"Well, my boy Jack," he exclaimed, entering with a cheeriness I found detestable, "we shall leave her now, eh? She has packing to do, and must get early to rest." His protectorate seemed to brook no opposition, and an angry retort sprang to my lips which remained unspoken when I saw the pallor of Doloria's face. "Yes," she said, without animation, "I must pack. See you to-morrow--on the march." So, ignoring him, I passed out. But a better humor came to me as I thought of Tommy's scheme about the _Orchid_, and coming upon Echochee at the landing I asked--lightly for her benefit, yet quite seriously for myself: "Is there any magic in your tribe that can bring a troubled princess sleep and pleasant dreams?" I knew that she was searching my face with her black little eyes that glistened like a snake's, as she answered slowly: "Injun maiden find plenty good dream when her head lay on breast of sleeping brave." "I didn't mean just that," I stammered, feeling my cheeks grow hot. For, albeit, Doloria had slept part of a night with her head against my shoulder when we fared alone in the purity of our wilderness, now, since others of the world were touching elbows with us, Echochee's words knocked me rather into a self-conscious heap. But such is the bitter tithe we must toss into the maw of civilization which, despite its multitude of admitted blessings, breeds also the false! And I stepped into the punt wishing that this daughter of our oldest American family could be divinely appointed arbiter of our customs. Smilax returned with word that both yachts would be at Little Cove, and one by one the lights in our camp went out. But I sat late at Efaw Kotee's desk writing a ten-page telegram and a fifty-page letter to my father. Both of these I would despatch from Key West--the wire telling him to bring the Mater to Miami where the letter would await them; and I urged them both, as they loved me, to pick up a certain darling of the gods named Nell. Only I made it stronger and more explicit than that, and knew they would comply if such a thing were humanly possible. But this pet scheme I intended to keep from Tommy. It would repay him for his masterly scheme of sailing both yachts homeward. The next morning after an early breakfast our cavalcade set forth, each man carrying a pack except the two sailors on whose shoulders rested the poles of Doloria's chair. But in this chair sat a very sad little princess--this morning particularly, as she was leaving a nominal home for a new and mystifying adventure. Whatever else Efaw Kotee had been to her, at least he stood in her memory of father; and however irrevocably she may have turned against him, the very fact that she found it necessary to do so was a grievous disappointment.