d potatoes, a perilous-looking chicken stew,
cornbread with streaks of baking soda in it. But neither of the
diners was critical, and the dinner was eaten with an enthusiasm
which the best rarely inspires.

With the prunes and dried-apple pie, the stranger expanded.
"Warm day, miss," he ventured.

"Yes, it is a little warm," said Susan. She ventured a direct
look at him. Above the pleasant, kindly eyes there was a brow so
unusually well shaped that it arrested even her young and
untrained attention. Whatever the man's character or station,
there could be no question as to his intelligence.

"The flies are very bothersome," continued he. "But nothing like
Australia. There the flies have to be picked off, and they're
big, and they bite--take a piece right out of you. The natives
used to laugh at us when we were in the ring and would try to
brush, em away." The stranger had the pleasant, easy manner of
one who through custom of all kinds of people and all varieties
of fortune, has learned to be patient and good-humored--to take
the day and the hour as the seasoned gambler takes the cards
that are dealt him.

Susan said nothing; but she had listened politely. The man went
on amusing himself with his own conversation. "I was in the show
business then. Clown was my line, but I was rotten at it--simply
rotten. I'm still in the show business--different line, though.
I've got a show of my own. If you're going to be in town perhaps
you'll come to see us tonight. Our boat's anchored down next to the
wharf. You can see it from the windows. Come, and bring your folks."

"Thank you," said Susan--she had for gotten her role and its
accent. "But I'm afraid we'll not be here."

There was an expression in the stranger's face--a puzzled,
curious expression, not impertinent, rather covert--an
expression that made her uneasy. It warned her that this man saw
she was not what she seemed to be, that he was trying to peer
into her secret. His brown eyes were kind enough, but alarmingly
keen. With only half her pie eaten, she excused herself and
hastened to her room.

At the threshold she remembered the pocketbook Spenser had given
her. She had left it by the fishing bag on the table. There was
the bag but not the pocketbook. "I must have put it in the bag,"
she said aloud, and the sound and the tone of her voice
frightened her. She searched the bag, then the room which had
not yet been straightened up. She sho