There was idyllic peace and quiet in this grove 
 of ancient oaks shot with the ruddy color of the 
 sunset. Off in the heavier aisles of golden gloom 
 already there were slightly bluish shadows of the 
 coming twilight. Hungry robins piped excitedly, 
 woodpeckers bored for worms and flaming orioles 
 flashed by on golden wings. Black against the 
 sky the crows were sailing swiftly toward the 
 woodland. 
 
 With the twilight and a young moon Philip 
 produced his wild wood pipe and fell to smoking 
 with a sigh of comfort. 
 
 "Philip!" said Diane suddenly. 
 
 "Mademoiselle!" said Philip, suspiciously 
 grave and courtly of manner. The girl glanced 
 at him sharply. 
 
 " It annoys me exceedingly," she went on 
 finally, finding his laughing glance much too 
 bland and friendly to harbor guile, " to have you 
 trailing after me in a hay-wagon." 
 
 " I'll buy me a rumpus machine," said Philip. 
 
 " It would bother me to have you trailing after
 
 Sylvan Suitors 175 
 
 me so persistently in any guise!" flashed the girl 
 indignantly. 
 
 "It must perforce continue to bother you!" 
 regretted Philip. " Besides," he added absently, 
 " I'm really the Duke of Connecticut in disguise, 
 touring about for my health, and the therapeutic 
 value of hay is enormous." 
 
 Now why Diane's cheeks should blaze so hotly 
 at this aristocratic claim of Mr. Poynter's, who 
 may say? But certainly she glanced with swift 
 suspicion at her tranquil guest, who met her eyes 
 with supreme good humor, laughed and fell to 
 whistling softly to himself. Despite a certain 
 significant silence in the camp of his lady, Mr. 
 Poynter smoked most comfortably, puffing forth 
 ingenious smoke-rings which he lazily sought to 
 string upon his pipestem and busily engaging 
 himself in a variety of other conspicuously peace 
 ful occupations. All in all, there was something 
 so tranquil and soothing in the very sight of him 
 that Diane unbent in spite of herself. 
 
 "If you'd only join a peace tribunal as dele- 
 gat e-at-large," she said, " you'd eliminate war. I 
 meant to freeze you into going home. I do wish 
 I could stay indignant ! " 
 
 "Don't," begged Philip humbly. "I'm so 
 much happier when you're not. 
 
 " There is another way of managing me," he
 
 176 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 said hopefully a little later. " I meant to mention 
 it before" 
 
 " What is it ? " implored Diane. 
 
 "Marry me!" 
 
 "Philip!" exclaimed the girl with delicate dis 
 dain, "the moon is on your head " 
 
 ' Yes," admitted Philip, " it is. It does get me. 
 No denying it. Doesn't it ever get you? " 
 
 " No," said Diane. " Besides, I never bumped 
 my brain " 
 
 "That could be remedied," hinted Philip, "if 
 you think it would alter matters 
 
 Diane was quite sure it would not and later 
 Philip departed for the hay-camp in the best of 
 spirits. In the morning Diane found a con 
 spicuous placard hung upon a tree. The placard 
 bore a bombastic ode, most clever in its trenchant 
 satire, entitled "To a Wild Mosquito by 
 One who Knows ! " 
 
 Since an ill-fated occasion when Mr. Poynter 
 had found a neatly indited ode to a wild geranium 
 written in a flowing foreign hand, his literary 
 output had been prodigious. Dirges, odes, son 
 nets and elegies frequently appeared in spectacu 
 lar places about the camp and as Mr. Poynter's 
 highly sympathetic nature led him to eulogize 
 the lowlier and less poetic life of the woodland, 
 the result was frequently of striking originality. 
 
 Convinced that Mr. Poynter's eyes were upon
 
 Sylvan Suitors 177 
 
 her from the hay-camp, Diane read the ode with 
 absolute gravity and consigned it to the fire. 
 
 The minstrel's attitude toward the hay-nomad 
 might be one of subtle undermining and shrug 
 ging ridicule, but surely with his imperturbable 
 gift of satire, Mr. Poynter held the cards 1 
 
 Still another morning Diane found a book at 
 the edge of her camp. 
 
 " I am dropping this accidentally as I leave," 
 read the fly leaf in Philip's scrawl. "I don't 
 want you to suspect my classic tastes, but what 
 can I do if you find the book 1 " 
 
 It was a volume of Herodotus in the original 
 Greek!
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 BUCKWHEAT was cut, harvest brooded 
 hazily over the land and the fields were 
 bright with goldenrod when Diane turned 
 sharply across Virginia to Kentucky. 
 
 "It is already autumn," she wrote to Ann 
 Sherrill. "The summer has flown by like a 
 bright-winged bird. For days now the forests 
 have been splashed with red and gold. The or 
 chards are heavy with harvest apples, the tas 
 sels of the corn are dark and rusty, and the 
 dooryards of the country houses riot gorgeously 
 in scarlet sage and marigold, asters and gladiolus. 
 The twilight falls more swiftly now and the 
 nights are cooler but before the frost sweeps 
 across the land I shall be in Georgia. 
 
 "For all it is autumn elsewhere, here in this 
 wonderful blue grass land, it is spring again, a 
 second spring. The autumn sunlight over the 
 woods and pastures is deeply, richly yellow. 
 There are meadow larks and off somewhere the 
 tinkle of a cow bell. Oh, Ann, how good it is to 
 be alive I 
 
 " Ages ago, in that remote and barbarous past 
 when I lived with a roof above my head, there 
 
 178
 
 Letters 179 
 
 were times when every pulse of my body cried 
 and begged for life for gypsy life and gypsy 
 wind and the song of the roaring river! Now, 
 somehow, I feel that I have lived indeed so 
 fully that a wonderful flood tide of peace and 
 happiness flows strongly in my veins. I am brown 
 and happy. Each day I cook and tramp and 
 fish and swim and sleep how I sleep with the 
 leaves rustling a lullaby of infinite peace above 
 me! Would you believe that I lived for two 
 days and nights in a mountain cave? I did in 
 deed, but Johnny was greatly troubled. Aunt 
 Agatha stuffed his head with commands. 
 
 "The South thrills and calls. After all, 
 though I was born in the Adirondacks, I am 
 Southern, every inch of me. The Westfalls have 
 been Florida folk since the beginning of time. 
 
 "There is an interesting nomad in a pictur 
 esque suit of corduroy who crosses my path from 
 time to time with an eccentric music-machine. 
 Sometimes I see him gravely organ-grinding for 
 a crowd of youngsters, sometimes with an in 
 nate courtliness characteristic of him for a 
 white-haired couple by a garden gate. He is 
 wandering about in search of health. Oddly, his 
 way lies, too, through Kentucky and Tennessee, 
 to Florida. He and Ann, dear, this confidence 
 of his I must beg you to respect, as I know you 
 will is a Hungarian nobleman, picturesquely
 
 180 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 disguised because of some political quarrel with 
 his country. He writes excellent verse in French 
 and Latin, is a clever linguist, and has a marvel 
 ous fund of knowledge about birds and flowers. 
 Altogether he is a cultured, courtly, handsome 
 man whom I have found vastly entertaining. 
 Romantic, isn't it? 
 
 "A letter to Eadsville, Kentucky, will reach 
 me if you write as soon as this reaches you. 
 
 " Ever yours, 
 
 "Diane." 
 
 Let him who is more versed in the science of a 
 nomad's mind than I, say why there was no men 
 tion of the hay-camp ! 
 
 Ann's answer came in course of time to Eads 
 ville. As Ann talked in sprightly italics, so was 
 her letter made striking and emphatic by num 
 berless underlinings. 
 
 " How very romantic ! " ran a part of it. " I 
 am mad about your nobleman ! Isn't it wonder 
 ful to have such unique and thrilling adventures ? 
 I suppose you hung things up on the walls of the 
 cave and built a delightfully smoky fire and that 
 the Hungarian bless his heart! trimmed his 
 corduroy suit with an ancestral stiletto, and paid 
 his courtly respects to the beautiful gypsy her 
 mit and fell desperately in love with her, as well 
 he might. I would myself! 
 
 "Diane, I simply must see him! I'm dying
 
 Letters 181 
 
 for a new sensation. Ever since Baron Tregar's 
 car was stolen from the farm garage and his 
 handsome secretary mysteriously disappeared 
 (by the way, it's Philip Poynter Carl knows 
 him do you?) and then reappeared with a most 
 unsatisfactory explanation which didn't in the 
 least explain where he had been only to up and 
 disappear again as strangely as before, and the 
 very next morning life has been terribly mo 
 notonous. And mother had a rustic seizure and 
 made us stay at the farm all summer. Imagine! 
 Dick's aeroplaned the tops off aH the trees ! 
 
 "Do beg your Hungarian to join us at Palm 
 Beach in January. It would be most interesting 
 and novel and I'll swear on the ancestral stiletto 
 to preserve his incognito! You remember you 
 solemnly promised to come to me in January, no 
 matter where you were ! My enthusiasm grows 
 as I write it always does. I'm planning a fete 
 de nuit masked of course. Do please induce 
 the romantic musician to attend. I must have 
 him. I'm sure he'll enjoy a few days of conven 
 tional respectability and so will you. I'll lend 
 you as many gowns as you need, you dear, 
 delightful gypsy!" 
 
 To which Diane's answer was eminently sat 
 isfactory. 
 
 "Last night as Johnny was getting supper,"
 
 182 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 she wrote, "our minstrel appeared with a great 
 bunch of silver-rod and I begged him to stay to 
 supper. He was greatly gratified and when later 
 I confessed my indiscreet revelation to you 
 and your invitation he accepted it instantly. 
 He will be honored to be your guest, he said, pro 
 vided of course he may depend upon us to pre 
 serve his incognito. That is very important. Do 
 you know it is astonishing how I find myself 
 keyed up to the most amazing pitch of interest in 
 him he's so mysterious and romantic and mag 
 netic. 
 
 ' Your constant craving for new and original 
 sensations brings back a lot of memories. Will 
 you never get over it? 
 
 " I shall probably leave the van with Johnny 
 at Jacksonville and go down by rail. There are 
 certain spectacular complications incident to an 
 arrival at Palm Beach in the van which would be 
 very distasteful, to say the least. Besides, I'd 
 be later than we planned." 
 
 For most likely, reflected Diane, nibbling in 
 tently at the end of her pen, most likely Palm 
 Beach had never seen a hay-camp and much 
 Mr. Poynter would care!
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE LONELY CAMPEK 
 
 THE WEST was yellow. High on the moun 
 tain where a mad little waterfall sprayed 
 the bushes of laurel and rhododendron with quick 
 silver, the afterglow of the sunset on the tumbling 
 water made a streak of saffron. The wings of a 
 homing eagle were golden-black against the sky. 
 Over there above the cornfields to the west there 
 was a cliff and a black and bushy ravine over 
 which soared a buzzard or two. Presently when 
 the moon rose its splendid alchemy would turn 
 the black to glowing silver. 
 
 A Kentucky brook chuckled boisterously by 
 the hay-camp, tumbling headlong over mossy 
 logs and stones and a tangled lacery of drenched 
 ferns. 
 
 Philip laid aside a bow and arrow upon which 
 he had been busily working since supper and 
 summoned Dick Whittington. Beyond, through 
 oak and poplar, glowed the camp fire of his lady. 
 
 "Likely we'll tramp about a bit, Richard, if 
 you're willing," said he. " Somehow, we're in 
 fernally restless to-night and just why our lady 
 has seen fit to pile that abominable silver-rod in 
 such a place of honor by her tent, we can't for 
 
 183
 
 184 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the life of us see. It's nothing like so pretty as 
 the goldenrod. By and by, Whittington," Philip 
 felt for his pipe and filled it, "we'll have our 
 wildwood bow and arrows done and we fancy 
 somehow that our gypsy's wonderful black eyes 
 are going to shine a bit over that. Why? Lord, 
 Dick, you do ask foolish questions ! Our beauti 
 ful lady's an archer and a capital one too, says 
 Johnny even if she does like beastly silver- 
 rod." ' 
 
 Somewhat out of sorts the Duke of Connecti 
 cut set off abruptly through the trees with the 
 dog at his heels. 
 
 Having climbed over log and boulder to a road 
 which cleft the mountain, he kept on to the north, 
 descending again presently to the level of the 
 camp, smoking abstractedly and whistling now 
 and then for Richard Whittington, who was 
 prone to ramble. Philip was debating whether 
 or not he had better turn back, for the moon 
 was already edging the black ravine with fire, 
 when a camp fire and the silhouette of a lonely 
 camper loomed to the west among the trees. 
 Philip puffed forth a prodigious cloud of smoke 
 and seated himself on a tree stump. 
 
 "My! My!" said he easily. "Must be our 
 invalid and his rumpus machine. Whittington, 
 we're just in the mood to-night, you and I, to 
 wander over there and tell him that he's not get-
 
 The Lonely Camper iss 
 
 ting half so much over on us as he thinks he is. 
 I've a mind to send you forward with my card." 
 
 Philip's eyes narrowed and he laughed softly. 
 Tearing a sheet of paper from a notebook he 
 took from his pocket, he scribbled upon it the 
 following astonishing message: 
 
 " The Duke of Connecticut desires an audience. 
 Do not kick the courier! " 
 
 Accustomed by now to carry birch-bark mes 
 sages to Diane, Richard Whittington waggled 
 in perfect understanding and trotted off obe 
 diently toward the fire with Philip close at his 
 heels. 
 
 Conceivably astonished, the camper presently 
 picked up the paper which Mr. Whittington 
 dropped at his feet, and read it. As Philip 
 stepped lazily from the trees he turned. 
 
 It was Baron Tregar. Both men stared. 
 
 "The Duke of Connecticut!" at length rum 
 bled the Baron with perfect gravity. "I am 
 overwhelmed." 
 
 Philip, much the more astonished of the two, 
 laughed and bowed. 
 
 " Excellency," said he formally, " I am indeed 
 astonished." 
 
 "Pray be seated!" invited the Baron, his eyes 
 more friendly than those of his guest. " I, too, 
 have taken to the highway, Poynter, on yonder 
 motorcycle and I have lost my way." He sniffed
 
 186 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 in disgust. " I am dining," he added dryly, " if 
 one may dignify the damnable proceeding by that 
 name, on potatoes which I do not in the least 
 know how to bake without reducing them to 
 cinders. I bought them a while back at a deso 
 late, God-forsaken farmhouse. Heaven deliver 
 me from camping!" 
 
 With which pious ejaculation the Baron in 
 spected his smudged and blistered fingers and 
 read again the entertaining message from the 
 Duke of Connecticut. 
 
 "Why take to the highway," begged Philip 
 guilelessly, "when the task is so unpleasant?'* 
 
 "Ah!" rumbled the Baron, more sombre now, 
 "there is a man with a music-machine " 
 
 " There is ! " said Philip fervently. 
 
 The Baron looked hard at His Highness, the 
 Duke of Connecticut. The latter produced his 
 cigarette case and opening it politely for the 
 service of his chief, smiled with good humor. 
 
 " There is," said he coolly, " a man with a music- 
 machine, a mysterious malady, a stained skin and 
 a volume of Herodotus! Excellency knows the 
 er romantic ensemble?" 
 
 Excellency not only knew him, but for days 
 now, taking up the trail at a certain canal, he 
 had traveled hard over roads strangely littered 
 with hay and food and linen collars to find that 
 romantic ensemble. He added with grim humor
 
 The Lonely Camper 187 
 
 that he fancied the Duke of Connecticut knew 
 him too. The Duke dryly admitted that this 
 might be so. His memory, though conveniently 
 porous at times, was for the most part excellent. 
 
 "What is lie doing?" asked the Baron with 
 an ominous glint of his fine eyes. 
 
 " Excellency," said Philip, staring hard at the 
 end of his cigarette, "by every subtle device at 
 his command, he is making graceful love to Miss 
 Westfall, who is sufficiently wholesome and 
 happy and absorbed in her gypsy life not to know 
 it yet!" 
 
 The Baron's explosive " Ah ! " was a compound 
 of wrath and outraged astonishment. Philip felt 
 his attitude toward his chief undergoing a subtle 
 revolution. 
 
 "His discretion," added Philip warmly, "has 
 departed to that forgotten limbo which has 
 claimed his beard." 
 
 The Baron was staring very hard at the camp 
 fire. 
 
 "So," said he at last, "it is for this that 
 I have been " he searched for an expressive 
 Americanism, and shrugging, invented one, 
 " thunder-cracking along the highway in search of 
 the man Themar saw by the fire of Miss West- 
 fall. 'It is incredible it can not be!' said I, 
 as I blistered about, searching here, searching 
 there, losing my way and thunder-cracking about
 
 188 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 in dead of night all to pick up the trail of a 
 green and white van and a music-machine ! * It 
 is unbelievable it is a monstrous mistake on 
 the part of Themar!' But, Poynter, this love 
 making, in the circumstances, passes all belief!" 
 The Baron added that twice within the week he 
 had passed the hay-camp but that by some un 
 lucky fatality he had always contrived to miss the 
 music-machine. 
 
 "Days back," rumbled the Baron thought 
 fully, "I assigned to Themar the task of dis 
 covering the identity of the man who er ac 
 quired a certain roadster of mine and who, I 
 felt fairly certain, would not lose track of Miss 
 Westfall but Themar, Poynter, came to 
 grief-" 
 
 'Yes?" said Philip coolly. 'You interest me 
 exceedingly." 
 
 "He made his way back to me after many 
 weeks of illness," said the Baron slowly, "\vith 
 a curious tale of a terrible thrashing, of a barge 
 and mules, of rough men who kicked him about 
 and consigned him to a city jail under the mali 
 cious charge of a mule-driver who swore that he 
 loved not black-and-tans 
 
 " Lord ! " said Philip politely ; " that was tough, 
 wasn't it?" 
 
 " Just what, Poynter," begged the Baron, " is 
 a black-and-tan?"
 
 The Lonely Camper 189 
 
 Mr. Poynter fancied he had heard the term 
 before. It might have reference to the celor of 
 a man's skin and hair. 
 
 An uncomfortable silence fell over the Baron's 
 camp. The Baron himself was the first to 
 break it. 
 
 " Poynter," said he bluntly, " the circumstances 
 of our separation at Sherrill's have engendered, 
 with reason, a slight constraint. There was a 
 night when you grievously misjudged me " 
 
 "I am willing," admitted Philip politely, "to 
 hear why I should alter my views." 
 
 "Mon Dieu, Poynter!" boomed the Baron in 
 exasperation, "you are maddening. When you 
 are politest, I fume and strike fire here 
 within!" 
 
 "Mental arson!" shrugged the Duke of Con 
 necticut, relighting his cigarette with a blazing 
 twig. " For that singular crime, Excellency, my 
 deepest apologies." 
 
 The Baron stared, frowned, and laughed. One 
 may know very little of one's secretary, after all. 
 
 ' You are a curious young man ! " said he. 
 
 The Duke of Connecticut admitted that this 
 might be so. Hay, therapeutically, had effected 
 an astonishing revolution in a nature disposed 
 congenitally to peace and trustfulness. Local 
 applications of hay had made him exceedingly 
 suspicious and hostile. So much so indeed that
 
 190 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 for days now he had slept by day, to the total 
 wreck of his aesthetic reputation, and watched by 
 night, convinced that Miss Westfall's camp was 
 prone to strange and dangerous visitors. Excel 
 lency no doubt remembered the knife and the 
 bullet. 
 
 The Baron sighed. 
 
 " Poynter," he said simply, " to a man of my 
 nature and diplomatic position, a habit of can 
 dor is difficult. I wonder, however, if you would 
 accept my word of honor as a gentleman that I 
 know as little of this treacherous bullet as you; 
 that for all I am bound to secrecy, my sincerest 
 desire is to protect Miss Westfall from the 
 peculiar consequences of this damnable muddle, 
 to clear up the mystery of the bullet, and for 
 more selfish reasons to protect her from the ro 
 mantic folly of the man with the music-machine 1 " 
 
 Philip, his frank, fine face alive with honest 
 relief, held out his hand. 
 
 " Excellency," said he warmly, " one may 
 learn more of his chief over a camp fire, it seems, 
 than in months of service. Our paths lie par 
 allel." There was a subtle compact in the hand 
 shake. 
 
 "What," questioned the Baron presently, 
 "think you, are my fine gentleman's plans, 
 Poynter?" 
 
 Philip reddened.
 
 The Lonely Camper 101 
 
 "Excellency," he admitted, "I have definite 
 information of his plans which I did not seek." 
 
 "And the source?" 
 
 "Miss Westfall's servant." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "There are certain atmospheric conditions," 
 regretted Philip, "intensely bad for hay-camps, 
 wherefore I found myself obliged to seek an 
 occasional understudy who would not only blaze 
 the trail for me but do faithful sentry duty in my 
 absence. And Johnny, Excellency, whom I 
 pledged to this secret service, uncomfortably in 
 sists upon reporting to me much unnecessary 
 detail. He has developed a most unreasoning 
 dislike for music-machines and musical gypsies." 
 
 " There appears to be a general prejudice 
 against them," admitted the Baron grimly. 
 
 "A while back, then," resumed Philip, 
 "Johnny chanced upon the information that in 
 January Miss Westfall will be a guest of Ann 
 Sherrill's at Palm Beach. So will our minstrel 
 still incognito " 
 
 "Excellent!" rumbled the Baron with relish. 
 " Excellent. If all this be true," he added, mud 
 dling an Americanism, "we have then, of the 
 horse another color I " 
 
 "Later," said Philip, "when Miss Westfall 
 returns to her house on wheels, I imagine he too
 
 192 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 will take to the road again and resume his 
 charming erotics." 
 
 "That," said the Baron with decision, "is 
 most undesirable." 
 
 "I agree with you!" said Philip feelingly. 
 
 "I too have promised to be a guest at Miss 
 Sherrill's fete de nuitl" purred the Baron 
 suavely. "And you, Poynter?" 
 
 "Unfortunately Miss Sherrill knows abso 
 lutely nothing of my whereabouts." 
 
 " Sherrill days ago entrusted me with a cordial 
 invitation for you. He was unaware of our dis 
 agreement and expected you to accompany me. 
 As my official secretary, Poynter, for, let us say 
 the month of January, it is possible for me to 
 command your attendance at Palm Beach." 
 
 "Excellency," said Philip slowly, "singular 
 as it may seem in my present free lance state, 
 I am greatly desirous of hearing such a com 
 mand." 
 
 "Poynter," boomed the Baron formally, "in 
 January I shall be overweighted with diplomatic 
 duties at Palm Beach. I regret exceedingly that 
 I am forced to command your attendance. This 
 frivoling about must cease." He shook suddenly 
 with silent laughter. " Doubtless," said he, meet 
 ing Philip's amused glance with level sig 
 nificance, "doubtless, Poynter, we can "
 
 The Lonely Camper 193 
 
 ' Yes," said Philip with much satisfaction, " I 
 think we can." 
 
 They fell to chatting in lower voices as the fire 
 died down. 
 
 "Meanwhile," shrugged the disgusted Baron 
 a little later, " I shall abandon that accursed 
 music-machine to its fate, and rest. God knows I 
 am but an indifferent nomad and need it sorely. 
 Night and day have I thunder-cracked the high 
 ways, losing my way and my temper until I loathe 
 camps and motor machines and dust and wind 
 and baked potatoes. I sincerely hope, Poynter, 
 that you can find me the road to an inn and a bed, 
 a bath and some iced mint to-night." 
 
 Philip could and did. Presently standing by 
 his abominated motorcycle on a lonely moonlit 
 road, the Baron adjusted his leather cap and 
 stroked his beard. 
 
 " Do you know, Poynter," said he slowly, " this 
 is a most mysterious motorcycle. It was crated 
 to me from an unknown village in Pennsylvania 
 by the hand of God knows whom!" 
 
 "Excellency," said Phiilp politely as he cor 
 dially shook hands with his chief, " The world, I 
 find, is full of mystery." 
 
 Rumbling the Baron mounted and rode away. 
 With a slight smile, Philip watched him thunder- 
 cracking disgustedly along the dusty road back 
 to civilization.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A DECEMBER SNOW STORM 
 
 AS THE dusty wanderers wound slowly down 
 into southern Georgia on a mild bright 
 day, a December snow storm broke with flake and 
 flurry over the Westfall farm. Whirling, croon 
 ing, pirouetting, the mad white ghost swept 
 down from the hills and hurled itself with a 
 rattle of shutters and stiffened boughs against 
 the frozen valley. By nightfall the wind was 
 wailing eerily through the chimneys; but the 
 checkerboard panes of light one glimpsed through 
 the trees of the Westfall lane were bright and 
 cheery. 
 
 In the comfortable sitting room of the farm 
 house, Carl rose and drew the shades, added a log 
 to the great, open fireplace and glanced humor 
 ously at his companion who was industriously 
 playing Canfield. 
 
 " Well, Dick," said he, " on with your overcoat. 
 Now that supper's done, we've a tramp ahead 
 of us." 
 
 Wherry rebelled. 
 
 11 Oh, Lord, Carl ! " he exclaimed. " Hear the 
 wind! " He rose and drew aside the shade. " The 
 lane's thick with snow. Heavens, man, it's no 
 
 194
 
 A December Snow Storm 195 
 
 night for a tramp. Allan's coming in with the 
 mail and he looks like a snow man." 
 
 'You promised," reminded Carl inexorably. 
 "How long since you've had a drink, Dick?" 
 
 "Nine weeks!" said Wherry, his boyish face 
 kindling suddenly with pride. 
 
 " And your eyes and skin are clear and you're 
 lean and hard as a race horse. But what a fight ! 
 What a fight!" Carl slipped his arm suddenly 
 about the other's broad shoulders. "Come on, 
 Dick," he urged gently. " It's discipline and en 
 durance to-night. I want you to fight this icy 
 wind and grit your teeth against it. Every bat 
 tle won makes a force furrow in your will." 
 
 He met Wherry's eyes and smiled with a flash 
 of the irresistible magnetism which somehow 
 awoke unconscious response in those who beheld 
 it. It flamed now in Wherry's clear young eyes, 
 a look of dumb fidelity such as one sees now and 
 then in the eyes of a faithful animal. Such a 
 look had flashed at times in the bloated face of 
 Hunch Dorrigan, in the eyes of young Allan 
 Carmody here at the farm, and in early man 
 hood when Carl had lazily set a college by the 
 ears in the eyes of Philip Poynter. It was the 
 nameless force which the faculty had dreaded, 
 for it sent men flocking at the heels of one whose 
 daring whims were as incomprehensible as they 
 were unexpected and original.
 
 196 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Young Allan brought the mail in and Carl 
 smilingly tossed a letter to Wherry, who colored 
 and slipped it in his pocket with an air of studied 
 indifference. 
 
 Carl slit the two directed to himself and rap 
 idly scanned their contents. One was from Ann 
 Sherrill jogging his memory about a promise 
 to come to Palm Beach in January, the other 
 from Aunt Agatha, whose trip to her cousin's in 
 Indiana Carl had encouraged with a great flood 
 of relief, for it had made possible this nine weeks 
 with Wherry at the Glade Farm. 
 
 Two steps at a time, Wherry bounded up to his 
 room. When he returned he was in better spir 
 its than he had been for months. 
 
 " Come on, Carl," he exclaimed boyishly. " I'll 
 walk down any gale to-night. And Allan says 
 we're in for a blizzard." 
 
 Breasting the biting gale, the two men swung 
 out through the snowy lane to the roadway. 
 
 Carl watched his companion in silence. It was 
 a test this wind to see how much of a man 
 had been made from the flabby, drunken wreck 
 he had dragged to the Glade Farm weeks ago 
 with a masterful command. It had been a bit 
 ter fight, with days of heavy sullenness on Wher 
 ry's part and swift apology when the mood was 
 gone, days of hard riding and walking, of icy 
 plunges after a racking grind of exercise for
 
 A December Snow Storm 197 
 
 which Carl himself with his splendid strength 
 inexorably set the pace, days of fierce rebellion 
 when he had calmly thrashed his suffering young 
 guest into submission and locked him in his room, 
 days of horrible choking remorse and pleading 
 when Carl had grimly turned away from the pit 
 iful wreck Starrett had made of his clever young 
 secretary. 
 
 Once Starrett had motored up officiously to 
 bully Wherry into coming back to him. Carl 
 smiled. Starrett had stumbled back to his waiting 
 motor with a broken rib and a bruised and swollen 
 face. Starrett was a coward he would not 
 come again. 
 
 Carl glanced again at Wherry. It was a man 
 who walked beside him to-night. The battle was 
 over. Chin up, shoulders squared against the bit 
 ter wind, he walked with the free, full stride of 
 health and new endurance, tossing the snow from 
 his dark, heavy hair with a laugh. There was 
 clear red in his face and his eyes were shining. 
 
 Five miles in the teeth of a sleety blizzard and 
 every muscle ached with the fight. 
 
 "Dick," said Carl suddenly, "I'm proud of 
 you." 
 
 Wherry swung sturdily on his heel. 
 " But you won for me, Carl," he said quietly. 
 "I'll not forget that." 
 
 In silence they tramped back through the heavy
 
 198 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 drifts to the farmhouse and left their snowy coats 
 in the great warm kitchen where the Carmodys 
 old Allan and young Allan, young, shy, pretty 
 Mary and old Mary, the sole winter servants of 
 the Glade were mulling cider over a red-hot 
 stove. 
 
 By the fire in the sitting room Dick faced his 
 host with hot color in his face. 
 
 " Carl," he said with an effort, " my letter to 
 night it's from a girl up home in Vermont. I 
 I've never spoken of her before I wasn't 
 fit" 
 
 "Yes? "said Carl. 
 
 "She's a little bit of a girl with wonderful 
 eyes," said Wherry, his eyes gentle. " We used 
 to play a lot by the brook, Carl, until I went away 
 to college and forgot. I I wrote her the whole 
 wretched mess," he choked. " She says come 
 back." 
 
 l< Yes," said Carl sombrely, " there are fine, big 
 splendid women like that. I'm glad you know 
 one. God knows what the world of men would 
 do without them. You'll go back to her?" 
 
 Wherry gulped courageously. 
 
 "If if you think I'm fit," he said, his face 
 white. "If you feel you can trust me, I'll go in 
 the morning." 
 
 " I know I can trust you," said Carl with his 
 swift, ready smile. " I know, old man, that you'll 
 not forget."
 
 A December Snow Storm 199 
 
 "No," said Dick, "I can't forget." 
 
 "Tell me," Carl bent and turned the log. 
 "What will you do now, Dick? I know your 
 head was turned a bit by the salary Starrett 
 gave you, but you'll not go back to that sort of 
 work for a while anyway, will you?" 
 
 " No," said Dick. " If I knew something of 
 scientific farming," he added after a while, "I 
 think I'd stay home. Dad's a doctor, a kindly, 
 old-fashioned chap. I I'd like to have you 
 know him, Carl he's a bully sort. He's living 
 up there in Vermont on a farm that's never been 
 developed to its full possibilities. It's the best 
 farm in the valley, but, you see, he hasn't the 
 time and he's growing old " 
 
 "Why not take a course at an agricultural 
 college?" 
 
 Wherry colored. 
 
 " I haven't the money, Carl," he acknowledged 
 honestly. "Most of Dad's savings went to see 
 me through college. I've a little " 
 
 "Would a thousand a year see you through, 
 with what you've got?" asked Carl quietly. 
 
 But Wherry did not answer. He had walked 
 away to the window, shaking. Presently he 
 turned back to the table, but his face was white 
 and his eyes dark with agony. Dropping into a 
 chair he buried his face in his hands, unnerved at 
 the end of his fight by Carl's offer.
 
 200 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Wisely the man by the fire let him fight it out 
 by himself and for an interval there was no sound 
 in the quiet room save the crackle of the log and 
 the great choking breaths of the boy by the table, 
 whose head had fallen forward on his outstretched 
 arms. 
 
 Carl threw his cigar into the fire and rose. 
 
 " Brace up, Dick! " he said at length. " We've 
 been touching the high spots up here and you 
 were strung to a tension that had to break." He 
 crossed to Wherry and laid his hand heavily on 
 the boy's heaving shoulder. " Now, Dick, I want 
 you to listen to me. I'm going to see you through 
 an agricultural college and you're not going to 
 tell me I can't afford it. I know it already. But 
 I've four thousand a year and that's so far off 
 from what I need to live in my way that a thou 
 sand or so one way or the other wouldn't make 
 any more difference than a snowflake in hell. I 
 owe you something anyway God knows! for 
 supplying the model that sent you to perdition. 
 If you hadn't paid me the ingenuous compliment 
 of unremitting imitation, you'd have been a sight 
 better off. . . . And you're going to marry the 
 white little girl with the beautiful eyes and the 
 wonderful, sweet forgiving decency of heart, and 
 bring up a crowd of God-fearing youngsters, 
 make over the old doctor's farm for him and
 
 A December Snow Storm 201 
 
 likely his life and begin afresh. That's all I 
 ask. Now to bed with you." 
 
 Wherry wrung Carl's hand, and after a pas 
 sionate, incoherent storm of gratitude stumbled 
 blindly from the room. 
 
 The old house grew very quiet. Presently to 
 the crackle of the fire and the wild noise of the 
 wind outside was added the soft and melancholy 
 lilt of a flute. There was no mockery or impu 
 dence in the strain to-night. It was curiously of 
 a piece with the creaking loneliness of the ancient 
 farmhouse and so soft at times that the clash of 
 the frozen branches against the house engulfed 
 it utterly. 
 
 Sombre, swayed by a surge of deep depression, 
 the flutist lay back in his chair by the fire, piping 
 moodily upon the friend he always carried in his 
 pocket. To-morrow Dick would be off to the 
 girl in Vermont 
 
 The clock struck twelve. The rural world was 
 wrapped in slumber. Above-stairs Dick was 
 sleeping the sound, dreamless sleep of healthy 
 weariness, and most likely dreaming of the girl 
 by the brook. A cleansed body and a cleansed 
 mind, thank God ! So had he slept for nights while 
 the inexorable master of his days, with no com 
 panion but his flute, drank and drank until dawn, 
 climbing up to bed at cockcrow sometimes
 
 202 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 drunk and morose, sometimes a grim and con 
 scious master of the bottle. 
 
 Carl had been drinking wildly, heavily for 
 months. That in flagellating Wherry's body day 
 by day he spared not himself, was characteristic 
 of the man and of his will. That he preached 
 and dragged a man from the depths of hell by 
 day and deliberately descended into infernal 
 abysses by night, was but another revelation of 
 the wild, inconsistent humors which tore his soul. 
 Youth and indomitable physique gave him as yet 
 clear eyes and muscles of iron, for all he abused 
 them, but the humors of his soul from day to 
 day grew blacker. 
 
 Kronberg, a new servant Carl had brought 
 with him to the Glade for personal attendance, 
 presently brought in his nightly tray of whiskey. 
 
 Carl glanced at the bottle and frowned. 
 
 "Take it away!" he said curtly. 
 
 Kronberg obeyed. 
 
 A little later, white and very tired, Carl went 
 up to bed. 
 
 Dick went in the morning. At the door, after 
 chatting nervously to cover the surge of emotion 
 in his heart, he held out his hand. Neither spoke. 
 
 "Carl," choked Wherry at last, meeting the 
 other's eyes with a glance of wild imploring, " so 
 help me God, I'll run straight. You know that ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Carl truthfully, "I know it."
 
 A December Snow Storm 203 
 
 An interval of desperate silence, then: "I 
 I can't thank you, old man, I I'd like to 
 but " 
 
 " No," said Carl. " I wish you wouldn't." 
 
 And Wherry, wildly wringing his hand for the 
 last time, was off to the sleigh waiting in the 
 lane, a lean, quivering lad with blazing eyes of 
 gratitude and a great choke in his throat as he 
 waved at Carl, who smiled back at him with lazy 
 reassurance through the smoke of a cigarette. 
 
 Carl's day was restless and very lonely. By 
 midnight he was drinking heavily, having ac 
 cepted the tray this time and dismissed Kronberg 
 for the night. Though the snow had abated some 
 the night before, and ceased in the morning, it 
 was again whirling outside in the lane with the 
 wild abandon of a Bacchante. The wind too was 
 rising and filling the house with ghostly creaks. 
 
 It was one of those curious nights when John 
 Barleycorn chose to be kind when mind and 
 body stayed alert and keen. Carl lazily poured 
 some whiskey in the fire and watched the flame 
 burn blue. He could not rid his mind of the 
 doctor's farm and the girl in Vermont. 
 
 Again the wind shook the farmhouse and 
 danced and howled to its crazy castanetting. 
 There was a creak in the hallway beyond. Last 
 night, too, when he had been talking to Wherry, 
 there had been such a creak and for the moment,
 
 204 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 he recalled vividly, there had been no wind. Then, 
 disturbed by Dick's utter collapse, he had care 
 lessly dismissed it. Now with his bruin danger 
 ously edged by the whiskey and his mind brood 
 ing intently over a series of mysterious and 
 sinister adventures which had enlivened his sum 
 mer, he rose and stealing catlike to the door, 
 flung it suddenly back. 
 
 Kronberg, his dark, thin-lipped face ashen, 
 fell headlong into the room with a revolver in 
 his hand. 
 
 With the tigerish agility which had served him 
 many a time before Carl leaped for the revolver 
 and smiling with satanic interest leveled it at the 
 man at his feet. 
 
 " So," said he softly, " you, too, are a link in 
 the chain. Get up!" 
 
 Sullenly Kronberg obeyed. 
 
 "If you are a good shot," commented Carl 
 coolly, "the bullet you sent from this doorway 
 would have gone through my head. That was 
 your intention?" 
 
 Kronberg made no pretense of reply. 
 
 'You've been here nine weeks," sympathized 
 Carl, " and were cautious enough to wait until 
 Wherry departed. What a pity you were so 
 delayed! Caution, my dear Kronberg, if I may 
 fall into epigram, is frequently and paradox 
 ically the mother of disaster. As for instance
 
 A December Snow Storm 205 
 
 your own case. I imagine you're a blunderer 
 anyway," he added impudently; "your fingers 
 are too thick. If you hadn't been so anxious to 
 learn when Wherry was likely to go," guessed 
 Carl suddenly, "you wouldn't have listened and 
 creaked at the keyhole last night. And more 
 than likely you'd have gotten that creak over 
 on me to-night." 
 
 Kronberg's shifting glance roved desperately 
 to the doorway. 
 
 " Try it," invited Carl pleasantly. " Do. And 
 I'll help you over the threshold with a little lead. 
 Do you know the way to the attic door in the 
 west wing?" 
 
 Kronberg, gulping with fear, said he did not. 
 He was shaking violently. 
 
 " Get the little lamp on the mantel there," com 
 manded Carl curtly, " and light it. Bring it here. 
 Now you will kindly precede me to the door I 
 spoke of. I'll direct you. If you bolt or cry out, 
 I'll send a bullet through your head. So that 
 you may not be tempted to waste your blood 
 and brains, if you have any, and my patience, 
 pray recall that the Carmodys are snugly asleep 
 by now in the east wing and the house is large. 
 They couldn't hear you." 
 
 It was the older portion of the house and one 
 which by reason of its draughts was rarely used 
 in winter, to which Carl drove his shaking
 
 206 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 prisoner. In summer it was cool and pleasant. 
 In winter, however, it was cut off from heat and 
 habitation by lock and key. 
 
 At Carl's curt direction Kronberg turned the 
 key in the door and passed through the icy file 
 of rooms beyond to the second floor, thence to a 
 dusty attic where the sweep of the wind and snow 
 seemed very close, and on to an ancient cluster 
 of storerooms. Years back when the old farm 
 house had been an inn, shivering servants had 
 made these chill and dusty rooms more habitable. 
 Now with the deserted wing below and the wind- 
 feet of the Bacchante on the roof above, they 
 were inexpressibly lonely and dreary. 
 
 Kronberg bit his lip and shuddered. His fear 
 of the grim young guard behind him had been 
 subtly aggravated by the desolation of his des 
 tined jail. 
 
 Halting in the doorway of an inner room, Carl 
 held the light high and nodded with approval. 
 
 Its dim rays fell upon dust and cobwebs, trunks 
 and the nondescript relics of years of hoarding. 
 There were no windows; only a skylight above 
 clouded by the whirl of the storm. 
 
