CHAPTER X

ANOTHER COMPLICATION

After luncheon, when everybody at Hope Springs takes a nap, we had
another meeting at the shelter-house, this time with Mr. Pierce. He had
spent the morning tramping over the hills with a gun and keeping out
of the way of people, and what with three square meals, a good night's
sleep and the exercise, he was looking a lot better. Seen in daylight,
he had very dark hair and blue-gray eyes and a very square chin,
although it had a sort of dimple in it. I used to wonder which won out,
the dimple or the chin, but I wasn't long in finding out.

Well, he looked dazed when I took him to the shelter-house and he saw
Mr. Dick and Mrs. Dick and the Mr. Sams and Miss Patty. They gave him a
lawn-mower to sit on, and Mr. Sam explained the situation.

"I know it's asking a good bit, Mr. Pierce," he said, "and personally
I can see only one way out of all this. Carter ought to go in and take
charge, and his--er--wife ought to go back to school. But they won't
have it, and--er--there are other reasons." He glanced at Miss Patty.

Mr. Pierce also glanced at Miss Patty. He'd been glancing at her at
intervals of two seconds ever since she came in, and being a woman and
having a point to gain, Miss Patty seemed to have forgotten the night
before, and was very nice to him. Once she smiled directly at him, and
whatever he was saying died in his throat of the shock. When she turned
her head away he stared at the back of her neck, and when she looked at