ve carried! We even went on
picnics to isolated spots we knew, where we remained all day, going
before daylight and returning after dark. Also, we used Wickson's cream
and butter,* and Ernest was not above shooting Wickson's quail and
rabbits, and, on occasion, his young bucks.

* Even as late as that period, cream and butter were still
crudely extracted from cow's milk. The laboratory
preparation of foods had not yet begun.

Indeed, it was a safe refuge. I have said that it was discovered only
once, and this brings me to the clearing up of the mystery of the
disappearance of young Wickson. Now that he is dead, I am free to speak.
There was a nook on the bottom of the great hole where the sun shone for
several hours and which was hidden from above. Here we had carried
many loads of gravel from the creek-bed, so that it was dry and warm,
a pleasant basking place; and here, one afternoon, I was drowsing, half
asleep, over a volume of Mendenhall.* I was so comfortable and secure
that even his flaming lyrics failed to stir me.

* In all the extant literature and documents of that period,
continual reference is made to the poems of Rudolph
Mendenhall. By his comrades he was called "The Flame." He
was undoubtedly a great genius; yet, beyond weird and
haunting fragments of his verse, quoted in the writings of
others, nothing of his has come down to us. He was executed
by the Iron Heel in 1928 A.D.

I was aroused by a clod of earth striking at my feet. Then from above,
I heard a sound of scrambling. The next moment a young man, with a
final slide down the crumbling wall, alighted at my feet. It was Philip
Wickson, though I did not know him at the time. He looked at me coolly
and uttered a low whistle of surprise.

"Well," he said; and the next moment, cap in hand, he was saying, "I beg
your pardon. I did not expect to find any one here."

I was not so cool. I was still a tyro so far as concerned knowing how to
behave in desperate circumstances. Later on, when I was an international
spy, I should have been less clumsy, I am sure. As it was, I scrambled
to my feet and cried out the danger call.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, looking at me searchingly.

It was evident that he had no suspicion of our presence when making the
descent. I recognized this with relief.

"For what purpose do you think I did it?" I countered. I was indeed
clumsy in those days.

"I don't