S TANLEY RICHARD COLTON, M. D., heaved his powerful form to and fro in his bed and cursed the day he had come to Montant Point, which chanced to be the day just ended. All the world had been open to him, and his father’s yacht to bear him to whatsoever corner thereof he might elect, in search of that which, once forfeited, no mere millions may buy back, the knack of peaceful sleep. But his wise old family physician had prescribed the tip-end of Long Island. “Go down there to that suburban wilder

B EFORE the dream had fairly enchained him Colton was buffeted back to consciousness by a slamming of doors and a general bustling about in the house. He sat up in bed, and looked out over the ocean just in time to see a fiery serpent writhe up through the blackness and thrust into the clouds a head which burst into wind-driven fragments of radiance, before the vaster glory of the lightning surrounded and wiped it out. “A wreck, I fear,” said Professor Eavenden in the hall outside. “I shall go d

O F the scores of little capes that jut out from Montauk, there is none but is ghostly with the skeleton of some brave ship. Three such relics were bleaching their still vertebrate bones on the rocks where the schooner lay trapped. It was only too evident that a like fate was ordained to her, and that the promptest action of the life-savers alone could avail the ten huddled wretches in her rigging. What man could do, the crews of the two stations were doing; and now, in a sudden lull of wind, th

H ALF an hour’s sleep is short rations for a man who has experienced little untroubled unconsciousness for five weeks. Colton struggled angrily against the flask. “I don’t want it, I tell you! Go to the devil and take it with you.” He struck out blindly, angrily. A cool, firm hand, closed around his wrist. “You must get up,” said Helga Johnston’s voice firmly. “Swallow some of this brandy.” “I’m sorry,” said Colton penitently. “Did I curse you out? Please let me sleep.” The girl was quick-witted

M ONTAUK POINT rises and falls like a procession of mighty swells fixed in eternal quietude and grown over with the most luxurious of grasses and field-blooms. One walks from hill to hill, passing between the down-curving slopes to hollows wherein flourish all-but-impenetrable thickets of the stunted scrub-oak, and abruptly walks forth upon a noble cliff-line overlooking the limitless ocean to the far-off southern horizon. Steep and narrow gullies at intervals give rock-studded access to the bea

G ALLOPING easily, an early riser may come from Montauk Light over to Third House in time for breakfast. Helga was an early riser and a skilled horsewoman. Flushed like the dawn, she came bursting into the living-room upon Dick Colton who, his mind being absent on another engagement, had forgotten to wind his watch when he went to bed the evening previous, and consequently had risen, on suspicion, one hour too early. “I haven’t had a chance to speak to you since the wreck,” she said, giving him

T HUS cruelly disabused of his hopes, Dick Colton went fishing. But his heart was not in the sport. Absentmindedly he made up a cast of flies and spent an hour of fruitless whipping before it dawned upon him that he had been using a scarlet ibis and a white miller in a blaze of direct sunshine. Having changed to a carefully prepared leader of grey and black hackles, he had better luck; but for the first time in his life successful angling had lost its savour. Laying aside his rod, he climbed a h

R OUND the big fireplace with its decorations of blue-and-white Colonial china, which many a guest by vast but vain inducements had tried to buy from the little hostelry, sat Dick Colton, Haynes and old Johnston. The clock had struck nine some minutes earlier. “Your brother couldn’t have caught the afternoon train,” remarked Haynes. “Was he to ride over?” “Yes, I arranged for a saddle-horse to meet him at Amagansett,” answered Colton. “Reckon the Professor and Miss Dolly stopped at the fishermen

H AS the generalissimo been disobeying his own orders?” called out Dolly Ravenden from the porch, as Haynes came up the pathway early the next morning. He did not respond to the rallying tone, habitual between them, which covered a well-founded friendship. Instead he said: “Miss Dolly, you heard that horse last night. What did you think of the cry?” “It went through me like a knife,” said the girl, shuddering. “I thought it was a death scream. The horse I was on thought so, too.” “I’d have sworn

I N every department of scientific inquiry, Professor Ravenden was, above all else, methodical. The extraordinary or unusual he set aside for calm analysis. When he came to a dark passage in his investigations, he made full notes and relied on patience and his reasoning powers for light. Facts of ascertained relations and proportions he catalogued. In crises of doubt, after exerting his own best efforts, he was not too proud to ask counsel, were there any at hand in whose judgment he felt confid

F OUR days had passed since the schooner came ashore on Graveyard Point. It now was the twentieth of September. The little community in Third House, which had bade fair to be such a happy family, was in rather a split-up state. After their tilt of the day before, Dolly Ravenden and Dick Colton were in a condition of armed neutrality. Dolly was ashamed that her guardian imp had led her to so misrepresent herself to Dick, ashamed too of the warm glow at her heart because he cared so deeply. Thus a

A LL five of the men who composed the male populace of Third House gathered in Haynes’ room at ten o’clock that night. Everard Colton and old Johnston had been told briefly of the killing of Serdholm. “Thus far,” said Haynes, addressing the meeting, “this vigilance committee has been a dismal failure. Had anyone told me that five intelligent men could fail in finding the murderer, with all the evidence at hand, I should have laughed at him.” “Some features which might be regarded as unusual have

T HE morning of September 21 impended in sullen splendour from a bank of cloud. As the sudden sun struggled into the open it brought a brisk blow from the southwest, dispelling a heavy mist. The last of the fog was being scoured from the earth’s face when Dick Colton was awakened from an unrefreshing sleep by a quick step passing down the hall. Jumping out of bed, he threw open the door and faced Haynes. “Don’t wake the others,” said the reporter in a low voice. “Where are you off to?” inquired

I N every Anglo-Saxon there is something of the bloodhound. Sorrow for Haynes’ tragic death had merged with and intensified in the mind of Dick Colton a haggard demand for vengeance. He was surprised to find how strong a liking for the reporter had grown out of so brief an acquaintance. With equal surprise, he realised that his every instinct now was set to the blood-trail, that the duty of following the mystery to a definite conclusion possessed his mind to the exclusion of all else. Not quite

P ROMPTITUDE was one of Professor Ravenden’s many virtues. Only one thing could make him forget the obligation of an engagement; that was his dominant ardour for the hunt. In time this had become an instinct. So it is not strange that, on leaving Third House to keep his rendezvous with Dick Colton, he should have absentmindedly hung his heavy poison-jar for specimens around his neck, and taken up his butterfly net, while entirely forgetting his revolver. As chance would have it, there rose about

I N his own way, Professor Ravenden possessed as keen a detective instinct as Haynes himself. The variation of a shade of a moth’s wing, the obscurest trait in the life-habit of some unconsidered larva form, was sufficient to set him to the trail, and sometimes with results that, to his compeers, seemed little short of marvellous. Science had been enriched by his acumen, in several notable instances, and thousands of farmers who had never heard his name owed to him the immunity of certain crops

F OLLOWING the injunction left by Haynes, they buried him in the wind-swept knoll behind the Third House. A clergyman who had been sent for from New York took charge of the services, which were attended by the score of newspaper men and the little Third House group. A pompous, precise, and rather important person, was the clergyman; encased within a shell of prejudice which shut him off from any true estimate of the man over whose body he was to speak. In Haynes he was able to see only an agent

I T was a week since the burial of Harris Haynes. What remained of the mystery as a surplus over and above the Whalley confession was still unenlightened by any further clue. The juggler had refused steadfastly to add anything to his statement. Little opportunity had there been of acquiring new information, for storm had followed storm in quick succession, and though Dick and Everard Colton had been out on the knolls at all hours of day and night, and the intrepid professor, eluding his daughter