In spite of the Endicott pride and a large measure of dignity for so young a man—which Lorna sometimes scoffed at—Ralph was not considered at all "stuck up" by the natives. He was quite at home on fishing smack or clam flat. He could hold his own in any work or rough sport with the younger men of Clinkerport. And, in addition, he could be depended on at any time to lend a hand. For this very trait of which fellows of Degger’s kidney had taken advantage at college, Clinkerport folk respected him. And the individual who brought to Ralph the unkind gossip that the mail carrier had repeated to Tobias o’ the Light, thought he was doing Ralph a favor. "’Course, we don’t b’lieve nothing like that of you and Miss Nicholet," the gossip-laden tongue concluded. "And Amos Pickering says that Tobias Bassett says that you an’ the gal was back at the Light from Lower Trillion an hour after Degger got back. "But you know how such stories spread. The truth’s a cripple while a lie wears the seven-leagued boots! An’ this Degger does say that you had trouble over another gal up there where you went to college——" "Where is Degger keeping himself?" demanded Ralph, breaking into his informant’s story at this point. "Why, he an’ Lon Burtwell air around together a good deal. You know Burtwell? He’s some kind of a promoter—or suthin’. I dunno but he’s buyin’ up cranberry bogs. There’s his car standin’ over yon’. He and Degger rides around together a good deal." Ralph waited, his face rather blue looking, his eyes smoldering. After a time he saw Conway Degger come out of the hotel. He was with a dark, sleek-looking man. They got into the touring car, the dark man, whom Ralph knew to be Lon Burtwell, settling himself behind the steering wheel. Ralph stepped into his own drab roadster. The other car passed him, heading out of town on the road to Harbor Bar. Ralph pushed the starter. Then he let in his clutch. The roadster wheeled into the wake of the bigger car. Both left town at an easy pace. Whether Degger looked back and saw that they were followed and by whom, or for some other reason, as soon as they were clear of the town the bigger car’s speed was increased. It whirled away in a cloud of dust, and the roar of its muffler could have been heard for miles. Ralph stepped on his accelerator and the low-hung roadster darted up the road as though shot out of a gun. There was no county constable by the way to time either of the cars. The start Burtwell’s car had gained in the beginning kept it well ahead for the first ten or twelve miles. The smaller car, however, was of racing model, and Ralph was a speed demon. He finally forced the nose of his machine almost under the rear axle of Burtwell’s motor car and hung there with bulldog persistence.