The Pulaskian., 1917-01-26
CHAPTER x.
The Spy.


 breeze bland. Standing at the window and shading his eyes against the glare, Whitaker surveyed a world new washed and radiant; the landlocked bay dimpled with vagrant catspaws and smitten with sunlight as with a scimitar of fire; the earth fresh and fragrant, steaming faintly in the ar- dent glow of the dawn.
 In another moment he was at the kitchen door, interrupting Sum Fats first matutinal attentions to his teeth with a demand for bathing suit. Three minutes later, from the end of the small dock, he dived neatly com ing to the surface with his flesh tin gling with delight of the cool water; then, with the deliberate and powerful movements of an experienced swim mer, struck away from the land. Two hundred yards out he paused, rolled over on his back, and hands clasped beneath his head, floated serenely, sum- light warming his upturned face, his body rejoicing in the suave, clean, fluid embrace.
 Then something disturbed him-a dull futtering vibrant upon his sub merged eardrums Extending his arms and moving his hands gently to pre- serve his poise, he lifted his head from the water. From the landing stage on the Fiske place a motor boat was standing out. The churning of it's pro- peller had aroused him. He could see but single person for all it's crew. Seated astern, dividing her attention between the side steering wheel and the engine, she was altogether ignorant of the onlooker. Only her head and shoulders showed above the coaming- her head with it's shining crown, her shoulders cloaked with a light wrap gathered at the throat.
 Whitaker, admiring, wondered
 Sweeping in a wide arc as it gath cred speed, the boat presently shot out smartly on straight course for the barrier beach.
 Why? What business had she there? And at an hour so early?
 No affair of hiS-Whitaker admitted as much freely. And yet he was be- ginning his fourth day on the Great West bay without having set foot upon its Great South beach! Ridiculous oversight And one to be remedied without another hours delay.
 Grinning with amused toleration of his own perverse sophistry, he turned over on his side and struck out in the wake of the motor boat. When at length he waded ashore he found the motor boat moored in shallow water at the end of a long and substantial dock. He patted the Hanks of the yes sel as he waded on.
 "Good little boat!'' said he.
 Walking rapidly, very soon he stood at the head of rude flight of wooden steps which ran down from the top of a wave-eaten sand bluff, some ten or twelve feet in height, to the broad and gently shelving ocean beach. Midway between the sand bluff and the break ing waters stood the woman Whitaker had followed. (There wasn't any use mincfng terms-he had followed her in his confounded, fatuous curiosityD Her face was to the sea, her hands clasped behind her. Now the wind modelled her cloak sweetly to her body, now whipped it's skirts away, disclos- ing legs straight and slender and gra- ciously modelled. She was dressed, it seemed, for bathing.
 Whitaker turn to go, and turning let his gaze sweep up from the beach and along the brow of the bluff. He paused, drowning. Some twenty feet or so dis tant the legs of man, trousered and booted, protruded from a hollow be- tween two hummocks of sand. And the toes of the boots were digging into the sand, indicating that the man was lying prone; and that meant df he were neither dead nor sleeping) that he was watching the woman on the beach. Indignation, righteous indignation, warmed Whitaker's bosom. It was all very we'll for him to catch sight of the woman through her cottage win