ly belonged to the
summer. That afternoon a canoeing expedition was made up river to
explore a cave which tradition had endowed with some legendary tale of
pioneer days and Indian warfare.

Pagratide, having organized the expedition with that object in view, had
made use of his prior knowledge to enlist Cara for the crew of his
canoe, but Benton, covering a point that Pagratide had overlooked,
pointed out that an engagement to go up the river in a canoe is entirely
distinct from an engagement to come down the river in a canoe. He cited
so many excellent authorities in support of his contention that the
matter was decided in his favor for the return trip, and Mrs.
Porter-Woodleigh, all unconscious that her escort was a Crown Prince,
found in him an introspective and altogether uninteresting young man.

Benton and the girl in one canoe, were soon a quarter of a mile in
advance of the others, and lifting their paddles from the water they
floated with the slow current. The singing voices of the party behind
them came softly adrift along the water. All of the singers were young
and the songs had to do with sentiment.

The girl buttoned her sweater closer about her throat. The man stuffed
tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and bent low to kindle it into a
cheerful spot of light.

A belated lemon afterglow lingered at the edge of the sky ahead. Against
it the gaunt branches of a tall tree traced themselves starkly. Below
was the silent blackness of the woods.

Suddenly Benton raised his head.

"I have a present for you," he announced.

"A present?" echoed the girl. "Be careful, Sir Gray Eyes. You played the
magician once and gave me a rose. It was such a wonderful rose"--she
spoke almost tenderly,--"that it has spoiled me. No commonplace gift
will be tolerated after that."

"This is a different sort of present," he assured her. "This is a god."

"A what!" Cara was at the stern with the guiding paddle. The man leaned
back, steadying the canoe with a hand on each gunwale, and smiled into
her face.

"Yes," he said, "he is a god made out of clay with a countenance that is
most unlovely and a complexion like an earthenware jar. I acquired him
in the Andes for a few _centavos_. Since then we have been companions.
In his day he had his place in a splendid temple of the Sun Worshipers.
When I rescued him he was squatting cross-legged on a counter among
silver and copper trinkets belonging to a civilization younger than his