^^rxu>u>c. ';/?. / EVE, JUNIOR Of CALIF. UBRAHY. I.OS There was something about her that impressed him, even before he saw her face EVE, JUNIOR BY REGINALD HEBER PATTERSON AUTHOR OF "THE GIRL FROM No. 13" NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY 1917 Copyright, 1917, by THE MACAULAY COMPANY TO MY WIFE 2132231 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ADAM AND EVE 11 II. THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP .... 22 III. THE Kiss 38 IV. THE CONSEQUENCE 50 V. THE IMPOSTOR 63 VI. THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT .... 72 VII. "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS ... 83 VIII. COMPLICATIONS 99 IX. THE IMPOSTOR'S REVENGE .... 114 X. AN EVENTFUL NIGHT 127 XL THE HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES ... 142 XII. MOUNT VERNON PLACE 155 XIII. EVE, JUNIOR 167 XIV. VALUE FOR VALUE 181 XV. THE GIRL IN THE SHADOW .... 192 XVI. THE "BIRTH OF SPRING" 203 XVII. BROOKIE 209 XVIII. BACK TO BODKIN 220 7 CONTENTS XIX. A BAFFLING LIKENESS . . . . . . 231 XX. THE SEQUEL OF A RETROSPECT ... 250 XXI. THE RETURN OF THE IRIS 260 XXII. JUDGE NOT 275 XXIII. A FACE IN THE DARK 283 XXIV. THE SHADOW OF THE VALLEY ... 292 XXV. A RED-HEADED WOODPECKER .... 301 XXVI. THE WAGES OF SIN 3 20 XXVII. A LEAF UNFOLDS 3 2 7 XXVIII. ADAM AND EVE REACH A DECISION . . 343 ILLUSTRATIONS There was something about her that impressed him, even before he saw her face . . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE "I reckon I kind o' like you," she told him in her soft violin-like tones 50 "It's all a dam' lie," she cried. "You can't prove a word of it" 116 "So that there is what tuk ye away, is it?". . . 228 EVE, JUNIOR CHAPTER I ADAM AND EVE CURLED up at the foot of a great water oak on the top of the bank overlooking the creek lay a girl, her copperish, red-brown head resting on her left hand while her right held a pencil over a drawing pad on the ground in front of her. The pencil wavered uncertainly, as though the artist dubiously debated the next step in her work. Her simple dress of plain blue denim, confused and disarranged by her care-free attitude, but half concealed the graceful litheness of her slim, well- rounded figure. McLean, regarding her intently, instantly lik- ened the girl to some childishly fresh and beauti- ful wood nymph whose name his mind groped vaguely to recall. Every line of her attitude and figure was breezily refreshing. There was 12 EVE, JUNIOR something about her that impressed him with her innate femininity and youthfulness even be- fore he saw her face, as yet hidden by her heavy coils of glistening hair, each rope of which, un- confined by pin or comb or ribbon, fell where it listed to end in a curl. The surveyor studied it for a dubious, thoughtful moment. "Red!" he decided emphatically; then, retract- ing, "No-o, not red, exactly; auburn! Shucks! That's too common. Must be red! No, it's not red, either; it's wonderful!" Meanwhile, a dog capered about the girl, making an unsuccessful attempt to arouse her from her reverie and announce company. At last, in his playful prancings, he set a none too clean front paw upon her sketching pad and earned a swift slap on the muzzle. "Go 'way, Tip, you onery pup," she warned in a low, sweet voice, which somehow made Mc- Lean remember the name of the nymph he had unconsciously likened her to. He turned from the road then and went toward her. "Good morning, Calypso!" he called quietly. The girl looked around and sat up quickly but without alarm, drawing her feet up and her ADAM AND EVE 13 skirt down. She smiled. And McLean was sure afterward that he must have blinked and opened his mouth. He recovered himself, however, in time to meet her question. She was still smiling when her lips, which he felt a sudden, irresisti- ble desire to kiss, formed an adorable pucker and set a single word to music. "Who?" she inquired, her laughing, gray-green eyes meeting his brown ones with a frank fear- lessness that sent a thrill through him. She tilted her head back ever so little; so that for the briefest instant she appeared a trifle demure, then got to her feet with an unconscious grace that relieved any impression of affectation. "Calypso," McLean repeated. "Isn't this the island Ogygia?" The girl laughed a low, musical laugh that made him think of the bell-like singing of the water under the clean-cut prow of the Ires lazing down the Gulf Stream at half speed. "Them's hellish names," she replied, still laugh- ing a little. "Where'd you git 'em?" McLean felt his spinal column stiffen with the shock of her words yet there she stood, a slim, beautiful, wholesome, whole-hearted child of 14 EVE, JUNIOR seventeen, perhaps, smiling and looking at him with an expression of adorable frankness and waiting for his answer. He felt the blood mount in his face and neck; but the tan of exposure hid it from her. "I beg your pardon," he said contritely. "You reminded me of Calypso, and the island just hap- pened to fit in." "Indeed! Does this here Calypso live on an island, too?" she asked, interested. McLean bit his lip and frowned to keep from laughing. "She did, a long time ago," he replied. "Oh," said the girl, "you never seen her, then; seen her picture, I reckon." "No, I read about her," he returned, trying hard not to laugh. "Oh! In a a book?" she hesitated. "Of course," he said, looking at her narrowly. "I didn't know you could tell about people that-a-way in a book," the girl remarked, thought- fully. She studied the point of her pencil. "I wisht I knowed books," she added, flushing a trifle. She looked up at McLean and then out over the water. The smile faded from her eyes and ADAM AND EVE 15 a pensive longing crept in. Suddenly the sur- veyor understood. "Books aren't everything," he consoled quietly. "The smallest real thing in real life is bigger than the greatest book ever written." The girl pondered this thoughtfully, turning her pencil over and over between her fingers in much the same way, perhaps, as she was turning his words over in her mind. Then, looking up suddenly, she asked, "Who was Calypso?" "Calypso was a beautiful nymph a fairy girl with whom a certain great warrior fell in love a long time ago," McLean explained at random. "Oh ! Do you think I am beautiful?" she asked simply; and in her eyes there was no smile. McLean felt a strange little tightening at his throat. "Yes," he replied with equal simplicity. "I'm glad you think so," she said quietly, then added, musing, "Calypso! Funny name, ain't it? I'm sure glad it ain't mine, for I reckon Dad'd called me Cal and I hate Cal." The dog poked his nose into her hand and whined for affection. "What is your name?" asked McLean. 16 EVE, JUNIOR "Eve," the girl replied, rubbing the dog's cold muzzle. "What's your'n?' "Adam," laughed the surveyor. "You're a liar," she retorted, laughing back at him. McLean's face became suddenly grave. He stud- ied her intently for a moment and then he un- derstood that the expression she had used was merely a part of her vernacular. "What is it*?" he asked, indicating the blurred top sheet of her sketching-pad on which the dog had walked. "It was clouds," she replied with corrective emphasis on the tense, "but it's mostly a mess o' dog-tracks and mud now. It don't matter, though I never could draw clouds." She had hardly spoken when there came a peal of thunder. A sprinkle of rain followed it; and then the squall broke in earnest. "Look," said the girl, pointing up the creek to where the first heavy wind flaws lashed the quiet water into foam, "you can see it a-comin' !" And then, with all the easy grace and swiftness of a deerhound, she turned and fled, laughing, along ADAM AND EVE 17 the trail with the dog leaping playfully at her side. Eve's invitation for McLean to follow was a beckoning of her hand as she half turned in flight. It was hot for the middle of June. All morn- ing the wind had pumped out of the southwest in fitful gusts, scorching as the blasts from an open furnace door; and all the living green things of swamp and shore and sandy lowland swayed and nodded dreamily before it and sighed for the cool- ness of the coming storm. For steadily in the north and west the thunderheads climbed over the horizon, the first of them white and hard and rugged as snow-capped mountain peaks, the followers as black and gray and foam-flecked as a storm-tossed sea. McLean looked up from his fieldbook, cast a weather eye to the north and west, yawned, stretched and went on with his sketch of the shore- line about triangulation station "Hades"; for he had so named the point because of its analogy to that place of heat and general discomfort. But this was before his meeting with the nymph of the island. i8 EVE, JUNIOR A little later, when the shadow of a cloud fell across his book, he looked up again, conscious of the calm and the steamy, earthy smother that had settled down upon the land with the dying of the wind. He stretched and yawned again and, unlimbering his long, khaki-clad, leather- putteed legs, arose from the damp, humid bosom of the earth with the reluctance bred of a sum- mer day. A trout leaped from the water near the bank at his feet, cut a graceful, gleaming semicircle in the still hot air, and dropped back into the coolness of its native element with a little splash that set the ripples dancing shoreward. McLean watched enviously. "I'd have a mind to follow you, old fellow, if it wasn't going to storm," he said aloud. Whereat an echo from the swamp flung back the single warning, "storm." McLean turned to the swamp in the youthful exuberance of his twenty-four years and laughed, "What do I care?" And the swamp solemnly retorted, "care." The young surveyor stood for a contempla- tive interval looking across the wide expanse of brooding water to where the tall, slim topmasts ADAM AND EVE , 19 of the Iris rose beyond the pines on Spit Point. All morning since the cutter had landed him he had walked without seeing a sign of human habi- tation and now he would have gladly signaled the ship and returned to her until the storm had passed but the long, wooded point of land be- tween prevented. So he turned and walked south- ward along the shore, hoping to come to a place where the point would no longer cut him off from communication with his vessel. Splashing on through the mud and waist-high cattails he came now to a sometime well-worn road which the leafy denizens of swamp and wood and shore had almost obliterated. The land here was higher, however, and the footing better than the cattail-covered shore; so that he gladly fol- lowed such faint traces of this antiquated road as Time and Nature had permitted it to retain. And now, as McLean followed this old trail which an age gone by had worn in passing, the dense growth of the ever curving road faded out and the light streamed in ahead where the trail dipped quickly to the shore and lost itself in the inlet. A stone's throw beyond lay an island which at first glance seemed little more than a 20 EVE, JUNIOR low-lying, oyster-shaped patch of pine-grown sand of several acres in extent. On closer inspection, however, McLean discerned a great brick chim- ney rising beyond a willow which apparently concealed the house itself. A small wharf project- ed from the outer end of the island and a cow and numerous chickens gave evidence of human habitation. Imagining the line of the old road to continue across the intervening water, he was able to pick out faintly visible traces of it ascend- ing the island beach to lose itself among the trees. The tide was low and it was evident that this strip of water was easily forded to the island beyond. Wading in, McLean found that in the deepest place it was scarcely to his knees. His arrival upon the island was at first con- tested by a good-sized Chesapeake Bay water dog who vociferously questioned his right to land, only to compromise at the surveyor's kindly approaches, present a sandy paw in greeting and permit his shaggy brown head to be patted and rubbed. Satisfied that the newcomer was a friend, the dog turned and led the way up the continuation of the old mainland road. ADAM AND EVE 21 The sun was gone by now and the sky was filled with threatening, low-hung clouds and dull, distant mutterings. As McLean followed the dog up the old trail he saw, through a break in the trees, that Spit Point no longer concealed the Iris. Before the fury of the approaching storm her white sides and house and yellow masts and fun- nel and trim, sweeping, yacht-like lines made him wish to be on board. Perhaps he could signal her from the wharf; but, just as he had made up his mind to do this, the incident of the nymph occurred to make him forget the Iris and her com- forts. CHAPTER II THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP EVE was waiting in the doorway when McLean reached the house, if house indeed it could be called, for his first impression of it was not so much of a house as of a huge, red brick chimney, towering and wide, which rose like an ancient landmark from the right wing of a hodgepodge, nondescript wooden shack of later edition. So tall was the chimney and so squatty the low- roofed shack that the former acquired an air of aristocratic aloofness, as though rearing its haughty head to such a height it was able to ignore and forget the ungainly plebeian at its feet. The rain fell hard now and the wind whipped it along in driving sheets that glared iridescently with each lightning flash. "Come in!" Eye welcomed him with a smile. "Ain't nobody home 'ceptin' just me. Dad's THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 23 fishin' and Plum, he's snoozin' over to his quar- ters. Plum mostly snoozes when it's right hot.'