"Still, the fact that the tree is where it is, makes the theory plausible."

He shook his head. "No. Now that I've seen how far we are from the road I don't think it does. Those bullet holes in the back of the car were fired from above and behind the machine. They slanted down but not sidewise. If a tree had been at the very side of the road, our theory would be acceptable, but if the murderer used this tree, two hundred yards from the road, he would have started firing before the car came opposite, with the probability that the holes would have been found in the side of the car. I'm sorry, for when I saw this tree, I thought we'd struck the right track."

"There's one thing I can't make out," I stated, "and that is the strange cry of my sister in her delirium. 'Look out, Jim! It's going to hit us,' she called out, and I would be willing to swear it had something to do with the murder."

The coroner thought a moment, then turned to me.

"What else did she say?"

"Nothing that seemed to refer to the accident. All the rest was apparently delirium. She begged forgiveness for some fancied wrong, and repeated that a certain man was not guilty of dishonesty. But her first weird cry had to do with the murder, I'm sure."

We walked back toward the road together. High overhead we heard the droning of an aeroplane and we both stopped to gaze at it. Suddenly the coroner clapped me on the shoulder.

"I've got it!"

"What do you mean?" I asked, bewildered.

"An aeroplane, man! Who owns an aeroplane around here?"

"I don't know. There are several at the aviation grounds. What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything! Don't you see? The bullets fired from above and behind. The number of bullets fired. Those two bullet holes in the foot-board of the car—everything points to an aeroplane. It was done a hundred, yes, a thousand times in the war. While I was over there with my hospital unit we used to get a lot of cases of motorcycle despatch riders who had been picked off by German aviators. They machine-gunned moving trains and military automobiles. It is one of the simplest tricks of a pilot's repertoire. Has Woods an aeroplane?"

"He was a military pilot in the French army and is the head of an aeroplane firm, but I don't think he has an aeroplane here."

"He could get one easy enough."

"The clever devil! Look over there! He had the broad sweep of the golf course as a perfect landing ground and this road hasn't a tree on it for a mile. He could have come down within fifty feet of the ground and followed that car, pumping bullets into it all the way. He had absolutely everything in his favor."

For a moment I saw red as I pictured Jim, helpless before approaching death. I could imagine Helen's agony as she saw that dim black shape come closer and closer and screamed in her terror, "Look out, Jim! It's going to hit us."

"Yes, but how are we going to prove it?" I asked.

"That's up to us now. An aeroplane has such speed that it was easy for Woods to fashion an ingenious alibi to account for every minute of his time on the night of the murder, but there must be some holes in it; there always is in a manufactured alibi. I want you to go over to the country-club and check up Mr. Woods' schedule of that night while I examine the golf links to see if he landed there."

We jumped into my car and drove rapidly to the club. I went into the house by the back way to avoid meeting people and asked for Jackson.

"Jackson, what time did Mr. Woods get out here on the evening Mr. Felderson was killed?"

"Ah espect he got heah 'bout six o'clock, Mistuh Thompson," the negro replied.

"Did you see him at that time?"

"Did Ah see him at dat time? Le'me see? Why, no, suh, Ah don' think Ah did."

"When was the first time you did see him, Jackson?"

"Ah guess it was at dinnah time, suh. He was heah den."

"You're sure he was here all through dinner?" I asked.

"Yes, suh! He must hab been, 'cause he ohdahd dinnah."

"What time was he through dinner, do you know?"

The darky scratched his head. "Ah reckon it war just befoh he ohdahd me ter bring him dat drink."

"And he was here all that time?" I demanded.

"Yes, suh! He was right heah."

"Where did he sit?"

"Lemme see. Ah recollec' now, he ask me speshul fo' dat table ovah yondah by de winder."

"Can you find the boy that waited on that table that night?"

The old darky hurried away, but came back presently leading a scared yellow boy by the sleeve.

"Now, Geoge Henry, you-all quit youah contrahiness an' ansuh de genleman's questions o' Ah 'low Ah whup you."

"George, did you wait on that table over there by the window two weeks ago?"

"Ya-yas, suh! Ah ben waitin' on dat table fo' mo'n a month."

"Do you remember waiting on Mr. Frank Woods two weeks ago last Thursday night?" I asked.

