Sam grinned cheerfully. “’Tis I,” he declared.  “I am here.  That is to say, the handsome youth whose footfalls you hear approaching upon horseback is none other than our hero.  Mary, you are, as usual, a sight to be thankful for.  How do you do?”

Mary admitted that she was in good health and then demanded to know what he was doing down on the Cape at that time of the year.  He sat down in a chair by the stove and propped his feet against the hearth before replying.

“Why!  Haven’t you guessed?” he asked, in mock amazement.  “Dear me!  I’m surprised.  I should have thought the weather would have suggested my errand.  Hear that zephyr; doesn’t it suggest bathing suits and outing flannels and mosquitoes and hammock flirtations?  Eh?”

The zephyr was a sixty-mile-an-hour March gale.  Sam replied to his own question.

“Answer,” he said, “it does not.  Right, my child; go up head.  But, honest Injun, I am down here on summer business.  That Mr. Raymond, Dad’s friend, who was visiting us this summer is crazy about the Cape.  He has decided to build a summer home here at South Harniss, and the first requisite being land to build it on he has asked Dad to buy the strip between our own property and the North Inlet, always provided it can be bought.  Dad asked me to come down here and see about it, so here I am.”

Mary considered.  “Oh, yes,” she said, after a moment, “I know the land you mean.  Who owns it?”

“That’s what I didn’t know,” said Sam.  “But I do know now.  I asked the first person I met after I got off the train and oddly enough he turned out to be the owner himself.  It was old Clifford—­Isaiah, Elisha, Hosea—­Jeremiah, that’s it.  I knew it was one of the prophets.”

“So Mr. Clifford owns that land.  I didn’t know that.”

“Neither did I. He didn’t tell me at first that he did own it.  Asked me what I wanted to know for.”

“Did you tell him?” asked Mary.

For the first time since Mr. Keith’s arrival that young gentleman’s easy assurance seemed a little shaken.  He appeared to feel rather foolish.

“Why, yes, to be honest, I did,” he admitted.  “I was an idiot, I suppose, but everyone asks about everyone’s else business down here and I didn’t think.  He kept talking and pumping and before I realized it I told him about Raymond’s being so anxious to get that property, being dead set on it and all that, and about my being commissioned to buy at any reasonable figure.  And then, after a while, he astonished me by saying he owned the land himself.  Confound it!  I suppose he’ll jam the price away up after what I told him.”

“Oh, then you haven’t bought?”

“Not yet.  I was willing, but for some reason he wouldn’t sell at once—­wouldn’t even talk price.  Wanted to think it over, he said.  I can’t wait now, but I am coming down again on Monday and we shall close the deal then.”

That evening Mary told Shadrach what Sam had said.  The Captain looked puzzled.