It is not to be supposed that Elizabeth Secrest was not having as good a time as the rest of the party, or that her days were altogether spent in the work and play of the artist. In a delicious rest of mind and body she had quickly gained back her nervous energy. Her camp life soon settled into a brief routine of daily duties, quickly accomplished with the help of the other girls, and into a rest and freedom from responsibility that she had not known for a long time.

In this place of beautiful views and big spaces, worries seemed small. She often went alone to the beach, to walk up and down, sketch a little, pick up some newly deposited shell, or merely to sit, feasting her eyes upon the apparently limitless sea.

One afternoon Beth was perched upon a rock, near the place where sand gave place to rock and their headland. She was thinking of their log house, so soon to go up now. Dalton was expecting the men on the following day. Her back was toward the village and she was not conscious of anyone’s approach until she heard herself addressed.

“Pardon me, madam, is this the Ives’ headland, and are these what are called Steeple Rocks? From appearance I should say that they are farther on, but my directions pointed here.”

Beth looked around to see a young gentleman lifting his neat straw hat and regarding her rather seriously. He looked like any young business man from the city.

“No, these are not Steeple Rocks. This is the Sea Crest headland,” said Beth, making up the name as she talked. “Steeple Rocks lie around the bay, or across it from here.”

“They are those large masses of rocks with the two towers, then.”

“Yes. I call them Cathedral Rocks.”

“A good name.” The young man smiled, looking at sea, rocks and sky, turning away from Beth a little and putting his hands in his pockets, like a boy who has just found a good place to play. Beth said nothing. He looked good, but Beth was not in the habit of making acquaintance with strange young gentlemen.

“I wonder if you would mind giving me a little information about this neighborhood. I have just come by boat and rail from New York. I might add auto, if one could so denominate the ancient ark in which I was transported to the village.”

Beth laughed at this. “It must have been an ideal ride,” she said. “We know all about that.”

“I wonder if you are not Miss Secrest.” Beth’s interviewer hitched himself up on a projecting rock near her. “I shall not trouble you long, but you may be willing to give me some advice. I can not find a desirable place in the village to stay, that is, a desirable place which is not already full of tourists or town families.

“I came prepared to camp, but my driver told me that I must get permission to camp in any of these woods and I was referred to the home of a man named Bill Somebody. I caught a glimpse of him and I passed the house instead of stopping! I thought I would stroll a while first. For some reason I was not prejudiced in his favor.” A whimsical smile curled around the newcomer’s lips.

“Bill seems to be the village type of ward boss and manager of the general situation. My brother found that out when he had occasion to inquire what sort of protection we might count on here. He found that there was none at all aside from such as this man and his friends might furnish.”

“Indeed. Have you had trouble?”

“Nothing very serious so far, but it is just as well for a stranger to know about this. It is a funny little village. I have sometimes felt that I ought to do something for some of the people whom I have seen there. Some of the women are so hopeless looking. But my brother tells me to wait until we are better established. We are building a cabin.”

“I am sure that this is Miss Secrest, then. My name is Evan Tudor and I belong to that great army of aspiring writers that throng New York. While I am writing that best seller, you know, I am on a certain newspaper, and have another side line at times.

“Down at the dock a while ago I met a young fellow named Carey, who told me that you owned the first woods up on the heights and that I might ask you for permission to camp there for the night at least.”

“Yes.” Beth was hesitating. She liked the appearance of the gentlemanly stranger, but would it do to offer him a place to camp in their woods?

“So, if your brother agrees, will you not consent? I make a neat camp and I will not set the woods on fire.”

Beth looked into the smiling face of the earnest young man and returned his smile. He might be a help, indeed, if they needed a friend at any time. “We are not stingy about our woods,” she said, “to any one who is careful. It is, I know, a fine place, because of the spring and good water. We expect some friends to camp with us later on in the summer. I think that I shall have to talk with my brother before I can say positively that you can make a real camp on our place, but surely for to-night we shall not refuse hospitality. Did you say that you have your outfit ready? We might spare you some things.”