The boy was trembling. He rolled frightened eyes toward Jackson who was glaring at him. Finally he broke into a wail. "Oh! Pappy Jackson, da's all Ah knows. He tell me he go to de bah an' ef'n anybuddy ask whah he go dat night to sen' em in dah."

"Just tell me what you know, George!" I said, motioning the angry Jackson away.

"He—he set down at de table but he ain't eat none," the boy stuttered.

"What do you mean, George?"

"He sit down an' look out de winder. Ah brung him some soup but he got up powful sudden, lak he had a call to de telephome, an' he ain't come back."

"Are you sure of that, George?"

"Yas, suh, Ah ast him did he want dinnah aftah he come back but he say he ain't hongry."

"What time was it when he came back?" I asked.

"Ha'f past eight, suh."

I gave the boy a dollar and he went away happy. Jackson had a sheepish look on his face.

"Then Mr. Woods wasn't here all through dinner, Jackson?"

"Drat dat boy, he make me out a liah fo' a dollah," he grinned.

"Are you sure, absolutely sure, that you saw Mr. Woods at half past eight?" I questioned.

"Yas, suh! You cain't catch me up no mo'. I saw Mistuh Woods at eight twenty-fahv exackly."

I handed him a bill and went into the bar. Grogan, the old bartender was there alone.

"Grogan, do you remember who was in the bar between seven-thirty and eight-thirty on the night of the Felderson murder?"

"Only one or two of the gentlemen, sir. There was Mr. Farnsworth and Mr. Brown and I think Mr. Woods."

"Are you sure Mr. Woods was in here?"

"Well, no, sir, not exactly. I remember Mr. Farnsworth and Mr. Brown. There were probably some others. The reason I think Mr. Woods was here was because he called my attention to the fact a few nights after the murder. There were a few gentlemen in here and they were talking of Mr. Felderson's death. Mr. Woods said, in view of the fact that the murderer hadn't been found, almost any one might be accused. Some one asked him if he was worried—we all knew, sir, that Mr. Felderson and Mr. Woods were not very friendly—and Mr. Woods laughed and said that fortunately he had a perfect alibi and called my attention to the fact that he was in here at about the time the crime was committed."

"And you're not sure that he was?" I asked.

"Oh, his alibi is good of course, because he was around the club all that evening. I guess he was here and I don't remember it."

I shook hands with him and left.

Far out on the golf links the coroner was bending over, examining something on the ground. When I reached him he grabbed me by the sleeve and pointed to two barely discernible tracks paralleling each other for almost a hundred yards. Between them ran a shallow, jagged rut, where the spade of an aeroplane had dug up the turf.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE MECHANICIAN

"We've got it! We're on the trail at last!" I exclaimed. "I just found out at the club that Woods left his dinner hurriedly and was not seen again until twenty-five minutes past eight."

"We've got to go slow," cautioned the coroner. "A man who is ingenious enough to devise this means of murdering a man won't be tripped up for lack of a perfect alibi."

"I've found what that is too. He has the bartender at the club half believing that he was in the bar at the time the murder was committed." I told him briefly what I had discovered.

"See!" the coroner pointed out. "If they bring him into court, the bartender won't be able to swear he wasn't in the bar and the short time that he was absent will convince the jury that Woods is telling the truth and that our theory is all bunk."

"But we're not going to leave things as they stand, just when we are hot on the trail. What do we do now?"

"I'm of the opinion that there is a short-cut to the solution of the whole affair. Woods must have had a mechanician with him on the night of the murder."

"What makes you think that?" I asked rather impatiently.

"Because we know Woods came back to the club immediately after the murder and played cards the rest of the evening. He returned to the city in another man's car; obviously, then, some one else must have taken the aeroplane back to its hangar, since it would have caused too much comment had it been on the links in the morning. Our plan, then, is to find that mechanician and bribe or threaten him into telling the truth. If Woods hasn't got rid of him, he ought to be around the aviation grounds. We must wait until we are certain Woods is not there before trying to see our man."

"Then there is no better time than right now, for I know Woods is taking a certain young lady automobiling this afternoon."

"Let's go quickly then," exclaimed the coroner.

