It was a justly aggrieved father that Pen found awaiting her in the dining-room.

"Half-past eight!" he said. "Where on earth have you been!"

Pen was quiet and starry-eyed with happiness. It didn't matter much to her what she said. But she rather wished to avoid a scene. She juggled with the truth a little.

"Mr. Delehanty wanted me to help him with the search."

"Delehanty! ... Wanted you!" he said amazed. It was too much for him.

"And Mr. Riever," Pen added as an afterthought.

The magic name mollified him a little. "Hum! Ha! ... Well, if Riever knew ... What suddenly started you off on this tack?"

"I want this business over with!"

"I confess I fail to understand you!" he said severely ... "What help could you give them anyway?"

"I know the place so well!"

"Do you mean to say you have been searching the woods ... with all these strangers about?"

"I had only to raise my voice to bring a dozen to my aid ... Besides, Mr. Riever lent me a revolver."

"Oh! ... Well you might have taken your father into your confidence ... Did you find anything?"

"No."

A more perspicacious man might have remarked the little catch of joy with which she said it, but never Pendleton. "The supper is cold," he said fretfully. "Aunt Maria's gone home."

"Never mind," said Pen. Out of the riches in her breast she could spare affection for him, the dear, trying child! She kissed his bald spot. "I'll make a cup of tea for myself."

"I got the mail this afternoon," he grumbled. "There's a letter for you."

"Eh?" said Pen sharply.

"On your plate. I never saw the handwriting before."

Pen glided swiftly around the table. "I never saw it either," she said. Which was perfectly true. A scrawling, half-formed hand. The post-mark "New York" told her all that she needed to know.

She thrust it carelessly in her belt and went out into the kitchen. Pendleton looked affronted. He was terribly curious. Pen lit the oil stove and put the kettle on. Then she read her letter.


"Dear Miss:

I'm not much at writing. Please excuse mistakes. Well Miss Broome I guess you were right, all right. Everything bears out what you said. I and the fellows have made a good beginning, but we haven't cinched it yet by a good deal. Of course in a job like this you got to be absolutely bomb-proof before you put yourself under fire. I guess you get me. Just at present we're stalled for the lack of coin. I've raised every nickel I could amongst the fellows and it's all gone flooey. And not a job stirring. We got to have five hundred quick. A thousand would be better. Bring it up yourself. We got to have somebody to stop at a certain swell joint. None of us was able to get by with it. For God's sake get the money, if you have to purloin your old man's sock. Everything depends on your turning up with it the next day or so. No need for me to sign this."


A few minutes later Pendleton entered the kitchen to find Pen leaning against the table in a brown study, the open letter in her hand. The kettle was boiling unheeded.

"Who's your letter from?" he asked.

"Oh ... that!" said Pen with a laugh. She was obliged to extemporize quickly. "Such an odd thing! Do you remember the little foundling that used to work for the Snellings on the Island? Something has led the child to write to me."

"Let's see," he said, holding out his hand.

"I can't, Dad. The poor little thing is telling me her troubles."

"Humph!" snorted Pendleton, and passed on out of doors.

Pen carried her supper into the dining-room. She sat, abstractedly stirring her cup, and munching a sandwich, while the same phrase ran around and around in her head. "Got to have five hundred, a thousand would be better!" Blanche might almost as well have asked her for a million, she thought sighing. Bye and bye Pendleton having finished his chores, came in again.

"Sit down a minute, Dad," she said. "I want to talk to you."

Anticipating something unpleasant, he dropped into a chair grumbling.

"This business has about finished me up," said Pen. "I must get away for awhile."

"You're looking particularly well to me," he said.

She refused to be drawn off.

"I don't know what to make of you," he went on crossly. "A while ago you were all for helping in the search."

"I hoped to end it," said Pen. "But I was unsuccessful."

Pendleton scowled sulkily at the table. "You know what I want you to do," he muttered.

"That can wait," said Pen cautiously.

"You may not get the chance, later."

"I don't know that I have the chance now."

"Oh, let's talk plainly!" Pendleton burst out, but still not meeting her eye. "This is no time for false delicacy. Anybody could see that Riever wants you. He's given me to understand in the broadest way that you have only to say the word. Even after the extraordinary way you have acted. You still have a chance. What makes you hold back? You've got to marry somebody. Men are all much the same. Marriage is no bed of roses at the best! ... Am I not your father? Would I be advising you to anything that wasn't for your good? It's a wonderful chance! a wonderful chance, I tell you! ... And you talk about going away!" The little man was almost ready to weep.

Pen schooled herself to patience. "If Mr. Riever is really in earnest my going away will not make any difference ... It's said to be a very good move," she added slyly.

"Not where a man like Riever is concerned!" cried Pendleton. "He's accustomed to be courted, to be deferred to. He'd never get over such an affront. He'd pull up anchor and sail away never to return!"

Pen thought: "Ah, if he would!"

"What was in that letter you got?" demanded Pendleton. "Has that got anything to do with it?"

