he has brains and beauty and instinctive grace
enough to startle a continent. I am greatly tempted. Ann, I beg of
you, don't breathe any of this to Aunt Agatha. Some day I may carry
Keela away to the cities of the North for an experiment quite my own.
Her delicate beauty--her gravity--her shy, sweet dignity, hold me
powerfully. It would make life well worth the living--the regeneration
of a life like hers.

"No, I am not mad. If I am, it is a delicious madness indeed, this
craving to do something for some one else. I need the discipline of
thinking for another.

"I don't know when you will get this. Once in a while an Indian rides
forth to civilization, and this letter will perforce await such a
messenger. I wrote to Aunt Agatha from the little hamlet where Johnny
is waiting with the van. I know she is fussing.

"You wrote me something in one of your letters, that Dick and Carl were
planning to camp and hunt wild turkeys in the Glades. Let me know what
luck they had and all the news.

"Ever yours,

"Diane."

Now, if Diane proved readily adaptable to the wild life about her, no
less did Philip. At night he smoked comfortably by his camp fire,
unwound the hullabaloo upon request or lent it to Sho-caw. He rode
hard and fearlessly with the warriors, hunted bear and alligator,
acquired uncommon facility in the making of sof-ka, the tribal stew,
and helped in the tanning of pelts and the building of cypress canoes.

Presently the unmistakable whir of a sewing machine which Sho-caw had
bought from a trader, floated one morning from Philip's wigwam. Keela
reported literally that Mr. Poynter had said he was building himself a
much-needed tunic, though he had experienced considerable difficulty in
the excavation of the sleeves.

CHAPTER XXXVII

IN THE GLADES

"What the devil is the matter with you, Carl?" demanded Dick Sherrill
irritably. "If I'd known you were going to moon under a tree and
whistle through that infernal flute half the time, I'd never have
suggested camping. Are you coming along to-night or not?"

"No. I've murdered enough wild turkeys now."

Sherrill plunged off swampwards with the guides.

Left to himself Carl laid aside his flute and sat very quiet, staring
at the cloud-haunted moon which hung above the Glades. He had been
drinking and gaming heavily for weeks. Now floundering deeper and
deeper into the mire of debt and dissipation, forced to a fevered
alert