We climbed into the car and sped toward the city. Since Eastbrook is on the aerial postal route, we have a well-equipped aviation field just outside the city. Several of our younger set with special sporting proclivities have taken up aerial joy-riding since the war, so that there is always a group of mechanicians and hangers-on around the field.

I proposed to the coroner that we stop for Simpson and he agreed. When Simpson heard who it was he came down at once. As we sped toward the aerodrome I told him of our findings of the afternoon. He was astounded.

"You know, I'll hand it to the man who thought up that scheme. That's the cleverest piece of work I ever heard of, if your theories are correct and he really did do it."

"What makes you think Woods didn't do it?" I questioned.

"Not a thing," Simpson answered, "only I didn't know Woods kept a plane in Eastbrook. Of course, it would be easy enough for him to get one. Lord! Think of the possibilities it opens up. It fairly takes your breath away. Automobile bandits aren't in it. Imagine trying to cope with a gang of thieves who add an aeroplane to their kit of tools. Suppose they decide to rob the Guarantee Trust Company of New York or Tiffany's. The robbery itself would be the simplest part of the thing. It is getting the swag away that worries the criminals. Suppose they pull this robbery off and the police put a net around the city to guard against their escape. Mr. Thief and his gang sail away calmly over the heads of the police. Think of your diamond smugglers! Why, that big British dirigible could have flooded the American market with diamonds and laughed in the face of the customs authorities. I say it gets you."

"Yes, but in the meantime, we get Mr. Woods," I said grimly.

"Don't be too sure of that!" Simpson warned. "The man who thinks up such a scientific way of murdering people isn't going to be an easy man to catch."

Memories of big whole-hearted Jim came to my mind and I swore I would get Woods if I had to hang for it. Woods—murderer of Jim, after stealing his wife away, and now making love to Mary Pendleton, putting his bloody hands on her! The thought almost drove me mad.

We stopped our machine at the entrance to the field and walked toward the hangars. Three aeroplanes were out, being tuned up. They looked like birds, ready to take wing at the slightest disturbance. The coroner walked over to one of the helpers.

"Can you direct me to the hangar Mr. Frank Woods uses?"

"Woods?" the man repeated with a puzzled frown. "I don't remember any such machine here. I know most of 'em, but I don't think any Woods has a machine here. Wait! I'll ask Bill. He'd know if any one did."

He walked over to a group of mechanicians and returned in a moment.

"It's the last one down. He ain't had a machine here only two weeks. That's the reason I didn't know the name."

We thanked him and started for the other end of the field. A pilot climbed into one of the machines. Two mechanicians spun the propeller and the engine sputtered and roared. The plane wabbled and swayed drunkenly out on to the field, then as the roar increased, it gathered speed and was off.

At the door of the Woods hangar, a red-haired mechanic of powerful build was cleaning and oiling some delicate-looking piece of mechanism. He looked up with a questioning frown as we approached, then became engrossed again in his work.

"Is this where Mr. Woods keeps his aeroplane?" the coroner asked.

"Un-hu," grunted the mechanician, continuing with his work.

"Mr. Woods isn't here, is he?"

"No," was the laconic reply.

"Are you Mr. Woods' mechanician?"

"One of 'em," the red one responded.

"How many has he?"

"Three."

"Are the others about?" continued the coroner.

"One of 'em is," said the mechanic, "and he just loves to answer fool questions."

The coroner laughed. "Excuse me, my friend, but I am in need of some important information. Will you tell me which one of the mechanicians was with Mr. Woods when he visited the country-club two weeks ago last Thursday night?"

The mechanic scrambled to his feet and advanced toward the coroner, his face twisted with passion. For a moment I thought he was going to attack us, but he stopped a foot in front of the coroner and snarled: "I don't know who you are, nor what you are, nor what you want, but I ain't no information bureau—See? So git t' hell out o' here if you know what's good for you!" With that he turned and disappeared inside the hangar.

We looked at one another. The signs seemed propitious.

"Would it do any good to try to bribe him?" I asked.

"You can try it if you want to; I don't care for the job," Simpson smiled.

"No," the coroner interposed. "He was with Woods that night and he won't talk."

"Shouldn't we get the police?" suggested Simpson.

"That wouldn't do any good," the coroner replied. "Wait a minute! I think I've got it." And with that he went inside.

