ed to the cliff there came a figure to meet him. It
was an Indian boy, and he advanced to question him. If Jeanne and
Pierre had passed that way the boy must surely have seen them.

Before he had spoken the lad ran toward him, holding out something in
his hand. The question on Philip's lips changed to an exclamation of
joy when he recognized the handkerchief which he had dropped upon the
rock a few nights before, or one so near like it that he could not have
told them apart. It was tied into a knot, and he felt the crumpling of
paper under the pressure of his fingers. He almost tore the bit of lace
and linen in his eagerness to rescue the paper, which a moment later he
held in his fingers. Three short lines, written in a fine,
old-fashioned hand, were all that it held for him. But they were
sufficient to set his heart, beating wildly.

Will Monsieur come to the top of the rock to-night, some time between
the hours of nine and ten.

There was no signature to the note, but Philip knew that only Jeanne
could have written it, for the letters were almost of microscopic
smallness, as delicate as the bit of lace in which they had been
delivered, and of a quaintness of style which added still more to the
bewildering mystery which already surrounded these people. He read the
lines half a dozen times, and then turned to find that the Indian boy
was slipping sway through the rocks.

"Here--you," he commanded, in English. "Come back!"

The boy's white teeth gleamed in a laugh as he waved his hand and
leaped farther away. From Philip his eyes shifted in a quick, searching
glance to the top of the cliff. In a flash Philip followed its
direction. He understood the meaning of the look. From the cliff Jeanne
and Pierre had seen his approach, and their meeting with the Indian boy
had made it possible for them to intercept him in this manner. They
were probably looking down upon him now, and in the gladness of the
moment Philip laughed up at the bare rocks and waved his cap above his
head as a signal of his acceptance of the strange invitation he had
received.

Vaguely he wondered why they had set the meeting for that night, when
in three or four minutes he could have joined them up there in broad
day. But the central tangle of the mystery that had grown up about him
during the past few days was too perplexing to embroider with such a
minor detail as this, and he turned back toward Churchill with the
feeling that everything was