hat. The
light of recognition dawned in his face.

"_I_ know who he is!" he exclaimed. "I fetched him over t'other night
in my car. But what in blazes is he doin' here NOW?... Hi, look out,
Mister! Don't let it blow that way. If you do you'll--Head it OFF!"

The hat was following an air line due east. Galusha was following a
terrestrial route in the same direction. Now Raish followed Galusha and
after him rolled Captain Jethro Hallett. As they say in hunting stories,
the chase was on.

It was not a long chase, of course. It ended unexpectedly--unexpectedly
for Galusha, that is--at a point where a spur of the pine grove jutted
out upon the crest of a little hill beyond the eastern border of the
cemetery. The hat rolled, bounced, dipped and soared up the hill and
just clear of the branches of the endmost pine. Then it disappeared from
sight. Its owner breathlessly panted after it. He reached the crest of
the little hill and stopped short--stopped for the very good reason that
he could go no further.

The hill was but half a hill. Its other half, the half invisible from
the churchyard, was a sheer sand and clay bluff dropping at a dizzy
angle down to the beach a hundred and thirty feet below. This beach was
the shore of a pretty little harbor, fed by a stream which flowed into
it from the southwest. On the opposite side of the stream was another
stretch of beach, more sand bluffs, pines and scrub oaks. To the east
the little harbor opened a clear channel between lines of creaming
breakers to the deep blue and green of the ocean.

Galusha Bangs saw most of this in detail upon subsequent visits. Just
now he looked first for his hat. He saw it. Below, upon the sand of the
beach, a round object bounced and rolled. As he gazed a gust whirled
along the shore and pitched the brown object into the sparkling waters
of the little harbor. It splashed, floated and then sailed jauntily out
upon the tide. The brown derby had started on its last voyage.

Galusha gazed down at his lost headgear. He rubbed his chin
thoughtfully. Then he turned and looked back toward the hollow by the
front door of the old church. From the knoll where he stood he could see
every inch of that hollow and it was untenanted. There was no sign of
either human being or of a bicycle belonging to a human being.

Mr. Bangs sighed thankfully. The sacrifice of the brown derby had not
been in vain.

CHAPTER V

An hour or so later when Martha Phipps, l