Meanwhile, I had been jogging along through the country, lonely and disconsolate.  I don’t know how it happened, but I suppose it was by some subconscious desire.  At any rate I found myself at the road that came out across one leading to the St. Germain and it occurred to me that Elaine might by this time have purchased enough frocks to clothe her for a year.  At any rate I quickened my pace in the hope of seeing her.

Suddenly, my horse shied and a familiar little car flashed past me.  But the driver was not familiar.  It was Elaine’s roadster.  In it was a stranger—­a man who looked like a “bugologist,” as nearly as I can describe him.  Was he running off with her car while she was waiting inside the hotel?

I galloped after him.

Del Mar’s automobile, with Elaine bound and gagged in it, drove rapidly by back and unfrequented ways into the country until at last it pulled up before an empty two-story house in a sort of grove of trees.

The men leaped out, lifted Elaine, and carried her bodily into the house, taking her up-stairs and into an upper room.  She had fainted when they laid her down and loosened the dress from about her face so that she could breathe.  There they left her, on the floor, her hands and feet bound, and went out.

How long she lay there, she never knew, but at last the air revived her and she regained consciousness and sat up.  Her muscles were sore and her head ached.  But she set her teeth and began struggling with the cords that bound her, managing at last to pull the dress over herself at least.

In Elaine’s car, the naturalist drove slowly at times, following the tracks of the automobile ahead.  At last, however, he came to a place where he saw that the tracks went up a lonely side road.  To approach in a car was to warn whoever was there.  He ran the cat up alongside the road in the bushes and jumped out leaving it and following the tracks up the side roadway.

As he approached a single deserted house, he left even the narrow road altogether and plunged into the woods, careful to proceed noiselessly.  Through the bushes, near the house, he peered.  There he could see one of Del Mar’s men in the doorway, apparently talking to others behind him.

Stealthily the naturalist crept around, still hiding, until he was closer to the house on the other side.  At last he worked his way around to the rear door.  He tried it.  It was bolted and even the skeleton key was unavailing to slide the bolt.  Seconds were precious.

Quickly, he went to the corner of the house.  There was a water-leader.  He began to climb it, risking its precarious support.

On the roof at last, the naturalist crawled along, looking for some way of getting into the house.  But he could not seem to find any.  Carefully, he crawled to the edge of the roof and looked over.  Below, he could hear sounds, but could make nothing of them.

From his pocket, he took the leather case and opened it.  There was a peculiar arrangement, like some of the collapsible arms on which telephone instruments are often fastened to a desk or wall, capable of being collapsed into small space or of being extended for some distance.  On the thing was arranged a system of mirrors, which the naturalist adjusted.