“I know--I know,” said Tavia. “If your Aunt Winnie wasn’t the very dearest little gray-haired, pink-cheeked woman who ever lived, I’d have shaken the secret out of her long ago. I just would! And we can’t even guess what the surprise is going to be like.” “Goodness! No!” gasped Dorothy. “I’ve given up guessing. I know it is something perfectly scrumptious, but nothing like anything we ever had before.” “I hope, whatever it is, that I’ll be in it,” groaned Tavia. “I am sure you will be, or Aunt Winnie wouldn’t have invited you here to her home at just this time,” declared Dorothy. They were walking down the shady road toward the railroad station “killing time,” before the family conference which had been called for ten o’clock. Nat and Ned White, Dorothy’s cousins, had gone off in their auto, the _Fire Bird_, on an errand, and the girls had an idea they might come home by this route, and so pick them up. “Hush!” cried Tavia, suddenly. “Methinks I hear footsteps approaching on horseback.” “That’s no horse you hear,” Dorothy said. “It is somebody walking on the bridge over the brook.” There was a turn in the road just ahead and the girls could not see the bridge. But in a moment they could descry the figure of a man striding toward them. “This must have been what you were he-heing for,” whispered Dorothy. “How romantic!” was Tavia’s utterance. “What is romantic about a man coming up from the station?” “Don’t you see his long, silky black mustache? And his long hair and broad hat? Goodness! he’s a picture.” “Yes. The stage picture of a villain--_Simon Legree_ type,” scoffed Dorothy. “That red silk handkerchief sticking out of his pocket--and the big diamond in his shirt front--and another flashing on his finger----” “My!” gasped Tavia, clasping her hands. “He might have stepped right out of Bret Harte. Ah-ha! ah-ha! Jack Dalton! unhand me!” “Hush, Tavia!” begged her chum. “He will hear you.” “Oh!” exclaimed Tavia, suddenly disturbed. “He’s looking at us--and he’s crossing over to this side of the road.” “Well, don’t you look at him any more and--_we’ll_ cross the road, too.” “Do you suppose he eats little girls?” queried Tavia, with a most ridiculous air. Dorothy felt as though she wanted to shake her chum. But then, she frequently felt _that_ desire. The man was too near for her to speak again, but the girls crossed the road suddenly. The man stopped, half turned as though to approach them, and leered at Dorothy and Tavia. He was not a large man, but he was remarkably dressed. His black suit was rather wrinkled, as though he had been traveling some time in it. The broad-brimmed hat gave him the air of a Westerner, or Southerner. And his flashy appearance made him very distasteful to Dorothy. She made Tavia hurry on, and soon they reached the bridge themselves. Tavia was “raving” again: “Those wonderful eyes! Did you see them? Deep brown pools of light--only one was green? Did you notice it, Doro?”