ly for any of Mr. Hooley's men to be over there looking for
the old man whose face had spoiled several hundred feet of good film.
Ruth wished, if possible, to first interview the strange man.

She took Tom into her confidence at once about the King of the Pipes. She
did not believe the man was so crazy that he ought to be shut up in an
asylum. He was merely "queer." And if they could get him off the island
and out of the way while the picture was being shot, he might then go
back to his hermit life and play at being king all he wished to.

"What a lark!" exclaimed Tom, looking at the matter a good deal as his
twin sister did. "And you are constantly falling in with queer
characters, Ruth."

"You might better say they are falling in with me, for I am sure I do not
intentionally hunt them up," complained Ruth. "And this poor old man has
cost us money enough."

"It is too bad," was Tom's comment.

"Worse than that, perhaps Mr. Hooley will never again get as fine an
allegorical picture as he did yesterday. They were all in the spirit of
the piece when the shot was made."

They arrived at the sloping stone beach and landed as Ruth and the girls
had before disembarked. Ruth led Tom up the rough path into the woods
beyond the table-rock. The trees stood thick, and the bushes were thorny,
but they pushed through to an open space surrounding an old, gnarled,
lightning-riven beech. The top of this monarch of the ancient forest had
been broken off and the line of its rotted trunk and branches could be
marked amid the undergrowth. But the staff of it stood at least thirty
feet in height.

"What a spread of shade it must have given in its day," said Tom. "All
these other tall trees have grown up since the top broke off."

"Quite so," agreed Ruth. "But where do you suppose that queer old man has
his camp?"

They looked all about the island, coming back at last to the riven beech.
But they found no mark of human occupancy on the island.

"I smell wood smoke, just the same," Tom declared, sniffing the air.
"There is a fire somewhere near."

They saw no smoke, however, nor did they find any cavity in the rocks
that seemed to have been occupied by man or used as the rudest kind of
camp.

"Maybe he doesn't live on this island after all," said Tom. "He could get
to half a dozen other islands from here in a light canoe. Or even on a
raft."

"He spoke as though he considered this particular island his kingdom,"
rejoined Ruth