 Carl seated himself upon a trunk, placed the 
 lamp beside him and directed his guest to a point 
 opposite. Kronberg, with dark, fascinated eyes 
 glued upon the glittering steel in his jailer's hand, 
 obeyed.
 
 A December Snow Storm 207 
 
 "Kronberg," said Carl coldly, "there's a lot 
 I want to know. Moreover, I'm going to know 
 it. Nor shall I trust to drunken jailers as I did 
 a while back with a certain compatriot of yours. 
 Late last spring when you sought employment 
 at my cousin's town-house, you were already, I 
 presume, a link in the chain. If my memory 
 serves me correctly, you were dismissed after ten 
 days of service, through no fault of your own. 
 The house was closed for the summer. You came 
 to me again this fall with a letter of recommen 
 dation from Mrs. Westfall. Knowing my 
 aunt," reflected Carl dryly, "that is really very 
 humorous. What were you doing in the mean 
 time V" 
 
 Carl shifted the lamp that its pale fan of light 
 might fall full upon the other's face. 
 
 "Let me tell you do!" said he. "For I'm 
 sure I know. During the summer, my dear Kron- 
 berg, I was the victim of a series of peculiar and 
 persistent attacks. To a growing habit of unre 
 mitting vigilance and suspicion, I may thank my 
 life. As for the peaceful monotony of the last 
 nine weeks, doubtless I may attribute that to the 
 constant companionship of Wherry, the fact that 
 you were much too unpopular with the Car- 
 modys as a foreigner to find an opportunity of 
 poisoning my food, and that I've fallen into the 
 discreet and careful habit of always drinking
 
 208 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 from a fresh bottle, properly sealed. There was 
 a chance even there, but you were not clever 
 enough to take it. You're overcautious and a 
 coward. But how busy you must have been be 
 fore that," he purred solicitously, " bolting about 
 in various disguises after me. How very patient ! 
 Dear, dear, if Nature had only given you brains 
 enough to match your lack of scruples " 
 
 The insolent purr of his musical voice whipped 
 color into Kronberg's cheeks. Abruptly he 
 shifted his position and glared stonily. 
 
 "Venice," murmured Carl impudently, 
 "Venice called them bravi; here in America we 
 brutally call them gun-men, but honestly, Tvron- 
 berg, in all respect and confidence, you really 
 haven't brains and originality enough for a clever 
 professional murderer. Amateurish killing is a 
 sickly sort of sport. And the danger of it I Take 
 for instance that night when you fancied you were 
 a motor bandit and waylaid me on the way to 
 the farm. I was very drunk and driving madly 
 and I nearly got you. A pretty to-do that would 
 have been! To be killed by an amateur and 
 you a paid professional! My! My! Kronberg, 
 I blush for you. I really do ! " 
 
 He rose smiling, though his eyes were danger 
 ously brilliant. 
 
 " Just when," said he lazily, " did you steal the 
 paper I found in the candlestick? It's gone "
 
 A December Snow Storm 200 
 
 He had struck fire from the stone man at last. 
 A hopeless, hunted look flamed up in Kronberg's 
 eyes and died away. 
 
 "Ah!" guessed Carl keenly, "so you're in 
 some muddle there, too, eh?" Kronberg stared 
 sullenly at the dusty floor. 
 
 "A silence strike?" inquired Carl. "Well 
 we'll see how you feel about that in the morning. 
 As for the skylight, Kronberg, if you feel like 
 skating down an icy roof to hell, try it." 
 
 Whistling softly, Carl backed to the door and 
 disappeared. An instant later came the click of 
 a key in the lock. He had taken the lamp with 
 him. 
 
 Groping desperately about, Kronberg searched 
 for some covering to protect him from the icy 
 cold. His search was unsuccessful. When the 
 skylight grayed at dawn, he was pacing the floor, 
 white and shaking with the chill.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 THE KEY clicked in the lock. Kronberg, 
 huddled in a corner, stirred and cunningly 
 hid the flimsy coverings of chintz he had un 
 earthed from an ancient trunk. For three days 
 he had not spoken, three days of bitter, biting 
 cold, three days of creaking, lonely quiet, of 
 mournful wind and shifting lights above the glass 
 overhead, of infernal visitations from one he hpxl 
 grown to fear more than death itself. With heavy 
 chills racking his numb body, with flashes of 
 fever and clamping pains in his head, his endur 
 ance was now nearing an end. 
 
 Bearing a tray of food, Carl entered and closed 
 the door. 
 
 "I'm still waiting, Kronberg," he reminded 
 coolly, " for the answers to those questions." 
 
 For answer Kronberg merely pushed aside the 
 tray of food with a shudder. There was a dread 
 ful nausea to-day in the pit of his stomach. 
 
 "So?" said Carl. "Well," he regretted, 
 " there are always the finger stretchers. They're 
 crude, Kronberg, and homemade, but in time 
 they'll do the work." 
 
 Kronberg's face grew colorless as death itself 
 210
 
 An Accounting 211 
 
 as his mind leaped to the torture of the day be 
 fore. A clamp for every finger tip, a metal bar 
 between the hell-conceived device invented by 
 his jailer forced the fingers wide apart and held 
 them there as in vise until a stiffness bound the 
 aching cords, then a pain which crept snakelike 
 to the elbow and the shoulder. Then when the 
 tortured nerves fell wildly to telegraphing spas 
 modic jerkings of distress from head to toe, the 
 shrugging devil with the flute would talk vividly 
 of roaring wood fires and the comforts awaiting 
 the penitent below. Yesterday Kronberg had 
 fainted. To-day 
 
 Carl presently took the singular metal con 
 trivance from his pocket, deftly clamped the 
 fingers of his victim and sat down to wait, rum 
 maging for his flute. 
 
 The tension snapped. 
 
 Choking, Kronberg fell forward at his jailer's 
 feet, his eyes imploring. 
 
 "Mercy," he whispered. "I I can not 
 bear it." 
 
 "Then you will answer what I ask?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Carl unsnapped the infernal finger-stretcher 
 and dropped it in his pocket. 
 
 "Come," said he not unkindly and led his 
 weak and staggering prisoner to a room in the 
 west wing where a log fire was blazing brightly 
 in the fireplace.
 
 212 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 With a moan Kronberg broke desperately 
 away from his grasp and flung himself violently 
 upon his knees by the fire, stretching his arms out 
 pitifully to the blaze and chattering and moaning 
 like a thing demented. Carl walked away to the 
 window. 
 
 Presently the man by the fire crept humbly to 
 a chair, a broken creature in the clutch of fever, 
 eyes and skin unnaturally bright. 
 
 " Here," said Carl, pouring him some brandy 
 from a decanter on the table. " Sit quietly for a 
 while and close your eyes. Are you better now ? " 
 he asked a little later. 
 
 'Yes," said Kronberg faintly. 
 
 11 What is your real name? " 
 
 "Themar." 
 
 "When you took service with my aunt in the 
 spring, you were looking for a certain paper?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Did you find it during your ten days in the 
 town-house?" 
 
 " Xo." 
 
 "How did you discover its whereabouts?" 
 
 " One night I watched you replace it in a secret 
 drawer in your room. Before I could obtain it, 
 the house was closed for the summer and I was 
 dismissed. I had succeeded, however, in getting 
 an impression of the desk lock." 
 
 "You went back later?"
 
 An Accounting 213 
 
 " Yes. It was a summer day very hot. The 
 front door was ajar. I opened it wider. Your 
 aunt sat upon the floor of the hall crying " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I spoke of passing and seeing the door ajar. 
 She recognized me as one of the servants and 
 begged me to call a taxi. I assisted her to the 
 taxi and went back, having only pretended to 
 lock the door." 
 
 "And having disposed of her," supplied Carl, 
 "you flew up the stairs, applied the key made 
 from the impression and stole the paper?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Beautiful ! " said Carl softly. " How cleverly 
 you tricked me ! " 
 
 Themar shrugged. 
 
 " It was very simple." 
 
 Carl smiled. 
 
 "Where is the paper now?" he inquired. 
 
 Themar's face darkened. 
 
 "When later I looked in the pocket of my 
 coat," he admitted, " the paper had disappeared 
 utterly. Nor have I found it since. It is a very 
 great mystery " 
 
 "Ah!" said Carl. "So," he mused, "as long 
 as the paper was in my possession, my life was 
 safe, for you must watch me to find it. There 
 fore I was not poisoned or stabbed or shot at 
 during your original ten days of service. Later,
 
 214 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 even though you could not lay your own hands 
 upon the paper, things began to happen. Know 
 ing what I did, I had lived too long as it was." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Suppose you begin at the beginning and 
 tell me just what you know." 
 
 It was a halting, nervous tale poorly told. 
 Carl, with his fastidious respect for a careful 
 array of facts, found it trying. By a word here 
 or a sentence there, he twisted the mass of imper 
 fect information into conformity and pieced it 
 out with knowledge of his own. 
 
 " So," said he coldly, " you thought to stab me 
 the night of the storm and stabbed Poynter. 
 Fool! Why," he added curtly, "did you later 
 spy upon my cousin's camp when Tregar had ex 
 pressly forbidden it ? " 
 
 It was an unexpected question. Themar 
 flushed uncomfortably. Carl had a way of read 
 ing between the lines that was exceedingly dis 
 concerting. His information, he said at length 
 after an interval of marked hesitancy, had been 
 too meager. He had listened at the door once 
 when the Baron had spoken of Miss Westfall 
 to his secretary. A housemaid had frightened 
 him away and he had bolted upstairs to attend 
 to something else while they were both safely oc 
 cupied. Rather than work blindly as he needs
 
 An Accounting 215 
 
 must if he knew no more, he had sought to add to 
 his information by spying on her camp. 
 
 It was unconvincing. 
 
 "So," said Carl keenly, "Baron Tregar does 
 not trust you!" 
 
 Themar's lip curled. 
 
 "The Baron knew of your ten days in my 
 cousin's house ? " 
 
 Again the marked hesitancy the flush. 
 
 " Yes," said Themar. 
 
 "You're lying," said Carl curtly. "If you 
 wish to go back " 
 
 Themar moistened his dry lips and shuddered. 
 
 "No," he whispered, "he did not know." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Themar fell to trembling. This at least he 
 must keep locked from the grim, ironic man by 
 the window. 
 
 " You're playing double with Tregar and with 
 me," said Carl hotly. "I thought so. Very 
 well!" Smiling infernally, he drew from his 
 pocket the finger-stretchers. 
 
 "Excellency!" panted Themar. 
 
 " Why did you serve in my cousin's house with 
 out the knowledge of the Baron?" 
 
 " If if the secret was harmful to Houdania," 
 blurted Themar desperately, spurred to confes 
 sion by the clank of the metal in Carl's hand, 
 "I I could sell the paper to Galituria!"
 
 216 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 The nature of the admission was totally unex 
 pected. Carl whistled softly. 
 
 "Ah!" said he, raising expressive eyebrows. 
 
 " My mother," said Themar sullenly, " was of 
 Galituria. There is hatred there for Houdania 
 a century's feud " 
 
 " And you in the employ of the rival province 
 hunting this to earth! What a mess what a 
 mess!" 
 
 Followed a battery of merciless questions punc 
 tuated by the diabolic clank of metal. 
 
 Themar had been deputed solely to report to 
 Baron Tregar 
 
 " And murder me ! " supplemented Carl curtly. 
 
 ' Yes," said Themar. " Under oath I was to 
 obey Ronador's commands without question. But 
 he did not even trust me with the cipher mes 
 sage of instruction. That was mailed to the 
 Baron's Washington address written in an ink 
 that only turned dark with the heat of a fire. I 
 too was sent to Washington. Ronador knew 
 nothing of the Baron's trip to Connecticut." 
 
 By spying before he had sailed, Themar added, 
 at a question from Carl, he had learned of the 
 cipher. 
 
 ' You read the paper of course when you stole 
 it from my desk?" 
 
 "There was a noise," said Themar dully, his 
 face bitter; "I ran for the street. Later the 
 paper was gone."
 
 An Accounting 217 
 
 "What were Tregar's intentions about the 
 paper?" 
 
 Themar chewed nervously at his lips. 
 
 " His Excellency spoke to me of a paper. He 
 said that I must discover its whereabouts, if pos 
 sible, but that none but he must steal it. Any 
 thing written which you would seem to have 
 hidden would be of interest to him. He bound 
 me by a terrible oath not to touch or read it." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " After a time I swore that I had seen you burn 
 it " 
 
 " Clumsy! Still if he believed it, it left me, in 
 the event of Miss Westfall's complete ignorance 
 of all this hubbub, the sole remaining obstacle." 
 
 But Themar had not heard. He was shaking 
 again in the clutch of a heavy chill. Presently, 
 his sentences having trailed off once or twice into 
 peculiar incoherency, he fell to talking wildly 
 of a hut in the Sherrill woods in which he had 
 lived for days in the early autumn, of a cuff in a 
 box buried in the ground beneath the planking. 
 For weeks, he said, he had vainly tried to solve 
 its cipher, stealing away from the farm by night 
 to pore over it by the light of a candle. It was 
 fearfully intricate 
 
 "But you you that know all," he gasped 
 painfully, "you will get it and read and tell 
 me"
 
 218 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Moaning he fell back in his chair. 
 
 Carl rang for Mrs. Carmody. It was young 
 Mary, however, who answered, her round blue 
 eyes lingering in mystification upon the fire Carl 
 had built in the deserted wing. 
 
 "Mary," said Carl carelessly, "you'd better 
 phone for a doctor and a nurse. Kronberg has 
 returned and I fear he's in for a spell of pneu 
 monia." 
 
 Later in the Sherrill hut, Carl ripped a board 
 from the floor and found in the dirt beneath, a 
 box containing a soiled cuff covered with an in 
 tricate cipher. 
 
 "Odd!" said he with a curious smile as he 
 dropped the cuff into his pocket; "it's very odd 
 about that paper."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE SONG OF THE PINE- WOOD SPARROW 
 
 WITH the dawn a laggard breeze came 
 winging drowsily in from the southern 
 sea, the first thing astir in the spectral world of 
 palm and villa. Warm and deliciously fragrant, 
 it swept the stiff wet Bermuda grass upon the 
 lawn of the Sherrill villa at Palm Beach, rustled 
 the crimson hedge of hibiscus, caught the subtle 
 perfume of jasmine and oleander and swept on 
 to a purple-flowered vine on the white walls of 
 the villa, a fuller, richer thing for the ghost- 
 scent of countless flowers. 
 
 Into this gray-white world of glimmering co- 
 quina and dew-wet palm rode presently the slim, 
 brisk figure of a girl astride a fretful horse. A 
 royal palm dripped cool gray rain upon her as 
 she galloped past to the shell-road looming out 
 of the velvet stillness ahead like a dim, white 
 ghost-trail. 
 
 The gray ocean murmured, the still gray la 
 goon was asleep! Here and there a haunting, 
 elusive splash of delicate rose upon the silver 
 promised the later color of a wakening world. It 
 was a finer, quieter world, thought Diane, than 
 the later day world of white hot sunlight. 
 
 219
 
 220 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 With pulses atune to the morning's freshness, 
 the girl galloped rapidly along the shell-road, 
 the clattering thud of her horse's hoofs startling 
 in the quiet. As yet only a sleepy bird or two 
 had begun to twitter. There was a growing noise 
 of wind in the grass and palms. 
 
 A century back it seemed to this girl in whom 
 the restless gypsy tide was subtly fretting, she 
 had left Johnny and the van at Jacksonville to 
 come into this sensuous, tropical world of color, 
 fashionable life and lazy days. 
 
 Coloring delicately, the metallic gray bosom of 
 the lake presently foretold the sunrise with a 
 primrose glow. When at length the glaring 
 white light of the sun struck sparks from the dew 
 upon the pine and palmetto, Diane was riding 
 rapidly south in quest of the Florida flat-woods. 
 There was a veritable paradise of birds in the 
 pine barren, Dick Sherrill had said, robins and 
 bluebirds, flickers and woodpeckers with blazing 
 cockades, shrikes and chewinks. 
 
 It was an endless monotony of pine trees, viv 
 idly green and far apart, into which Diane pres 
 ently rode. A buzzard floated with uptilted 
 wings above the sparse woodland to the west. A 
 gorgeous butterfly, silver-spangled, winged its 
 way over the saw palmetto and sedge between 
 the trees to an inviting glade beyond, cleft by a 
 shallow stream. Swamp, jungle, pine and pal-
 
 The Song of the Sparrow 221 
 
 metto were vocal with the melody of many birds. 
 
 Diane reined in her horse with a thrill. This 
 was Florida, at last, not the unreal, exotic bril 
 liance of Palm Beach. Here was her father's 
 beloved Flowerland which she had loved as a 
 child. Here were pines and tall grass, sun-sil 
 vered, bending in the warm wind, and the song 
 of a pine- wood sparrow! 
 
 From the scrub ahead came his quiet song, in 
 finitely sweet, infinitely plaintive like the faint, 
 soft echo of a fairy's dream. A long note and 
 a shower of silver-sweet echoes, so it ran, the 
 invisible singer seeming to sing for himself alone. 
 So might elfin bells have pealed from a thicket, 
 inexpressibly low and tender. 
 
 Diane sat motionless, the free, wild grace of 
 her seeming a part of the primeval quiet. For 
 somehow, by some twist of singer's magic, this 
 Florida bird was singing of Connecticut wind 
 and river, of dogwood on a ridge, of water lilies 
 in the purple of a summer twilight, of a spot 
 named forever in her mind Arcadia. 
 
 Now as the girl listened, a beautiful brown 
 sprite of the rustling pine wood about her, a great 
 flood of color crept suddenly from the brown full 
 throat to the line of her hair, and the scarlet that 
 lingered in her cheeks was wilder than the red of 
 winter holly. 
 
 Surely surely there was no reason under
 
 222 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Heaven why the little bird should sing about a 
 hay-camp ! 
 
 But sing of it he did with a swelling throat and 
 a melodic quiver of nerve and sinew, and a curious 
 dialogue followed. 
 
 "A hay-camp is a very foolish thing, to be 
 sure!" sang the bird with a dulcet shower of 
 plaintive notes. 
 
 " To be sure," said the voice of the girl's con 
 science, "to be sure it is. But how very like 
 him!" 
 
 "But but there was the bullet" 
 
 " I have often thought of it," owned the Voice. 
 
 "A gallant gentleman must see that his lady 
 comes to no harm. 'Tis the way of gallant gen 
 tlemen 
 
 "Hum!" 
 
 "And he never once spoke of his discomfort 
 on the long hot road, though a hay-camp is sub 
 ject to most singular mishaps." 
 
 "I I have often marveled." 
 
 "He is brave and sturdy and of charming 
 humor " 
 
 " A superlative grain of humor perhaps, and 
 he's very lazy " 
 
 "And fine and frank and honorable. One 
 may not forget Arcadia and the rake of twigs." 
 
 " One may not forget, that is very true. But 
 he seeks to make himself out such a very great 
 fool "
 
 The Song of the Sparrow 223 
 
 "He cloaks each generous instinct with a 
 laughing drollery. Why did you hum when you 
 cooked his supper and called to him through the 
 trees?" 
 
 "I I do not know." 
 
 "Twas the world-old instinct of primitive 
 woman!" 
 
 " No! No! No! It was only because I was liv 
 ing the life I love the best. I was very happy." 
 
 "Why were you happier after the storm?" 
 
 "I I do not know." 
 
 " You have scolded with flashing eyes about 
 the hay-camp " 
 
 "But I I did not mind. I tried to mind 
 and could not " 
 
 " That is a very singular thing." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 !< Why have you not told him of the tall senti 
 nel you have furtively watched of moonlit nights 
 among the trees, a sentinel who slept by day 
 upon a ridiculous bed of hay that he might smoke 
 and watch over the camp of his lady until peep 
 o' day?" 
 
 "I do not know." 
 
 "You are sighing even now for the van and 
 a camp fire for the hay-camp through the 
 trees " 
 
 " No ! " with a very definite flash of perversity.
 
 224 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " Where is this persistent young nomad of the 
 hay-camp anyway?" 
 
 "I I have wondered myself." 
 
 But with a quiver of impatience the horse had 
 pawed the ground and the tiny bird flew off to a 
 distant clump of palmetto. 
 
 Diane rode hurriedly off into the flat-woods.
 
 White girl and Indian maid then clatped hands.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE NOMAD OF THE FIBE- WHEEL 
 
 IT HAD been an unforgettable day, this day in 
 the pine woods. Diane had forded shallow 
 streams and followed bright-winged birds, 
 lunched by a silver lake set coolly in the darkling 
 shade of cypress and found a curious nest in the 
 stump of a tree. Now with a mass of creeping 
 blackberry and violets strapped to her saddle she 
 was riding slowly back through the pine woods. 
 
 Though the sun, which awhile back had filled 
 the hollow of palmetto fronds with a ruddy pool 
 of light, had long since dropped behind the hori 
 zon, the girl somehow picked the homeward trail 
 with the unerring instinct of a wild thing. That 
 one may be hopelessly lost in the deceptive flat- 
 woods she dismissed with a laugh. The wood is 
 kind to wild things. 
 
 It was quite dark when through the trees ahead 
 she caught the curious glimmer of a cart wheel 
 of flame upon the ground, hub and spokes glow 
 ing vividly in the center of a clearing. Curiously 
 the girl rode toward it, unaware that the pictur 
 esque fire-wheel ahead was the typical camp fire 
 of the southern Indian, or that the strange wild 
 figure squatting gravely by the fire in lonely sil- 
 
 225
 
 226 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 houette against the white of a canvas-covered 
 wagon beyond in the trees, was a vagrant Semi- 
 nole from the proud old turbaned tribe who still 
 dwell in the inaccessible morasses of the Ever 
 glades. 
 
 The realization came in a disturbed flash of 
 interest and curiosity. Though the Florida In 
 dian harmed no one, he still considered himself 
 proudly hostile to the white man. Wherefore 
 Diane wisely wheeled her horse about to retreat. 
 
 It was too late. Already the young Seminole 
 was upon his feet, keen of vision and hearing 
 for all he seemed but a tense, still statue in the 
 wildwood. 
 
 Accepting the situation with good grace, 
 Diane rode fearlessly toward his fire and reined 
 in her horse. But the ready word of greeti ng froze 
 upon her lips. For the nomad of the fire-wheel 
 was a girl, tall and slender, barbarically arrayed 
 in the holiday garb of a Seminole chief. The fire 
 light danced upon the beaten band of silver about 
 her brilliant turban and the beads upon her sash, 
 upon red-beaded deerskin leggings delicately 
 thonged from the supple waist to the small and 
 moccasined foot, upon a tunic elaborately banded 
 in red and a belt of buckskin from which hung 
 a hunting knife, a revolver and an ammunition 
 pouch. 
 
 But Diane's fascinated gaze lingered longest
 
 The Nomad of the Fire -Wheel 227 
 
 upon the Indian girl's face. Her smooth, vivid 
 skin was nearer the hue of the sun-dark Cau 
 casian than of the red man, and lovelier than 
 either, with grave, vigilant eyes of dusk, a 
 straight, small nose and firm, proud mouth viv 
 idly scarlet like the wild flame in her cheeks. 
 
 Aloof, impassive, the Indian girl stared back. 
 
 " I wish well to the beautiful daughter of white 
 men ! " she said at length with native dignity. The 
 contralto of her voice was full and rich and very 
 musical, her English, deliberate and clear-cut. 
 
 Immensety relieved for the keen glance of 
 those dark Indian eyes had suddenly softened 
 Diane leaped impetuously from her horse ; across 
 the fire white girl and Indian maid clasped hands. 
 
 "Do forgive me!" she exclaimed warmly. 
 " But I saw your fire and turned this way before 
 I really knew what I was doing." Just as Diane 
 won the confidence of every wild thing in the for 
 est, so now with her winsome grace and unaf 
 fected warmth, she won the Indian girl. 
 
 Some subtle, nameless sympathy of the forest 
 leaped like a spark from eye to eye then with 
 a slow, grave smile in which there was much less 
 reserve, the Seminole motioned her guest to a 
 seat by the fire. 
 
 Nothing loath, Diane promptly tethered her 
 horse and squatted Indian fashion by the cart-
 
 228 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 wheel fire, immensely thrilled and diverted by 
 her picturesque adventure. 
 
 "My name," she offered presently with her 
 ready smile, " is Diane." 
 
 "Di-ane," said the Indian girl majestically. 
 And added naively, " She was the Roman god 
 dess of light and of hunting, is it not so? " 
 
 Diane looked very blank. 
 
 "Where in the world " she stammered, star 
 ing, and colored. 
 
 The Indian girl smiled. 
 
 " From so high," she said shyly, " I have been 
 taught by Mic-co. Like the white student of 
 books, I know many curious things that he has 
 taught me." 
 
 "And your name?" asked Diane, heroically 
 mastering her mystified confusion. "May I 
 may I not know that too? " 
 
 " Shock-kil-law," came the ready reply. 
 
 "That readily becomes Keela!" exclaimed 
 Diane smiling. 
 
 The girl nodded. 
 
 " So Mic-co has said. And so indeed he calls 
 me." 
 
 " Tell me, Keela, what does it mean ? " 
 
 "Red-winged blackbird," said Keela. 
 
 It was eminently fitting, thought Diane, and 
 glanced at Keela's hair and cheeks. 
 
 There was a wild duck roasting in the hub of
 
 The Nomad of the Fire -Wheel 229 
 
 coals from the burning spokes came the smell 
 of cedar. The Indian girl majestically broke a 
 segment of koonti bread and proffered it to her 
 companion. With faultless courtesy Diane ac 
 cepted and presently partook with healthy relish 
 of a supper of duck and sweet potatoes. 
 
 The silence of the Indian girl was utterly with 
 out constraint. 
 
 "I wonder," begged Diane impetuously, "if 
 you'll tell me who Mic-co is ? I'm greatly inter 
 ested. He taught you about Rome?" 
 
 Nodding, the Indian girl said in her quaint, de 
 liberate English that Mic-co was her white foster 
 father. The Seminoles called him Es-ta-chat- 
 tee-mic-co chief of the White Race. Most of 
 them called him simply Mic-co. He was a great 
 and good medicine man of much wisdom who 
 dwelt upon a fertile chain of swamp islands in 
 the Everglades. The Indians loved him. 
 
 Still puzzled, Diane diffidently ventured a 
 question or two, marveling afresh at the girl's 
 beauty and singular costume. 
 
 " I am of no race," said Keela sombrely. " My 
 father was a white man; my mother not all In 
 dian; my grandfather a Minorcan. Six moons 
 I live with my white foster father. And I live 
 then as I wish like the daughter of white 
 men. Six moons I dwell with the clan of my 
 mother. Such is my life since the old chief made
 
 230 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the compact with Mic-co. Come!" she added 
 and led the way to the Indian wagon. 
 
 "When the night-winds call," she said wist 
 fully, "I grow restless for I am happiest in 
 the lodge of Mic-co. Then the old chief bids 
 me travel to the world of white men and sell." 
 There was gentle pathos in her mellow voice. 
 
 Pieces of ancient pottery, quaint bleached bits 
 of skeleton, beads and shells and trinkets of gold 
 unearthed from the Florida sand mounds, moc 
 casins and baskets, koonti starch and plumes, such 
 were the picturesque wares which Keela peddled 
 when the stir of her mingled blood drove her 
 forth from the camp of her forbears. 
 
 Diane bought generously, harnessed her saddle 
 with clanking relics and regretfully mounted her 
 horse. 
 
 "Let me come again to-morrow!" she begged. 
 
 "Uncah!" granted the girl in Seminole and 
 her great black eyes were very friendly. 
 
 Looking back as she rode through the flat- 
 woods, Diane marveled afresh. It was a far 
 cry indeed from the camp of a Seminole to the 
 legends of Rome. 
 
 But the primeval flavor of the night presently 
 dissolved in the glare of acetylenes from a long 
 gray car standing motionless by the roadside 
 ahead. The climbing moon shone full upon the
 
 The Nomad of the Fire -Wheel 231 
 
 face of a bareheaded motorist idly smoking a cig 
 arette and waiting. 
 
 Diane reined in her horse with a jerk and a 
 clank of relics. 
 
 " Philip Poynter!" she exclaimed. 
 
 The driver laughed. 
 
 "I wonder," said he, "if you know what a 
 shock you've thrown into your aunt by staying 
 out in the flat- woods until dark. She once knew 
 a man who lost himself. Incidentally they are 
 mighty deceptive to wander about in. The trees 
 are so far apart that one never seems to get into 
 them. And then, having meanwhile effectively 
 got in without knowing it, one never seems to 
 get out." 
 
 " Where," demanded Diane indignantly, " did 
 you come from anyway?" 
 
 " If you hadn't been so ambitious," Philip as 
 sured her with mild resentment, " you'd have seen 
 me at breakfast. I arrived at Sherrill's last 
 night. As it is, I've been sitting here an hour or 
 so watching you swap wildwood yarns with the 
 aborigine yonder. And Ann Sherrill sent me 
 after you in Dick's speediest car. Ho, uncle! " 
 
 An aged negro appeared from certain shadows 
 to which Philip had lazily consigned him. 
 
 "Uncle," said Philip easily, "will ride your 
 horse back to Sherrill's for you. I picked him 
 up on the road. You'll motor back with me?"
 
 282 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Diane certainly would not. 
 
 " Then," regretted Philip, " I'm reduced to the 
 painful and spectacular expedient of just graz 
 ing the heels of your fiery steed with Dick's racer 
 all the way back to Sherrill's and matching up his 
 hoof-beats on the shell-road with a devil's tattoo 
 on the horn." 
 
 Greatly vexed, Diane resigned her horse to the 
 waiting negro, who rode off into the moonlight 
 with a noisy clank. Mr. Poynter's face was 
 radiant. 
 
 " And after running the chance of a night in 
 the pine barrens," he mused admiringly, "you 
 amble out of the danger zone in the most matter- 
 of-fact manner with your saddle clanking like a 
 bone-yard. I don't wonder your aunt fusses. 
 What made the racket ? " 
 
 "Bones and shells and things." 
 
 "Well, for such absolute irresponsibility as 
 you've developed since you've been out of the 
 chastening jurisdiction of the hay-camp, I'd re 
 spectfully suggest that you marry the very first 
 bare-headed motorist, smoking a cigarette, whom 
 you happened to see as you rode out of the pine- 
 woods." 
 
 "Philip," said Diane disdainfully, "the 
 
 moon " 
 
 " Is on my head again," admitted Philip. " I 
 know. It always gets me. We'd better motor
 
 The Nomad of the Fire -Wheel 233 
 
 around a bit and clear my brain out. I'd hate 
 awfully to have the Sherrills think I'm in love." 
 
 Almost anything one could say, reflected Diane 
 uncomfortably, inspired Philip's brain to fresh 
 fertility. 
 
 The camp of Keela, domiciled indefinitely in 
 the flat-woods to sell to winter tourists, proved 
 a welcome outlet for the fretting gypsy tide in 
 Diane's veins. She found the Indian girl's mag 
 netism irresistible. 
 
 Proud, unerringly truthful, fastidious in speech 
 and persona] habit, truly majestic and generous, 
 such was the shy woodland companion with whom 
 Diane chose willfully to spend her idle hours, 
 finding the girl's unconstrained intervals of 
 silence, her flashes of Indian keenness, her inborn 
 reticence and naive parade of the wealth of 
 knowledge Mic-co had taught her, a most be 
 wildering book in which there was daily some 
 thing new to read. 
 
 There was a keen, quick brain behind the dark 
 and lovely eyes, a faultless knowledge of the 
 courtesies of finer folk. Mic-co had wrought gen 
 erously and well. Only the girl's inordinate shy 
 ness and the stern traditions of her tribe, Diane 
 fancied, kept her chained to her life in the Glades. 
 
 Keela, strangely apart from Indian and white 
 man, and granted unconventional license by her
 
 234 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 tribe, hungered most for the ways of the white 
 father of whom she frequently spoke. 
 
 Diane learned smoke signals and the blazing 
 and blinding of a trail, an inexhaustible and 
 tragic fund of tribal history which had been 
 handed down from mouth to mouth for genera 
 tions, legends and songs, wailing dirges and na 
 tive dances and snatches of the chaste and oath- 
 less speech of the Florida Indian. 
 
 "Diane, dear!" exclaimed Ann Sherrill one 
 lazy morning, " what in the world is that exceed 
 ingly mournful tune you're humming?" 
 
 "That," said Diane, "is the 'Song of the 
 Great Horned Owl,' my clever little Indian 
 friend taught me. Isn't it plaintive?" 
 
 " It is ! " said Ann with deep conviction. " En 
 tirely too much so. I feel creepy. And Nathalie 
 says you did some picturesque dance for her and 
 your aunt 
 
 " The ' Dance of the Wild Turkey,' " explained 
 Diane, much amused at the recollection. " Aunt 
 Agatha insisted that it was some iniquitous and 
 cunningly disguised Seminole species of turkey 
 trot. She was horribly shocked and grew white 
 as a ghost at my daring " 
 
 "Fiddlesticks!" said Ann Sherrill. "She 
 ought to have all the shock out of her by now 
 after bringing up you and Carl! I'm going to 
 ride out to the flat- woods with you, for I'm simply
 
 The Nomad of the Fire -Wheel 235 
 
 dying for a new sensation. Dick's as stupid as 
 an owl. He does nothing but hang around the 
 Beach Club. And Philip Poynter's tennis mad. 
 He looks hurt if you ask him to do anything else 
 except perhaps to trail fatuously after you. It's 
 the flat-woods for mine." 
 
 Ann returned from her visit to the Indian camp 
 scintillant with italics and enthusiasm. 
 
 "My dear," she said, "I'm wild about her 
 quite wild! . . . I'm going again and again! 
 . . . If I knew half as much and were half 
 as lovely Why, do you know, Diane, she set 
 me right about some ridiculous quotation, and I 
 never try to get them straight, for half the time 
 I find my own way so much more expressive. 
 . . . There's Philip Poynter with a tennis 
 racquet again! Diane, I'm losing patience with 
 him." 
 
 From her madcap craving for new sensation, 
 Ann was destined to evolve an inspiration which 
 with customary energy and Diane's interested 
 connivance she swept through to fruition, una 
 ware that Fate marched, leering, at her heels.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE BLACK PALMER 
 
 URIOUS things may happen when masked 
 men hold revel under a moonlit sky. 
 
 Thus in a tropical garden of palm and foun 
 tain, of dark, shifting shadows and a thousand 
 softly luminous Chinese lanterns swaying in a 
 breeze of spice, a Bedouin talked to an ancient 
 Greek. 
 
 "He is here?" asked the Bedouin with an ac 
 cent slightly foreign. 
 
 'Yes," said the Greek. "He is here and 
 immensely relieved, I take it, to be rid of the 
 jurisdiction of the hay-camp." 
 
 " I fancied he would not dare 
 
 " A man in love," commented the Greek dryly, 
 " dares much for the sake of his lady. One may 
 conceivably lack discretion without forfeiting his 
 claim to courage." 
 
 " The disguise of his stained and shaven face," 
 hinted the Bedouin grimly, " has made him over 
 confident. Having tested it with apparent suc 
 cess upon you ' 
 
 " Even so. But he has forgotten that few men 
 have such striking eyes." 
 
 " If he has taken the pains to assure himself
 
 The Black Palmer 237 
 
 of my whereabouts," rumbled the Bedouin, " as 
 he surely has, I am of course still blistering in 
 extreme southern Florida, hunting tarpon. I 
 have a permanent Washington address which I 
 have taken pains to notify of my interest in tar 
 pon and to which he writes. These incognito 
 days," added the Bedouin with a slight smile, " my 
 cipher communications cross an ocean and re 
 turn immediately by trusted hands to America, 
 though I, of course, know nothing of it. Those 
 from my charming minstrel to me make similar 
 tours." 
 
 "And I?" 
 
 'You my secretary having spent a few 
 days with the Sherrills on your way to join me 
 after months of frivoling with a hay-camp, have 
 been forced by telegram to depart before the 
 fete de nuit to which Miss Sherrill begged our 
 attendance. Rest assured he knows that too. 
 Therefore, to unmask unobtrusively and slip 
 away to his room, and in the absence of other 
 guests to linger for a week of incognito quiet 
 voila! he is quite safe though imprudent I " 
 
 Greek and Bedouin fell silent, watching the 
 laughing pageant in the garden. 
 
 Venetian lamps glowed like yellow witch-lights 
 in the branches; fountains tossed moon-bright 
 sprays of quicksilver aloft and tinkled witk the 
 splash; the waters of a sunken pool, jeweled in
 
 238 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 stars, glimmered darkly green through files of 
 cypress. All in all, an entrancing moon-mad 
 world of mystery and dusk-moths, heavy with the 
 scent of jasmine and orange. And the moon 
 played brightly on curious folk, on spangles and 
 jewels and masked and laughing eyes. 
 
 A gray mendicant monk with sombre, thin- 
 lipped face beneath a grayish mask slipped fur 
 tively by with a curious air of listening intently 
 to the careless chatter about him; a fat and plain 
 tive Queen Elizabeth followed, talking to a stout 
 courtier who was over-trusting the seams of his 
 satin breeches. 
 
 " I doubt if you'll believe me," puffed Queen 
 Elizabeth dolorously, "but every day since that 
 time she deliberately went out and lost herself all 
 day in the flat-woods and stopped to look at that 
 ridiculous cart with the wheel of flame when I 
 was sure a buzzard had bitten her No ! No ! I 
 don't know, Jethro; I'm sure I don't. How 
 should I know why it was burning? But it was. 
 She said plainly that it was a cart wheel of fire 
 and if it was a wheel it must certainly have been 
 on something and what on earth would a wheel 
 be on but a cart? Certainly one wouldn't buy a 
 bale of cart wheels to make fires in the flat-woods. 
 Well, it's the strangest thing, Jethro, but nearly 
 every day since, she's visited the flat-woods and 
 wandered about with that terrible Indian girl who
 
 The Black Palmer 239 
 
 isn't an Indian girl. Seems that she's a most 
 extraordinary girl with a foster-father and she 
 sells sand mounds no, that's not it the things 
 they find in them besides the sand and she has 
 a queer, wild sort of culture and her father was 
 white. Like as not Diane will come home some 
 night scalped and she has such magnificent hair, 
 Jethro. To her knees it is and so black! And 
 what must she and Ann do to-night but there, 
 I promised Diane faithfully to keep it a secret, 
 for they've been working for days and days and 
 she is distractingly lovely. With the Sherrill to 
 pazes too. And now that she's sold all the sand 
 mounds, or whatever it is, do you know, Jethro, 
 she's going to drive Diane north to Jacksonville 
 in the Indian wagon. They start to-morrow 
 morning. I think it's because they're both so mad 
 about trees and things I can't for the life of 
 me make it out. Jethro, Diane will drive me mad 
 she will indeed. Well, all I can say, Jethro, 
 is that if you don't know what I'm talking about 
 you must be very stupid to-night. No! No! do 
 I ever know, Jethro? He may be here and he 
 may not. He may be off in Egypt shooting 
 scarabs by now. He was at the farm when he 
 wrote to me in Indiana. Well, collecting scarabs, 
 then, Jethro. Why do you fuss so about little 
 things ? Isn't it funny strangest thing ! "
 
 240 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Queen Elizabeth passed on with her aged 
 dandy. 
 
 A dark figure by the cypress pool laughed and 
 shrugged. He was a singular figure, this man by 
 the pool, with a hint of the Orient in his garb. 
 His robe was of black, with startling and unex 
 pected flashes of scarlet lining when he walked. 
 Black chains clanked drearily about his waist and 
 wrists. There was a cunningly concealed light in 
 his filmy turban which gave it the singular appear 
 ance of a dark cloud lighted by an inner fire. As 
 he wandered about with clanking chains, he 
 played strange music upon a polished thing of 
 hollow bones. Sometimes the music laughed and 
 wooed when eyes were kind ; sometimes when eyes 
 were over-daring it was subtly impudent and elo 
 quent. Sometimes it was so unspeakably weird 
 and melancholy that along with the clanking 
 chains and the strangely luminous turban, many 
 a careless stroller turned and stared. So did a 
 slender, turbaned Seminole chief with a minstrel 
 at his heels. 
 
