matter with Tom
was. And she was too proud to let the ex-captain see that she cared.
Nevertheless she was sorry that the party from down the river broke up as
they did when the time to go home came.

She found herself in the Copley's launch again, with Chess' sisters and
the members of the house party the Copleys were entertaining at their
island. This dividing of the clans made it possible for Chess after
letting the others out at the Copley dock, to take Ruth to the moving
picture island alone.

It was a lovely, soft, moonlight night. The haze over the islands and the
passages between could not be called a fog, but it was almost as
shrouding as a fog. When Chess ran the launch outside into the main
stream, where the current was broad and swift, the haze lay upon the
rippling surface like a blanket.

They were going very swiftly here, for it was with the current. Suddenly
Chess shut off the engine. The "plop" of the exhaust ceased. They drifted
silently on the bosom of the St. Lawrence.

"I don't see why I am treated so, Ruth," Chess suddenly burst out. "Do
you know, I'm awfully unhappy?"

"You poor boy!" said Ruth in her warm-hearted way. "I think you are
over-sensitive."

"Of course I am sensitive. I shall always be when I am--am--interested in
any person and their treatment of me. It is congenital."

"Dear, dear!" laughed Ruth. "They have discovered that even incipient
congenital idiocy can be cured by the removal of the adenoids. But I
don't suppose such an operation will help you?"

"Oh, don't tease a fellow," complained her friend.

He reached for the throttle, then hesitated. Somewhere in the mist ahead
was the throb of another engine.

"Who's this?" muttered Chess.

"Maybe it is Tom--looking for us," said Ruth, chuckling.

"The gall of him," exclaimed the heated Copley. Then he made a gesture
for silence. A long, quavering "co-ee! co-ee!" came through the mist and
from the south.

"From one of the islands," said Chess quickly.

"What island is that over there?" demanded Ruth, in a whisper. "Isn't it
the one we took the first picture on?"

"It sure is," agreed the young fellow, but wonderingly.

"The Kingdom of Pipes," murmured Ruth.

"What's that?" asked Chessleigh.

Ruth repeated Helen's name for the rocky island on which Ruth had met the
queer old man. "That call came from the island, didn't it?" she asked.

"I believe it did. What's going on here?"

"Hush!" begged Ruth. "That launc