* "Which makes me think that Plum must be a very sensible fellow. I was wishing this morn- ing that I didn't have anything to do but snooze myself, it was so beastly hot," laughed McLean. "You don't look like a nappy-haid," the girl remarked in a serious tone, regarding him frankly. "I just hate nappy-haids. Now Plum, 'course you got to think about him a-bein' 'most a hun- dred, I reckon. He's different. How old are you?' "Twenty-four. Why?" "Nothin'. I was just a-hopin' you wasn't so very old, that's all," she replied casually and closed the door. McLean now found himself in a room of rather strange admixtures and striking contrasts. The great chimney place was, of course, the dominant feature; yet hardly less impressive was the floor of white tile, cracked and broken here and there as though by intense heat or extremely rough and careless usage; but it was, for the most part, in fairly good condition and as clean as a bed of coral. The furniture, with the exception of 24 EVE, JUNIOR a magnificent table and armchair of mahogany for which any connoisseur of Chippendale would have gladly paid a price, was rough, though ser- viceable and neat. Everywhere he saw little manifestations of a feminine hand which the crud- est furnishings would have failed to conceal. De- spite its peculiar incongruities, the room pos- sessed a distinctly charming and homelike atmo- sphere. The wind rose suddenly and banged a shutter somewhere. The next instant a wild, piercing shriek that seemed to fill the shack and all out- doors froze the blood in the surveyor's veins. It was like nothing so much as the terrified scream of a woman facing mortal danger. He turned to the girl in alarm to find her covering her face with her hands. A sob shook her as he spoke. "What was that?' he demanded. She shook her head and, keeping her face cov- ered, answered fearfully, "I don't know, 'less it's her. Dad says it is." "Her !" McLean repeated vaguely, as the shriek came again. "Who is 'her'?" "Dad's wife, Brookie," Eve replied, shivering anew. THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 25 "Where is she*?" he demanded, looking around; for the cry seemed very near. "Dad says, in the swamp, where she got sucked down," said Eve, uncovering her face. "But the sound seems to come from the chim- ney," averred McLean, going toward the great fireplace at the end of the room. It was deep and dark with shadows. The cry rose again and he shivered and stopped while Eve came to him as if for protection. "How long has this been going on?" he asked, mystified; for the weird sounds seemed to leap directly from the cavernous old chimney-place. "Ever since the night Brookie went off in the storm. She never, never come back any more and Dad says she got ketched in the swamp. It's goin' on five years come this Spring since she went. Dad, he says I done it." She hesitated, crying softly. " 'Done it?' " McLean repeated her words. "Yeh. Drove her away to the swamp. We-all couldn't get along together, me and Brookie. She'd try to make me do all the work and then she'd lay me out to Dad when I'd run away and go sailin' instid. So one night it was a-rainin' and 26 EVE, JUNIOR a-blowin' like cats and Plum, he was off with Dad a-fishin' and she tried to make me go out and cut wood for the fire and I said, 'No, we'd go to bed and wouldn't need no fire,' and she said she was a-goin' t' read she had some books, you know and I said if she wanted to read she could get her own wood. So I started to go to bed and she come in and throwed a bucket o' water on me and, jiminy, it was cold; and I ups with the lamp and it just skipped her haid. And the lamp, it busted all to smithereens and set things on fire and I began to cry. But Brookie, she run for another bucket of water and put the fire out. And then she calls me some names and puts on her hat and coat and packs up her books and some other things o' her'n and off she goes and we ain't heered nothin' of her since 'ceptin' just that." And as the scream died away, Eve fell to sobbing again. "I reckon it's a cuss on me for what I done that night. I'd give anything, anything, to bring her back again." She laid a trembling hand on McLean's arm as if to steady herself. Almost unconsciously he drew her to him, seeking clumsily to comfort her. THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 27 "It's only the wind, little girl," he tried to as- sure her; but she would not listen to him. "Did you ever hear the wind cry like this here thing does'?" she challenged. "No-o, I didn't," he was forced to confess as another shriek leaped from the fireplace and filled the room with its uncanny sound. "It must be the chimney, Eve, the wind in the chimney. Maybe it is due to the shape of it. Perhaps I could figure that out by the laws of acoustics." "Sticks ain't got nothin' to do with it. It ain't the chimley it's the swamp," she declared with quiet conviction. "Come here to the door and listen !" So he followed her to the door, which she opened, and they stood there in the wind and rain to wait for the next weird cry. It came in a moment, a far-flung, piercing scream from the region of the swamp across the mainland. He nodded and they came in and closed the door again. McLean was puzzled. "One of them is only an echo but I'll swear I don't know which one," he said. "Plum, he knows about echoes," Eve spoke up brightly. "Plum says the chimley's the echo." 28 EVE, JUNIOR "Maybe. It's pretty loud for an echo; sounds more like the original, to me. Besides, I never knew of a chimney giving back an echo, but these swamps do, for I noticed it a while ago," McLean remarked thoughtfully. He studied the chimneyplace with a new in- terest. It was a massive piece of brick work with a mantel and hearth of solid slabs of slate. Its construction and appurtenances were typical of a much earlier period. An old iron pot, swinging from the crane, gave evidence of recent use, and numerous other iron utensils hanging on the rack beside the fireplace seemed to indicate that the simple meals of which the shack could boast were still prepared in the manner of half a century and more ago. Standing now almost in the chimneyplace when the weird cry rose again, McLean found that the sound did not originate in the chimney at all, but came, as Eve had told him, from the mainland and was reflected, or thrown back, by the chimney. For, in spite of the distance over which the orig- inal sound must travel, he could plainly discern the fractional interval between the cry from the mainland and its counterpart in the chimney. The THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 29 chimney, he decided, must therefore be the focal point of the echo. At such a place the original sound would be reproduced in nearly its full vol- ume; hence the impression he had first received. "Plum is right, Eve," said McLean, stepping out from the fireplace; "the chimney is the echo, but it's only the wind in the trees or something of that sort over in the swamp. You never hear it when the air is still, do you?" "I don't know," she replied with slow uncer- tainty. "Sometimes it comes in the night and wakes me up and then I'm so skeered that I don't know whether the wind's a-blowin' or ain't." "Was it blowing the night your stepmother went away*?" "Yes, and a-rainin' and a-lightnin' in sheets worse'n now, and it was only April, too, and cold as Christmas. She ain't been gone long enough to ford the neck when comes an awful flash and crash and it seems like the chimley's a-comin' down on the roof and then this here screamin' begun. Plum, he says the lightnin' burnt her up ; but Dad says if it had she wouldn't a-had a chance to screech. He don't put no stock in the lightnin' 30 EVE, JUNIOR a- tall. He thinks the swamp got her, kind o' slow, like." McLean shuddered and smiled grimly. "And what do you think*?" he asked. "Me? I don't know's I think a-tall," Eve re- plied slowly, looking into the fireplace as though she were waiting for the next weird cry to come. "I hate to believe in ha'nts and such; but I reckon this here must be one, don't you*?" "No, I don't," the surveyor denied positively, while deep down in his heart he had begun to feel a real desire, not entirely bred of curiosity, to know what it was himself. The wind had slackened somewhat now; but the rain still poured in torrents. The cries came at intervals, though McLean was sure they were dying with the wind, for they grew fainter and less frequent. The electrical display was passing, too, and the thunder rolled in the distance. In the midst of the steady downpour the door opened and an old negro of uncertain age came in, shaking the rain from his bare, woolly, white head as a pearl diver shakes the water from his ears at the surface. He was neither tall nor short, fat or lean, but THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 31 old McLean felt that he was looking upon the revivified mummy of Rameses. And yet he was as straight as the foremast on the Iris. His skin was as wrinkled as the hide on the flanks of a lean elephant; yet it possessed a strange vitality and youthfulness of color, for it was of the velvety, blue-black hue of the skin of a rich, ripe plum. And that was what Eve called him. "Hello, Plum!" she said, in louder tones than McLean had heard her use before. "Storm wake you up*?" The old negro's eyes had been on the surveyor. He looked at Eve now, transformed his wrinkles into a grin, and cupped his hand at his ear. "Hey*?" he ejaculated, in a voice that seemed to come down through the ages, adding, "What kin ole Plum do fer li'l Missy'?" "Did you hear her to-day, Plum?" Eve inquired of him, anxiously. He nodded in affirmation and his smile faded back into the wrinkles of extreme gravity. "Yas, ole Plum heered her. He reckoned li'l Missy was all by herself and 'lowed she* mount be skeered, so he come," he said simply, in his eccentric way 32 EVE, JUNIOR of always speaking in the third person; and his eyes went back in question to the stranger. Eve turned to McLean and spoke in lowered tones. "You'd best tell Plum who you be, I reckon," she counseled, smiling up at him. "He's funny about the likes o' that. I 'spect he's a-wait- in' for you to say somethin' now." McLean laughed. "Oh, I see. Plum is your guardian angel, is he?" He turned to the old negro and raised his voice, for it was evident that Plum's hearing had suffered somewhat with the passing years. "I am a surveyor from the government vessel lying out there off Spit Point. Just happened along here in time for the squall and Miss Eve very kindly asked me in," he explained to the old negro. Plum acknowledged him with a bow and a mumbled, "Yas, Suh! Yas, Suh!" and proceed- ed to the fireplace, where he busied himself in preparing kindling and driftwood from a box in the corner in a pile for lighting on the andirons. Eve offered McLean the Chippendale armchair and, drawing a stool quite near for herself, sat down with her chin in her hands. THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 33 "You see Plum, he's been here, oh! ever and ever so long," she said. "Ain't nobody, I reckon, knows how old he is. 'Course he don't know, neither. Darkies, they never do, you know. But I reckon he's 'most a hundred, anyways, 'cause Dad, he says that Plum was just as old lookin' when he was a leetle boy as he is now. And Grandpa, he told Dad that Plum's head was gray when they got him ; and that was years and years before the mansion burnt." "The mansion!" McLean echoed, thinking vaguely of the old road, the great chimney and the tiled floor under his feet. "What mansion'?" Eve grew suddenly grave. "Oh, 'course you don't know about the mansion. This here floor's part of it; so's that there chim- ley and the fireplace and all. And the cheer you're a-settin' on and this here table's all that's left of the stuff that was in it. All the rest got burnt up when the mansion did. Plum, he got them two things out 'cause he said Grandpa said they'd come all the way from, oh, I don't know where, across the water, somewheres. And Grandpa thought a heap of 'em. And he carried Dad out, too, Plum did, 'cause Dad was just a leetle boy 34 EVE, JUNIOR and it was night time and he was asleep in the big room upstairs." "But what became of your grandparents'?" asked McLean, interested. "Oh, Grandpa and Grandma, they were dead a long time before the mansion burnt. Old Plum, he buried them over yonder under the big willow that kind o' droops all the time. Maybe you seen the willow when you come by. Dad buried my mother there along side of 'em, later on. But I was so leetle that I don't remember." "But didn't your dad have any relatives, any aunts or uncles or any one to take care of him when his parents died 1 ?" "Nope, not 'ary one; nobody but old Plum. You see, Grandma and Grandpa, they wasn't born in this country like me and you and Dad was. They come over here from some place 'way across the ocean 'cause some old king or somethin' said that if they didn't pick up sticks and git he'd chop off their heads, or somethin' like that. And so they just had to grab what they could ketch and run for the next boat. And that's how it come they come to this here island and built the man- THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 35 sion and all, and bought old Plum, too, I reckon, 'cause Plum, he says he used to be a slave." "I wonder why they chose the island instead of building on the mainland?" McLean mused, half aloud. "Can't tell, 'less it was 'cause they wanted to be off to theirselves, like, away from the rest of folks. Now Plum, he says it was 'cause they'd been used to livin' in a great big old house with a moat all around it, whatever that is." "Oh, I see," the surveyor rejoined. "Plum meant a castle, a great, old-fashioned mansion, with a big, wide trench dug around it and filled with water to keep out enemies. There must have been a drawbridge, too." "Yeh, there was a drawbridge," Eve agreed with emphasis. "Plum, he told about that, too; I remember now." "Well, aren't there any papers or letters or books or anything to show who your grandparents were related to and where they came from when they came here?" "Nope, I reckon they ain't, 'cause everything got burnt up 'ceptin' just this here stuff I told you about. Plum, he said he 'lowed Grandpa had a 36 EVE, JUNIOR hidin' place around here for his money and things 'cause he never had anything to do with banks and the like. But I reckon there's no tellin' about that now, is there?" "I don't know," McLean replied, thoughtfully; "but I do think that some effort should be made to locate your relatives and to trace your grand- father's connections in this country, as well, for it is evident that he was a man of means. What is your last name, Eve?" "Carroll," the girl replied, "and Dad's name is Tilghman Skipworth Carroll, but nobody ever calls him anything 'ceptin' 'Skip,' or maybe some- times 'Skipper/ " "Carroll is English and it is a good name to bear in Maryland, Eve ; and so is Tilghman. For the sake of you and your father and the future of both of you, this thing ought to be looked into," he told her earnestly. "When will your father be back from his fishing 1 ?" "Oh, if it keeps on rainin', Dad may lay out 'til the next tide. That'd put him in about dark. I wisht you could stay 'til he comes. I reckon Dad' 11 like you," she finished, smiling. THE VOICE OF THE