The Pulaskian., 1919-07-04

~Well, I'm tremendously relieved
 said Barnes slowly.
 And so am l." said o'Dowd with
 conviction. q have seen the heroine
 of our busted romance. She's good
 looking girl. I'm not surprised that
 she kept her veil down. If you were
 to leave it to me, though, I'd say
 that it's a sin to carry discretion so
 far as all that. You see what I mean,
 don't you?" His rich laugh came over
 the wire.
 Perfectly. Thank you for letting
 me know My mind is at rest. Good-
 by" As he hung up the receiver he
 said to himself, You are a most af-
 fable, convincing chap, MT. O'Dowd,
 but I don't believe word you say
 That woman is no lady's maid, and you've known all the time that she was there.'
 At four o'clock he set out alone for
 tramp up the mountain road in down. His mind was quite clear. Roon and Paul were not ordinary rob- bers. They were, no doubt, honest
 men. He would have said that they were thieves bent on burglarizing Green Fancy were it not for the dis closures of Miss Thackeray and the very convincing proof that they were not shot by the same man.
 It was not beyond reason--indeed, it was quite probable-that they were trying to cross the border; in that event their real operations would be confined to the Canadian side of the line. He could not free himself of the suspicion that Green Fancy possessed the key to the situation. Roon and his companion could not have had the slightest interest in his movements up to the instant he encountered the young woman at the crossroads. His busy brain suddenly suffered the shock Of distinct conclusion. Was she a fellow conspirator? Was she the in- side worker at Green Fancy in we'll laid plan to rife the place? Could 1t be possible that she was the confederate of these painstaking agents who lurked with sinister pa- tience outside the very gates of the place called Green Fancy?
 His ramble carried him far beyond the spot where Rooms body was found and where young Conley had come upon the tethered horses. His eager curious gaze swept the forest to the left of the road In search of Green Fancy. Overcome by rash, daring impulse, he climbed over the stake and rider fence and sauntered among the big trees which so far had ob- scured the house from view The trees grew very thickly on the slope, and they were unusually large. He pro- gressed deeper into the wood. At the end of what must have been a mile he halted. There was no sign of habi- tation, no indication that man had ever penetrated so far into the forest. As he was on the point of retracing his steps toward the road his gaze fell upon huge moss-coyered rock less than hundred yards away. He stared, and gradually it began to take on angles and planes and recesses of the most astounding symmetry. Un- der his widening gaze it was trans formed into a substantial object of cubes and gables and-yes, windows. He was looking upon the strange home of the even stranger Mir. Cur tis-Green Fancy.
 Now he understood why it was called Green Fancy. Its surroundings were no greener than itself it seemed to melt into the foliage, to become a part of the natural landscape. Noun tain ivy literally enyeloped it. Ex- posed sections of the house were paint ed green; the doors were green; the leafy porches and their columns, the chimney pots, the window hangings- all were the color of the unchanging forest. And it was place of huge
 dimensions, low and long and ram bling.
 "Gad." he said to himself, swhat
 manner of crank is he who would
 bury himself like this? Of all the
 crazy ideas I ever-''
 His reflections ended there. A wom-
 an crossed his vision; woman stroll
 ing slowly toward him through the in-
 tricate avenues of the wildwood