between him and it, a figure huddled in a cloak--a female
figure, also sitting upon an upturned keg. Then the magic mist closed
in again.

"How the deuce did she get there?" the professor asked himself crossly.
"She wasn't there before the fog came." He remembered having noticed
that keg while choosing his own and there had been no woman sitting on
it then. "Anyway," he reflected, "I don't know her and I won't have to
speak to her." The thought warmed him so that he almost forgot to
shiver. From which you may gather that Professor Spence was a bachelor,
comparatively young; that he was of a retiring disposition and the
object of considerable unsolicited attention in his own home town.

He arose cautiously from the keg of nails. It might be well to return
to the boatshed, even at the risk of falling into the Inlet. But he had
not proceeded very far before, suddenly, as he had hoped it would, the
mist began to lift. Swiftly, before the puff of a warmer breeze, it
eddied and thinned. Its soundless, impalpable pressure lessened. The
wharf, the sea, the city began to steal back, sly, expressionless,
pretending that they had been there all the time. Even Mr. Johnston
could be clearly seen coming down from the boatshed with a curious
figure beside him--a figure so odd and unfamiliar that he might have
been part of the unfamiliar fog itself.

"Well, you've certainly struck it lucky today," called the genial Mr.
Johnston. "This here is Doc. Farr's boy. He's going right back over
there now and he'll take you along--if you want to go."

There was a disturbing cadence of doubt in the latter part of his
speech which affected the professor's always alert curiosity, as did
also the appearance of the "boy" reputed to belong to Dr. Farr. How old
he was no one could have guessed. The yellow parchment of his face was
ageless; ageless also the inscrutable, blank eyes. Only one thing was
certain--he had never been young. For the rest, he was utterly composed
and indifferent, and unmistakably Chinese.

"I hope there is no mistake," said Professor Spence hesitatingly. "Dr.
Farr certainly informed me that this was the wharf at which his launch
usually--er--tied up. But--there could scarcely be two doctors of that
name, I suppose? It's somewhat uncommon."

"Oh, it's him you want," assured Mr. Johnston. "Only man of that name
hereabouts. Lives out across the Narrows somewheres. Used to live here
in Vancouver years ago but now he don't hon