"Yes, sah, Colonel!"

"Um! Well, see that you mind!"

Selecting with care a fly from his numerous collection, and hoping the appet.i.tes of the fish would incline them to consider it favorably that morning, Colonel Ashley proceeded to make his casts, standing not far from a bent, gnarled and twisted elm tree, that overhung the bank of the stream where the current had cut into the soil, making a deep eddy, in which a lazy trout might choose to lie in wait for some choice morsel.

Lightly as a falling feather, the fisherman let his fly come to rest on the sun-lit water, and, hardly had it sent the first, few faint ripples circling toward sh.o.r.e than there was a shrill song of the reel, and the rod became a bent bow.

"By the bones of Sir Izaak!" cried the colonel, "I've hooked one, s.h.a.g!"

"De Lord be praised! So yo' has, Colonel!" cried the negro.

"Shut up!" ordered the colonel, who was beginning to play his fish.

"Did I tell you to speak?"

But s.h.a.g only laughed. He knew his master.

After ten minutes of skilful work, during which time the trout nearly got away by shooting under a submerged log like an undersea boat diving beneath a battle cruiser, the colonel landed his fish, dropping it, panting, on the green gra.s.s. Then he looked up at s.h.a.g and remarked:

"Didn't I tell you this was a perfectly beautiful day?"

"Yo' suah did, Colonel," was the chuckling answer. "Yo' suah did!"

And so much at peace with himself and all the world was Colonel Robert Lee Ashley just then that, when the crackling of the underbrush behind him, a moment later, gave notice that some one was approaching, there was even a smile on his face, though, usually, he could not bear to be intruded upon when fishing.

Rather idly the colonel, having mercifully killed his fish by a blow on top of the head and slipped it into the gra.s.s-lined creel, looked up to see approaching a young lady and a tall and somewhat lanky boy. There was some thing vaguely familiar about the boy, though the fisherman did not tax his mind with remembering, then, where or when he had seen him before.

"There he is," went the words of the boy, as he and the young woman came in sight of the colonel and s.h.a.g--but it was at the detective the lad pointed. "There he is!"

The girl rushed impulsively forward, and, as she held out her hands in a voiceless appeal, there was worry and anguish depicted on her face.

"Are you Colonel Brentnall?" she asked.

The colonel was sufficiently familiar with his alias not to betray surprise when it was used.

"I am," he said, and the peaceful, joyous look that had come into his eyes when he had landed his fish gave way to a hard and professional stare.

"Oh, Colonel Brentnall! I've come to ask you to help me--help him!

You will, won't you? Don't say you won't!"

The girl's face, her blue eyes, the outstretched hands, the very poise of her lithe, young body voiced the appeal.

"My dear young lady," began the colonel. But she interrupted with:

"You're the detective, aren't you?"

"Well--er--I--Say rather _a_ detective, for there are many, and I am only one."

"But you are the one from New York?"

"I am though I don't know how you guessed it. I am not here professionally, though--in fact, I've practically retired--and I would much prefer--"

"But you wouldn't refuse to help any one who needed it, would you? You wouldn't, I'm sure!" and the girl smiled through the tears in her blue eyes.

"Oh, of course, as a matter of humanity, I would not refuse to help any one. But, professionally--well, really, I'm not here in my detective role. I really can not consider anything at this time. I don't want to seem harsh, or impolite, but I can't--"

"Not even for double your usual fee? Listen! I am prepared to pay well for anything you can do for me--and him. My father is well off.

I have money in my own right. I'd spend the last dollar of that. And dad said, when I told him where I was going--Dad said he'd do the same. We both believe Jimmie is innocent, and we want to prove it to everybody as soon as we can. That's why I came right on to see you. I couldn't wait! Oh, perhaps I did wrong, coming this way--I'm sorry if I've spoiled your fishing. But this is such--such a _big_ thing--it means so much to him--to me! I--I--"

She faltered, looking from s.h.a.g to the colonel and then to the sympathetic colored man again, for on his face was a look of pity.

"How did you know I was here?" asked Colonel Ashley.

"I went to your hotel. The clerk told me you had come to this stream.

It's the only good one for trout around here besides the one on my father's farm."

"Has your father a trout stream?" and the eyes of the colonel took on a kindly gleam.

"He has, and it's well stocked. But please, won't you help me? You are the only one who can!"

"I'm not sure of that, my dear young lady. And, really, I hardly understand what it's all about. You say the hotel clerk told you I was here. I can understand that, for I asked him the best way to reach this place. But how did you know I was a detective and stopping at the Adams House?"

"He told me!" She pointed to the lanky youth.

The colonel and s.h.a.g turned their eyes on him. s.h.a.g gave a start of surprise. The colonel began to leaf over the brain tablets of his memory system. He was beginning to place the lad.

"Mah good land of ma.s.sy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the negro. "It's de train newsboy whut yo' give a dollar to las' night, Colonel!"

"The one who wanted to sell me a detective story?"

"I'm him, Colonel Brentnall," answered the lad, a smile of triumph lighting up his face. "Your man told me who you was, and I heard you tell the taxi man where to drive you. I didn't think anything more about it until I read about the murder."

"The murder!" exclaimed the colonel. Somehow that seemed to follow him as a Nemesis.

"Yes--old Mrs. Darcy--the jewelry store lady," went on the boy. "This young lady," and he nodded toward his companion, "when I told her--"

"Perhaps you had better let me explain, Tom," broke in the girl. "You see it's this way," she went on, addressing the colonel. "This boy is Tom Tracy. He sells papers on the express. He was once a jockey for my father, but he got hurt--stiff arm--and we had to get him something else to do. Dad always looks out for his boys, and so Tom went on the road."

"I had to do _something_ that had motion in it," Tom explained in an aside.

"Yes, it was as near to horseback riding as he could come," said the girl, and she smiled, though the grief did not leave her blue eyes.

"Well, as he has told you, he heard who you were, Colonel, from your man. Then when he read about the murder, and found how--how close home it came to _me_, he hurried out to our place and said I should engage you to help--"

"He's the biggest detective in New York!" broke in Tom. "And that's what we need--a big New York detective!"

"But what's it all about?" asked the colonel. "This is talking in riddles, though I begin to see a little--"

"I beg your pardon," said the girl. "I should have told you who I am.

My name is Amy Mason, and--"