And yet my whole failure to come upon any trace of the gang in spite of all my ingenuity did set me thinking. Could it possibly be that my entire adventure had been an hallucination? I confessed frankly to myself that I have a pretty lively imagination, and I recalled vividly how I had almost collapsed on my way to the Scollays under the strain of an intense reaction, how my brain had whirled, and how I peopled the farm kitchen with full thrice the number of persons actually assembled. I had been conscious of all that, but supposing my brain had actually begun to whirl half an hour sooner, before I had become conscious of it? Might I not have imagined my whole mysterious adventure? It was a nasty thought, for in that case what a superfluous fool I had made of myself since! But I faced it manfully, and sternly asked myself what the opinion of the average hard-headed, soberly reasoning man would be, if he were given the facts and requested to pronounce his verdict on them. What would be my own verdict if I were told such a yarn? Would I swallow it without demur? "Be hanged if I would!" I said candidly. By the time I got back to the big house, I had very nearly ceased to believe in the tale myself. X THE COAST PATROL That evening we were all three sitting in the library (the same old-world room into which I had first been shown), when a servant entered and gave a message to Mr. Rendall. He rose and went out, leaving his daughter and myself each apparently immersed in a book. She may genuinely have been, but I was making the covers of mine a screen for inward debate. Had I made a mere fool of myself and should I make a clean breast of everything to my hosts? Or should I wait a little longer before deciding? I went on thinking after the laird had left the room, and Miss Jean still kept her eyes immovably on her page. I frankly confess I have never cut less ice with any woman--especially one who decidedly attracted me. In a few minutes her father returned and said to her: "John Howiseon has cried off to-night. I must go myself." She started up with a word of expostulation, but he merely smiled in his grim way, nodded at her (not at me, I noticed) and was gone. With a little sigh she sat down again and plunged into her book, but my curiosity had been roused and in a moment I enquired, "Is your father going out for long?" Her concern seemed to have broken down her reticence "All night," she said. "I wish he wouldn't!" "What's the matter?" I asked. "The coast patrol," said she. "The coast patrol!" I exclaimed. "What's that?" She seemed to look at me for an instant a little doubtfully before she answered, "The Admiralty have asked all the Justices of Peace to have the coast patrolled." "By whom?" "Anybody they can get. We have the whole island mapped out into beats and the different; farmers take it night about."