umor, and I looked up expecting to see the
familiar laughter in her eyes. But the luster in those deep, blue orbs
was not that of mirth. Fancies as beautiful as she was herself were
sweeping her away....

Most of the guests arrived on the same train at the little town of
Ochakee, and motored over to Kastle Krags. A half dozen in all had
accepted Nealman's invitation. I saw them when they got out of their
cars.

Of course I straightened their names out later. At the time I only
studied their faces--just as I'd study a new specimen, found in the
forest. And when Edith and I compared notes afterward we found that our
first impression was the same--that all six were strikingly similar in
type.

They might just as well have been brothers, chips off the same block.
When Nealman stood among them it seemed as if he might change names with
any one of them, and hardly any one could tell the difference. There was
nothing distinguishing about their clothes--all were well-dressed,
either in white or tweeds; their skins had that healthy firmness and
good color that is seen so often in men that are free from financial
worry; their hair was cut alike; their linen was similarly immaculate;
their accent was practically the same. Finally they were about the same
age--none of them very young, none further than the first phases of
middle-age.

Lemuel Marten was of course the most distinguished man in the party.
Born rich, he had pushed his father's enterprises into many lands and
across distant seas, and his name was known, more or less, to all
financiers in the nation. His face was perhaps firmer than the rest--his
voice was more commanding and insistent. He was, perhaps, fifty years of
age, stoutly built, with crinkling black hair and vivid, gray eyes. From
time to time he stroked nervously a trim, perfectly kept iron-gray
mustache.

Hal Fargo had been a polo-player in his day. Certain litheness and
suppleness of motion still lingered in his body. His face was darkly
brown, and white teeth gleamed pleasantly when he spoke. A pronounced
bald spot was the only clew of advancing years. He was of medium height,
slender, evidently a man of great personal magnetism and charm.

Joe Nopp was quite opposite, physically--rather portly, perhaps less
dignified than most of his friends. I put down Nopp as a dead shot, and
later I found I had guessed right. For all his plump, florid cheeks and
his thick, white hands, he had an eye true as a sur