f the
baby type must have been softly pretty at one time--not so very
distant. Now lines were coming and the hard look that is
inevitable with dyed hair. Also her once fine teeth were rapidly
going off, as half a dozen gold fillings in front proclaimed. At
Susan's appealing look and smile Miss Connemora nodded not
unfriendly.

"Good God, Bob," said she to Burlingham with a laugh, "are you
going to get the bunch of us pinched for child-stealing?"

Burlingham started to laugh, suddenly checked himself, looked
uneasily and keenly at Susan. "Oh, it's all right," he said with
a wave of the hand. But his tone belied his words. He puffed
twice at his cigar, then introduced the men--Elbert Eshwell and
Gregory Tempest--two of the kind clearly if inelegantly placed
by the phrase, "greasy hamfats." Mr. Eshwell's black-dyed hair
was smoothly brushed down from a central part, Mr. Tempest's
iron-gray hair was greasily wild--a disarray of romantic
ringlets. Eshwell was inclined to fat; Tempest was gaunt and had
the hollow, burning eye that bespeaks the sentimental ass.

"Now, Miss Sackville," said Burlingham, "we'll go on the forward
deck and canvass the situation. What for dinner, Vi?"

"Same old rot," retorted Miss Anstruther, wiping the sweat from
her face and shoulders with a towel that served also as a
dishcloth. "Pork and beans--potatoes--peach pie."

"Cheer up," said Burlingham. "After tomorrow we'll do better."

"That's been the cry ever since we started," snapped Violet.

"For God's sake, shut up, Vi," groaned Eshwell. "You're always kicking."

The cabin was not quite the full width of the broad house boat.
Along the outside, between each wall and the edge, there was
room for one person to pass from forward deck to rear. From the
cabin roof, over the rear deck, into the water extended a big
rudder oar. When Susan, following Burlingham, reached the rear
deck, she saw the man at this oar--a fat, amiable-looking
rascal, in linsey woolsey and a blue checked shirt open over his
chest and revealing a mat of curly gray hair. Burlingham hailed
him as Pat--his only known name. But Susan had only a glance for
him and no ear at all for the chaffing between him and the
actor-manager. She was gazing at the Indiana shore, at a tiny
village snuggled among trees and ripened fields close to the
water's edge. She knew it was Brooksburg. She remembered the
long covered bridge which they had crossed--Spenser and she,