ice lacking the
finer sense of mercy, showed how wide yet was the distance between the
man and the gentleman.

When Dr. Fenneben returned to his study after the hilarious
demonstration he found Dennie Saxon busy with the little film of dust
that comes in overnight. Old Bond Saxon, Dennie's father, had been one
of the improvident of Lagonda Ledge who took a new lease on a livelihood
with the advent of Sunrise. From being a dissipated old fellow drifting
toward pauperism, he became the proprietor of a respectable boarding
house for students, doing average well. At rare intervals, however, he
lapsed into his old ways. During such occasions he kept to the river
side of the town. Sober, he was good-natured and obliging; drunken, he
was sullen, with a disposition to skulk out of sight and be alone. His
daughter Dennie had her father's good-nature combined with a will power
all her own.

As Dr. Fenneben watched her about her work this morning, he noted
how comfortably she took hold of it. He noted, too, that her heavy
yellow-brown hair was full of ripples just where ripples helped, that
her arms were plump, that she was short and nothing willowy, and that
she had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"Why don't you take a holiday, Miss Dennie?" he asked, presently.

"I wanted this done so I wouldn't be seeing dusty books in my
daydreams," Dennie answered.

"Where do you do your dreaming today?"

"A crowd of us are going down the river to the Kickapoo Corral. I must
make the cakes yet this morning," she answered.

"Good enough Can't I do something for you? Do you need a chaperon?" the
Dean queried, smilingly.

"Professor Burgess is to be our chaperon. He is all we can look after."
Dennie's gray eyes danced, but she was serious a moment later.

"Dr. Fenneben, you can do something, maybe, that's none of your
business, nor mine." Dennie wondered afterward how she could have had
the courage to speak these words.

"That's generally the easy thing. What is it?" the Dean smiled.

The girl hung her feather brush in its place and sat down opposite to
him.

"Do you know anything about Pigeon Place?" she began.

"The little place up the river where a queer, half-crazy woman lives
alone with a fierce dog?" he asked.

"Yes, you never heard anything more?" Dennie queried.

"Only that the house is hidden from the road and has many pigeons about
it, and that the woman sees few callers. I've never located the place.
Tell me ab