moonlight he had to turn in his saddle.

"And yet I didn't," he laughed.

"What do you mean," I asked, "were you ever a spy or an actor?"

"I was both," he said. "I was a failure at both, too. I got put in
jail for being a spy, and I ought to have been hung for my acting." I
kicked my mule forward in order to hear better.

"Tell me about it," I asked, eagerly. "About when you were a spy."

But Aiken only laughed, and rode on without turning his head.

"You wouldn't understand," he said after a pause. Then he looked at me
over his shoulder. "It needs a big black background of experience and
hard luck to get the perspective on that story," he explained. "It
wouldn't appeal to you; you're too young. They're some things they
don't teach at West Point."

"They teach us," I answered, hotly, "that if we're detailed to secret
service work we are to carry out our orders. It's not dishonorable to
obey orders. I'm not so young as you think. Go on, tell me, in what
war were you a spy?"

"It wasn't in any war," Aiken said, again turning away from me. "It
was in Haskell's Private Detective Agency."

I could not prevent an exclamation, but the instant it had escaped me
I could have kicked myself for having made it. "I beg your pardon," I