hurricane. The rain, as it beat in over the boot, had, so the lawyer fancied, a salty taste.

The captain bent down. “Say, Mister,” he shouted, “where was it you wanted to stop? Who is it you’re lookin’ for?”

“What?”

“I say—Heavens to Betsy! how that wind does screech!—I say where’bouts shall I land you. This is South Denboro. Whose house do you want to go to?”

“I’m looking for one of your leading citizens. Elisha Warren is his name.”

“What?”

“Elisha Warren. I—”

He was interrupted. There was a sharp crack overhead, followed by a tremendous rattle and crash. Then down upon the buggy descended what, to Graves, appeared to be an avalanche of scratching, tearing twigs and branches. They ripped away the boot and laprobe and jammed him back against the seat, their sharp points against his breast. The buggy was jerked forward a few feet and stopped short.

He heard the clatter of hoofs and shouts of “Whoa!” and “Stand still!” He tried to rise, but the tangle of twigs before him seemed impenetrable, so he gave it up and remained where he was. Then, after an interval, came a hail from the darkness.

“Hi, there! Mr. Graves, ahoy! Hurt, be you?”

“No,” the lawyer’s tone was doubtful. “No—o, I—I guess not. That you, Captain?”

“Yes, it’s me. Stand still, you foolhead! Quit your hoppin’ up and down!” These commands were evidently addressed to the horse. “Glad you ain’t hurt. Better get out, hadn’t you?”

“I—I’m not sure that I can get out. What on earth has happened?”

“Tree limb carried away. Lucky for us we got the brush end, ’stead of the butt. Scooch down and see if you can’t wriggle out underneath. I did.”

Mr. Graves obediently “scooched.” After a struggle he managed to slide under the tangle of branches and, at length, stood on his feet in the road beside the buggy. The great limb had fallen across the street, its heavy end near the walk. As the captain had said, it was fortunate for the travelers that the “brush” only had struck the carriage.

Graves found his companion standing at the horse’s head, holding the frightened animal by the bridle. The rain was descending in a flood.

“Well!” gasped the agitated New Yorker. “I’ll be hanged if this isn’t—”

“Ain’t it? But say, Mr. Graves, who did you say you was comin’ to see?”

“Oh, a person named Elisha Warren. He lives in this forsaken hole somewhere, I believe. If I had known what an experience I must go through to reach him, I’d have seen him at the devil.”

From the bulky figure at the horse’s head came a chuckle.

“Humph! Well, Mr. Graves, if the butt of that limb had fetched us, instead of t’other end, I don’t know but you might have seen him there. I’m Elisha Warren, and that’s my house over yonder where the lights are.”

CHAPTER II

“

This is your room, Mr. Graves,” said Miss Abigail Baker, placing the lighted lamp on the bureau. “And here’s a pair of socks and some slippers. They belong to Elisha—Cap’n Warren, that is—but he’s got more. Cold water and towels and soap are on the washstand over yonder; but I guess you’ve had enough cold water for one night. There’s plenty hot in the bathroom at the end of the hall. After you change your wet things, just leave ’em spread out on the floor. I’ll come fetch ’em by and by and hang ’em to dry in the kitchen. Come right downstairs when you’re ready. Anything else you want? No? All right then. You needn’t hurry. Supper’s waited an hour ’n’ a half as ’tis. ’Twon’t hurt it to wait a spell longer.”

She went away, closing the door after her. The bewildered, wet and shivering New Yorker stared about the room, which, to his surprise, was warm and cozy. The warmth was furnished, so he presently discovered, by a steam radiator in the corner. Radiators and a bathroom! These were modern luxuries he would have taken for granted, had Elisha Warren been the sort of man he expected to find, the country magnate, the leading citizen, fitting brother to the late A. Rodgers Warren, of Fifth Avenue and Wall Street.

But the Captain Warren who had driven him to South Denboro in the rain was not that kind of man at all. His manner and his language were as far removed from those of the late A. Rodgers as the latter’s brown stone residence was from this big rambling house, with its deep stairs and narrow halls, its antiquated pictures and hideous, old-fashioned wall paper; as far removed as Miss Baker, whom the captain had hurriedly introduced as “my second cousin keepin’ house for me,” was from the dignified butler at the mansion on Fifth Avenue. Patchwork comforters and feather beds were not, in the lawyer’s scheme of things, fit associates for radiators and up-to-date bathrooms. And certainly this particular Warren was not fitted to be elder brother to the New York broker who had been Sylvester, Kuhn and Graves’ client.

It could not be, it could not. There must be some mistake. In country towns there were likely to be several of the same name. There must be another Elisha Warren. Comforted by this thought, Mr. Graves opened his valise, extracted therefrom other and drier articles of wearing apparel, and proceeded to change his clothes.

Meanwhile, Miss Abigail had descended the stairs to the sitting room. Before a driftwood fire in a big brick fireplace sat Captain Warren in his shirt-sleeves, a pair of mammoth carpet slippers on his feet, and the said feet stretched luxuriously out toward the blaze.

“Abbie,” observed the captain, “this is solid comfort. Every time I go away from home I get into trouble, don’t I? Last trip I took to Boston, I lost thirty dollars, and—”

“Lost it!” interrupted Miss Baker, tartly. “Gave it away, you mean.”

“I didn’t give it away. I lent it. Abbie, you ought to know the difference between a gift and a loan.”

“I do—when there is any difference. But if lendin’ Tim Foster ain’t givin’ it away, then I miss my guess.”

“Well,” with another chuckle, “Tim don’t feel that way. He swore right up and down that he wouldn’t take a cent—as a gift. I offered to make him a present of ten dollars, but he looked so shocked that I apologized afore he could say no.”

“Yes, and then lent him that thirty. Shocked! The only thing that would shock that good-for-nothin’ is bein’ set to work. What possessed you to be such a soft-head, I don’t know. When you get back a copper of that money I’ll believe the millennium’s struck, that’s all.”

“Hum! Well, I’ll help you believe it—that is, if I have time afore I drop dead of heart disease. Abbie, you’d make a good lawyer; you can get up an argument out of a perfect agreement. I said the thirty dollars was lost, to begin with. But I knew Tim Foster’s mother when she used to think that boy of hers was the eighth wonder of the world. And I promised her I’d do what I could for him long’s I lived.... But it seems to me we’ve drifted some off the course, ain’t we? What I started to say was that every time I go away from home I get into trouble. Up to Boston ’twas Tim and his ‘loan.’ To-night it’s about as healthy a sou’-wester as I’ve ever been out in. Dan fetched in the team, has he?”

“Yes. It’s in the stable. He says the buggy dash is pretty well scratched up, and that it’s a wonder you and that Graves man wa’n’t killed. Who is he, anyhow?”

“Land knows, I don’t.”

“You don’t know!