Athwart the bright end of the path, sprang a furry gray creature, supple, fluffy, indescribably formless and immense in that deceptive half-light.

Brice peered at the animal in astonishment, seeking to cla.s.sify it in his mind. But the collie needed no effort of that sort. At first sight and scent, he knew well to what tribe the furry gray newcomer belonged. And, with a trumpet-bark of joyous challenge, he dashed at it.

The creature fluffed itself to double its former size. Then, spitting and yowling, it ran up the nearer of the two gumbo-limbo trees. The dog reached the foot of the tree a fraction of a second too late to seize the fox-like tail of his prey. And he circled wildly, barking at the top of his lungs and making futile little running leaps up the shining trunk of the tree.

As well hope for secrecy after the firing of a cannon as after such a fanfare of barking! Gavin Brice ran forward to grasp the rackety collie. As he did so, he was vaguely aware that a slender and white-clad form was crossing the lawn, at a run, toward the tree.

At the path-end, he and the figure came face to face. Though the other's back was to the fading light, Gavin knew her for the girl he had seen in the Australian pine lane, at Miami, that day.

"Pardon me," he began, trying in vain to make himself audible through the collie's frantic barking. "I found your dog, and I have brought him back to you. We--"

The glib explanation died, in his amazement-contracting throat. For, at his first word, the girl had checked her run and had stood for an instant, gazing wideeyed at him. Then, clapping one little hand to her side, she produced from somewhere a flash of metal.

And Gavin Brice found himself blinking stupidly into the muzzle of a small revolver, held, unwaveringly, not three feet from his face. Behind the gun were a pair of steady gray eyes and a face whose dainty outlines were just now set in a mask of icy grimness.

"That isn't a bluff," ran his involuntary thoughts, as he read the eyes behind the ridiculously tiny weapon. "She really means to shoot!"

CHAPTER II

THE MAN IN THE DARK

For several seconds the two stood thus, the man dumfounded, moveless, gaping, the girl as grimly resolute as Fate itself, the little revolver steady, its muzzle unwaveringly menacing Brice's face. The collie continued to gyrate, thunderously around the tree.

"I don't want to shoot you," said the girl presently, and, through her voice's persistent sternness, Gavin fancied he could read a thrill of very feminine concern. "I don't want to shoot you. If I can help it. You will put your hands up."

Meekly, Brice obeyed.

"Now," she resumed, "you will turn around, and go back the way you came. And you will go as fast as you can travel. I shall follow you to the second turning. Then I shall fire into the air. That will bring--one or more of the men. And they will see you don't turn back. I'm--I'm giving you that much chance to get away. Because I--I don't want--"

She hesitated. The grimness had begun to seep out of her sweet voice. The revolver-muzzle wobbled, ever so little.

"I'm sorry," began Brice. "But--"

"I don't care to hear any explanations," she cut him short, sternly. "Your coming along that path could mean only one thing. You will do as I say.--You will turn about and make what use you can of the start I'm offering you. Now--"

"I'm sorry," repeated Brice, more determinedly, and trying hard to keep his twitching face straight. "But I can't do what you ask. It was hard enough coming along that path, while the light lasted. If I were to go back over it in the dark, I'd break my neck on a million mangrove roots. If it's just the same to you, I'll take my chances with the pistol.

It'll be an easier death, and in pleasanter company. So, if you really must shoot then blaze away!"

He lowered his upraised arms, folding them melodramatically on his breast, while he sought, through the gloom, to note the effect of his solemnly uttered speech. The effect was far different and less sensational than he had expected. At the first sound of his voice that was audible above the collie's barks, the girl lowered the revolver and leaned forward to get a clearer view of his face, beneath the shadow of the vine-leaves.

"I--I thought--" she stammered, and added lamely "I thought you were--were--were some one else." She paused, then she went on with some slight return of her earlier sternness "Just the same, your coming here by that path..."

"There is no magic about it," he a.s.sured her, "and very little mystery. I was taking a stroll along the sh.o.r.e, when I happened upon that ma.s.s of dynamite and fur and springs, yonder. (In his rare moments of calm, he is a collie,--the best type of show collie, at that.) He ran ahead of me, through the tangle of mangrove boughs. I followed, and found a path. He seemed anxious to explore the path, and I kept on following him, until--"

The girl seemed for the first time aware of the dog's noisy presence.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking at the rackety and leaping collie in much surprise. "I thought it was the stable dog that had treed Simon Cameron! I didn't notice. He-- Why!" she cried, "that's Bobby Burns! We lost him, on the way here from the station! My brother has gone back to Miami to offer a reward for him. He came from the North, this morning. We drove into town to get him. On the way out, he must have fallen from the back seat. We didn't miss him till we-- How did you happen to find him?"

