“I commit my happiness to your keeping,” he answered.
“I wonder that you have got off so cheaply,” I said. “I should think there might have been a dozen pirates in the chase instead of two.”
“Circumstances have favored me,” he explained. “I spent my youth in Germany, where I was educated. I had been in America only six months when my father failed. In those days I was known as Jackson W. Norris. In California I got into a row and had my nose broken. I was a good-looking man before that. Then, you see, it has been a rule of my life to keep my face from being photographed. Of course, the papers have had snap-shots of me; but no one who knew me as a boy would recognize this bent nose and wrinkled face of mine. I have discouraged all manner of publicity relating to me and kept my history under cover as a thing that concerned no one but myself.”
I had requested that our ride should end at the railroad-station, and we arrived there in good time for my train.
“I will ask Wilton, my pirate friend, to call on you,” he said.
“Let him call Friday at twelve with a note from you,” I requested.
Gwendolyn Norris and Richard Forbes were waiting at the station, the latter being on his way to town.
“Going back? You ought to know better,” I said.
“So I do, but business is business,” he answered.
“And there's no better business for any one than playing with a fair maid.”