"It suits me," he exclaimed, buoyantly. "I must have quiet and perfect relaxation. I will rent one of your tents and occupy it at once. I have been touring this part of the country looking for a spot which appealed to me."
"We have one on the hill yonder," Kit suggested. He seemed rather peculiar, and perhaps it would be just as well to sequester him as far off as possible. "It is right on the edge of the pines, and faces the west. The sunsets are beautiful from there."
"No, no," he repeated. "I like the sound of the water. I hear falls below here. I will take that tent I see over there."
So came the first tent dweller to Greenacres. Kit had still been in doubt, and taking no chances on strangers within the gates, she had guided Mr. Ormond up to her father to make the closing arrangements on renting the waterfall tent, as the girls called it, for the entire summer. The most amazing part was that he left a check that first day for $75.00, full rental for ten weeks.
"I must not be interrupted or bothered by little things," he told Mr. Robbins, earnestly. "I must have perfect isolation or I cannot do my work."
"Now, what on earth do you suppose he meant by that?" Kit asked, after the underslung gray roadster had passed out of sight. "My goodness, girls, he may be a counterfeiter. You can bet a cookie Gilead would look upon him as a suspicious character when he could pay seventy-five dollars right down all at once."
"I rather liked his face," Mrs. Robbins remarked, "and he gave your father excellent business references. I think you're very fortunate that he happened to travel this way."
He arrived promptly the following day and arranged with Shad to put up the automobile in the barn.
"Well, I've lugged down all his belongings to the tent," Shad said, rather hopelessly, that night, "and I can't find out for the life of me what kind of business he's in. He had a lot of heavy bundles, and I asked him a few questions about them, but he didn't seem to take kindly to it, so I let him alone. There's one thing though he's got, and that's a big photograph in a silver frame of an all-fired handsome woman he says is his wife. She's dressed just like a queen, crown and all."
Helen's eyes were bright with interest, as she listened, but Kit's straight, dark brows were drawn together in a frown of perplexity.