e. I saw
him leave his work to come ashore for us. I shouldn't be at all
surprised to find that the knife belonged to him."

"Oh, well," Dennis laughed, "one shot right is not a bad average for a
beginner, you know."

"No," said Hilderman, puffing a cloud of smoke, and dreamily following
its ascent with his eyes, "not bad at all. Not bad at all."

And then, the joke of the clasp-knife being played out, we admired the
scenery, and conversed of less speculative subjects till we arrived at
Glasnabinnie.

We were pulled ashore by the man with the red hair, and when our host
confronted him with the knife he promptly claimed it.

"I think you won, Mr. Burnham," laughed Fuller, and Dennis smiled
in reply. We slid alongside the landing-stage and stepped out, and
Dennis's schoolmaster was about to slip the painter through a ring
and make the boat fast. But evidently the ring was broken. The man
came ashore, and Hilderman began to lead us up the path. But Dennis
deliberately turned and watched the sailor. Hilderman and his
companion strolled ahead while I stood beside Dennis. The man with the
red hair fished among a pile of wire rope, and picked out a small
marline-spike. Then he lifted a large stone, held the marline-spike on
the wooden planking of the landing-stage, and hammered it in with the
stone. Then he threw the painter round it, and made the boat secure in
that way.

"Yes," murmured Dennis quietly, as we turned to join the others, "I
think I won."

For the man had held the stone in his left hand.

CHAPTER XIV.

A FURTHER MYSTERY.

"Well," said Hilderman, as we caught them up, "what about lunch? After
his journey I daresay Mr. Burnham has an appetite, not to mention his
excursion into the realm of detective fiction."

"We lunched at Mallaig," I explained, "with Mr. Garnesk before we saw
him off."

"Oh, did you?" he asked, with evident surprise. "I didn't see you at
the hotel."

"We went to the Marine," I replied, "to save ourselves a climb up the
hill."

"We had a snack at Mallaig too," the American continued, "intending to
lunch here. Are you sure you couldn't manage something?"

"It would have to be a very slight something," Dennis put in. "But I
daresay we could manage that."

"Good!" said Hilderman. "Come along, then, and let's see what we can
do."

We strolled into the drawing-room through the inevitable verandah,
and though Hilderman was the tenant of the furnished house he had
cont