“What the deuce—­” he faltered.  Then once more he fainted away.

Twenty minutes later, Phebe was rushing away to the nearest house in search of help.  There was but one house within reach, however, and fate willed that she should find that deserted.  She hesitated whether she should ride on for two miles farther, or go back to her victim, and she decided upon the latter course.  It seemed hours to her before she reached the top of the hill again.  Then she stopped short, dismounted and stared down the slope in astonishment.  Her victim had vanished from the scene.  Only the skull remained to mark the spot where he had lain, two deep tracks in the soft mud to show the way by which he had gone.

“Well, Babe?” Allyn’s voice hailed her, as she rode wearily up the drive, the water squelching in her shoes and her soaked skirt flapping dismally about her pedals.  “Were you out in all that shower?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you go under cover?”

“There wasn’t any cover to go under.”  Phebe’s tone was not altogether amicable.

“But the mud?  It’s all over your face, and your wheel, and your hair.”

“I fell off.”

“Where?”

“Coming down Bannock Hill.  I lost my pedals, and my wheel slipped in the mud.”

“Bannock Hill?  That’s a bad place to fall.  Break anything?”

“You can look and see.”

But Allyn was not to be suppressed.

“Where’s your hat?”

She started slightly and raised her hand to her head.  It was bare.

“Oh, yes,” she said unguardedly.  “I remember now.  I must have left it where I sat.”

“Sat!” Allyn stared at his sister in amazement.  “What did you do?  Sit down to study the landscape?”

But Phebe stalked up the steps and into the house, and Allyn saw her no more until dinner-time.

Two days later, Allyn burst into the office where Phebe was bending over a book.  In his hand was an unfolded newspaper which he flapped excitedly, as she looked up.

“There are others, Babe.”

“What do you mean?”

“This.  Listen!  Oh, where is the thing?  Here it is, in the Bannock correspondence of the Times.  Listen!  ’Mr. G. Bartlett, the musician who is sojourning at Mr. Jas. Sykes’s farm, sustained a bad fall from his bicycle on Bannock Hill, last Tuesday.  His injuries are serious, including a cut on his temple and a compound fracture of the right arm.  Dr. Starr reduced the fracture and reports the patient as doing as well as—­’ you see somebody else slipped up on that hill, Babe.  You ought to feel you came out of it pretty well.”

Phebe looked up with a frown.

“Go away, Allyn; I’m busy,” she said sharply.

Three weeks later, Phebe had occasion to make another trip to see Mrs. Richardson.  This time, she chose the hill road, the one which led past the Sykes farm.  Gifford Barrett was sauntering along by the roadside, smoking.  His arm was in a sling, his hat drawn forward, half concealing the patch of plaster on his temple.  As she passed, Phebe looked him full in the face, and instinctively his hand went to his cap, though without any sign of recognition.