Pen was startled. She saw, however, that it was merely a hit in the dark. He had no real suspicion. The best way was to ignore his question as unworthy of being answered. "Won't you give me the money?" she said.

"Where am I going to get it."

Pen was significantly silent.

"A while ago you would not touch that money with a poker!" he burst out.

"It is not easy to ask for it," she murmured.

"How much do you want?"

"Five hundred dollars!" said Pen with her heart in her mouth.

"Five hundred dollars!" he stormed. "Five hundred dollars! Why you could go to your Cousin Laura Lee's and back for twenty!"

"Wherever I went I would need clothes," said Pen.

"I offered you money for clothes, and you scorned it!"

"I'm sorry now. I have thought better of it."

"Oh, you have, have you? Well, permit me to remind you that the clothes were to wear here, and not to go away in!" He started out of the room blustering noisily to cover his retreat. "Five hundred dollars! To ruin your chances! Never heard of such folly! Never speak to me of this again! Five hundred dollars!"

He kept on talking right up-stairs. Pen remained sitting at the table looking at her empty hands.

She sat thinking and thinking; stirring the tea which had long ago turned cold. The only possible way she had of raising money was through the sale of her sheep. She had considered that once before. Her father would try to prevent her of course, but she might drive them up the Neck road at night and put them on the steamboat from one of the Bay wharves. But Delehanty's men were watching the road at a dozen points.

In her perplexity Pen felt a great longing to consult with Don. Two heads were better than one, she told herself. Perhaps the truth was she just wanted to be with him. She was thankful she had made an arrangement to communicate. In the ordinary course he could hardly expect a letter from her until the next day, but thinking of his boyish eagerness it seemed quite possible that he might come back that night on the chance of hearing from her. At any rate it was worth trying.

She got a scrap of paper and a pencil, and wrote four lines:

"I must see you. I'll put on an old dress and a sun-bonnet and walk on the beach near the lighthouse at eleven. If you don't get this to-night I'll come to-morrow night."

Pen put this into the agreed place, and returned to the house, wondering how she would put in the hour and a half that remained before eleven. She determined to watch to see whether he came for the note. So she went up-stairs rather noisily, and came down again very quietly, carrying with her what she needed for her disguise.

She took up her position on a chair in the dark kitchen, placed against the wall in such a way that she could look obliquely through the window in the direction of her chicken coop. The moon was not up yet, and it was pitch dark under the tree. She could see nothing, but she was sure no one could visit the spot without her being aware of it.

And after all she dozed. She had had little enough sleep of late, and now that the most pressing weight was lifted from her breast, the night laid a finger on her eyelids without her being aware of it. The katydids, the crickets, the distant murmur of the waves on the Bay shore gradually undermined wakefulness. Her head swayed against the wall.

She awakened, scarcely knowing she had slept. Somebody was outside. She was electrically conscious of it, though for a moment she could hear nothing. Then a soft, masculine chuckle came out of the dark. There was more than one evidently, for men do not as a rule chuckle when alone. A voice whispered.

"Doggone, if it ain't a coop, fellas! What say to a nice fat pullet for breakfast?"

It suddenly came to her this was Don's voice, with his exaggerated Maryland drawl. Her heart beat fast.

Another voice answered: "Watch yourself, Jones. Those damn birds 'll raise the dead if you lay hand to them!"

"On'y one squawk before I get her neck wrung," laughed Don. "I got the lay of the land. That white-washed fence yonder marks the garden. Run down the rows to the next fence and you're safe!"

A silence followed. Pen, straining her ears heard, or imagined that she heard the latch softly raised, the door opened, and the little pan softly moved inside. Then Don's voice again:

"By Golly! It's empty!"

The words were spoken in the conventional tones of disappointment but Pen and none but Pen could hear the thrilling little lift in his voice. She was assured that the note was tight clasped in his hands. The voices moved away.

Pen cautiously consulted her watch. It was half-past ten. She must start at once in order to keep her appointment, for she must take a roundabout and difficult way. Pendleton's snores were resounding through the house, and in the back hall where the light could not betray her out-of-doors, she lit a little lamp and arrayed herself. She had a black cotton servant's dress that had been designed to fit a more ample figure than hers. She put it on and stuffed it out with old cotton until her own shape was altered beyond recognition. Drawing her hair straight back from her face, she twisted it into a tight knot behind, and pulled the sunbonnet over her head. For the dark it was a sufficiently effective disguise.

It was still very dark out of doors. Slipping out of the back door, she made her way to the old paddock behind the house grounds, and gaining the road from here, climbed a fence on the other side and struck across the little triangular field for the woods. It was the way she had gone once before to meet Don. Forcing her way through the undergrowth she gained her own path and so reached the little temple. From this point she struck out a line that would bring her out on the Bay shore. The sound of the waves guided her. When she had gone a little way she began to catch glimpses of the Broome's Point light between the tree trunks, and that gave her an exact course.

