table, and sat down before the crackling stove. Old Wigmore's show of temper soon gave way, in his mind, to the more startling and mysterious events of the evening. The marks on the card were strange enough; but the way in which the sight of those marks had affected Jim Harley was altogether extraordinary. It was not what he would have expected from Harley—or from any one in the settlement, for that matter. The incident smacked of the Wild West of fiction rather than of the real backwoods of New Brunswick. And Harley was such a sensible fellow, too; hard-working, prosperous, with a fine wife, two children, and such a delightful sister. Yes, a charming sister! And yet he had flown clean off the handle at sight of two little red marks on the face of the six of clubs. Really, it was preposterous! Idiotic! Perhaps the poor chap was ill—on the verge of a nervous breakdown from overwork? Or perhaps some silly old superstition was to blame for the distressing incident?

"Well, it beats me to a standstill," he murmured, at last; "but I think Jim Harley will feel like a fool when he wakes up to-morrow morning and remembers what an ass he has made of himself. I hope the other fellows have kept him from making a scene at home and frightening that fine little sister of his—or his wife, either, of course."

Then Mr. Rayton closed the drafts of the stove, fastened doors and windows, and went upstairs to bed.

In the meantime, Jim Harley had walked up and down the country roads for an hour and a half before he had convinced Doctor Nash and Benjamin Samson that he was not insane, not feverish, and not to be forced into an explanation of his remarkable behavior at Rayton's. They went off to their homes at last, Samson disheartened, Nash sarcastic. Then Harley turned to young David Marsh.

"Davy," he said, "I don't want you to think I have gone cracked in the upper story; but I can't tell you, just now, why I've been acting so queer to-night. I got a scare—but I guess there's nothing to it. Anyhow, I want you to keep clear of my place for a day or two—to keep clear of Nell."

"What's that!" exclaimed Marsh indignantly. "Keep clear of your place, is it? What the devil is the matter with me—or with you? You think I ain't good enough for your sister, do you—because you've got some money and I haven't. Damn your place!"

CHAPTER II

JIM HARLEY TELLS AN OLD STORY

Jim Harley groaned. "Davy, you are all wrong," he said gloomily. "Hang it all, man, don't be a fool! Don't go and make things worse for me. I don't know just how Nell feels for you, but I like you first-rate—pretty near as well as any young fellow I've ever met. But—but it's for your own good, Davy. It's about that card going to you, don't you see? That sounds crazy—but I'm not crazy."

"The card? Dang the card!" returned David. "What d'ye take me for, Jim Harley, to try to scare me with such fool talk as that? You acted darn well to-night, I must say; but I guess I see your game. You've invented some sort of fairy story to try to scare me away from Nell. And so you marked that card. Red crosses on a card! D'ye take me for a darn, ignorant Injun or half-breed? Oh, you can't fool me! You want to catch that hee-haw Englishman for Nell, I guess."

Harley grabbed the younger man by the shoulder with fingers like the jaws of a fox trap for strength. "You blasted young idiot!" he cried, his voice trembling with anger. "D'ye think I'd take the trouble to monkey with cards, and all that sort of tommyrot, if I wanted to scare you away from my sister? No, David Marsh, I'd just tell you to keep clear—and if you didn't I'd knock the stuffin' out of you. I guess you know me well enough to believe that."

"I don't know what to believe," returned David sulkily, "except that you're actin' more like a darn, crazy half-breed than a white man, to-night. Let go my shoulder, anyhow, or maybe you'll learn that two can play at that game."

Jim loosed his grip, and let his arm fall to his side. For a full minute they faced each other in silence in the chill half dark of the October night, there on the desolate backwoods road. David Marsh broke the silence.

"I don't want to fight with you, Jim," he said, "but—but I must say this talk of yours about that confounded card, and the way you are actin' to-night, and—and what you just said about Nell—makes me mad as a bobcat. If you can tell me what it is you're drivin' at, for Heaven's sake tell me quick! I don't want to think you've gone nutty, Jim, and no more do I want to think—to think——"

"What?" asked Harley sharply.

"That you're a liar."

"If you think that, you'd better keep it to yourself!"

"Well, then, I don't think it. But, jumpin' Moses, I must think something!"

"I've asked you to keep away from my house, and my sister," returned Harley, "so perhaps I had better explain things to you, as well as I can. Then you can judge for yourself if I'm doing right or not. You'll laugh, I guess—and maybe I'll laugh myself, to-morrow morning. But, first of all, Davy, you must give me your word to keep what I tell you to yourself. Maybe I'll have to tell it to Rayton, if Nell don't object, because of the row I kicked up in his house. That would be only polite, I suppose."

"I'll keep quiet, Jim."

"Let's walk along, to keep warm," said Harley. "It's a long story, Davy, and I guess you'll think it a mighty foolish one."

"Fire away," returned Marsh. "Foolishness is in the air to-night, I reckon."

"Well," began the other slowly, "it starts with my mother's mother. That's kind of a long jump backward, but it can't be helped. It's the way it was told to me. My mother's mother was a pretty fine young woman, I guess, and her parents weren't just the common run—they came from Boston and settled in St. John about the time George Washington got up and hit the other George that smack over the head which we've all read about. Well, the girl grew up a regular beauty, to judge by the way the young fellows carried on about her. Two men led all the others in the running, though. One was a Spaniard, and t'other was an Englishman; and, after a while, it looked as if the Englishman was getting along with the girl better than the Spaniard. The Spaniard called himself a count, or something of that kind.

"One night, at one of those parties the men used to have in those days, after they'd all eaten and drunk about as much as they could hold, they sat down to play cards. I don't know what the game was, but I do know that they used to bet a horse, or a gold watch, or a few acres of land as quick as us fellows will bet five white beans. Well, it happened that the Spanish count and the young Englishman—he was a navy officer, I've heard—and two more were at the same table. Pretty soon the navy officer got a card dealt to him with two red crosses marked on it. I forgot what card it was.

"Well, they didn't make any fuss about it, and went on with the game; but when they were thinking of going home the count got the young fellow by the elbow and whispered something in his ear. The other men didn't hear what it was that he whispered, but every one in the room heard the navy officer's answer—and the lad who afterward married my mother's mother was one of the fellows that heard it. What the Englishman yelled was: 'That's what it means in your country, is it! The devil take you, and your lies, and your damn monkey tricks!' Yes, that's what he yelled, right into the count's yellow face. They drank a terrible lot of liquor in those days. More than was good for them, I reckon."

Jim Harley paused. "It sounds like a crazy sort of yarn to be telling," he said apologetically.

"Go ahead," said David Marsh. "It's a fine yarn, Jim—and your folks must have been pretty big potatoes. It's better than a book. What was it the count whispered to the navy officer?"

"That they never found out," replied Jim. "But