"Tired?" queried Mr. Bob Jonstone, with some indignation. "I'm not a bit tired. I haven't had enough exercise to keep me quiet. And if it wasn't your turn to make the fire, your privilege, and your prerogative, I'd insist on chopping the wood myself. No," he said, leaning back luxuriously, "I find it very hard to keep still. This walking on the level is child's play. What I need to keep me in good shape is mountains to climb."

"Like those we have at home," said Colonel Meredith, and if he didn't actually wink at Maud, who was arranging some chops on a broiler, he made one eye smaller than the other.

"What's wrong with this mountain?" asked Maud.

"Why, we are only half-way up, and the real view is from the top!"

"Of course," said Colonel Meredith, "if you want to see the view, don't let us stop you. We'll wait for you. Won't we, Miss Maud?"

She nodded, her eyes shining with mischief.

"But," the colonel continued, "Bob is a bluff. He's had all the climbing he can stand. Nothing but a chest full of treasure or a maiden in distress would take him a step farther."

"After lunch," said Mr. Jonstone, "I shall."

"Do it now! Lunch won't be ready for an hour. Any kind of a walker could make the top of the mountain and be back in that time. But I'll bet you anything you like that you can't."

"You will? I'll bet you fifty dollars."

"Done!"

Mr. Jonstone leaped to his feet in a business-like way, waved his hand to them, and started briskly off and up along the trail by which they had come, and which ended only at the very top of the mountain. It wasn't that he wanted any more exercise. He wanted to get away for a while to think things over. He had learned on that day's excursion, or thought he had, that two is company and that three isn't. The pleasant interchangeableness of the trio's relations seemed suddenly to have undergone a subtle change. It was as if Maud and Colonel Meredith had suddenly found that they liked each other a little better than they liked him.

So it wasn't a man in search of exercise or eager to win a bet who was hastening toward the top of a mountain, but a child who had just discovered that dolls are stuffed with sawdust. He suffered a little from jealousy, and a little from anger. He could not have specified what they had done to him that morning, and it may have been his imagination alone that was to blame, but they had made him feel, or he had made himself feel, like a guest who is present, not because he is wanted but because for some reason or other he had to be asked.

He walked himself completely out of breath and that did his mind good. Resting before making a final spurt to the mountain-top, he heard men's voices shouting and hallooing in the forest. The sounds carried him back to certain coon and rabbit hunts in his native state, and he wondered what these men could be hunting. And having recovered his breath, he went on.

He came suddenly in view of a great round pool of water in the midst of which was a tiny island, thickly wooded. Just in front of him a fire burned low on a beach of white sand.

Upon the beach, his back to Jonstone, stood a tall, thin man who appeared to be gazing at the island. Suddenly this man began to shout aloud:

"She's on the island! She's on the island!"

From the woods came the sound of crashings, scramblings, and oaths, and, one by one, three fat men, very sweaty and crimson in the face, came reeling out on the beach, and ranged themselves with the thin man, and looked drunkenly toward the island.

"She's hiding on the island, the cute thing," said the thin man.

"Did you see her?"

"I saw the bushes move. That's where she is."

"How deep's the water?"

"I'll tell you in about a minute," said the thin man. He threw his coat from him, and, sitting down with a sudden lurch, began to unlace his boots.

"Maybe you don't know it," he said, "but I'm some swimmer, I am."

There was a moment of silence and then there came from the island a voice that sent a thrill through Mr. Bob Jonstone from head to foot. The voice was like frightened music with a sob in it.

"Won't you please go away!"

"Good God," he thought, "they're hunting a woman!"

The drunken men had answered that sobbing appeal with a regular view-halloo of drunken laughter.

Mr. Bob Jonstone stepped slowly forward. His thin face had a bluish, steely look; and his eyes glinted wickedly like a rattlesnake's. Being one against four, he made no declaration of war. He came upon them secretly from behind. And first he struck a thin neck just below a leathery ear, and then a fat neck.

He was not a strong man physically. But high-strung nerves and cold, collected loathing and fury are powerful weapons.

The thin man and the fat man with the whispering voice lay face down on the beach and passed from insensibility into stupefied, drunken sleep. But with the other two, Mr. Jonstone had a bad time of it, for he had broken a bone in his right hand and the pain was excruciating. Often, during that battle, he thought of the deadly automatic in his pocket. But if he used that, it meant that a woman's name would be printed in the newspaper.

The fat men fought hard with drunken fury. Their strength was their weight, and they were always coming at him from opposite sides. But an empty whiskey bottle caught Mr. Jonstone's swift eye and made a sudden end of what its contents had begun. He hit five times and then stood alone, among the fallen, a bottle neck of brown glass in his hand.

Then he lifted his voice and spoke aloud, as if to the island:

"They'll not trouble you now. What else can I do?"

"God bless you for doing what you've done! I'm a fool girl, and I thought I was all alone and I went in swimming, and they came and I hid on the island. And I—I haven't got my things with me!"

"Couldn't you get ashore without being seen? These beasts won't look. And I won't look. You can trust me, can't you?"

"When you tell me that nobody is looking I'll come ashore."

"Nobody is looking now."

He heard a splash and sounds as of strong swimming. And he was dying to look. He took out his little automatic and cocked it, and he said to himself: "If you do look, Bob, you get shot."

Ten minutes passed.

"Are you all right?" he called.

"Yes, thank you, all right now. But how can I thank you? I don't want you to see me, if you don't mind. I don't want you to know who I am. But I'm the gratefulest girl that ever lived; and I'm going home now, wiser than when I came, and, listen——"

"I'm listening."

"I think I'd almost die for you. There!"

Mr. Jonstone's hair fairly bristled with emotion.

"But am I never to see you, never to know your name?"

The answer came from farther off.

"Yes, I think so. Some time."

"Do you promise that?"

Silence—and then:

"I almost promise."

Having assured himself that the drunken men were not dead, Mr. Jonstone sighed like a furnace and started down the mountain.

His hand hurt him like the devil, but the pain was first cousin to delight.