Above us we heard the hum of a plane. We turned to watch it dip and glide and loop, in the afternoon sunlight. The sun, catching its wings, made it stand out against the blue sky like some fiery dragon-fly. It flew up, turned a somersault and nose-dived for a thousand feet, swung around in a wide circle, flew across the field at about four hundred feet, circled again and slid downward. Closer and closer it came to the ground, until the horizon was lost and it seemed to be gliding along the earth itself at terrific speed. Finally it nosed up, touched the earth, bounced away as though it were a rubber ball, touched again, and at last came to a stop within a hundred yards of where we were standing.

A girl climbed from it, and with a sickening clutch at my heart I recognized who it was. Mary had been aeroplaning with Woods instead of automobiling as I had supposed. At the sight of her, laughing gaily at some witticism that Woods made as they walked across the field toward us, my head spun with hatred and jealousy of the man.

I had no time to observe more, for there were angry shouts within the hangar and the coroner came bounding out, with the red-haired mechanician close behind him. The coroner had in his hand what looked like an iron crow-bar, and as the mechanician caught him, this bar became the center of the struggle. We hurried to the coroner's aid, but before we could reach him, the mechanician gave him a vicious kick in the stomach that sent him sprawling and helpless. With a curse, the mechanic picked up the tool they had been struggling for and dashed back into the hangar.

The coroner lay writhing where he had fallen, and could not speak. His breath was completely knocked out. We pumped his arms until at last he was able to gasp: "Get that——! Get that——!"

"It looks as though you had a little disagreement here," a laughing voice sounded behind us. "This isn't at all my idea of a hospitable reception for my guests."

We all turned to look into the smiling face of Woods. As we helped the coroner to his feet and began brushing him off Woods continued: "Gentlemen, if you are going to present me with the key to the city, please make it as unostentatious as possible." His smile still continued, but there was an odd glint in his eyes. Mary had left his side and was walking away. She had evidently seen me and did not want to speak to me.

The coroner cleared his throat. "Mr. Woods, I'm not here to make any presentation speeches. I am here to accuse you of the murder of James Felderson."

Not for an instant did the smile leave Frank Woods' face, nor did his expression change. He looked us over calmly and slowly and then he said: "Why, that is very interesting, but you seem to forget that I have already been accused of that murder once."

"You were accused on mere suspicion before, but now we have the proof."

The red-haired mechanic sauntered out of the doorway and walked over toward the aeroplane. Behind him followed another youth with a bunch of waste in his hand. The coroner pointed to the former.

"I had the machine gun with which you did the murder until your man there kicked me in the stomach and jerked it away from me. It's in the hangar now. But we don't need the gun, we've got enough evidence without it to convict you."

Woods looked us over carefully. He was by far the calmest one of the party.

"Gentlemen, I have already sent to the papers a statement that I am able to produce testimony as to my whereabouts during every minute of the night when James Felderson was killed. When the trial comes, I shall produce that testimony. If you think that machine gun is any proof against me, just step inside and I'll show you that it is of an entirely different caliber from the gun that killed Felderson."

We hesitated for a second, I think because of the brazen effrontery, the splendid calmness of the man. A doubt began to form in my mind as to whether he had anything to do with the murder at all. Woods noticed my hesitation and turning to me said with a smile: "Surely you aren't afraid of me, Thompson, when you so readily trust me with both your sister and your fiancee."

I longed with all my soul to hit the man between the eyes, to crush that half-sneering smile into his face with my heel, but I let the insult pass and followed the others inside.

"Here is the machine gun, gentlemen. If you will notice, it is a 36 caliber and not a 32 at all. If you will wait one minute, I'll get you the magazine. That will prove it to you beyond a doubt."

He left the hangar and the coroner picked up the gun.

"I could have sworn that the gun I had hold of was a 32. The barrel seems too small for a 36. Why, look here! This is a 32. Here is the caliber marked on it."

From outside came the sputter and crack of an aeroplane engine. Simpson caught it first and dashed to the door.

"It's Woods' plane. He's going to escape."

We ran out of the hangar and across the field toward the aeroplane which, by now, was enveloped in blue vapor. Before we had gone half-way, it was taxi-cabbing across the field, careening first to one side and then to the other. Suddenly it swerved and turned in our direction. We stood there, a little breathless, to see what it would do. The engines of the plane droned higher as it came toward us.

