h islands, spread out like two great sheets of chased
silver. Out beyond, the white trail of the sandy Monk Road zigzagged
until it was lost in the trees. 'Twas a half-hour well spent to lounge
about the platform and take in the grandeur of the landscape.

The usual crowd of gaily dressed humanity was waiting for the train,
surging about it as the passengers alighted.

Cornelius McVeigh stepped from the parlor car and looked at his watch
irritably. Thirty minutes seemed an age to his impatient mind, and the
richly upholstered car was too confining for him to think properly. To
the outward eye he was the Cornelius McVeigh of the city, tall, of
military bearing and faultlessly attired, who gave his fellow-beings
the privilege of calling at his office between the hours of ten and
four each business day, that they might lay before his highly trained
faculties their little monetary affairs, and also the fee which his
wide reputation for successful manipulating could demand. He moved
only until he was free of the people, then paused whilst his gaze
shifted from his late companions to the station and on to the dim,
sunny, leafy country beyond. Disappointment lurked in the corners of
his eyes and gradually spread over his entire countenance. Suddenly he
realized that it was exceedingly warm on the unsheltered platform. He
wished to think quietly, so he shifted his raincoat to his other arm
and sought a shaded place against the railing. His mind was struggling
in a vortex of ancient history, and this was the picture which arose
from the strife. A very commonplace, bare-legged lad, with curly,
uncombed hair and face so freckled that a few yards' distance merged
them into one complete shade of reddish brown. He surveyed the
neighboring bridge, and it came into his mental vision unconsciously.
The long, lean girders he had once trod with the careless ease of a
Blondin. Farther out, the rotting tops of the piles of the old
foot-bridge had been his seat from which he caught the crafty pickerel.
Beyond, the opening in the shore reeds marked the passage to the secret
feeding-ground of the black bass. He remembered it perfectly. A
fleeting sarcastic smile dwelt on his deeply-lined features as he
watched a number of boats, filled with noisy, gesticulating campers,
who fished in the open water where no fish lived. A small lad,
certainly a native of the place, dressed in knee trousers and a shirt
which let in the air in pla