SWAMP 37 "What makes you think so?" the surveyor asked, a trifle puzzled. "Oh, 'cause Dad, he mostly likes things and people that I like," she replied with a frank, un- conscious artlessness that rather startled McLean. "Ole Plum's done got de fire a-goin' fo' li'l Missy," the ancient negro announced. "Ain't no let-up to dis here storm a-tall, 'pears like. Ole Plum 'spec' 'de survey' gent'man'll be gittin' kind o' hongry, by'n by," he suggested with a broad smile. Eve laughed. "All right, Plum, thank you. I 'spec' ole Plum is kind o' hongry right this minute," she mocked shrewdly. "Never mind, I'll have some dinner ready in a jiffy." CHAPTER III THE KISS EVE was quick to perceive McLean's aversion to stewed pickled eel, which formed the piece de resistance of the menu she offered her guest. His efforts at peeling Irish potatoes, served in their jackets, brought tears of laughter to her eyes. Then she sobered suddenly and, flushing a little, remarked with quaint contrition, "I reckon I had ought to skin 'em before I put 'em on the table but Dad, he'd rather have 'em in their jackets. Here, let me take them skins off for you. Don't you like eels?" "Why, yes," McLean lied poorly as he sepa- rated a piece of the dark flesh from the long, sinu- ous backbone. "The flavor is very rich and meaty." Eve smiled with quick understanding and put a peeled potato on his plate. "I'm awful sorry we ain't got any other kind of fish or meat. Try 38 THE KISS 39 the flapjacks with some of that there quince jelly. I put it up myself last fall. If I'd o' thought about you maybe not likin' eel, I'd 'a' fried a couple o' chickens. Dad taken all the aigs to town yesterday." "I'm really quite fond of eel and very well satisfied, thank you," McLean replied, making a valiant effort to finish his portion of the reptilian- looking fish. Eve looked at him mischievously, but when he glanced up at her she was quick to assume an expression of gravity. "Ever seen eels a-rompin' along in the shallows inshore, a-playin' with them long, black water snakes that dart in and out amongst the hog- grass?" she asked with casual innocence. "No do they 1 ?" McLean inquired anxiously as he pushed the remaining bits of eel to one side of his plate. Eve's eyes danced as she watched him. "Yep," she asserted incisively, "they sure do. Dad often gets 'em all kinds in a haul. Some- times he says he can't tell 'em apart, they're that much alike." "I hope he didn't make any mistake about this 4-O EVE, JUNIOR one," the guest rejoined wryly, making a mental estimate from the amount remaining on his plate as to how much of this questionable water denizen he had eaten. Eve laughed outright and selected a large piece of eel which she ate with apparent relish, much to the surveyor's disgust. Plum came in presently and stood in the chim- ney corner, waiting for them to finish. In a lit- tle while they were through and the old negro sat down with alacrity. Eve placed his victuals before him and began to clear away the other dishes. Plum watched her for a few minutes with a curious patience and then entered a mild complaint in his characteristic, indirect manner. "Ain't li'l Missy a-fergittin' ole Plum to-day?" "Nope. I been a-waitin' to see if you'd remem- ber," Eve replied as she went to the cupboard. From a small locker underneath the shelves she took a wicker demijohn and poured a scant "two fingers" of red liquor in a wine glass that stood beside the jug, whereat Plum, observing the quan- tity, coaxed for more. "Aw, please, just another drap for ole Plum! THE KISS 41 Li'l Missy mought make hit just another drap to- day." Eve added to the liquor in the glass a very lit- tle more. "There, Plum," she said as she handed it to him. "That's a good two ringers. Now don't you beg for another speck." "Aw, li'l Missy mought make hit three dis here time. Why ole Plum's all kind o' tuckered out to-day," the old negro pleaded. "Well, you'll feel a right smart better when you've et your dinner, Plum. Victuals are a heap better'n whiskey when you're all tuckered out," Eve told him quietly. "Please, just another drap dis time an' ole Plum'll never bother li'l Missy no mo'," he cajoled. "No, Plum, not another drop," said Eve with decision. "If I gave you more now you'd want just as much to-morrow and still more the next day. In a week you'd have the jug and then the Old Boy'd have you." She put the demijohn back in the cupboard and closed the door decisively; and Plum, seeing that further coaxing would avail him nothing, 42 EVE, JUNIOR drained his glass, smacked his lips and attacked his food with the vigor born of an excellent ap- petite. McLean now saw that Plum found eel an inviting dish, for the old negro was soon noisily sucking the meat from the backbone of a big, brownish fellow that Eve had served to him. "I suppose Plum's little drink is a daily per- formance," McLean suggested with a smile as Eve came over to the window where he stood. "Oh, yes," she replied, laughing, "I reckon me and him have gone over pretty much them self- same antics every day since I was right small. "Would you like to see some of the things I've drawed 4 ?" she presently inquired. McLean said that he would; and Eve promptly produced a generous armful of sketches. The drawings were, for the most part, sketches of nearby scenes and of animals or fowls either domestic or native to the surrounding country. Some of them he recognized at once: the shack, with its great chimney towering above it like a monument to the glory that was past; the weeping willow, with its unmarked mounds beneath; Spit Point, from Eve's lookout at the foot of the great THE KISS 43 water oak, and Tip, the shaggy Chesapeake dog that had welcomed him to the island all of them rendered with a true sense of proportion and fidel- ity of detail, yet with that fine artistic touch that is the soul of the picture evident in every stroke of the pencil. There was a sketch of a catboat that especially interested McLean. The little vessel was so sturdy- looking and yet so graceful, too. With its main- sail set it swung at anchor off the wharf near the outer end of the island. "That's my old catty," Eve explained, noting his interest in the sketch. "I'd like to see the boat itself," he said. "This sketch is great. Your talent for drawing, Eve, is nothing less than genius. It deserves to be de- veloped under the guidance of the best masters. Have you ever had any instructions, lessons or anything?" "Lessons," Eve pondered. "You mean books'?" "No, but didn't some one show you how to draw some one who could do this sort of thing, too?" he suggested. "Oh, no," Eve promptly replied, as she saw what he meant, "nobody ever shown me anything. 44 EVE, JUNIOR I just seen things and drawed 'em. I reckon I always could draw, some. 'Pears like I don't ever remember startin' a-tall. You can see this here catty 'most any time when the rain stops. She's a-layin' just offen the wharf, like you see her in the picture. I'll sail you out to your ship if there's any wind later on, and you want me to." "I shall be delighted if you will, thanks. What is the name of your boat?" "I call her East Wind^ 'cause she sails better when the wind is off to the east'ard and she 'pears to love it best of all the winds that blow. And so do I, 'cause it's always so strong and steady and it never fails you. And it smells so fresh and clean and damp and salty, too, 'cause, you know, it come 'cross miles and miles of open water 'way out there where the sea is. Have you ever been to sea?" "Yes, often. We came up here from the Gulf of Mexico last winter." "What is the sea like?" "You are asking me something that is very hard to answer, Eve," the surveyor replied with quiet reverence. "Just think of yourself sitting there in the cockpit of your catboat in the midst THE KISS 45 of a great body of water whose shores you would never reach in weeks and weeks of sailing, even with the wind abeam the fastest sailing wind there is. Well, that is the sea: just sky and air and water and God." "I've often wondered about it and when I do it always kind o' takes my breath and makes my heart jump up and down and pound like a boat close-hauled in a head sea. There's somethin' terrible about so much waves and wind and water as that must be, and somethin' grand, too. It's like the hand o' God spread out to grip your soul and hold it to Him when your knees get all trim- bly and you're a- feared to turn and run. I've felt that-a-way right here in Bodkin when the east wind licked in from the bay. It makes you feel kind o' leetle and all alone, like, with so much bigness all around you and you're kind o' skeered and happy all at the same time without a-knowin' just why." McLean turned from the sketch of the catboat to study the girl with a newly awakened interest. He felt that for the briefest moment it had been permitted him to glimpse her soul and the sight of it was good. 46 EVE, JUNIOR In physical perfection, too, Eve was remark- able. The smooth, sweeping curves of her vigor- ous young body were not molded and massaged into shape by any human devices nor confined by any artificial means; they were simply muscles modeled by Nature and molded and strengthened into firm shapeliness by her active life in the open. Her features, too, had gained, rather than suffered, from exposure, for they possessed a delicate de- termination and ruggedness that added to the glory of their health and beauty in a way that cosmetics would have vainly mocked. She turned from the window and surprised his admiring glances. "I reckon the rain's about done for," she re- marked, flushing ever so little. A little later, when patches of blue began to show through the scurrying clouds overhead, Eve and the surveyor went down to the wharf at the outer end of the island. Here the catboat was moored, stern line to the wharf log, head anchored out. With the passing of the storm the wind died and they had to abandon Eve's suggestion of re- turning McLean to the Iris in the catboat. Pres- THE KISS 47 ently the sun came out and the surveyor began to signal his vessel by means of a small convex mirror which he carried in his pocket. Finally, the Iris answered him with a short blast of the whistle and a few minutes later the cutter put out toward them. Eve fell silent for an interval, during which she thoughtfully watched the oncoming boat. Suddenly she turned to her companion and asked, "Is your name really 'Adam"?" The surveyor laughed. "No, it is Douglas Mc- Lean. Why?" "Oh, that's a heap better. I hate 'Adam.' What made you say \t was 'Adam' ?" "Well, you said yours was Eve " "So 'tis Eve. What o' that?" "Why, Eve made me think of 'Adam,' that's all." "Well, I don't see what's Adam got to do with it. Who's this here 'Adam'?" "The first man in the Bible Eve's husband." "The Bible," Eve repeated, groping vaguely for the connection in her memory; then, of a sud- den, she recalled it. "Oh, yes ! Brookie had the Bible but she taken it with her. I used to coax 48 EVE, JUNIOR her to read me about it but she'd just say I wouldn't understand, nohow. I reckon that's how it come I never heered about this 'Adam.' " "The next time I come over, Eve, I'll bring a Bible with me and read you the Book of Gene- sis," McLean told her with quick resolution. "Reading the Bible aloud, or otherwise, is some- what out of my line; but I think you at least ought to know about the Creation." "I reckon I had ought to," Eve admitted grave- ly. "When might you be a-comin' again *?" "Just as soon as I can," he replied sincerely. "To-morrow evening, perhaps. I want to see your father, too, the next time I come." The cutter, diverging from its course to avoid the sandbar that reached out from the southern end of the island, was for the moment obscured by the high bank near the wharf. Eve was lean- ing on a pilehead looking thoughtfully at a school of alewives disporting in the sunlight near the sur- face. Suddenly she turned and faced her tall companion. Her hand sought his arm with a touch that thrilled him. He looked down into her upturned face and she met his eyes with the THE KISS 49 frank fearlessness of a child, her own eyes deep with newly awakened feeling. "I reckon I kind o' like you," she told him in her soft, violin-like tones. He felt the sudden tide of hot blood sweep- ing to his neck and face and temples. Before he realized what he was doing he was crushing her in his arms while his lips sought hers and found them in an unresisted kiss that filled his very soul with sweet content. It was at this full moment that the tail of his eye caught the cutter moving swiftly into view past the bank. Reluctantly he permitted Eve to slip from his arms. She stood for a moment facing him, her eyes ablaze, her cheeks scarlet, her attitude defiant and then the fire faded out of her eyes and a smile came in to take its place. The next instant she was gone. CHAPTER IV THE CONSEQUENCE As the cutter drew in alongside of the wharf McLean saw that Caleb Johnson, first officer of the 7m, was in charge of it. The surveyor had never liked "Cabe," as the mate was familiarly known, and he had good reason to believe that Cabe entertained a similar dislike for him. John- son had been in the service but a short time. And beyond the fact that he had made a capable and efficient first officer, little was known of him. McLean's dislike for the man was a subtile, in- tangible, unreasoning aversion that he could not explain. Sometimes he felt that it was merely a repugnance to Johnson's outward appearance, for though he was a tall, well-built and rather good-looking fellow, his eyes, which were of a distant and unfriendly gray, were set a trifle too close together. Though Johnson had never openly indicated 50 'I reckon I kind o' like you," she told him in her soft violin-like tones THE CONSEQUENCE 51 it, McLean knew that Cabe harbored "a quiet con- tempt for his youth and inexperience. The, young surveyor had been quickly advanced to chief of party and given complete charge of the 7m, a commission which Johnson sullenly resented, for he felt that the position should have gone to an older and more experienced man. He resented, too, the idea of having to take orders from a man ten years his junior. As McLean boarded the cutter Johnson saluted him, frowning. "To the 7m, Sir*?" he asked glumly. McLean nodded affirmation and sat down in the sternsheets. Johnson gave his orders to the quartermaster and the cutter backed out, reversed and headed down stream. "Didn't know you were acquainted around here," the mate remarked with casual sarcasm. "I'm