It was a brisk, insignificant person who stepped forward, a smirking little man, half shabby and half prosperous, plainly an American, but not of the countryside. His interruption had thrown Miles into a passion of disappointment; yet even a more fortunate arrival might not have helped the man. His hand was too moist and loose, his pale face too shrewdly wrinkled, and his smile, like the cold stare of his bulbous blue eyes, too calculating; even his trite compliments seemed a piece of insinuation. Altogether, Miles disliked him on sight, as one dislikes a grub or an earwig. They returned together to the deck, where Old-Hab left them to confer. For some time the stranger made little use of his chance, but though all too ready and familiar, chattered and questioned trivially, with a studied inconsequence. “Come,” Miles broke in at last impatiently. “I don’t see yet. Please tell me what I can do for you.” The man became very confidential. “I’ll be frank with you,” he promised glibly. “We’ll come square to it. Ain’t that right? I may have dealin’s with a man over here, likely--man named Florio. Now, you’re so high spoke of all round, I store by your opinion. See? So I come to you, like this, and says,--between us, mind,--what d’ ye think about him?” Miles considered. From the first mention, he vaguely saw trouble ahead for Tony; then, not at all vaguely, saw how that trouble might at least send Tony packing. The sooner the happier; toward just such a riddance his wishes ran like fire. To speak the mere truth, to aid the law: and in the same thought he stood confounded at his own baseness. The loyalty might all be on one side, yet-- “Better see Florio yourself,” he answered. “You can judge. He lives up in the next cove.” The stranger argued long, and surrendered reluctantly. “Well,” he sighed, “I s’pose that’s right, if you’re so stubborn to it. I’ll go see him.” He slouched away, and plunged among the bushes. Miles, climbing toward the house, paused halfway on the slope, to look down thoughtfully at the shore. Seldom had he encountered so many persons there in one day; never so many problems. Life, like the fiddle-heads, seemed to unfold into complexities. The river sparkled through chinks in the grove, and dazzled broadly across a distant gap, where the path swung bare to the headland. It was the one pass to Alward’s. But the stranger did not darken it, either going or coming. “He’ll wait down there,” thought Miles, “then come lying back, and say he can’t find Tony. Spying! And I couldn’t tell him!” He could not, the fact was adamant--not even to save the hostage in the other camp. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX THE RUNNING BROOK