"What would you do in my place? It may be a joke, and then again it
may not. She knew that I was a rank impostor."

"But she knew that a man must have a certain kind of daredevil courage
to play the game you played. Well, you ask me what I should do in your
place. I'd go."

"I shall. It will double discount fishing. And the more I think of
it, the more certain I become that she and I have met somewhere.
By-by!"

Cathewe lingered in the reading-room, pondering. Here was a twist to
the wager he was rather unprepared for; and if the truth must be told,
he was far more perplexed than Fitzgerald. He knew the girl, but he
did not know and could not imagine what purpose she had in aiding
Fitzgerald to win his wager or luring him out to an obscure village in
this detective-story manner.

"Well, I shall hear all about it from her father," he concluded.

And all in good time he did.




CHAPTER IV

PIRATES AND PRIVATE SECRETARIES