not," McLean replied shortly. "What do you call it, then*?" asked Johnson with unpleasant insistence. "Call what, Mr. Johnson?" the surveyor drawled to evade the issue, for he realized that Cabe must have seen the episode of the kiss. "Oh, the girl on the wharf, you know what I 52 EVE, JUNIOR mean. Quick work, eh?" Johnson laughed sug- gestively. McLean flushed with sudden anger. "I found her a very charming child," he replied tartly. "Quite charming, indeed," mocked the mate with an unpleasant laugh. "Oh, quite, I assure you. Yes, I noticed that myself. Some child, Chief, if you'll pardon my saying so, some child. Rather precocious, too, for one so young. Make a date, did you?" "I don't consider it any of your damned busi- ness whether I did or not," McLean retorted hotly. "Come, now, Chief," said Johnson, slurring the title in a way that made it biting sarcasm, "come, what's the use of getting sore over a fisherman's whelp?" "Johnson, the less you and I have to say to one another the better we'll get along," the surveyor counseled quietly. "What happened there on the wharf was entirely my fault and very unfortu- nate for the the girl. I don't care to hear any more about it." "Very gallant of you to take all the blame on THE CONSEQUENCE 53, yourself. I wonder if the next one will do as much 1 ?" sneered Cabe. "Just what do you mean by 'the next one"?" McLean demanded with feeling. "Oh, shucks, Chief, these river snipes are all alike. The sky's their limit and they'll go it with anybody. But I guess you know that by now. No exception, was she?" "You'll go ashore with me for that," McLean flung back in passion. "I'll do no such a thing," the mate replied with a contemptuous laugh that brought the younger man to his feet. But Cabe only grinned up at him and sat quite still. McLean turned to the quartermaster and ordered the cutter's course directed to a landing near Spit Point. "Hold your course to the Jm, my boy," the mate coolly contradicted. "Put in at that landing or I'll report you both for insubordination," McLean warned with calm determination. Johnson laughed again but said nothing and the quartermaster headed the cutter toward the landing which the younger man had designated. 54 EVE, JUNIOR As the cutter came alongside of the bulkhead Mc- Lean sprang ashore. "I'm waiting for you, Mr. Johnson," he called when he saw that the mate had made no effort to follow him. "Well, wait and be damned," Cabe replied, coolly crossing his legs. "You're a miserable coward if you won't come ashore," McLean taunted hotly. "You'll be a jelly fish if I do," was the mate's contemptuous, laughing threat. "Johnson, I've always thought there was a yel- low streak in you, and now I know it. You're a blackguard and a coward." "And you're a dam' fool and a cripple crip- pled in the head and I don't fight youngsters so afflicted," the mate replied with his nonchalant, sneering laugh. McLean turned and walked back to the bulk- head as if to board the cutter again. Johnson was sitting in the sternsheets directly below him. Suddenly the surveyor stooped, gripped the mate firmly by the collar of his tunic and, lifting him clear of the cutter, tumbled him into the shallow water between the boat and the bulkhead before THE CONSEQUENCE 55 the man, taken thus unawares, had time to re- alize what was happening to him. In a moment Cabe was climbing out again, his head and shoulders covered with long, green, matted fronds of hog-grass that gave him the rather ludicrous appearance of a puffy, overgrown bull-frog. And as he came up over the bulkhead he sputtered and swore in a way that indicated that he would no longer require coaxing to fight. Shaking the water and grass from him as he came, the mate made a savage lunge for McLean, who avoided the attack and, circling deftly, swung a smashing right to Johnson's ear. Blind with rage, the older man turned and made as if to run his adversary overboard, but the surveyor sidestepped his rush and, landing heavily on the hinge of his opponent's jaw, backed away toward the shore. Johnson followed, vainly seeking an opportunity to clinch. Once on dry land, Johnson plunged at him with his head down like a mad bull, raining blows right and left. Fortunately, McLean, having plenty of foot room, was able to avoid most of them, taking only such as he was compelled to in order to reach the mate's chin and mouth in a way that sent 56 EVE, JUNIOR the man reeling backward with the blood stream- ing from his lips. The younger man followed up his momentary advantage with a wind-fetching punch to the pit of Johnson's stomach. This half doubled the mate up with pain and McLean, clos- ing in, reached his face again and again. And at last Johnson sank heavily upon the ground. At this juncture the crew of the cutter inter- fered, for Johnson was nearly exhausted. "I think he's had enough, Sir," the quartermas- ter ventured. "You'd better come aboard." McLean broke away from the peacemakers and stood over his sprawling adversary, waiting for him to get up that he might knock him down again. But Johnson made no attempt to regain his feet. His breath came quick and short and his face and coat were smeared and splotched with blood. Already his eyes were swollen and badly discolored. McLean stirred Johnson none too gently with his foot. "Apologize for the girl's sake, damn you," he demanded. The mate muttered a curse and began to get to his feet. The surveyor waited until he had THE CONSEQUENCE 57 risen. The moment Johnson had regained his feet he made a weak, ineffectual attempt to lunge at the younger man. As he did so McLean's right caught him squarely between the eyes. The mate reeled backward, caught himself, staggered a few feet, then fell in a motionless heap on the sand. The surveyor stood for an instant watching him grimly. After a little he turned away and went on board the boat. Later, when the others had returned to the Iris, the quartermaster came to McLean and told him that Johnson had declared to "get even." "The mate's a bad enemy, Sir," the man warned gravely. "I knowed him when he was snapper nshin' out o* Mobile and Pensacola. I'd advise you to look sharp, Sir; he'll be up to tricks 'fore long." The next morning when the survey corps board- ed the cutter to be set ashore at their respective stations, the second officer, Thomas, captained the boat; for Johnson had been reported in sick bay. After the men had been placed on their points McLean went on to triangulation station "Hades," intending to complete his reference 58 EVE, JUNIOR sketch there and pick out other points further up the creek. On his arrival, however, he discovered that he had not brought his fieldbook containing the triangulation notes of the upper Chesapeake Bay and tributaries. This, he thought, was odd, as he could not re- call having removed it from his hip pocket the night before. He assumed that he must have done so, however, and had neglected to replace it when he had dressed that morning. As there was space enough for the day's work in another book which he had, he decided to go ahead with his program instead of returning to the Iris at once for the fieldbook. That evening, however, a search of his quar- ters and effects failed to produce the missing book, nor could he remember when or where he had had it since he put it in his hip pocket after leaving station "Hades" to go to the island. He ques- tioned his corps and the crew of die vessel, but none of them had any knowledge of it. Finally he concluded that he must have left it at the shack, though he had no recollection of removing it from his pocket at any time. Since the book contained much of the original field notes of the triangula- THE CONSEQUENCE 59 tion surveys of the past two months, its loss would mean that this work would have to be duplicated, a feature involving the expenditure of thousands of dollars. It would mean, too, the inevitable sev- erance of his connection with the service, with a blot of carelessness upon his record. Immediately after dinner McLean ordered his small, high-powered hydroplane lowered oversides and boarding her he proceeded at once to the island. As he approached the wharf he noticed a tall, spare, weatherbeaten man in the rough garb of a waterman overhauling his nets and eel-pots and placing them in the stern of a stout-looking power bateau which was moored at the inshore wing of the wharf. The surveyor rightly assumed the fisherman to be "Skip" Carroll. He landed and, introducing himself, explained his errand. Carroll listened attentively, mean- while taking in every detail of the measure of his visitor. In spite of his weatherbeaten features and worn, toil-stained garments there was some- thing distinctive and striking about the man. He produced the unexpected and conflicting impres- sion of virile, yet decadent, aristocracy. His eyes were the eyes of his daughter, a coincident fea- 60 EVE, JUNIOR ture that marked him with unmistakable certainty the parent of Eve. The tall fisherman smiled and extended his hand in greeting when McLean had finished his explanation. "I'm right glad to be a-meetin' you, Mister McLean," he said in hearty, sincere tones. "Eve, she was a-tellin' me how you'd come in yis- tidday outen the squall. Said she kind o' reck- oned you mought come ashore this evenin' for a spell. I don't recollect her a-mentionin' no book, howsoever, but you go right along up to the house, Sir, an' welcome. I'm a-goin' out on this tide an' there ain't nobody to home but Eve an' old Plum, but you 'pear like a gentleman, Sir." "Thanks," McLean answered gravely. "I hope that you may never have cause to change your opinion." Eve was hanging out the dish towels when he reached the shack. "I thought you said you were a-comin' over this evenin'," she remarked with a little petulant frown when she saw him. "Well, I'm here," McLean laughed, a bit puz- zled. "Yeh, but this ain't evenin'," she complained, THE CONSEQUENCE 61 "this is night. Supper's all done and dishes washed and put away and it's a-gettin' dark a'- ready." "I'm sorry, Eve. I didn't think you expected me to supper," he apologized. "Oh, that's all right," the girl smiled up at him quickly; "I just kind o' reckoned you meant to come earlier and when you didn't I felt a leetle bit put out about it, that's all. Did you bring the Book o' o' Geraniums'?" "The what 1 ?" exclaimed McLean with a frown of perplexity. "Why, that there Book o' oh, you know the one you said I had ought to know about, cre- mation, or somethin' another, in the Bible, I reckon," Eve explained, groping for the unfa- miliar words. McLean laughed. "You mean the Book of Genesis. No, I didn't bring it, Eve. I forgot all about it, to tell you the truth, for I've lost my fieldbook and I haven't been able to think of anything since. I was won- dering if I had left it here yesterday." "Nope, I reckon not, I didn't see it. What's it look like?" 62 EVE, JUNIOR McLean described its appearance, but Eve knew nothing of it. The only thing that remained for him to do now was to go carefully over the ground he had traversed the day before from station "Hades." He realized with much concern that such a search would offer but the faintest pos- sibility of success on account of the dense under- brush and swampy marsh lands through which the trail had taken him. He left the island a little after dark to return to the Ins with the intention of making a thorough inspection of the vessel. Eve went down to the wharf with him and just before he boarded his hydroplane he gave her a little anchor-shaped gold pin which had be- longed to his mother. It was the first piece of jewelry the girl had ever possessed. When he had gone Eve hurried back to the shack, where she went at once to her room and made a light. For a long time she sat studying the little trinket with delighted eyes. Later, she got a sheet of paper and a pencil and began to make a sketch of it. CHAPTER V THE IMPOSTOR CABE JOHNSON was standing at the starboard rail amidships when McLean ordered his hydroplane lowered. He knew that McLean would soon re- turn to institute a search of the ship when he failed to find his book at the shack, and so he waited for the first flash of the hydroplane's run- ning lights which would indicate the surveyor's departure. As McLean's stay lengthened the mate's impa- tience increased. Finally, unable to content him- self with waiting, he descended the accommoda- tion ladder to the yawl moored at the foot of it and rowed slowly in the direction of Spit Point. He was lying quietly by, his oars shipped and waiting, when the hydroplane's stern light flashed through the darkness. Presently, with all her run- ning lights gleaming steadily, the little craft came tearing across the dark, smooth water. A moment later she was far beyond the skulker. 