was a small purse of scaled hide.

"Swamp oak and baby alligator," burst out Charity. "Aren't they
beauties?"

"But who--" began Ricky.

Val picked up a scrap of paper which had fluttered to the floor. It was
cheap stuff, ruled with faint blue lines, but the writing was bold and
clear: "Miss Richanda Ralestone."

"It's yours all right." He handed her the paper.

"I know." She tucked the note away with the gifts. "It was Jeems."

"Jeems? But why?" her brother protested.

"Well, yesterday when I was down by the levee he was coming in and I
knew that Mr. Creighton was here and I told him. So," she colored
faintly, "then he took me across the bayou and I got some of those big
swamp lilies that I've always wanted. And we had a long talk. Val, Jeems
knows the most wonderful things about the swamps. Do you know that they
still have voodoo meetings sometimes--way back in there," she swept her
hand southward. "And the fur trappers live on house-boats, renting their
hunting rights. But Jeems owns his own land. Now some northerners are
prospecting for oil. They have a queer sort of car which can travel
either on land or water. And Pere Armand has church records that date
back to the middle of the eighteenth century. And--"

"So that's where you were from four until almost six," Val laughed. "I
don't know that I approve of this riotous living. Will Jeems take me to
pick the lilies too?"

"Maybe. He wanted to know why you always moved so carefully. And I told
him about the accident. Then he said the oddest thing--" She was staring
past Val at the oaks. "He said that to fly was worth being smashed up
for and that he envied you."

"Then he's a fool!" her brother said promptly. "Nothing is worth--" Val
stopped abruptly. Five months before he had made a bargain with himself;
he was not going to break it now.

"Do you know," Ricky said to Charity, "if you really need Jeems this
morning, I think I can get him for you. He told me yesterday how to find
his cabin."

"But why--" The objection came almost at once from Charity. Val thought
she was more than a little surprised that Jeems, who had steadfastly
refused to give her the same information, had supplied it so readily to
Ricky whom he hardly knew at all.

"I don't know," answered Ricky frankly. "He was rather queer about it.
Kept saying that the time might come when I would need help, and things
like that."

"Charity," Val was putting her brushes straight, "I learned lo