t bold against the grass and
the deeper green of the forest behind. Back of it opened a hillside
brown with dead ferns, dotted with great solitary firs and gnarly
branched arbutus.

No life appeared there. The chimneys were dead. Two moorings bobbed in
the bay, but there was no craft save a white rowboat hauled high above
tidewater and canted on its side.

"I wonder, now." He spoke again.

While he wondered and pushed his boat slowly in on the gravel, a low
_pr-r-r_ and a sibilant ripple of water caused him to look behind. A
high-bowed, shining mahogany cruiser, seventy feet or more over all,
rounded the point and headed into the bay. The smooth sea parted with a
whistling sound where her brass-shod stem split it like a knife. She
slowed down from this trainlike speed, stopped, picked up a mooring,
made fast. The swell from her rolled in, swashing heavily on the beach.

The man in the rowboat turned his attention to the cruiser. There were
people aboard to the number of a dozen, men and women, clustered on her
flush afterdeck. He could hear the clatter of their tongues, low ripples
of laughter, through all of which ran the impatient note of a male voice
issuing peremptory orders.

The cruiser blew her whistle repeatedly,--shrill, imperative blasts. The
man in the rowboat smiled. The air was very still. Sounds carry over
quiet water as if telephoned. He could not help hearing what was said.

"Wise management," he observed ironically, under his breath.

The power yacht, it seemed, had not so much as a dinghy aboard.

A figure on the deck detached itself from the group and waved a
beckoning hand to the rowboat.

The rower hesitated, frowning. Then he shrugged his shoulders and pulled
out and alongside. The deck crew lowered a set of steps.

"Take a couple of us ashore, will you?" He was addressed by a short,
stout man. He was very round and pink of face, very well dressed, and by
the manner in which he spoke to the others, and the glances he cast
ashore, a person of some consequence in great impatience.

The young man laid his rowboat against the steps.

"Climb in," he said briefly.

"You, Smith, come along," the round-faced one addressed a youth in tight
blue jersey and peaked cap.

The deck boy climbed obediently down. A girl in white duck and heavy
blue sweater put her foot on the steps.

"I think I shall go too, papa," she said.

Her father nodded and followed her.

The rowboat nosed in beside the