"He was on the beach, back yonder," explained Brice. "He seemed to adopt me, and..."

"Haven't I met you, somewhere?" she broke in, studying his dim-seen face more intently and at closer range.

"No," he made answer. "But you've seen me. At least I saw you. You, and a big man with a gold beard and a white silk suit, and this collie, were in a car, listening to Bryan's sermon, this morning. I recognized the collie, as soon as I saw him again. And I guessed what must have happened. I guessed, too, that he was a new dog, and that he hadn't learned the way home, yet. It's lucky I was able to bring him to you. Or, rather, that he was able to bring himself to you."

"And to think I rewarded you for all your trouble, by threatening to shoot you!" she said, in sharp contrition.

"Oh, please don't feel sorry for that!" he begged. "It wasn't really as deadly as you made it seem. That is an old style revolver, you see, vintage of 1880 or thereabouts, I should say. Not a self-c.o.c.ker. And, you'll notice it isn't c.o.c.ked.

So, even if you had stuck to your lethal threat and had pulled the trigger ever so hard, I'd still be more or less alive.

You'll excuse me for mentioning it," he ended in apology, noting her crestfallen air. "Any novice in the art of slaying might have done the same thing. Shooting people is an accomplishment that improves with practice."

Coldly, she turned away, and crossed to where the collie was beginning to weary of his fruitless efforts to climb the shinily smooth bark of the giant gumbo-limbo. Catching him by the collar, she said:

"Bobby! Bobby Burns! Stop that silly barking! Stop it at once! And leave poor little Simon Cameron alone! Aren't you ashamed?"

Now, Bobby was not in the least ashamed--except for his failure to reach his elusive prey. But, like many highbred and highstrung collies, he did not fancy having his collar seized by a stranger. He did not resent the act with snarls and a show of teeth, as in the case of the beach comber. But he stiffened to offended dignity, and, with a sudden jerk, freed himself from the little detaining hand.

Then, loftily, he stalked across to Gavin and thrust his muzzle once more into the man's cupped palm. As clearly as by a dictionary-ful of words, he had rebuked her familiarity and had shown to whom he felt he owed sole allegiance.

While the girl was still staring in rueful indignation at this snub from her dog, Brice found time and thought to stare with still greater intentness up the tree, at a bunch of bristling fur which occupied the first crotch and which glared wrathfully down at the collie.

He made out the contour and bashed-in profile of a huge Persian cat, silver-gray of hue, dense of coat, green of eye.

"So that's Simon Cameron?" he queried. "What a beauty! And what a quaintly Oriental name you've chosen for him!"

"He is named," said the girl, still icily, "for a statesman my parents admired. My brother says our Persian's hair is just the same color as Simon Cameron's used to be. That's why we named him that. You'll notice the cat has the beautifullest silvery gray hair--"

"Prematurely gray, I'm sure," put in Brice, civilly.

She looked at him, in doubt. But his face was grave. And she turned to the task of coaxing the indignant Simon Cameron from his tree-refuge.

"Simon Cameron always walks around the grounds with me, at sunset," she explained, in intervals of cajoling the grumpy ma.s.s of fluff to descend. "And he ran ahead of me, to-day, to the edge of the path. That must have been when Bobby caught sight of him..."

"Come, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!" she coaxed. "Do be a good little cat, and come down. See, the dog can't get at you, now. He's being held. Come!"

The allurement of his mistress's voice produced no stirring effect on the temperamental Simon Cameron. Beyond leaving the crotch and edging mincingly downward, a yard or so, the Persian refused to obey the crooning summons. Plastered flat against the tree trunk, some nine feet above the ground, he miaued dolefully.

"Hold Bobby's collar," suggested Brice, "and I think I can get the prematurely grizzled catling to earth."

The girl came over to where man and dog stood, and took Bobby Burns by the collar. Brice crossed to the tree and looked upward at the yowling Simon Cameron.

"h.e.l.lo, you good little cat!" he hailed, cooingly. "Cats always like to be called 'good,' you know. All of us are flattered when we're praised for something we aren't. A dog doesn't care much about being called 'good.' Because he knows he is. But a cat..."

As he talked, Gavin scratched gratingly on the tree trunk, and gazed up in ostentatious admiration at the coy Simon Cameron.

The Persian, like all his kind, was foolishly open to admiration. Brice's look, his crooning voice, his entertaining fashion of scratching the tree for the cat's amus.e.m.e.nt all these proved a genuine lure. Down the tree started Simon Cameron, moving backward, and halting coquettishly at every few inches.