In the boathouse a young sailor was loading several huge trunks into a small launch.

"Closing up for the season?" asked Roger as casually as possible.

"I dunno what they're doing," grumbled the man. "Fine trick leaving one man to handle stuff like this."

Roger lent a hand. "What did they do, forget this when they left?" he asked.

"They did not!" grinned the sailor. "Mr. Garman didn't give them time to forget anything. He loaded 'em onto the Egret and shot 'em down the river without giving them time to forget anything."

"He must have been in a hurry to get away?"

Roger's words were calm, but the beat of his heart was shaking his ribs.

"Who? Mr. Garman? He didn't sail. Just Senator Fairclothe and Mrs. Livingstone. 'Get aboard,' he says, and they got. 'Get to hell out of here!' he says to the captain. 'Where to?' says the captain. 'Get!' says Mr. Garman. Talk about a temper! There was blue lightning and an eighty-mile wind round here till they'd sailed."

"Mr. Garman staying behind alone?"

"Alone?" said the sailor with a colossal wink. "Oh, I guess not—not so you could notice it."

And the next moment he found himself picked up, flung against the wall and nailed there by a grip that cut to the bone.

"Talk straight now, boy, if you value whole bones," said Roger. "Is
Miss Fairclothe here with Garman?"

"Not here—nobody here but the cook and caretaker."

"Where—then?"

"Dunno."

"Where!"

"Mr. Garman rode away some place after the Egret had sailed."

"Alone?"

"Sure. She wasn't here at all."

Roger went up to the big house. The caretaker, a pudgy little man with the stench of whisky on his breath, was waiting for him.

"Mr. Payne?"

"Yes."

"A note for you, sir. Mr. Garman said he expected, sir, that you would be round."

The note was addressed to Garman in a clear feminine hand, and it read:
"Garman: Am at the cottage on Palm Island; come to-night. Annette."
At the bottom in a huge masculine scrawl, were three words; "Poor
Payne! Garman."

"Palm Island?" repeated Willy High Pockets. "Garman got house on Palm
Island. Yes."

"Do you know where it is?" asked Roger.

It was night, and he had called Willy High Pockets away from the camp to ask him the question. The time intervening from the receipt of the note at Garman's and the present had been like a nightmare. He had wandered in the jungle and laughed aloud at himself for a sentimental fool. Garman was right: dreams, ideals, high hopes were only illusions, only lies, fairy-like mirages to lead a man into the barren desert of experience. The note in his pocket proved it. He read the note over and over again.

"Come to-night, Annette."

His laughter each time he scanned the words was a mirthless expression of despair. Garman was right. Garman had won.

"Willy," he asked, "where is Palm Island?"

"Little lake in woods down there." Willy pointed into the darkness toward the timber line that marked the western boundary of the sand prairie. "Island in lake."

"Is it far?"

"Yes, many mile in woods."

"All right, Willy. Go to bed."