 It was upon this picturesque young Seminole 
 that the eyes of the Greek by the hibiscus lingered 
 longest, but the eyes of the Bedouin scanned 
 every line of the minstrel's ragged corduroy with 
 grim amusement. 
 
 "A romantic garb, by Allah!" said the Bed 
 ouin dryly.
 
 The Black Palmer 241 
 
 "It has served its purpose," reminded the 
 Greek sombrely. And laughed with relish. 
 
 For the Seminole chief had fled perversely 
 through the lantern-lit trees, her soft, mocking 
 laughter proclaiming her sex and her mood. 
 
 "And still he follows!" boomed the Bedouin. 
 " With or without the music-machine, he is con 
 sistently fatuous." 
 
 The man with the luminous turban spoke sud 
 denly to a girl in trailing satin with a muff of 
 flowers in her hand. Shoulders and throat 
 gleamed superbly above the line of golden satin; 
 there were flashing topazes in her hair and about 
 her throat; and the slender, arched foot in the 
 satin slipper was small and finely moulded. 
 
 "Tell me," he begged insistently, "who you 
 are ! You've grace and poise enough for a dozen 
 women. And who taught you how to walk ? Few 
 women know how." 
 
 The girl, with a delicate air of hauteur, flung 
 back her head imperiously and turned away. 
 
 " And you've wonderful eyes black and wist 
 ful and tragic and beautiful ! " persisted the man 
 impudently. "Wonderful, sparkling lady of 
 gold and black, tell me who you are ! " 
 
 "Who," said the girl gravely in a clear, rich 
 contralto, "who are you?" 
 
 The man laughed but his eyes lingered on the 
 firm, proud scarlet lips and the small even teeth.
 
 242 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Call me the 'Black Palmer,'" said he. 
 " There's a tremendous significance in my rig to 
 be sure, but it's only for one man." 
 
 " What," asked the girl seriously, " is a 
 palmer?" 
 
 Mystified the Black Palmer stared. 
 
 ' You honestly mean that you don't know? " 
 
 " I speak ever the truth," said the proud scarlet 
 lips below the golden mask. "When I ask, I 
 mean that I do not know." 
 
 " And this in a world of sophistication ! " mur 
 mured the man blankly, but the girl was moving 
 off with graceful majesty through the trees, the 
 jewels in her hair alive in the lantern-lit dusk. 
 The Black Palmer sprang after her. 
 
 "Tell me, I beg of you," he exclaimed 
 earnestly, "you who are so grave and beautiful 
 and apart from this world of mine, like a fresh 
 keen wind in a scorching desert, in Heaven's name 
 tell me who you are ! " 
 
 But the girl's dark, fine eyes flashed quick re 
 buke. 
 
 Nothing daunted the Black Palmer impu 
 dently stripped the golden mask from her face. 
 The soft yellow light of the Venetian lamp in 
 the tree above her fell full upon the lovely oval 
 of a face so peculiar in its striking beauty of 
 line and vivid coloring that he fell back staring.
 
 The Black Palmer 243 
 
 " Lord, what a face! " exclaimed the Greek, too 
 taken aback to resent the Palmer's insolence. 
 
 And the Bedouin rumbled : " Exquisite ! But 
 she is not of your land. Italian, Spanish, or 
 some bizarre mingling of strange races, but none 
 of your colder lands ! " 
 
 Now as the Black Palmer stared at the dark, 
 accusing eyes of the girl, a singular thing oc 
 curred. His cloak of impudence fell suddenly 
 from his shoulders and returning the golden mask, 
 he bowed and begged her pardon with unmistak 
 able deference. 
 
 "Let a humbled Palmer," he said quietly, 
 " pay his sincerest homage to the most beautiful 
 woman he has even seen." And as the girl moved 
 proudly away, the strain of fantastic music which 
 followed her was subtly deferential.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE UNMASKING 
 
 AT MIDNIGHT a mellow chime rang some 
 where by the cypress pool. Laughing and 
 jesting, calling to one another, the masked crowd 
 moved off to the vine-hung villa ahead, gleaming 
 moon-white through the shrubbery. 
 
 Somewhat reluctantly the minstrel followed. 
 It had been his intention to unmask in some se 
 cluded corner whence, presently, he might slip 
 away to his room, but finding himself jostled and 
 pushed on by a Greek and a Bedouin who, to do 
 them justice, seemed quite unaware of their im 
 portunities, he surrendered to the press about him 
 and presently found himself in an unpleasantly 
 conspicuous spot in the great room which the 
 Sherrills occasionally used as a ballroom. 
 
 All about him girls and men were unmasking 
 amid a shower of laughing raillery. That the 
 Seminole chief with her tunic and beaded sash 
 and her brilliant turban was very near him, was 
 a pleasant and altogether accidental mitigation of 
 his mishap. That a Greek and a Bedouin were 
 just behind him a fact not in the least acci 
 dental and that a gray monk was slipping 
 about among the guests whispering to receptive 
 
 244
 
 The Unmasking 245 
 
 ears, did not interest him in the least. A string 
 orchestra played softly in an alcove. The leader's 
 eyes, oddly enough, were upon the ancient Greek. 
 
 Now suddenly a curious hush swept over the 
 room. Uncomfortably aware that he was a spec 
 tacular object of interest by reason of his mask 
 and that every unmasked eye was full upon him, 
 the minstrel, following the lines of least re 
 sistance, removed the bit of cambric from his 
 eyes. After all, in the sea of faces before him, 
 there were none familiar. 
 
 As the mask dropped the ancient Greek 
 thoughtfully adjusted his tunic. 
 
 Instantly without pause or warning the soft 
 strain of the orchestra swept dramatically into a 
 powerful melody of measured cadences. It was 
 the tune Carl had played upon his flute to Jokai 
 of Vienna months before. The minstrel, mask 
 in hand, stared at the orchestra, blanched and bit 
 his lip. 
 
 " God bless my soul ! " exclaimed Queen Eliza 
 beth to Jethro, " it's the immigrant, Jethro, and 
 there he was on the lace spread with his feet tied 
 and gurgling. I'll never forget his eyes." 
 
 "Jokai of Vienna!" said the Black Palmer, 
 whistling. "By Jove, they've trapped him 
 nicely." 
 
 For an uncomfortable instant, the silence con-
 
 246 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 tinned, then came the saving stir of laughter and 
 chatting. 
 
 The Bedouin with an unrelenting air of dignity 
 and command, removed his mask and bowed low 
 to Diane in whose startled eyes below the Semi- 
 nole turban flashed sympathy and acute regret. 
 
 " Miss Westfall," said he gravely, " permit me 
 to present to you, Prince Ronador of Houdania." 
 
 White and stern, his fine eyes flashing im 
 perially, Ronador bowed. 
 
 "Rest assured, Miss Westfall," he said, "that 
 I know you have not betrayed my confidence. 
 Baron Tregar is an ardent patriot who by virtue 
 of his office must needs object to democratic mas 
 querading." 
 
 The Baron stroked his beard. 
 
 " For inspiring the musical ceremony due your 
 rank, Prince," he said dryly, "I crave indul 
 gence." 
 
 Smiling, the ancient Greek at the Baron's 
 elbow unmasked, to show the cheerful face of Mr. 
 Poynter. 
 
 " Prince," said Mr. Poynter, " I sincerely trust 
 I have made no error in transcribing the Regent's 
 Hymn for our excellent musicians. Having 
 heard it so many times in your presence in Hou 
 dania, I could not well forget. At your sen-ice," 
 with a glance at his Grecian attire, " Herodotus, 
 father of nomads ! "
 
 The Unmasking 247 
 
 But Ann Sherrill in the gorgeous raiment of a 
 Semiramis was already at hand, sparkling italics 
 upon her royal guest, and Philip moved aside. 
 
 "I am overwhelmed!" whispered Ann a little 
 later. "I am indeed! I was not in the least 
 aware that our mysterious incognito was a prince, 
 were you, Diane?" 
 
 ' Yes," said Diane. Her color was very high 
 and she deliberately avoided the imploring eyes 
 of Mr. Poynter. 
 
 "What in the world is it all about?" begged 
 Ann helplessly. " And who was the grayish monk 
 who flitted about so mysteriously telling us that 
 the minstrel was a prince! It spread like wild 
 fire. As for you, Philip Poynter, it's exactly like 
 you! To depart night before last and suddenly 
 reappear is quite of a piece with your mysterious 
 habit of fading periodically out of civilization. 
 Baron Tregar, how exceedingly delightful of you 
 to come this way and surprise me when I fancied 
 you were so keen about those horrid tarpon that 
 you wouldn't leave them for all I wrote and 
 wrote" 
 
 There was a sprightly nervousness in Ann's 
 manner. She was uncomfortably aware of a 
 subtle undercurrent. 
 
 "And I've another unexpected guest," she 
 added to Diane. "Carl's here. Wandering in 
 from Heaven knows where, as he always does. 
 He's making his peace with your aunt "
 
 248 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Herodotus, who had been trying for some time 
 to get into friendly communication with his lady, 
 suddenly murmured "Frost in Florida!" with 
 audible regret and moved off good-humoredly 
 to look for Carl. 
 
 He found that young man listening attentively 
 to his aunt's reproaches. 
 
 " And that costume, Carl," fluttered Queen 
 Elizabeth in aggrieved disapproval. " Why, dear 
 me, it's enough to make a body shudder, it's so 
 sort of sinister it is indeed! And I do hope 
 you don't set your hair on fire with that extraor 
 dinary light in your turban. Is it a candle or an 
 electric bulb?" 
 
 "A forty horse power glowworm!" Carl as 
 sured her gravely, and the portly Jethro snig 
 gered to the danger of his seams. 
 
 Philip's hand came down heavily upon the 
 Palmer's broad shoulder and Carl wheeled. In 
 that instant as he grasped Philip's hand in a 
 silence more eloquent than words, every finer 
 instinct of his queerly balanced nature flashed 
 in his face. The two hands tightened and fell 
 apart. 
 
 "Come, smoke!" invited Carl, smiling. "I'm 
 glad you're here. I haven't been ragged and 
 abused for so long there's a lonely furrow in 
 my soul." 
 
 But Dick Sherrill, looking very warm and dis-
 
 The Unmasking 249 
 
 gruntled in a costume he informed them bitterly 
 was meant for Claude Duval, came up as they 
 were turning away and insisted upon presenting 
 Carl to the guest of the evening. 
 
 " Ann sent me," he added. " And you've got 
 to come. And I want to say right now that Ann 
 makes me tired. She's as notional as a lunatic. 
 She planned this rig and now she doesn't like it. 
 And if I don't look like a highwayman you can 
 wager your last sou I feel like one, and that's 
 sufficient. The whole trouble is that Ann's been 
 so busy with hair-dressers and manicurists and 
 corsetieres and dressmakers and the Lord knows 
 what not over that stunning Indian girl, who'll 
 likely run off with the family topazes, that she's 
 had no time for her brother, and rubs it in now 
 by laughing at the shape of my legs. What's 
 the matter with my legs, Carl ? " 
 
 " Too ornamental," said Carl. " Curvilinear 
 grace is all very well but 
 
 " Shut up ! " said Sherrill viciously. " Have 
 you ever met this king-pin I'm exploiting?" 
 
 " I've seen him," said Carl. " Once when he 
 was riding up the mountian road to Houdania 
 with a brilliant escort and one er other time. 
 Think I told you I'd spent a month or so in a 
 Houdanian monastery several years ago, didn't 
 I, Dick?"
 
 250 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Yes," said Dick. "That's why I asked. 
 Poynter, who in blue blazes are you looking for? " 
 
 Philip flushed. 
 
 " Dry up ! " he advised. " You're grouchy." 
 
 Sherrill was still heatedly denying the charge 
 when they halted near the Baron. 
 
 ' You wear a singular costume," suggested 
 Ronador stiffly, when the formalities of presenta 
 tion were at an end. He glanced at the luminous 
 turban and thence to the chains. Carl, though 
 he had primarily intended the singular rig for the 
 eyes of Tregar, had subtly invited the remark. 
 His eyes were darkly ironic. 
 
 "Prince," he said guilelessly, "it is a silent 
 parable." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "I am 'The Ghost of a Man's Past!'" ex 
 plained the Palmer lightly and clanked his 
 chains. The level glances of the two met with 
 the keenness of invisible swords. 
 
 "The heavy, sinister black," suggested the 
 Palmer, "the flashes of forbidden scarlet the 
 hours of a man's past are scarlet, are they not? 
 the cloud above the head, with a treacherous 
 heart of fire, the clanking chains of bondage 
 they are all here. And the skeleton in the closet 
 Sire behold!" He laughed and flung back 
 his mantle, revealing a perfect skeleton cun-
 
 The Unmasking 251 
 
 ningly etched in glaring white upon a close-fit 
 ting garment of black. 
 
 Did the Baron's eyes flash suddenly with a 
 queer dry humor? Philip could not be sure. 
 
 With a clank of symbolic chains Carl bowed 
 and withdrew, and coming suddenly upon his 
 cousin, halted and stared. Long afterward Di 
 ane was to remember that she had caught a sim 
 ilar look in the eyes of Ronador. 
 
 "Well?" she begged, slightly uncomfortable. 
 
 Carl smiled. Once more his fine eyes were im 
 passive. With ready grace he admired the deli 
 cately-thonged tunic and the beaded sash, the 
 bright turban with the beaten band of silver and 
 the darkly lovely face beneath it. 
 
 " It's a duplicate of the rig my little Indian 
 friend wears," she explained, smiling. " Hasn't 
 Ann told you? She's quite wild about it." 
 
 "Ann's very busy soothing Dick," laughed 
 Carl and to the malicious satisfaction of that 
 worthy Greek who had been trailing along in his 
 wake, presented Herodotus. Diane nodded, 
 smiled politely and sought delicately to ignore 
 the ancient Greek. It was a hopeless task. 
 Mr. Poynter insisted upon considering himself 
 included in every word she uttered. 
 
 "Isn't mother a dear!" exclaimed Ann Sher- 
 rill joining them. "After ragging me desper 
 ately for days about Keela, until I threatened to
 
 252 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 kill myself, and giving me an exceedingly horrid 
 little book on the advisability of curbing one's 
 most interesting impulses, she's taken her under 
 her wing to-night and they're excellent friends. 
 Philip, dear, go unruffle Dick. He's horribly 
 fussed up about something or other. Carl, I want 
 you to meet Keela. It's the most interesting 
 thing I've dared in ages and Dad's been very de 
 cent about it. Dad always did understand me. 
 He has a sense of humor." 
 
 Diane and Carl followed, laughing, at her heels. 
 Ann presently found her mother and Keela and 
 unaware of the astonished interest in Carl's eyes, 
 presented him. 
 
 "The Black Palmer!" said Keela naively. 
 
 "Lady of Gold and Black!" said Carl and 
 bowed profoundly.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE BECKONING 
 
 reckoning of Ronador and the Baron 
 JL came by the cypress pool. 
 
 4 ' It is useless to rave and storm," said Tregar 
 quietly. " I hold the cards." 
 
 " Was it necessary to humiliate me in the pres 
 ence of Miss West fall?" demanded Ronador 
 bitterly. With all his sullenness there was in his 
 tone a marked respect for the older man. 
 
 " It was necessary to end this romantic mas 
 querade!" insisted Tregar. "Why are you 
 here?" 
 
 "I I came in a flash of panic. It seemed to 
 me that after all I I could not trust to other 
 hands when the dead thing stirred." Ronador's 
 face was white and haggard. In that instant his 
 forty-four years lay heavily upon his shoulders. 
 
 "Have I ever misplaced your trust?" re 
 minded Tregar sombrely. " Have I not even 
 kept your secret from your father?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then tell me," asked the Baron bluntly, 
 " why you must come to America and hysterically 
 complicate this damnable mess by a bullet!" 
 
 Greatly agitated, Ronador fell to pacing to and 
 
 253
 
 254 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 fro. Heavy cypress shadows upon the water 
 moved like pointing fingers. 
 
 "Is there nothing I may keep from you?" 
 broke from him a little bitterly. 
 
 "Why," insisted the older man, "have you 
 seen fit to conduct yourself with the irrationality 
 of a madman by trundling a music-machine about 
 the country and making love to a girl you tried 
 in a moment of fright and frenzy to kill?" 
 
 "I I lost my head," said the Prince with an 
 effort. "It it seemed at first that she must 
 die. The other, I thought to myself, I will leave 
 to Themar and the Baron. This I must do for 
 myself. They will spare her and years hence the 
 thing may stir again. I I can not bear to think 
 of it even now, Tregar. I have paid heavily for 
 my moment of madness. For nights after, I did 
 not sleep. Even now the memory is unspeakable 
 torture!" And Ronador admitted with stiff, 
 white lips that some nameless God of Malice had 
 made capital of his bullet, stirring his heart into 
 admiration for the fearless girl who had stood so 
 gallantly by the fire in a storm-haunted wood. In 
 the heart of the forest a happier solution had 
 come to him and eliminated the sinister thought 
 of murder. 
 
 The Baron coldly heard the passionate avowal 
 through to the end. 
 
 "And the Princess Phaedra?" he begged for-
 
 The Reckoning 255 
 
 mally. "What of her? What of the marriage 
 that is to dissolve the bitter feud of a century 
 between Houdania and Galituria, this marriage 
 to which already you are informally bound?'* 
 
 " It is nothing to me. I shall marry Miss West- 
 fall." 
 
 " So ! " The Baron matched his heavy finger 
 tips. " So ! And this is another infernal com 
 plication of the freedom of marital choice we 
 grant our princes!" 
 
 "Ten years ago," flamed Ronador passion 
 ately, " you and my father picked a wife for me ! 
 Is not that enough? Now that she is dead, I shall 
 marry whom I choose. Has it not occurred to 
 you that after all it is the sanest way out of this 
 horrible muddle?" 
 
 " It is one way out," admitted Tregar, " and by 
 that way lies war with Galituria." He fell silent, 
 plucking at his beard. " I fancy," he said at last, 
 " that you will not go back to the music-machine." 
 
 "It was and is my only means of follow 
 ing her." 
 
 " Do so again," said the Baron dryly, " and 
 the American yellow papers shall blazon your 
 identity to the world. * Son of a prince regent 
 nephew of a king trundles a music-machine 
 about to win a beautiful gypsy ! ' And Galituria 
 and the Princess Phaedra will read with interest." 
 Then he blazed suddenly with one of his infre-
 
 256 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 quent outbursts of passion, " Is it not enough to 
 have Galituria laughing at a mad king whose 
 claim to the throne by our laws may not be invali 
 dated by his madness? A king so mad that the 
 affairs of a nation must be administered by a 
 prince regent your father? Must you add to 
 all this the disgrace of breaking faith with Gali- 
 turia and plunging your country into war ? Your 
 father is an old man. With but his life and the 
 life of an aging madman between you and the 
 throne, it behooves you to walk with a full rec 
 ognition of your future responsibilities. Your 
 father knows you are here in America? " 
 
 "No. There was an Arctic expedition. He 
 thinks I have gone hunting with that. At first 
 I thought I could come to America and return 
 with no one the wiser." 
 
 "Having murdered Miss Westfall!" com 
 pleted the Baron quietly. 
 
 Ronador's face was ashen. 
 
 " Excellency," he choked suddenly, " my little 
 son " 
 
 ' Yes," said Tregar with sudden kindness, " I 
 know. Your great love and ambition for the boy 
 drove you to madness." He paused. ' You are 
 fully decided to break faith with Phaedra, know 
 ing what may come of it ? " 
 
 ' Yes. Even if my great love for Miss West- 
 fall did not drive me on "
 
 The Reckoning 257 
 
 "To indiscretion!" supplied the Baron dryly. 
 
 " As you will. Even then, to me it is now the 
 one way out. With Cranberry dead, with the 
 treacherous paper in my possession " 
 
 " It has heen burned." 
 
 Ronador did not hear. 
 
 "With Miss Westfall my wife," he finished, 
 " even if the dead thing stirs again, it can make 
 no difference." 
 
 "Then," said the Baron formally, "I am 
 through with it all, quite through. The task was 
 never of my choosing, as you know. When the 
 dead hand reached forth from the grave to taunt 
 you, Ronador, I was willing at first to stoop to 
 unutterable things to save you and Houdania 
 from dishonor, but more and more there has 
 been distaste in my heart for the blackness of the 
 thing. Days back I warned you by letter that I 
 would not see Miss Westfall coldly sacrificed for 
 a muddle of which she knew absolutely nothing. 
 There are things a man may not do even for his 
 country one is murdering women. Now, 
 though I pledged myself through loyalty to my 
 country, my king, my regent and yourself to spy 
 ing and murder and petty thievery, with a conse 
 quent chain of discomfort and misunderstandings 
 for myself, I am through and mightily glad 
 of it!" 
 
 "And what have you accomplished?" flamed
 
 258 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Ronador passionately. " Cranberry, for all your 
 ciphered pledges, lives and mocks me as he did to 
 night, as he did months back. I could kill him for 
 the indignities he has heaped upon me, if for noth 
 ing else. And he knows more than you think. 
 What did he mean to-night? " 
 
 "Circumstances," said Tregar coldly, "have 
 made you unduly sensitive and suspicious. Gran- 
 berry's costume was planned maliciously as an 
 impersonal affront to me. He knew of my plans 
 through a telegram of mine to Themar and made 
 his own accordingly. It was not your past to 
 which he referred. Surely it is not difficult to 
 catch his meaning?" 
 
 " Blunders and blunders and quixotic scru 
 ples," raved Ronador, " and now this crowning 
 indignity to-night! What has Themar been do 
 ing? . . . What have you done? . . . 
 Why is Cranberry still alive? Hereafter, Tre 
 gar, Themar will report to me. I personally 
 will see that the thing is cleared up and silenced 
 forever. I may trust at least to your silence? " 
 
 " My word as a gentleman is sufficient? " 
 
 "It "is." 
 
 " Consider me pledged to silence as I have been 
 for a quarter of a century." 
 
 "Where is Themar?" 
 
 " He is here at my command to-night after an 
 illness of weeks. He has been Cranberry's pris-
 
 The Reckoning 259 
 
 oner. His illness alone won his release for him 
 through some inconsistent whim of sympathy on 
 the part of Cranberry. He wears the garb of a 
 gray monk." 
 
 " Send him here." 
 
 The Baron bowed and withdrew. At the path 
 he turned. 
 
 " Ronador," he said quietly, " for the sake of 
 the lifetime friendship I have borne your father, 
 for the sake of the position of honor and trust I 
 hold in your father's court, for the sake of my 
 great love for Houdania, let me say that when 
 you find you are sinking deeper and deeper into a 
 pitfall of errors and unhappiness and treachery, 
 I shall be ready and willing to aid and advise you 
 as best I may. I think I know you better than 
 you know yourself. You have an inheritance of 
 wild passion, a nature that swayed by irresistible 
 and fiery impulse, will for the moment dare any 
 thing and regret it with terrible suffering ever 
 after. One such lesson you have had in early 
 manhood. I hope you may not rush on blindly to 
 another. Until you come to me, however," he 
 added with dignity, " I shall not meddle again." 
 
 " I shall not come ! " said Ronador imperiously. 
 But the Baron was gone. 
 
 Later, by the cypress pool, the gray monk and 
 the minstrel talked long and earnestly of one who 
 knew overmuch of the affairs of both.
 
 260 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ' There is but one thing more," faltered The- 
 mar at the end. " I may speak with freedom? " 
 ' Yes," said Ronador impatiently, " what is 
 it?" 
 
 "Miss Westfall I spied upon her camp in 
 Connecticut " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " It is well to know all. For days she lived with 
 Poynter in the forest " 
 
 Ronador's eyes blazed. 
 
 "Go, go!" he cried, his face quite colorless, 
 " for the love of God go before I kill you ! I I 
 can not bear any more to-night." 
 
 Who had scored ! For Ronador, at least, in the 
 guileful hands of a traitor who by reason of a 
 strong maternal sympathy desired the alliance of 
 Ronador and Princess Phaedra, there was doubt 
 and bitter suffering. And he might not return to 
 the music-machine. 
 
 Themar's thin lips smiled but he wisely 
 retreated.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 FOREST FRIENDS 
 
 TVTORTHWARD to Jacksonville had jour- 
 1*\ neyed the camp of the Indian girl, bearing 
 away Diane, to Aunt Agatha's unspeakable agi 
 tation. Now, joining forces, these two forest 
 friends, linked in an idle moment by the name 
 less freemasonry of the woodland, were winding 
 happily south along the seacoast. Nights their 
 camps lay side by side. 
 
 Keela, with shy and delightful gravity, slipped 
 wide-eyed into the niceties of civilization, coiled 
 her heavy hair in the fashion of Diane and copied 
 her dress naively. Diane felt a thrill of satisfac 
 tion at this singular finding of a friend whose 
 veins knew the restless stir of nomadic blood, a 
 friend who was fleeter of foot, keener of vision 
 and hearing and better versed in the ways of the 
 woodland than Diane herself. And Diane had 
 known no peer in the world of white men. 
 
 There were gray dawns when a pair of silent 
 riders went galloping through the stillness upon 
 the Westf all horses, riding easily without saddles ; 
 there were twilights when they swam in sheltered 
 pools like wild brown nymphs; there were quiet 
 hours by the camp fire when the inborn reticence 
 
 261
 
 262 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 of the Indian girl vanished in the frank sincerity 
 of Diane's friendship. Of Mr. Poynter and the 
 hay-camp there was no sign. 
 
 "Doubtless," considered Diane disdainfully, 
 " he has come at last to his senses. And I'm very 
 glad he has, very glad indeed. It's time he did. 
 I think I made my displeasure sufficiently clear 
 at the exceedingly tricky way he and the Baron 
 conducted themselves at Palm Beach. And the 
 Baron was no better than Philip. Indeed, I think 
 he was very much worse. If Philip hadn't wan 
 dered about in the garb of Herodotus and mur 
 mured that impertinence about 'frost in Florida* 
 it wouldn't have been so bad. It's a very unfor 
 tunate thing, however, that he never seems to re 
 member one's displeasure or the cause of it." 
 
 But for one who rejoiced in Mr. Poynter's be 
 lated inheritance of common sense, Diane's com 
 ment a few days later was very singular. 
 
 " I wonder," she reflected uncomfortably, " if 
 Philip understands smoke signals. He may be 
 lost." 
 
 But Philip was not lost. He was merely 
 discreet. 
 
 A lonely beach fringed in sand hills lay before 
 the camp. Beyond rolled the ocean, itself a 
 melancholy solitude droning under an azure sky. 
 There were beach birds running in flocks down 
 the sand as the white-ridged foam receded ; over-
 
 Forest Friends 263 
 
 head an Indian file of pelicans winged briskly out 
 to sea. 
 
 On the broad, hard beach to the north presently 
 appeared a music-machine. Piebald horse, broad, 
 eccentric wagon, cymbals and drum there was 
 no mistaking the outfit, nor the minstrel him 
 self with his broad-brimmed sombrero tipped pro 
 tectively over his nose. 
 
 Now despite the fact that the Baron had hinted 
 that Ronador's masquerade was at an end, the 
 music-machine steadily approached and halted. 
 The minstrel alighted and fell stiffly to turning 
 the crank, whereupon with a fearful roll of the 
 drum and a clash of cymbals, the papier-mache 
 snake began to unfold and " An Old Girl of 
 Mine" emerged from the cataclysm of sound 
 and frightened the fish hawks over the shallow 
 water. A great blue heron, knee-deep in water, 
 croaked with annoyance, flapped his wings and 
 departed. 
 
 When the dreadful commotion in the wagon at 
 last subsided, the minstrel came through the trees 
 and sweeping off his sombrero, bowed and smiled. 
 
 "Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed the girl, 
 staring. 
 
 It was Mr. Poynter. 
 
 " I'm sorry," regretted Mr. Poynter. " I'm 
 really sorry I feel so well but I've got a music- 
 machine." And seating himself most comfort-
 
 264 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ably by the fire, with a frankly admiring glance 
 at his corduroy trousers, silken shirt and broad 
 sombrero, he anxiously inquired what Diane 
 thought of his costume. Indeed, he admitted, 
 that thought had been uppermost in his mind for 
 days, for he'd copied it very faithfully. 
 
 "It's ridiculous!" said Diane, "and you know 
 it." 
 
 There, said Mr. Poynter, he must disagree. 
 He didn't know it. 
 
 "Well," said Diane flatly, "to my thinking, 
 this is considerably worse than blowing a tin 
 whistle on the steps of the van! " 
 
 Mr. Poynter could not be sure. He said in his 
 delightfully naive way, however, that a music- 
 machine was a thing to arouse romance and 
 sympathy with conspicuous success, that more 
 and more the moon was getting him, and that he 
 did hope Diane would remember that he was the 
 disguised Duke of Connecticut. Moreover, his 
 most tantalizing shortcoming up-to-date had 
 seemed to be a total inability to arouse said 
 romance and sympathy, especially sympathy, for, 
 whether or not Diane would believe it, even here 
 in this land of flowers he had encountered frost! 
 Wherefore, having personal knowledge of the 
 success incidental to unwinding a hullabaloo in 
 proper costume, he had purchased one from a 
 er distinguished gentleman who for singular
 
 Forest Friends 265 
 
 and very private reasons had no further use for 
 it. And though the negotiations, for reasons un- 
 namable, had had to be conducted with infinite 
 discretion through an unknown third person, he 
 had eventually found himself the possessor of the 
 hullabaloo, to his great delight. He had hulla- 
 balooed his way along the coast in the wake of a 
 nomadic friend, but deeming it wise to await the 
 dispersal of frost strangely engendered by a 
 .Regent's Hymn, had discreetly kept his distance 
 and proved his benevolence, in the manner of his 
 distinguished predecessor, by playing to all the 
 nice old ladies in the dooryards. . . . And 
 one of them had given him a piece of pie and a 
 bottle of excellent coffee and fretted a bit about 
 the way he was wasting his life. Mr. Poynter 
 added that in the fashion of certain young darkies 
 who infest the Southern roads, he would willingly 
 stand on his head for a baked potato in lieu of a 
 nickel, being very hungry. 
 
 ' You probably mean by that, that you're going 
 to stay to supper!" said Diane. 
 
 Mr. Poynter meant just that. 
 
 "Where," demanded Diane, "is the hay- 
 camp?" 
 
 "Well," said Philip, "Ras is a hay-bride 
 groom. He dreamt he was married and it made 
 such a profound impression upon him that he 
 went and married somebody. He slept through
 
 266 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 his wooing and he slept through his wedding and 
 I gave him the hay and the cart and Dick Whit- 
 tington. I don't think he entirely appreciated 
 Dick either, for he blinked some. All of which 
 primarily engendered the music-machine inspira 
 tion. It's really a very comfortable way of travel 
 ing about and the wagon was fastidiously fitted 
 up by my distinguished predecessor. The seat's 
 padded and plenty broad enough to sleep on." 
 
 Mr. Poynter presently departed to the music- 
 machine for a peace offering in the shape of a bow 
 and some arrows upon which, he said, he'd been 
 working for days. When he returned, laden with 
 luxurious contributions to the evening meal, the 
 camp had still another guest. Keela was sitting 
 by the fire. Philip eyed with furtive approval the 
 modish shirtwaist, turned back at the full brown 
 throat, and the heavily coiled hair. 
 
 " The Seminole rig/' explained Diane, " was 
 an excellent drawing card for Palm Beach tour 
 ists but it was a bit conspicuous for the road. 
 Greet him in Seminole, Keela." 
 
 " Som-mus-ka-lar-nee-sha-maw-lin I " said Kee 
 la with gravity. 
 
 Philip looked appalled. 
 
 " She says ' Good wishes to the white man ! ' ' 
 explained Diane, smiling. 
 
 " My Lord," said Philip, " I wouldn't have be 
 lieved it. Keela, I thought you were joint by
 
 Forest Friends 267 
 
 joint unwinding a yard or so of displeasure at my 
 appearance. No-chit-pay-lon-es-chay ! " he added 
 irresponsibly, naming a word he had picked up in 
 Palm Beach from an Indian guide. 
 
 The effect was electric. Keela stared. Diane 
 look horrified. 
 
 " Philip ! " she said. " It means ' Lie down and 
 go to sleep ! ' ' 
 
 "To the Happy Hunting Ground with that 
 bonehead Indian!" said Philip with fervor. 
 " Lord, what a civil retort ! " and he stammered 
 forth an instant apology. 
 
 Immeasurably delighted, Keela laughed. 
 ' You are very funny," she said in English. " I 
 shall like you." 
 
 "That's really very comfortable!" said Philip 
 gratefully. " I don't deserve it." He held forth 
 the bow and arrows. " See if you can shoot fast 
 and far enough to have six arrows in the air at 
 once," he said, smiling, " and I'll believe I'm for 
 given." 
 
 With lightning-like grace Keela shot the ar 
 rows into the air and smiled. 
 
 "Great Scott!" exclaimed Philip admiringly. 
 "Seven!" 
 
 With deft ringers she strung the bow again and 
 shot, her cheeks as vivid as a wild flower, her poise 
 and skill faultless. 
 
 " Eight ! " said Philip incredulously. " Help ! "
 
 268 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Keela is easily the best shot I ever knew,'* 
 exclaimed Diane warmly. " Try it, Philip." 
 
 "Not much!" said Philip feelingly. "I can 
 shoot like a normal being with one pair of arms, 
 but I can't string space with arrows like that. 
 You forest nymphs," he added with mild resent 
 ment, "with woodland eyes and ears and skill 
 put me to shame. You and I, Diane, quarreled 
 once, I think, about the number of Pleiades - 
 
 " They're an excellent test of eyesight," nodded 
 Diane. " And you said there were only six ! " 
 
 "There is no seventh Pleiad!" said Philip 
 with stubborn decision. 
 
 "Eight!" said Keela shyly. And they both 
 stared. Shooting a final arrow, she sent it so 
 far that Philip indignantly refused to look for it.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 BY THE WINDING CREEK 
 
 AT DAWN one morning a long black car 
 shot out from Jacksonville and took to the 
 }pen road. It glided swiftly past arid stretches of 
 pine barrens streaked with stagnant water, past 
 bogs aglow with iris, through quaint little cities 
 smiling under the shelter of primeval oaks and on, 
 stopping only long enough for the driver to ask a 
 question of a negro on a load of wood or a 
 mammy singing plaintively in the flower-bright 
 dooryard of a house. 
 
 Sometimes losing, sometimes rinding, the trail 
 of a green and white van, the long black car shot 
 on, through roads of pleasant windings flanked 
 by forest and river, beyond which lay the line of 
 green-fringed sand hills which parallel the roll 
 ing Atlantic. Past placid lakes skimmed- by 
 purple martins, past orange groves heavy with 
 fruit, past fences overrun with Cherokee roses, 
 and on, but the driver, abroad with the sunrise 
 glow, seemed somehow to see little or none of it. 
 Sometimes he stared sombrely at a ghostly pal 
 metto, tall and dark against the sky. Once with a 
 grinding shudder of brakes he halted on the 
 border of a cypress swamp and stared f rowningly 
 
 269
 
 270 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 at the dark, dank trees knee-deep in stagnant 
 water above which the buzzards flew, as if the 
 loathsome spot matched his mood. As indeed it 
 did. 
 
 For the words of Themar had done cruel work. 
 Torn by black suspicion, Ronador saw no peace 
 in this tranquil Florida world of sun and flower, 
 of warm south wind and bright-winged bird. He 
 saw only the buzzards, birds of evil omen. Swayed 
 by fiery gusts of passion, of remorse, of sullen- 
 ness and jealousy, he rode on, a prey to sinister 
 resolution. To confront Diane with his knowl 
 edge of those days by the river, this resolution 
 alternated as frequently with another to put 
 his fate to the test and passionately avow his utter 
 trust in one immeasurably above the rank and file 
 of women. He had racked Themar with insistent 
 questions, he had quarreled again and again with 
 the Baron since that night by the pool, until now 
 he had at his finger-ends, the ways and days of 
 Philip Poynter since the day the Baron had dis 
 patched his young secretary upon the ill-fated 
 errand to Diane. And as there were finer mo 
 ments when his faith in the girl was unmarred 
 by suspicion, so there were wild, unscrupulous 
 hours of jealousy when he could have killed Philip 
 and taunted her with insults. 
 
 Driving steadily, he came in course of time 
 to a narrow, grass-banked creek. The nomads
 
 By the Winding Creek 271 
 
 on the winding road beside it were many and 
 beautiful. Here were yellow butterflies, sand 
 pipers and kingfishers, and now and then an 
 eagle cleaved the dazzling blue overhead with 
 magnificent wing-strokes. Sand hills reflected 
 the white sunlight. Beyond glistened a stretch 
 of open sea with a flock of beautiful gannets of 
 black and white whipping its surface. But Rona- 
 dor did not thrill to the peaceful picture. He 
 glanced instead at the buzzard which seemed curi 
 ously to hang above the long black car. 
 
 Now presently as he eyed the road ahead for a 
 glimpse of the van, Ronador saw the familiar 
 lines of a music-machine and drove by it with a 
 glance of interest. Instantly the blood rushed 
 violently to his face. For, as the horse and music- 
 machine had been familiar, so was the driver, who 
 swept a broad sombrero from his head and re 
 vealed the face of Philip Poynter. 
 
 With a curse Ronador abruptly brought the car 
 to a standstill. The very irony of this masquerade 
 fired him with terrible anger. 
 
 "You! "he choked. "You!" 
 
 Philip nodded. 
 
 " I guess you're right," he said. 
 
 The blazing dark eyes and the calm, unruffled 
 blue ones met in a glance of implacable antago 
 nism. Not in the least impressed Philip replaced
 
 272 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 his sombrero and spoke to his horse. Fish crows 
 flew overhead with croaks of harsh derision. 
 
 Another buzzard ! With a terrible jerk, Rona- 
 dor drove on, his face scarlet. 
 
 So Poynter still dared to follow! By a trick 
 he had bought the music-machine, by a trick he 
 had given the Regent's Hymn to the curious ears 
 at Sherrill's. Very well, there were tricks and 
 tricks ! And if one man may trick, so, surely, may 
 another. 
 
 Passion had always hushed the voice of the 
 imperial conscience, though indeed it awoke and 
 cried in a terrible voice when passion was dead. 
 So now with stiff white lips fixed in unalterable 
 resolution, Ronador drove viciously on, turning 
 over and over in his fevered brain the ways and 
 days of Philip Poynter. . . . So at last he 
 came to the camp he sought. 
 
 It was pitched upon the upland bank of the 
 winding creek and as the car shot rapidly toward 
 it, a great blue heron flapped indignantly and 
 soared away to the marsh beyond the trees. 
 Ronador jumped queerly and colored with a 
 sense of guilt. 
 
 There was yellow oxalis here carpeting the 
 ground among the low, dark cedars, yellow but 
 terflies flitted about among the trees where 
 Johnny was washing the van, and the inevitable 
 buzzard floated with upturned wings above the
 
 By the Winding Creek 273 
 
 camp. Ronador had grown to hate the ubiquitous 
 bird of the South. Superstition flamed hotly up 
 in his heart now at the sight of it. 
 
 Diane was sewing. He had caught the flutter 
 of her gown beneath a cedar as he stopped the car. 
 There was no one visible in the camp of the Indian 
 girl. Ronador sprang from his car and waved 
 to the girl; smiling, she came to meet him. 
 
 Now as Ronador smiled down into the clear, 
 unfaltering eyes of the girl before him, he knew 
 suddenly that he trusted her utterly, that the mad 
 suspicion, sired by the words of Themar and 
 mothered by jealousy, was but a dank mist that 
 melted away in the sunlight of her presence. 
 Only jealousy remained and a smouldering, un 
 scrupulous hate for the persistent young organ- 
 grinder behind him. 
 
 Chatting pleasantly they returned to camp. 
 
 Imperceptibly their talk of the fortunes of the 
 road took on a more intimate tinge of reminis 
 cence and presently, with searching eyes fixed 
 upon the vivid, lovely face of the wind-brown 
 gypsy beneath the cedar, Ronador asked the girl 
 to marry him. 
 
 Very gently Diane released her hands from his 
 grasp, her cheeks scarlet. 
 