“Thank you. You are generous and kind. It is quite a relief to have it settled temporarily. Where shall I find your brother?”

“He went out with our launch this afternoon, but he may be back at any time. You will probably want your equipment brought up by the road, not on the trail along the cliff. I can scarcely tell you now where to go, but you may select any spot that you like, if Dal is not there, and someone can show you the way to our camp; whoever brings you up will know the direction. It is toward the cliff, in any event. I will be there, or at the Eyrie, our little watch tower on the cliff.”

“Young Carey may bring my stuff, or get me some one,” he said. “I will be at the camp or the Eyrie in about an hour, I think.”

Evan Tudor smiled as he mentioned the Eyrie, for he was thinking that the “dove-cote” would be a more suitable place for a pretty, gentle girl like Beth. But people did not always recognize in Beth’s soft speech and ways of a gentlewoman her real energy and the fire of purpose which made it possible to do what she did.

Bowing his thanks, Evan Tudor left Beth, treading quickly and surely close to the line of swirling foam, where the retreating waters were leaving the sand more or less closely packed. Beth watched him naturally enough, as he was the only person on the beach except herself. He carried his hat and let the breeze blow his thick brown locks as it would while he strode along. If the young lawyer at home had seen the interest in Beth’s eyes, he would very probably have refused the opportunity which had just come to him to try an important case, and might have come to Maine on the next train.

Mr. Tudor was above medium height, slender, active, with a lean, attractive face and a pair of keen gray eyes which were to be employed with great effect during the next few weeks in the lines of a duty and interest. Beth followed him with her eyes till he had left the beach for the village; then she rose to go back to camp. But she had another slight interruption before she reached the place where the Secrest party usually climbed to the trail.

Rarely villagers were to be found on this part of the beach, unless it might be a few children gathering shells. Now, however, an odd party was slowly advancing along the shore. Two women with little shawls tied over their heads, long, full skirts and big shoes, were behind a few children who were shouting in their delight.

The women were talking together and madly gesticulating as they talked. One of the peculiarly dressed children went too near the water and a wave which came in farther than the last one, as waves have a habit of doing, drenched the little one’s feet. His mother, presumably, jerked him away roughly and spanked him soundly.

Beth halted a moment at that and eyed the woman with some disgust. But that was an ignorant woman’s way of bringing up her family. As Beth paused, one of the older children saw her and ran to show her a shell, probably attracted by Beth’s face. An elfin face, none too clean, looked up at Beth, speaking a jumble of words in a foreign tongue. Beth shook her head to indicate that she did not understand, but she smiled and patted the little shoulder. In a moment the motley group stood around her.

As Beth had picked up a handful of pretty shells when she first walked out upon the beach, she divided them impartially among the children. The mothers began to talk in guttural and foreign words, but Beth replied in English, knowing that it would be useless to try French, the only foreign tongue in which she could speak at all.

The women and children laughed, and one little chap spoke proudly, waving his hand around. “’Merica!” he repeated several times.

“Yes, this is America and the United States,” Beth added.

The child nodded. He understood that.

Beth turned to the women and inquired, “New York?” But they looked at each other and obviously did not understand.

Beth tried it again. “Boston?” she asked, for she felt that they must have come in on some recent immigrant trip. Again the women shook their heads. If they had docked at either New York or Boston they had not learned the name of the port.

The older boy who had spoken before was watching Beth closely. He now pointed out to sea and said, “Ship,—’Merica.” Beth nodded, smiled and turned to go, with her inadequate words of farewell. But they understood the friendliness in Beth’s eyes and responded with more unintelligible words from the women and farewell shouts from the children, who went back to the swirling foam, or as near as they were allowed to go.

More fishermen and their families brought to the village by Bill, Beth supposed. He must bring them directly from the immigrant ships,—or—another thought came to Beth. What if these people had no right to be here! Were they aliens properly coming in under the quota allowed by the government? Perhaps Bill brought in some of his fishermen illegally. “Poor little kiddies,” Beth thought, “this is probably the first time that they ever played upon a beach!”

