Lee was awaiting him. “My husband has told me of his happy moment with you,” she cried. “This is notable day in our lives. I shall have much to tell my small man-child, who is now well past his eleventh moon.”

“Pray give him my kind regards,” said Charlie. He staggered slightly as his legs were struck from behind by some heavy object. Turning, he saw a tall man with a blond beard, who had just snatched up a bag from the platform - the object, evidently, which had struck Chan so sharp a blow. Expectantly Charlie waited for the inevitable apology. But the stranger gave him one cold look pushed him ruthlessly aside and crowded past him to the car steps.

In another moment the train had stopped, and Charlie was out on the snowy platform. He tipped his porter, waved good-by to the Lees and took a few steps along the brightly lighted space in front of the station. For the first time in his life he heard the creak of frost under his shoes, saw his own breath materialized before his eyes.

Romano came swiftly up. “I have located our motor,” he announced. “Come quickly, if you will. I secured a view of the town, and it is not even a one-night stand.”

As they came up to the automobile waiting beside the station, they beheld the driver of it conversing with a man who had evidently just left the train. Charlie looked closer - the man with the blond beard. The latter turned to them.

“Good evening,” he said. “Are you Dudley Ward’s other guests? My name is John Ryder.”

Without waiting for their response, he slipped into the preferred front seat by the driver’s side. “John Ryder.” Charlie looked at Romano, and saw an expression of vast surprise on the Italian’s mobile face. They got into the rear seat without speaking, and the driver started the car.

They emerged into the main street of a town that was, in the dim light of a wintry evening, reminiscent of a moving picture of the Old West. A row of brick buildings that spoke of being clubs, but behind the frosted windows of which no gaiety seemed to be afoot tonight. Restaurants with signs that advertised only the softer drinks, a bank, a post-office. Here and there a dusky figure hurrying through the gloom.

The car crossed a railroad spur and turned off into the white nothingness of the country. Now for the first time Charlie was close to the pines, tall and stern, rooted deep in the soil, their aroma pungent and invigorating. Across his vision flitted a picture of distant palms, unbelievable relatives of these proud and lofty giants.

The chains on the tires flopped unceasingly, down the open path between the snow-banks, and Charlie wondered at the sound. On their right now was a tremendous cliff, on their left a half-frozen river.

The man on the front seat beside the driver did not turn. He said no word. The two on the rear seat followed his example.

In about an hour they came upon the lights of a few scattered houses, a little later they turned off into the Tavern grounds. A vast shingled building stood lonely in the winter night, with but a few lights burning on its ground floor.

Close to the pier entrance the driver stopped his car. A man with a boatman’s cap came forward.

“Got ‘em, Bill?’ he inquired.

“Three - that’s right, ain’t it?” the garage man inquired.

“O.K. I’ll take them bags.”

Bill said good night and departed, strangely eager to get back to town. The boatman led them on to the pier.