Suddenly Simpson clutched my arm and yelled: "Look out! he's trying to run us down."

I ran wildly to one side of the field, not daring to look back but only trying to reach a place of safety. The sound of the engines came crashing to my ears like the staccato roar of a hundred machine guns. My legs felt as if they were lead. I seemed to be standing still. One frightened glance over my shoulder showed the machine, like some monstrous vulture, bearing down on me. I could feel it gaining and gaining. The heavy drone of the engines seemed to fill the air with its noise. A pitiful sense of helplessness gripped me. I knew I was going to die like a rat in the jaws of a fox terrier. I screamed aloud in my terror and pitched headlong on the turf. With a roar, and a rush of wind that almost lifted me from the ground, the aeroplane passed over me, its wheels no more than four feet from my head.

I am not sure to this day, whether Frank Woods tried to kill me or not. I don't know whether he was cheated of his game when I stumbled and the speed of his motor carried the plane off the ground, or whether he was just trying to put the fear of God in me. I will swear, however, that as the motor passed over my head, I heard Frank Woods' voice raised in a demoniacal laugh.

As the drum of the motor passed and I knew that I was safe for the moment, I raised my head to see if the devil should be planning to come back. With joy I saw he had risen to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. Suddenly the plane swooped up as though Woods were trying to loop. For a second it tipped sidewise like a cat boat reeling over in the wind, and then there was the sound of splintering wood and tearing silk, and the plane crashed miserably to the ground.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

RED CAPITULATES

We hurried over to the smashed plane, the coroner leading. Woods, in his effort to run me down, had forgotten the telegraph wires at the end of the field. Too late, he had seen them and vainly tried to lift his machine clear of them. The wires had caught a wing and sent him crashing to the earth.

We found him underneath the engine, quite dead, the fall having killed him instantly. We made an improvised litter out of one of the wings and carried him to the nearest hangar. As we placed an overcoat over the shapeless form, I heard a sniffle behind me and found the red-haired mechanician at my side.

"You didn't get him, you dirty cops. He got away from you, after all."

"Yes, he's safe now," I murmured.

"Sure! An' he would 'a' been always if he hadn't been daff' over women. He never had no luck when he played the women. His takin' that skirt out this afternoon was what give him the hoodoo."

The coroner came over to him.

"Now that we can't get him, will you tell us about the night Mr. Woods killed Mr. Felderson?"

The mechanic showed himself distinctly hostile to the coroner.

"Oh, no you don't, you fly cop! Think I'll spill the beans and get meself in Dutch? You can go to hell!"

"I'll promise you won't be prosecuted if you will tell us what happened that night."

He looked us over suspiciously, but apparently reassured, he said: "Well, that's fair enough, especially since I didn't have nothin' to do with the croakin', although I know pretty much how it happened.

"The boss there come over to the plant—the International plant, you know—about two weeks ago and had me bring that plane out there over here. We always got along together, the boss and me. Wasn't pals or anything like that, but we understood each other. I'd seen, for a couple of months, that the boss had somethin' on his mind. I knew it wasn't any jane, because they never worried him none. He worried them a lot, but somehow he just took 'em as they come. He talked with me some—he claimed I was the best mechanician he had over there,—and I figured it out at last that what he was worryin' about was money. He spent a lot, an' was free an' easy, an' it worried him to figure that he was goin' to go bu'st pretty soon. The first day I was here, he brought a woman out, a swell looker—I didn't find out till afterwards that it was Felderson's wife—an' he kinda kidded her along about helpin' him over the rough spots by lendin' him a little of her dough. I sort of figured out he was goin' to run off with the woman, 'cause the next morning he come out and said we could take a month's lay-off if we wanted to, as he was goin' on his honeymoon. I thought he was goin' to take me along, but when he said that, I made up my mind to beat it back to the plant to keep from goin' bugs watchin' them other guys callin' theirselves mechanics, tinkerin' around them other busses when they didn't know their job. It's a darn wonder more of these fool dudes out here ain't been killed.

