il something is done, just be careful not to set yourself
and us afire!"

With that he was gone.

Ted dropped the screen and loitered a moment in the doorway, looking
out into the night. Before him stretched the river; so near was it that
he could hear the musical lappings of its waters among the tall grasses
that bordered the stream. From the ground, matted thickly with pine
needles, rose a warm, sun-scorched fragrance heavy with sleep.

The boy stretched his arms and yawned. Then he rolled the doors
together and began to undress.

Suddenly he paused with one shoe in his hand. A thought had come to
him. If Mr. Wharton ran the electric wires over to the shack, what was
to prevent him from utilizing the current for some of his own
contrivances? Why, he could, perhaps, put his wireless instruments into
operation and rig up a telephone in his little dwelling. What fun it
would be to unearth his treasures from the big wooden box in which they
had been so long packed away and set them up here where they would
interfere with no one but himself!

He hoped with all his heart the manager would continue to be nervous
about those candles.

CHAPTER V

A VISITOR

Fervent as this wish was, it was several days before Ted saw Mr.
Wharton again and in the meantime the boy began to adapt himself to his
new mode of living with a will. His alarm clock got him up in the
morning in time for a plunge in the river and after a brisk rub-down he
was off to breakfast with the Stevens's, whose cottage was one of a
tiny colony of bungalows where lived the chauffeurs, head gardener,
electricians, and others who held important positions on the two
estates.

It did not take many days for Ted to become thoroughly at home in the
pretty cement house where he discovered many slight services he could
perform for Mrs. Stevens during the scraps of leisure left him after
meals. His farm training had rendered him very handy with tools and he
was quick to see little things which needed to be done. Moreover, the
willingness to help, which from the moment of his advent to Aldercliffe
and Pine Lea had made him a favorite with Mr. Wharton and the men,
speedily won for him a place with the kindly farmer's wife.

Had Ted known it, she had been none too well pleased at the prospect of
adopting into her home a ravenous young lad who might, nay, probably
would be untidy and troublesome; but she did not dare oppose Mr.
Wharton when the plan was sugg