 "Indeed, indeed," she faltered, "I could not 
 with fairness answer you now, for I do not in the 
 least know what I think. You will not misunder-
 
 274 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 stand me, I am sure, if I tell you that not once in 
 the long, pleasant days we journeyed the same 
 roads, did I ever dream of the nature of your 
 pleasant friendship." Her frank, dark eyes, 
 alive with a beautiful sincerity, met his honestly. 
 "There was always tradition " she reminded. 
 
 Ronador's reply was sincere and gallant. 
 Diane was lovelier than any princess, he said, and 
 in Houdania, tradition had been replaced years 
 back by a law which granted freedom. 
 
 " Though to be sure," he added bitterly, " each 
 generation seeks to break it. Tregar tried, urg 
 ing me persistently for diplomatic reasons to take 
 a wife of his choosing. And when I I fled to 
 America to escape his infernal scheming and spy 
 ing he followed. Even here in America I have 
 been haunted by spies " 
 
 His glance wavered. 
 
 " And then," he went on earnestly, " I saw you 
 and I knew that Princess Phaedra was forever im 
 possible. There was a night of terrible wind and 
 storm when I planned to beg shelter in your camp 
 and make your acquaintance. . . . You are 
 annoyed?" 
 
 "No," said Diane honestly. "Why fuss 
 now?" 
 
 "Tregar must have suspected. I met his 
 his spy in the forest and we quarreled wildly. 
 He tried to kill me but the bullet went wild."
 
 By the Winding Creek 275 
 
 Again his glance wavered but the lying words 
 came smoothly. "My servant, Themar, leaped 
 and stabbed him in the shoulder " 
 
 "No! No!" cried Diane. "Not that not 
 that!" Her eyes, dark with horror in the color 
 less oval of her face, met Ronador's with mute 
 appeal. "It it can not be," she added quietly. 
 " The man was Philip Poynter." 
 
 Ronador caught her hands again with fierce re 
 solve. His eyes were blazing with excitement and 
 anger at the utter faith in her voice. 
 
 " Why do you think I adopted the stained face 
 the disguise of a wandering minstrel? " he 
 demanded impetuously. " It was to free myself 
 from his infernal spying to afford myself the 
 opportunity of gaining your friendship without 
 his knowledge ! Why did he follow always fol 
 low? Because at the command of his chief, he 
 must needs obstruct my plan of winning you. 
 There was always Princess Phaedra ! Why did he 
 watch by night in the forest. To spy! Can you 
 not see it?" 
 
 "Surely, surely," said Diane, "you must be 
 wrong!" 
 
 But Ronador could not be wrong. Themar, his 
 servant, whom he had dispatched to seek employ 
 ment with the Baron when the fortunes of the 
 road had made further attendance upon himself 
 inconvenient, had learned of the hay-camp and of
 
 276 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Poynter's pledge to make his victim's advances 
 ridiculous in the eyes of Diane. 
 
 "And when Themar followed to warn me 
 Poynter beat him brutally," he went on 
 fiercely, " beat him and sent him in a dirty barge 
 to a distant city. All the while when I fancied 
 my disguise impenetrable, he was laughing in his 
 sleeve, for he is as clever as he is unscrupulous. 
 He was even meeting his chief in a Kentucky 
 woods to report. Tregar admitted it. Why did 
 he make me ridiculous at the Sherrill fete? 
 Purely because your eyes, Miss Westfall, were 
 among those who watched the indignity ! Why is 
 he driving about now in the music-machine to 
 mock me? Because having forced me from the 
 road, he must needs see to it that I do not return. 
 When I do, he must be near at hand to report to 
 the Baron." 
 
 It was an artful network. Somehow, by virtue 
 of the sinister skeleton of facts underlying the 
 velvet of his logic, it rang true. Diane, as color 
 less as a flower, sat utterly silent, slender brown 
 fingers tightened against the palms of her hands. 
 
 Philip false ! Philip a spy ! Philip almost a 
 murderer! It could not be! 
 
 Yet how insistently he had striven to force her 
 to return to civilization. Away from Ronador? 
 It might be. How insistently the Baron had 
 urged him to linger in her camp! To spy? A
 
 By the Winding Creek 277 
 
 great wave of faintness swept over her. And 
 there was Arcadia and the hay-camp and the 
 mildly impudent indignities they all slipped 
 accurately into place. 
 
 "I I do not know!" she faltered at last in 
 answer to his impetuous pleading. "If you will 
 not see me again until I may think it all out " 
 
 But there was danger in waiting. A hot appeal 
 flashed in Ronador's eyes and eloquently again 
 he fell to pleading. 
 
 But Diane had caught the clatter of the music- 
 machine up the road where Philip was good- 
 humoredly unwinding the hullabaloo for a crowd 
 of gleeful young darkies, and suddenly she turned 
 very white and stern. 
 
 " No ! No ! " she said. " It must be as I said.'* 
 
 And presently, with faith in his poisoned 
 arrows Ronador went, pledged to await her 
 summons. 
 
 Diane sat very still beneath the cedars, with 
 the noise of the music-machine wild torture to 
 her ears.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 THE MOON ABOVE THE MARSH 
 
 THE MOON silvered the marsh and the 
 creek. Off to the east rippled a silent, 
 moon-white stretch of sea, infinitely lonely, mur 
 muring in the star-cool night. 
 
 Restless and wakeful Diane watched the 
 stream glide endlessly on, each reed and pebble 
 silvered. Rex lay on the bank beside her, whither 
 he had followed faithfully a very long while ago, 
 snapping at the insects which rose from the grass. 
 So colorless and fixed was the face of his mistress 
 that it seemed a beautiful graven tiling devoid of 
 life. 
 
 Now presently as Diane stared at the moon 
 lit pebbles glinting at her feet, a shadow among 
 the cedars, having advanced and retreated uncer 
 tainly a score of times before, suddenly detached 
 itself from the wavering stencil of tree and bush 
 upon the moonlit ground and resolved itself into 
 the figure of a tall, determined sentinel who 
 approached and seated himself beside her. 
 
 "What's wrong?" begged Philip gently. 
 ' I've been watching you for hours, Diane, and 
 you've scarcely moved an inch." 
 
 "Nothing," said Diane. But her voice was so 
 
 278
 
 The Moon Above the Marsh 279 
 
 lifeless, her lack of interest in Philip's sudden ap 
 pearance so pointed, that he glanced keenly at 
 her colorless face and frowned. 
 
 "There is something, I'm sure," he insisted 
 kindly. " You look it." Finding that she did not 
 trouble to reply, he produced his wildwood pipe 
 and fell to smoking. 
 
 "Likely I'll stay here," said Philip quietly, 
 " until you tell me. Surely you know, Diane, that 
 in anything in God's world that concerns you, I 
 stand ready to help you if you need me." 
 
 It was manfully spoken but Diane's lips 
 faintly curled. Philip's fine frank face colored 
 hotly and he looked away. 
 
 In silence they sat there, Philip smoking rest 
 lessly and wondering, Diane staring at the creek, 
 with Ronador's impassioned voice ringing wildly 
 in her ears. 
 
 In the east the sky turned faintly primrose, 
 the creek glowed faintly pink. The great moon 
 glided lower by the marsh with the branch of a 
 dead tree black against its brilliant shield. Marsh 
 and oak were faintly gray. The metallic ocean 
 had already caught the deepening glow of life. 
 Where the stream stole swampwards, a mist 
 curled slowly up from the water like beckoning 
 ghosts draped in nebulous rags. 
 
 Suddenly in the silence Diane fell to trembling. 
 
 " Philip ! " she cried desperately.
 
 280 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Yes? " said Philip gently. 
 
 "Why are you following me with the music- 
 machine?" 
 
 " I could tell you," said Philip honestly, " and 
 I'd like to, but you'd tell me again that the moon 
 is on my head." 
 
 The girl smiled faintly. 
 
 ' Tell me," she begged impetuously, " what 
 was that other reason why I must not journey to 
 Florida in the van? You spoke of it by the lily 
 pool in Connecticut. You remember?" 
 
 'Yes," said Philip uncomfortably. 'Yes, I 
 do remember." 
 
 "What was it?" insisted Diane, her eyes im 
 ploring. "Surely, Philip, you can tell me now! 
 I I did not ask you then " 
 
 " No," said Philip wistfully. " I I think you 
 trusted me then, for all our friendship was a thing 
 of weeks." 
 
 "What was it?" asked Diane, grown very 
 white. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Philip simply. " I may not 
 tell you that, Diane. I am pledged." 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 " It is better," said Philip, " if I do not tell." 
 
 Diane sharply caught her breath and stared at 
 the sinister wraiths rising in floating files from the 
 swamp stream. 
 
 " Philip was it was it Themar's knife?"
 
 The Moon Above the Marsh 281 
 
 "Yes," said Philip. 
 
 "And the man to whom you are pledged is 
 Baron Tregar! " 
 
 " Yes," said Philip again. 
 
 "Why were you in the forest that night of 
 storm and wind?" 
 
 Philip glanced keenly at the girl by the creek. 
 Her profile was stern and very beautiful, but the 
 finely moulded lips had quivered. 
 
 "What is it, Diane?" he begged gently. 
 " Why is it that you must ask me all these things 
 that I may not honorably answer? " 
 
 "I I do not see why you may not answer." 
 
 " An honorable man respects his promise scrup 
 ulously!" said Philip with a sigh. " You would 
 not have me break mine? " 
 
 " Why," cried Diane, " did you fight with The- 
 mar in the forest? Why have you night after 
 night watched my camp? Oh, Philip, surely, 
 surely, you can tell me!" 
 
 Philip sighed. With his infernal habit of mys 
 tery and pledges, the Baron had made this very 
 hard for him. 
 
 " None of these things," he said quietly, " I 
 may tell you or anyone." 
 
 Diane leaned forward and laid her hand upon 
 his arm. 
 
 " Philip," she whispered with dark, tragic eyes 
 fixed upon his face, "who who shot the bullet 
 that night ? Do you know ? "
 
 282 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ' Yes," said Philip. "I I am very sorry. 
 I think I know " 
 
 " You will not tell me?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Diane drew back with a shudder. 
 
 " I know the answers to all my questions ! " she 
 said in a low voice, and there was a great horror 
 in her eyes. " Oh, Philip, Philip, go ! If if you 
 could have told me something different 
 
 " Is it useless to ask you to trust me, Diane? " 
 
 " Go! " said Diane, trembling. 
 
 By the swamp the gray ghosts fell to dancing 
 with locked, transparent hands. 
 
 Blood-red the sun glimmered through the pines 
 and struck fire from a gray, cold world. 
 
 Philip bent and caught her hands, quietly mas 
 terful. 
 
 "What you may think, Diane," he said un 
 steadily, " I do not know. But part of the answer 
 to every question is my love for you. No you 
 must listen! We have crossed swords and held 
 a merry war, but through it all ran the strong 
 thread of friendship. We must not break it 
 now. Do you know what I thought that day on 
 the lake when I saw you coming through the 
 trees? I said, I have found her! God willing, 
 here is the perfect mate with whom I must go 
 through life, hand in hand, if I am to live fully 
 and die at the last having drained the cup of life
 
 The Moon Above the Marsh 283 
 
 to the bottom. If, knowing this, you can not 
 trust me and will tell me so " 
 
 But Ronador's eloquent voice rang again in the 
 girl's ears. Her glance met Philip's inexorably. 
 And there was something in her eyes that hurt 
 him cruelly. For an instant his face flamed 
 scarlet, then it grew white and hard and very 
 grim. 
 
 "Go!" said Diane and buried her face in her 
 hands. 
 
 With no final word of extenuation Philip went. 
 
 Diane stumbled hurriedly through the trees to 
 Keela's camp and touched the Indian girl fran 
 tically upon the shoulder. 
 
 "Keela," she cried desperately, "wake! wake! 
 It's sunrise. Let us go somewhere anywhere 
 
 and leave this treacherous world of civilization 
 behind us. I I am tired of it all." 
 
 Keela stared. 
 
 "Very well," she said sedately a little later. 
 
 ' You and I, Diane, we will journey to my home 
 
 in the Glades. There as it was a century back 
 
 so it is now."
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE WIND OF THE OKEECHOBEE 
 
 QOUTHWARD along the beautiful Kissim- 
 fc^ mee river, where the fabled young grandee 
 of Spain kissed the plaintive Seminole maid, 
 rumbled the great green van and the camp of 
 Keela. Southward, unremittingly protective, 
 followed the silent music-machine. For though 
 the dear folly and humor were things of the past, 
 like Arcadia, a true knight may surely see that 
 his willful lady comes to no harm though he must 
 worship from afar. And at length they came 
 to the final fringe of civilization edging the Ever 
 glades where, despite repeated protests, Johnny 
 must stay behind with the cumbrous van. 
 
 And now the Southern woods were gloriously 
 a-riot with blossoms; with dogwood and mag 
 nolia, with wild tropical blossoms of orange and 
 scarlet;, and the moon hung wild and beautiful 
 above the Everglades. 
 
 "Little Spring Moon!" said Keela softly in 
 Seminole. 
 
 Diane thought suddenly of a late moon above 
 a marsh. 
 
 " He he can not follow me into those terrible 
 
 284
 
 The Wind of the Okeechobee 285 
 
 wilds ahead," she thought with sudden bitterness. 
 " I shall be free at last from his dreadful spying." 
 
 At sunrise one morning they bade Johnny 
 adieu and struck off boldly with the Indian wagon 
 into the melancholy world of the Everglades. 
 
 " It is better," said Keela gravely, " if you 
 wear the Seminole clothes you wore at Sherrill's. 
 They are in the wagon. My people love not the 
 white man." 
 
 "But " stammered Diane. 
 
 "They will think," explained Keela shyly, 
 "that you are a beautiful daughter of the sun 
 from the wilderness of O-kee-fee-ne-kee. You 
 are brown and beautiful. Such, they tell, was 
 my grandmother. It is a legend of my mother's 
 people, but I do not think," added Keela majes 
 tically, " that the wild and beautiful tribe of mys 
 tery who were sons and daughters of the Sun, 
 are half so beautiful as you ! " 
 
 To the dull baying of the alligators in the saw 
 grass, and the melancholy croak of the great blue 
 herons, Keela's wagon penetrated the weird and 
 terrible wilds of the Everglades, winding by the 
 gloomy border of swamps where the deadly moc 
 casin dwelt beneath the darkling shadow of 
 cypress, on by ponds thick with lilies and tall 
 ghostly grasses, over tangled underbrush, past 
 water-dark jungles of dead trees where the savage 
 cascade of brush and vine and fallen branches had
 
 286 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 woven a weird, wild lacery among the trees, 
 through mud and saw grass, past fertile islands 
 and lagoons of rush and flag a trackless water- 
 prairie of uninhabitable wilds which to Keela's 
 keen and beautiful eyes held the mysteriously 
 blazed home-trail of the Seminole. 
 
 As Keela knew the trail, so surely from the 
 rank, tropical vegetation of the great Southern 
 marshland she knew the art of wresting food. 
 Bitter wild oranges, pawpaws, oily palmetto cab 
 bage, wild cassava, starred gorgeously now with 
 orange colored blossoms, and guavas ; these, with 
 the wild turkeys and mallard ducks, turtles and 
 squirrels and the dark little Florida quail with 
 .which the wild abounded, gave them varied choice. 
 
 Cheerfully fording miles of mud and water, his 
 discomforts not a few, came Philip, greatly dis 
 turbed by the incomprehensible whims of his lady. 
 By day he followed close upon the trail of the 
 canvas wagon, patterning his conquest of the 
 aquatic wilderness about him after that of Keela, 
 hunting the wild duck and the turkey and dis 
 carding the bitter orange with aggrieved disgust. 
 And if Keela occasionally found a brace of ducks 
 by the camp fire or a bass in a nest of green 
 palmetto, she wisely said nothing, sensing the 
 barrier between these two and wondering greatly. 
 
 By night when the great morass lay in white 
 and sinister tangle under the wild spring moon,
 
 The Wind of the Okeechobee 287 
 
 when the dark and dreadful swamps were rife 
 with horrible croaks and snaps, the whirring of 
 the wings of waterfowl or the noise of a disturbed 
 puff adder, Philip stretched himself upon the seat 
 of the music-machine and slept through the twi 
 light and the early evening. When the camp 
 ahead, glimmering brightly through the live oaks, 
 was silent, Philip awoke and watched and smoked, 
 a solitary sentinel in the terrible melancholy of 
 the moonlit waste of ooze and dead leaf and 
 sinister crawling life. 
 
 So they came in time to the plains of Okeecho 
 bee and thence to the wild, dark waters of the 
 great inland sea a wild, bleak sea, mirroring 
 cloud and the night-lamp of the Everglades. The 
 wind wafting across on night-tipped wings rip 
 pled the great water shield and brought its mes 
 sage to the silent figure on the shore. 
 
 " So," sighed the wind of the Okeechobee, " he 
 still follows!" 
 
 " Yes," said Diane, shuddering at the howl of a 
 cat owl, " he has dared even that ! " 
 
 " Brave and resolute to plunge into the wilds 
 with a music-machine! Would he, think you, 
 dare all this for the sake of spying? " 
 
 "I I do not know. I have wondered greatly. 
 Still he has dared much for it before." 
 
 " He asked you to remember his love " 
 
 "I I dare not think of it. For every admis-
 
 288 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 sion he made that night by the marsh tallied with 
 the terrible tale of Ronador. I had thought he 
 followed and watched by night for another 
 reason." 
 
 "What reason?" 
 
 "I do not know. A finer, holier reason 
 
 The wind fluttered and fell, and rose again with 
 a plaintive sigh. 
 
 'You know, but you will not tell!" 
 
 " It it may be so. He is false he is false ! " 
 cried the voice of the girl's sore heart ; " a false 
 sentry and a false protector. I can not bear it. 
 Philip! Philip! It was Themar's knife and 
 the bullet was his and all that seemed fine and 
 noble was black and false ! " 
 
 * You will not trust him as he begged!" 
 
 " I can not. For he will not tell me the reason 
 for all these things!" 
 
 "You will wed Prince Ronador? " 
 
 " Yes. It is the one way out." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " He is a gallant lover and the victim of much 
 that is vile and unfair." 
 'Yes he has said so." 
 
 "He has suffered much through me." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And he is honorable and devoted." 
 
 "It may be." 
 
 " He told me all, though he found it difficult." 
 
 " He was not bound by a pledge."
 
 The Wind of the Okeechobee 289 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, there is wisdom, the wisdom of the 
 world, in your choice. Flashing jewels, robes of 
 state, maids of honor " 
 
 " These things," spurned Diane with beautiful 
 insolence, " I may buy with gold." 
 
 " Ah ! " crooned the wind, " but the vassalage of 
 this elfin nation that plays at empire, the romance 
 and adventure of an imperial court! And when 
 the mad King dies and the Prince Regent, then 
 Ronador will be king " 
 
 " I have thought of it all. I can not go back 
 to the old shallow life with Aunt Agatha. No! 
 No! And I am very lonely. If in the days to 
 come wind and moon and the call of the wilder 
 ness stir my gypsy blood to rebellion if I am 
 ever to forget " 
 
 "What must you forget?" 
 
 " It was foolish to speak so. I do not know. 
 Then when the call of the wildwood comes I must 
 have crowded days and fevered gayety to hush 
 it. And surely this will come to me in the court 
 of Ronador." 
 
 The wild moon drifted behind a cloud, the sea 
 darkened, something huge and shadowy lumbered 
 down to the water and splashed heavily away, 
 the cat owl hooted. A mist drooped trailing 
 fingers over the water as the wind died away. 
 
 A profoundly dreary setting for a dream of 
 empire !
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 UNDER THE LIVE OAKS 
 
 "QEE1" said Keela shyly. "It is the camp 
 IO of my people." 
 
 It lay ahead, a fire-blot in the darkling swamp, 
 a primitive mirage of primitive folk, of palmetto 
 wigwams and log-wheel fires among the live oaks 
 of a lonely island. 
 
 Keela's wagon presently forded a shallow creek 
 and crossed an island plain. Thence it came by 
 a winding road to the village, where, with the 
 halting of the wagon, the travelers became the 
 hub of a vast and friendly wheel of excitement. 
 
 Hospitable hands were already leading Keela's 
 horses away when Mr. Poynter rode sedately into 
 camp and, descending to terra firma in the light 
 of the nearest camp fire, guilefully proceeded to 
 assure himself of a welcome and immediate atten 
 tion by spectacular means; he simply unwound 
 the hullabaloo. 
 
 Cymbals clashed, the drum cannonaded fear 
 fully and to the sprightly measures of " The 
 Glowworm," the Indians who had collected about 
 Keela's wagon to stare at Diane, decamped in a 
 body to the side of Mr. Poynter, who smiled and 
 
 290
 
 Under the Live Oaks 291 
 
 proceeded in pantomime to make friends with all 
 about him. 
 
 This, by virtue of the entertaining music- 
 machine, was not difficult. Having exhausted the 
 repertoire of the hullabaloo, he initiated the tur- 
 baned warriors into the mystery of unwinding 
 tunes, thereby cementing the friendship forever. 
 
 The general din and excitement grew fearful. 
 Presently the Thunder-Man was warmly as 
 signed a wigwam, made of palmetto and the 
 skins of wild animals above a split-log floor, to 
 which he retired at the heels of Sho-caw, a copper- 
 colored young warrior who had learned a little 
 English from the traders. 
 
 Already rumor was rife among the staring tribe 
 that Diane had strayed from the legendary clan 
 of beautiful Indians in the O-kee-fee-ne-kee wil 
 derness. The assignment of her wigwam, there 
 fore, had been made with marked respect. 
 
 Here, as the Indian camp settled into quiet and 
 the fires died lower, as the wild night sounds of 
 the Glades awoke in the marsh outside, Diane lay 
 still and wakeful and a little frightened. Wil 
 derness and Seminole were still primeval. The 
 world seemed very far away. The thought of 
 the music-machine brought with it somehow a 
 feeling of security. 
 
 With the broad white daylight, courage re 
 turned. From her wigwam Diane watched the
 
 292 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 silent village, wrapped in fog, wake to the busy 
 life of the Glades. Somber-eyed little Indian 
 lads carried water and gathered wood, fires 
 brightened, there was a pleasant smell of pine 
 in the morning air. Later, by Keela's fire, she 
 furtively watched Philip ride forth with a band 
 of hunters. 
 
 So at last in the heart of the wildwood, among 
 primitive folk whose customs had not varied for a 
 century, Diane drank deep of the wild, free, open 
 life her gypsy heart had craved. There were 
 times when a great peace dwarfed the memory of 
 the moon above the marsh ; there were times when 
 the thought of Ronador and Philip sent her rid 
 ing wildly across the plains with Keela; there 
 were still other times when a nameless disquiet 
 welled up within her, some furtive distrust of the 
 gypsy wildness of her blood. But in the main 
 the days were quiet and peaceful. 
 
 " It is a wild world of varied color and activity," 
 she wrote to Ann. "The trailing air plants in 
 the trees beside my wigwam weave a dense, tropi 
 cal jungle of shadow shot with sunlight. Keela's 
 wigwam lies but a stone's throw beyond. It is 
 lined with beaded trinkets, curious carven things 
 of cypress, pots of dye made of berries and barks, 
 and pottery which she has patterned after the 
 relics in the sand mounds. There is an old chief 
 with all the terrible pathos of a vanishing race
 
 Under the Live Oaks 293 
 
 in his eyes. I find in his wistful dignity an ele 
 ment of tragedy. He is very kind to Keela and 
 talks much of her in his quaint broken English. 
 
 " Moons back, he declares, when E-shock-e- 
 tom-isee, the great Creator, made the world of 
 men by scattering seeds in a river valley, of those 
 who grew from the sand, some went to the river 
 and washed too pale and weak the white man; 
 some, enough the strong red man; some washed 
 not at all the shiftless black man. But Keela 
 came from none of these. 
 
 " Ann, the squaws are hideous! Their clothes, 
 an indescribable potpourri of savage superstition 
 and stray inklings (such as a disfiguring bang 
 of hair across the forehead, a Psyche knot and a 
 full skirt ) from the white man's world of fashion 
 years back. The pounds and pounds of bead 
 necklaces they wear give the savage touch. I 
 don't wonder Keela's delicate soul rebelled and 
 drove her to the barbaric costume of a chief. It 
 is infinitely more picturesque and beautiful. 
 
 " There are thrilling camp fire tales of Osceola, 
 the brilliant, handsome young Seminole chief who 
 blazoned his name over the pages of Florida his 
 tory, but here among Osceola's kinsmen, pages 
 are unnecessary. The sagas of the tribe are 
 handed down from mouth to mouth to stir the 
 youth to deeds of daring. Keela, like Osceola, 
 had a white father and a Seminole mother. Ann,
 
 294 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 I sometimes wonder what opportunity might have 
 done for Osceola. As great as Napoleon, some 
 one said. What might opportunity do for this 
 strange, exotic flower of Osceola's people? She 
 has brains and beauty and instinctive grace 
 enough to startle a continent. I am greatly 
 tempted. Ann, I beg of you, don't breathe any 
 of this to Aunt Agatha. Some day I may carry 
 Keela away to the cities of the North for an 
 experiment quite my own. Her delicate beauty 
 her gravity her shy, sweet dignity, hold me 
 powerfully. It would make life well worth the 
 living the regeneration of a life like hers. 
 
 " No, I am not mad. If I am, it is a delicious 
 madness indeed, this craving to do something for 
 some one else. I need the discipline of thinking 
 for another. 
 
 " I don't know when you will get this. Once 
 in a while an Indian rides forth to civilization, and 
 this letter will perforce await such a messenger. 
 I wrote to Aunt Agatha from the little hamlet 
 where Johnny is waiting with the van. I know 
 she is fussing. 
 
 'You wrote me something in one of your 
 letters, that Dick and Carl were planning to 
 camp and hunt wild turkeys in the Glades. Let 
 me know what luck they had and all the news. 
 
 " Ever yours, 
 
 "Diane."
 
 Under the Live Oaks 295 
 
 Now, if Diane proved readily adaptable to 
 the wild life about her, no less did Philip. At 
 night he smoked comfortably by his camp fire, 
 unwound the hullabaloo upon request or lent it to 
 Sho-caw. He rode hard and fearlessly with the 
 warriors, hunted bear and alligator, acquired un 
 common facility in the making of sof-ka, the 
 tribal stew, and helped in the tanning of pelts 
 and the building of cypress canoes. 
 
 Presently the unmistakable whir of a sewing 
 machine which Sho-caw had bought from a trader, 
 floated one morning from Philip's wigwam. 
 Keela reported literally that Mr. Poynter had 
 said he was building himself a much-needed tunic, 
 though he had experienced considerable difficulty 
 in the excavation of the sleeves.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 IN THE GLADES 
 
 WHAT the devil is the matter with you, 
 Carl? " demanded Dick Sherrill irri 
 tably. " If I'd known you were going to moon 
 under a tree and whistle through that infernal 
 flute half the time, I'd never have suggested camp 
 ing. Are you coming along to-night or not?" 
 "No. I've murdered enough wild turkeys 
 
 now." 
 
 Sherrill plunged off swampwards with the 
 guides. 
 
 Left to himself Carl laid aside his flute and sat 
 very quiet, staring at the cloud-haunted moon 
 which hung above the Glades. He had been 
 drinking and gaming heavily for weeks. Now 
 floundering deeper and deeper into the mire of 
 debt and dissipation, forced to a fevered alertness 
 by distrust of all about him, he found the weird 
 gloom of the Everglades of a piece with the black 
 ness of his mood. For days he had taken wild 
 chances that horrified Sherrill inexpressibly; 
 drinking clear whiskey in the burning white 
 tropical sunlight, tramping off into trackless 
 wilds without a guide, conducting himself, as 
 
 296
 
 In the Glades 297 
 
 Sherrill aggrievedly put it, with the general irra 
 tionality of a drunken madman. 
 
 " The climate or a moccasin will get you yet ! " 
 exclaimed Sherrill heatedly. " And it will serve 
 you right. Or you'll get lost. And to lose your 
 way in this infernal swamp is sure death. They 
 used to enter runaway niggers who came here, 
 on the undertaker's list. I swear I won't tell your 
 aunt if you do disappear. That's a job for a 
 deaf mute. And only yesterday I saw you corner 
 a moccasin and tantalize him until the chances 
 were a hundred to one that he'd get you, and 
 then you blazed your gun down his throat and 
 walked away laughing. Faugh!" 
 
 With the perversity of reckless madmen, how 
 ever, Carl went his foolhardy way unharmed. 
 But his nights were fevered and sleepless and 
 haunted by a face which never left him, and the 
 locked hieroglyphics on Themar's cuff danced 
 dizzily before his eyes. 
 
 Carl presently lighted a lantern, seated him 
 self at the camp table and fell moodily to poring 
 over the tormenting hieroglyphics which had 
 haunted him for days. 
 
 The night was cloudy. Only at infrequent in 
 tervals the moon soared turbulently out from thd 
 somber cloud-hills and glinted brightly through 
 the live oaks overhead. 
 
 Carl had been drinking heavily since the morn-
 
 298 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ing, with vicious recourse to the flute when his 
 mood was darkest. Now he felt strung to a 
 curious electric tension, with pulse and head 
 throbbing powerfully like a racing engine. Still 
 there was satanic keenness in his mind to-night, 
 a capacity for concentration that surprised him. 
 Somewhere in his head, taut like an overstrung 
 ligament or the string of a great violin, some 
 thing sinister droned and hummed and subtly 
 threatened. For the hundredth time he made a 
 systematic list of recurrent symbols, noting again 
 the puzzling similarity of the twisted signs, but 
 no sign appeared frequently enough to do vowel 
 work. 
 
 To-night somehow the cipher mocked and gibed 
 and goaded him to frenzy. The mad angles point 
 ing up and down and right and left it was 
 impossible to sort them. They danced and 
 blurred and crept irresistibly into the wrong list. 
 
 And in error came solution. Carl glanced in 
 tently at the jumbled list and fell feverishly to 
 working from a different viewpoint. From the 
 cryptic snarl came presently the single English 
 word in the cipher his name. The keen sus 
 picion of his hot brain had, at last, been ri#ht. 
 For every letter in the alphabet, four symbols 
 had been used interchangeably but whether they 
 pointed up or down or right or left, their signifi-
 
 In the Glades 299 
 
 cance was the same. There were no word 
 divisions. 
 
 When at last Ronador's frantic message to the 
 Baron lay before him, Carl was grateful for the 
 quiet monastery days in Houdania with Father 
 Joda. They had given him an inkling of the 
 language. 
 
 Some of the message, to be sure, was missing 
 for Themar had been interrupted and some 
 of it unintelligible. But clear and cold before his 
 fevered eyes lay the words which marked him 
 irrevocably for the knife of a hired assassin. 
 There was no suggestion of sealing his lips with 
 gold, as in a drunken moment he had suggested 
 in his letter. The seal of death was safer than 
 the seal of gold. Seeing the sinister command 
 there before him, even though the knowledge was 
 not new, Carl felt a nameless fury rise in his reel 
 ing brain. He must live live live! he told 
 himself fiercely. With the vivid, lovely face of 
 Keela tormenting him to sensual conquest, he 
 must live no matter what the price! How safe 
 guard his life from the men who were hunting 
 him? 
 
 What if Diane were to die? Carl shuddered. 
 Then the sirocco of fear and hate centering about 
 her, would blow itself out forever and his own life 
 would be safe, for the secret would be worth 
 less. These men Tregar, Ronador, Themar
 
 300 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 scrupled for vastly different reasons to take the 
 life of a woman. 
 
 Money ! Money ! He must have money ! And 
 if Diane were to die, the great estate of Norman 
 Westfall would revert to him of course; there 
 was no other heir. Why had he not thought of 
 that before? In that instant he knew that barely 
 a year ago the treacherous thought would have 
 been for him impossible, that slowly, insistently 
 he had been sliding deeper and deeper into the 
 dark abyss of degradation where all things are 
 possible. 
 
 There had been intrigue and dishonor of a sort 
 in the letter to Houdania, but not this Oh, 
 God! not this horrible, beckoning Circe with in 
 famous eyes and scarlet robes luring him to the 
 uttermost pit of the black Inferno. 
 
 But Diane had flashed and mocked him as a 
 child when he was sensitive and lonely. She had 
 always mocked the memory of his mother. 
 Brown and lovely his cousin's face rose before 
 him in a willful moment of tenderness and then 
 from the shadows came again the flash of topaz 
 and Venetian lamps and the lovely face of Keela. 
 
 Something in Carl's haunted brain snapped. 
 With a groan of horror and suffering, he pitched 
 forward upon the ground, breathing Philip 
 Poynter's name like an invocation against the 
 things of evil crowding horribly about him.
 
 In the Glades 301 
 
 It was Dick Sherrill who at last found him. 
 
 "Nick!" he called in horror to one of the 
 guides. "For God's sake bring some brandy! 
 No! he's had too much of that already. Water! 
 Water can't somebody hurry ! " 
 
 "Leave him to me, Mr. Sherrill!" said Nick 
 with quiet authority. And bending over the mo 
 tionless figure under the oak, he gently loosened 
 the flannel shirt from the throat, laid a wet cloth 
 upon the forehead and fell to rubbing the rigid 
 limbs. 
 
 Presently, with a long, shuddering sigh, Carl 
 opened his eyes, stared at the scared circle of 
 faces about him and instantly tried to rise. 
 
 "Don't, don't, Carl," exploded Dick Sherrill 
 solicitously. " Lie still, man ! I was afraid some 
 thing would get you." 
 
 Carl fell back indifferently. 
 
 Presently with a slight smile he sat up again. 
 
 " I'm all right now, Dick," he insisted. " It's 
 nothing at all. I've had something like it once 
 before. Don't mention it to my aunt. She'd 
 likely fuss." 
 
 Dick readily promised. 
 
 " Nevertheless," he insisted, " we're going to 
 break camp in the morning. This infernal bog's 
 got on my nerves. There are more creepy, oozy 
 things in that cypress swamp over there than a 
 man can afford to meet in the dark. To the devil
 
 302 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 with your wild turkeys, Nick! Quail and duck 
 are good enough for me.'* 
 
 The camp wagons drove back to Palm Beach 
 in the morning. Carl was very quiet and evaded 
 SherrilTs anxious eyes. He seemed to be brood 
 ing morosely over some inner problem which fre 
 quently furrowed his forehead and made him very 
 restless. 
 
 "Cheer up!" exclaimed Dick reassuringly. 
 'You'll feel better when you get a shower and 
 some other clothes. As for me, I'm going to hunt 
 field mice and ground doves from now on. Lord, 
 Carl, I'll never forget that beastly swamp. Did 
 I tell you that last night, after all our discom 
 fort, I got nothing but a smelly buzzard ? Ugh ! " 
 Dick's hunting interest was steadily on the wane. 
 He finally came down to birds and bumble bees, 
 though when they started he had talked magnifi 
 cently of alligators and bears. 
 
 Carl laughed and relapsed into brooding 
 silence. 
 
 A little later on the Sherrill porch he found 
 himself listening with tired patience to Aunt 
 Agatha's opinion of camping in the Everglades. 
 
 "What with your Esquimaux," she puffed 
 tearfully, " and the immigrant who wasn't an 
 immigrant and I must say this once, Carl, for 
 all I promised to ask no further questions, that 
 you never attempted to explain that performance 
 to my satisfaction the young man with the
 
 In the Glades 303 
 
 eye, you know, and the immigrant with his feet 
 on the lace spread to say nothing at all of 
 Diane's losing herself in the flat-woods over a 
 cart wheel of flame, I wonder I'm not crazy, I 
 do indeed! And riding off to Jacksonville with 
 the Indian girl, for all I've lain awake night after 
 night seeing her scalp lying by the roadside! It 
 was bad enough to have you in those horrible 
 Glades, but Diane " 
 
 "Aunt Agatha," said Carl patiently, "what in 
 thunder are you driving at anyway? " 
 
 "Why," said Aunt Agatha in aggrieved dis 
 tress, "Diane's gone and left Johnny at some 
 funny little hamlet and she's gone into the Ever 
 glades to a Seminole village with the Indian girl. 
 There's a letter in my room. You can read for 
 yourself." 
 
 Aunt Agatha burst into tears. Carl patiently 
 essayed a comforting word of advice and followed 
 Dick indoors to seek relief in less calamitous 
 showers. Before he did so, however, he read his 
 cousin's letter. 
 
 For that night and the night following Carl did 
 not sleep. On the morning of the third day, after 
 a careless inquiry he went to West Palm Beach 
 and interviewed some traders who were reported 
 to be on the eve of an expedition into the Ever 
 glades with a wagonload of scarlet calico and 
 beads to trade for Indian products. 
 
 The fourth day he was missing.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 IN PHILIP'S WIGWAM 
 
 FOR hours now, Carl had lain hidden in the 
 waist-high grass, staring at the Seminole 
 camp. The sun had set in a wild red glory in the 
 west, staining dank pool and swamp with the 
 color of blood. The twilight came and with it 
 the eerie hoot of the great owls whirring by in the 
 darkness. Unseen things crept silently by. Once 
 a great winged wraith of ghostly white flapped 
 by with a croak, a snowy heron, winging like a 
 shape of Wrath Incarnate, above the crouching 
 man in the grass. The wheel fires of the Semi- 
 noles flared among the live oaks, silhouetting 
 dusky figures and palmetto wigwams. 
 
 By the swamp the night darkened. Carl had 
 thrown himself upon the grass now, his white, 
 haggard face buried upon his arm. Back there 
 scarcely a mile to the east lay the camp of the 
 traders. In the morning they would ride into the 
 Indian camp saddled with bright beads and col 
 ored calicoes. In the morning Carl shuddered 
 and lay very quiet, fighting again the ghastly tor 
 ment that had racked and driven him into the 
 melancholy solitude of the Everglades. Now the 
 firelit palmetto roof of the wigwam he knew to 
 
 304
 
 In Philip's Wigwam 305 
 
 be Diane's seemed somehow, to his distorted 
 fancy, redder than the others the color of 
 blood. There, too, was the wigwam of Keela, 
 bringing taunting desire. 
 
 A crowd of Seminoles rode into camp and, dis 
 mounting, led their horses away. Carl watched 
 them gather about the steaming sof-ka kettles on 
 the fires, handing the spoon from mouth to mouth. 
 One, a tall, broad young warrior in tunic and 
 trousers and a broad sombrero disappeared in 
 a wigwam on the fringe of camp. 
 
 A great wave of dizziness and burning nausea 
 swept over Carl. Again he was conscious of the 
 taut, over-strung ligament droning, droning in 
 his head. The camp ahead became a meaningless 
 blur of sinister scarlet fire, of bloodred wigwams 
 and dusky figures that seemed to dance and lure 
 and mock. The wild wind that bent the grasses, 
 the horrible persistent hoot of the owl in the 
 cypress tree, the night noises of the black swamp 
 to the west, all mocked and urged and whispered 
 of things unspeakable. 
 
 The camp fell quiet. A black moonless sky 
 brooded above the dying camp fires. Not until 
 this wild world of swamp and Indian seemed 
 asleep did the man in the grass stir. 
 
 Silently then he crept forward upon hands and 
 knees until he had passed the first of the Indian 
 wigwams. Here he dropped for a silent interval
 
 806 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 of caution into shadow and lay there scarcely 
 breathing. On toward the door of Diane's shelter 
 he crept and once more lay inert and quiet. 
 
 Thunder rumbled disquietingly off to the east. 
 The wind was rising over the Glades with a vio 
 lent rustle of grass and leaves. Now that his 
 arm was nerved at last to its terrible task, it 
 behooved him to hurry, ere the rain and thunder 
 stirred the camp. 
 
 Noiselessly he crawled forward again. As he 
 did so a ragged dart of lightning glinted evilly 
 in his eyes. With a leap something bounded from 
 the shadows behind him and bore him to the 
 ground. 
 
 In the thick pall of darkness, he fought with 
 infernal desperation. The rain came fiercely in 
 great gusts of tearing wind. There was the 
 strength of a madman to-night in Carl's power 
 ful arms. Relentlessly he bore his assailant to the 
 ground and raised his knife. The lightning flared 
 brilliantly again. With a great, choking cry of 
 unutterable horror, Carl fell back and flung his 
 knife away. 
 
 "Oh, God!" he cried, shaking. "Philip!" 
 He flung himself face downward on the ground 
 in an agony of abasement. 
 