"Somethin' must 'a' slipped up, because he come out late that afternoon cussin' like the devil. He had one whale of a temper when he got started, the boss did. He took me with him in the buss and we cruised around the country for a while. Every time he spotted a straight stretch of road without too many trees, he'd come down and look it over. Finally we found that straight stretch of road out by the golf links at the country-club, an' that must 'a' suited him 'cause that was the only place we come to after that. He mounted that machine gun in there on the plane, an' it was then I decided he was a-goin' to slip somepin over on somebody. He didn't take me with him after that, but two or three times when he come into the field he'd swoop down on that there square target he made and put over in the corner and I'd hear the ratti-tat-tat of that machine gun a-goin'. I ast him what was he goin' to do with it an' he said: 'We're a-goin' out one of these nights and kill a skunk.'

"The afternoon of the night we went out to the country-club he come out here, kind of excited, but cool, if you know what I mean. You could see they was somethin' on his mind, but just the same he had his head with him every minute. Get me? He told me, as soon as it begin to get dusk, to take the plane out to the country-club and land on the links, about a half a mile from the club house, an' when I got there to flash my pocket lamp, until I see him light a cigarette on the club-house porch. I done as he told me, an' he come out. He wasn't dressed in a jumper, but just had a cap an' a rain-coat over his clothes. He told me to stay there, and after I started the engine, he streaked away. He left about eight o'clock and was back in fifteen minutes. He slipped me a fifty and told me to take the plane back an' to forgit 'at I'd brought it out. I ast him had he killed his skunk an' he laughed an' said, 'I made him pretty sick anyway.' I'd told the boys to have the flares out at the park as I was a-goin' to test the machine, so I didn't have no trouble in landin'."

He stopped and rolled a cigarette.

"That's all you know, is it?" the coroner asked.

"That's all I know, so help me Henry—but ain't it enough?"

He looked around at the three of us who had been listening intently to his story.

"I should say it is," said Simpson.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I LISTEN TO MY FOREBEARS Helen had come home. She preferred living with mother and myself, rather than opening up Jim's house, which she had been told belonged to her. Yes, her memory of past events was still gone, and each night I sat with her and repeated bits here and there of the experiences through which she had lived. Every now and then a thought would come to her and she would be able to fill in parts of the narrative, but this was seldom. In a way, it was fortunate, for I was able to leave out all the sordid details of her past and give her only the recollections worth keeping. As soon as she is quite strong, Doctor Forbes is going to reconstruct the tragedy for her, and he says he has every reason to believe that he will be successful in restoring her memory. In the meantime, she is entirely happy and content, and more beautiful than ever.

Mary had not spoken to me for a month. Somehow we could not get together. I realized how hasty and peremptory I had been in commanding her not to go with Woods, and I tried in a thousand different ways to make her realize that I was sorry. Whenever I found we were to be invited to the same dance or supper party, I lay awake half the night before, planning how I would approach her; what she would say and what I would say. It was a delightful game to play, because I always came out the victor. I made her say and do just the things that would make a reconciliation easy, but when we actually met, it was vastly different.

We were both invited to the Rupert-Smiths' ball, and I made up my mind that before the evening was over, I would be back in her good graces, on the same old footing. As much as I hated being treated like a younger brother, it was far better than being treated like a stepchild.

As soon as I saw her come into the ballroom, I hurried toward her, but at that moment the orchestra began a fox-trot and she whirled away in the arms of young Davis, smiling into his face as though she adored him. Davis holds a girl so tightly that it is actually indecent, but she seemed to enjoy it.

I was by her side, almost before the music stopped, but she turned away without looking in ray direction and, literally hanging on Davis' arm, made her way from the ballroom.

I finally caught her alone while she was waiting for some yokel to get her a glass of punch.

"Mary, may I have a dance?" I blurted out.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Thompson, but my program is full," she answered sweetly—too sweetly.

"But there aren't any programs," I insisted.

"Nor have I any dances left," she countered.

"Mary, I'm awfully sorry—"

"Oh! There you are, Mr. Steel," she laughed over my shoulder, "I almost thought you had forgotten me." I fled, leaving that ass, Steel, cooing the most puerile rot about how he couldn't forget her and so forth.

