duffer I am! You must find us plain,
plodding Americans horribly short-witted sometimes. Don't you?"

Patsy shook a contradiction. "It's your turn, now. What fetched ye
abroad at this hour?"

Gregory Jessup slipped his arm through the horse's bridle and fell
into step with her. "Principally because I like the early morning
better than any other part of the day; it's fresh and sweet and
unspoiled--like some Irish actresses. There--please don't mind my
crude attempt at poetic--simile," for Patsy's eyes had snapped
dangerously. "If you only knew how rarely poetry or compliments ever
came to roost on this dry tongue, you really wouldn't want to
discourage them when it does happen. Besides, there was another
reason for my being up--a downright foolish reason."

Gregory Jessup accompanied the remark with a downright foolish smile,
and then lapsed into silence. In this fashion they walked to the bend
of the road where another graveled driveway branched forth; and here
the horse stopped of his own accord and whinnied.

"This is the Dempsy Carters' place--where I'm stopping," Gregory
explained.

"Aye, but the other reason?" Patsy reminded him, her eyes friendly
once more.

"Oh--the other reason; I told you it was a foolish one." He stood
rubbing his horse's nose and looking over the road they had come for
some seconds before he finally confessed to it. "It's Billy, you see.
Somehow it occurred to me that if he should be in trouble and at the
same time knowing his father was sick--dying--he might be hanging
around somewhere near here--uncertain just what to do--and not
wanting any one to see him. In that case, the best time to run across
him would be early morning before the rest of the people were awake
and up. Don't you think so?"

"It sounds more sensible than foolish; but I don't think ye'll ever
find him that way. If he was clever enough to let the earth swallow
him up, he's clever enough to keep swallowed. There's but one way to
reach him--and it's been in my mind since yester-eve."

A look of surprise came into Gregory Jessup's face. "Why, Miss
O'Connell! I had no idea what I said that day would fasten Billy on
your mind like this. It's awfully good of you; and he's a perfect
stranger--"

Patsy broke in with a whimsical chuckle. "Aye, I've grown overpartial
to strangers of late; but ye hearken to me. Ye'll have to leave a
sign by the roadside for him--if ye want to reach him. Otherwise
he'll see ye first and b