I'm the owner of his
lounging place."

Josephine turned in, and the trap swung through the gateway and on past
the pine grove. Max saw the reader get to his feet.

"Coming to apologize," murmured Max. "Well, if he asks permission, he can
stay--till I cut down the grove."

Before the horse had been tied, the stranger was at hand. "Since I'm
caught in the act, I'll come and ask if I may," he said, genially. "This
is Mr. Lane, I believe. I'm Donald Ferry, a neighbour of yours. Your fine
grove is a sort of 'call of the wild' to me."

Max shook hands, attracted at once by both voice and face. Donald Ferry
was a sturdy young man, with broad shoulders and a thick thatch of
reddish-brown hair; he possessed a pair of searching but friendly hazel
eyes. He was dressed in a rough suit of blue serge, and a gray flannel
shirt with a rolling collar and flowing blue tie gave him an out-door
air confirmed by the tan and freckles on his face and the sinewy grip of
his brown hand. He had closed his book and tucked it under his arm, so
that its title could not be observed, but it had not exactly the look of
a "yellow novel."

"You're entirely welcome to make use of the grove as much as you like,"
Max answered, with the cordiality he could not help feeling toward the
possessor of so frank and genial a look as that with which the strange
young man continued to regard him.

"I live with my mother in the little house on the other side of the
grove," explained Mr. Ferry. "We've been living there for a fortnight,
but this is the first time I've caught sight of anybody about the place.
It seemed so completely deserted I've been proposing to my mother that we
appropriate the house. But she seems a trifle appalled by the size of it.
On the whole, for us, ours is rather the better fit."

"This house is too big to fit anything but an orphan asylum," said Max,
with a wave toward the brick walls now heavily vine-clad with the tender
green leafage of May. "It's in bad shape, from chimneys to cellar. Just
the same, I've a sister who is wild to live here."

"Yet you are the one who comes out to look over the place? Perhaps you
have a sort of sneaking fondness for it, after all!"

"My sister would come if she could. She's in the hospital with typhoid,"
explained Max, wondering, as he did so, how he came to be giving details
like these in his first conversation with a stranger. He really liked the
look of the fellow extraordinarily well.

"This