"There's a mistake--" I began chokingly, for the Italian had almost strangled me and my lungs were as empty as a spent bellows. "That will do. Climb!" He stuck the revolver into my back and up I went and through the garden toward the cottage. A door opening on the veranda was slightly ajar, and I was thrust forward none too gently into a lighted room. My captor and I studied each other attentively for half a minute. He was beyond question the man whom Helen Holbrook had sought at the house-boat in the summer dusk. Who Hartridge was did not matter; it was evident that Holbrook was quite at home in the canoe-maker's house, and that he had no intention of calling any one else into our affairs. He had undoubtedly heard the revolver shots below and rushed from the cottage to investigate; and, meeting me in full flight, he had naturally taken it for granted that I was involved in some designs on himself. As he leaned against a table by the door his grave blue eyes scrutinized me with mingled indignation and interest. He wore white duck trousers turned up over tan shoes, and a gray outing shirt with a blue scarf knotted under its soft collar. I seemed to puzzle him, and his gaze swept me from head to foot several times before he spoke. Then his eyes flashed angrily and he took a step toward me. "Who in the devil are you and what do you want?" "My name is Donovan, and I don't want anything except to get home." "Where do you come from at this hour of the night?" "I am spending the summer at Mr. Glenarm's place near Annandale." "That's rather unlikely; Mr. Glenarm is abroad. What were you doing down there on the creek?" "I wasn't doing anything until two men came along to kill you and I mixed up with them and got badly mussed for my trouble." He eyed me with a new interest. "They came to kill me, did they? You tell a good story, Mr. Donovan." "Quite so. I was standing on the deck of the houseboat or whatever it is--" "Where you had no business to be--" "Granted. I had no business to be there; but I was there and came near getting killed for my impertinence, as I have told you. Those fellows rowed up from the direction of the lake. One of them told the other to call you to your door on the pretense of summoning aid for a broken motor-car off there in the road. Then he was to stab you. The assassin was an Italian. His employer spoke to him in that tongue. I happen to be acquainted with it." "You are a very accomplished person," he observed dryly. He walked up to me and felt my pockets. "Who fired that pistol?" "The man in charge of the expedition. The Italian was trying to knife me on the deck, and I broke away from him and ran. His employer had gone back to the boat for safety and he took a crack at me as I ran across the platform. It's not the fault of either that I'm not quite out of business." An inner door back of me creaked slightly. My captor swung round at the sound.