y rate, his
troubles had slipped from him, and he was conscious of a new and
delightful sense of freedom. Moreover, he had been kidnapped by the
oddest man he had ever met, and he didn't care!

IV

Beyond the bungalow rose a dark strip of woodland, and suddenly, as
Deering's eyes caught sight of it, he became aware that the moon, which
had not appeared before that night, seemed to be lingering cosily among
the trees. Even a victim of May madness hardly sees moons where they do
not exist, but to all intents and purpose this _was_ a moon, a large
round moon, on its way down the horizon in the orderly fashion of elderly
moons. He turned toward the road, then glanced back quickly to make sure
his eyes were not playing tricks upon him. The moon was still there,
blandly staring. His powers of orientation had often been tested; on
hunting and fishing trips he had ranged the wilderness without a compass,
and never come to grief. He was sure that this huge orb was in the north,
where no moon of decent habits has any right to be.

With his eyes glued to this phenomenon, he advanced up the slope. When he
reached the crest of the meadow the moon still hung where he had first
seen it--a most unaccountable moon that apparently lingered to encourage
his investigations.

He jumped a wall that separated the meadow from the woodland, and
advanced resolutely toward the lunar mystery. He found Stygian darkness
in among the pines: the moon, considering its size, shed amazingly little
light. He crept toward it warily, and in a moment stood beneath the
outward and visible form of a moon cleverly contrived of barrel staves
and tissue-paper with a lighted lantern inside, and thrust into the
crotch of a tree.

As he contemplated it something struck him--something, he surmised, that
had been flung by mortal hand, and a pine-cone caught in his waistcoat
collar.

"Please don't spoil my moon," piped a voice out of the darkness. "It's a
lot of trouble to make a moon!"

Walking cautiously toward the wall, he saw, against the star dusk of the
open, the girl in clown costume who had danced in the meadow. She sat the
long way of the wall, her knees clasped comfortably, and seemed in nowise
disturbed by his appearance.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I didn't know it was _your_ moon. I
thought it was just the regular old moon that had got lost on the way
home."

"Oh, don't apologize. I rather hoped somebody would come up to have a