d pipe and make a birch
canoe, and likely I'll weave a rush mat and a willow bed and carve some
spoons and forks and a sundial."

"Will you be through by noon?" asked Diane politely.

Philip laughed.

"As a matter of fact," he said easily, "I'm going with you to lamp
birds. I want to duck that fool doctor."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Diane with decision, "for I'm
going to stay in camp and bake bread."

The bread was baking odorously and a variety of shavings flying
ambitiously from an embryo pipe by ten o'clock. At noon the doctor had
not yet arrived. Philip dexterously served a savory fish chowder from
a pot hanging within a tripod of saplings and refused to dwell upon the
thought of his eventual departure.

A man appeared among the trees to the east, switching absently at the
underbrush with a cane.

Philip sniffed.

"I thought so," he nodded. "That medical dub carries a cane on his
professional rounds! Like as not he wears a flowing tie, a monocle and
pink socks."

The man approached and raised his hat, smiling urbanely. It was Baron
Tregar.

Philip leaped to his feet, reddening.

"Excellency!" he stammered.

"Pray be seated!" exclaimed the Baron with sympathy. "Such a
disturbing experience as you have had affords one privileges."

"Permit me," said Philip uncomfortably to Diane, "to present my chief,
Baron Tregar. Excellency, Miss Westfall, to whom I am eternally
indebted." And Philip's eyes sparkled with laughter as he uttered her
name.

There was an old world courtliness in the Baron's bow and murmured
salutation.

"Ah," said he with gallant regret, "Fate, Miss Westfall, has never seen
fit to temper misfortune so pleasantly for me. Poynter, you have been
exceedingly fortunate."

Diane laughed softly. It was hers to triumph now.

"_Mr. Poynter_," she said with relish, flashing a sidelong glance at
that discomfited young man, "Mr. Poynter has been good enough to make
the chowder. It would gratify me exceedingly, Baron Tregar, to have
you test it."

Heartily anathematizing his chief, who was gratefully expressing his
interest in chowder, Mr. Poynter stared perversely at his cuff.

"I wonder," he reflected uneasily, "just what he wants and how in
thunder he knew!"

The Baron, gracefully adapting himself to woodland exigencies, supplied
the answer.

"Dr. Wingate," he boomed, "is at the Sherrill farm. Themar officiously
fancied he could fly and had a most distressi