Mrs. Jarrod was pleased and triumphant. She had won the third prize--a nineteen cent handkerchief embroidered with the initial "S."--and it was indeed fortunate that she did not overhear the remark of Mrs. Sauters that it was the same one she had dropped at the last yacht club party. Next morning Jarrod went down to the post office and met several of his fellow cottagers. They were, as a class, highly respectable, well-to-do and good natured business men, who sought in this delightful nook rest and recreation after months of weary toil in their offices, factories, mills or mines. They talked freely of the adverse conditions existing in Tamawaca, of their abject dependence upon the whims of Wilder and Easton, of the usurpation by these men of the cottagers' rights and privileges, and ended always by expressing an opinion that the law, if appealed to, would not support the owners of Tamawaca in their autocratic actions. "Wilder's all right," said one. "He's a good fellow, personally, and mighty accommodating. But he owns only a one-third interest, so what can he do against a man like Easton, who owns two-thirds and refuses to spend a nickel to keep his own property in repair?" "Easton isn't so bad," remarked another; "but he's an old man, and weak, and Wilder makes him do anything he likes." "Why don't the cottagers organize?" asked Jarrod. "They are organized. The annual meeting is to be held next Saturday night," was the reply. "But they never do anything at those meetings except bewail their condition of slavery and mildly denounce Wilder and Easton." "What we lack," said a grizzled old fellow with piercing black eyes glinting underneath shaggy brows, "is a leader; an organizer. The whole system of imposition here is a fester that is gradually coming to a head. What we shall require presently is a clever surgeon with a sharp lancet." As the speaker walked away Jarrod looked thoughtfully after him. "Who is that man?" he enquired. "Why, that's Colonel Kerry. Years ago he used to be one of the owners of Tamawaca; but they say he quarreled with the methods of his partners and sold out to them. That was before either Wilder or Easton bought in; but the Colonel has never mixed in public affairs since." "I wonder he doesn't use the lancet himself," said Jarrod. "Oh, he's capable enough, I assure you; but the Colonel isn't hunting trouble. He sticks to his cottage up on the hillside and minds his own business. But he's a shrewd observer, and no one knows the inside history of all the encroachments upon the rights of our residents during the last dozen or so years better than old man Kerry." Jarrod strolled along the walks for an hour or two, noting carefully the conditions of neglect everywhere apparent. Nature had done wonders for Tamawaca; man had done little but mar nature, if we except the many handsome or cosy cottages that peeped enticingly from their leafy bowers or stood on the hills overlooking the two lakes.