with some sharpness.

"I am only the manager of the company. Who is your father, child?"

"Well, of all the---- Wouldn't that give you your nevergitovers!"
exclaimed Bella, in broad amazement. "Say! I guess my pa is your leading
man."

"Mr. Hasbrouck? Impossible!"

"Never heard of him," said Bella, promptly. "Montague Fitzmaurice, I
mean."

"And I never heard of him," declared Mr. Hammond, both puzzled and amused.

"What?" gasped the girl, almost stunned by this statement. "Maybe you know
him as Mr. Pike. That is our honest-to-goodness name--Pike."

"I am sorry that you are disappointed, my dear," said the manager kindly.
"But don't be worried. If you expected to meet your father here, perhaps
he will come later. But really, I have no such person as that on my staff
at the present time."

"I don't know---- Why!" cried Bella, "he sent me money and said he
was working here. I--I didn't tell him I was coming. I just got sick of
those Perkinses, and I took the money and went to Boston and got dressed
up, and then came on here. I--I just about spent all the money he sent me
to get here."

"Well, that was perhaps unwise," said Mr. Hammond. "But don't worry. Come
along now to Mother Paisley. She will look out for you--and you can stay
with us until your father appears. There is some mistake somewhere."

By this speech he warded off tears. Bella hastily winked them back and
squared her thin shoulders.

"All right, sir," she said, picking up the bags again. "Pa will make it
all right with you. He wrote in his letter as if he had a good
engagement."

Mr. Hammond might have learned something further about this surprising
girl at the time, but just as he introduced her to Mother Paisley one of
the men came running from the point and hailed him:

"Mr. Hammond! There's a boat in trouble off the point. I think she was
making for this harbor. Have you got a pair of glasses?"

Mr. Hammond had a fine pair of opera glasses, and he produced them from
his desk while he asked:

"What kind of boat is it, Maxwell?"

"Looks like that blue motor that Miss Fielding and her friends went off in
this morning. We saw it coming along at top speed. And suddenly it
stopped. They can't seem to manage it----"

The manager hurried with Maxwell along the sands. The sky was completely
overcast now, and the wind whipped the spray from the wave tops into their
faces. The weather looked dubious indeed, and the manager of the film
corporat