“What on earth is the matter?”

Seated on a bench beside Mabel and Eleanor, Bee sprang up in alarm as Patsy fairly tore into the patio and dropped limply upon another seat.

“Oh, girls, the picture!” she exclaimed. “That cavalier! He moved! I’m sure he did! It gave me the creeps! I was hustling through the gallery and I heard a faint, queer noise. I can’t describe it. It seemed to come right from the middle of the gallery. I looked toward that picture and it moved, or else the cavalier moved. I don’t know which.”

“You just thought you saw something move,” soothed Bee, sitting down beside her chum and patting her hand. “It was probably the way the light happened to strike on the picture that made it seem so. As for a queer sound! Every sound echoes and re-echoes in these old corridors. We heard you bang your door clear down here. You must have heard an echo of that bang in the gallery.”

“I’m a goose, I guess.” Patsy sheepishly ducked her head. “I never thought of the light falling like that on the picture. That’s what I saw, I suppose.”

“What has happened, Patsy?” called a dignified but anxious voice from the balcony. Miss Martha stood leaning over the rail looking down concernedly at her niece.

“Nothing, Auntie, dear. I heard a queer noise in the gallery and it startled me. Bee says it was only the echo from the bang I gave my door. I’m all right,” Patsy sturdily insisted, rising from the seat and blowing a gay little kiss to her aunt.

“I heard you bang your door,” was the significant response. “When you come back from your walk you must take one of those capsules that Dr. Hilliard prescribed for my nerves.”

“All right,” Patsy dutifully agreed. “Good-bye, Auntie. We’re going now.”

“Good-bye. Remember to be back by one o’clock.”

The three other girls calling a blithe good-bye to Miss Carroll, the quartette left the patio with an alacrity that betokened their eagerness for the proposed walk.

“I didn’t care to tell her about thinking I saw the picture move,” confessed Patsy. “As it is I’m in for swallowing one of those fat nerve capsules that Auntie always keeps on hand. I need it about as much as a bird needs a hat. We’ll have to walk fairly fast to get to the beach and back by luncheon time, girls. We’ll lay the book on the sand, then watch from the bath house windows to see what happens.”

“I hope our wood nymph comes along and finds it to-day,” commented Mabel. “Still she might not go near the beach for several days. After all, there’s only a chance that she’ll see it and pick it up.”

“I have an idea she goes to the beach every day,” said Beatrice. “She may be as curious about us as we are about her. She may be so shy, though, that she won’t come near us, even if she does read our note.”

Thus discussing the object of their little scheme, the Wayfarers forged ahead at a swinging pace. Soon they had left the highway and were on the narrow, white, palm-lined road to the beach, talking busily as they went. Once in the jungle four pairs of eyes kept up an alert watch on both sides of the road in the hope of spying the elusive wood nymph.

They came at last to the beach, however, without having seen any signs of their quarry. After they had gone through the little ceremony of placing the book on the spot on the sands from which the other book had disappeared, they went over to the bath house and, entering, eagerly watched from one of its windows.

After lingering there for half an hour, during which period the fateful book remained exactly where it had been laid, they gave up the vigil for that day and reluctantly started on the homeward hike.

“Of course we couldn’t really expect anything would happen just because we wanted it to,” declared Eleanor.

“Of course not,” her chums concurred. In her heart, however, each girl had been secretly hoping that something would happen.

The following morning saw the Wayfarers again on the sands. This time, however, they had come down to the beach for a swim, Miss Martha dutifully accompanying them.

Almost the first object which met their gaze when they reached the sands was the book. It still lay exactly where Patsy had deposited it, the white edge of the letter showing above the book’s blue binding.

“She hasn’t been here!” Patsy cried out disappointedly. “I guess our plan isn’t going to amount to much after all.”

“Oh, don’t be discouraged,” smiled Eleanor. “Give her time.”

“Let’s forget all about it,” suggested Bee. “Nothing ever happens when one’s awfully anxious for it to happen. It generally happens after one has stopped thinking about it and gone on to something else. It’s a glorious morning for a swim. Let’s hurry into our bathing suits and take advantage of it.”

This wise view of the matter appealing to the disappointed authors of the little plot, the four girls betook themselves to the bath house to get ready for their morning dip in the ocean.

Having now become mildly interested in Patsy’s scheme to catch a wood nymph, Miss Martha took pains to further it by establishing herself on the sands at a point on the far side of the bath house. From there she could neither see the spot where the book lay, nor could anyone who might chance to approach it see her. This maneuver was not lost on her charges, who agreed with Patsy’s gleeful assertion that Auntie was just as anxious for “something to happen” as they were.

Soon engrossed in the fun of splashing and swimming about in the sun-warmed salt water, the Wayfarers forgot everything that did not pertain to the enjoyment of the moment.

True, on first entering the surf Patsy cast an occasional glance beachward. Bee’s merry challenge, “I’ll race you again to-day as far as the bend and back,” was the last touch needed to drive all thought of the mysterious wood nymph from Patsy’s mind.

Sturdy Bee proved herself no mean antagonist. When Patsy finally arrived at the starting point only a yard ahead of her chum, she was ready to throw herself down on the sands and rest after her strenuous swim. Bee, however, showed no sign of fatigue.

