Diane of the Green Van

Accustomed by now to carry birch-bark messages to Diane, Richard Whittington waggled in perfect understanding and trotted off obediently toward the fire with Philip close at his heels.

Conceivably astonished, the camper presently picked up the paper which Mr. Whittington dropped at his feet, and read it. As Philip stepped lazily from the trees he turned.

It was Baron Tregar. Both men stared.

"The Duke of Connecticut!" at length rumbled the Baron with perfect gravity. "I am overwhelmed."

Philip, much the more astonished of the two, laughed and bowed.

"Excellency," said he formally, "I am indeed astonished."

"Pray be seated!" invited the Baron, his eyes more friendly than those of his guest. "I, too, have taken to the highway, Poynter, on yonder motorcycle and I have lost my way." He sniffed in disgust. "I am dining," he added dryly, "if one may dignify the damnable proceeding by that name, on potatoes which I do not in the least know how to bake without reducing them to cinders. I bought them a while back at a desolate, God-forsaken farmhouse. Heaven deliver me from camping!"

With which pious ejaculation the Baron inspected his smudged and blistered fingers and read again the entertaining message from the Duke of Connecticut.

"Why take to the highway," begged Philip guilelessly, "when the task is so unpleasant?"

"Ah!" rumbled the Baron, more sombre now, "there is a man with a music-machine--"

"There is!" said Philip fervently.

The Baron looked hard at His Highness, the Duke of Connecticut. The latter produced his cigarette case and opening it politely for the service of his chief, smiled with good humor.

"There is," said he coolly, "a man with a music-machine, a mysterious malady, a stained skin and a volume of Herodotus! Excellency knows the--er--romantic ensemble?"

Excellency not only knew him, but for days now, taking up the trail at a certain canal, he had traveled hard over roads strangely littered with hay and food and linen collars--to find that romantic ensemble. He added with grim humor that he fancied the Duke of Connecticut knew him too. The Duke dryly admitted that this might be so. His memory, though conveniently porous at times, was for the most part excellent.

"What is he doing?" asked the Baron with an ominous glint of his fine eyes.

"Excellency," said Philip, staring hard at the end of his cigarette, "by every subtle device at his command, he is making graceful love to Miss Westfall, who is sufficiently wholesome and happy and absorbed in her gypsy life not to know it--yet!"

The Barents explosive "Ah!" was a compound of wrath and outraged astonishment. Philip felt his attitude toward his chief undergoing a subtle revolution.