 With a roar of wind and rain the hurricane beat 
 gustily upon the wigwams. Neither man seemed 
 aware of it. Philip, his face white, had risen.
 
 In Philip's Wigwam 307 
 
 Now he stood, tall, rigid, towering above the man 
 upon the ground, who lay motionless save for the 
 shuddering gusts of self -revulsion which swept 
 his tortured body. 
 
 It was Philip at last who spoke. Bending he 
 touched the other's shoulder. 
 
 " Come," he said. " Diane must not know." 
 
 "No," said Carl dully. "No she must not 
 know. I I am not myself, Philip, as God is 
 my witness " He choked, unable to voice the 
 horror in his heart. A man may not raise the 
 knife of death to his one friend and speak of it 
 with comfort. 
 
 Rising, Carl stumbled blindly in the wake of 
 the tall figure striding on ahead. They halted at 
 last at a wigwam on the fringe of the camp. 
 Philip lighted a lantern, his white face fixed and 
 expressionless as stone. 
 
 ' You were going to kill her ! " he said abruptly. 
 
 " Yes," said Carl. He shuddered. 
 
 In the silence the storm battered fiercely at the 
 wigwam. 
 
 Philip wheeled furiously. 
 
 " What is it ? " he demanded. " In God's name 
 what threatens her, that even here in these God 
 forsaken wilds she is not safe?" He towered 
 grim above the crouching man on the floor of the 
 wigwam. " For months I have guarded her day 
 and night," he went on fiercely, " from some
 
 308 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 damnable mystery and treachery that has almost 
 muddled my life beyond repair. What is it? 
 Why were you creeping to her wigwam to-night 
 with a knife in your hand?" 
 
 Carl flinched beneath the blazing anger and 
 contempt in his eyes. The droning in his head 
 grew suddenly to a roar. The nausea flamed 
 again over his body. For a dizzy interval he con 
 fused the noise of the storm with the drone in his 
 head. Philip seized the lantern and bending, 
 stared closely into his white face and haunted 
 eyes. 
 
 " You're ill! " he said gently. 
 
 "Yes," said Carl. "I I think so." He met 
 Philip's glance of sympathy with one of wild 
 imploring. It was the man's desperate effort to 
 keep this one friend from sweeping hostilely out 
 of his life on the wings of the dark, impious 
 tempest he had roused himself. To his disordered 
 brain nothing else mattered. Philip had trusted 
 him always and his knife had menaced Philip. 
 In Philip's hand lay then, though he could not 
 know it, the future of the man at his feet. In the 
 silence Carl fell pitifully to shaking. 
 
 " Steady, Carl ! " exclaimed Philip kindly and 
 setting the lantern down, slipped a strong, reas 
 suring arm about the other's shoulders. 
 
 In that second Philip proved his caliber. With 
 big inherent generosity he saw beyond the bloated
 
 In Philip's Wigwam 309 
 
 mask of brutal passion and resolve. Miraculously 
 he understood and said so. This white, haggard 
 face, marked cruelly with dissipation and suffer 
 ing, was the face of a man at the end of the way. 
 In his darkest hour he needed not an inexorable 
 censor but a friend. With heroic effort Philip 
 put aside the evil memory of the past hour, 
 though his sore heart rebelled. 
 
 " Carl," he said gently, " you've got to pull up. 
 You've come to the wall at last. You know what 
 lies on the other side? " 
 
 Carl shuddered. 
 
 "Yes," he whispered. "Madness or or 
 suicide. One of the two must come in time." 
 
 "Madness or suicide!" repeated Philip slowly 
 and there was a great pity in his eyes. 
 
 Carl caught the look and his face grew whiter 
 beneath its tan. Chin and jaw muscles went sud 
 denly taut. 
 
 "Philip," he choked, unnerved by the other's 
 gentleness, "you don't you can't mean you 
 believe in me yet?" 
 
 'Yes," said Philip steadily. "God help me, 
 I do." 
 
 Carl flung himself upon the floor, torn by 
 great dry sobs of agony. Shaking, Philip turned 
 away. Presently Carl grew quieter and fell to 
 pouring forth an incoherent recital about a 
 candlestick. From the meaningless raving of the
 
 310 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 white, drawn lips came at last a single sentence 
 of lucid revelation. Philip leaped and shook him 
 roughly by the shoulder. 
 
 " Carl, think! think! " he cried fiercely. " For 
 God's sake, think! You don't know what you 
 are saying!" 
 
 But Carl repeated the statement again and 
 again, and Philip's eyes grew sombre. With 
 quick, keen questions he reduced the chaotic yarn 
 to order. 
 
 The wild tale at an end, Carl fell back, limp 
 and very tired. 
 
 " In God's name," thundered practical Philip, 
 "why didn't you look in the other candlestick?" 
 
 Carl stared. Then suddenly without a word of 
 warning, he pitched forward senseless upon the 
 floor. 
 
 Philip loosened his clothing, rubbed his icy 
 hands and limbs and bathed his forehead, but the 
 interval was long and trying before the stark 
 figure on the floor shuddered slightly and strug 
 gled weakly to a sitting posture. 
 
 "I'm all right now," said Carl dully. "And 
 I've got to go on. I I can't meet Diane." He 
 drew something from his pocket and jabbed it in 
 his arm. 
 
 Philip looked on with disapproval. 
 
 " No," said Carl, meeting his glance. " No, not 
 so very often, Philip. Just lately, since Sherrill
 
 In Philip's Wigwam 311 
 
 and I camped in the Glades. There's something 
 something very tight here in my head whenever 
 I grow excited. When it snaps I'm done for a 
 while, but this helps." 
 
 Philip's fine, frank mouth was very grim. 
 
 " Carl," he said quietly, " off there to the south 
 is the eccentric swamp home of a singular man, 
 a philosopher and a doctor. He's Keela's foster 
 father. I've met and smoked with him. I want 
 you to go to him and rest. The Indians do that. 
 He's what you need. And tell him you're down 
 and out. You'll go forme?" 
 
 "Anywhere," said Carl. 
 
 " Tell him about the dope and every other hell- 
 conceived abuse with which you've tormented 
 your body. Tell him about the infernal tightness 
 in your head." 
 
 "Yes," said Carl. 
 
 "But this thing of the candlestick," added 
 Philip bitterly, "tell to no man. You're strong 
 enough to start now ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Philip left the wigwam. When at length he 
 returned, there was a dark, slight figure at his 
 heels, turbaned and tunicked, a guide whom he 
 trusted utterly. 
 
 A burning wave swept suddenly over Carl's 
 body and left him very cold. Philip could not 
 know, of course.
 
 312 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " Keela will guide you," said Philip. " She 
 could follow the trail with her eyes closed. The 
 horses are saddled at the edge of camp. You'll 
 be there by daylight." 
 
 He smiled and held out his hand and his eyes 
 were encouraging. The hands of the two men 
 tightened. Carl stumbled blindly away at the 
 heels of the Indian girl. Philip watched them go 
 watched Keela lead the way with the lithe, soft 
 tread of a wild animal, and mount watched 
 Carl swing heavily into the saddle and follow. 
 Silhouetted darkly against the watery moon, the 
 silent riders filed off into the swamp-world to the 
 south. For an instant Philip experienced a sud 
 den flash of misgiving but Philip was just and 
 honorable in all things and having disciplined 
 himself to faith in his friend, maintained it. 
 
 Then his eyes wandered slowly to the wigwam 
 of Diane. Thinking of the story of the candle 
 stick, with his mouth twisted into a queer, wry 
 smile, Philip fumbled for his pipe. 
 
 " Requiescat in pace" said Philip, " the hopes 
 of Philip Poynter!"
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 UNDER THE WILD MARCH MOON 
 
 QOUTHWARD under the watery moon and 
 1^ the wild, dark clouds rode the Indian girl, 
 following a trail blazed only for Indian eyes. 
 The aquatic world about them had grown steadily 
 wilder, more remote from the haunts of men. 
 Fording miry creeks, silver-streaked with moon 
 light, trampling through dense, dark, tangled 
 brakes and on, under the wild March moon, fol 
 lowed Carl, a prey to the memory of the Indian 
 girl as he had seen her that night at Sherrill's. 
 
 Keela's face, vividly dark and lovely, had 
 mocked his restless slumbers this many a day. 
 Keela's eyes, black like a starless night or the 
 cloud-black waters of Okeechobee had lured and 
 lured to sensual conquest. 
 
 But a great shame was adding its torment to 
 the terrible pain in his head and the fevered sing 
 ing of his pulses. In the torture of his self-abase 
 ment, the over-strung ligament in his head fell 
 ominously to droning again. Everything seemed 
 remote and unreal. He hated the awful silence 
 about him the crash of his horse's feet through 
 the matted brush and the twist of palmetto, re 
 solved itself into dancing ciphers. 
 
 sis
 
 314 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Ahead Keela stopped. Motionless, like a 
 beautiful sculptured thing, she sat listening as 
 Carl rode up beside her. 
 
 "What is it? "he asked. 
 
 "I fancied some one followed," said Keela 
 soberly. "It may not be." She rode forward, 
 glancing keenly at the trail behind her. 
 
 Thus they rode onward until the east grew pale 
 and gray. A bleak dawn was breaking in melan 
 choly mists over the Everglades. The lonely ex 
 panse of swamp and metallic water, of grass- 
 flats and tangled wilds, loomed indistinctly out 
 of the half light in sinister skeleton. 
 
 Keela glanced with furtive compassion at the 
 haggard face of the rider behind her. Since mid 
 night he had ridden in utter silence, growing 
 whiter it seemed as the night waned. 
 
 "Another hour!" said Keela in her soft, clear 
 voice. " Be of courage. When the sun rises there 
 behind the cypress, we shall be at our journey's 
 end." 
 
 "I I am all right," stammered Carl coura 
 geously, but he bit his lips until they bled, and 
 swayed so violently in the saddle that Keela slid 
 to the ground in alarm. 
 
 "Put your arms about my shoulders so!" 
 she commanded imperiously. 'You will fall! 
 Philip surely could not know how ill you are. 
 Can you get down ? "
 
 Under the Wild March Moon 315 
 
 With an effort Carl dismounted and fell for 
 ward on his knees. 
 
 '* You must sleep for a while," said Keela. " I 
 will build a fire. We can breakfast here and rest 
 as long as you like." She took a blanket from his 
 saddle and spread it on the ground. 
 
 Carl crept on hands and knees to the Indian 
 blanket and lay very still. A drowsiness numbed 
 his senses. When he awoke after a brief interval 
 of restless slumber, it was not yet daylight, 
 though the sky in the east was softly streaked with 
 color. The moon hung low. 
 
 A fire crackled in the center of a clearing. The 
 horses were tethered to a tree. Keela was off 
 somewhere with bow and arrow to hunt their 
 breakfast. 
 
 Now suddenly as he lay there, tired and 
 apathetic, Carl was conscious of a face leering 
 from among the trees close at hand, a dark, thin- 
 lipped foreign face with eyes black with hate 
 and malicious triumph. There was a horse 
 hitched to a tree in the thicket beyond. In that 
 instant Carl knew that the Houdanian had fur 
 tively followed the camp of the traders into the 
 wilds of the Everglades, spurred on by the fierce 
 command of Ronador. But he did not move. A 
 terrible apathy made him indifferent to the knife 
 of the assassin. He had had his day of masterful 
 torment back there in the attic of the farm, he
 
 316 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 told himself. Now he must pay. The knife 
 would quiet this unbearable agony in his head. 
 
 Themar met his eyes, smiled evilly and raised 
 his knife. But the weapon fell suddenly from his 
 hand. With an ominous hum an arrow whizzed 
 fiercely through the trees and anchored in the 
 flesh above his heart. 
 
 Themar stumbled and fell forward on his face. 
 Like the stricken moose who seeks to press his 
 wound against the earth, he drove the arrow home 
 to his heart. He sobbed, and choked and lay very 
 still, a scarlet wound dying his flannel shirt. 
 
 Carl's horrified eyes turned slowly to the west. 
 
 Keela was coming through the trees, proud 
 eyes fierce with terrible anger; halting beside the 
 dead man, she spurned him with moccasined foot. 
 
 The tense, droning string in Carl's head 
 whirred again and snapped. He lay in a heavy 
 stupor, dozing fitfully until the moon climbed 
 high again above the Glades.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE VICTORY 
 
 WHEN consciousness and a restful sense 
 of returning strength came at last Keela 
 was bending anxiously over him. 
 
 "You have been quiet so long," she said 
 gravely, " that I grew afraid. Drink." She held 
 forth a cup of woven leaves, and the glance of 
 her great black eyes was very soft and gentle. 
 
 Carl flushed and taking the cup with shaking 
 hand, drank. There was a flash of gratitude in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Themar?" he whispered. "Where is he?" 
 He looked toward the trees beyond. 
 
 "In the swamp!" said Keela, her face stern 
 and beautiful. " It is better so." 
 'You you dragged him there?" 
 
 " I am very strong," said Keela simply. " The 
 vultures will get him. It is the Indian way with 
 one who murders." 
 
 Their eyes met, a great wave of crimson sud 
 denly dyed Keela's throat and face and swept 
 in lovely tide to the brilliant turban. A con 
 strained silence fell between them, broken only 
 by the whir of a great heron flapping by on snowy 
 wings. And there was something in Keela's eyes 
 
 317
 
 318 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 that sent the blood coursing furiously through 
 Carl's fevered veins. 
 
 The Indian girl busied herself with the wild 
 duck roasting in the hub of coals. Carl ate a 
 little and lay down again. He saw now that The- 
 mar's horse was tethered beside Keela's that 
 the dead man's saddlebags lay by the fire. Fur 
 tive recourse to the drug in his pocket presently 
 flushed his veins with artificial calm. He fell 
 asleep to find his dreams haunted again by the 
 lovely face of Keela, kinder and gentler now than 
 that proud, imperious face above the line of flash 
 ing topaz. 
 
 He awoke with a start. 
 
 The Indian girl lay asleep on a blanket by the 
 fire. The world of moon-haunted jungle and 
 water was very quiet. Firelight faintly haloed 
 Keela's face and brought mad memories of the 
 soft light of the Venetian lamp at the S hern 11 
 fete. He noted the pure, delicate regularity of 
 feature, the delicate, vivid skin it was paler 
 than Diane's and flaming through his brain 
 went the dangerous reflection that conquest lay 
 now perhaps in the very hollow of his hand. 
 
 Desire had driven him on to things unspeak 
 able. It had clouded his brain, fired his blood to 
 ugly resolve, blinded every finer instinct with its 
 turbulent call, until the siren who beckons men
 
 The Victory 319 
 
 onward through the marshland of passion had 
 flung the gift at his feet in the haunted wilds. 
 
 Staring at the tranquil, delicate face of the 
 sleeper by the camp fire, a great horror of the 
 scarlet hours behind him awoke suddenly in Carl's 
 heart. There had been a girl who cried. And 
 he had laughed and shrugged and voiced an ironi 
 cal philosophy of sex for her consolation. There 
 was no philosophy of sex, only a hideous injustice 
 which Man, the Hunter, willfully ignored. There 
 were faces in the fire faces like that of Keela, 
 that had lured to sensual conquest and faded. 
 
 Trembling violently, Carl stared long and 
 steadily at the Indian girl. There had been a 
 time, before he sank to the bottom of the pit, 
 when her face had awakened in him an eager def 
 erence. The moon darkened. A white wall of 
 mist settled thickly over the Glades. Then came 
 other thoughts. Philip trusted him. He must 
 not forget. And the immortal spark of control 
 lay somewhere within him. Unbridled passion 
 of mind and body had made him very ill. Very 
 well, then, it behooved him to exorcise the demon 
 while this tormenting clarity of vision whirled 
 the dread kaleidoscope of his careless life before 
 him in honest colors. 
 
 Unleashed by drug and drink and ceaseless 
 brooding, nerve centers had rebelled, an infernal 
 blood pressure born of mental agony had inspired
 
 320 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the droning, his will had slipped its moorings. 
 That his body was not ill, he now knew for the 
 first time. Fever, nausea, pain and droning, they 
 had all leaped at the infernal manipulation of his 
 disordered mind with sickening intensity. Now 
 with a terrible effort he summoned each tattered 
 remnant of the splendid mental strength he had 
 indifferently abused, disciplined his fleeing 
 faculty of concentration and sat very quiet. 
 
 Philip trusted him. He must not forget! 
 Keela's face had made its delicate appeal to his 
 finer side until that appeal had been hushed by 
 the call of his blood. And there were times when 
 Diane had been kind. He must not forget. Like 
 the stirring of a faint shadow, he felt the first 
 dawning sense of self-mastery he had known for 
 days. 
 
 The horrible Circe with infamous eyes and 
 scarlet robes no longer lured . . . the ter 
 rible sirocco of unbridled passion which had domi 
 nated his body almost to destruction was burning 
 itself out . . . the droning in his head was 
 very faint. He must not forget Philip, truest 
 and best of friends. 
 
 Carl lay down again beside the fire with a great 
 sigh. He was very tired very sleepy. 
 
 He slept soundly until morning. 
 
 When he awoke it was broad daylight. There 
 was a curious sense of utter rest in his veins and
 
 " No, I may not take your hand."
 
 The Victory 321 
 
 meeting Keela's solicitous glance, he said, a little 
 diffidently, that he was better and that he thought 
 they might go on. After a breakfast of quail 
 and wild cassava they rode on, Keela on Themar's 
 horse. Her own obediently followed. 
 
 An hour later they came to an aquatic jungle 
 haunted by noisome reptiles. Here fallen trees 
 and a matted underbrush of poisonous vines lay 
 submerged in dank black water. Cypress 
 gloomed in forbidding shadow above the stag 
 nant water; the swamp itself was rife with hor 
 rible quacks and croaks and off somewhere the 
 distant bellow of an alligator. 
 
 So dense and dark this terrible haunt of snake 
 and bird and brilliant lizard that Carl shuddered, 
 but Keela, dismounting, tethered her horses to 
 the nearest tree and struck off boldly across a 
 narrow trail of dry land above the level of the 
 water. Carl followed. Presently the matted 
 jungle thinned and they came to a rude foot 
 bridge made of twisted roots. It led to the first 
 of a series of fertile islands which threaded the 
 terrible swamp with a riot of color. Here royal 
 poinciana flared gorgeously beside the orange- 
 colored blossoms of wild cassava, and hordes of 
 birds flamed by on brilliant wings. 
 
 Through rude avenues of palm and pine and 
 cypress, through groves of wild orange and 
 banana fringed with mulberry and persimmon
 
 822 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 trees, over rustic bridges which led from island to 
 island, they came at last to a larger hummock and 
 the wild, vine-covered log lodge of Mic-co, the 
 Indians' white friend. 
 
 It was thatched like the Seminole wigwams in 
 palmetto and set in a cluster of giant trees. Trail 
 ing moss and ferns and vines hung from the 
 boughs, weaving a dense, cool shade about the 
 dwelling. The exuberant air plants brought 
 memories of Lanier's immortal poem: 
 
 " Glooms of the live oaks, beautiful-braided and woven 
 With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven 
 Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, " 
 
 There were brilliant vistas of bloom beyond 
 the shadow. The odor of orange hung heavily in 
 the still, warm air. A pair of snowy herons 
 flapped tamely about among the pines. 
 
 Utter peace and quiet, alive with the chirp of 
 many birds, brilliant sunshine and deep, dark 
 shadow! But Carl stared most at the figure that 
 came to greet them, a tall, broad man of dark 
 complexion and wonderful, kindly eyes of pierc 
 ing darkness. His hair and beard were snow- 
 white and reached nearly to his waist, his attire 
 buckskin, laced at the seams. But his slender, 
 sensitive hands caught and held attention.
 
 The Victory 323 
 
 " Mic-co," said Keela gravely, " he is very tired 
 in his head. Philip would have him rest." 
 
 Mic-co held out his hand with a quiet smile. 
 Whatever his searching eyes had found in the 
 haggard face of his young guest was reflected in 
 his greeting. 
 
 ' You are very welcome," he said simply. 
 
 "No," said Carl steadily, "I may not take 
 your hand, sir, until you know me for what I am. 
 There are none worse. I have been through the 
 mire of hell itself. I have dishonorably betrayed 
 a kinsman in the hope of gold. I had thought to 
 kill. Only a freak of fate has stayed my hand. 
 And there is more that I may not tell " 
 
 " So?" said Mic-co quietly. 
 
 Flushing, Carl took the outstretched hand. 
 
 "I I thank you," he said, and looked away.
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 IN MIC-CO'S LODGE 
 
 r I iHE rooms of Mic-co's lodge opened, in the 
 X fashion of the old Pompeian villas, upon a 
 central court roofed only by the Southern sky. 
 This court, floored with split logs, covered with 
 bearskin rugs and furnished in handmade chairs 
 of twisted palmetto and a rude table, years back 
 Mic-co and his Indian aides had built above a 
 clear, lazy stream. Now the stream crept be 
 neath the logs to a quiet open pool in the center 
 where lilies and grasses grew, and thence by its 
 own channel under the logs again and out. Storm 
 coverings of buckskin were rolled above the outer 
 windows and above the doorways which opened 
 into the court. 
 
 Here, when the moon rose over the lonely lodge 
 and glinted peacefully in the lilied pool, Mic-co 
 listened to the tale of his young guest. It was 
 a record of bodily abuse, of passion and tempta 
 tion, which few men may live to tell, but Mic-co 
 neither condoned nor condemned. He smoked 
 and listened. 
 
 "Let us make a compact," he said with his 
 quiet smile. " I may question without reserve. 
 You may withhold what you will. That is fair? " 
 
 324
 
 In Mic-co's Lodge 325 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Have you ever endured hardship of any 
 kind?" 
 
 "I have hunted in the Arctics," said Carl. 
 " There was a time when food failed. We lived 
 for weeks on reindeer moss and rock tripe. I 
 have been in wild territory with naturalists and 
 hunters. Probably I have known more adven 
 turous hardship than most men." 
 
 Mic-co nodded. 
 
 "I fancied so," he said. "What is your 
 favorite painting?" he asked unexpectedly. 
 
 The answer came without an instant's hesita 
 tion. 
 
 "Paul Potter's 'Bull.'" 
 
 "A thing of inherent virility and vigor, in 
 tensely masculine!" said Mic-co with a smile, 
 adding after an interval of thought, "but there 
 is a danger in over-sexing " 
 
 " I have sometimes thought so. The over-mas 
 culine man is too brutal." 
 
 "And the over- feminine woman?" 
 
 " Kindly, sentimental, helpless and weak. I 
 have lived with such an aunt since I was fifteen. 
 No, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me! I 
 blame nothing upon her. Like many good women 
 whose minds are blocked off in conventional 
 squares, she is very loyal and sympathetic and 
 very trying. The essence of her temperament is
 
 326 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ineffectuality. My cousin and I were a wild, un 
 manageable pair who rode roughshod over pro 
 test. That Aunt Agatha was not in fault may 
 be proved by my cousin. She is a fine, true, 
 splendid woman." 
 
 An ineffectual aunt in the critical years of 
 adolescence! Mic-co did not suggest that his 
 cousin's sex had been her salvation. 
 
 So nights by the pool Mic-co plumbed the 
 depths of his young guest with the fine, tired 
 eyes. 
 
 " Tell me," he said gently another night; " this 
 inordinate sensitiveness of which you speak. To 
 what do you attribute it ? " 
 
 Carl colored. 
 
 "My mother," he said, "was courageous and 
 unconventional. She recognized the fact that 
 marriage and monogamy are not the ethical 
 answers of the future that though ideal unions 
 sometimes result, it is not because of marriage, 
 but in spite of it that motherhood is the inalien 
 able right of every woman with the divine spark 
 in her heart, no matter what the disappointing 
 lack of desirable marriage chances in her life may 
 be. Therefore, when the years failed to produce 
 her perfect and desirable human complement, she 
 sought a eugenic mate and bore me, refusing to 
 saddle herself to a meaningless, man-made part 
 nership with infinite possibilities of domestic hell
 
 In Mic-co's Lodge 327 
 
 in it, merely as a sop to the world-Cerberus of 
 convention. Marriage could have added nothing 
 to her lofty conceptions of motherhood but I 
 
 I have been keenly resentful and sensitive 
 for her. I think it has been the feeling that no 
 one understood. Then, after she died, there was 
 no one only Philip. I saw him rarely.'* 
 
 " And your cousin? " 
 
 " She had been taught -to misunderstand. 
 There was always that barrier. And she is very 
 high spirited. Though we were much together as' 
 youngsters she could not forget." 
 
 A singular maternal history, a beautiful, high- 
 spirited, intolerant cousin who had been taught to 
 despise his mother's morality! What warring 
 forces indeed had gone to the making of this man 
 before him. 
 
 'You have been lonely?" 
 
 " Yes," said Carl. " My mother died when I 
 needed her most. Later when I was very lonely 
 
 or hurt I drank." 
 
 " And brooded ! " finished Mic-co quietly. 
 
 "Yes," said Carl. "Always." He spoke a, 
 little bitterly of the wild inheritance of passions 
 and arrogant intolerance with which Nature had 
 saddled him. 
 
 "All of which," reminded Mic-co soberly, 
 "you inflamed by intemperate drinking. Is it 
 an inherited appetite?"
 
 828 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " It is not an appetite at all," said Carl. 
 
 "You like it?" 
 
 " If you mean that to abandon it is to suffer 
 no. I enjoyed it yes." 
 
 The wind that blew through the open windows 
 and doors of the lodge stirred the moonlit water 
 lilies in the pool. To Carl they were pale and 
 unreal like the wraith of the days behind him. 
 Like a reflected censer in the heart of the bloom 
 shone the evening star. The peace of it all lay 
 in Mic-co's fine, dark, tranquil face as he talked, 
 subtly moulding another's mind in the pattern of 
 his own. He did not preach. Mic-co smoked and 
 talked philosophy. 
 
 Carl had known but little respect for the 
 opinions of others. He was to learn it now. He 
 was to find his headstrong will matched by one 
 stronger for all it was gentler; his impudent 
 philosophy punctured by a wisdom as great as it 
 was compassionate; his own magnetic power to 
 influence as he willed, a negligible factor in the 
 presence of a man whose magnetism was greater. 
 
 Mic-co had said quietly by the pool one night 
 that he had been a doctor that he loved the 
 peace and quiet of his island home that years 
 back the Seminoles had saved his life. He had 
 since devoted his own life to their service. They 
 were a pitiful, hunted remnant of a great race 
 who were kindred to the Aztec.
 
 In Mic-co's Lodge 329 
 
 He seemed to think his explanation quite 
 enough. Wherefore Carl as quietly accepted 
 what he offered. There was much that he him 
 self was pledged to withhold. Thus their friend 
 ship grew into something fine and deep that was 
 stronger medicine for Carl than any preaching. 
 
 "My mother and I were friends!" said Carl 
 one night. * When I was a lad of ten or so, as 
 a concession to convention she married the man 
 whose name I bear, a kindly chap who under 
 stood. He died. After that we were very close, 
 my mother and I. We rode much together and 
 talked. I think she feared for me. There was 
 peace in my life then like this. That is why I 
 speak of it. I needed a friend, some one like her 
 with brains and grit and balance that I could re 
 spect some one who would understand. There 
 are but few " 
 
 " She spoke of your own father?" 
 
 " No. I do not even know his name. We were 
 pledged not to speak of it. I fancied as I grew 
 older that she was sorry " 
 
 The subject was obviously painful. 
 
 "And you've never been honestly contented 
 since?" put in Mic-co quickly. 
 
 " Once." Carl spoke of Wherry. ' They were 
 weeks of genuine hardship, those weeks at the 
 farm, but it's singular how frequently my mind 
 goes back to them."
 
 830 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Ah!" said Mic-co with glowing eyes, "there 
 is no salvation like work for the happiness of 
 another. That I know." 
 
 So the quiet days filed by until Mic-co turned 
 at last from the healing of the mind to the healing 
 of the body. 
 
 "Let us test your endurance in the Seminole 
 way," he said one morning by the island camp 
 fire where his Indian servants cooked the food for 
 the lodge. Beyond lay the palmetto wigwams of 
 the Indian servants who worked in the island 
 fields of corn and rice and sugar cane, made wild 
 cassava into flour, hunted with Mic-co and rode 
 betimes with the island exports into civilization by 
 the roundabout road to the south which skirted 
 the swamp. Off to the west, in the curious chain 
 of islands, lay the palmetto shelter of the horses. 
 
 Mic-co placed a live coal upon the wrist of his 
 young guest and quietly watched. There was no 
 flinching. The coal burned itself out upon the 
 motionless wrist of a Spartan. 
 
 Thereafter they rode hard and hunted, day by 
 day. Carl worked in the fields with Mic-co and 
 the Indians, tramped at sunset over miles of 
 island path fringed with groves of bitter orange, 
 disciplining his body to a new endurance. A 
 heavy sweat at the end in a closed tent of buck 
 skin which opened upon the shore of a sheltered 
 inland lake, hardened his aching muscles to iron.
 
 In Mic-co's Lodge 331 
 
 Upon the great stone heating in the fire within 
 the sweat-lodge an Indian lad poured water. It 
 rose in sweltering clouds of steam about the naked 
 body of Mic-co's guest, who at length plunged 
 from the tent into the chill waters of the lake and 
 swam vigorously across to towels and shelter. 
 
 Carl learned to pole a cypress canoe dexter 
 ously through miles of swamp tangled with grass 
 and lilies, through shallows and deep pools dark 
 ened by hanging branches. He learned to tan 
 hides and to carry a deer upon his shoulders. 
 Nightly he plunged from the sweat-lodge into 
 the lake and later slept the sleep of utter weari 
 ness under a deerskin cover. 
 
 So Mic-co disciplined the splendid body and 
 brain of his guest to the strength and endurance 
 of an Indian; but the quiet hours by the pool 
 brought with them the subtler healing. 
 
 Carl grew browner and sturdier day by day. 
 His eyes were quieter. There was less of arro 
 gance too in the sensitive mouth and less of care 
 less assertiveness in his manner. 
 
 So matters stood w r hen Philip rode in by the 
 southern trail with Sho-caw. 
 
 Now Philip had wisely waited for the inevitable 
 readjustment, trusting entirely to Mic-co, but 
 with the memory of Carl's haggard face and 
 haunted eyes, he was unprepared for the lean,
 
 882 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 tanned, wholly vigorous young man who sprang 
 to meet him. 
 
 "Well I "said Philip. "Well!" 
 
 He was shaken a little and cleared his throat, 
 at a loss for words. 
 
 " You you infernal dub ! " said Carl. It was 
 all he could trust himself to say. 
 
 It was a singular greeting, Mic-co thought, 
 and very eloquent.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 THE BAIN UPON THE WIGWAM 
 
 TO THE heart of the gypsy there is a kindred 
 voice in the cheerful crackle of a camp fire 
 in the wind that rustles tree and grass in 
 the song of a bird or the hum of bees in the 
 lap of a lake or the brilliant trail of a shooting 
 star. 
 
 A winter forest of tracking snow is rife with 
 messages of furry folk who prowl by night. 
 Moon-checkered trees fling wavering banners of 
 gypsy hieroglyphics upon the ground. Sun and 
 moon and cloud and the fiery color-pot of the 
 firmament write their symbols upon the horizon 
 for gypsy eyes to read. 
 
 What wonder then that the milky clouds which 
 piled fantastically above the Indian camp fash 
 ioned hazily at times into curious boats sailing 
 away to another land ? What wonder if the dawn 
 was streaked with imperial purple? What 
 wonder if Diane built faces and fancies in the 
 ember-glow of the Seminole fire- wheel? What 
 wonder if like the pine-wood sparrow and the wind 
 of Okeechobee the voice of the woodland always 
 questioned? Conscience, soul-argument what 
 
 333
 
 884 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 you will there were voices in the wild which 
 stirred the girl's heart to introspection. 
 
 So it was with the rain which, at the dark of 
 the moon, pattered gently on the palmetto roof 
 of her wigwam. 
 
 "And now," said the rain with a soft gust of 
 flying drops, "now there is Sho-caw!" 
 
 " Yes," said Diane with a sigh, " there is Sho- 
 caw. I am very sorry." 
 
 "But," warned the rain, "one must not for 
 get. At Keela's teaching you have fallen into the 
 soft, musical tongue of these Indian folk with 
 marvelous ease. And you wear the Seminole 
 dress of a chief " 
 
 'Yes. After all, that was imprudent ' 
 
 'You can ride and shoot an arrow swift and 
 far. Your eyes are keen and your tread lithe and 
 soft like a fawn 
 
 " It is all the wild lore of the woodland I 
 learned as a child." 
 
 "But Sho-caw does not know! To him the 
 gypsy heart of you, the sun-brown skin and 
 scarlet cheeks, the night-black hair beneath the 
 turban, are but the lure and charm of an errant 
 (laughter of the O-kee-fee-ne-kee wilderness. 
 What wonder that he can not see you as you are, 
 a dark-eyed child of the race of white men!" 
 
 " I do not wonder." 
 
 "He has been grave and very deferential,
 
 The Rain Upon the Wigwam 335 
 
 gathered wood for you and carried water. Yes 
 terday there was a freshly killed deer at the door 
 of the wigwam. It is the first shy overture of the 
 wooing Seminole." 
 
 " I know. Keela has told me. It has all 
 frightened me a little. I I think I had better 
 go away again." 
 
 "There was a time, in the days of Arcadia, 
 when Philip would have laughed, and a second 
 deer would have lain at the door of your wig 
 wam 
 
 " Philip is changed." 
 
 "He is quieter 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " A little sterner " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Like one perhaps who has abandoned a 
 dream!" 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 "Why does he ride away for days with Sho- 
 caw?" 
 
 " I have wondered." 
 
 The wind, wafting from the rain which 
 splashed in the pool of Mic-co's court, might have 
 told, but the wind, with the business of rain upon 
 its mind, was reticent. 
 
 "AndRonador?" 
 
 " I have not forgotten." 
 
 " He is waiting."
 
 886 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " Yes. Day by day I have put off the thought 
 of the inevitable reckoning. It is another rea 
 son why presently I must hurry away." 
 
 "A singular trio of suitors!" sighed the rain. 
 "A prince an Indian warrior and a spy!" 
 
 " Not that ! " cried the girl's heart. " No, no 
 not that!" 
 
 " You breathed it but a minute ago! " 
 
 "Iknow- 
 
 "And of the three, Sho-caw, bright copper 
 though he is, is perhaps braver - 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Taller" 
 
 " He is not so tall as Philip." 
 
 " To be sure Philip is brown and handsome and 
 sturdy and very strong, but Ronador ah!- 
 there imperial distinction and poise are blended 
 with as true a native grace as Sho-caw's 
 
 " Humor and resource are better things." 
 
 " Sho-caw's grace is not so heavy as Ronador's 
 and not so sprightly as Philip's " 
 
 "It may be." 
 
 " One may tell much by the color and expres 
 sion of a man's eye. Sho-caw's eyes are keen, 
 alert and grave; Ronador's dark, compelling and 
 very eloquent. What though there is a constant 
 sense of suppression and smouldering fire and 
 not quite so much directness as one might 
 wish "
 
 The Rain Upon the Wigwam 337 
 
 "Philip's eyes are calm and steady and very 
 frank," said the girl, " and he is false." 
 
 " Yes," said the rain with a noise like a shower 
 of tears, "yes, he is very false." 
 
 The wind sighed. The steady drip of the rain, 
 filtering through the vines twisted heavily about 
 the oak trunks, was indescribably mournful. 
 Suddenly the nameless terror that had crept into 
 the girl's veins that first night in the Seminole 
 camp came again. 
 
 " When the Mulberry Moon is at its full," she 
 said shuddering, " I will go back to the van with 
 Keela. I do not know what it is here that fright 
 ens me so. And I will marry Ronador. Every 
 wild thing in the forest loves and mates. And I 
 I am very lonely." 
 
 But by the time the Mulberry Moon of the 
 Seminoles blanketed the great marsh in misty 
 silver Diane was restlessly on her way back to the 
 world of white men. 
 
 Philip followed. Leaner, browner, a little too 
 stern, perhaps, about the mouth and eyes, a gypsy 
 of greater energy and resource than when he had 
 struck recklessly into the Glades with the music- 
 machine he had since exchanged for an Indian 
 wagon, Philip camped and smoked and hunted 
 with the skill and gravity of an Indian. 
 
 So the wagons filed back again into the little 
 hamlet where Johnny waited, daily astonishing
 
 888 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the natives by a series of lies profoundly adventur 
 ous and thrilling. Rex's furious bark of welcome 
 at the sight of his young mistress was no whit less 
 hysterical than Johnny's instant groan of relief, 
 or the incoherent manner in which he detailed an 
 unforgettable interview with Aunt Agatha, who 
 had appeared one night from heaven knows 
 where and pledged him with tears and sniffs in 
 numerable to telegraph her when from the 
 melancholy fastnesses of the Everglades, Diane 
 or her scalp emerged. 
 
 "She wouldn't go North," finished Johnny 
 graphically, his apple cheeks very red and his eyes 
 very bright, " she certainly would not she'd like 
 to see herself she would indeed! and this no 
 place for me to wait. Them very words, Miss 
 Diane. And she went and opened your grand 
 father's old house in St. Augustine the old 
 Westfall homestead and she's there now 
 waitin*. Likely, Miss Diane, I'd better telegraph 
 now this very minute afore she takes it in 
 her head to come again 1 " 
 
 Johnny's dread of another Aunt Agathean 
 visitation was wholly candid and sincere. He de 
 parted on a trot to telegraph, hailing Philip 
 warmly by the way. 
 
 Here upon the following morning Diane and 
 Keela parted for the Indian girl was pledged 
 to return to the lodge of Mic-co.
 
 The Rain Upon the Wigwam 339 
 
 " Six moons, now," she explained with shining 
 eyes, " I stay at the lodge of Mic-co, my foster 
 father. When the Falling Leaf Moon of No 
 vember comes, I shall still be there, living the 
 ways of white men." She held out her hand. 
 " Aw-lip-ka-shaw ! " she said shyly, her black eyes 
 very soft and sorrowful. " It is a prettier parting 
 than the white man's. By and by, Diane, you 
 will write to the lodge of Mic-co? The Indian 
 lads ride in each moon to the village for Mic-co's 
 books and papers." Her great eyes searched 
 Diane's face a little wistfully. " Sometime," she 
 added shyly, " when you wish, I will come again. 
 You will not ride away soon to the far cities of 
 the North?" 
 
 "No!" said Diane. "No indeed! Not for 
 ever so long. I'm tired. Likely I'll hunt a quiet 
 spot where there's a lake and trees and lilies, and 
 camp and rest. You won't forget me, Keela? " 
 
 Keela had a wordless gift of eloquence. Her 
 eyes promised. 
 
 Diane smiled and tightened her hold of the 
 slim, brown Indian hand. 
 
 "Aw-lip-ka-shaw, Keela!" she said. "Some 
 day I'm coming back and take you home with 
 
 me." 
 
 The Indian girl drove reluctantly away; pres 
 ently her canvas wagon was but a dim gray 
 silhouette upon the horizon.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 THE RIVAL CAMPERS 
 
 X TORTHWARD by lazy canal and shadowy 
 JL\ hummock, northward by a river freckled 
 with sand bars, Diane came in time to a quiet lake 
 where purple martins winged ceaselessly over a 
 tangled float of lilies where now and then an 
 otter swam and dipped with a noiseless ripple of 
 water where ground doves fluttered fearlessly 
 about the camp as Johnny pitched the tents at 
 noonday. 
 
 But for all the whir and flash of brilliant bird- 
 life above the placid water for all the screams 
 of the fish hawks and the noise of crows and 
 grackle in the cypress for all the presence of 
 another camper among the trees to the west, the 
 days were quiet and undisturbed. And at night 
 when the birds were winging to the woods now 
 black against the yellow west, and the lonely lake 
 began to purple, the fires of the rival camps were 
 the single spots of color in the heavy darkness 
 along the shore. 
 
 Diane wrote of it, with disastrous results, to 
 Aunt Agatha. 
 
 At sunset, one day, a carriage produced an 
 aggrieved rustle of silk, a voice and a hand bag. 
 
