he left all that might have made life useful and pleasant--home,
friends, hope and ambition. Lying for some time hidden in a distant city,
he at last felt it safe to travel by a circuitous route to Opal Lake.

At a country railroad station he stepped quietly off the train. With no
luggage but a small handbag he slipped into the woods. A long tramp
brought him the following day to the abandoned clubhouse. The very
atmosphere of oppressive loneliness there pleased him because of its
assurance of his safety from discovery.

How little Grandall guessed, or even suspected, that at just this time
he could not have come to a place more fraught with danger to himself
will never be known. No knowledge had he of the eyes that stealthily
watched him. No thought had he that the moment he appeared with the stolen
suit-case in hand, ready to slip away to hoped-for safety in a distant
country, a lurking enemy would leap upon him.

The thief sat for a long time contemplating the ruins where so abruptly
the road building had ended. It was not until near evening that he
strolled slowly toward the clubhouse. The general course of the gravel
drive he followed, but in the main kept a few feet to one side, that
the trees and brush might screen him.

He had no fear here, yet he knew some boys were in camp not far away and
not even by them did he wish to be observed. For he would spend one night
of rest in the clubhouse room that once had been his own; and then he
would be away--gone for all time from these and all the scenes of his
younger life.

Yet a pair of heavy, scowling eyes watched Grandall's every footstep--saw
him enter the clubhouse--saw him seat himself restfully in the empty
living-room beside the great fireplace and proceed to make a supper of
sandwiches and fruit from his small satchel.

Murky could not have been more vigilant had his own life been at stake.
Not only his determination to gain again the stolen money that had
been taken from him, but his hatred of that person the victim of whose
double-dealing he had been, made him watchful, and a very dangerous man.

Quite suddenly in the afternoon had the vexed and oft-disappointed tramp
discovered Grandall. It was while the latter stood beside the ruins
where the gravel road had reached its ending. In delighted surprise
Murky with difficulty suppressed a cry. Dropping instantly to the ground,
he pressed over his mouth both his dirty hands lest some exclamation he
could