63 64 EVE, JUNIOR Then Johnson turned, and, rounding the point, rowed rapidly to the bulkhead where McLean had whipped him the day before. Here he went ashore and groped about in the sand for some time, now stooping to feel with his hands, now tamping the beach with his feet. Finally, he came upon the little mound of sand he sought, and, stuffing the object which he found concealed there into an empty coat pocket, he re- turned to the yawl and directed his course toward the island. A little later Johnson moored his boat at Car- roll's wharf and went on up the road to the shack. He had seen Skip go out in his bateau and knew that there was no one on the island but Eve Car- roll and the old negro. He therefore rapped boldly on the front door of the shack and awaited results. Eve answered his summons unafraid and fully dressed. "I came to see your father," said Johnson gruffly. "Is he about?" "No, he's nshin'," Eve replied with equal brev- ity. "What do you want of him?" THE IMPOSTOR 65 "It's a pretty serious matter," the mate told her in a doleful voice and drew a long face. "Oh, it is. Well, s'pose'n you tell me about it," the girl suggested fearlessly. "I'm an officer from the United States Fisheries Bureau," Johnson lied smoothly, as he pushed his way in through the half-open door. "Your father has been taking undersized fish in his hauls, and I've come to arrest him." "You don't say so," Eve challenged, her eyes flashing. She folded her arms and blocked his further progress into the room by putting her foot against the door. Johnson regarded her with assumed anger. "Yes, I do say so, and if you know what's good for you, kid, you'll let me in without any trouble about it. Your old man ain't out fishing, he's inside there asleep." Eve laughed in derision. "You know dam' well my Dad ain't to home. I reckon that's how 'tis you make so bold to come here in the night like this. You'd better not let him ketch you 'round this here island after I tell him what you said about him or, man, he'll whale time outen you." 66 EVE, JUNIOR Johnson laid a heavy hand upon her shoulder. She promptly shook it off and he caught her by the wrist. "Don't you know that you're only making trou- ble for yourself by talking that way"? I'll arrest you, too, as an accomplice, if you're not careful," he growled ominously. "And if you don't let go o' my wrist I'll give you a backhander in the face that'll fetch you to your senses," Eve threatened, her cheeks aflame with anger. "My Dad's out nshin,' like I told you, and he ain't a-takin' no culls, neither, and never did; and if you ain't a-wantin' to lay up for repairs I reckon you'd best clear out and never tell him he did, neither." "The man don't live that I'm afraid of," the mate boasted, even though his face still bore evi- dences of his recent encounter with McLean. "I'll get him and I've got the goods on him, too, when I do get him. That live-box of his will tell the story," he added, still holding Eve's wrist. With a quick, angry movement the girl wrenched her wrist from his grasp and stamped her foot impetuously. "There ain't never been anything in that there THE IMPOSTOR 67 live-box to hurt Dad, and there ain't nothin' there now. Dad's square, he is, and you're crookeder'n a grapevine, and if you're a-goin' to put up a job on him I'll I'll kill you, that's what I'll do." Johnson laughed contemptuously but her beauty had aroused him. He made a futile ef- fort to embrace her and got a resounding slap in the face for his presumption. "You're a regular little bear-cat," he ejacu- lated, as he rubbed the sting of her hand out of his cheek. Then his eyes narrowed craftily and he came to the point of his mission. "I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll make a bargain with you, kid: for a kiss or two, I'll let your father off this time, and we'll call it square. Come on, you may as well be friends with me! It will keep your dad out of a lot of trouble, and it won't do you any harm, either," Johnson suggested with an evil smirk. "My Dad don't have to be kept out o* no trou- ble, 'cause he ain't in none," Eve flashed back. "And I wouldn't be friends with you for for anything, 'cause you're just a low-down, lyin', good-for-nothin' shrimp, you are, and I reckon you'd better git before I call Plum." 68 EVE, JUNIOR "Call him, if you want to get him arrested. I've got a warrant for him, too, and it will save me the trouble of coming back," said the mate with plausible candor. Eve regarded the man with a new interest bred of increasing fear. "You surely wouldn't take old Plum away from this here island, would you 4 ?" she asked, her lips a-tremble. "I'll have to take them both if you don't do what I'm proposing." "Well, Pd just like to see the likes of you a-takin' Dad. Why, man, he'd bait his lines with the scraps that was left o' you when he got done handlin' you. But poor old Plum you just try it and I'll settle with you in about two flips of a flapjack." Johnson watched her dilating, angry eyes and the ebb and flow of red in her cheeks, and a mad- ness seized him. Springing suddenly toward her he caught her by the elbows and pinned her arms at her sides while his breath whistled between his clenched teeth. He bent his head until his face was in her hair and then she kicked him so hard that he doubled up with pain. As his head went THE IMPOSTOR 69 down she caught his ear between her teeth and held on until he yelled and let go of her arm in order to protect himself. The instant her hands were free she slapped him right and left with all her might while he covered his face with his arms and retreated back- ward toward the door. His course was some- what ill-directed, however, for he missed the open- ing by a wide margin and presently found him- self crouching in a chair into which he had inad- vertently stumbled with his back to the wall. And then Eve burst into tears, and, turning, fled to her room where she barricaded the door with a chair and flung herself upon her bed in a passion of unrestrained weeping. The mate recovered himself with a sheepish, self-conciliatory grin. He got up and looked around for a mirror. But the Carroll living-room did not boast such a luxury. His roving eyes fell upon a framed print of the late President Mc- Kinley with the name of a well-known tea-and- coffee house blazoned in advertisement across the bottom of the frame. He studied it for a mo- ment with a peculiar, growing interest as if the sight of it had brought an idea into being. A yo EVE, JUNIOR slow, malicious smile overspread his scratched, bleeding face. On his toes he crossed the room to where the picture hung beside the cupboard. From his pocket he took the object he had found in the sand and slid it in back of the pic- ture, wedging it between the wires to be sure that it would not fall out. He then went to the door of Eve's room and tried the knob, but the chair held fast and the door would not open. "I'm going now, you little she-devil," he called in his bullying, half angry tone, "and if I hear anything about what happened to-night I'll come back and get you and your old Plum and your father, too. I'll bring a cage along to put you in, you little bear-cat. Now don't forget, not a word about to-night or the law will take you in hand, and it won't be good for you." And with this parting admonition to which Eve did not reply, Johnson departed to the wharf where he bathed and cooled his scratched and ach- ing face in the brackish water of the creek. When he felt that his appearance would pass without exciting suspicion on board the 7m, he got into the yawl and rowed slowly toward the ship. Later, as he was taking a turn about the deck THE IMPOSTOR 71 before retiring, he noticed McLean sitting at his desk in his cabin writing a report of the loss of his triangulation book to Washington. From the darkness and security of the deck the mate saw the address on the official envelope, and turned away with a grim smile of satisfaction. As he was about to enter his room a few min- utes later, the second officer, Thomas, who was on watch, caught sight of his disfigured face. "Where'd you get the decorations'? Looks as though you'd had an unsuccessful argument with a healthy bobcat," the younger man suggested pleasantly. "I went ashore to hunt for a spring and got mixed up in those dam' greenbriars," Johnson grumbled as he entered his cabin. Without cere- mony he closed the door in the face of his brother officer, for he was anxious to be alone. Three days later McLean received a reply from Washington which stated that unless the book was recovered in ten days he would be dismissed from the service. CHAPTER VI THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT EVE'S room was misty with the first faint grayish light of dawn when she awoke to find herself lying, still fully dressed, across her bed. Child- like, she had an inordinate, unreasoning fear of the law which to her was, in any form, a quick- sand of unthinkable possibilities. The very word connoted in her mind visions of prison bars and dungeons where the sunlight never came. The big bully in the uniform had told her to say nothing, and nothing would happen. She knew that her father had not disobeyed the law, but what was the law and how might he be able to prove his innocence*? It never occurred to Eve that the proof of guilt must be sustained by the law itself. To her the law was a great unseen arm of intangible irrevocability, infallible, final. If the hand of the law reached out and grasped her father in its relentless clutches she was very THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT 73 sure he would have to fight for freedom. Perhaps it would be best to obey the stranger's parting admonition and say nothing at all about his noc- turnal visit. During the week that followed McLean visited the island several times. The loss of the fieldbook, however, was a serious obstacle to his complete enjoyment of the hours he spent off duty, and he was, for the most part, a dull guest. Eve, tod, with the memory of his kiss still burning on her lips, was inclined to be somewhat distant and re- served when the surveyor was present. She never quite forgot herself in that sweet unconsciousness which McLean had found so childishly charming at first. Nor was she self-conscious, but he had many occasions to regret his impulsiveness that first day on the wharf, for he often felt the in- visible barrier of convention which the incident had raised between them. And when, in despair of surmounting the obstacle, he attempted to re- peat the episode of the kiss he was met by a quiet, smiling, yet firm rebuff which, though plainly par- doning the present offense, as plainly warned against a future repetition. McLean came away feeling what he hated to admit: that the sweet, 74 EVE, JUNIOR lovable child he had unwittingly kissed but a few days before had suddenly developed into woman- hood, sweeter, more lovable, more beautiful than ever. Meanwhile, after making every effort to locate his missing book, he was finally forced to the unwelcome conclusion that it had somehow fallen overboard and sunk, though doubtless it would have floated for a time until it became thoroughly saturated with water. And thus it was that on the evening of the ninth day after McLean had received the ultimatum from Washington he went to the island to say good-by. Skip was out with his nets somewhere on the bay and Plum, Eve said, was "snoozin' " in his quarters, as usual. The night was warm and still, with the pros- pect of a storm out of the northwest where the heat lightning played in softly vivid flashes along the crests of thunderheads assembled there. Eve suggested a stroll around the island beach, to which McLean consented. He was not in the mood for talking, and the walk would occupy enough of their attention to make his lack of words less obvious. He had learned, too, that THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT 75 Eve had a quaint little way of philosophizing as they idled along together, and her words and quiet manner always soothed him like a lullaby. As yet he had not told her that the loss of the book would result in his dismissal from the service, and she had no idea that this visit meant good-by. "Oh, about the book," Eve said at length. "I'm awful sorry. But maybe it ain't too late yet. Brookie used to say that in stories things always turned out right just at the last minute when you was a-commencin' to reckon they never, never would. Maybe it'll be that-a-way with your book." McLean laughed at her quaint, childish sim- plicity. "I'm afraid not, Eve," he replied, drawing a long breath. "Besides, I'm going away to-mor- row." The girl stopped quite still and looked out over the water to where the Iris lay at anchor in a shim- mer of reflected light. "Away," she repeated vaguely, "to-morrow?" "To-morrow morning," said McLean. "Where? 5 "I don't know yet. I've hardly thought about 76 EVE, JUNIOR it. I had not given up hope of finding the book until to-night." "I'm sorry," said Eve with sincere simplicity. McLean turned quickly toward her, while the thrill of an impulse to take her in his arms was checked by her own intuition, for she looked away and began to walk slowly on. The surveyor fol- lowed with his pulses pounding. Completing their circuit of the island they came presently to the wharf, and, turning, went up the road toward the shack, for Eve had told McLean that she had made a sketch of the Iris and she wanted him to see it and pass upon it. As they entered she made a light in the living room, then went on to her own room where she lit her lamp and called him. The new sketch occupied what appeared to be the last available space on the wall. Like all the others about it, it was held in place by four tacks and framed by four other sketches which, though excellent in themselves, accentuated the marked improvement in the later drawing. "You're wasting your time here in Bodkin, Eve," McLean told her with a sincere directness that sounded harsh. "The world has better use THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT 77 for you. You ought to take advantage of this glorious talent now." "Dad's here and old Plum," she replied gravely. "I reckon I'll stay by 'em like I had ought to. I've always been here, and I've been right happy, mostly. I don't know how it'd be out yonder, there," she concluded wistfully, pointing town- ward. McLean smiled in sympathetic understanding. "Perhaps you're right, Eve this is your home. It's the most wonderful place in the world when you feel that way about it." "Where is your home*?" she inquired, looking up with sudden, thoughtful interest. "I haven't any. My parents have been dead for a number of years." "Got any sisters, or brothers or anything?" "No, only a few distant cousins." "Oh, that's too bad. No wonder you said you didn't know where you'd go to-morrow," Eve re- marked soberly; and McLean laughed, then so- bered, too, with the thought that the Iris had been his home for nearly five years. To-morrow's part- ing would not be so easy, after all, he realized with a pang of regret. 78 EVE, JUNIOR It was getting late now and he turned to go. As he left Eve's room a sudden draught of air closed the front door with a bang that sent a tre- mor through the shack. The picture of President McKinley rattled against the wall and a dark ob- ject slipped from in back of it and fell to the floor with a little thud that made the surveyor turn to see what had caused the sound. With a start of amazement he stooped quickly and picked up his triangulation book. Eve stared curiously at the unfamiliar object. "What is it 4 ?" she asked simply. "Yes, what is it," McLean repeated in sudden anger. "You know well enough what it is. That was a devilish trick to play when you were aware of the fact that the loss of this book was causing so much trouble.'