I called up Anne McClintock before the McClintock dinner and begged her as my guardian angel to put me next to Mary. She agreed on condition that she could put that Sterns woman, the parlor Bolshevic, on the other side of me. I consented, and through the entire dinner, Mary talked to old Grandfather McClintock about the labor disputes although she doesn't know the difference between a strike-out and a lock-out. She actually seemed perfectly contented to shout into that old man's ear all evening, though I did everything to get her attention except spill my plate in her lap. Afterward I heard her telling that Sterns woman what a charming couple we'd make. I tried to call on Mary twice and both times she was out—to me.

Finally people began to see that there was a serious difference between us and they avoided inviting us to small parties together, so that I saw her at only the largest, most formal and most stupid functions.

I had told Helen one day that I would be late to dinner on account of an important case. About three o'clock in the afternoon, however, I found that a certain book I needed was at the house, so I jumped into the car and went up after it. Mary's electric was out in front. For a moment I contemplated flight, Mary so obviously disliked me, but being determined that no girl in the world could keep me from going where I pleased, I trotted up the steps.

The door opened just as I reached the porch, and disclosed Mary hastily saying "Good-by" to Helen. The sight of her leaving, so as to avoid meeting me, angered me and some piratical old forebear of mine came down from above or came up from below at that moment and perched on my right shoulder.

"Treat 'em rough!" he whispered.

I hurried over to the door, walked in and slammed it after me.

Helen laughed and said: "Warren, dear, aren't you getting noisy?"

"Helen," I said, "will you please go into the other room?"

"Helen, stay here!" Mary ordered.

"I shall do neither the one nor the other. I shall go up-stairs." She turned to leave.

"If you go, Helen, I'll go with you," Mary announced.

Another ancestral spook with dwarfed, hairy body and gorilla arms, climbed to my left shoulder, sat down on his hunkers and whispered in my ear: "Treat 'em rough!"

"You're going to stay right here!" I commanded, grabbing her by the hand.

"Let go of my hand!" Mary demanded. "I am not going to stay here."

The sight of her sweet indignant face made my heart jump to my throat. Helen laughed and went up-stairs.

"Mary—" I began, my voice softening.

My ancient forebears made wry faces at each other and hopped down from my shoulders.

"He's a fool!" announced the cave man.

"I'll say he is," answered the pirate.

"I'm not going to stay here a minute longer. Will you please get out of my way?" Mary said coldly.

"No, I won't!" I yelled. "I've had about enough of this, Mary. You think you can dangle me on the end of a string, like a damned jumping- jack, until you see fit to let me have a little rest."

My guiding ancestors hopped back on my shoulders.

"That's the stuff to give 'em!" yelled Hunkers.

"Treat 'em rough!" shouted Captain Kidd.

"You know I was right when I objected to your going with Frank Woods. It wasn't a friendly thing to do, after the way he messed up things in my family."

"Well, if you hadn't been so dictatorial—"

"Why shouldn't I be dictatorial?" I shouted, while my ancestors held their sides with laughter, "and this being my house I'm going to talk as loud as I please. If the girl I love, as no man ever loved a girl before, tries to go out with a man I think is wholly unworthy of her, why shouldn't I object? I'll do it again. I want you and I'm to have you, if I've got to fight for you. Even if I have to fight you for you."

Suddenly Mary buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.

"Don't cry, Mary! I know I've—"

"I'm not crying, I—I'm laughing," she gurgled, dropping into a chair. "Bupps, you do look so funny when you get excited."

I went over to her and made her make room for me on her chair, and then I put my arms around her.

"Mary, lover-darling, why did you go out with Frank Woods that day?"

"Why, Bupps, I was hunting the same proof that you were. I felt all along that Frank was guilty."

"I'm a brute!"

"You're a foolish boy," she said, twisting one of my few locks of hair.

She snuggled closer.

"Dearest of dearests, when are you going to stop teasing me?" I asked.

"Never, Buppkins!" she replied. "I just discovered that it brings out your strong points."

"Do you remember what you said when I tried to ask you to marry me?" I whispered. She shook her head.

"You told me to wait until Helen was well."

"You know, Bupps—the first thing I said to Helen this—this afternoon was—"

"What?"

"'How—how well you're looking.'"

With her face so close to mine and those lovely lips smiling at me so invitingly, there was only one thing to do, so I did it.

"The kid's got the stuff in him after all," said Hunkers.

"I'll say he has," agreed Captain Kidd.



THE END