When Beth reached camp, she found that Dalton and the girls had already returned. “I’m so glad that you are here, Dal,” said she, “for I don’t know but I’ve done something that I ought not.”

“What has the head boss done,” grinned Dalton, “that she is willing to confess to a mere underling?”

“Underling—nothing! You are the protector of this camp.”

“Come out, Les, Sairey,—and hear what our sister has to say for herself,” Dalton called.

The girls came out from the tent with smiling faces, ready to hear some joke on Beth. “What’s Beth been up to?” queried Sarita. “Has she made friends with the Count? Promised Bill and Mr. Ives to leave these shores?”

“Worse,” laughed Beth. “I’ve rented camping space to a dangerously handsome young man. Seriously, Dal, if the young man I met on the beach just now is as good as he looks, it may not be a bad thing for you to have him somewhere near us while you build. But I made arrangements only for his camping in our woods to-night. You will have to decide the matter.”

“How old is he?” Sarita inquired.

“I’m sure I don’t know. He is a writer, from New York, and must have come here as blandly ignorant of accommodations as we might have been. I think that he expected to find a suitable room for a night or two in the village. But he has all his camping outfit, I understand. Tom Carey must have directed him to us, from what he said.”

To her interested audience Beth gave the details of her two adventures. Leslie was more interested in the children than in the young man and asked all about the party. “Funny that Bill gets all these new immigrants,” she remarked.

“No, Leslie,” said her brother. “You see, Bill ships fish by boat or rail and he can get these people to work for him for next to nothing. You ought to see the shacks they live in. I bet some of them wish that they’d never come to ’Merica.”

“But at least they have enough to eat, catching fish,” said Sarita.

“I doubt it, if they work for Bill.”

“Come, children, I must hurry,” said Beth. “There is a meal to cook and I promised to meet our boarder at the Eyrie.” Beth put on an expression of great dignity.

“Ha!” exclaimed Dalton. “Do you girls realize what has occurred? Never can we leave our sister unchaperoned again!” Dalton linked his arm in Beth’s and began to stride around the camp with such long and exaggerated strides that Beth, laughing, had to run to keep up with him. But when she told him that the stranger would really arrive by way of the wood, he stopped and more sensibly directed their way into it, while Leslie and Sarita not understanding what that move meant, waved a goodbye.

“I’ll walk with you a little way,” said Beth. “Have you seen anything of Peggy or Jack to-day?”

“Not a thing. Peggy was coming early, too, for I told them that I was taking a day off before my men came to work on the house and that we would take out the Sea Crest.”

“Probably Mr. Ives has come home. Peggy so cherishes coming here, or so she says, that she does not risk him forbidding her to come.”

“He knows all about it, though. Didn’t Peggy relate what he said about disliking the ‘intimacy’ with us?”

“Yes, but that makes Peggy all the more afraid that he will stop it. Possibly he thinks that he will know what we are doing through her, however, though I can’t imagine his getting much out of Peggy unless she wants to tell. Leslie worries about it slightly.”

“That is because it is not the sporting thing to accept a man’s hospitality when one is opposing him. That is what bothers Les when Peggy takes her out in his launch or insists on her going around Steeple Rocks. After all, the hospitality is extended by Peggy and her mother.”

“Certainly, Dal. But Leslie and Sarita are not ‘opposing’ Mr. Ives exactly, are they?”

“I am not so sure that their search for the ‘secret’ of Steeple Rocks will not result in their finding Mr. Ives much concerned in something decidedly out of the way. By the way, the launch put out from the village last night, or early this morning. I was awake and I heard it. It had disappeared in a thick fog by the time I reached the rocks.”

“Peggy herself seems to think that something is wrong,” said Beth, thoughtfully, “but our girls scent a ‘mystery’ chiefly, and Sarita hopes to find some ‘pirate gold.’”

“Much good that would do her if she found it at Steeple Rocks, and the Ives have enough wealth as it is.”