* Eve's glance left the book to seek his accusing eyes. She felt an odd mixture of curiosity, fear and resentment. Her face reddened with a flush and her eyes grew bright with little angry lights. She started to speak, lost the thread of what she meant to say and stared at the book again. McLean studied her for an intent, angry mo- ment, then put the book in his pocket, and with- THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT 79 out a word left the shack. Eve watched him as he closed the door and hurried down the road. The hot blood burned her cheeks. Her eyes were full of tears. McLean returned to the Iris feeling that he owed Johnson some measure of apology for the unfortunate affair which had ended in their fight. First, however, he meant to have a wireless sent to the Naval Academy to be relayed to the depart- ment at Washington reporting the recovery of the fieldbook. The first officer was standing at the rail near the accommodation ladder when the surveyor came on board. McLean did not observe him, however, and went at once to the wireless room where he gave his instructions to the operator. Johnson walked quietly over and stood just outside the open door and overheard the message. As Mc- Lean came out again, the mate stepped quickly into the shadow around the corner of the house. It was at this moment that the watch approached. "Where is Mr. Johnson?" asked McLean. "He was on the port deck near the gangway a few minutes ago, Sir," the watch replied, pass- ing on. 8o EVE, JUNIOR The face of the man in the shadow went white. A tremor of fear shook him as with palsy. He watched McLean go on up the deck and enter his room, then he made a stealthy dash for the accom- modation ladder. Running hurriedly down the steps, he entered the yawl and rowed silently away in the darkness. Hours later came the wind and the rain and the lightning; and the storm broke in all its mid- summer fury. And weird sounds arose from the swamp and filled the shack with their mocking terror. Old Plum, deaf though he was to nearly every other sound save this, was awakened, and, fearing that his "li'l Missy" would be frightened, left his quarters and went to comfort her. But at the open door of her room he stood aghast ; his old knees began to tremble and his old eyes stared in startled unbelief. For the first vivid lightning flash had shown him her untouched bed all smooth and white and empty. In sudden panic the ancient negro fell to sob- bing like a child that has lost its way, and he wan- dered from end to end of the deserted shack, cry- ing her name aloud and begging her in piteous THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT 81 tones to come to him. And when this proved of no avail he plunged wildly out of doors, and ran stumbling along the island beach, bare-headed and bedraggled, heedless of the wind and rain that sought to beat him down, pitting his feeble old voice against the mighty voice of the storm, calling for his "li'l Missy" to come back. But the dog, Tip, alone heard his call and an- swered it. He tugged and strained at the end of his chain until a weak link somewhere in its length gave way and freed him. With the unerring in- stinct of his breed he responded to the necessities of the moment and covered the island many times as Plum encircled it. At last, however, both man and dog were forced to admit the uselessness of their quest. Weary and discouraged, fearful past fearing for the safety of his ward, wet to the skin and bruised and battered by many falls as he stumbled about in the inky blackness that closed in upon each blinding flash, Plum finally made his way back to the shack and dropped into the old Chippen- dale chair, prostrated with grief and fatigue. And Tip followed him and sat at his feet and licked his old, shriveled black hands in humble commis- 82 EVE, JUNIOR eration while the end of the broken chain clanked ominously against the chair legs a fitting accom- paniment to the wail of the wind, the shriek of the swamp, the bursting peal and roll of the thunder. CHAPTER VII "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS IT was seven bells of the first watch when John- son came aboard the Iris in the gloam of the early summer morning. The storm had abated and the eastern sky was pink with promise of the coming day. "In case any one mentions it," he told the watch with a confidential wink, "just forget that you saw me this morning, and I'll make it worth your while." A little later on, in from the storm-tossed bay came Skip Carroll, singing right merrily as his bateau chugged along, the kick of her noisy, one- lunged motor aided by a leg-o' -mutton foresail bellied and taut with the wind abeam. "Eight bells an' all's well, Wind nor' west a-blowin' like hell," 83 84 EVE, JUNIOR sang Skip, as he passed to windward of the Iris; and Johnson, just about to slip into his bunk for a catnap before reveille, paused at his cabin port to peer through the half-light of the new day at the big, light-hearted fisherman. A slow, evil smile overspread his face. He was glad that the storm had detained Carroll. The storm had, indeed, delayed Skip. Most of his nets were staked out along the exposed south shore of the bay below the gooseneck that forms Bodkin Point, and when the squall broke he had made a hasty run for the shelter of this low-lying sand spit. Here he lay under the windward of the point during the two hours the storm had raged. Long after the wind and rain had abated, however, the heavy sea thus set in motion pre- vented him from leaving his anchorage ; so that it was well toward three o'clock before he dared to venture forth to fish his pounds and eel-pots. And now, at last, with his live-boxes towing astern he was homeward bound. Dawn was breaking and the tree tops awoke with the melody of feathered choristers as Car- roll went on up the road toward the shack. As he opened die door of the shack he paused for an "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS 85 instant on the threshold half amazed, half amused, for there in the big armchair before the table sat Plum, and at his feet curled Tip. The old negro was deep in sleep, his head hanging forward on his chest, his breathing stertorous and fitful. "Well, Plum, you old black scoundrel, what are you a-doin' over here this time o' day?" roared Carroll in his big, good-natured voice, dropping his empty dinner pail on the table at the same instant with a great clatter of tin. The old negro catapulted out of his chair as though a hidden spring had suddenly uncoiled in its seat, his old eyes blinking the sleep-webs out of them, his mouth agape. "Skeer you, old fellow?" Skip commiserated kindly, mistaking the negro's reaction for fright. "No, Marse Skip," Plum replied in a roice that seemed to come wandering down the ages from the sepulcher of Ham, "he didn't skeer ole Plum none. He's jus' woke up t' somethin' all over agin. It's li'l Missy, Marse Skip, li'l Missy's gone, clean gone, jus' like Mis' Brookie go dat night more'n five year ago, come las' Spring." "Gone !" echoed the big fisherman, his tall, erect 86 EVE, JUNIOR form grown rigid with the shock of the old serv- ant's words. "Gone where? When 1 ?" "In de night, some time, Marse Skip. De squall, hit come, an' dat tumble voice from de swamp, hit come, too, an' ole Plum, he was a- feared li'l Missy mought be scairt an' he come to be near her but she was gone, Marse Skip, gone, jus' lak de wind come an' taken her up an' toted her away," Plum wailed, as he pointed through the open doorway of Eve's room to the smooth, empty bed, mute corroboration of his testimony. Carroll went into the deserted room with the slow reverent step of one who enters a sacred place, his dazed mind groping feebly for some tangible reason for his daughter's absence. In the middle of the floor he stopped to survey the room with eyes that neither saw nor understood, for they were filled with a vain, abstract questioning, searching rather for a motive than a clue. At last, with a feeling of intense mental and physi- cal fatigue, he sank down upon the side of her bed with his head in his hands. Plum stood silent and dejected in the doorway while Tip wan- dered back and forth from one man to the other, whining his condolence and grief with a pathetic "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS 87 show of canine understanding. It was thus that the morning sun, creeping over the distant horizon, stole softly in through Eve's half-curtained win- dow and found them ; and with its coming the big fisherman awoke to action. "Plum," he said, getting to his feet with a celer- ity that indicated decision, "I've thought and thought and tried to figure this here thing out some ways, and I ain't got no further than the start, so I'm a-goin' to run out to that there gover'ment ship what Mister McLean's on. It don't 'pear nowise likely that he'd be a-knowin' anything about this here matter, but then agin he mought. I hate to think, an' I reckon I'm a-doin' him wrong, but he just mought." And he strode out of the shack and down to his bateau with the hurried, feverish stride of a man who has an unwelcome suspicion to allay. McLean had just finished dressing when the watch announced that Carroll was on deck wait- ing to see him, and he went up at once to learn what had brought the fisherman to him on this early morning errand. The news that Skip bore was no less a shock to the surveyor than it had been to the father himself, and Carroll, watching for 88 EVE, JUNIOR any corroborative indication of the truth of his unwelcome suspicion, was quickly aware of Mc- Lean's total ignorance and innocence of the affair. The surveyor gave him a direct and detailed ac- count of his visit to the island and of the regret- table incident in which it had so abruptly termi- nated, a matter of which, Carroll, of course, had no previous knowledge. He expressed himself as being totally unable to understand the pres- ence of the book where McLean had so unex- pectedly found it, and assured him that Eve had undoubtedly been as ignorant of its hiding place as either of them. "It was not more than nine o'clock when I left the island last night," said McLean thoughtfully. "Have you any idea about the time she must have gone or how she went by boat or by fording the neck?" "That there's the part I can't figger out a-tall," Carroll replied, knitting his heavy brows. "The boats is all there an' the tide was flood an' full about the time she'd ought to gone, accordin' to Plum. He come over when the squall broke, an' she'd gone a'ready then. She must o' gone in a boat 'cause she couldn't o' forded the neck with "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS 89 such a tide on. But what-the-hell boat was it, man? There ain't ary boat this side the p'int 'cept this here one." Looking up the deck at this moment the sur- veyor saw the first mate emerging from the for- ward companionway, and a thought occurred to him. "Mr. Johnson," he called; and as the mate ap- proached, he asked: "You do not recall passing another boat when you were out on the creek last night, do you?' Johnson stared at him an instant while the red of his face seemed to pale ever so little. "I wasn't out on the creek last night, Sir," he replied in even tones. It was McLean's turn to stare now. He re- garded the mate with a curious, half -quizzical smile. "In that case I suppose the watch was mistaken. I wanted to see you a moment about nine- thirty and Karlson said you had gone away in the yawl boat. It must have been some one else." "S'pose you get a-hold o' this here Karlson and see what he has to say," the fisherman sug- gested bluntly. 90 EVE, JUNIOR McLean, surprised and somewhat embarrassed, assented, but the mate raised a hasty objection. "Karlson's asleep. He goes on watch again at eight bells. No use to bother him now," he inter- posed shortly. Carroll's eyes were ablaze in an instant, his anger aroused by the man's apparent indifference. He turned to McLean and demanded that the watch be questioned at once; to which Johnson offered a further objection. He said that as Cap- tain Cullom was away on leave he was in charge of the vessel and its crew, and that if any ques- tioning was to be done he, himself, would do it. He added, however, that he had been on board all evening, and that neither the yawl boat nor any other of the ship's boats had been out the night before. And when he had done, Carroll, enraged the more by the man's contemptuous, domineer- ing manner, stepped up to him with a menacing look in his eyes. His big fists clenched and un- clenched convulsively. "I got a notion you're a-lyin', Mister Skipper," he drawled with a slow, incisive directness of speech. The mate recoiled visibly then recovered him- "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS 91 self and made as if to attack his accuser, while McLean, surprised at the open, almost unaccount- able spirit of antagonism which the men displayed toward one another, stepped in between them. "Gentlemen, there is no necessity for such feel- ing on the part of either of you. This matter can be straightened out without going to needless ex- tremes. Mr. Johnson, as chief of this party I in- struct you to have Karlson brought here at once." The first officer put his heels together and sa- luted. "I'll bring him myself, Sir," he replied, and turned sharply away to execute the order. The moment Johnson had gone the fisherman nudged McLean roughly. "You'd ought to go 'long with him," he advised shrewdly. "Why, man, he can tell that there feller to say anything he wants him to. He ain't on the square, that skipper ain't." McLean, now more surprised than ever at Car- roll's suspicious attitude, refused to follow the fisherman's suggestion, declaring it an unnecessary and unwarranted precaution which he felt him- self in honor bound to disregard. A few minutes later, Johnson and the watch came up out of the 92 EVE, JUNIOR forecastle companionway. The mate's face was red and dour looking, and he talked in an earnest undertone to the sleepy, blinking sailor who seemed to be nodding acquiescence to all that was told him. Carroll ground his teeth and snarled his angry disapproval. "Look at that, he's a-fixin' him now, dam' him !" he growled, and McLean made no reply. As the two men came down the deck Johnson fell silent, for he seemed to understand that his actions were being appraised. "Karlson," spoke up McLean when they had come abreast of him, "didn't you tell me last night that Mr. Johnson had gone out in the yawl boat*?" The Norwegian's eyes made a hasty shift from McLean's face to the deck at his feet. "Yes, Sir," he replied hesitantly. "Well," urged McLean. "I was mistaken, Sir. The yawl boat did not leave its moorings during my watch, Sir." "Where was it moored?" "At the port boom, near the foot of the board- ing ladder, Sir." "Well, you're mistaken about that, too," Mc : Lean replied sharply. "Around ten o'clock the "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS 93 yawl