“I don’t want to appear fussy, Hood,” Deering began good-naturedly, “but would you mind telling me what’s next on your programme?”
“Not in the slightest. It’s just occurred to me that it would be well to dine to-night in one of the handsome villas scattered through these hills. Still following the slipper, we shall choose one somewhere east of the inn and present ourselves confidently at the front door. Failing there, we shall assault the postern and, perhaps, enrich our knowledge of life with the servants’ gossip.”
“There are some famous kennels in this neighborhood, and I’d hate awfully to have an Airedale bite a hole in my leg,” Deering suggested.
“My dear boy, that’s the tamest thing that could happen to us! My calves are covered with scars from dogs’ teeth; you soon get hardened to canine ferocity. We’ll take a tramp for an hour to work the fuzz off our gray matter, and then a nap to freshen us up for the evening. We shall learn much to-night; I’m confident of that.”
There seemed to be no way of escaping Hood or changing his mind once he announced a decision. The programme was put through exactly as he had indicated. The important thing about the tramp was that Cassowary accompanied them on the walk, and Deering found him both agreeable and interesting. He discoursed of polo, last year’s Harvard-Yale football game, and ice-boating, in which he seemed deeply experienced.
Hood left them to look for hieroglyphics on a barn which he said was a veritable palimpsest of cryptic notations of roving thieves.
Cassowary’s manner underwent a marked change when he and Deering were alone.
“If you’re going to give the old boy the slip,” he said earnestly, “I want you to give me notice. I’m not going to be left alone with him.”
Their eyes met in a long scrutiny; then Deering laughed.
“I don’t know how you feel about it, but, by George, I’m afraid to shake him!”