Jan-an was making strenuous efforts to "catch on"; her face appeared like a rubber mask that unseen fingers were pinching into comical expressions. Northrup began to wonder just how mentally lacking the girl was. "But tuck this away in your noddle, Jan-an. Your Uncle Peter and Aunt Polly have the right understanding. They trust me, and you will some day. I'm going to stay right here--pass that along to anyone who asks you, Jan-an. I'm going to stay here and see this thing out!" "What thing?" The elusive something that was puzzling the girl, the sense of something wrong that her blinded but sensitive nature suffered from, loomed close. This man might make it plain. "What thing?" she asked huskily. Then Northrup laughed that disturbing laugh of his. "I don't know, Jan-an. 'Pon my soul, girl, I'd give a good deal to know, but I don't. I'm like you, just feeling things." Jan-an rose stiffly as if she were strung on wires. Her joints cracked as they fell into place, but once the long body stood upright, Northrup noticed that it was not without a certain rough grace and it looked strong and capable of great endurance. "I've been following you since the first day when you landed," Jan-an spoke calmly. There was no warning or distrust in the voice, merely a statement of fact. "And I'm going to keep on following and watching, so long as you stay." "Good! I'll never be really lonely then, and you'll sooner get to trusting me." "I ain't much for trusting till I knows." The girl turned and strode away. "Well, if you ever need me, try me out, Jan-an. Good-bye." Northrup felt ill at ease after Jan-an passed from sight. "Of all the messes!" he thought. "It makes me superstitious. What's the matter with this Forest?" And then Maclin again came into focus. Around Maclin, apparently, the public thought revolved. "They don't trust Maclin." Northrup began to reduce things to normal. "He's got them guessing with his damned inventions and secrecy. Then every outsider means a possible accomplice of Maclin. They hate the foreigners he brings here. They have got their eyes on me. All right, Maclin, my ready-to-wear villain, here's to you! And before we're through with each other some interesting things will occur, or I'll miss my guess." In much the same mood of excitement, Northrup had entered upon the adventure of writing his former book, with this difference: He had gone to the East Side of his home city with all his anchors cast in a familiar harbour; he was on the open sea now. There had been his mother and Kathryn before; the reliefs of home comforts, "fumigations" Kathryn termed them; now he was part of his environment, determined to cast no backward look until his appointed task was finished in failure or--success.