ess of skin. MacRae knew him at
once for Norman Gower. He was a typical Gower,--a second edition of his
father, save that his face was less suggestive of power, less heavily
marked with sullenness.

He glanced with blank indifference at Jack MacRae, passed within six
feet and walked along the path which ran around the head of the Cove.
MacRae watched him. He would cross between the boathouse and the roses
in MacRae's dooryard. MacRae had an impulse to stride after him, to
forbid harshly any such trespass on MacRae ground. But he smiled at that
childishness. It was childish, MacRae knew. But he felt that way about
it, just as he often felt that he himself had a perfect right to range
the whole end of Squitty, to tramp across greensward and through forest
depths, despite Horace Gower's legal title to the land. MacRae was aware
of this anomaly in his attitude, without troubling to analyze it.

He walked into old Peter's house without announcement beyond his
footsteps on the floor, as he had been accustomed to do as far back as
he could remember. Dolly was sitting beside a little table, her chin in
her palms. There was a droop to her body that disturbed MacRae. She had
sat for hours like that the night his father died. And there was now on
her face something of the same look of sad resignation and pity. Her
big, dark eyes were misty, troubled, when she lifted them to MacRae.

"Hello, Jack," she said.

He came up to her, put his hands on her shoulders.

"What is it now?" he demanded. "I saw Norman Gower leaving as I came up.
And here you're looking--what's wrong?"

His tone was imperative.

"Nothing, Johnny."

"You don't cry for nothing. You're not that kind," MacRae replied.
"That chunky lobster hasn't given you the glooms, surely?"

Dolly's eyes flashed.

"It isn't like you to call names," she declared. "It isn't nice.
And--and what business of yours is it whether I laugh or cry?"

MacRae smiled. Dolly in a temper was not wholly strange to him. He was
struck with her remarkable beauty every time he saw her. She was
altogether too beautiful a flower to be blushing unseen on an island in
the Gulf. He shook her gently.

"Because I'm big brother. Because you and I were kids together for years
before we ever knew there could be serpents in Eden. Because anything
that hurts you hurts me. I don't like anything to make you cry, _mia
Dolores_. I'd wring Norman Gower's chubby neck with great pleasure if I
thought he c