Colonel's espionage, under the big maple in the yard. A man who was
passing in the highway paused and leaned on the fence.

"Can one of you gents tell me," he asked, "where such a lady as Miss
Phar"--he consulted a folded paper that he held in his
hand--"Pharleena Pike lives about here?"

He was an elderly man with a swollen nose, striated with purple veins.
Under his arm he carried a bundle done up in meat-paper.

There was a queer glint of excitement in the eyes of the Cap'n. But
he did not speak. He referred the matter to Ward with a jab of his
thumb.

"What do you want to know where Miss Pike lives for?" demanded the
Colonel, looking the stranger over with great disfavor.

"None of your business," replied the man of the swollen nose,
promptly. "I've asked a gent's question of one I took to be a gent,
and I'd like a gent's reply."

"You see," said Cap'n Sproul to the stranger, with a confidential
air, as though he were proposing to impart the secret of the Colonel's
acerbity, "Colonel Ward here is--"

"You go 'long two miles, swing at the drab school-house, and go to
the second white house on the left-hand side of the road!" shouted
Ward, hastily breaking in on the explanation. His thin cheeks flushed
angrily. The man shuffled on.