But this part of the woods was densely grown up, and it was hard, slow going. She had to feel her way through the tangle, and the thorns scratched her hands and tore her dress. She put her foot into unsuspected holes and came down heavily. It was only a couple of hundred yards, but she could progress but a foot at a time. It seemed as if an age passed before she slid down the steep bank and gained the sand. From around the point she heard six bells sounded melodiously aboard the Alexandra, and broke into a run. The tide was falling, and there was firm hard footing along the water's edge.

The lighthouse stood on its spidery stilts only a hundred feet or so off the beach. As she came close Pen could make out old Weems Locket the keeper, standing on the little gallery that encircled his octagonal house, with a companion. She slowed down. The two were leaning on the rail looking out across the Bay, smoking cigars. Even if they had looked in her direction they could scarcely have seen her, for her black dress was lost against the bushes that bordered the sand. There was a fresh breeze off the water that swallowed sounds. The first narrow edge of a smoky, orange moon was rising out of the Bay.

Pen breathed more freely after rounding the point. The old wharf was now about a quarter of a mile in front of her. The natives were camped on the beach on both sides of the wharf, and as she approached Pen could see the fires burning low in front of the tents, but no figures stirring. On board the Alexandra lights still shone from the deckhouse windows.

Pen, not daring to go close to the tents, came to a stand about a furlong off. There was no sign of Don. But presently she heard somebody coming from the other direction, the way she had herself come, someone softly whistling a tune. Thinking she must have passed him somehow, she turned eagerly. On this side of the point the rising moon was hidden behind the intervening high ground. A figure emerged out of the murk and Pen instantly perceived that it was not Don. It was too late to escape then.

"A skirt!" exclaimed a rough, young voice, surprised. "What are you doing out so late, sister?" He spread out his arms to bar her way.

"Let me by!" murmured Pen.

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Let's have a squint at you."

He lit a match with his thumb-nail. Quick as thought Pen blew out the flame. The young fellow laughed. Pen tried to dart by him. He flung out an arm and gathered her in. She struggled in silent desperation.

"Young and souple as willow, I swear," laughed the man. "What you got so much clothes on for? ... Gee! you smell as sweet as honeysuck'!"

Pen beat his face with her clenched fists. He simply lowered his head laughing, and clung to her. She had a sickening feeling of helplessness, and she dared not call for help. It was all over in half a minute. She heard running footsteps from the direction of the camp, and felt herself suddenly released.

The newcomer was Don. "What's this?" he cried with an oath that startled Pen—and charmed her.

"Hell, I didn't know it was your propitty, Jones," the other man said sullenly.

"Damn you...!"

Pen apprehended a blow about to be given, and as in a flash, the ghastly consequences of a fight there, were revealed to her. She flung her arms around Don, and clung to him without speaking. He understood. He conquered his rage with a groan.

"Well ... get out!" he said thickly.

The other man melted away into the dark.

Pen and Don clung to each other. Of the two the man was the more shaken. Moments passed before he could speak. Then:

"Oh my girl! my girl!"

"It is nothing," Pen said. "I am not made of glass."

"My fault because I was late," he groaned. "I couldn't get rid of those fellows I was with."

"I am safe," Pen said. "Forget about it. I have something to tell you. There is little time."

They started to walk slowly away from the direction of the camp. Pen repeated Blanche Paglar's letter to him word for word. It arrested his attention, and he quieted down. When they found themselves drawing too near the lighthouse, they turned and came slowly back, Don straining Pen against his side.

When she had described her problem, Don said instantly: "There's just one thing to do. You must give me up to Riever and collect the reward."

Pen's breast contracted sharply. She bitterly blamed herself. Why had she not foreseen that this was what he would say. She couldn't answer.

"How about it?" he asked.

"I couldn't!" she murmured.

"But if it's the best thing to do?"

"I simply couldn't!"

"Listen, dearest, we must think this thing clean through to the end. These people in New York seem to have started something. Well, that being so, this seems to me as good an opportunity as any, for me to come out and put up my fight."

"I must find out first how much they've learned."

"She says it is not complete. But they've started something. They seem to be on the level with us. We must back them up before the trail grows cold."

"I could find another way of raising the money."

"I'd rather use Riever's money," he said dryly. "I've got to stand trial anyhow. It will take a whole lot of money, and I don't see any other way of raising it. There'd be a sort of poetic justice in making Riever pay the expenses of my trial. But we must act quickly. He's bound to find out that you and I are working together. Then he'd never pay you the reward."

"How could I bring myself to do such a thing!"

"Wait a minute! Suppose we do nothing, what will happen? Oh, I'm in no particular danger now. In a few days they'll get sick of this search and give it up. I can see signs of it coming. Well, I can go back to the Eastern shore with the fellows I'm chumming with and get clean away. I've a new identity all established. But what then? What sort of a life would I have? I'd be a sort of wandering Jew without a friend in the world, except you, and I wouldn't dare communicate with you. I'd be one of the miserable floate............