"Goodness, Carolyn May!" exclaimed her friend, "how could you learn such a secret if the gentleman did not tell you himself? And you don't suppose for a moment that he could lose such a sum without knowing it?" "Why, I'm sure," the little girl explained, "that those two men who know all about it never told him." The pale lady saw that there really was something in this matter besides a flight of Carolyn's imagination. She tried to get at the foundation of the little girl's surprising statement. On her part Carolyn May endeavoured to explain about the dark-browed man and René the chauffeur. The little girl felt some embarrassment, as she had all along, about speaking of the time when her friend's baby carriage was wrecked by the automobile that René drove, so she slurred over that fact now. The pale lady did not grasp the significance of the couple at the Orowoc House being the same who had occupied the automobile when the accident near Central Park had happened. She did, however, gain the idea that there were men about of whom Carolyn felt some fear. She did not wish to create any anxiety in Mrs. Cameron's mind by speaking to her about it. But when her husband came home, she took him into her confidence regarding Carolyn May's remarkable story. "I wonder if it is quite safe for her to run about this wild country as she does?" was her concluding observation. "Those men--" Joe Bassett had a suspicion as to who the two men were, in spite of the description Carolyn had given his wife: "One of them's a dark, scowly man, and the other talks funny." "I'll look them up," Bassett said hastily to his wife. "I do not think they are people who will harm Carolyn May." "But what do you suppose it was they were talking about when she overheard them? Ten thousand dollars! Can they be intending to rob that man at the Orowoc House?" "More likely they have robbed him already," her husband said. "But I will look into it, if you are afraid for Carolyn. I won't go out with Barzilla tomorrow." "Oh, Laird! Can't we possibly meet Barzilla's offer? 'Great trees from little acorns grow,' you know, my dear," and she tried to smile. "A fish-packing business may lead to greater things. And this seems so good a chance for you--" "But if we have no money, Girl?" "Isn't it possible for you to borrow it of any friend? Oh, my dear! I shrink from that journey to Arizona. Think! if we got there and were stranded? This may be a trick of that man you call Inness. You know, Laird, you do not trust him." "True. But his employer must be behind the offer. It is the first spark of interest he has shown in our affairs since I left home." "And is it interest in our well-being now?" she cried. "Oh! I wish I could believe it, Laird. But I am afraid of your father--I am! I am!" "Hush, Girl! Don't talk that way. Yet, I have no means of knowing what is in his mind regarding us," he added, sadly.