MONTAUK POINT rises and falls like a procession of mighty swells fixed in eternal quietude and grown over with the most luxurious of grasses and field-blooms. One walks from hill to hill, passing between the down-curving slopes to hollows wherein flourish all-but-impenetrable thickets of the stunted scrub-oak, and abruptly walks forth upon a noble cliff-line overlooking the limitless ocean to the far-off southern horizon. Steep and narrow gullies at intervals give rock-studded access to the beach. Outside of the miniature forests in the hollows there is no tree-growth on the whole forty square miles of land, excepting the deep-shaded tangle of the Hither Wood on the far northwest, into which none makes his way except an occasional sportsman on a coon hunt.

Except for the lighthouse family at the eastern tip, the three life-saving stations with their attendant houses, and a little huddle of fisher-huts on a reach of the Sound, there were no habitants in the mid-September of 1902, the few summer cottagers having fled the sharpened air. All day long the pasturing sheep of the interior might rove without the alarm of a single human. Short of the prairies, a lonelier stretch of land would be difficult of discovery.

To Dick Colton, rising late with a thankful heart after a sleep unvexed of labelled bottles, this loneliness was a balm, provided only it proved to be loneliness for two. For, with an eagerness strange and disquieting to his straightforward and rather unsentimental soul, he longed to look again upon the girl whose eyes had met his when he staggered back from the clutching hands of death. And with that longing was mingled an amused curiosity to clear up the puzzle of the impetuous souvenir she had left him. Within himself he resolved to solve this problem at the first opportunity; but just at this moment the opportunity was receding.

Far and clear against the sky-line, he could see from his window two mounted figures. Miss Ravenden and her father were riding to Amagansett, to be gone, as he learned later with disgust, all day. Helga Johnston had gone up to the lighthouse to stay until the following morning, and Haynes was working on his investigation of Petersen's death.

Nothing was left for the lone guest except to amuse himself as best he might.

The morning he spent in wandering meditation. Leisure for thought is a quick developer of certain processes. The Ravendens were to be at Third House for the month, he understood. One might get very well acquainted in a month, under favourable circumstances. At present the immediate circumstances were far from favourable. But Dick slapped the pocketbook to which he had transferred his keepsake from Miss Ravenden.

“That'll break some ice, I guess,” he observed.

At dinner he contemplated a vacant place with an expression of such unhappiness that old Johnston took pity on him.

“The white perch'll likely be risin' in the lake yonder this evening,” he said.

Here was antidote for any bane. Dick took his rod and went. The fish nobly fulfilled Johnston's word of them, and Dick had just landed a handsome one, when glancing up he saw a net moving along the line of a small ridge.

“The bug-hunter,” he surmised.

“Oh, Professor Ravenden!” he called; and was instantly stricken with the dilemma: “What the dickens shall I say to him?”

The net paused, half-revolved and ascended, and Dick gasped as not Professor Ravenden, but his daughter, mounted the ridge.

“Did you want my father?” she asked.

“Oh—er—ah, good-evening, Miss Ravenden,” stammered Colton. “I—I—I've been wanting to see you.”

“There is some mistake,” said she coldly. “I don't know who you are.”

“My name is Colton,” he said. “I'm staying at Third House, and——”

“Does the mere fact of your staying at the same hotel give you the privilege of forcing your acquaintance upon people?” she asked sharply.

Then—for Dick Colton was good for the eye of woman to look upon, and not at all the sort of man in appearance to force a vulgar flirtation—she added:

“I don't want to be unpleasant about it, but really, don't you think you take things a little too much for granted?”

“But you spoke to me first,” blurted out Dick. “I'm awfully sorry to have you think me rude, but I want to know what this is.”

Curiosity drew Dorothy Ravenden as powerfully as it commonly draws less imperious natures.

Somewhat peculiar this man might be, but it seemed a harmless aberration, and it certainly took an interesting guise. She bent forward to look at the object extended to her.

