The cellar was really a cave gouged into the earth and piled with trunks and hand bags stuffed with all manner of loot. There was enough silverware to equip a dozen households, and Archie amused himself by studying the monograms, thinking that quite possibly he was handling spoons that he had encountered on happier occasions in the homes of his friends. The trunks contained clothing in great variety and most of it was new and of good quality. He carried up an armful and found a gray suit that fitted him very well. Another visit yielded shirts, socks and underclothing, a slightly used traveling case with shaving materials and other toilet articles. He bathed in the brook, shaved, dressed and felt like a new being. Only a few hours had elapsed since he walked uprightly in the eyes of all men; now he was a fugitive, and for all he knew to the contrary a murderer. He had accommodated himself with ease to lying and the practice of deceit; and even the taking of human life seemed no longer a monstrous thing. If he were caught in the Governor's company he would have a pretty time of it satisfying a court of his innocence; but he considered his plight tranquilly. In doffing the clothing he had acquired honestly and substituting stolen raiment, it was almost as though he were changing his character as well. In transferring his effects from the old to the new pockets he came upon Isabel Perry's note, and grinned as he re-read it. He wondered what Isabel would say if she knew that he had already slipped the leash that bound him to convention and performed even more reckless deeds than she had prescribed for him. "No callers? Well, I must say you're a credit to our gents' clothing department!" the Governor remarked on his return. "That stuff was accumulated early in the spring by a couple of the boys who had no more sense. Silver, yes; you can melt it and sell it like pig iron; but how absurd to risk your neck stealing mere raiment! Still the word's gone down the line and any of the brethren who're in need of shelter and a change of clothes will find what they want here. You've picked about the best of the lot. What do you make of this? Found it in the car." He extended a crumpled telegram which read: Bailey Harbor, Me. June 11, 1917. Putney Congdon, Thackeray Club, New York. I am offering the house for rent. Shall take every precaution to protect my children from your brutality. A. B. C. Archie felt the hut whirling round him. What he held was beyond question the reply of Mrs. Congdon to her husband's telegram that had been left lying on the dinner table. And if Congdon had left New York for Bailey Harbor immediately to put into effect his threat to abduct his child, it might have been Congdon he had shot--not Hoky! The Governor, scrubbing the paint from his hands, called over his shoulder: "An odd message! It had slipped under the seat. Good thing I found it."