 340
 
 The Rival Campers 341 
 
 Each fluttered a little as the driver accepted his 
 fare and rolled away. The hand bag, in accord 
 ance with a sensational and ill-conditioned habit 
 which had roused more than one unpopular com 
 motion in crowded department stores and thor 
 oughfares, leaped unexpectedly from a gloved 
 and fluttering hand. 
 
 Aunt Agatha possessed herself of the bag with 
 a sniff and rustled heedlessly into the nearest 
 camp. 
 
 It was, of course, Mr. Poynter's. 
 
 Utterly confounded by the unexpected sight of 
 a tall young man who was cooking a fish over 
 the fire, Aunt Agatha gurgled fearfully and 
 backed precipitately into the nearest tree, whence 
 the ill-natured hand bag forcibly opened a grin 
 ning mouth, leaped into space and disgorged a 
 flying shower of nickels and dimes, smelling salts 
 and hairpins and a variety of fussy contrivances 
 of sentimental value. 
 
 " God bless my soul ! " bleated Aunt Agatha 
 with round, affrighted eyes, " there's a dime in the 
 fish! And I do beg your pardon, young man, 
 but will you be so good as to poke the smelling 
 salts out of the fire before they explode." 
 
 There was little likelihood of the final 
 catastrophe, but Mr. Poynter obeyed. Laughing 
 a little as he collected the scattered cargo, he good- 
 humoredly suggested that he was not nearly so
 
 842 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 dangerous as Aunt Agatha's petrified gaze sug 
 gested, and that possibly she might remember him 
 his name was Poynter and that Miss West- 
 fall's camp lay a little farther to the east. 
 
 Aunt Agatha departed, greatly impressed by 
 his gallantry and common sense. Arriving in the 
 camp of her niece, she roused an alarming commo 
 tion by halting unobserved among the trees, star 
 ing hard at her niece's back-hair, dropping her 
 hand bag, and bursting into tears that brought 
 the startled campers to her side in a twinkling. 
 
 "Great Scott, Johnny!'* exclaimed Diane, 
 aghast. "It's Aunt Agatha!" 
 
 Aunt Agatha dangerously motioned them 
 away with the hand bag Johnny had returned. 
 
 " I'll be all right in a minute! " she sniffed tear 
 fully. "Mamma was that way, too mamma 
 was. Tears would burst right out of her, espe 
 cially when she grew so stout. I can't help it! 
 When I think of all I've gone through with you 
 off in the Green-glades or the Never-glades or 
 whatever they are and worrying all the time 
 about your scalp and alligators and you sitting 
 there so peaceful, Diane, with your hair still on - 
 I've got to cry I just have and I will. 
 And Carl's mysteriously disappeared Heaven 
 knows where! I've not seen him for weeks. Nor 
 did he condescend to write me as I must say you 
 did and very good of you too!" Whether
 
 The Rival Campers 343 
 
 Aunt Agatha was crying because her mother was 
 stout and eruptively lachrymose, or because 
 Diane's hair was still where it belonged, or because 
 Carl was missing, Diane could not be sure. 
 
 Aunt Agatha puffed presently to a seat by the 
 fire, with hair and hat awry, and dropped her 
 hand bag. 
 
 "Johnny," she said severely, "don't stare so. 
 I'm sorry of course that I made you drop the ket 
 tle when I came, I am indeed, but I'm here and 
 there's the kettle and that's all there is to it." 
 
 "Of course it is!" exclaimed Diane, kissing 
 her heartily. " And I'm mighty glad to see you, 
 Aunt Agatha, tears and all!" 
 
 There was some little difficulty in persuading 
 Aunt Agatha of the truth of this, but she pres 
 ently removed her hat, narrowly escaped drop 
 ping it into the fire, and consigned it, along with 
 the athletic hand bag, to Johnny. 
 
 Now Diane with a furtive glance at Philip's 
 camp, had been hostilely considering the dis 
 couraging effect of Aunt Agatha's presence 
 upon the rival camper. That Aunt Agatha 
 would presently discern degenerative traces of 
 criminality in his face by reason of his reprehen 
 sible proximity to her niece's camp, Diane did not 
 doubt. That the aggrieved lady would call upon 
 him within a day or so and air her rigid notions
 
 844 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 of propriety and convention, was well within the 
 range of probability. Wherefore 
 
 Aunt Agatha broke plaintively in upon her 
 thoughts. 
 
 "If you would only listen, Diane!" she com 
 plained. " I've spoken three times of your grand 
 father's old estate and dear knows you ought to 
 remember it " 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Aunt!" stammered the 
 girl sincerely. 
 
 " Certainly," said Aunt Agatha with dignity, 
 " I deserve some attention. What with the dark, 
 gloomy rooms of the house and the cobwebs and 
 cranky spiders and the people of St. Augus 
 tine believing it to be haunted so that I could 
 scarcely keep a servant and green mould in the 
 cellar and a croquet set and waiting down 
 South when I distinctly promised to go back with 
 the Sherrills in March I take it very hard of 
 you, Diane, to be so absent-minded. Ugh ! How 
 dark the lake has grown and the wind and the 
 noise of the water. There's hardly a star. Diane, 
 I do wonder how you stand it. The shore looks 
 like bands of mourning crepe. And in the midst 
 of it all, Diane, there in St. Augustine, the Baron 
 aeroplaned the top off the Carroll's orchard " 
 
 "Aunt Agatha!" begged the girl helplessly. 
 " What in the world is it all about ? " 
 
 Aunt Agatha flushed guiltily.
 
 The Rival Campers 345 
 
 " Why is it," she demanded, " that no one ever 
 seems to understand what I'm saying? Dear 
 knows I haven't a harelip or even a lisp. Why, 
 Baron Tregar, my dear. He's been staying in St. 
 Augustine, too. It almost seemed as if he had 
 deliberately followed me there though of 
 course that couldn't be. And the Prince too. 
 And the Baron bought an aeroplane to amuse 
 himself and annoy the Carrolls " 
 
 Aunt Agatha flushed again, cleared her throat 
 and looked away. Why Ronador was in St. 
 Augustine she knew well enough. He had waited 
 near her, successfully, for news of Diane. And 
 though the Baron had been very quiet, he had kept 
 his eye upon the Prince. Aunt Agatha had for 
 once been the startled hub of intrigue. 
 
 " And what with the driver mumbling to him 
 self this afternoon because I lost my umbrella 
 and made him go back, and the horse having 
 ribs," she complained, shying from a topic which 
 contained dangerous possibilities of revealing a 
 certain indiscretion, " I do wonder I'm here at all. 
 And the young man was very decent about the 
 dime in his fish though I'm sure he burned his 
 fingers digging for the smelling salts for they'd 
 already begun to sizzle but dear me ! Diane, you 
 can't imagine how I jarred my spine and my 
 switch I did think for a minute it would tumble 
 off and he was so quick and pleasant to collect
 
 846 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 the nickels and hairpins. Such a pleasant, com 
 fortable sort of chap. I remember now he was at 
 the SherrilTs and very good-looking, too, I must 
 say, and very lonely too, I'll wager, camping 
 about for his health. He didn't say anything 
 about his health, but one can see by his eyes that 
 he's troubled about it." 
 
 " Aunt Agatha ! " begged Diane helplessly in a 
 flash of foreboding, "what in creation are you 
 trying to say?" 
 
 "Why, Mr. Poynter, of course!" exclaimed 
 Aunt Agatha. * The hand bag shot into his camp 
 and spilled nickels, and I bumped into a tree and 
 jarred my switch. And a very fine fellow he is, 
 to be sure ! " 
 
 Diane stared. 
 
 It was like Aunt Agatha to blunder into the 
 wrong camp. And surely it was like Philip to 
 win her favor by chance.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 THE TALE OF A CANDLESTICK 
 
 friendship of Aunt Agatha and Mr. 
 J. Poynter miraculously grew. Aunt Agatha, 
 upon the following morning, took to wandering 
 vaguely about the wooded shore and into Philip's 
 camp, impelled by gracious concern for his 
 health, which she insisted upon regarding as im 
 paired, and by effusive gratitude for such trifling 
 civilities as he had readily proffered the day be 
 fore. From there she wandered vaguely back 
 to her niece's camp fire in a chronic state of worry 
 about Carl. Discontented, unfailing in her mel 
 ancholy reminiscences of cannibalistic snakes and 
 herons, Aunt Agatha plainly had no immediate 
 intentions of any sort. She had no intention of 
 lingering in camp, she said, accoutered solely 
 with a hand bag! And she had no intention no 
 indeed! of departing until Diane went back 
 with her to the deserted Westfall house in St. 
 Augustine, with the green mould and the cob 
 webs and cranky spiders and the croquet set in 
 the cellar. Arcadia, if Diane had not crushed 
 the memory out of her heart, had had a parallel. 
 Greatly disturbed by her aunt's melancholy 
 state of uncertainty, Diane one morning watched 
 
 347
 
 848 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 her set forth to gather lilies in the region of 
 Philip's camp. 
 
 The woodland about was very quiet. Diane lay 
 back against the tree trunk and closed her eyes, 
 listening to the welcome gypsy voices of wind and 
 water, to the noisy clapper rails in the island grass 
 at the end of the lake and to the drone of a motor 
 on the road to the north. Dimly conscious that 
 Johnny was briskly scrubbing the rude table 
 among the trees, she fell asleep. 
 
 When she awoke, with a nervous start, Johnny 
 was down at the edge of the lake scouring pans 
 with sand and whistling blithely. Off there to 
 the west, with Aunt Agatha fussing at his heels, 
 Philip was good-naturedly gathering the lilies at 
 the water's edge. And some one was approach 
 ing camp from the northern road. 
 
 Diane glanced carelessly to the north and 
 sprang to her feet with wild scarlet in her cheeks. 
 
 Ronador was coming through the forest. 
 
 His color was a little high, his eyes, beneath the 
 peak of his motoring cap profoundly apologetic, 
 but he was easier in manner than Diane. 
 
 "I'm offending, I know," he said steadily, 
 "and I crave forgiveness, but muster an indif 
 ferent gift of patience as best I may, I can not 
 wait. It is weeks, you recall " 
 
 Diane flushed brightly.
 
 The Tale of a Candlestick 349 
 
 " Yes," she said. " I know. I have been in the 
 Everglades." 
 
 " Your aunt told me." Ronador searched her 
 face suddenly with peculiar intentness. He might 
 have added, with perfect truth, that to Aunt 
 Agatha, who had indiscreetly afforded him a 
 glimpse of her niece's letter, might be attributed 
 the halting of the long, black car on the road to 
 the north. 'You have no single word of wel 
 come, then!" he reproached abruptly and im 
 patiently brushed his hair back from his forehead 
 with a hand that shook a little. 
 
 From the north came the clatter of a motor 
 cycle. 
 
 Diane held out her hand. 
 
 "Let us make a mutual compact!" she ex 
 claimed frankly. "I have overstrained your 
 patience you have startled me. Let us both 
 forgive. In a sense we have neither of us kept 
 strictly to the letter of our agreement." 
 
 Ronador bent with deference over the girl's 
 outstretched hand and brushed it lightly with his 
 lips, unconscious that her face had grown very 
 white and troubled. Nor in his impetuous relief 
 was he aware that other eyes had witnessed the 
 eloquent tableau and that Aunt Agatha had ar 
 rived in camp with an escort who quietly deposited 
 an armful of dripping lilies upon the camp table 
 and oddly enough made no effort to retire.
 
 850 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 When at length, conscious of the electric con 
 straint of the atmosphere, Ronador wheeled un 
 comfortably and met Philip's level glance, he 
 stared and reddened, hot insolent anger in the 
 flash of his eyes and the curl of his lips. 
 
 "Dear me!" faltered Aunt Agatha, guiltily 
 conscious of the letter, "I am surprised, I am 
 indeed! Who ever would have thought of seeing 
 you here, Prince, among the trees and and the 
 ground doves and and all the lilies! " The un 
 fortunate lady, convinced by now that Ronador's 
 apparent resentment concerned, in some inex 
 plicable way, her escort, herself and the lilies, 
 glanced beseechingly about her. "And what 
 with the lilies," she burst forth desperately in 
 apology for the inopportune arrival of herself and 
 her escort, " what with the lilies, Prince, and the 
 water so wet though, dear me! it was not to be 
 wondered at, of course growing wild in the 
 water that way and only one gown and the 
 hand bag though to be sure I can't wear the 
 hand bag, and wouldn't if I could Mr. Poyn- 
 ter, with his usual courtesy was good enough to 
 carry the lilies into camp when I asked him." 
 
 'Mr. Poynter was undoubtedly very good, 
 Aunt Agatha," said Diane quietly, " but the lilies 
 scarcely require any further attention." 
 
 Still Mr. Poynter did not stir. 
 
 "I regret exceedingly," he said formally to
 
 The Tale of a Candlestick 351 
 
 Diane, " that I am unable to avail myself of your 
 cordial permission to retire. Unfortunately, I 
 have urgent business with Prince Ronador. 
 Indeed, I have waited for just such an opportun 
 ity as this." 
 
 He was by far the calmest of the four. Rona- 
 dor's violent temper was rapidly routing his 
 studied composure. Diane's lovely face was 
 flushed and indignant. Aunt Agatha, making a 
 desperate pretense of sorting the lilies, was 
 plainly in a flutter and willing to be tearfully 
 repentent over their intrusion. Not so Philip. 
 There was satisfaction in his steady glance. 
 
 " There is scarcely any business which I may 
 have with er Tregar's secretary," said Ron 
 ador with deliberate insolence, " which may not 
 be more suitably discharged by Tregar himself." 
 
 There was a biting suggestion of rank in his- 
 answer at which Philip smiled. 
 
 "My spread-eagle tastes," he admitted, "have 
 always protected my eyes from the bedazzlement 
 frequently incident to the sight of royalty. Nor 
 do I wish to flaunt unduly my excellent fortune in 
 being born an American and a democrat, but for 
 once, Prince, we must overlook your trifling dis 
 advantage of caste and meet on a common foot 
 ing. Permit me to offer my humble secretarial 
 apology that the business is wholly mine and 
 one other's and not my chief's."
 
 852 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Here Aunt Agatha created a singular diver 
 sion by dropping the lilies and gurgling with 
 amazement. 
 
 "God bless my soul!" she screamed hysteric 
 ally, conscious that her indiscretion was rapidly 
 weaving a web around her which might not find 
 favor in her niece's eyes, "it's Baron Tregar! I 
 know his beard." 
 
 Now as it was manifestly impossible for the 
 Baron and his beard to be secreted among the lilies 
 which Aunt Agatha was wildly gathering up, 
 Philip looked off in the wood to the north. 
 
 There was a motorcyclist approaching who had 
 conceivably felt sufficient interest in the long 
 black car to follow it. 
 
 The Baron arrived, gallantly swept off his cap 
 and bowed, and suddenly conscious of an indefin 
 able hostility in the attitudes of the silent quartet, 
 stared from one to the other with some pardon 
 able astonishment. 
 
 " Tregar! " shouted the Prince hotly, " you will 
 account to me for this officious espionage." 
 
 The Baron stroked his beard. 
 
 " One may pay his respects to Miss Westfall ? " 
 he begged with gentle sarcasm. " It is a suffi 
 ciently popular epidemic, I should say, to claim 
 even me. Besides," he added dryly, " in reality 
 I have come in answer to a letter of Poynter's. It
 
 The Tale ot a Candlestick 353 
 
 has interested me exceedingly to find you on the 
 road ahead of me." 
 
 " Baron Tregar," said Diane warmly, " you are 
 very welcome, I assure you. Mr. Poynter has 
 been pleased to inject certain elements of melo 
 drama into his chance intrusion. Otherwise you 
 would not find us staring at each other in this ex 
 ceedingly ridiculous manner!" 
 
 "Hum!" said the Baron blandly and glanced 
 with interest at the undisturbed countenance of 
 Mr. Poynter. 
 
 " A mere matter of justice and belated frank 
 ness to Miss Westfall! " said Philip quietly. " I 
 must respectfully beg Prince Ronador to disclose 
 to her the original motive of his singular and 
 highly romantic courtship. I bear an urgent 
 message of similar import from one who has had 
 the distinction of playing imperial chess!" 
 
 They were curious words but not so curious in 
 substance as in effect. With a cry of startled 
 anger, Ronador leaped back, his eyes flashing ter 
 rible menace at Philip. There was only one pair 
 of eyes, however, quick and keen enough, for all 
 their loveliness, to follow his swift movement or 
 the glitter of steel in his hand. 
 
 With a cry of fear and horror, Diane leaped 
 like a wild thing and struck his hand aside. A 
 revolver fell at her feet. Aunt Agatha screamed 
 and covered her eyes with her hands.
 
 854 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 In the tense quiet came the tranquil lap of the 
 lake, the call of a distant bird, the lazy murmur of 
 many leaves in a morning wind. Philip stood 
 very quietly by the table. He looked at Diane; 
 he seemed to have forgotten the others, Tregar 
 thought. 
 
 With terrible anger in her flashing eyes, Diane 
 flung the revolver into the placid lake, and facing 
 Ronador, her sweet, stern mouth contemptuous, 
 she met his imploring gaze with one of scathing 
 rebuke. 
 
 " Excellency," she said to Ronador, " whatever 
 else Mr. Poynter may have in mind, there is 
 surely now an explanation which it behooves you 
 to make as a gentleman who is not a coward! " 
 
 Ronador moistened his white lips and looked 
 away. 
 
 Trembling violently she turned to Philip. 
 
 "Philip!" she cried. "What is it?" As 
 her eyes met his, her hand went to her heart 
 and the color swept in brilliant tide from the slim 
 brown throat to the questioning eyes. "Oh, 
 Philip! Philip!" She choked and fell again to 
 trembling. It was a cry of remorse and heart 
 broken apology for the memory of a moon above 
 the marsh. 
 
 For somehow in that instant, by a freak of in 
 stinct, the rain and the wind of Okeechobee and 
 the bird in the pines came into their own. Their
 
 The Tale of a Candlestick 355 
 
 subtle messages dovetailed with the hurt look in 
 Philip's eyes with the conviction of the girl's 
 sore heart, unconquerable for all she had desper 
 ately fought it with the revelation of treachery 
 which lay now at the bottom of the lake. 
 
 Philip was very white. 
 
 " But," he said gently, " you could not know." 
 
 "I could have waited and trusted," cried the 
 girl. " I could have remembered Arcadia! " 
 
 Was Ronador forgotten? Tregar thought so. 
 These two mutely avowing with blazing eyes their 
 utter trust and loyalty had for the moment for 
 gotten everything but each other. 
 
 Ronador stalked viciously away to the lake, 
 restlessly turned on his heel with a curse and came 
 slowly back. There was despair in his eyes. Tre 
 gar thought of the black moments of impulse and 
 the tearing conscience and pitied him profoundly. 
 
 "Excellency," reminded Diane, "there is an 
 explanation " 
 
 But Ronador's pallid lips were set in lines of 
 fierce denial. 
 
 " Philip ! " appealed the girl. 
 
 " Well," said Philip looking away, " it's a tale 
 of a candlestick." 
 
 "A candlestick!" 
 
 " And a hidden paper." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Ronador seemed about to speak, thought bet-
 
 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 ter of it and closed his lips in a tense white line of 
 sullenness. 
 
 Philip glanced keenly at him, and his own 
 mouth grew a little sterner. 
 
 " Excellency," he said to Ronador, " that you 
 may not feel impelled again to violence in the sup 
 pression of this curious fragment of family 
 history, let me warn you that the story has been 
 entrusted in full to Father Joda, who knew and 
 loved your cousin. Any spectacular irrationality 
 that you may hereafter develop in connection 
 with Miss Westfall, will lead to its disclosure. 
 He is pledged to that in writing." 
 
 The color died out of Ronador's face. The fire, 
 roused by the specter he had fought this many a 
 dat, burned itself quite to ashes and left him cold 
 and sullen. He had played and lost. And he was 
 an older and quieter man for the losing. What 
 ever else lay at the bottom of his contradictory 
 maze of dark moods and passions, he had courage 
 and the curse of conscience. There were black 
 memories struggling now within him. 
 
 Tregar moved quietly to Ronador's side, an act 
 of ready loyalty not without dignity in the eyes 
 of Philip. 
 
 ' Your letter hinted something of all this," he 
 said. " Let us be quite fair, Poynter. Ronador 
 feared only for his little son." 
 
 "Why must we talk in riddles?" cried Diane
 
 The Tale of a Candlestick 357 
 
 with a flash of impatience. " Why does Ronador 
 fear for his son? Where is the candlestick? And 
 the paper? Who found it?" 
 
 " Carl found it," said Philip. " It was written 
 nearly a quarter of a century ago, by one Theo- 
 domir of Houdania." 
 
 Diane glanced in utter mystification at Rona- 
 dor's ashen face there was a great fear in his 
 eyes and thence to Baron Tregar. 
 
 "Excellency," she appealed, "it is all very- 
 hard to understand. Who is Theodomir? And 
 why must his life touch mine after all these 
 years?" 
 
 The Baron cleared his throat. 
 
 "Let me try to make it simpler," he said 
 gravely. "Theodomir, Miss Westfall, was a 
 lovable, willful, over-democratic young crown 
 prince of Houdania who, many years ago, re 
 fused the responsibilities of a royal position 
 whose pomp and pretensions he despised quot 
 ing Buddha and fled to America where in the 
 course of time he married, divorced his wife and 
 later died incognito. He was Ronador's cou 
 sin, and his flight shifted the regency of the king 
 dom to Ronador's father." 
 
 1 Yes," said the girl steadily, "that is very 
 clear." 
 
 'Theodomir married and divorced your 
 mother," said Philip gently.
 
 358 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Diane grew very white. 
 
 "And even yet," she said bravely, "I can 
 not see why we must all be so worked up. There 
 is more?" 
 
 " Yes. Later, after her divorce from Theodo- 
 mir, your mother married Norman Westf all - 
 
 " My father," corrected Diane swiftly. 
 
 Philip looked away. 
 
 " Her second marriage," he said at last, " was 
 childless." 
 
 " Philip ! " Diane's face flamed. " And I ? " 
 
 " You," said Baron Tregar, " are the child of 
 Theodomir." 
 
 In the strained silence a bird sent a sweet, 
 clear call ringing lightly over the water. 
 
 "That that can not be!" faltered Diane. 
 "It it is too preposterous." 
 
 "I wish to Heaven it were!" said Philip 
 quietly. "Whether or not it was Theodomir's 
 wish that his daughter be reared, in the eyes of 
 the world, as the daughter of Norman Westfall, 
 to protect her from any consequences incident to 
 his possible discovery and enforced return to 
 Houdania, it is impossible to say. Hating roy 
 alty as he did, he may have sought thus to shield 
 his daughter from its taint. Why he weakened 
 and consigned the secret to paper how or when 
 he hid it in an ancient candlestick in the home of 
 Norman Westfall, remains shrouded in utter
 
 The Tale of a Candlestick 359 
 
 mystery. It is but one of the many points that 
 need light." 
 
 Again the Baron cleared his throat. 
 
 " And," said he, " since unwisely, Miss West- 
 fall, for eugenic reasons, we grant a certain free 
 dom of marital choice to our princes since 
 wisely or not as you will, the Salic Law does not, 
 by an ancient precedent, obtain with us, and a 
 woman may come in the line of succession, the 
 danger to Ronador's little son, is, I think, appa 
 rent." 
 
 " Surely, surely! " exclaimed Diane hopelessly, 
 " there is some mistake. There is so much that is 
 utterly without light or coherence. So much 
 
 For the first time Ronador spoke. 
 
 "What," said he sullenly to Philip, "would 
 you have us do?" 
 
 " I would have you eliminate the secrecy, the 
 infernal intrigue, the scheming to smother a fire 
 that burned wilder for your efforts," said Philip 
 civilly. "I would have you face this thing 
 squarely and investigate it link by link. I would 
 have you abandon the damnable man-hunt that 
 has sent one man to his death in a Florida swamp 
 and goaded another to a reckless frenzy in which 
 all things were possible. Themar is dead. That 
 Cranberry is alive is attributable solely to the 
 fact that he was cleverer and keener than any of 
 those who hounded him. But he has paid heavily
 
 360 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 for the secret he tried in a drunken moment to 
 sell to Houdania." 
 
 " I do not understand Carl's part in it," said 
 Diane. " Nor can I see 
 
 But whatever it was that Diane could not see 
 was not destined for immediate revealment. At 
 the mention of Carl's name by her niece, Aunt 
 Agatha came unexpectedly into the limelight 
 with a gurgle and fainted dead away. Her white 
 affrighted face had been turned upon Ronador 
 in fearful fascination since Diane had struck his 
 arm. Whether or not she had comprehended 
 any of the talk that followed is a matter of doubt. 
 
 \ v lien at last, after an interval of flurry and 
 excitement in the camp, Aunt Agatha gasped, 
 sat up again and stared wildly at the sympa 
 thetic line of faces about her, Ronador was gone. 
 When or where he had gone, no one knew. Only 
 Diane caught the whir of his motor on the road 
 to the north. 
 
 " It is better so," said Tregar compassionately. 
 ' Though his love began in treachery, Miss West- 
 fall, and drove him through the mire, it was, I 
 think, genuine. A man may not see his hopes take 
 wing with comfort. And Ronador's life has not 
 been of the happiest." 
 
 " Excellency," said Philip who had been wan 
 dering restlessly about among the trees, " I know 
 that you are but an indifferent gypsy and
 
 The Tale of a Candlestick 361 
 
 strongly averse to baked potatoes, but such as it 
 is, let me extend to you the hospitality of my 
 camp. Doubtless Miss Westfall will dispatch 
 Johnny for your motorcycle." 
 
 The Baron accepted. 
 
 " There is one thing more, Miss Westfall," he 
 added as they were leaving. " Frankness is such 
 a refreshing experience for me, that I must drink 
 of the fount again. Days back, a headstrong 
 young secretary of mine of considerable nerve 
 and independence and er intermittent disre 
 spect for his chief having come to grief 
 through a knife of Themar's intended for another 
 refused, with a habit of infernal politeness he 
 has which I find most maddening, refused, 
 mademoiselle, to execute a certain little commis 
 sion of mine because he quixotically fancied it 
 savored of spying! " 
 
 " Tregar ! " said Philip with an indignant flush. 
 And added with an uncomfortable conviction of 
 disrespect, " Er Excellency ! " 
 
 "I said intermittent disrespect," reminded 
 Tregar. " Moreover," he continued, stroking his 
 beard and selecting his words with the precision 
 of the careful linguist that he was, " this secretary 
 of mine, after an interview of most disconcerting 
 candor, took to the road and a hay-cart in a 
 dudgeon, constituting himself, in a characteristic 
 outburst of suspicion, quixotism, chivalry and
 
 362 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 protection, a sentinel to whom lack of sleep, the 
 discomforts of a hay-camp and er spying 
 black-and-tans were nothing. I have reason for 
 suspecting that he may have been misrepresented 
 and misjudged 
 
 "Excellency," said Philip shortly, "my camp 
 lies yonder. And Mrs. Westfall will doubtless 
 rejoice when her niece's camp is quiet." 
 
 Diane met the Baron's glance with a bright 
 flush. 
 
 " Excellency," she said, " I thank you." 
 
 The two men disappeared among the trees.
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 THE GYPSY BLOOD 
 
 IT WAS a curious puzzle which, through the 
 quiet of the afternoon that followed, Diane 
 sought desperately to assemble from the chaos of 
 highly-colored segments which the morning 
 had supplied. There were intervals when she re 
 jected the result, with its maddening gaps and 
 imperfections, with a laugh of utter derision it 
 was so preposterous! There were quieter inter 
 vals when she pieced the impossible segments all 
 together again and stared aghast at the result. 
 No matter how incredulous her attitude, however, 
 when the scattered angles slipped into unity, riv 
 eted together by a painful concentration, the 
 result, with its consequent light upon the wooing 
 of Ronador, though more and more startling, was 
 in the main convincing. 
 
 Days back in Arcadia Diane remembered the 
 Baron had suavely spoken of his kingdom, and 
 Philip had told her much. There was a mad king 
 without issue upon the throne. There were two 
 brothers of the mad king, each of whom had a son. 
 Theodomir, then, had been the son of the elder, 
 Ronador of the younger. Theodomir had fled at 
 the death of his father, unwilling to take up the 
 
 363
 
 864 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 regency under a mad king. So Ronador's father 
 had come to the regency of the kingdom and 
 Ronador himself and his little son had stood in 
 the direct line of succession until the ghost arose 
 from the candlestick and mocked them all. And 
 she Diane was the child of Theodomir. 
 
 Diane was still dazedly sorting the pieces of 
 the puzzle when the sun set in a red glory beyond 
 the lake, matching the flame of Philip's fire by 
 which he and the Baron sat in earnest discussion. 
 
 The west was faintly yellow, the forest dark, 
 when from the tent to which she had retired at 
 noon, quite distraught and incoherent, Aunt 
 Agatha begged plaintively for a cup of tea. 
 
 " Diane," she said, when the girl herself ap 
 peared with it, "I I can't forget his face. I - 
 I never shall. Twice now I've tried to get up, 
 but I thought of his eyes and the revolver, and 
 my knees folded up. It it was just so this 
 morning. What with the ringing in my ears- 
 and the dizziness and his face so dark with 
 anger and digging my heels in the ground to 
 keep my knees from folding up under me I 
 I thought I should go quite mad, quite mad, my 
 dear. He he meant to kill Mr. Poynter?" 
 
 "Yes," said Diane with a shudder. "Yes. 
 I think so." 
 
 " I'm, sorry I told him where you were," flut 
 tered Aunt Agatha, taking a conscience-stricken
 
 The Gypsy Blood 365 
 
 and somewhat tearful gulp of very hot tea. " I 
 I am indeed, but I couldn't in the least know 
 that he went about killing people, could I, 
 Diane?" 
 
 " No," said Diane patiently. " No, of course 
 not. Don't bother about it, Aunt Agatha. Why 
 not wait until your tea is a little cooler?" 
 
 "I'll have to," said Aunt Agatha with an ag 
 grieved sniff. " For I do believe I'm filled with 
 steam now. Why are you so white and quiet, 
 Diane? Is it the revolver? " 
 
 "Aunt Agatha," exclaimed the girl impetu 
 ously, "why have you always been so reticent 
 about my mother?" 
 
 The effect of the girl's words was sufficient 
 proof that the frightened lady had absorbed but 
 little of Philip's revelation. Tired and nervous, 
 hazily aware that the scene of the morning had 
 been portentous, and now confounding it in a 
 panic with something that by a deathbed pledge 
 had lain inexorably buried in her heart for years, 
 Aunt Agatha screamed and dropped her teacup. 
 It rolled away in a trail of steam to the flap of 
 the tent. Covering her face with her hands, 
 Aunt Agatha burst hysterically into a shower of 
 tears. 
 
 Diane started. 
 
 "Aunt Agatha," she exclaimed, "what is it? 
 For heaven's sake, don't sob and tremble so."
 
 366 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "I I might have known it!" sobbed Aunt 
 Agatha, wringing her plump hands in genuine 
 distress. " I might have guessed they would tell 
 you that, though how in the world they found it 
 out is beyond me. If I'd only listened instead of 
 worrying about my knees and the revolver, and 
 staring so. And you in the Everglades where 
 your father went to hunt alligators. Oh, Diane, 
 Diane, not a single night could I sleep and it's 
 not to be wondered at that I was scared. And the 
 dance you did for Nathalie Fowler and me and 
 the costume that night at Sherrill's. I was fairly 
 sick! I knew it would come out though how 
 could I foresee that the Baron and Mr. Poynter 
 and the Prince would know? I I told your 
 grandfather so years ago, but he pledged me on 
 his deathbed and your father was wild and 
 clever like Carl and singular in his notions. I'll 
 never forget your grandfather's face when you 
 ran away into the forest to sleep as a child. He 
 was white and sick and muttered something 
 about atavism. It it was the Indian blood " 
 
 Diane caught her aunt's trembling arm in a 
 grip that hurt cruelly. 
 
 " Aunt Agatha," she said, catching her breath 
 sharply, "you must not talk so wildly. Say it 
 plainer!" 
 
 But Aunt Agatha tranquil was incoherent.
 
 The Gypsy Blood 367 
 
 Aunt Agatha frightened and hysterical was ut 
 terly beyond control. 
 
 " And very beautiful too," she sobbed. " And 
 Norman, poor fellow, was quite mad about her 
 
 for all she was an Indian girl though her 
 father was white and a Spaniard, I will say that 
 for her. Not even so dark as you are, Diane, and 
 shy and lovely enough to turn any man's head 
 much less your father's though your grand 
 father stormed and threatened to kill them both 
 and only for Grant he would have. And when 
 an Indian from the Everglades told Norman that 
 
 that she really hadn't been married before but 
 just a mother like Carl's mother, my dear " 
 
 But Diane was gone, stumbling headlong from 
 the tent. Aunt Agatha was to remember her 
 white agonized face for many a day,
 
 CHAPTER XL VI 
 
 IN THE FOREST 
 
 WITH the darkening of the night a wind 
 sprang up over the bleak, black expanse 
 of lake and swept with a sigh through the forest 
 on the shore. It was a wind from the east which 
 drove a film of cloud across the stars and bore a 
 hint of rain in its freshness. The rain itself pat 
 tering presently through the forest fell upon the 
 huddled figure of a girl who lay face downward 
 upon the ground among the trees. 
 
 She lay inert, her head pillowed upon her arm, 
 face to face with the unspeakable shadow that had 
 haunted Carl. Not married, Aunt Agatha had 
 said, but just a mother! Now the pitiful frag 
 ments of a hallowed shrine lay mockingly at her 
 feet. How scornfully she had flashed at Carl ! 
 
 Diane quivered and lay very still, torn by the 
 bitter irony of it. 
 
 And the Indian mother! Carl had known and 
 Ronador. She had caught a startled look in the 
 eyes of each at the Sherrill fete. Every wild in 
 stinct, if she had but heeded the warning, had 
 pointed the way; the childhood escapade in the 
 forest, the tomboy pranks of riding and running 
 and swimming that had horrified Aunt Agatha to 
 
 368
 
 In the Forest 369 
 
 the point of tears, and later the persistent call of 
 the open country. 
 
 What wonder if the soft, musical tongue of the 
 Seminole had come lightly to her lips? What 
 wonder if Indian instincts had driven her forth 
 to the wild? What wonder if the nameless stir 
 of atavism beneath a Seminole wigwam had 
 frightened her into flight. Indian instincts, In 
 dian grace, Indian stoicism and courage, Indian 
 keenness and hearing all of these had come to 
 her from the Indian mother with the blood of 
 white men in her veins. 
 
 But the stain of illegitimacy 
 
 That brought the girl's proud head down again 
 with a strangled sob of grief. Shaking pitifully, 
 she fell forward unconscious upon the ground. 
 
 Some one was calling. There was rain and a 
 lantern. 
 
 Diane stirred. 
 
 " Diane! Diane! " called the voice of Philip. 
 
 At the memory of Philip and Arcadia, Diane 
 choked and lay very still. 
 
 "Diane!" The lantern shone now in her face 
 and Philip was kneeling beside her, his face whiter 
 than her own. 
 
 " Great God ! " said Philip and stared into her 
 haunted eyes with infinite compassion. 
 
 But Philip, as he frequently said, was pre 
 eminently a " practician," wherefore he gently
 
 870 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 covered the girl with his coat, busied himself with 
 the lantern and, for various reasons, sought to 
 create a general atmosphere of commonplace 
 reality. 
 
 "Your aunt sent me," he said at length. 
 " She's awfully upset." 
 
 "She told you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Of of the Indian mother?" 
 
 " I knew," said Philip. "Carl told me. I with 
 held it this morning purposely. Why fuss about 
 it, Diane? Lord Almighty!" added this exceed 
 ingly practical and democratic young man, " I 
 shouldn't worry myself if my grandfather was a 
 salamander! . . . And, besides, your true 
 Indian is an awfully good sport. He's proud 
 and fearless and inherently truthful " 
 
 " I know," said Diane. " It isn't that I mind 
 so much. It it's the other." 
 
 "Of course!" said Philip gently, "but, some 
 how, I can't believe it's true, Diane. There's 
 logic against it. Why, Great Scott! " he added 
 cheerfully, for all there was a lump in his throat 
 at the wistful tragedy in the girl's eyes, " there's 
 Theodomir's own statement in the candlestick 
 have you forgotten?" 
 
 " It spoke of of marriage?" 
 
 "It said that Theodomir had gone into the 
 Glades hunting and had come upon the Indian vil-
 
 In the Forest 371 
 
 lage. There he met and married your mother and 
 later divorced her." 
 
 :< If I could only be sure!" faltered Diane. 
 
 ' You can," said Philip, " for I am going back 
 to the Glades to-morrow to hunt this thing to 
 earth. The old chief will know." 
 
 "But the trail, Philip?" 
 
 ' There are ways of finding it," said Philip re 
 assuringly. 
 
 He was so cool and matter-of-fact, so entirely 
 cheerful and resourceful, that Diane found his 
 comfortable air of confidence contagious. Only 
 for a time, however. A little later she glanced 
 mutely into his face, met his eyes, flushed scarlet 
 and fell to shaking again. 
 
 "Philip!" she whispered. 
 
 'Yes?" There was a wonderful gentleness in 
 Philip's voice. 
 
 "I I can't go back to camp yet, for all it's 
 raining." 
 
 "Well," said Philip comfortably, "rain be 
 hanged. We'll wait a bit." 
 
 Diane gave a sigh of relief and lay very quiet. 
 
 Philip wisely said nothing. He shifted the 
 lantern so his own face might be in the shadow 
 and for some reason of his own, fell to speaking 
 of Carl. He told of Mic-co, of the quiet hours 
 of healing by the pool, of another night of storm
 
 872 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 and stress when Carl had gone forth into the 
 wilds with the Indian girl. 
 
 For the first time now he felt that he had 
 pierced the girl's shell of tragic introspection and 
 caught her interest. Though the rain came faster 
 and the lantern flickered, Philip went on with his 
 quiet story. 
 
 He spoke of the forces that had fired Carl to 
 drunken resentment, the defection of his com 
 rades, his conviction of injustice in the appor 
 tionment of the Westfall estate, the climax of his 
 sensitive rebellion against Diane's attitude to 
 ward his mother, the morose and morbid loneli 
 ness which had driven him relentlessly to ruin. 
 
 " What did he hope to gain by writing to Hou- 
 dania ? " asked the girl a little bitterly. 
 
 "Money!" said Philip firmly. "He fan 
 cied he could frighten them and put a heavy price 
 upon his silence. Later when his letter to Hou- 
 dania was ignored he altered his plans. If he 
 could prove that you were the daughter of Theo- 
 domir and not of Norman Westfall then the 
 great estate of his uncle would revert to him. Be 
 fore he could act further, things began to hap 
 pen. And then," added Philip thoughtfully, 
 " comes another dark patch in the mystery. Carl's 
 story must have crossed wires with something 
 else something that frightened them and made 
 his death imperative. The hysterical desperation
 
 In the Forest 373 
 
 of these men was out of all proportion to the 
 cause. Baron Tregar, baffling as he is at times, is 
 not the man to lend himself to deliberate assas 
 sination merely to keep the succession of Rona- 
 dor's son free from incumbrances. Later still, 
 Carl planned to sell the secret to the rival prov 
 ince of Galituria, but the net closed in so rapidly 
 and he fell to drinking so heavily, that brain and 
 body revolted and the first shadow of insanity 
 whispered another way - 
 
 "To murder me!" flashed the girl. For the 
 first time there was warmth and color in her face. 
 
 Philip was glad. He had struck fire from her 
 stony calm at last. 
 
 ' Yes," he said, and catching her chilled 
 hands, compelled the glance of her wistful eyes. 
 "Diane," he said deliberately, "let us withhold 
 our censure. Carl has a curious and tragic 
 psychology and he has paid in full. Thanks to a 
 habit of wonderful alertness and ingenuity, he 
 has made his enemies respect and fear him. But 
 the tangle aroused the blackest instincts of his 
 soul." 
 
 But the girl was very bitter. The old im 
 patience and intolerance flashed suddenly in her 
 face. 
 
 Philip fell silent for an instant. Then he shot 
 his final barb with deliberate intention not so 
 much to reproach though there was utter hon-
 
 874 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 esty and loyalty to Carl in what he said but 
 more to touch the girl's tragedy with something 
 sharp enough to pierce her morbidness. 
 
