"I don't know. . . . You mustn't cry. Put your head down--here. You mustn't be distressed." "I am, dreadfully." "You mustn't be." "I can't help it--now." "Could you help it if you--loved me?" "Oh, no! Oh, no! It would distress me beyond measure to--to love you. Oh, it must not be--it must not happen to me----" "It is already happening to _me_." "Don't let it! Don't let it happen to either of us! Please--please----" "But--it _is_ happening all the while, Amourette." She drew a swift, startled sigh. "Is _that_ what it is that is happening to me, too, Mr. Sayre?" "Yes. I think so." "Oh, oh, _oh_!" she sobbed, hiding her face closer to his shoulder. "Amourette! Darling! Dea----" "L-listen. Because now I've got to tell you all about the disappearance of those perfectly horrid young specimens of physical perfection. And after that you will abhor me!" "Abhor _you_! Dearest--dearest and most divine of women!" "Wait!" she sobbed. "I've got myself and you into the most awful scrape you ever dreamed of by falling in love with you at first sight!" And she turned her face closer to his shoulder and slipped one desperate little hand into his. [Illustration] [Illustration] IV ABOUT two o'clock that afternoon Sayre rushed into camp with his scanty hair on end. Langdon, who had been attempting to boil a blank-book for dinner, gazed at him in consternation. "What is it? Bears, William?" he asked fearfully. "D-d-don't be f-f-frightened; I'll stand by you." "It isn't bears, you simp! I've just unearthed the most colossal conspiracy of the century! Curtis, things are happening in these woods that are incredible, abominable, horrible----" "_What_ is happening?" faltered Langdon, turning paler. "Murder?" "Worse! They've got Willett and the others! She admitted it to me----" "Hey?" "Willett and Carrick and the others!" shouted Sayre, gesticulating. "They've caught 'em all! She said so! I----" "They? She? Who's caught what? Who's 'they'? What it is? Who's 'she'? What are you talking about, anyway?" "Amourette told me----" "Amourette? Who the deuce is Amourette?" "I don't know. Shut up! My head's spinning like a gyroscope. All I know is that I want to marry her and she won't let me--and I believe she would if I had a reliable hair-restorer and wasn't near-sighted--but she ran away and got inside the fence and locked the gate." "Are you drunk?" demanded Langdon, "or merely frolicsome?" "_I_ don't know. I guess I am. I'm about everything else. What do I know about anything anyway? Nothing!" He began to run around in circles; Langdon, having seen similar symptoms in demented cats, regarded him with growing alarm. "I tell you it's an outrageous social condition which tolerates such doings!" shouted Sayre. "It's a perfectly monstrous state of things! Nine handsome men out of ten are fatheads! I told her so! I tried to point out to her--but she wouldn't listen--she wouldn't listen!" Langdon stared at him, jaw agape. Then: