The pretty stenographer colored, and I dryly set Mr. Rowan right--which appeared to disturb him more than his mistake. "Pardon me, Mr. Gilland, but you do not propose to take this young girl into the Everglades, do you?" "That's what I had proposed to do," I said, brusquely. Perfectly aware that I resented his inquiry, he cast a perplexed and troubled glance at her, then slowly led the way to a great block of sun-warmed coquina, where he sat down, motioning me to do the same. "I see," he said, "that you don't know just where you are going or just what you are expected to do." "No, I don't," I said. "Well, I'll tell you, then. You are going into the devil's own country to look for something that I fled five hundred miles to avoid." "Is that so?" I said, uneasily. "That is so, Mr. Gilland." "Oh! And what is this object that I am to look for and from which you fled five hundred miles?" "I don't know." "You don't know what you ran away from?" "No, sir. Perhaps if I had known I should have run a thousand miles." We eyed one another. "You think, then, that I'd better send Miss Barrison back to New York?" I asked. "I certainly do. It may be murder to take her." "Then I'll do it!" I said, nervously. "Back she goes from the first railroad station." In a flash the thought came to me that here was a way to avoid the wrath of Professor Farrago--and a good excuse, too. He might forgive my not bringing a man as stenographer in view of my limited time; he never would forgive my presenting him with a woman. "She must go back," I repeated; and it rather surprised me to find myself already anticipating loneliness--something that never in all my travels had I experienced before. "By the first train," I added, firmly, disliking Mr. Rowan without any reason except that he had suddenly deprived me of my stenographer. "What I have to tell you," he began, lighting a cigarette, the mate to which I declined, "is this: Three years ago, before I entered this contracting business, I was in the government employ as officer in the Coast Survey. Our duties took us into Florida waters; we were months at a time working on shore." He pulled thoughtfully at his cigarette and blew a light cloud into the air. "I had leave for a month once; and like an ass I prepared to spend it in a hunting-trip among the Everglades." He crossed his lean legs and gazed meditatively at his cigarette.