rer.
"I have just come from Bronx Park, New York."

He bowed, waiting for something more from me; so I presented my
credentials.

His formal manner changed at once. "Come over here and let us talk a
bit," he said, cordially--then hesitated, glancing at Miss
Barrison--"if your wife would excuse us--"

The pretty stenographer colored, and I dryly set Mr. Rowan
right--which appeared to disturb him more than his mistake.

"Pardon me, Mr. Gilland, but you do not propose to take this young
girl into the Everglades, do you?"

"That's what I had proposed to do," I said, brusquely.

Perfectly aware that I resented his inquiry, he cast a perplexed and
troubled glance at her, then slowly led the way to a great block of
sun-warmed coquina, where he sat down, motioning me to do the same.

"I see," he said, "that you don't know just where you are going or
just what you are expected to do."

"No, I don't," I said.

"Well, I'll tell you, then. You are going into the devil's own country
to look for something that I fled five hundred miles to avoid."

"Is that so?" I said, uneasily.

"That is so, Mr. Gilland."

"Oh! And what is this object that I am to look for and from which you
fled five hundred miles?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know what you ran away from?"

"No, sir. Perhaps if I had known I should have run a thousand miles."

We eyed one another.

"You think, then, that I'd better send Miss Barrison back to New
York?" I asked.

"I certainly do. It may be murder to take her."

"Then I'll do it!" I said, nervously. "Back she goes from the first
railroad station."

In a flash the thought came to me that here was a way to avoid the
wrath of Professor Farrago--and a good excuse, too. He might forgive
my not bringing a man as stenographer in view of my limited time; he
never would forgive my presenting him with a woman.

"She must go back," I repeated; and it rather surprised me to find
myself already anticipating loneliness--something that never in all my
travels had I experienced before.

"By the first train," I added, firmly, disliking Mr. Rowan without any
reason except that he had suddenly deprived me of my stenographer.

"What I have to tell you," he began, lighting a cigarette, the mate to
which I declined, "is this: Three years ago, before I entered this
contracting business, I was in the government employ as officer in the
Coast Survey. Our duties took us into Florida waters; we were months
at a