A WOODLAND GUEST
There was gray beyond the flap of Philip's tent, a velvet stillness
rife with the melody of twittering birds. Already the camp fire was
crackling. Philip rose and dressed.
Beyond, through the ghostly trees where the river glimmered in the gray
dawn with a pearly iridescence, a girl was fishing. There were deeper
shadows in the hollows but the sky behind the wooded ridge to the east
was softly opaline. As the river grew pink, mists rose and curled
upward and presently the glaring searchlight of the sun streamed
brilliantly across the river and the forest, flinging a banner of
shadow tracery over the wakening world.
The girl by the river caught a fish, deftly strung it on a willow shoot
beside some others and bathed her hands in the river. Turning she
smiled and waved. Philip went to meet her.
"Let me take your fish," he offered.
"Your arm--" began Diane,
"Pshaw!" insisted Philip. "It's ever so much better. I can even use
my hand."
To prove it, Philip presently armed himself with a fork and developed
considerable helpful interest in a pan of fish. Whereupon a general
atmosphere of industry settled over the camp. Rex and Nero
acrobatically locked forepaws and rolled over and over in a clownish
excess of congeniality. Johnny trotted busily about feeding the
horses. Diane made the coffee, arousing the frank and guileless
interest of Mr. Poynter.
The fish began to sizzle violently. Considerably aggrieved by a
variety of unexpected developments in the pan, Philip harpooned the
smoking segments with indignant vim, burned his fingers, made reckless
use of the wounded arm and regretfully resigned the task to Johnny who
furtively bestowed certain hot sable portions of the rescued fish upon
the dogs, thereby arousing a snarling commotion of intense surprise.
"That's a wonderful bed of mine," commented Philip at breakfast. "Tell
me where in the world did you get your camp equipment?"
"I made the bed myself," said Diane happily, "of red willow shoots from
the swamp, and I carved these forks and spoons out of wood Johnny
gathered."
"I do wish I were clever!" grumbled Philip in acute discontent. "After
breakfast I'm going to whittle out a wildwood pipe and make a birch
canoe, and likely I'll weave a rush mat and a willow bed and carve some
spoons and forks and a sundial."
"Will you be through by noon?" asked Diane politely.
Philip laughed.
"As a matter of fact," he said easily, "I'm going with you to lamp
birds. I want to duck that fool doctor."
"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Diane with decision, "for I'm
going to stay in camp and bake bread."
The bread was baking odorously and a variety of shavings flying
ambitiously from an embryo pipe by ten o'clock. At noon the doctor had
not yet arrived. Philip dexterously served a savory fish chowder from
a pot hanging within a tripod of saplings and refused to dwell upon the
thought of his eventual departure.
A man appeared among the trees to the east, switching absently at the
underbrush with a cane.
Philip sniffed.
"I thought so," he nodded. "That medical dub carries a cane on his
professional rounds! Like as not he wears a flowing tie, a monocle and
pink socks."
The man approached and raised his hat, smiling urbanely. It was Baron
Tregar.
Philip leaped to his feet, reddening.
"Excellency!" he stammered.
"Pray be seated!" exclaimed the Baron with sympathy. "Such a
disturbing experience as you have had affords one privileges."
"Permit me," said Philip uncomfortably to Diane, "to present my chief,
Baron Tregar. Excellency, Miss Westfall, to whom I am eternally
indebted." And Philip's eyes sparkled with laughter as he uttered her
name.
There was an old world courtliness in the Baron's bow and murmured
salutation.
"Ah," said he with gallant regret, "Fate, Miss Westfall, has never seen
fit to temper misfortune so pleasantly for me. Poynter, you have been
exceedingly fortunate."
Diane laughed softly. It was hers to triumph now.
"_Mr. Poynter_," she said with relish, flashing a sidelong glance at
that discomfited young man, "Mr. Poynter has been good enough to make
the chowder. It would gratify me exceedingly, Baron Tregar, to have
you test it."
Heartily anathematizing his chief, who was gratefully expressing his
interest in chowder, Mr. Poynter stared perversely at his cuff.
"I wonder," he reflected uneasily, "just what he wants and how in
thunder he knew!"
The Baron, gracefully adapting himself to woodland exigencies, supplied
the answer.
