ces locked up within his unexplored and
untested character than the dynamite cartridge is of its secrets
of power and terror.

CHAPTER XI

SHE felt free to go now. She walked toward the place where she
had left the eggs. It was on the side of the rock overlooking
the creek. As she knelt to remove the leaves, she heard from far
below a man's voice singing. She leaned forward and glanced down
at the creek. In a moment appeared a young man with a fishing
rod and a bag slung over his shoulder. His gray and white striped
flannel trousers were rolled to his knees. His fair skin and the
fair hair waving about his forehead were exposed by the
flapping-brimmed straw hat set upon the back of his head. His
voice, a strong and manly tenor, was sending up those steeps a
song she had never heard before--a song in Italian. She had not
seen what he looked like when she remembered herself and hastily
fell back from view. She dropped to the grass and crawled out
toward the ledge. When she showed her face it so happened that
he was looking straight at her.

"Hello!" he shouted. "That you, Nell?"

Susan drew back, her blood in a tumult. From below, after a
brief silence, came a burst of laughter.

She waited a long time, then through a shield of bunches of
grass looked again. The young man was gone. She wished that he
had resumed his song, for she thought she had never heard one so
beautiful. Because she did not feel safe in descending until he
was well out of the way, and because she was so comfortable
lying there in the afternoon sunshine watching the birds and
listening to them, she continued on there, glancing now and then
at where the creek entered and where it left her range of
vision, to make sure that no one else should come and catch her.
Suddenly sounded a voice from somewhere behind her:

"Hey, Nell! I'm coming!"

She sprang to her feet, faced about; and Crusoe was not more
agitated when he saw the print of the naked foot on his island's
strand. The straw hat with the flapping brim was just lifting
above the edge of the rock at the opposite side, where the path
was. She could not escape; the shelf offered no hiding place.
Now the young man was stepping to the level, panting loudly.

"Gee, what a climb for a hot day!" he cried. "Where are you?"

With that he was looking at Susan, less than twenty yards away
and drawn up defiantly. He stared, took off his hat. He had
close-cropped wavy h