LITMIR.BIZ

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it!” I remarked as I set about cooking my two fish. “I’m going to get a shotgun and settle this mystery. I don’t believe in fictionists’ dreams coming true; and as for this flying dragon, I’ll settle him with buckshot if I get one crack at him.”

      The red eyes of the skulls had paled into insignificance before this mysterious visitant, and I forgot the lesser matter for the time being. That double boiler knocked off the stove, and those muddy tracks, settled the pterodactyl once and for all as a living creature, and I meant to go after him. I only regretted that I must have missed him by less than a minute.

      My second day in my new home was beginning in a way to make me realize why Balliol had come to Los Angeles with the jumps riding him.

      An hour after these things happened I had closed up the house and was chugging merrily away from the boathouse in my launch. Navigation was no difficult problem here; I merely had to head straight up the lake, which I did. The voyage was monotonous, as are all launch trips in ordinary craft, and as I throbbed along the wind-ruffled water the memory of M. J. B. recurred to me with a twinge of self-irritation that I had not even her name.

      Why had she warned me? And who was the dark-complected chap who had cut at my tires back at McGray’s Tavern? And who had fired that shot at me? These were perplexing problems, but M. J. B. was more perplexing yet. I once again pictured her face before my mental vision, the trim sweetness of her, the capable manner which she wore, the energetic womanhood that lay in her blue eyes—

      “Hang it!” I exclaimed. “I’m getting romantic—it won’t do, Yorke Desmond! You’ll never see that girl again, so forget her.”

      Easier said than done. I was still thinking of her as I tied up to the dock at Lakeport and walked uptown past the library to the main street. And within five minutes I was thinking of her again.

      The telegraph-office was a dingy little place, messages being received here by phone. When I inquired for any wires, the young lady in charge handed me an envelope. I found it to be a night-letter from the cashier of my bank in Los Angeles. It read as follows:

      Check for ten thousand, cashed yesterday First National, San Francisco, returned here this afternoon. Endorsements John Balliol, Martha J. Balliol. No further developments suicide. Good luck with ranch.

      The ulterior meaning of this message gradually percolated through my brain, and I wandered forth to a bench on the courthouse square and sank to rest.

      The check had been cashed the same morning I left San Francisco, and it had been cashed by Martha J. Balliol—no other than M. J. B.! No wonder she had seemed to know my name, when she must have borne in her pocketbook that check of mine! Balliol had given it to her the previous night, just before his suicide; so much was evident.

      But—she had been Balliol’s sister, then! Why had she not admitted her identity? Perhaps she would have done so, I argued, but for the news of her brother’s death. After that, to find herself traveling in her brother’s car, with the man who had bought that car and the ranch to boot, must have disconcerted her immensely at first. And after telling me that she was a friend of Balliol, she probably had lacked the nerve to confess her white lie and give her real name. Perhaps she had merely considered it unnecessary.

      I felt relieved. Folly though it undoubtedly was, I had indulged a secret conviction that M. J. B. was Balliol’s sweetheart; now she proved to be his sister, but although this fact afforded great relief, it none the less gave me new anxiety. I have always noticed that girls, especially very charming and attractive girls like Martha Balliol, are all too seldom free and heart-whole. Somebody else always seems to get acquainted with them first. That was one reason that I was still a bachelor!

      But never had I met anyone like Martha Balliol. The more I thought about her, the more I felt like a fool for having left her in San Francisco as I had done. At last, realizing that I had bungled everything very sadly, and that it was now close to noon and I was hungry, I got up and sauntered toward the bank seeking information. On the way, however, I passed a hardware store, and bethought me of the pterodactyl. There was an attractive display of guns in the window, so I entered and besought the proprietor to sell me a shotgun.

      “Want a license, I s’pose?” he inquired amiably. “I’m the game warden here, y’know. I dunno why you’re goin’ after deer with a shotgun—”

      “I’m not,” I rejoined. “I’m going after pterodactyls, and there’s no closed season on them!”

      He rubbed his chin, and with a mystified air agreed with me. “Well, I reckon not. Say, you the man just bought the Balliol ranch?”

      “Yes. Desmond is my name.”

      “Stark’s mine. Glad to meet ye. Seen any ghosts around there yet?”

      “Ghosts?” I met his eye, and he chuckled. “What do you mean?”

      “Well, that place is built right close to where the old Injun chiefs is buried, and I hear tell they’s ghosts around there at times.”

      “Nothing doing,” I rejoined cheerfully. “Not so far, anyhow. Where’s the best place to get a meal in town?”

      “Well, ye might go several places, but if I was you, I’d go up to Mrs. Sinjon’s, back o’ the courthouse.”

      He directed me, and leaving the shotgun until after luncheon, I went to the boardinghouse back of the town square.

      Ghosts, eh? That was a new angle. Had the natives played unpleasant jokes upon John Balliol, because of his skull decorations? No; the very notion was silly. Grave, stolid farmer folks like Dawson were not given to such trivial foolishness. Besides, Balliol’s affrighted nerves must have come from months and years of fear, not days or weeks. And jokes do not extend over months and years.

      I found the boardinghouse simple and thoroughly delightful, the cooking wholesome, the company very mixed, ranging from a stage driver to an itinerant preacher. It was a warm noon, and conversation flagged. I was just finishing my meal, when, in the intermittent and broken-off speech of farming men, two workmen at the other end of the table spoke.

      “Heard young Balliol’s sister come in this mornin’,” said one.

      “Uhuh,” said the other, and looked toward the stage driver. “Good looker, Mac?”

      The stage driver glanced up. “Got him beat all hollow,” he observed. “Come in on the morning train. Going up the lake, I reckon.”

      I paid for my meal and departed, feeling a bit dizzy. Balliol’s sister! What the deuce was she doing here?

      Calling for my gun at the hardware store, I arranged about mail at the post-office, then went down to the dock. And out on the dock, all alone, she was standing!

      CHAPTER VII

      I Make Discoveries

      To see me sauntering along with a gun under my arm, seemed to cause her some alarm. And, too, she seemed very self-repressive; her greeting was cold. Then, with a quick change of mood, she smiled.

      “Are you going hunting like everyone else, Mr. Desmond?”

      “I am, Miss Balliol,” I responded.

      An adorable flush stole into her cheeks, but her blue eyes did not falter.

      “I must apologize for that,” she said simply. “It was abominable! But at first, I—I said that I was a friend—”

      “And you turned out to be a sister,” I cut in. “Please, Miss Balliol, don’t explain; I figured it out for myself later on, and I understand perfectly. But, if it is not an impertinence, may I ask what on earth you’re doing here? This is an outlandish place in which to meet anyone—particularly a person of whom one has thought so much and often.”

      Her gaze dwelt upon me thoughtfully, searchingly, even suspiciously.

      “To be candid, Mr. Desmond, I hadn’t the least intention of confiding in you,” she stated coolly. “But I can’t

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