soberly, "but then he happens to be under my authority."

"Meaning, I suppose, that you would much prefer to blame _me_," I
choked.

"There's logic, no doubt, in striking at the root of the trouble,"
he admitted, with an air of calm detachment.

"Then strike," I said furiously, "strike, why don't you, and not
beat about the bush so!" Because then he would be quite hopelessly
in the wrong, and I could adopt any of several roles--the coldly
haughty, the wounded but forgiving, etc., with great enjoyment.

But without a change in his glacial manner he quite casually
remarked:

"It would seem I had struck--home."

I walked away wishing the dynamite would go off, even if I had to
be mixed with Violet till the last trump.

Fortunately nobody undertook to exercise any guardianship over
Crusoe, and the little white dog bore me faithful company in my
rambles. Mostly these were confined to the neighborhood of the
cove. I never ventured beyond Lookout ridge, but there I went
often with Crusoe, and we would sit upon a rock and talk to each
other about our first encounter there, and the fright he had given
me. Everybody else had gone, gazed and admired. But the only
constant pilgrim, besides myself, was, of all people, Captain
Magnus. Soon between us we had worn a path through the woods to