plied briefly. "But the trees
were quite as devoid of new birds as Johnny's detective trip of clues."

"Too bad!" sympathized Philip. "I'll go with you in the morning."

"The bump on your head," suggested Diane pointedly, "is growing
malignant!"

"By no means!" said Philip lazily. "With the exception of certain
memory erasures, it's steadily improving."

"Why," demanded Diane with an unexpected and somewhat resentful flash
of reminiscence, "why did you tell me your motor was deaf and dumb and
insane when it wasn't?"

"I didn't," said Philip honestly. "If you'll recall our conversation,
you'll find I worded that very adroitly."

Thoroughly vexed Diane frowned at the fire.

"Was it necessary to affect callow inexperience and such a
happy-go-lucky, imbecile philosophy?" she demanded cuttingly.

"Hum!" admitted Philip humbly. "I'm a salamander."

"And you said you were waiting to be rescued!" she accused indignantly.

Philip sighed.

"Well, in a sense I was. I saw you coming through the trees--and there
are times when one must talk." He met her level glance of reproach
with one of frank apology. "If I see a man whose face I like, I speak
to him. Surely Nature does not flash that subtle sense of magnetism
for nothing. If I am to live fully, then must I infuse into my insular
existence the electric spark of sympathetic friendship. Why impoverish
my existence by a lost opportunity? If I had not alighted that day
upon the lake and waited for you to come through the trees--" he fell
suddenly quiet, knocking the ashes from his pipe upon the ground beside
him.

"The moon is climbing," said Diane irrelevantly, "and Johnny is waiting
to bandage your shoulder."

"Let him wait," returned Philip imperturbably. "And no matter what I
do the moon will go on climbing." He lazily pointed the stem of his
pipe at a firelit tree. "What glints so oddly there," he wondered,
"when the fire leaps?"

"It's the bullet," replied Diane absently and bit her lip with a quick
flush of annoyance.

"What bullet?" said Philip with instant interest. "It's odd I hadn't
noticed it before."

"Some one shot in the forest last night while Johnny was off chasing
your assailant. Likely the second man he saw cranking the car. It
struck the tree. Johnny and I made a compact not to speak of it and I
forgot. My aunt is fussy."

"Where were you?" demanded Philip abruptly.

"By the tree. It--it grazed my hair--"

Philip's fa