“You beat me, but only by a yard. To-morrow I’ll beat you.” Bee stood over Patsy, flushed and laughing.

“I don’t doubt it.” Patsy glanced admiringly up at her chum. “You’re a stronger swimmer than I, Bee. With a little more practice you’ll be a wonder. Here I am resting. You look ready to start out all over again.”

“I’m not a bit tired,” Bee said with a little air of pride. “I’ll prove it by swimming out there where Mabel and Nellie are.”

Stretched full length in the sand, Patsy lazily sat up and watched her chum as Bee waded out in the surf, reached swimming depth and struck out for a point not far ahead where Mabel and Eleanor were placidly swimming about.

Indolently content to remain inactive, Patsy continued to watch her three friends for a little, then lay down again, one arm thrown across her eyes to shut out the sun.

While she lay there, enjoying the luxury of thinking about nothing in particular, tardy recollection of the blue book suddenly crossed her brain. It impelled her to sit up again with a jerk and cast a quick glance toward the object of her thoughts.

Next instant a bare-footed figure in a white bathing suit flashed across the sands toward the jungle on a wild run. In that one glance Patsy had seen more than the blue book. She had seen a slim young girl, her small, beautiful face framed in masses of midnight black hair, flit suddenly out of the jungle, eagerly snatch up the book and dart off with it.

First sight of the strange girl and Patsy’s original intention to await developments flew to the winds. Obeying a mad impulse to pursue the vanishing wood nymph, Patsy plunged into the jungle after her, crying out loudly: “Wait a minute! I want to talk to you.”

At sound of the clear, high voice the black-haired girl ahead halted briefly. Through the open screen of green, Patsy could see her quite plainly. She was looking over her shoulder at her pursuer as though undetermined whether to stand her ground or continue her flight.

“Don’t be afraid,” Patsy called out encouragingly. “Please don’t run away.”

As she spoke she started quickly forward. Her eyes fixed on the girl, her runaway feet plunged themselves into a mass of tangled green vines. With a sharp, “Oh!” she pitched headlong into a thicket of low-growing bushes.

As she scrambled to her feet she became aware of a loud, metallic buzzing in her ears. Then she felt herself being jerked out of the thicket by a pair of strong arms and hauled to a bit of dear space beyond.

“Stay where you are, seÑorita,” commanded a warning, imperative voice. “Move not, I entreat you!”

Bewildered by the suddenness with which things had happened, Patsy stood perfectly still, her eyes following the movements of a lithe figure, darting this way and that, as though in search of something.

Still in a daze she heard the voice that had addressed her utter a low murmur of satisfaction, as its owner stooped and picked up a dead branch from under a huge live oak. Two little brown hands played like lightning over the thick branch, ripping off the clinging dead twigs. Next the denuded branch was thwacked vigorously against the parent oak.

“It is strong enough,” announced a calm voice. “Now we shall see.”

Fascinated, Patsy watched breathlessly. She now understood the situation. Her headlong crash into the thicket had stirred up a drowsy rattler. The prompt action of her little wood nymph had saved her from being bitten by the snake. Now the girl intended to hunt it down and kill it. She looked so small and slender. It seemed too dangerous a task for her to undertake.

“Oh, please let it alone! It might bite you!” Patsy found herself faltering out. “A rattle-snake’s bite is deadly.”

“I have killed many. I am not afraid. Always one must kill the snake. It is the sign of the enemy. One kills; so one conquers. Comprende?”

The girl shook back her black hair, her red lips parting in a smile that lighted her somber face into sunshine. Patsy thought it quite the prettiest thing she had ever seen.

Very cautiously the intrepid little hunter began to circle the thicket, poking her impromptu weapon into it with every step she took.

“Ah!”

She uttered a shout of triumph as the sinister, buzzing sound Patsy had so lately heard began again.

Having located her quarry, the girl proceeded to dispatch it with the fearlessness of those long used to the wilds. Her weapon firmly grasped in determined hands she rained a fury of strong, steady blows upon the rattler. Finally they ceased. Giving his snakeship a final contemptuous prod with the branch, she called across the thicket to Patsy:

“Come. You wish to see. He is a very large one. Of a length of eight feet, quisas. Wait; I will lay him straight on the earth.”

Approaching, Patsy shuddered as her rescuer obligingly poked the dead reptile from the spot where it had made its last stand. She shuddered again as a small brown hand grasped the still twitching tail and straightened the snake out.

“It is the diamond back,” the girl calmly informed. “See.” She pointed with the branch, which she still held, to the diamond-shaped markings on the snake’s back. “He carried the death in his sting. So we shall bury the head, for the sting of a dead snake such as this is safer covered.”

“It’s horrible!” shivered Patsy. “It was coiled up in the thicket. I must have disturbed it when I fell. I don’t see how I escaped being bitten.”

“He was resting at the edge of the thicket, seÑorita,” corrected the girl. “Always such as he keep near the edge so that it becomes for them thus easy to strike the small creatures they hunt. So you missed him and he sang the song of death. I heard that song and came. He had eaten not long ago, I believe, and was lazy. So he did not try to go away. Now he is dead. So if the enemy comes to me, I must conquer. This is a true saying.”