“Well,” the depot master smilingly scratched his chin, “I cal'late I've got those inside facts.” “You HAVE?” “Yes. Nate gave 'em to me, under protest. You see, I know Nate pretty well. I know some things about him that . . . but never mind that part. I asked him and, at last, he told me. I'll have to tell you in his words, 'cause half the fun was the way he told it and the way he looked at the whole business. So you can imagine I'm Nate, and--” “'Twill be a big strain on my imagination to b'lieve you're Nate Scudder, Sol Berry.” “Thanks. However, you'll have to do it for a spell. Well, Nate said that it really begun when the Professor and Olivia landed at the Wellmouth depot with the freight car full of junk. Of course, the actual beginnin' was further back than that, when that Harmon man come on from Philadelphy and hunted him up, makin' proclamation that a friend of his, a Mr. Van Brunt of New York, had said that Scudder had a nice quiet island to let and maybe he could hire it. “Course Nate had an island--that little sun-dried sandbank a mile or so off shore, abreast his house, which we used to call 'Horsefoot Bar.' That crazy Van Brunt and his chum, Hartley, who lived there along with Sol Pratt a year or so ago, re-christened it 'Ozone Island,' you remember. Nate was willin' to let it. He'd let Tophet, if he owned it, and a fool come along who wanted to hire it and could pay for the rent and heat. “So Nate and this Harmon feller rowed over to the Bar--to Ozone Island, I mean--and the desolation and loneliness of it seemed to suit him to perfection. So did the old house and big barn and all the tumbledown buildin's stuck there in the beach-grass and sand. Afore they'd left they made a dicker. He wa'n't the principal in it. He was the private secretary and fust mate of Mr. Professor Ansel Hobart Dixland, the scientist--perhaps Scudder'd heard of him? “Perhaps he had, but if so, Nate forgot it, though he didn't tell him that. Harmon ordered a fifteen-foot-high board fence built all around the house and barn, and made Nate swear not to tell a soul who was comin' nor anything. Dixland might want the island two months, he said, or he might want it two years. Nate didn't care. He was in for good pickin's, and begun to pick by slicin' a liberal commission off that fencebuildin' job. There was a whole passel of letters back and forth between Nate and Harmon, and finally Nate got word to meet the victims at the depot. “There was the professor himself, an old dried-up relic with whiskers and a temper; and there was Miss Olivia Dixland, his niece and housekeeper, a slim, plain lookin' girl, who wore eyeglasses and a straight up and down dress. And there was a freight car full of crates and boxes and land knows what all. But nary sign was there of a private secretary and assistant. The professor told Nate that Mr. Harmon's health had suddenly broke down and he'd had to be sent South.