 " Carl blames no one but himself," he said 
 gently. "But but if you had been a little 
 kinder, Diane 
 
 "Philip!" He had hurt and knew it. 
 
 "Yes, I know!" said Philip quickly, "but 
 you're not going to misunderstand, I'm sure. Let 
 me say it with all gentleness and without reproach. 
 If you could have forgotten his mother's history 
 and made him feel that he was not quite alone 
 that there was some one to whom his careless 
 whims made a difference! But you were a little 
 scornful and indifferent. I wonder if you'll be 
 lieve that he can tell you each separate moment 
 in his life when you were kind to him." 
 
 "I too was alone and lonely!" defended the 
 girl. " And the call of the forest had made me 
 most unhappy." 
 
 ' Yes. But Carl was not mocking any sensitive 
 spot in your life " 
 
 " No I was cruel cruel ! " 
 
 "I remember in college," said Philip, "he 
 talked so much of his beautiful cousin, and the 
 rest of us were wild to see her. We used to rag 
 him a lot, but you held aloof and we told him we 
 didn't believe he had a cousin. We discovered 
 after a while that he was sensitive because you
 
 In the Forest 375 
 
 didn't come when he asked you, and we quit rag 
 ging him about it. You didn't even come when 
 he took his degree." 
 
 "No. I Oh, Philip! I am sorry." 
 
 ' Your aunt," went on Philip, "was not men 
 tally adapted to inspire his respect. He merely] 
 laughed and petted her into tearful subjection. 
 You were the only one, Diane, who was his equal 
 in body and brain, and you failed him at a period 
 when your influence would have been tremendous. 
 I can't forget," added Philip soberly, " that much 
 of this I knew in college and carelessly enough I 
 ignored it all later. I let him drift when I might 
 have done much to help him." 
 
 Philip's instinct was right and kindly. 
 
 He had provided a counter wound to dwarf, 
 at saving intervals, the sting of Aunt Agatha's 
 frightened revelation. Thereafter, the memory 
 of Philip's loyal rebuke was to trouble her sorely, 
 temper a little the old intolerance and arouse her 
 keen remorse. The consciousness that Philip dis 
 approved was quite enough. 
 
 With a sudden gesture of solicitude, Diane 
 touched the sleeve of his shirt. It was very wet. 
 
 " Philip ! " she exclaimed, springing to her feet. 
 " We must go back." 
 
 "Lord," said Philip lazily, "that's nothing at 
 all. I'm a hydro-aviator." 
 
 She glanced wistfully up into his face.
 
 876 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "You're right about Carl," she said. "I'm 
 very sorry." 
 
 Philip felt suddenly that it behooved him to re 
 member a certain resolution. 
 
 Later, as he hurried through the rainy wood to 
 his own camp, where the Baron sat huddled in the 
 Indian wagon in a state of deep disgust about the 
 rain, he halted where the trees were thick and 
 lighted his pipe. 
 
 ' There's the Baron's aeroplane at St. Augus 
 tine," he said. "We can go there in the morn 
 ing. And the old chief will know. His memory's 
 good for half a century." Philip flung away his 
 match. " But I can't for the life of me see which 
 is the lesser of the two evils. If her mother 
 .wasn't married, it was bad enough, of course. 
 But with Theodomir a crown prince it's worse 
 if she was I" 
 
 And a little later with a sigh 
 
 "A princess! God bless my soul, with my 
 spread-eagle tastes I shouldn't know in the least 
 what to do with her! " 
 
 Huddled in the Indiaa wagon, the Baron and 
 his secretary talked until daybreak.
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 " THE MARSHES OF GLYNN " 
 
 FOR the rides over the sun-hot plains, the pol 
 ing of cypress canoes, the days of hunting 
 and the tanning of hides, there was now a third 
 of fearless strength and endurance. Keela had 
 come with the Mulberry Moon to the home of her 
 foster father, a presence of delicate gravity and 
 shyness which pervaded the lodge like the breath 
 of some vivid wild flower. 
 
 " Red- winged Blackbird," said Carl, one morn 
 ing, laying aside the flute which had been shower 
 ing tranquil melody through the quiet beneath 
 the moss-hung oaks, "why are you so quiet?" 
 
 " I am ever quiet," said Red- winged Blackbird 
 with dignity. " Mic-co says it is better so." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Mic-co only understands, and even to him I 
 may not always talk." She went sedately on 
 with the modeling of clay, her slender hands 
 swift, graceful, unfaltering. Mic-co's lodge 
 abounded in evidences of their deftness. 
 
 ' You have more grace," said Carl suddenly, 
 " than any woman I have ever known." 
 
 "Diane!" said Keela with charming and im 
 partial acquiescence. 
 
 377
 
 878 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Yes, Diane has it, too," assented Carl, and 
 fell thoughtful, watching Mic-co's snowy herons 
 flap tamely about the lodge. 
 
 "Play!" said Keela shyly. 
 
 Carl drew the flute from his pocket again and 
 obeyed. 
 
 "Like a brook of silver!" said the Indian girl 
 with an abashed revealment of the wild sylvan 
 poetry with which her thoughts were rife. 
 
 " The one friend," said Carl, " to whom I have 
 told all things. The one friend, Red-winged 
 Blackbird, who always understood!" 
 
 "I," said Keela with majesty, "I too am your 
 friend and I understand." 
 
 Carl reddened a little. 
 
 "What do you understand, little Indian 
 lady?" he asked quietly. 
 
 He was totally unprepared for the keenness 
 of her unsmiling analysis. 
 
 " That you have been very tired in the head," 
 she nodded, her delicate, vivid face quite grave. 
 " So tired that you might not see as you should, 
 so tired that the medicine of white men could not 
 reach it, but only the words of Mic-co, who 
 knows all things. So tired that a moon was not 
 a moon of lovely brightness. It was a thing of 
 evil fire to scorch. Uncah? Mic-co would say 
 warped vision. I must talk in simpler ways for 
 all I study."
 
 1 The Marshes of Glynn" 379 
 
 They fell quiet. 
 
 " Read me again that live oak poem of Lan 
 ier's," said Carl. "After a while Mic-co will be 
 back to spirit you away to his Room of Books." 
 
 She read, as she frequently read to Carl and 
 Mic-co in the long quiet afternoons, with an ac 
 cent musical and soft, of the immortal marshes 
 of Glynn. 
 
 " Glooms of the live oaks, beautiful-braided and woven 
 With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven 
 Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, 
 
 What vivid memories it awoke of the morning 
 the swamp had revealed to him the island home 
 of Mic-co! 
 
 " Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul 
 
 of the oak, 
 And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome 
 
 sound of the stroke 
 
 Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, 
 And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know, 
 And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass 
 
 within, 
 That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the 
 
 marshes of Glynn 
 Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought 
 
 me of yore
 
 880 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but 
 
 bitterness sore, 
 And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnameable 
 
 pain 
 Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain." 
 
 Lanier, dying of heartbreak ! How well he had 
 understood! 
 
 " Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea ? 
 Somehow my soul seems suddenly free 
 From the weighing of Fate and the sad discussion of 
 
 sin, 
 By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the 
 
 marshes of Glynn." 
 
 And Keela too had guessed. 
 
 " In the rose-and-silver evening glow, 
 Farewell " 
 
 Keela broke off and laid aside the book. 
 
 " I may not read more,'* she said, bending to 
 the pottery with wild color in her face. "I I 
 am very tired, Carl. You go in the morning ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 ' You are strong and sure?" 
 
 'Yes. Quite. I've promised Mic-co not to 
 lose my grip again." 
 
 " And sometime you will come here again ? "
 
 4 The Marshes of GlymT 381 
 
 "Often!" 
 
 A little later she went quietly away to the 
 Room of Books with Mic-co. 
 
 When the evening star flashed silver in the 
 lilied pool, Carl sat alone. Mic-co had been sum 
 moned away by an Indian servant. A soft light 
 gleamed in the corner of the court in a shower of 
 vines. Its light was a little like the soft rays of 
 the Venetian lamp that had shone in the Sherrill 
 garden, but Carl ruthlessly put the memory aside. 
 It had grown once into a devouring flame of evil 
 portent. It must not do so again. 
 
 His thoughts were so far away that a soft foot 
 fall behind him and the rustle of satin seemed part 
 of that other night until turning restlessly, he 
 caught the sheen of satin, brightly gold in the 
 lantern-glow. The dark, vivid skin, the hair and 
 eyes that were somehow more Spanish than 
 Indian the golden mask Carl's face went 
 wildly scarlet. 
 
 "Keela!" he cried, springing toward her, 
 "Keela!" 
 
 There was much of his old intolerance, much 
 of his impudent immunity to the world's opinion 
 in the curious flash of adjustment which leveled 
 barriers of caste and convention and bridged, for 
 him, in the fashion of a willful uncle, the gulf 
 of race and breeding. 
 
 The golden mask dropped.
 
 882 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " Is it not a pretty farewell ? " she faltered, with 
 a wistful glance at the shimmering gown. 
 " Diane gave it all. As you saw me first, so 
 now!" 
 
 Some lines of Lanier's poem of the morning 
 were ringing wildly in Carl's ears. 
 
 " The blades of the marsh grass stir; 
 Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whir; 
 Passeth, and all is still ; and the currents cease to run ; 
 
 And the sea and the marsh are one." 
 
 " Why do you look at me so? " asked Keela. 
 
 "I have been a fool," said Carl steadily, "a 
 very great fool and blind." 
 
 Keela's lovely, sensitive mouth quivered. 
 
 "Is it " she raised glistening, glorified eyes 
 to his troubled face, " is it," she whispered naively, 
 " that you care like the lovers in Mic-co's books? " 
 
 "Yes. And you, Keela?" 
 
 "I I have always cared," she said shyly, 
 " since that night at Sherrill's. I I feared you 
 knew." 
 
 Trembling violently the girl dropped to her 
 knees with a soft crash of satin and buried her 
 face in her hands. She was crying wildly. 
 
 Carl gently raised her to her feet again and 
 squarely met her eyes. 
 
 "Red-winged Blackbird," he said quietly,
 
 "The Marshes of Glynn' 383 
 
 "there is much that I must tell you before I 
 may honorably face this love of yours and 
 mine " 
 
 Keela's black eyes blazed in sudden loyalty. 
 
 " There is nothing I do not know," she flung 
 back proudly. " Philip told me. And for every 
 wild error you made, he gave a reason. He loves 
 and trusts you utterly. May I not do that too? " 
 
 "He told you!" 
 
 " Some that night in the storm when he and I 
 were saddling the horses to ride to Mic-co's. 
 Some later. He pledged me to kindness and 
 understanding." 
 
 For every break in the thread there had always 
 been Philip's strong and kindly hand to mend it. 
 A little shaken by the memory of the night in 
 Philip's wigwam, Carl walked restlessly about 
 the court. 
 
 " But there is more," he said, coloring. ; * There 
 was passion and dishonor in my heart, Keela, 
 until, one night, I fought and won " 
 
 " Is it not enough for me that you won ? " asked 
 Keela gently and broke off, wild color staining 
 her cheeks and forehead. 
 
 Mic-co stood in the doorway. 
 
 " Mic-co," she said bravely, "I I would have 
 you tell him that he is strong and brave and clean 
 enough to love. He he does not know it." 
 
 She fled with a sob.
 
 884 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " Have you forgotten? " asked Mic-co slowly. 
 
 "I care nothing for race!" cried Carl with a 
 flash of his fine eyes. " Must I pattern my life 
 by the set tenets of race bigotry. I have known 
 too many women with white faces and scarlet 
 souls." 
 
 " If I know you at all," said Mic-co with a quiet 
 smile, "there will be no pattern, save of your 
 own making." 
 
 " I come of a family who rebel at patterns," 
 said Carl. " My mother my uncle my cousin. 
 Let me tell you all," and he told of the night in 
 the Sherrill garden; of the brutal desire that had 
 later come with the brooding and the wild dis 
 orders of his brain, to drive him deeper and deeper 
 into the black abyss until he fought and won by 
 the camp fire ; of his consequent panic-stricken re 
 bound of horror and remorse when he had put it 
 all aside, fighting the call with reason, seeking 
 desperately to crush it out of his life, until the 
 sight of Keela in the satin gown had sent him 
 back with a shock to that finer, cleaner, quieter 
 call that had come in the Sherrill garden. Then 
 the disordered interval between had fled to the 
 limbo of forgotten things. 
 
 Mic-co heard his story to the end without com 
 ment. He was silent so long that Carl grew 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 " Since Keela was a little, wistful, black-eyed
 
 ' The Marshes of Glynn" 385 
 
 child," said Mic-co at last, "I have been her 
 teacher. We have worked very hard together. 
 Peace came to me through her." He broke off 
 frowning and spoke of the alarming mine of in 
 herited instincts from the white father which his 
 teaching had awakened. Keela had been restless 
 and unhappy, fastidiously aloof with the 
 Seminoles, shy and reticent with white men. He 
 must not make another mistake, he said, for Keela 
 was very dear to him. 
 
 "The white father?" asked Carl curiously. 
 
 "An artist." 
 
 " She has a marvelous gift in modeling," said 
 Carl. " I know a famous young sculptor whose 
 work is nothing like so virile. Might not some 
 thing utterly new and barbaric come of it with 
 proper direction ? If she could interpret this wild 
 life of the Glades from an Indian viewpoint 
 
 " I have frequently thought of it," agreed 
 Mic-co. ' You would help her, Carl ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " It would give a definite and unselfish direc 
 tion to your own life, would it not, like those 
 weeks at the farm with Wherry?" 
 
 ' Yes. You trust me, Mic-co ? " 
 
 "Utterly." 
 
 Carl held out his hand. 
 
 "One by one," said Mic-co, "fate is slipping
 
 386 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 into the groove of your life people who are des 
 tined to care greatly 
 
 "You mean" 
 
 " It shall be Keela's to decide." 
 
 "Mic-co, I- cannot thank you. You and 
 Philip - 
 
 But he could not go on. 
 
 A little later he went to bed and lay restless 
 until morning. He was up again at sunrise, 
 tramping over the island paths with Mic-co. 
 
 The quiet of the early morning was rife with 
 the chirp of countless birds, with the crackle of 
 the camp fire where the turbaned Indians in 
 Mic-co's service were preparing the morning 
 meal. There was young corn on the fertile island 
 to the east. Over the chain of islands lay the 
 promise of early summer. 
 
 There was a curious drone overhead as they 
 neared the lake. 
 
 "Look! "exclaimed Carl. "A singular sight, 
 Mic-co, for these island wilds of yours." 
 
 An aeroplane was whirring noisily above the 
 quiet lake, startling the bluebills floating about 
 on the surface. 
 
 "A singular sight!" nodded Mic-co, "and a 
 prophetic one. Symbolic of the spirit of prog 
 ress which hangs now above the Glades, is it not ? 
 The world is destined to reap much one day from
 
 'The Marshes of Glynn" 387 
 
 the exuberant fertility of this marshland of the 
 South." 
 
 The aeroplane glided gracefully to the bosom 
 of the lake, alighted like a great bird and came to 
 shore with its own power. 
 
 The aviator swept off his cap and smiled. 
 
 It was Philip.
 
 CHAPTER XL VIII 
 
 ON THE LAKE SHOBE 
 
 WITH the departure of Philip and the 
 Baron for St. Augustine, a fever of en 
 ergy had settled over Diane. Riding, rowing, 
 swimming, tramping miles of Florida road, tak 
 ing upon herself much of Johnny's camp labor, 
 she ruthlessly tired herself out by day that she 
 might soundly sleep by night. Youth and health 
 and Spartan courage were a wholesome trio. 
 
 Aunt Agatha watched, sniffed and frequently 
 groaned. 
 
 How much the kindly ruse of Philip had 
 helped, Diane herself could not suspect, but her 
 remorseful thoughts were frequently busy with 
 memories of the old childhood days with Carl. 
 He had been an excellent horseman, a sturdy 
 swimmer, an unerring shot, compelling respect 
 in those old, wild vacation days on the Florida 
 plantation. If the cruelty had crept into her 
 manner at an age when she could not know, it had 
 been a reflex of the attitude of the stern old 
 planter whose son and daughter had been so con 
 spicuously erratic. 
 
 Gently enough, too, the girl sought to make 
 Aunt Agatha comprehend the curious facts that 
 
 988
 
 On the Lake Shore 389 
 
 had come to light that morning beneath the trees. 
 Quite in vain. That good lady refused flatly to 
 absorb it, grew ludicrously plaintive and ag 
 grieved and flew off at tearful tangents into 
 complicated segments of family history from 
 which it was possible to extricate only the most 
 ridiculous of facts, chief among them the reit 
 erated assurance that her own father had been, 
 in the bosom of his family, of a delightfully 
 sportive nature, but nothing like the Westf alls 
 dear no ! that he had a genteel figure, my dear, 
 for all he had developed a somewhat corpulent 
 tendency in later years ; that the corn-beef which 
 mother procured was highly superior to those 
 portions of salted quadruped which Johnny ob 
 tained in the village and facts of similar irrele 
 vancy. 
 
 Diane had heard of the corn-beef and father's 
 corpulency before, but she was now somewhat 
 gentler and less impatient and checked the old 
 careless flashes of annoyance. And, having sup 
 plemented the hand bag by a shopping trip to 
 the nearest village, Aunt Agatha, to the girl's 
 dismay, announced one day: 
 
 " It's my duty to stay, Diane, and stay I will. 
 Mother would have stayed, I'm sure, and mother's 
 judgment was usually correct, though she would 
 wear smoked glasses." 
 
 Rowing in one morning with a string of fish,
 
 390 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Diane was a little fluttered at the sight of a tall, 
 broad-shouldered young man upon the shore, who 
 waved his hat and quietly waited for her boat to 
 come in. His dark skin was clear and ruddy and 
 very brown, his mouth resolute, the careless grace 
 and impudence of his old manner replaced by 
 something steadier, quieter and possibly a shade 
 less assured. 
 
 The meeting was by no means easy for either, 
 and with remorseful memories leaping wildly in 
 the heart of each, they smiled and called cheer 
 fully to one another until the girl's boat glided 
 in under the ready assistance of a masculine hand 
 that shook a little. 
 
 " Let me moor it for you ! " said Carl and busied 
 himself with the rope for longer than the care 
 less task would seem to warrant. When at length 
 he straightened up again and briskly brushed the 
 sand from his coat sleeve to cover his emotion, he 
 forced himself to meet his cousin's troubled glance 
 directly. 
 
 Instantly the careless byplay ceased. The des 
 perate imploring in the eyes of each keyed the 
 situation to electric tensity. Curiously enough, 
 both were thinking of Philip. Curiously 
 enough, in this hour of reckoning Philip was an 
 invisible arbiter urging them to generous under 
 standing. 
 
 Diane was the first to speak. And, in the fash-
 
 On the Lake Shore 391 
 
 ion of Diane since childhood, she bravely plunged 
 into the heart of the thing with glistening eyes. 
 
 " Carl," she said, " I am very sorry." 
 
 It was heartfelt apology for the old offense. 
 
 Carl's face went wildly scarlet. The girl's 
 gentleness, prepared as he was for the inevitable 
 flash of fire, had caught him unawares. Spring 
 ing forward, he caught her hands roughly in his 
 own. 
 
 " Don't! " he said roughly. " For God's sake, 
 Diane, don't! It's awfully decent of you but 
 but I can't stand it! Have you forgotten " 
 he choked. " Surely," he said, " Philip told you 
 all. He promised " 
 
 ' Yes," said Diane, " and and that's why " 
 She was very close to tears now, but with the old 
 imperiousness, with the Spartan pride of the 
 Westfall training behind her, she flung back her 
 head with a quick dry sob, her eyes imploring. 
 
 "Let's both forget," she said. "Oh, Carl, I 
 was cruel, cruel! I I can not see now what 
 made me so. Philip is right. He is always just 
 and honorable. He blames himself and me. 
 You'll forgive me?" 
 
 ff l forgive!" faltered Carl. 
 
 :< There were forces driving you," said Diane 
 steadily, "but I was deliberate. Let's pledge 
 to a new beginning. Let me be your friend as 
 Philip is."
 
 892 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Their hands tightened in a clasp whose warmth 
 was prophetic. 
 
 Mic-co's words rang again in Carl's ears. 
 
 " Fate is slipping into the groove of your life 
 people who are destined to care greatly 1" 
 
 Diane was another! 
 
 Deeply moved, Carl glanced away over the 
 sunlit water, rippling and sparkling with myriad 
 shafts of light. 
 
 " Let's sit here on the bank a minute," he said. 
 ' There's something I must tell you. It's all 
 right," he added with a smile, interpreting her 
 glance aright, "I made my peace with Aunt 
 Agatha before you came in. She burst into tears 
 at the sight of me and retired to her tent. I 
 can't make put just why, but I think she said 
 it was either because I'm so tanned and a little 
 thinner, or because none of her family were ever 
 addicted to disappearing, or because she has an 
 uncle who's a bishop. I came from Philip." 
 
 "Philip!" 
 
 * Yes. He came to Mic-co's the morning I was 
 leaving. Later we met again at a village on the 
 outskirts of the Glades. He waited for me. 
 There was a telegram there from the Baron. 
 Philip said he knew you'd forgive him if he sent 
 his message on by me his father is very ill." 
 
 "Poor Philip!" exclaimed the girl. In the 
 fullness of her swift compassion she forgot why
 
 On the Lake Shore 393 
 
 Philip had gone back to the Indian village. It 
 flooded back directly and her wistful eyes 
 implored. 
 
 " It was a jealous lie," said Carl gently. l< The 
 old chief knew. The Indian who told it hated 
 your father." 
 
 Diane sat so white and still that Carl touched 
 her diffidently upon the arm. 
 
 "Don't look so!" he pleaded. "There was 
 some difficulty at first, for Philip's Seminole is 
 nearly as fragmentary as the old chief's English, 
 but they called in Sho-caw and after a host of 
 blunders and misunderstandings, Philip ran the 
 thing to earth at last. Theodomir married and 
 divorced your mother in the Indian village just as 
 the paper in the candlestick said." 
 
 Still the girl did not speak or move and Carl 
 saw with compassion that the veins of her throat 
 were throbbing wildly. He fell quietly to talking 
 of Keela, caught her interest and watched with a 
 sense of relief the rich color flood back to his 
 cousin's lips and cheeks. 
 
 It was plain the tale of the golden mask had 
 startled her a little, for she laid her hand im 
 petuously upon his arm, and her eyes searched 
 his face with troubled intentness. 
 
 " It will all be very singular and daring," she 
 faltered after a while. " I had thought of some 
 thing like it myself to help her, I mean. You
 
 394 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 are so different, Carl! I know of no man who 
 might dare so much and win." Then with un 
 conscious tribute to one whose opinion she valued 
 above all others, she added : " Philip trusts you 
 utterly. He has said so. And Philip knows ! " 
 
 Carl glanced furtively at her face and cleared 
 his throat. 
 
 "Diane," he asked gravely, "I wonder how 
 much that incredible tale of the old candlestick 
 pleased you?" 
 
 " I don't know," said Diane honestly. " I wish 
 I did. I've wondered and wondered. No matter 
 how hard I think, it doesn't somehow come right. 
 It's like shattering a cherished crystal into frag 
 ments to think that every tie of blood and country 
 I valued is meaningless that every memory is a 
 mockery that grandfather and you and Aunt 
 Agatha " she paused and sighed. "When I try 
 to realize," she finished, " I feel very lonely and 
 afraid." 
 
 "And Philip?" hinted Carl. 
 
 " I don't think he is pleased." 
 ' You're right," said Carl with decision. " It 
 upset him a lot. But that night by the old chief's 
 camp fire, Philip discovered 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 ' That some imperfection in the stilted word 
 ing of the hidden paper had led us all astray. 
 Philip said he could not be sure there was so
 
 On the Lake Shore 395 
 
 much fuss and trouble and misunderstanding 
 but the old chief had nursed Theodomir through 
 some dreadful illness and knew it all. They were 
 staunch friends. Norman Westf all came into the 
 Glades hunting with a friend. He persuaded 
 your mother to go away with him, but they went 
 alone! " 
 
 'You mean " 
 
 " That they did not take a child away from the 
 Indian village as the paper in the candlestick 
 declares " 
 
 "And the daughter of Theodomir?" 
 
 " Is Keela. They left her by the old chief's 
 wigwam." 
 
 Diane stared.
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 MR. DOBRIGAN 
 
 CARL, traveling north after a day of earnest 
 discussion in his cousin's camp, thought 
 much of the second candlestick. Since that night 
 in Philip's wigwam, it had haunted him persist 
 ently. Now with Diane's permission to probe its 
 secret if, indeed, it had one like its charred 
 companion he was fretting again, as he had 
 intermittently fretted in the lodge of Mic-co, at 
 the train of circumstances that had interposed 
 delay. 
 
 Train and taxi were perniciously slow. Carl 
 found his patience taxed to the utmost. 
 
 The grandfather's clock was booming eight 
 when at length, after a gauntlet of garrulous 
 servants, he pushed back the great, iron-bound 
 doors of the old Spanish room in his cousin's 
 house and entered. The war-beaten slab of 
 table-wood, the old lanterns, the Spanish gran 
 dee above the mantel, the mended candlestick 
 and its unmarred mate, all brought memories of 
 another night when Starrett's glass had struck 
 the marble fireplace. Vividly, too, he recalled 
 how the firelight had stained the square-paneled 
 ceiling of oak overhead, and how Diane had stood 
 
 396
 
 Mr. Dorrigan 397 
 
 in the doorway. The room was the same. It was 
 a little hard, however, to reconcile the sullen, re 
 sentful, impudent young scapegrace of that other 
 night with the man of to-night. 
 
 He put out his hand to touch the second can 
 dlestick the telephone bell rang. 
 
 Carl frowned impatiently and answered it. 
 
 "Hello," said he. "Yes, this is Carl Gran- 
 berry speaking . . . Who? . . . Oh! 
 Hello, Hunch, is that you? " 
 
 It plainly was. Moreover, Mr. Dorrigan was 
 very nervous and ill at ease. Carl laughed with 
 relish. 
 
 "What's the trouble?" he demanded. "You're 
 stuttering like a kid . . . Shut up and be 
 gin over again. . . . Hello. . . . Yes. 
 . . . Well, I've been out of town since Jan 
 uary. . . . Hum! . . . Well," he hinted 
 dryly, " there was sufficient time for an explana 
 tion before I went. ... I guess you're 
 right. ... I went up to the farm in October 
 with Wherry." 
 
 Mr. Dorrigan desperately admitted that some 
 of the time between the escape of His Nib's and 
 Carl's departure for the farm had been spent in 
 panic-stricken remorse and dread some in the 
 hospital due to an altercation with Link Murphy, 
 who for reasons not immediately apparent 
 wished jealously to obliterate his other eye. He
 
 898 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 begged Carl to give him an immediate oppor 
 tunity of squaring himself, for he had telephoned 
 the house so frequently of late that the butler 
 had grown insulting. Mr. Dorrigan added that 
 he hoped Mr. Cranberry's wholly justified wrath 
 had somewhat abated, but that for purposes of 
 initial communication the telephone had seemed 
 more prudent. 
 
 He was plainly relieved at the answer. 
 
 Carl glanced at the tormenting candlestick and 
 sighed. Another delay 1 
 
 "All right," he said finally to Hunch, "come 
 along. I'll give you twenty minutes. If you're 
 not through then, like as not I'll stir up the 
 grudge again " 
 
 The telephone at the other end clicked in 
 stantly. Conceivably Hunch was already on his 
 way up town. 
 
 Carl impatiently busied himself with some 
 mail upon the table. It had followed him from 
 the farm to Palm Beach and from Palm Beach 
 to New York. There were half a dozen wild let 
 ters of gratitude from Wherry and a letter from 
 the old doctor, Wherry's father, that brought 
 a flush of genuine pleasure to Carl's face. 
 
 "Wherry, too!" said he softly. "Of course. 
 He stuck that other night. I've been too blind 
 to see." Drawing his flute from his pocket, he 
 glanced with a curious smile and glow at a row
 
 Mr. Dorrigan 399 
 
 of notches in the wood. The first notch he had 
 cut in the flute after the rainy night in Philip's 
 wigwam, the second by Mic-co's pool, the third 
 was subtly linked with the marshes of Glynn, 
 arid a fourth had been furtively added in the 
 camp of his cousin. Now with a glance at Wher 
 ry's letters, he was quietly carving a fifth. Who 
 may say what they portended this record of 
 notches carved upon the one friend who had al 
 ways understood ! 
 
 Carl was to carve another, of which he little 
 dreamed, before the summer waned ; and the spur 
 to its making was close at hand. 
 
 The doorbell rang as he finished, and dropping 
 the flute back into his pocket, he rang for some 
 whiskey and cigars for the entertainment of 
 Mr. Dorrigan, who presently appeared, at the 
 heels of a servant, twirling his hat with a non 
 chalant ease much too elaborate and at variance 
 with the look in his good eye to be genuine. 
 
 "Lo!" said Hunch uncomfortablj r . 
 
 " Hello ! " said Carl pleasantly, pushing the de 
 canter across the table. 
 
 Hunch stared at his host, fidgeted, poured him 
 self a generous drink and waited suggestively. 
 
 Carl merely laughed good-humoredly and 
 lighted a cigar. 
 
 " Sorry, Hunch," he regretted, " but I've 
 joined the Lithia League!"
 
 400 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "My Gawd!" burst forth Hunch despair 
 ingly, adding in heartfelt memory of his host's 
 enviable steadiness of head, "My Gawd, Carl, 
 what a waste o* talents ! " 
 
 Carl laughed. 
 
 " Sit down," he invited, " and get it off your 
 mind." 
 
 But Hunch's single eye was wandering in fas 
 cinated appraisal over Carl's dark, pleasant face. 
 Even he, coarse and brutal in perception as he 
 was, was conscious of a difference not wholly 
 attributable to the Lithia League and felt him 
 self impelled to some verbal recognition of his 
 host's conspicuous well-being. 
 
 'Ye're on the level all right," he swore ob 
 scurely. " Ye're white! Ye're lookin' good, ye're 
 lookin' fine By the Lord Harry, Carl, I don't 
 know as I blame yuh!" 
 
 Unable to fathom the nature of the censure 
 thus withheld, Carl remained silent and Hunch 
 fell again to staring, his immovable eye ridic 
 ulously expressive in stony conjunction with the 
 other. Whatever he found in Carl's face this 
 time plainly afforded him intense relief, for he 
 seated himself with a long breath and drew a 
 yellowish, paper from his pocket. 
 
 " I says to meself," he explained, " * Hunch, old 
 sport, ye're in for it. He'll like as not drop yuh 
 out of the window with an electric wire, feed yuh
 
 Mr. Dorrigan 401 
 
 to an electric wolf or make yuh play hell-for-a- 
 minute chess or some other o' them woozy stunts 
 'at pop up in his bean like mushrooms, but yuh 
 gotta square yerself with that paper. Yuh gotta 
 get up yer nerve an' hike up there to the brown- 
 stone with it.' I ask yuh," he finished dramat 
 ically, and evidently laboring under the momen 
 tary conviction that Carl, too, was optically 
 afflicted, " I ask yuh, Carl, to cast yer good lamp 
 over that there paper." 
 
 Carl opened the paper and stared. 
 
 "Hunch," he exclaimed with an involuntary 
 glance at the mended candlestick, "where in the 
 devil did you get this?" 
 
 " I ask yuh to remember," went on Hunch in 
 some excitement, "that I was drunk an' the old 
 she-wol Gr-r-r-r-r ! " Hunch cleared his heavy 
 throat in a panic, with a rasp like the stripping 
 of gears, and corrected himself. " The Old One," 
 he spoke somewhat as if this singular title was a 
 degree, " the Old One put one over on me." 
 
 "My aunt, I imagine," said Carl, "has given 
 me a fairly accurate version of His Nibs' escape. 
 I'll admit a pardonable anxiety to interview you 
 for a while. As a matter of fact there was a 
 night when I was not in the Lithia League 
 that I drove down to look you up. Tell me," he 
 added, " where you found this." 
 
 "It was not, stric'ly speakin', found," said
 
 402 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Hunch with a modest cough. Once more, over 
 whelmed afresh by Carl's appearance, he let his 
 good eye go roving. 
 
 "Tell it," said Carl with what patience he 
 could muster, "in your own way." 
 
 " I ask yuh to remember," urged Hunch with 
 a firm belief in the dignity of this phrase, " that 
 I was still drunk an' batty in me thinker when 
 the old she-wol Gr-r-r-r-r-r the Old One 
 told me to dig out. So I halts on the corner to 
 collect me wits an' by 'm' by I sees a guy wid a 
 darkish face an* lips like Link. He comes along, 
 looks up an' down suspicious, sees the door ain't 
 tight shut an' heel-taps it up the steps. He opens 
 the door an' by'm'by he helps the Old One to 
 a taxi an* makes out to walk off see whiles 
 she's a watchin'. Later, when the taxi turns the 
 corner, back he goes, heel-taps it up the steps 
 ag'in, an' goes in at the door he ain't locked, 
 though he'd made out he had. An' right there," 
 said Hunch impressively, "right there is where 
 yer Uncle Hunch feels a real glimmer in his 
 bean an' goes back. Thin-lips ain't in sight. Yer 
 Uncle Hunch softly heel-taps it upstairs an' 
 finds the darkish guy adoptin* a paper with a 
 fatherly pat, which he slips in his coat pocket. 
 Whereupon whiles he's lockin* the desk drawer 
 ag'in, aforesaid uncle slips downstairs an' out. 
 By'm'by, Thin-lips trots out with an ugly grin
 
 * Mr. Dorrigan 403 
 
 on his mug an' Uncle Hunch, gettin' soberer 
 an' soberer by the minute, trots after him with 
 his good lamp workin' overtime." 
 
 Carl glanced at the paper. 
 
 'Yes?" he encouraged. 
 
 " Well," said Hunch with a sheepish grin that 
 was rendered somewhat sinister by the fixed eye, 
 "I jostled him real rude in a crowd an' picked 
 his pocket. An' there yuh are ! " 
 
 There was some slight rustle of greenish paper 
 in the handshake. 
 
 "I'm mighty grateful," said Carl. "That 
 paper cost me a couple of hours of laborious 
 preparation. It's a duplicate, Hunch, for the 
 purpose of decoy. The original's in safe de 
 posit."
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE OTHER CANDLESTICK 
 
 THE closing of the outer door betokened the 
 departure of Mr. Dorrigan. 
 
 Carl swiftly marked the second candlestick 
 where the shallow receptacle in the other had be 
 gun and applied the thin, fine edge of a crafts 
 man's saw. When at length the candled 
 branches lay upon the table, the light of the lan 
 terns overhead revealed, as he had hoped, a second 
 paper. 
 
 He was to read the faded sheets, with staring, 
 incredulous eyes, and learn that its contents were 
 utterly unrelated to the contents of the other. 
 
 I am impelled by one of the damnable whims which 
 sway me at times to my own undoing, to trust to some 
 chance discovery that which under oath I may never 
 deliberately reveal with my lips. It is the history of 
 certain events which have heavily shadowed my life 
 and brought me up with a tight rein from a life of 
 reckless whim and adventure to one of terrible suffering. 
 I write this with a wild hope that may never be gratified. 
 
 The first foreshadowing of this singular cloud came 
 one night in the Adirondack hunting lodge of Norman 
 Westfall, a young Southerner whose inheritance of a 
 
 404
 
 The Other Candlestick 405 
 
 childless uncle's millions had made him a conspicuous 
 figure months before. He was living there with his sis 
 ter and both, as usual, were at odds with the grim old 
 father down South who resented the wild, unconventional 
 strain that had come into his family through the blood 
 of his wife. 
 
 They were a wild, handsome, reckless pair Ann 
 and Norman Westfall inseparable companions in 
 wild adventure for which another woman would have 
 neither the endurance nor the inclination. 
 
 Ann was a strong, beautiful, impetuous woman with 
 rich coloring; deliciously feminine in her quieter 
 moments, incredibly daring in others ; keen-brained, cul 
 tured, and utterly unconventional; generous, sympa 
 thetic and a splendid musician. Norman worshiped 
 her. She was older than he and without the occasional 
 strain of flippancy which so maddened his father. 
 
 Norman and Ann and I had traversed the whole 
 length of the Mississippi to New Orleans on a raft and 
 had traveled thence to this recently inherited Adiron 
 dack tract of Norman's to rest. 
 
 " Grant," he said one night after Ann had gone to 
 bed, " you've more brains and brawn and breeding than 
 any man I know, and you've splendid health." 
 
 Naturally enough, I flushed. 
 
 Norman narrowed his handsome, impudent eyes and 
 regarded me intently. 
 
 " And you're sufficiently clear-cut and good-looking," 
 he said thoughtfully, " for the purpose. Not so hand-
 
 406 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 some as Ann to be sure, but Ann's an exceptionally beau 
 tiful woman." 
 
 I was utterly at a loss to understand his reference to 
 a purpose and said so. He laughed and shrugged and 
 enlightened me. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said in answer to my stam 
 mered suggestion that marriage was simpler and less 
 fraught with perilous possibilities, " Ann and I are not 
 in the least hoodwinked by marriage. It has enervated 
 the whole race of womankind and led to their complete 
 economic dependence upon a polygamous sex who abuse 
 the trust. Now Ann believes firmly in the holiness of 
 maternity, but she flatly refuses to take upon herself 
 the responsibility of an unwelcome tie. In this, as in 
 everything, I cordially endorse her views. Ann is past 
 the callow age. She has refused a number of men who 
 were conspicuously her inferiors, though Dad has 
 stormed a bit. Now you are the one man whom I con 
 sider her physical and mental equal, the one man to 
 whom I may talk in this manner without fear of bigoted 
 misunderstanding, but while Ann's friendship for you 
 is warm and wholly sincere she doesn't love you. 
 If she did," said my impudent young friend, " she'd 
 likely shrug away her aversion to marital custom and 
 marry you before you were well aware of it. As it is, 
 she declines to sacrifice the maternal inheritance of her 
 sex and she refuses to marry. And there you are ! " 
 
 Looking back now after five years of readjustment 
 and metamorphosis, I marvel at the cool philosophy with
 
 The Other Candlestick 407 
 
 which two adventurous young scapegraces settled the 
 question of a little lad's unconventional birth. 
 
 I pass over now the heartbroken reproaches of Ann's 
 father when my son was born. We told him the truth 
 and he could not understand. He looked through the 
 eyes of the world and it widened the gulf forever. There 
 after Norman and Ann lived in the lodge. 
 
 Ann was a wonderful mother and the boy as sturdy 
 and handsome a little lad as the mother-heart of any 
 woman ever worshiped. But I! How easy it had 
 been to promise to make no particular advance of affec 
 tion to my son to suggest in no way my claim upon 
 him to take up the thread of my life again, as if he 
 had never been born to regard myself merely as the 
 physical instrument necessary to his creation! 
 
 I was to learn with bitter suffering the truth that 
 my act bound me irrevocably in soul and heart to my 
 boy and his mother. 
 
 I shall not forget the night when I faced the truth. 
 It was in the great room of the lodge, the blazing wood 
 fire staining the bearskin rugs. Outside, in the early 
 twilight, there was wind, and trees hung with snow, and 
 the dull, frozen lap of a winter lake. I had come up 
 to the lodge at Norman's invitation. As far as he and 
 Ann were concerned, my claim upon Ann's boy was 
 quite forgotten. 
 
 He had grown into a dark, ruddy, handsome little 
 lad, this son of mine, with a brain and body far beyond 
 his years, thanks to Ann's marvelous gift of mother 
 hood, her care and her teaching.
 
 408 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Ann sat by the old, square piano singing some 
 marvelous mother's lullaby of the Norseland, her full 
 contralto ringing with splendid tenderness. Mother 
 and son were alone when I entered. Carl was busily 
 at play on a rug by the fire. 
 
 In that instant, with the plaint of the Norse mother 
 in my ears, I knew. The tie was too strong to fight. I 
 loved my little son I loved his mother. 
 
 I do not remember how I stumbled across the room 
 and told her. I only know that she was greatly shocked 
 and troubled and very kind, that she told me as gently 
 as she could that I must try to conquer it all that 
 there must be no one in Carl's life but herself that 
 man's part in the scheme of creation was but the act of 
 a moment; a woman's part, her whole life. 
 
