Pieces of ancient pottery, quaint bleached bits of skeleton, beads and shells and trinkets of gold unearthed from the Florida sand mounds, moccasins and baskets, koonti starch and plumes, such were the picturesque wares which Keela peddled when the stir of her mingled blood drove her forth from the camp of her forbears.

Diane bought generously, harnessed her saddle with clanking relics and regretfully mounted her horse.

“Let me come again to-morrow!” she begged.

“Uncah!” granted the girl in Seminole and her great black eyes were very friendly.

Looking back as she rode through the flat-woods, Diane marveled afresh.  It was a far cry indeed from the camp of a Seminole to the legends of Rome.

But the primeval flavor of the night presently dissolved in the glare of acetylenes from a long gray car standing motionless by the roadside ahead.  The climbing moon shone full upon the face of a bareheaded motorist idly smoking a cigarette and waiting.

Diane reined in her horse with a jerk and a clank of relics.

“Philip Poynter!” she exclaimed.

The driver laughed.

“I wonder,” said he, “if you know what a shock you’ve thrown into your aunt by staying out in the flat-woods until dark.  She once knew a man who lost himself.  Incidentally they are mighty deceptive to wander about in.  The trees are so far apart that one never seems to get into them.  And then, having meanwhile effectively got in without knowing it, one never seems to get out.”

“Where,” demanded Diane indignantly, “did you come from anyway?”

“If you hadn’t been so ambitious,” Philip assured her with mild resentment, “you’d have seen me at breakfast.  I arrived at Sherrill’s last night.  As it is, I’ve been sitting here an hour or so watching you swap wildwood yarns with the aborigine yonder.  And Ann Sherrill sent me after you in Dick’s speediest car.  Ho, uncle!”

An aged negro appeared from certain shadows to which Philip had lazily consigned him.

“Uncle,” said Philip easily, “will ride your horse back to Sherrill’s for you.  I picked him up on the road.  You’ll motor back with me?”

Diane certainly would not.

“Then,” regretted Philip, “I’m reduced to the painful and spectacular expedient of just grazing the heels of your fiery steed with Dick’s racer all the way back to Sherrill’s and matching up his hoof-beats on the shell-road with a devil’s tattoo on the horn.”

Greatly vexed, Diane resigned her horse to the waiting negro, who rode off into the moonlight with a noisy clank.  Mr. Poynter’s face was radiant.

“And after running the chance of a night in the pine barrens,” he mused admiringly, “you amble out of the danger zone in the most matter-of-fact manner with your saddle clanking like a bone-yard.  I don’t wonder your aunt fusses.  What made the racket?”

“Bones and shells and things.”