Say, for a minute I thought it was a trap he's springin' on me; but after I'd looked long enough I see who he's pointin' at. The party inside is squattin' cross-legged on a rug, holdin' the business end of one of these water bottle pipes in his mouth. He's wearin' some kind of a long bath robe, and most of his red hair is concealed by yards of white cloth twisted round his head; but it's Spotty all right, alive, uncarved, and lookin' happy and contented. "Well, for the love of soup!" says I. "What is it, a masquerade?" "That you, McCabe?" says he. "Come in and--and sit on the floor." "Say," says I, steppin' inside, "this ain't the costume you're going to start for Canada in, is it?" "Ah, forget Canada!" says he. "I've got that proposition beat a mile. Hey, Hazzam," and he calls to the old pirate outside, "tell Mrs. Cahill to come down and be introduced!" "What's that?" says I. "You--you ain't been gettin' married, have you?" "Yep," says Spotty, grinnin' foolish. "Nine o'clock last night. We're goin' to start on our weddin' trip Tuesday, me and Mareena." "Mareena!" I gasps. "Not the--the one we saw out front? Where you going, Niagara?" "Nah! Syria, wherever that is," says he. "Mareena knows. We're goin' to live over there and buy rugs. That two hundred was just what we needed to set us up in business." "Think you'll like it?" says I. "Sure!" says he. "She says it's fine. There's deserts over there, and you travel for days and days, ridin' on bloomin' camels. Here's the tent we're goin' to live in. I'm practisin' up. Gee! but this pipe is somethin' fierce, though! Oh, here she is! Say, Mareena, this is Mr. McCabe, that I was tellin' you about." Well, honest, I wouldn't have known her for the same girl. She's changed that Grand-st. uniform for a native outfit, and while it's a little gaudy in color, hanged if it ain't becomin'! For a desert bride I should say she had some class. "Well," says I, "so you and Spotty are goin' to leave us, eh?" "Ah, yes!" says she, them big black eyes of hers lightin' up. "We go where the sky is high and blue and the sun is big and hot. We go back to the wide white desert where I was born. All day we shall ride toward the purple hills, and sleep at night under the still stars. He knows. I have told him." "That's right," says Spotty. "It'll be all to the good, that. Mareena can cook too." To prove it, she makes coffee and hands it around in little brass cups. Also there's cakes, and the old man comes in, smilin' and rubbin' his hands, and we has a real sociable time. And these was the folks I'd suspected of wantin' to carve up Spotty! Why, by the looks I saw thrown at him by them two, I knew they thought him the finest thing that ever happened. Just by the way Mareena reached out sly to pat his hair when she passed, you could see how it was. So I wished 'em luck and hurried back to report before Pinckney sent a squad of reserves after me.