Scott.

"You mean Indians?"

"Worse than that--it's a woman, Mrs. Van."

"A woman!" Mrs. Van was plainly shocked. "My land, Marc Scott, you ain't
been foolin' with that heathen in the kitchen?"

Scott chuckled. "Listen, Mrs. Van, I oughtn't to string you like that--it
is a woman, though. You heard me read that letter of Bob's?"

"Yes."

"He said to read the mail."

"Well, haven't you?"

"Yes, and the first one I tumbled into feet foremost was a confidential
one from his sister. She says she's coming down here. She thinks he's
here."

"What? You mean here? Athens?"

"That's what she says. The letter's been lying over at Conejo since
Tuesday and the chances are she's there by this time."

"But----"

"Oh, that ain't the worst. It was a confidential letter. She said----"
Scott paused in embarrassment.

"I'm not telling you this for fun, Mrs. Van Zandt, but because I don't
know what to do. You're a lady----"

"Oh, go on, what's the matter with you? I guess if you know it it ain't
going to hurt me. Has she run off with somebody, or has her Pa lost his
money, or what?"

"I'll show you." Scott fished out Polly's letter apologetically. "I
stopped reading it directly I saw it was confidential," he continued, "but
I got this much at one swallow."

"DEAR BOB:

"I know it's awfully nervy of me to drop in on you and Emma right at the
beginning of your honeymoon, but I am coming just the same. Joyce
Henderson has behaved atrociously to me."

"That's all I read," concluded Scott, penitently. "Joyce Henderson is the
fellow she's engaged to--Bob told me that. I had to look at the end to see
if she said when she was coming, and by George, if she started when she
said she was going to, she ought to be in Conejo right now."

"Now!!"

"What we're going to do with her, I don't know, do you?"

"She and the wedding couple have just crossed each other!"

"Looks like it. Look here, Mrs. Van, what am I going to do? If I don't
look her up, God knows what'll happen to her over in Conejo, unless she
has sense enough to go to the Morgans. If I do, she's going to raise merry
heck because I read that letter about the fellow jilting her. Now I
thought maybe if you'd let on that you read it--a girl wouldn't mind
another woman's knowing a thing like that as much as she would a man."

Mrs. Van Zandt surveyed Scott pityingly.

"It always seems so queer to me that a man can have so much muscle and so
little horse sense," she s