ty air about him as though he had received
good news. His management of the car, too, left nothing to be desired.
He started off swiftly, but with a smoothness that told of perfect
mastery of the clutch and gears. He took chances, too, as he dashed
through town, cutting corners, darting before this car, back of the
other until, used as the colonel was to taxicabs in New York, he held
his breath more than once.

"What's the matter--in a hurry?" he asked Jean, as they narrowly escaped
a collision.

"Oh, no, monsieur, but this is the way I like to drive. It is much
more--what you call pep!"

"Yes," mused the colonel to himself, "it's pep all right. But I wonder
what put the pep into you? You didn't have it when we started out. Some
French dope you take, I'll wager. Well, it may put pep into you now, but
it'll take the starch out of you later on."

Jean left the colonel at the dock, whither Shag had already made his
way, coming in a more prosaic trolley car from The Haven, and soon they
were ready to row down the inlet in a boat.

"Shall I call for you?" asked Jean, as he prepared to drive back.

"No," answered the colonel, "I can't tell what luck I'll have. We'll
come home when it suits us."

"Very good, monsieur."

And so the colonel went fishing, and his thoughts were rather more on
the telephone talk he had overheard than on his rod and line.

Contrary to the poor luck that had held all week, so the dockman said,
the colonel's good luck was exceptional. Shag had a goodly string of
snappers of large size to carry back with him.

"How'd you do it?" asked the boatman, as he made fast the skiff.

"Oh, they just bit and I hauled 'em in," said he colonel. "By the way,"
he went on, "is there a place around here called Allawanda?"

"Yes, there's a little village named that, about ten miles back in the
country," said the boatman.

"Nothing there, though, but a few houses and one store."

"Oh, I thought it might be quite a place."

"No, and nobody'd know it was there if there wasn't a boat around here
named after it."

"Is there a boat called that?" asked the colonel, and he tried to keep
the eagerness out of his voice.

"Yes. The ferryboat that runs from Lakeside to Loch Elarbor is named
that. Seems that one of the men in the company that owns it used to live
at Allawanda when he was a boy, and he called the boat that. It's an old
tub of a ferry, though, about like the town itself, I guess. Well, you
sure d