Rather disappointed--for I had been expecting to find in the packet some key to the interesting mystery which had sent Professor Farrago into the Everglades--I thrust the missive into my pocket and resumed a study of the immediate landscape. It had not changed as we progressed: ocean, sand, low dunes crowned with impenetrable tangles of wild bay, sparkleberry, and live-oak, with here and there a weather-twisted palmetto sprawling, and here and there the battered blades of cactus and Spanish-bayonet thrust menacingly forward; and over all the vultures, sailing, sailing--some mere circling motes lost in the blue above, some sheering the earth so close that their swiftly sweeping shadows slanted continually across our road. "I detest a buzzard," I said, aloud. "I thought they were crows," she confessed. "Carrion-crows--yes. "'The carrion-crows Sing, Caw! caw!' --only they don't," I added, my song putting me in good-humor once more. And I glanced askance at the pretty stenographer. "It is a pleasure to be employed by agreeable people," she said, innocently. "Oh, I can be much more agreeable than that," I said. "Is Professor Farrago--amusing?" she asked. "Well--oh, certainly--but not in--in the way I am." Suddenly it flashed upon me that my superior was a confirmed hater of unmarried women. I had clean forgotten it; and now the full import of what I had done scared me silent. "Is anything the matter?" asked Miss Barrison. "No--not yet," I said, ominously. How on earth could I have overlooked that well-known fact. The hurry and anxiety, the stress of instant preparation and departure, had clean driven it from my absent-minded head. Jogging on over the sand, I sat silent, cudgelling my brains for a solution of the disastrous predicament I had gotten into. I pictured the astonished rage of my superior--my probable dismissal from employment--perhaps the general overturning and smash-up of the entire expedition. A distant, dark object on the beach concentrated my distracted thoughts; it must be the breakwater at Cape Canaveral. And it was the breakwater, swarming with negro workmen, who were swinging great blocks of coquina into cemented beds, singing and whistling at their labor. I forgot my predicament when I saw a thin white man in sun-helmet and khaki directing the work from the beach; and as our horses plodded up, I stepped out and hailed him by name. "Yes, my name is Rowan," he said, instantly, turning to meet me. His sharp, clear eyes included the vehicle and the stenographer, and he lifted his helmet, then looked squarely at me. "My name is Gilland," I said, dropping my voice and stepping nearer. "I have just come from Bronx Park, New York." He bowed, waiting for something more from me; so I presented my credentials. His formal manner changed at once. "Come over here and let us talk a bit," he said, cordially--then hesitated, glancing at Miss Barrison--"if your wife would excuse us--"