ething
on Matters. So whenever he is out, I am out on the same road. He is
going toward New London this afternoon and so are we. I have got just
five more days and you must be a good little scout and go driving with
me, so he won't catch on that I am sleuthing him. He will think I am
just beauing you around in the approved Mount Mark style.'

"Sure enough after a while we came across Matters talking to a couple
of farmers on the cross roads, and Kirke and I stopped a quarter of a
mile farther down and ate sandwiches and told stories, and when Matters
passed us a little later he could have sworn we were there just for our
joy in each other's company. But we did not learn anything.

"The next day we were out again, with no better luck. But the third
day about four in the afternoon, Kirke called me on the telephone.
There was subtle excitement in his voice.

"'Come for a drive, Connie?' he asked; common words, but there was a
world of hidden invitation, of secret lure, in his voice for me.

"'Yes, gladly,' I said. Father did not nod approvingly and Aunt Grace
did not smile this time. Three days in succession was a little too
warm even for a newly made pillar, but they said nothing and Kirke and
I set out.

"'He raided Jack Mott's last night and has about three hundred bottles
to smash this afternoon. The old fellow is pretty fond of the ice-cold
bottles himself and it is common report that he raids just often enough
to keep himself supplied. So I think I'll keep an eye on him to-day.
He started half an hour ago, south road, and he has Gus Waldron with
him,--his boon companion, and the most notoriously ardent devotee of
the bottles in all dear dry Mount Mark. Lovely day for a drive, isn't
it?'

"'Yes, lovely.' I was very happy. I felt like a princess of old,
riding off into danger, and I felt very warm and friendly toward Kirke.
Remember that he is very good-looking and just bad enough in spite of
his new pillar-hood, to be spell-binding, and--it was lots of fun.
Kirke grabbed my hand and squeezed it chummily, and I smiled at him.

"'You are a glorious girl,' he said.

"I suppose I should have reminded him and myself that he was a
semi-satanic, but I did not. I laughed and rubbed the back of his hand
softly with the tips of my nice pink finger nails, and laughed again.

"Then here came a light wagon,--Matters and Waldron,--going home, and
we realized we had been loitering on the job. Kirke shook his