 I think now that her great love for the little chap had 
 crowded everything else out of her mind ; that living up 
 there in those snowy acres of trees away from the world, 
 she was so calmly contented and happy that she feared 
 an intrusive breath of any sort. And she did not love 
 me. 
 
 Suddenly in a moment of impulsive tenderness, she 
 bent over and caught Carl up in her arms. 
 
 ** My little laddie ! " she cried, her face glorified, and 
 he nestled his head in her full, beautiful throat and 
 laughed. 
 
 An instant later he looked up and smiled and held 
 out his hand with a curious instinct of kindliness he 
 had, even as a very little fellow.
 
 The Other Candlestick 409 
 
 " Don't feel so awful bad, Uncle Grant ! " he said 
 shyly. " I love you too. Don't I, mother? " I don't 
 know, but I think Ann cried. 
 
 I choked and stumbled from the room. 
 
 So, for me, ended the singular episode of my life that 
 has condemned me again to the fate of a wanderer, drift 
 ing about like thistledown in the wind of fancy. 
 
 There is but one chance in many hundred that this 
 paper, which bears upon the back the address of solicitors 
 who will always know my whereabouts sealed and 
 buried after a whim of mine as it will be will ever come 
 to the eyes of him for whom it is intended, but maddened 
 by the thought that I must go through life alone and 
 lonely without hinting to my son the truth, I have 
 desperately begged from Ann the boon of the single 
 chance, forlorn as it is, that I may have some flickering 
 hope to feed upon. And she, out of the compassionate 
 recognition that for the single moment of creation I am 
 entitled to this at least, has granted it. If this paper 
 ever comes to the eyes of my son and I am irrevocably 
 pledged to drop no hint of its whereabouts then 
 and not until then are all my pledges void. 
 
 Who knows? In the years to come, some wild freak 
 of destiny may guide the feet of my son to the secret of 
 the candlestick. I shall live and pray and likely die a 
 childless, unhappy old man, whose Fate lies buried pro 
 foundly in the sealed, invulnerable heart of a Spanish 
 candlestick a stranger to his son. 
 
 Grant Satterlee.
 
 410 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 It was the name of a wealthy bachelor whose 
 lonely austerity of life upon a yacht which rarely 
 lingered in any port, whose quiet acts of phil 
 anthropy as he roved hermitlike about the world, 
 had been the talk of continents. 
 
 Reading to the end, Carl dropped the scatter 
 ing sheets and buried his face in his hands, un 
 nerved and shaking.
 
 CHAPTER LI 
 
 IN THE ADIRONDACK^ 
 
 TO THE wild, out-of -the- world hunting lodge 
 in the Adirondack wilderness of tree and 
 lake and trout-haunted mountain stream which 
 had been part of Norman Westfall's heritage, 
 came, one twilight of cloud and wind, Diane, 
 tanned with the wind and sun of a year's wander 
 ing and very tired. 
 
 Wild relief at Carl's tale of the jealous Indian, 
 thoughts of Philip, of Carl, of Keela, of Rona- 
 dor, all these, persistently haunting the girl's 
 harassed mind, had wearied her greatly. More 
 over, Aunt Agatha was not restful; nor would 
 she depart. 
 
 Wherefore, with the old habit when the voice 
 of the forest called when school and city and 
 travel had palled and tortured Diane had 
 traveled feverishly north with Aunt Agatha, and 
 thence to the Adirondack lodge which had been 
 her hermitage since early childhood and to which, 
 by an earlier compact, Aunt Agatha might not 
 follow. 
 
 She had telegraphed old Roger to meet her with 
 the buckboard. Now, as they drove up at twi 
 light, Annie, his wife, stood in the cottage door- 
 
 411
 
 412 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 way. Beyond among the rustling trees stood the 
 log lodge of Norman Westf all, far enough away 
 for solitude and near enough, as Aunt Agatha 
 frequently recalled with comfort, to the cottage 
 of the two old servants for safety. 
 
 The lake stretched away to a dusk-dimmed 
 shore set in a whispering line of ghostly birches. 
 
 "There's wood in the fireplace, dearie!" said 
 old Annie, patting the girl's shoulder. "It's a 
 wee bit chill yet, for all the summer ought well 
 be here. And you've not run away to the old 
 lodge to cook and keep house and play gypsy this 
 many a day!" 
 
 " No," said Diane, " I haven't." She spoke of 
 the van and Johnny. 
 
 "Dear! Dear!" quavered Annie, raising 
 wrinkled, wondering hands. " Think of that 
 now! And like you, too! And you grown so like 
 your father, child, that I can't well keep my eyes 
 off your face. And brown as a berry from the 
 sun. I've set a bit of a lunch in the great room 
 yonder, dearie. You'll likely be too tired to-night 
 to be a gypsy." 
 
 Old Roger, who had consigned the buckboard 
 and horses to a tall awkward country lad who had 
 slouched forward from the shadows, hurried off 
 to light the fire in the lodge. 
 
 When Diane entered, the fire was crackling 
 cheerfully in the great fireplace and dancing in
 
 In the Adirondacks 413 
 
 bright waves over the china and glass upon a table 
 by the fire. 
 
 The old room, extending the entire width of 
 the lodge and half its generous depth, was much 
 as it had been in the days of Norman Westfall. 
 By the western wall stood the old piano. Un 
 covered rafters and an inner wall-lining of logs 
 hinted nothing of the substantial plaster behind 
 it. It was a great room of homely comfort, subtly 
 akin to the forest beyond its walls. 
 
 It was the old fashioned desk in the corner, 
 however, upon which Diane's thoughtful gaze 
 rested as she ate her supper. The thought of it 
 had primarily inspired her coming. Surely the 
 old desk, locked this many a year, might hold 
 some breath of the tragedy that had ghostlike 
 trailed her footsteps. Ann Westfall had kept the 
 key until her death. She had bravely put her 
 brother's house in order at his tragic death and 
 transferred all the papers of value. The key hung 
 now in a sliding panel beneath the ledge of the 
 desk. The spirit which had kept the old room un 
 changed, even to the faded books of Orientalism 
 and the old pictures strangely mellowed, had led 
 to the hiding of the key away from vandal ringers. 
 
 Once Diane herself had unlocked the desk and 
 peered timidly within. She remembered now the 
 faultless order of the few dry, uninteresting 
 papers, an ink well made of the skull of a tiny
 
 414 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 monkey, a bamboo pen, a half-finished manuscript 
 of wild adventure in some out-of -the- world spot 
 in the South Pacific. There had been nothing 
 more. But the desk was one of intricate drawers 
 and panels. 
 
 With a sudden distaste for the food before 
 her, Diane pushed the little table back, lighted a 
 small lamp and crossed to her father's desk. She 
 unlocked it with nervous fingers. The monkey 
 skull, the bamboo pen, the few irrelevant papers 
 were all as she remembered them. 
 
 Diane glanced hurriedly over the scribbled 
 manuscript of adventure with a wild, choking 
 sensation in her throat. There was no mention 
 of the Indian wife. Hurriedly she opened each 
 tiny drawer and panel. They were for the most 
 part empty. Only in one, a small drawer within 
 a drawer, lay a faded packet of letters directed 
 to Ann Westfall in the hand that had penned the 
 manuscript Norman Westf all's.
 
 CHAPTER LII 
 
 R 
 
 ELUCTANTLY, Diane opened the letters 
 of long ago and read them: 
 
 Grant and I have had wild sport killing alligators 
 with the Seminoles. A wild, dark, unexplored country, 
 Ann, these Florida Everglades ! How I wish you were 
 with us ! Tyson had an Indian guide, evoked somewhere 
 from the wild by smoke signals, waiting for us. We 
 traversed miles and miles of savage, uninhabitable marsh 
 before at last we came to the isolated Indian camp. 
 Small wonder the Seminole is still unconquered. It is a 
 world here for wild men. I'll write as I feel inclined and 
 bunch the letters when there is an Indian going out to 
 the fringe of civilization. 
 
 We hunt the 'gators by night in cypress canoes. Grant 
 sat in the bow of our boat to-night with a bull's-eye 
 lantern in his cap. The fan of it over the silent, black 
 water, the eyes of the 'gators blazing in the dark, these 
 cool, bronze, turbaned devils with axes to sever the 
 spinal cord and rifles to shatter the skull it's a wild 
 and thrilling scene. 
 
 I'm sorry Carl was not so well. Now that Dad is 
 kinder to the little chap, we could have left him at St. 
 
 415
 
 416 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 Augustine if he'd been well enough to make the trip. 
 It bothers nie that you're not along. It's my first time 
 without you, and you're a better shot than Grant and 
 more dependable in mood. I can't make out what's 
 come over him of late. He's so moody and reckless 
 that the Indians think he's a devil. He's more prone 
 to wild whims than ever. We've shot wild turkey and 
 bear but I like the 'gator sport the best. 
 
 There's a curious white man here who's lived a good 
 part of his life with the tribe. He's a Spaniard, a dark- 
 skinned, bitter, morose sort of chap really a Minor- 
 can whose Indian wife is dead. He has a daughter, 
 a girl of twenty or so whom the Seminoles call Nan-ces- 
 o-wee. He calls her simply Nanca. She speaks Spanish 
 fluently. The morose old Spaniard has taught her a 
 fund of curious things. Her heavy hair, black as a 
 storm-cloud, falls to her knees. Grant says her won 
 derful eyes remind him somehow of midnight water. Her 
 eyebrows have the expressive arch of the Seminole. Her 
 color is dark and very rich, but it's more the coloring of 
 the Spanish father than the Seminole mother. Alto 
 gether, she's more Spanish than Indian, I take it, though 
 she's a tantalizing combination of each in instinct Her 
 grace is wild and Indian and she walks lightly and 
 softly like a doe. Ann, her face haunts me. 
 
 Young as she is, this Nanca of whom I have writ 
 ten so much to you, has, they tell me, had a most roman 
 tic history. With her beauty it was of course inevi 
 table. Men are fools. At eighteen, urged into proud 
 revolt against her Seminole suitors by her father, who
 
 Letters from Norman Westfall 417 
 
 for all his singular way of life can not forget his white 
 heritage, she married a young foreigner who came into 
 the Glades hunting. He seems to have been utterly 
 without ties and decided to live with the Indians in the 
 manner of the Spaniard. A year or so later, a young 
 artist imitator of Catlin's made his way to the Seminole 
 village with a guide. He had been traveling about among 
 the Indians of the reservations painting Indian types, 
 and had heard of this old turbaned tribe buried in the 
 Everglades. Nanca's beauty must have driven him 
 quite mad, I think. At any rate he wooed and won. 
 Nanca begged the young foreigner to divorce her, which 
 he did. The Seminole divorce custom is lenient when 
 the marriage is childless. The artist, I fancy, was 
 merely a wild, reckless, inconstant sort of chap who did 
 not regard the simple Seminole marriage tie as binding. 
 After the birth of his daughter, a tiny little elf whom 
 Nanca has named " Red-winged Blackbird," he tried to 
 run away, and the Indians killed him. 
 
 Red- winged Blackbird! Keela then was the 
 child of the artist ! 
 
 The old Spaniard in his gruff and haughty way has 
 been kind to Grant and me. He's not well some 
 obscure cardiac trouble from which he suffers at times 
 most horribly. He has confided to me a singular secret. 
 The young foreigner who divorced Nanca is the crown 
 prince of some obscure little mountain kingdom called 
 Houdania. His name is Theodomir. He had wild rev-
 
 418 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 olutionary notions, hated royalty and fled at the death 
 of his father. But America and its boasted liberty had 
 cankers and inequalities too, and heartsick, Theodomir 
 roamed about until at length on a hunting trip he came 
 into the village of the Seminoles. Here was the com 
 munistic organization of which this aristocratic young 
 socialist had dreamed tribal ownership of lands, 
 cooperative equality of men and women no jails, no 
 poor-houses, no bolts or bars or locks honorable 
 old age and perfect moral order without law. What 
 wonder that he lingered ? Now that he is divorced from 
 Nanca he wanders about from tribe to tribe. I'd like to 
 see him. 
 
 
 
 Ann, I must write the truth. The face of this Span 
 ish girl haunts me day and night. There is a madness 
 in my blood. I wish you were here! I am tormented 
 by terrible doubts and misgivings. If Dad were not so 
 intolerant ! 
 
 
 
 Nanca has fled from the Indian village with Grant and 
 me. Oh, Ann, it had to come! I lost my head. The 
 old Spaniard died three days ago. That was the cause 
 of it Nanca's grief was wild and terrible. Her wail 
 ing dirge was all Indian, yet immediately she cried out 
 that the Indian way of life for her was impossible with 
 out her father. She begged me to take her away. And 
 yet Oh, Ann, Ann! How could I take that other 
 man's child? We left her outside the old chief's wig 
 wam.
 
 Letters from Norman Westfall 419 
 
 Much as I have scoffed at marriage, I have married 
 Nanca. Grant insisted. He was a little bitter. I do not 
 know what makes him so. 
 
 I have seen Dad. We quarreled bitterly. Agatha 
 was there with him. I can hardly write what followed. 
 By some God-forsaken twist of Fate, a jealous, sullen- 
 eyed young Indian who had loved Nanca and had been 
 spurned by her father, followed us relentlessly from the 
 Glades to St. Augustine. He told Dad that Nanca had 
 not been married to the artist that she was a mother 
 and not a wife and Dad believed it. I told him pa 
 tiently enough that there is no ceremony among the 
 Seminoles that the man goes forth to the home of the 
 girl at the setting of the sun, and that he is then as 
 legally her husband as if all the courts in Christendom 
 had tied the knot. Dad can not see it. I shall be in 
 New York in two weeks. Nanca and I are going to 
 Spain. I can not forget Dad's white, horror-struck 
 face nor what he said. He is bigoted and unjust. God 
 help me, I hope that I may never set eyes upon him 
 again ! 
 
 
 
 We have been very happy here in Spain. I have run 
 across a wonderful old room in a Spanish castle. Ceil 
 ing, doors, fireplace, paintings, table, chairs and lan 
 terns, I am transplanting. What a setting for Nanca ! 
 
 We are sailing for home. Nanca is not so well as I 
 could hope. She grieves, I think, for the little girl in 
 Florida. There are times when I am bitterly jealous of 
 those two other men.
 
 420 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 There was a lapse of weeks in the letters. Then 
 came a long one from New York. 
 
 Grant came that night just after you had gone. He 
 has been with me a week. His notions are more erratic 
 than ever. For instance, last night, while we were smok 
 ing, I told him the story of Prince Theodomir. He was 
 greatly interested. 
 
 " What a chance ! " said he softly. " What a chance, 
 Norman, for wild commotion in your ridiculous little 
 court. I've been there. It's a kingdom of crazy patri 
 ots who grant freedom of marital choice to their princes 
 to freshen and strengthen the royal blood; and they 
 boast an ancient line of queens wiser than Catherine of 
 Russia. A hidden paper purporting to be a deathbed 
 statement of Prince Theodomir's this little daughter 
 of Nanca and the artist and, Lord ! what complica 
 tions we could have immediately. How easily she might 
 have been the child of Theodomir and a princess ! " 
 
 And sitting there by the table, Ann, he drew up an 
 ingenious document couched in the stilted English of a 
 foreigner. Like most of Grant's notions, it was infer 
 nally clever. It suggested that my marriage to Nanca 
 had been childless and that we had brought a child 
 the daughter of Theodomir and Nanca away from 
 the Indian village and had reared her with my name. 
 Then he showed me with a laugh where three conflicting 
 meanings might be read from the stilted phrasing and 
 eccentric punctuation. 
 
 " Drop that, old man," said he, " into your chauvinis-
 
 Letters from Norman Westfall 421 
 
 tic little Punch and Judy court along with the name of 
 the missing Theodomir and watch the blaze ! " 
 
 After all, I do not think we will stay here in New York. 
 Nanca is not at all well. She longs for trees and the 
 open country. We are coming up to the lodge. 
 
 
 
 I'm glad Dad sent for you. I think he is growing 
 fonder of Carl, though of course his prejudices will 
 probably always flash out now and then. . . . He's 
 fond of us both, Ann, for all he raves so. No word of 
 Grant since that night of which you told me. 
 I am sorry. 
 
 
 
 You tell me Grant has written to you. Tell him when 
 you write to write to me. I miss him. 
 
 
 
 Grant has sent me a giant pair of candlesticks from 
 Spain. They are six feet tall, of age-old wood and 
 Spanish carving. He begs that they may stand in the 
 Spanish room and makes some incoherent reference to 
 you in connection with them, out of which I can't for the 
 life of me extract a grain of sense. If you could have 
 cared for him a little, Ann ! 
 
 
 
 i< 
 
 I will not take this thing that Fate has whipped into 
 my face with a scornful jeer. Nanca is dead! Her life 
 went out with the life she gave my daughter. Oh, Ann, 
 Ann, why are you not with me now when I need you
 
 422 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 most. After all what is this mortal tegument but a shell 
 which a man sloughs off in eternal evolution. Outside, 
 the moon is very bright upon the lake. The " Mulberry 
 Moon/' Nanca called it, and loved its light. It shines in 
 at her window now, but she can not see it. Ann, because 
 the moon is so bright to-night because the name of 
 the moon, goddess bears within it your name let the 
 name of my poor, motherless little girl be Diane. Nanca 
 called her " Little Red-winged Blackbird ! " I believe at 
 the end she was thinking of the little girl we left in the 
 Indian village. They are very much alike. Poor 
 Nanca! 
 
 The writing broke off with a wild scrawl. 
 With agonized eyes Diane pushed the letters 
 away and stared at the quiet firelit room, build 
 ing again within its log walls the tragedy of her 
 father's death. He had lain there by the fire, his 
 life snuffed out like a candle by his own hand. 
 The broken-hearted old man down South had 
 carried the child of his son away, fiercely denied 
 the Indian blood, and pledged Aunt Agatha to 
 the keeping of the secret. And this was the net 
 that had driven Carl to the verge of insanity and 
 sent Themar to his death in a Florida swamp ! 
 
 There was no princess no child of the exiled 
 Theodomir. The paper stuffed in the candle 
 stick in a reckless moment had been but the 
 ingenious figment of a man's brain for the enter-
 
 Letters from Norman Westfall 423 
 
 lainment of an hour. The old chief and Sho- 
 caw with their broken tale to Philip had but 
 tangled the net the more. As the blood of the 
 Indian mother had driven Diane forth to the 
 forest, so had the blood of the artist father driven 
 Keela forth from the Indian village, a wanderer 
 apart from her people, and Fate had relentlessly 
 knotted the threads of their lives in a Southern 
 pine wood.
 
 CHAPTER LIII 
 
 BY MIC-CO'S POOL 
 
 TO THE dark, old-fashioned house in St. Au 
 gustine in which Baron Tregar was a " pay 
 ing guest" came one twilight, a man for whom 
 compassionately he had waited. His visitor was 
 sadly white and tired, with heavy lines about his 
 sullen mouth and the dust of the highway upon 
 his motoring rig. There was no fire in his eyes; 
 rather a stupid apathy which in a man with less 
 strength about the mouth and chin might easily 
 have become commonness. 
 
 "Tregar," he said with an effort, "you told 
 me to come when I needed you. I am here. I 
 can not see my way " 
 
 Tregar held out his hand in silence. Only he 
 knew the sacrifice of insolent pride that had 
 brought his guest so low. 
 
 Ronador took his hand and reddened. 
 
 " My father rightly counts upon your loyalty," 
 he choked and walked away to the window. 
 
 Suddenly he wheeled with blazing eyes of 
 agony. 
 
 "Why must that old horrible remorse grind 
 and tear!" he cried, "now when I can not bear 
 it! It is keener and crueler now than it was that 
 
 424
 
 By Mic-co's Pool 425 
 
 day when you found me in the forest. Every 
 new twist of this damnable mess has been a barb 
 tearing the old wound open afresh. And now 
 I I can not even find Miss Westfall. I have 
 motored over the roads in vain. The van is 
 gone from the lake shore. It seemed that I 
 must make one final desperate effort to make 
 her understand " 
 
 With the memory of the eyes of Diane and 
 Philip flashing messages of utter trust that day 
 beneath the trees, the Baron sighed. 
 
 "Ronador," he said kindly, "it would have 
 been in vain." 
 
 " And now," Ronador moistened his pallid lips, 
 " there is a rumble of war from Galituria." 
 
 "Yes," said Tregar sadly, "Themar was a 
 traitor." 
 
 " I told him much," said Ronador, great drops 
 of moisture standing forth upon his forehead. 
 " It seemed that I must, to make him understand 
 the urgent need of silencing Granberry forever. 
 He cabled the news to Galituria and sold it. I 
 am ill and discouraged. There is fever in my 
 blood, Tregar, from this climate of eternal sum 
 mer a fever in my head " 
 
 Tregar stroked his beard. 
 
 " There is a doctor," he said quietly, " of whom 
 Poynter has told me much a doctor who healed 
 Cranberry's mind as well as his body. I had
 
 426 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 thought to go to him myself to rest. I, too, am 
 tired, Ronador. One goes to a little hamlet and 
 an old man guides by a road to the south into 
 the Everglades. Let us go there together." 
 
 " No! " said Ronador sullenly. " Let us rather 
 go home. I am sick of this land of insolent men 
 like Cranberry and Poynter, who bend the knee 
 to no man." 
 
 " You would go back then, ill, sullen, resentful, 
 with the news that we must lay before your 
 father? By Heaven, no! " thundered the Baron 
 with one of his infrequent outbursts. "Let us 
 go back smiling, for all we have lost, and seek to 
 tell of this child of Theodomir with what grace 
 we can muster. Poynter is at the bedside of his 
 father. Cranberry has gone to learn the tale 
 of the other candlestick. These men, Ronador, 
 we must see again before we sail. In the mean 
 time, there is Poynter's physician." 
 
 "Very well," said Ronador, goaded to a sud 
 den consent by a fevered wave of nausea and 
 shaking, "let us go to him." 
 
 So came Prince Ronador and the Baron to 
 the island lodge of Mic-co. 
 
 Though Ronador in the first disorder of rebel 
 lious mind and body, had fancied himself sicker 
 than he really was, he was suffering more now 
 than even Tregar guessed. The last stage of the 
 journey to a man of less indomitable grit and
 
 By Mic-co's Pool 427 
 
 courage would have been impossible. It was 
 no sickness of the mind alone. His body was 
 wildly ravaged by a fever. 
 
 Through a dizzy blur which distorted every ob 
 ject and which frowningly he sought to drive 
 away with clenched hands, he stared at the lodge, 
 stared at Keela, stared at the grave and quiet 
 face of Mic-co. He was still staring vaguely 
 about him when night curtained the lilied pool 
 and the stars flashed brightly overhead. 
 
 "I am not ill, Tregar!" he insisted curtly. 
 "Let me rest by the pool. There is peace here 
 and I am tired. We traveled rapidly " 
 
 Nevertheless, for all his feverish denial, his 
 desperate attempts to keep to the thread of des 
 ultory talk were pitiful. He frowned heavily, 
 began his sentences slowly and trailed off inco 
 herently to a halt and silence. 
 
 The Baron turned compassionately away from 
 him to Mic-co with a question. 
 
 "Names," said Mic-co, "are nothing to me, 
 Baron Tregar. They are merely a part of that 
 great world from which I live apart. I am a 
 Heidelberg man, since you feel sufficiently inter 
 ested to inquire. Though my choice of a profes 
 sion was merely a careless desire to know some 
 one thing well, I have never regretted it." 
 
 "I I beg your pardon," stammered the 
 Baron and glanced keenly at Mic-co.
 
 428 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 " It is a habit of mine," hinted Mic-co, " to take 
 what confidence a man may offer and let him 
 withhold what he will." 
 
 " There is nothing to withhold! " flashed Rona- 
 dor with sudden fierceness. " Why do you speak 
 of it?" 
 
 Mic-co thought of a white-faced young fellow 
 who had stubbornly refused to accept his hospi 
 tality, one morning beneath the live oaks, until 
 he might name aloud his offenses in the sight of 
 God and Man. This man before him, sweeping 
 rapidly into the black gulf of delirium, was of a 
 different caliber. 
 
 By the pool Ronador leaped suddenly, his face 
 quite colorless save where the flame of fever 
 burned in his cheeks. 
 
 * That Voice ! " he said, standing in curious at 
 titude of listening. " You hear it, Tregar? Al 
 ways always it comes so in the quietest hours. 
 Tell him! Tell him! Why should I tell him? 
 What is he to me ? I may not purchase relief at 
 the price of any man's respect. Only Tregar 
 knows. Hush! In God's name, hush! Thou 
 shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill !" He seemed, 
 without conscious effort, to be repeating the 
 words of this Voice with which he held this terri 
 ble communion, and waved Tregar back with an 
 imperious gesture of defiance. Facing Mic-co he 
 flung out his arm.
 
 By Mic-co's Pool 429 
 
 "I am a murderer in the sight of God and 
 Man ! " he choked. " I murdered my cousin The- 
 odomir for a dream of empire. I can not forget 
 Oh, God! I can not forget. The Voice bids 
 me tell!" 
 
 He dropped wildly to his knees, his eyes im 
 ploring. 
 
 "Oh, God!" he prayed with pallid lips, "hear 
 this, my prayer. I have paid in black hours of 
 bitter suffering. I have played and lost and the 
 fire of life is but ashes in my hand. Give me 
 peace peace!" 
 
 He stayed so long upon his knees that Tregar 
 touched him gently on the shoulder. 
 
 " Ronador," he said gently. " Come. You are 
 very ill and know not what you say." 
 
 Ronador staggered blindly to his feet. Once 
 more he waved the Baron aside and took up his 
 terrible dialogue with the inner Voice. 
 
 "The Voice! The Voice!" he whispered. 
 " Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not kill ! You 
 lie!" he cried in a sudden outburst of terrible 
 fierceness. " He was not a fool. He loved men 
 more than the mockery and cant of courts. He 
 loved he trusted me and I betrayed him. 
 Who knew when he fled wildly away from the 
 pomp and inequalities he hated? I! Who 
 watched for his secret letters? I! Who came to 
 America when his letter of homesick pleading
 
 480 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 came? I! I! I! Who killed him when con 
 science and duty would have sent him back to 
 the court of his father? I, his cousin whom he 
 loved above all men. You lie. I did love him. 
 I was drunk with the royal glitter ahead. I 
 craved it even as he hated it. Thou shalt not kill I 
 Thou shalt not kill 1 Mercy ! Mercy ! I can not 
 bear it." 
 
 He fell groveling upon the floor and crawled 
 to Mic-co's feet. 
 
 "The Voice bids me tell!" he whispered, 
 clutching fearfully at Mic-co's hand. "Twice, 
 since, I would have killed to keep this thing of 
 the candlestick from creeping back and back 
 until that thing of long ago lay uncovered and 
 I disgraced I . . . Theodomir hid in the Semi- 
 nole village. No no, you must listen the 
 Voice bids me tell or lose my reason. I came 
 there at his bidding his marriage to the Indian 
 girl had been unhappy. He was homesick and 
 this fair land of liberty had a rotten core. I 
 struck him down and fled. You will heal and 
 fight the Voice" 
 
 Mic-co bent and raised the groveling figure. 
 
 "Peace!" he said, his face very white. "We 
 will heal and quiet the Voice forever. Come!" 
 Gently he led the sick man away. 
 
 "He will sleep now, I think," he said a little 
 later. "A drug is best when a Voice is 
 mocking -
 
 By Mic-co's Pool 431 
 
 The Baron leaned forward and caught Mic- 
 co's arm in a grasp of iron. 
 
 " Who are you," he whispered, " that you suf 
 fer with him now? You are white and shaking. 
 Who are you that you know the tongue of my 
 country?" 
 
 Mic-co sighed. 
 
 " I," said he sadly, " am that man he thought 
 to kill!" 
 
 White-faced, the Baron stared at the snowy 
 beard and hair and the fine, dark eyes. 
 
 "Theodomir!" he whispered brokenly. "The- 
 odomir! It it can not be." 
 
 He fell to pacing the floor in violent agitation. 
 
 " The eyes are quieter," he said at length with 
 an effort, "but the hair and beard so white! I 
 would not have guessed I would not have 
 guessed!" Again he stared. 
 
 " Are you man or saint," he cried at last, " that 
 you can forgive as I have seen your eyes for 
 give to-night?" 
 
 " May a man look upon such remorse as that," 
 asked Mic-co, "and not forgive? I loved him 
 greatly. Had I loved him less had I loved 
 her less that Indian wife who had no love in 
 her heart for me, this hair of mine would not have 
 turned snow-white when the Indians were fan 
 ning the flickering spark of life into a blaze 
 again."
 
 482 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "There is peace in your face," said Tregar 
 a little bitterly, " and none of the old fretful 
 discontent. Have you no single thought of re 
 gret for that fair land of ours you left? " 
 
 " For that fatherland of rugged mountain and 
 silver waterfall yes!" cried Theodomir with 
 sudden fire. " For the festering core of imper 
 ialism that darkens its beauty with sable wing 
 no! No single thought of regret. How pitiful 
 and absurd our Lilliputian game of empire! 
 What man is better than another? Tolstoi and 
 Buddha, they are the men who knew. Was not 
 my wildest error," he demanded reverting afresh 
 to the other's reproach, " that homesick letter that 
 brought him to my side? Peace came to me, 
 Tregar, in building this lodge, in working in 
 the field and hunting, in doctoring these primi 
 tive people who saved my life, in teaching the 
 child of my Indian wife 
 
 "The child of your wife! You mean your 
 daughter?" 
 
 " I have no child," said Theodomir. ' The girl 
 you saw to-night is my foster daughter, the child 
 of my wife and the man for whose whim she 
 begged me to divorce her." 
 
 " No child I " exclaimed the Baron with a sick 
 ening flash of realization. " My poor Ronador! " 
 
 "My kindness to her," said Mic-co, "was at 
 first a discipline. Her mother deserted her and
 
 By Mic-co's Pool 433 
 
 the old chief granted me half her life. I could 
 not bear the touch of her hands or the look in her 
 eyes for many months, but through her, Tregar, 
 at last I learned peace and forgiveness and for 
 bearance, as men should. I built the lodge for 
 her and me. I taught her the ways of her white 
 father. I made myself proficient in the English 
 tongue that those traders and hunters and 
 naturalists who stray here might guess nothing 
 of my origin. I shall never again leave the peace 
 and quiet of this island home. And you and I, 
 Tregar, must quiet that Voice forever!" 
 
 " Is that possible? " choked Tregar. 
 
 " I think so," said Mic-co. " I think we may 
 some day send him home with the Voice quieted 
 forever and the remorse and suffering healed. 
 Had I thought he was strong enough to bear it, 
 I would have told him to-night." 
 
 "Let me tell you," said Tregar with strong 
 emotion, " how I found him in the forest, when 
 years back I came to know this secret I have tried 
 so hard to keep for him. I had been hunting with 
 the King and lost my way in the forests of Griin- 
 wald. I found him there in the thickest part 
 naked, slashing his body wildly with a knife in an 
 agony of remorse and penance and the most ter 
 rible grief I have ever witnessed. Before he well 
 knew what he was about he had blurted forth the 
 whole pitiful story that he had killed his cousin
 
 484 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 in a moment of passion that he must scourge 
 and torture his body to discipline his soul. I I 
 shall not forget his face." 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said Mic-co. "My poor 
 cousin ! " 
 
 They wheeled suddenly at a choking sound in 
 the doorway. Some wild memory of the Griin- 
 wald had surged through the fevered brain of the 
 sick man. His clothes were gone, his body slashed 
 cruelly in a dozen places. He had torn down the 
 buckskin curtain at his window and bound it 
 about his body in the fashion of earlier ages. 
 How long he had stood there in the doorway they 
 did not know. Now as they turned, he rushed 
 forward and flung himself with a great heart 
 broken sob at the feet of his cousin. 
 
 "Theodomir! Theodomir!" he cried. 
 
 Tregar turned away from the sound of his ter 
 rible sobbing.
 
 CHAPTER LIV 
 
 ON THE WESTFALL LAKE 
 
 HURRYING clouds curtained the silver 
 shield of a full moon and found themselves 
 fringed gloriously with ragged light. It was a 
 lake of white, whispering ghosts locking spec 
 tral branches in the wind, of slumbering lilies 
 rustled by the drift of a boat ; a lake of checkered 
 lights and shadows fitfully mirroring stars at the 
 mercy of the moon-flecked clouds. On the 
 western shore of the wide, wind-ruffled sheet of 
 water, on a wooded knoll, glimmered the lights of 
 the village. 
 
 To Diane, stretched comfortably upon the 
 cushions of the boat, which had drifted idly about 
 since early twilight, the night's sounds were in 
 describably peaceful. The lap and purl of water, 
 the rustle of birch, the call of an owl in the forest, 
 the noise of frog and tree toad and innumerable 
 crickets, they were all, paradoxically enough, the 
 wildwood sounds of silence. 
 
 With a sigh the girl presently paddled in to 
 shore. As she moored her boat, the moon swept 
 majestically from the clouds and shone full upon 
 a second boatman paddling briskly by the lily 
 beds. The boat came on with a musical swirl of 
 
 435
 
 486 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 water; the bareheaded boatman waved his hand 
 lazily to the girl standing motionless upon the 
 moonlit wharf, and as lazily floated in. 
 
 " Hello! " he called cheerfully. 
 
 The moon, doomed to erotic service, was again 
 upon the head of Mr. Poynter. 
 
 "It's the milkman's boat!" explained Philip 
 smiling. " He's a mighty decent chap." 
 
 Diane's face was as pale as a lily. 
 
 "How did you know?" she asked, but her 
 eyes, for Philip, were welcome enough. 
 
 " I saw Carl," said he, dexterously rounding to 
 a point at her feet. " He told me." 
 
 He lazily rocked the boat, met her troubled 
 glance with frank serenity and said with his eyes 
 what for the moment his laughing lips withheld. 
 
 " Come, row about a bit," he said gently. 
 " There's a lot to tell " 
 
 "The other candlestick?" 
 
 " That," said Philip as he helped her in, " and 
 more." 
 
 The boat shot forth into the moonlit water. 
 
 "And your father, Philip?" 
 
 "Better," said Philip and feathered his oars 
 conspicuously in a moment of constraint. Then 
 flushing slightly, he met her glance with his usual 
 frank directness. " Dad and I had quarreled, 
 Diane," he said quietly, "and he was fretting. 
 And now, though the fundamental cause of
 
 On the Westfall Lake 437 
 
 grievance still remains, we're better friends. 
 Ames, the doctor, said that helped a lot." He 
 was silent. "A dash of Spanish," he began 
 thoughtfully, " a dash of Indian, and the blood of 
 the old southern cavaliers it's a ripping com 
 bination for loveliness, Diane!" 
 
 Not quite so pale, Diane glanced demurely at 
 the moon. 
 
 'Yes, I know," nodded Philip with slightly 
 impudent assurance; "but the moon is kind to 
 lovers." 
 
 " Tell me," begged Diane with a bright flush, 
 " about the second candlestick." 
 
 Somewhat reluctantly, with the moon urging 
 him to madness, Philip obeyed. To Diane his 
 words supplied the final link in the chain of 
 mystery. 
 
 " And Satterlee's yacht," finished Philip, lean 
 ing on his oars, "was laid up in Hoboken for 
 repairs. Carl phoned his attorneys." 
 
 ' You spoke of seeing Carl? " 
 
 'Yes. He was with his father then. Tele 
 graphed me Monday. I have yet to see such glow 
 and warmth in the faces of men. They're going 
 back to Mic-co's lodge together for a while. 
 Odd ! " he added thoughtfully. " I've known Sat- 
 terlee for years, a quiet chap of wonderful kind 
 liness and generosity. But I've heard Dad tell
 
 438 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 mad tales of his reckless whims when he was 
 younger." 
 
 "And the first paper?" 
 
 " Satterlee had almost forgotten it. It's so 
 long ago. If he thought at all of its discovery it 
 was to doubt any other fate for it than a wastei 
 paper basket or a fire. Anything else was too 
 preposterous. But he brooded a lot over the 
 other. The most terrible results of his foolhardy 
 whim Carl pledged me not to tell him. Says the 
 blame is all his and he'll shoulder it. What little 
 we did reveal, horrified Satterlee inexpressibly* 
 You see he'd found the candlesticks in a ruined 
 castle. They were sadly battered and he con 
 signed them to a queer old wood-carver to patch 
 up. In the patching, the shallow wells came to 
 light, packed with faded, musty love letters from 
 some young Spanish gallant to somebody's incon 
 stant wife, and the carver spoke of them. Sat 
 terlee impetuously bade him halt his work and 
 wrote a wild letter to Ann Westf all begging her 
 to let him hide the truth in the well of the candle 
 stick with the forlorn hope that one day Carl 
 might know. This she granted. Later he had 
 the candlesticks brought to his apartments to be 
 sealed in his presence. As he took from his pocket 
 the written account intended for Carl, another 
 paper fluttered to the floor. It was the deathbed 
 statement of Theodomir which in a whimsical
 
 On the Westfall Lake 439 
 
 moment he had drawn up for the entertainment 
 of your father. He promptly consigned it to the 
 other well with a shrug. He was greatly agitated 
 and thought no more about it." 
 
 "A careless act," said Diane, "to be fraught 
 with such terrible results." Then she told the 
 history of her father's letters. 
 
 " A persistent moon! " said Philip, glancing up 
 at its mild radiance. "And my head is queer 
 again. Likely that very moon is shining on the 
 minister in the village yonder." 
 
 " Likely," said Diane cautiously. 
 
 The boat swept boldly toward the western 
 shore. 
 
 Diane raised questioning eyes to his. 
 
 " Where are you going? " she asked. 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Philip. " I did mean to tell 
 you before. It's abduction." 
 
 "Abduction!" 
 
 " I'm to be married in the village to-night. 
 And I'm awfully afraid the benevolent old gen 
 tleman in the parsonage is waiting. He prom 
 ised. Diane, I can't pretend to swing this 
 function without you!" 
 
 " Philip ! " faltered Diane and meeting his level, 
 imploring gaze, laughed and colored deliciously. 
 
 " A matrimonial pirate ! " said Philip. " That's 
 what I am. I've got to be."
 
 440 Diane of the Green Van 
 
 "Aunt Agatha!" whispered Diane despair 
 ingly. 
 
 " I'll patch it up with Aunt Agatha," promised 
 Philip. "You forget I'm in strong with her 
 now. Didn't I rescue a dime from the fish ? " 
 
 " And the Seminole girl makes her lover a shirt 
 it's always customary " 
 
 "You've forgotten," said that young prac 
 tician with his most charming smile, " I've a shirt 
 mended nicely along the sleeve and shoulder by 
 my lady's fingers. Indeed, dear, I have it on! 
 And to-morrow it's Arcadia for you and 
 me" 
 
 Somehow, with the words came a flood of mem 
 ory pictures. There was Philip by the camp 
 fire in Arcadia whittling his ridiculous wildwood 
 pipe; Philip aboard the hay-camp and Philip in 
 the garb of a nomadic Greek; Philip unwinding 
 the music-machine for the staring Indians and 
 building himself a tunic with Sho-caw's sewing 
 machine; Philip and a moon above the marsh 
 
 Utter loyalty and unchanging protection! 
 Shaking, the girl covered her face with her hands. 
 
 The boat's bow touched the shore; whistling 
 softly, Philip leaped ashore and moored it. 
 
 " Diane! " he said gently. 
 
 The girl raised glistening, glorified eyes to his 
 face and smiled, a radiant smile for all her eyes 
 were bright with unshed tears. 
 
 Philip held out his arms.
 
 On the Westfall Lake 441 
 
 The silvered sheet of water rippled placidly at 
 their feet. There was wind among the birches. 
 They watched the great moon sail behind a cloud 
 and emerge, flooding the sylvan world with light. 
 
 " Sweetheart," said Philip suddenly, " I 
 thought that Arcadia was back there in Connecti 
 cut by the river, but it's here too! Dear little 
 gypsy, it is everywhere that you are! " 
 
 "It will be Arcadia always!" said Diane, 
 " for Arcadia is Together-land, isn't it, Philip?" 
 
 The moon and Philip answered.
 
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