“Why, it's a twenty-dollar bill!”

“Then my eye-sight is still good,” he observed contentedly. “Question number two: Why did you give it to me?”

“To you?” To Dick Colton, as she stood there poised, the gracious colour flushing up into her cheeks, her lips half-opened, she was the loveliest thing he ever had seen. The hand that held the bill shook. “To you?” she repeated. “I didn't.”

“It was just like an operatic setting,” he expounded slowly. “Background of cliffs, firelight in the middle, ocean surf in front. Out of the magic circle of fire steps the Fairy Queen and hands to the poor but deserving toiler what in common parlance is known as a double saw-buck. Please, your Majesty, why? And do you want a receipt?”

“Oh!” she said in charming dismay. And again “Oh!” Then it came out: “I took you for one of the life-savers.”

“The life-savers?” repeated Dick.

“Yes. Is that strange? You were so big and shaggy and——” she stopped short of the word “splendid” which was on her lips. “How could I tell? You looked as much like a seal as a man.” The ripple of her laughter, full of joyousness, yet with a little catch of some underlying feeling in it, was a patent of fellowship, which would have astonished most of Miss Ravenden's hundreds of admirers, among whom she was regarded as a rather haughty beauty. “I don't know many men who would have done it—or could have done it,” she added simply, and gave him her eyes, full.

Dick turned red. “Anyone would have,” he said. “It was the only thing to do.”

She nodded slowly as if an impression had been confirmed to her satisfaction.

“As for this,” he continued, looking from her to the greenback, and striving to speak calmly, when his heart was a-thrill with the desire to tell her how altogether lovely and lovable she was, “if it's intended as a reward of merit, I'll turn it over to Miss Johnston.”

“Wasn't she magnificent?” cried the girl. “I'll slay Helga!” she added with a sudden change of tone. “She's a beast of the field. She knew about the—the bill and she never told me.”

“That'll cost her just twenty dollars,” declared Colton judicially, “because now I won't turn it over to her.”

“Give it back to me, please,” said the girl, holding out a tanned and slender hand.

“Give it back?” cried Colton in assumed chagrin. “Why, I already had spent that twenty in imagination.”

“On what?” asked the girl rather impatiently.

“It's a long list,” replied Colton cunningly. “You'd better sit down while I tell it over.” He threw his coat over a rock, and she perched herself on it daintily.

“First, a hundred packages of plug tobacco. All coast-guards use plug, I believe. Then five dollars' worth of prints of prominent actors and actresses in gaudy colours. The rest in Mexican lottery tickets,” he concluded lamely, his invention giving out.

“It wasn't worth sitting down for,” she said disparagingly. “If you had intended to get something really useful, I might have let you keep it. Please!” The little hand went forth again.

Hastily he produced a ten-dollar bill and two fives. “You don't mind having it in change?” he said anxiously. “You see, this is the first money I ever earned outside of my profession, and I mean to frame it.”

“If twenty dollars means so little to you that you can have it hanging around framed——”

“This particular twenty means a great deal to me,” he interrupted.

She rose. “I was going down to try a cast or two,” she said.

“With a net?” asked Dick. “I should like to see that.”

“There's a fishing rod in the handle of the net,” she explained, ignoring the hint. “I keep the net rigged because I help my father collect. Entomology is his specialty, and there are a few rare moths here that he hopes to get.”

“Am I sufficiently introduced now to ask if I may walk along with you?”

“I'm sorry I was so—so snippy,” she said sweetly. “To make up for it, you may.”

“Are you here particularly for collecting moths?” he asked, stepping to her side.

“Yes, one or two kinds that my father and I are studying. I play butterfly in the winter and hunt them in the summer. Everyone here has a purpose. Father and I are adding to the sum of human knowledge on Lepidoptera. Mr. Haynes is spending his vacation with Helga. Helga is resting, before taking up her musical studies. You ought to have a purpose. What has brought you here?”

