chen stove, permeating the room with a
lingering and villainous odor of burned hair.

William Vibard was a man with a passion--the accordion. He arrived with
the instrument in a glossy black paper box, produced it at the first
opportunity, and sat by the stove drawing it out to incredible lengths in
the production of still more incredible sounds. He held one boxlike end,
with its metallic stops, by his left ear, while his right hand,
unfalteringly fixed in the strap of the other end, operated largely in the
region of his stomach.

He had a book of instructions and melodies printed in highly-simplified
and explanatory bars, which he balanced on his knee while he struggled in
their execution.

He was a youth of large, palpable bones, joints and knuckles; his face was
long and preternaturally pale, and bore an abstracted expression which
deepened almost to idiocy when bent above the quavering, unaccountable
accordion.

The Vibard baby was alarmingly little, with a bluish face; and, as if in
protest against her father's interminable noise, lay wrapped in a knitted
red blanket without a murmur, without a stir of her midgelike form, hour
upon hour.

VI

Some days after the Vibards' arrival Gordon Makimmon was standing by the
stable door, in the crisp flood of midday, when an ungainly young man
strode about the corner of the dwelling and approached him.

"You're Makimmon," he half queried, half asserted. "I'm Edgar Crandall,
Alexander's brother." He took off his hat, and passed his hand in a quick
gesture across his brow. He had close-cut, vivid red hair bristling like a
helmet over a long, narrow skull, and a thrusting grey gaze. "I came to
see you," he continued, "because of what you did for Alec. I can't make
out just what it was; but he says you saved his farm, pulled it right out
of Cannon's fingers, and that you've given him all the time he needs to
pay it back--" He paused.

"Well," Gordon responded, "and if I did?"

"I studied over it at first," the other frankly admitted; "I thought you
must have a string tied to something. I know Alexander's place, it's a
good farm, but ... I studied and studied until I saw there couldn't be
more in it than what appeared. I don't know why--"

"Why should you?" Gordon interrupted brusquely, annoyed by this searching
into the reason for his purchase of the farm, into the region of his
memories.

"I didn't come here to ask questions," the other quickly assured him;