f
irritation now that he dug in his paddle--and veered sharply to the
left as the rustle of reeds against the canoe warned him that he was
close inshore somewhere. Mechanically he tried to peer through the
dark. This ought to be the sandbar to the left of the Island Park
ferry landing if he had not gone out of his reckoning. He waited for
the fog-horn that presently bellowed loudly off to the left. If this
were the sandbar he would have to skirt it east to the cut that ran in
beside the Yacht Club.

A moment's paddling convinced him that he had guessed correctly.
Something scraped alongside--a yacht, moored in the channel. He turned
to the right and presently was gratified to find himself in quieter
water. A moment later he was safely within the inner channel that
followed the park embankment and led east past private boathouses.

From the canal short streets here cut south across the island to the
lakefront, where many fine residences of the wealthy faced open water.
The steady rhythm of the waves against the breakwater reached him in
sharp contrast to the brooding stillness of the channel water.

Kendrick was almost home now. The Waring boathouse was within a
stonesthrow. He edged the canoe forward gently, close to the bank,
feeling his way toward the familiar landing.

And there was not one thing to prepare him for what immediately
followed. A voice which seemed to be almost at his elbow spoke to him
out of the darkness in low hurried tones--a woman's voice! At the same
time he felt the bow of the canoe pulled in against the bank. Before
he could recover sufficiently from his surprise to speak she had
stepped aboard and he could hear her adjusting a cushion beneath her
knees. Then came her tense whispered warning:

"Stick right here and don't talk. We haven't time to get away, but
they can't see us. Sh! Here they come!"

CHAPTER II

BLIND MAN'S BUFF

With difficulty Phil Kendrick restrained a desire to laugh outright.
The totally unexpected situation in which he found himself paralyzed
his speech and by the time he had recovered from the first shock of it
a further development held him silent. With senses sharpened he
listened in the dark to approaching footsteps and a murmur of voices,
his wonder growing as he recognized the unmistakable accents of
Stinson, his uncle's personal servant--Stinson who, by all the rules of
valet service, should be up at Sparrow Lake at that very moment wi