"Dr. Wingate," he boomed, "is at the Sherrill farm. Themar officiously
fancied he could fly and had a most distressing fall yesterday from the
smaller biplane." His deep, compelling eyes lingered upon Philip's
face. "Dr. Wingate spoke some of an unlucky young man marooned in a
forest with a knife wound in his shoulder--described him--and
behold!--my missing secretary is found after considerable bewilderment
and uneasiness on my part. Wingate will stop here later."
Philip civilly expressed regret that he had not thought to dispatch
Johnny to the Sherrill farm with a message.
"It is nothing!" shrugged Tregar smoothly.
"One forgets under less mitigating causes." And, having begged the
details of Philip's adventure, he listened with careful attention.
"It is exceedingly mysterious," he rumbled, after a frowning interval
of thought. "But surely one must feel much gratitude to you, Miss
Westfall. A night in the storm without attention and we have
complications."
Over his coffee, which he sipped clear with the appreciation of an
epicure, the Baron, in his suave, inscrutable way, grew reminiscent.
He talked well, selecting, discarding, weighing his words with the
fastidious precision of a jeweler setting precious stones. Subtly the
talk drifted to Houdania.
There was a mad king--Rodobald--upon the throne. Doubtless the Baron's
hostess had heard? No? Ah! So must the baffling twist of a man's
brain complicate the destiny of a kingdom. And Rodobald was hale at
sixty-five and mad as the hare of March. There had been much talk of
it. Singular, was it not?
Followed a sparkling anecdote or so of court life and shrugging
reference to the jealous principality of Galituria that lay beyond in
the valley. To Galiturians the madness of King Rodobald was an
exquisite jest.
Philip grew restless.
"Confound him!" he mused resentfully. "One would think I had
deliberately contrived to linger here merely to give him a graceful
opportunity to accomplish his infernal errand himself. Thank Heaven
this lets me out!" He glanced furtively at Diane. The girl's interest
was wholesomely without constraint.
"Great guns!" decided Philip fretfully. "I doubt if she's ever heard
of his toy kingdom before and yet he's probing her interest with every
atom of skill he can command." Puzzled and annoyed he fell quiet.
"It is somewhat inaccessible--my country," Tregar was saying smoothly.
"One climbs the shaggy mountain by a winding road. You have climbed it
perhaps--touring?"
"Excellency, no!" regretted Diane. "I fear it is quite unknown to me."
"Ah!" exclaimed the patriotic Baron, "that is indeed unfortunate. For
it is well worth a visit." He turned to Philip. "You are pale and
quiet, Poynter," he added kindly. "A day or so more perhaps here where
it is quiet--"
Philip flushed hotly,
"Excellency!" he protested feebly.
The Baron bowed courteously to Diane.
"If I may crave still further hospitality and indulgence," he begged
regretfully. "There is already much excitement at the Sherrill place
owing to the officious act of my man, Themar, and his accident.
Another invalid--my secretary--one flounders in a dragnet of
unfortunate circumstances. And I am sensitive in the disturbance of my
host's guests--"
Diane's eyes as they rested upon Philip were very kind.
"Excellency," she said warmly, "Mr. Poynter's tent lies there among the
trees. I trust he will not hesitate to use it until he is strong
again. Fortunately we are equipped for emergency."
The Baron bowed gratefully.
"You are a young woman of exceeding common sense!" he said with deep
respect.
Philip was very grateful that the Baron had not misunderstood; a breath
might shatter the idyllic crystal into atoms.
Later, when the Baron had departed, Philip flushed suddenly at the ugly
suspicion rising wraithlike in his mind. He was accustomed to the
Baron's subtleties.
"Mr. Poynter!" called Diane.
Mr. Poynter perversely went on whittling out the hollow of his wildwood
pipe.
"Mr. Poynter!"
The bowl, already sufficient for a Titan's smoke, grew a trifle larger
and somewhat irregular. Carving had conceivably injured Mr. Poynter's
hearing, for he kept on whistling.
"Philip!" said Diane and stamped her foot.
"Yes?" replied Philip respectfully, and instantly discarded the Titan's
pipe to listen.
"Why are you so quiet?" flashed Diane.
"Well, for one thing," explained Philip cheerfully, "I'm mighty busy
and for another, I'm thinking."
"Do you withdraw into a sound-proof shell when you think?"
"Mr. Poynter does!" regretted Philip. "_I_ do not."
"I do hope," said the girl demurely, "that you'll be able to hear when
the doctor gets here. He's coming through the trees."