"Dr. Silsby—Inspector McCausland."
The men clasped hands.
"Didn't meet a maniac with a gash in his forehead on the way back, did you?" laughed McCausland.
"Maniac—well, no; but I've rooted out a peeping Tom there, that's been frightening the women."
"How was that?" asked Shagarach.
"It was those ferns did it. Aren't they beauties, though? Feel! Silky! Maidenhair! Rare variety."
"They helped you find the peeping Tom?" said Shagarach, who knew the botanist's tendency to forget.
"Oh, yes," said Dr. Silsby. "I was just about to tell that story. You know the hemlock forest back of the blue hills in Woodlawn—marshy place thereabouts, lots of clay in the soil—some of it on those boots, eh? Well, those ferns came from there. Didn't walk in of themselves, I guess. No, I had to wade for them. Pretty boggy, but not quite up to the Dismal swamp. Well, I was feeling about, pulling up things, when I came on the hut."
"A hut?"
"I call it a hut by courtesy. Begging your pardon, said I, and tumbled in the sides of it. Hadn't any door that I could see—only two loose boards—and was mighty poor carpenter work all over. Just a roof and three sides, the whole thing backed against a pudding-stone ledge that juts out into Hemlock lake."