I found the gate through which we had entered the grounds the night before without difficulty. The stone wall was assuredly no flimsy thing. It was built in a thoroughly workmanlike manner, and I mentally computed its probable cost with amazement. There were, I reflected, much more satisfactory ways of spending money than in building walls around Indiana forests. But the place was mine, or as good as mine, and there was no manner of use in quarreling with the whims of my dead grandfather. At the expiration of a year I could tear down the wall if I pleased; and as to the incomplete house, that I should sell or remodel to my liking. On the whole, I settled into an amiable state of mind; my perplexity over the shot of the night before was passing away under the benign influences of blue sky and warm sunshine. A few farm-folk passed me in the highway and gave me good morning in the fashion of the country, inspecting my knickerbockers at the same time with frank disapproval. I reached the lake and gazed out upon its quiet waters with satisfaction. At the foot of Annandale’s main street was a dock where several small steam-craft and a number of catboats were being dismantled for the winter. As I passed, a man approached the dock in a skiff, landed and tied his boat. He started toward the village at a quick pace, but turned and eyed me with rustic directness. “Good morning!” I said. “Any ducks about?” He paused, nodded and fell into step with me. “No,—not enough to pay for the trouble.” “I’m sorry for that. I’d hoped to pick up a few.” “I guess you’re a stranger in these parts,” he remarked, eying me again,—my knickerbockers no doubt marking me as an alien. “Quite so. My name is Glenarm, and I’ve just come.” “I thought you might be him. We’ve rather been expecting you here in the village. I’m John Morgan, caretaker of the resorters’ houses up the lake.” “I suppose you all knew my grandfather hereabouts.” “Well, yes; you might say as we did, or you might say as we didn’t. He wasn’t just the sort that you got next to in a hurry. He kept pretty much to himself. He built a wall there to keep us out, but he needn’t have troubled himself. We’re not the kind around here to meddle, and you may be sure the summer people never bothered him.” There was a tone of resentment in his voice, and I hastened to say: “I’m sure you’re mistaken about the purposes of that wall. My grandfather was a student of architecture. It was a hobby of his. The house and wall were in the line of his experiments, and to please his whims. I hope the people of the village won’t hold any hard feelings against his memory or against me. Why, the labor there must have been a good thing for the people hereabouts.”