was either in its davits or away from the ship." "It may have been in its davits, Sir," the sailor agreed, his eyes still on the deck. "Now, then, where was Mr. Johnson when you told me he was out in the yawl?" "I think he must have been in his room, Sir." "I was," Johnson quickly corroborated. McLean laughed shortly. "And now you are both mistaken. I went to your room three times between nine-thirty and ten-fifteen, Mr. Johnson, and you were not there." "Look here," demanded Johnson, with a show of heat, "what's all this quiz about, anyway? My job is to handle this boat, not to answer a bunch of questions like a witness in a courtroom." "Mr. Carroll and I simply want to know whether or not a boat from this vessel was on the creek last night, and if so whether our boat met or saw any other boat," McLean explained patiently. "S'pose'n you-all tell us where you was if you wasn't in your room an' you wasn't out on the crick," Carroll demanded bruskly. "Hell !" snarled the mate with open contempt 94 EVE, JUNIOR for his inquisitor. "Don't you know that there are plenty of places on this ship besides my room ? What do you think this is, that dam' crab-smashin' skiff of yours?' "Well, you said you was in your room, didn't you*?" retorted the fisherman, with shrewd empha- sis on the pronouns. "It's none o' your dam' business where I was," cried Johnson hotly, and, as if he feared to sub- ject himself to further questioning, turned and hastened below. When Carroll would have followed him, Mc- Lean quietly prevented and urged him to refrain from any unwarranted outburst. Meanwhile Karlson, the watch, stood by, impatiently waiting for McLean to dismiss him. "In the future, Karlson, be sure you are right before you make a statement that you may have to substantiate later on." Feeling certain that the man had made his first report of the whereabouts of his superior correctly he had added this final taunt in the hope that it would lead Karlson to justify himself in the truth of the matter. But the man only hesitated an in- stant as if he meant to speak, then turned away "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS 95 with a mumbled "Yes, Sir," and disappeared down the forecastle companionway. "Come have breakfast with me," suggested Mc- Lean, "and then we'll take the cutter and make a thorough search of the creek. If Eve left the island in a boat, as you seem to think, that boat may still be somewhere in Bodkin." Immediately after breakfast, which had been but a formality, for neither of them had a heart to eat, McLean ordered the steam cutter made ready for the trip. A little later, when they had embarked, and the cutter was backing away from the 7m, the piston-connecting rod broke with a snap, and the surveyor, anxious to begin the search, called the launch into service. As the smaller craft was brought alongside the disabled cutter, McLean was the first to board her. On the grated floor at his feet his casual glance included a small, familiar object which he stooped and picked up with a sudden quickening of pulse. It was the little anchor-shaped pin which he had given Eve but the week before. His first impulse was to have a general call to quarters made and follow this with a rigid inquiry into the whereabouts of every member of the crew 96 EVE, JUNIOR and survey party during the previous evening. On second thought, however, he resolved to await the result of the inspection of the creek. He put the pin in his pocket and sat down near the wheel without a word. The quartermaster from the cutter came aboard and began to unscrew the cap of the gasoline tank under the forward deck. "You needn't bother about that," McLean told him, impatient to be off. "She was filled up yes- terday and the boat hasn't been out since." The man had the cap off now, however, and ran his gage down into the tank "just for luck/' as he put it in apology for his action. "Why, there ain't more'n a couple o' gallons in it, Sir," he exclaimed, examining the gage as he withdrew it. "That's dam' funny," was the fisherman's sus- picious ejaculation, as he transferred his big frame from the cutter to a seat alongside of McLean. The latter got up abruptly, and, stepping off on the accommodation ladder, hurried to the deck of the 7m, where he sought out Johnson and con- fronted him with the pin. "SKIP" CARROLL'S SUSPICIONS 97 "Did you ever see that before, Mr. Johnson*?" he demanded. "No," the mate replied quite truthfully. "Well, it belonged to Eve Carroll," McLean continued, "and I just now found it in our launch. Miss Carroll had this pin on last night, for I saw it myself, and now she is missing from home. Johnson, it looks as though somebody on this ves- sel knows more than they're telling." "Meaning me*?" the mate cut in abruptly, his face red and white by turns. "You were out on the creek last night I wasn't." "One thing more," McLean continued, disre- garding the imputation, "when was the tank of that launch filled last?" The mate hesitated and looked away. "I don't remember," he said. "It was filled yesterday at noon, wasn't it 1 ?" "I don't know. It may have been. I can't say." "And you stood right there at the head of that gangway and gave the order to have it filled, didn't you?" "I don't remember giving any such order." "But I do, and there's the man you gave it to. 98 EVE, JUNIOR Williams," McLean called as the sailor passed them, "Williams, you filled the tank of the cap- tain's launch at noon yesterday, didn't you*?" "Yes, Sir." "By whose order?' "Mr. Johnson's, Sir." "That's all. Now then, Johnson, the tank's empty. How did it get empty?" "How in hell do I know? Maybe somebody drank it; I didn't." "Never mind the levity, Johnson. There's something peculiar about the turn that affairs have taken overnight. I can't figure it out, but I'm not through yet." "I wish you luck," sneered the mate, as he turned to go below. CHAPTER VIII COMPLICATIONS McLEAN and the fisherman spent the entire fore- noon eagerly searching every arm and cove of the creek and making inquiries at the few scattered farmhouses and fishing shacks without result. Im- mediately after dinner the surveyor ordered out the yawl and a lifeboat with instructions to drag the waters in the vicinity of the island, leaving Carroll to supervise this work while he made a long and fruitless journey inland along the old swamp road. Johnson, who had taken no part in the search, began to grow restless toward evening. He paced the quarter-deck with ever-increasing impatience and watched with morbid intentness for the return of the corps from the day's work. Shortly after dark McLean was brooding in his room when he was aroused by the creaking of davit blocks and went on deck just in time to 99 loo EVE, JUNIOR catch a glimpse of Johnson through the dusk being lowered oversides in the ship's launch. Looking up quickly the mate surprised the question in the other's eyes and answered it in a gruff, indifferent tone. "Going over to the spring for a drink," he said sullenly. "Water on this junk makes me sick. It's flat" McLean returned to his room just long enough to hear the launch slipping away through the night. Then he went again to the rail, where he watched the gleam of her stern light fade as she rounded Spit Point. Prompted by a vague sus- picion that he did not attempt to define, he con- tinued to stare into the darkness where the boat had disappeared. After a little he sensed, rather than saw, a dark shape moving silently out from 'behind the point. It was the launch, lights out and headed for the "eye of the needle," beyond which lay the river. Casually he strolled amidships. "Get my hydroplane ready and lower her," he told the watch in quiet, matter-of-fact tones, "I may want to take a run around the creek." Standing at the rail he could dimly see the COMPLICATIONS 101 launch slipping out through the "eye," a blur of gray in the dark. "All ready, Sir," called the watch from the foot of the accommodation ladder; and McLean de- scended and entered the little craft. A touch of the switch darkened the running lights; whereat the watch registered a respectful protest. "It's against the law, Sir. Might be there's a Coast Guarder 'round here, Sir," he called after the fleeting craft; for as the clutch engaged the whirling shaft the little vessel was gone like an arrow into the night. Tearing along at full speed, McLean soon sighted the object of his pursuit entering the river. He throttled his own craft down to the speed of the launch, and followed at a safe distance. As Johnson passed the ruins of the old light house, the surveyor could see him trimming his oil run- ning lights, and knew that the mate now felt himself safe from inquisitive eyes. He had counted on this, for he knew that Johnson, trained in the school of the mariner, would take no greater liberties with the law that licensed him than he deemed absolutely essential to his purpose. 1O2 EVE, JUNIOR The night was calm and clear and not a single wave showed a crest of white over the dark ex- panse of water. For this and for the lights on the launch ahead McLean was thankful. Hours later as they were entering the harbor the Coast Guard cutter Pawnee came steaming down the channel sweeping the river with her searchlight, but McLean threw in his switch and headed off at full speed on a diagonal course until he had passed her, then cut out his lights and renewed the pursuit. The harbor was dark and quiet, and while the mate chose the open channel, McLean switched on his lights again and slipped up through the silent, crowed anchorage on a parallel course that brought the two boats nearly abreast. At the end of the anchorage he slowed down, then threw out his clutch and allowed the little craft to drift in the shadow of a big tramp while he watched the launch speed on ahead and glide into a darkened dock near the foot of Broadway. A few minutes later, leaving his hydroplane se- curely moored to the wharf log, McLean followed the ship's officer on a dead run. Emerging from the darkness of a lane which led to Thames Street, COMPLICATIONS 103 he caught sight of Johnson entering a dim, canon- like alley half a block away. When the mate mounted the steps of a house conspicuously better looking than its neighbors, he slipped into a near- by doorway and watched while Johnson repeat- edly rang the bell without response. At length, with a grumbled oath, the mate made his way down the step again and went slowly on up the narrow street, while McLean continued in his wake. At Fleet Street Johnson stopped under a lamp- post, glanced casually up and down the wider thoroughfare, then walked half a block east and entered a shabby-looking furnished-room house with a latchkey. McLean passed the house a few minutes later and awaited further developments in the shadow of a bulk window of the store on the corner. Almost immediately Johnson came out again followed by a young woman, hatless and rather plainly clad in a dress of some dark ma- terial which a long, light, loose-fitting coat almost obscured. They walked slowly toward the cor- ner where McLean stood, the girl talking ex- citedly, the man suavely reassuring her. "I looked for you last night," McLean heard 104 EVE, JUNIOR her saying as they approached and slowly passed him. "You said you'd come. I was worried and didn't know what to do. I was afraid you'd gone. Men generally do in a time like this." "I was tired last night had a headache. I didn't leave the ship," was Johnson's soothing re- ply. "But you musn't worry, little woman. I've told you that I'd marry you in a minute if only " But the rest of his words were lost in distance. McLean, now completely off his guard and more mystified than ever, resolved, nevertheless, to fol- low them a little further, but when, a few min- utes later, they turned into a moving-picture place on Broadway he was forced to admit that he was on the wrong track. Determined to complete his mission in so far as it even vaguely indicated itself, he retraced his steps until he came to the house in the narrow, canon-like street at which Johnson had vainly sought entrance. When his own attempts to have the bell an- swered met with silence, he went next door and finally succeeded in arousing an old negro. "Dat house was pinched last night, boss," was COMPLICATIONS 105 the burden of his answer; and McLean, certain that this trail would lead nowhere, nevertheless inquired into the details and made his way to the police station. Arrived there, however, he gained nothing that would lead to further pursuit of what he concluded was a wild-goose chase. Again he returned, hopeless and dejected, to his boat, yet strangely elated, too, that his unwel- come "hunch" had not borne fruit; for, he argued, it would be better to find Eve's body floating in Bodkin than to have found her where the night's trail had led him. As McLean came alongside of the platform at the foot of the boarding ladder of the Iris a hand reached out of the darkness and laid firm hold on the bow of his boat. It was Skip Carroll. "I been a-watchin' the doin's on this here vessel all night, and a-waitin' for one o' ye t' come back," he said in a low, harsh whisper that was choked with emotion. "What'd you foller him for 1 ?" Carroll warped his bateau alongside the hydro- plane, and with both hands on the gunwale of the little craft fixed his dark eyes on McLean's. "Because I had a 'hunch,' " the latter replied, io6 EVE, JUNIOR meeting his gaze. "I had a 'hunch' that led in his direction, but I guess I was wrong." He then related the events of the night and included an account of the finding of the pin, an item which he had purposely avoided until now because its presence in the launch was so utterly inexplicable. "I tell ye, McLean," Carroll burst out, after an interval of brooding silence, "the more I figger on this here business and the more I 1'arn about it the more sartain I git that that there damned rascal of a mate knows more'n he's ownin'. How'd Eve git clare away without ary boat or raft and with the tide a good fathom over the neck? 