ir."

"Beg pardon." The captain's eyebrows lifted in inquiry.

"Kilmeny," the American corrected.

Nonchalantly the captain came to time. "Same name as ours. Wonder if by
any chance we're of the same family. Happen to be any relation of
Archibald Kilmeny, who died in Colorado fifteen years ago?"

Jack looked at him quietly. "A son."

"Makes us cousins. He was my father's brother."

The Westerner nodded coolly, not in the least impressed. "Yes."

It would have been easy to read hostility in his bearing, but India
sailed past her brother with hand extended. "Glad to meet you, Cousin
Jack. 'Member me? Last time you saw me I was a squalling five-year-old."

The American warmed a trifle. "I remember you, all right. Never saw a
kid before so fond of currant jam."

"Still am. You've improved in your personal appearance. Last time I saw
your eye it had been beautifully blacked, kindness of Ned."

"Fortune of war. My lip was swollen for a week," her brother laughed as
he extended his hand.

"Ned got caned for fighting with a guest. Served him jolly well right,"
Miss Kilmeny said.

Joyce sailed forward into the picture gracefully. Her radiant beauty
took the Westerner's breath.

"You'll stay with us for luncheon," she said with soft animation. "For,
of course, this is an occasion. Long-lost cousins do not meet every
day."

Verinder, making speechless sounds of protest at this indiscretion, grew
very red in the face. Would he have to sit down to eat with a criminal
at large?

Jack hesitated scarcely a second. He could not take his gaze from this
superb young creature, whose every motion charmed, whose deep eyes
glowed with such a divine warmth of molten gold.

"Thanks awf'lly, but I really can't stay."

He bowed to one and another, turned upon Joyce that look of dumb worship
she had seen on the faces of many men, and swung off into the pines, as
elastic-heeled, confident, and competent a youth as any of them had seen
in many a day.

India's eyes danced. She was Irish enough to enjoy a situation so
unusual. "Snubbed, Joyce, by a highwayman," she laughed.

But Joyce merely smiled. She knew what she knew.

"If you ask me, he's got the deuce of a cheek, you know," Verinder
fumed.

Miss Kilmeny pounced instantly upon him. "Referring to our cousin, Mr.
Verinder?" she demanded sweetly.

"But--er--you said yourself----"

"That was all in the family," she informed him promptly.

Joyce came to the assistance