elp laughing when Pat and I
both seized his dinner-jacket.

"Look!" whispered the girl at that instant. "Just there! A light--a
little faint light--behind the bushes."

"The fellow's coming out," said Jack.

"Oh, then we can all stand behind this tree and watch," I proposed.
"When he's getting into his boat Jack can challenge him. He'll probably
be so scared he'll fall into the water."

The tree I meant was a large-waisted willow, of the weepiest variety,
with girth enough and tears enough to hide us all, especially as Pat and
I were darkly dressed--she in green and I in gray.

We hadn't many minutes to wait; indeed, it was but half an hour since we
came out, for the clock we had heard struck again: midnight. We felt
deliciously creepy! Of course I hadn't wanted Jack not mended yet from
the trenches to go crawling on all fours into perfectly irrelevant caves
with no Orders of Merit or Victoria Crosses attached to them. At the
same time, we were keyed for comedy, and just excited enough to forget
the skeletons in our closets at home: Caspians, and Shusters, and
money-lenders, and unpleasant things like that.

It was just as the clock finished striking that the light in the cave
(if you can call a gleam like an exaggerated glowworm a light) went out,
or in Jack's words "dowsed its glim." This meant, we surmised, that the
man had finished his mysterious (probably ridiculous) errand, and could
now get along with no lamp but the moon. There was a faint rustle,
rustle among the bushes which discreetly veiled the opening, and from
behind them came a man. For a second or two he stood up straight as if
he were stretching himself and taking a full breath. The moon shone
behind him, outlining his figure; and, Mercedes, if you were here I
would bet _anything_ you couldn't guess who it was. As it is I can't
hope to win money from you. I must just tell you, and have done with it!

The man was Peter Storm.

We recognized him in time for Jack not to give that challenge we had
planned. Whether J. decided not to give it because the man was Peter, or
because he was dumbfounded, I didn't know then, but he told me afterward
that he instantly decided to keep still for Peter's sake. He knew, of
course, whatever Peter was up to there was nothing mean or underhand
about it, and as it was evidently meant for a secret expedition it would
annoy Peter to be caught. I had exactly the same impression myself; and
Pat said later that she would