'Course, she could swim, but an' what'd she go for? An' how'd that there pin git in the la'nch an' the gas outen the tank 1 ? Why, man, it's plainer'n the nose on your face that that there la'nch figgered in it someways, an' that there mate knowed where the la'nch was an' what she was a-doin' even if he wa'n't in it himself which I reckon dam' well he was. Besides, what's he want to go sneakin' away in the dark for, like he done to-night, 'less'n there's foul weather some'eres?" Finally, Carroll withdrew to fish his nets along COMPLICATIONS 107 the bay shore below Bodkin, and the younger man went to his berth, though not to sleep. As Skip was entering the "eye" he sighted the running lights of a small craft passing in the nar- rows just off the ruins of the old light house at the mouth of the creek. Instinctively, he guessed it to be Johnson. . After a few minutes he was certain of it, for as the launch came in sight of the Iris her lights were darkened and she headed toward Spit Point. Carroll directed his course toward the point also. When he reached it he shut off his engine and lay waiting, well within the shadow of the wooded shore. As he had surmised from what McLean had told him of the mate's departure, Johnson in- tended to effect his return in the same fashion. Bringing the launch in to a position where the point intercepted his line of vision to the Jm, he stopped the craft and put up his lights again. It was while he was thus occupied that the fisherman silently poled his bateau out alongside the launch. Coming thus upon him out of the darkness, the mate was somewhat startled and expressed himself in abusive language. "What the hell do you mean by sneakin' out on io8 EVE, JUNIOR a man that way, you dam' fish pirate?" snarled Johnson. "An' what the hell do you mean by snoopin' in an' out o' this here creek o' nights by the dark o' the moon," Carroll thrust hotly back. "Don't you know a feller's liable to have his license took away for the likes o' that?" "What the devil do you know about it?" "Well, I seened you go out an' I seened you come in, but I ain't after your license, I'm after you, an' by God, I got ye !" And Carroll sprang into the launch, armed only with his two brawny arms and his hard, knuckled fists. The next instant Johnson whipped out an automatic pistol and warned the big fisherman to get back in his boat. But the hand that held the weapon trembled as a cur trembles at the voice of its master, and Carroll laughed his disdain. "Put that there weepon back in your pocket, you onery coward, you !" he commanded in a voice that drawled fearlessly. "Get back in your boat, I say!" shrieked the mate, his tones high-pitched and nervous. Carroll advanced upon him without fear or hesi- tation. The next moment his hand had closed COMPLICATIONS 109 firmly about the gun. In the brief struggle that ensued the weapon was discharged, but the bullet whistled harmlessly across the water while the mate, unnerved by the report, released his hold and retreated toward the stern of the launch. The fisherman laughed. "I ain't a-goin' t' hurt you none," he said con- temptuously, putting the pistol in his pocket; "I reckon you know what I come for and you'd best speak up about it almighty quick, 'cause I might jus' happen to get mad an' lam you one." "I don't know what you're talking about," the mate half whimpered. "Look-a-here, Johnson," began Carroll, plant- ing himself firmly before the other man, "there's good an' there's bad in all of us, an' there's truth an' there's lies, too. Now I ain't never seen you a-fore this mornin' an' I can't size up how much of you's good an' truth an' how much of you's bad an' lies, but I can figger from what I've seen an' heered to-night that a right considerable por- tion of you's them same last articles. You been a-carryin' on some right onlikely didoes for a man that's playin' straight an' considerin' what's hap- pened, it sartain looks as though you-all mought no EVE, JUNIOR 'a' had a hand in it. If you have an' there's a pound o' white meat on you that ain't all bad an' lies, open your mouth an' talk. It's my daughter, man, my girl all in the world that's left to me of kith an' kin an' you can bet your hide an' taller that I ain't a-goin' t' lose her easy not while there's breath in my body an' half a leg under me, I ain't!" "You talk like a fool," sneered Johnson, some measure of his composure recovered. "I haven't got any strings to your daughter. Never even saw her. It's McLean that's after her, not me. Besides, what the devil do I want with her? There's enough women chasing me as it is, let alone me kidnaping 'em, if that's what you mean." Carroll took the captured weapon from his pocket and emptied the clip of cartridges over- board. Then he handed Johnson the useless gun and stepped up on the gunwale to board his bateau. "I'm not done with you yet," he warned as he went. "What you're a-sayin' may be true, but I'm a skinned eel if it sounds right." "You're a skinned eel, all right," snarled John- son. At the same moment he struck the fisherman COMPLICATIONS 1 1 1 a severe, glancing blow behind the ear with the butt of his pistol. Carroll crumpled up, then fell forward in a heap in the bottom of his bateau, his right foot smashing the needle valve of the carburetor as he landed. He lay quite still and motionless, and the mate reached out and gave his boat a shove that sent it shoreward to ground among the tall marsh grass that lined the water's edge. As McLean was getting dressed a little before six there came a knock at his door and the wireless operator entered with a message. "Heard the aerial raising Cain and got up to see what the trouble was," the young man ex- plained hastily. "Naval Academy said he was try- ing to raise us last night. Important. Sailing orders from Washington." McLean read the message : "17. S. C. & G. S. S. Ins, "Assistant McLean^ "Acting Captain Johnson: "Abandon survey Patapsco and tribu- taries further orders. Proceed at once N. 112 EVE, JUNIOR Lat. 35 08', W. Long. 75 30', vicinity Cape Hatteras, pick up U. S. C. & G. S. S. Alert engaged hydrographic survey proposed breakwater. Coal Newport News and re- ceive written verification this order. Expe- dite. "H. O. WHITMAN, ' 'Superintendent." Scarcely taking time to finish dressing, McLean jumped into his hydroplane and sped over to the island, where he found no one but Plum. The old negro was still heartbroken over the loss of his "li'l Missy." "We're ordered to Diamond Shoals," McLean told him, while Plum nodded and stared va- cantly out over the creek, his old eyes misty with unshed tears. "Tell Mr. Carroll that I shall write to him from Newport News, and that he must endeavor to keep in touch with me in regard to Miss Eve. He can get some one around the creek to write a letter for him now and then. And, Plum, if Miss Eve comes back, give her this for me, please." And he gave the old negro the pin which had so strangely come back to him. COMPLICATIONS 113 After all, he suddenly thought with a twinge of pain, had that been her way of returning to him a present she no longer valued*? But surely she would not have thrown it in the ship's launch. And yet An hour later the Iris steamed out through "the eye of the needle" and headed southward for the Craighill Channel to the Bay. CHAPTER IX THE IMPOSTOR'S REVENGE WHEN McLean had retrieved his book and left the shack in anger, Eve, equally angered yet know- ing not how to justify herself in the surveyor's eyes, had sobbed herself to sleep in the old Chip- pendale chair. An hour later she awoke with a start, vaguely conscious of an intruding presence. The front door stood open and fitful gusts of the rising wind swept in and made the light on the table before her flicker and dance uncertainly. Before she could turn a strong draught had snuffed it out. She sprang to her feet and stood for a panic- stricken instant in the darkness. From the half- closed door of her own room came a faint ray of light. Her eyes sought it hungrily. She sensed a quick, unreasoning fear that urged her toward it. Flinging back her chair to clear the way, Eve made a wild, precipitate dash for the beacon when 114 THE IMPOSTOR'S REVENGE 115 a hand reached out of the darkness about her and firmly detained her. With a smothered sob she sank on her knees to the floor, for they trembled with the weakness of fright and refused her sup- port. Her dash, however, had carried her into the area upon which the light from her room fell, and raising her eyes fearfully she saw the face of her captor. The sight of the known nerved her. With a quick movement she freed herself from John- son's grasp and sprang to her feet. In the next instant she had put the table between them. Standing at bay, she threatened his advance with the upraised lamp as a weapon of defense. Considering discretion the better part of valor the mate withdrew somewhat into the shadow. "You little red-headed bob-cat, you !" he flared angrily, when he thought himself arrived at a safe distance; "I came over here to help you out of a scrape and this is the thanks I get." "I ain't in no scrape," Eve retorted, lowering the lamp a trifle. "Oh, you ain't, eh 1 ?" sneered Johnson. "I sup- pose you tried to palm it off on me by telling Mc- Lean that I was here that night. But he knows ii6 EVE, JUNIOR how his book got behind that picture. He's just sent a wireless to Washington about it. The gov- ernment won't stand for any of your nonsense. In a day or two you'll be landed in jail and what's more, I'll see that your dad goes along with you." Eve set the lamp down with a crash. "It's all a dam' lie," she cried, stamping her foot in righteous indignation. "You can't prove a word of it. Dad never done nothin' in his life that wasn't just right; and me, I never seen the old book 'til it fell out from behind that picture to-night. I reckon if anybody knows anything about it it's you, you big, brass-buttoned bully !" Johnson advanced toward the table again. "So you did tell him I was here, eh, and you blamed the book business on me," he snarled be- tween clenched teeth. " 'Pears like as though the shoe fits you better'n me," Eve retorted, reaching for the lamp again. "You seem to know a mighty sight about that there book." "What did you tell him? How much?" he demanded uneasily. "I didn't tell him anything. He didn't give me a chance. He just picked the book up and 'It's all a dam' lie," she cried. "You can't prove a word of it " THE IMPOSTOR'S REVENGE 117 looked at me, and said somethin' about me a-know- in' all about it and then a lump just riz up in my throat and I couldn't say nothin' a-tall, and he ups and walks out in a huff and slams the door behind him/' Eve ended on the verge of tears, for the lump had come back in her throat. Johnson's face cleared somewhat with a smile of relief and satisfaction. If Eve was telling the truth McLean had not wanted him for that, any- way, when he left the wireless room, he concluded. In any event, it would be difficult to connect him with the disappearance of the book unless Eve had actually seen him in the act of placing it be- hind the picture, a possibility which he no longer feared. His previous visit to the island, however, was a clue that he was anxious to eliminate. His mind was quick in grasping the key to a situa- tion which would give him control of the accom- plishment of his three-fold purpose the settling of his score with McLean, which was paramount; the possession of Eve, a condition of secondary importance only because it was the prime agency of the first; and finally, the removal of the con- necting link between himself and his perfidious n8 EVE, JUNIOR actions. It was toward this end that he now began to work with insidious plausibility. "Well, it's all right, girl," he said in a kindly tone that he had quickly assumed for his purpose. "I couldn't believe that you had told on me after I had promised your dad immunity if you said nothing about the other night. But you're in trou- ble now, and I want to help you. No matter how the book got there it looks as though you had something to do with it, and the surveyor believes that you put it there. Now when they arrest you how are you going to prove that you didn't 4 ?" "Do you reckon they'll sure enough arrest me 1 ?" asked Eve, her eyes dilated with sudden fear. "Of course they will," the mate assured her severely. "That book is worth thousands of dol- lars. Your taking it was plain robbery, and steal- ing from the government is a mighty serious of- fense." "But I didn't take it, I tell you," Eve cried passionately; "I never even seen it before." "Perhaps, but how are you going to prove that when they get you in court?" "Court?' the girl echoed vaguely. "Will they do that, too? A judge and lawyers and all?" THE IMPOSTOR'S REVENGE 119 "Certainly. And then after that they'll very likely send you to Atlanta for five or six years." "Atlanta? Jail, you mean*?" "Yes. The nearest Federal prison. Now lis- ten: you've got to get away from here before they can send somebody over to arrest you, and if you'll take my advice you'll go now and not run the risk of being caught to-morrow morning, maybe. The law acts quickly, you know, and once that message of McLean's reaches the proper authorities at Washington there'll be a warrant issued for your arrest and an officer sent over for you at once. He might even get here to-night yet." Eve stared at him in wide-eyed terror. Then came a thought like a ray of sunlight stealing in upon the midnight of confusion that possessed her mind. "Douglas that is, Mr. McLean wouldn't let 'em arrest me, even if I had taken the old book, and I didn't," she told him with a faint, reassured smile. "Oh, wouldn't he?" Johnson shattered her hopes with a sneer. "Haven't I just told you that he reported the whole affair the moment he I2o EVE, JUNIOR got back aboard his ship*? I was standing right out- side the wireless room and heard every word of it. That's the reason I came over here to you as fast as I could. I'm trying to help you out of this, but, of course, if you'd rather go to jail, why that's your lookout." "But I can't go 'way and leave Dad and old Plum." "Well, you'll have to leave them when they come for you, anyway," the mate told her. He stopped an instant as an idea formed itself to fit his motive. Attacked in a vulnerable quar- ter he was sure that she would surrender to his plan. "Look here, young lady," he continued craft- ily "one case like this in court often begets an- other. They'll probably want me to appear as a witness for the government, and if they do, why then I'll have to tell the"m what brought me here in the first place the under-sized fish your old man's been taking. Now to avoid that the only thing I can do is to put your dad and Plum under arrest at the same time they take you. Other- wise they'd have a case against me for neglect of duty. You're getting in pretty deep, girl, and THE IMPOSTOR'S REVENGE 121 you're dragging the rest of them in with you. Take my advice and pull out while you can. Now is not a bit too soon." "How can I