Now, Dick Colton, like many big men, was awkward, and like most awkward men, was shy about women. Therefore, it was with a sort of stunned amazement and admiration for his own audacity that he found himself looking straight into Dorothy Ravenden's unfathomable eyes as he replied briefly:

“Fate.”

“Well, upon my soul!” gasped that much-habituated young woman of the world, surprised for a brief instant out of her poise. Quickly recovering, she added: “A fortunate fate for Helga, surely. Except for you, she and Mr. Haynes must have been drowned.”

“You knew her before, didn't you?”

“Yes; we visit at the same house in Philadelphia, and father and I have been coming down here for several years. I know her well. If I were a man, I should go the world over for Helga Johnston.”

“She and Haynes are engaged, are they not?”

“No, not engaged,” said the girl. “She is everything in the world to Mr. Haynes; but she isn't in love with him. He has never tried to make her. There is some reason; I don't know what. Sometimes I think he doesn't care for her in that way either. Or perhaps he doesn't realise it.”

“Surely she seems fond of him.”

“She is devoted to him. Why shouldn't she be? He has done everything for her.”

“How happens that?”

“It's the kind of story that makes you love your kind,” said the girl dreamily. “When Mr. Haynes first came here he was a young reporter with a small income, and Helga was a child of twelve with an eager mind and the promise of a lovely voice. He gave her books and got the Johnstons to send her to a good school. Then as she grew up and he came to be 'star man' (I think they call it) on his paper, he went to the Johnstons, who had come to know him well, and asked them to let him send Helga to preparatory school and then to college. It was agreed that she was not to know of the money that he put in their hands, and she never would have known except for something that happened in her freshman year. She held her tongue to save a classmate. They were going to expel her, when Mr. Haynes got wind of it, took the first train, ferreted out the truth, and went to the president.

“'Here are the facts,' he said. 'I'll leave them for you to act on, or I'll take them with me for publication, as you decide.'

“The case was hushed up; but in the adjustment Helga found out about Mr. Haynes' part in her education. Now he is arranging for her musical education. He has no family, nor anyone dependent on him; all his interests in life are centred in her. And the best of it is that she is worthy of it.”

“It must be a great deal to such a man to inspire such absolute trust in a woman as he has in her,” said Colton after a pause. “'I knew he would come after me,' she said when I asked her how she dared take so desperate a chance.”

Miss Ravenden nodded at him appreciatively. “Yes; you see it too,” she said. “You did something worth while when you saved those two. But what about your Portuguese? Do you really think he had anything to do with killing that poor sailor? Helga told me about it. What an extraordinary case it is!”

“What puzzles Haynes with his trained mind is surely too much for me,” said Colton. “It seems that the man—great Heaven! What was that?” From the direction of the beach came a long-drawn, dreadful scream of agony, unhuman, yet with something of an appeal in it, too. The pair turned blanched faces toward each other.

“I must go over there at once,” said Colton. “Someone is in trouble. Miss Ravenden, can you make your way to the house alone?”

The girl's small, rounded chin went up and outward. “I shall go with you,” she said.

“You must not. There's no telling what may have happened. Please!”

With a swift, deft movement she parted the heavy handle of her net-stock, disclosing an ingeniously set revolver, which she pressed into his hand.

“I'm going with you,” she repeated, with the most alluring obstinacy.

“Come, then,” said Colton, and her pulses stirred to the tone. He caught her by the hand, and they ran, reaching the cliff-top breathless.

Barely discernible, on the sand, a quarter of a mile east of Graveyard Point where the wreck had struck, was a dark body. They hurried down into the ravine and out of it, Colton in advance. Suddenly he burst into a laugh of nervous relief.

“It's a dead sheep,” he said. “I thought it was a man.”

He bent over it and his jaw dropped. “Look at that!” he cried.

Across the back of the animal's neck, half-sever-ing it from the head, was a great gash, still bleeding slightly. They peered out into the dusk. As far as the eye could see, nothing moved along the sand.