He led the two girls ashore and up through the town to a moss-green bungalow, its newness attested by the yellow sawdust and fresh shavings which lay about.  Amid their exclamations of delight he showed them the neatly furnished interior, and among other wonders a bedroom daintily done in white, with white curtains at the mullioned windows and a suite of wicker furniture.

“Where he dug all that up I don’t know,” Dan said, pointing to the bed and dresser and chairs.  “He must have had it hidden out somewhere.”

Eliza surveyed this chamber with wondering eyes.  “It makes me feel quite ashamed,” she said, “though, of course, he did it for Dan.  When he discovers my abominable mission he’ll probably set me out in the rain and break all my lead-pencils.  But—­isn’t he magnificent?”

“He quite overwhelms one,” Natalie agreed.  “Back in New York, he’s been sending me American Beauties every week for more than a year.  It’s his princely way.”  She colored slightly, despite the easy frankness of her manner.

“Oh, he’s always doing something like that,” Dan informed them, whereupon his sister exclaimed: 

“You see, Natalie!  The man is a viper.  If he let his beard grow I’m sure we’d see it was blue.”

“You shall have an opportunity of judging,” came O’Neil’s voice from behind them, and he entered with hands outstretched, smiling at their surprise.  When he had expressed his pleasure at Natalie’s presence and had bidden both her and Eliza welcome to Omar, he explained: 

“I’ve just covered eighteen miles on a railroad tricycle and my back is broken.  The engines were busy, but I came, anyhow, hoping to arrive before the steamer.  Now what is this I hear about my beard?”

It was Eliza’s turn to blush, and she outdid Natalie.

“They were raving about your gallantry,” said Dan with all a brother’s ruthlessness, “until I told them it was merely a habit of mind with you; then Sis called you a Bluebeard.”

O’Neil smiled, stroking his stubbly chin.  “You see it’s only gray.”

“I—­don’t see,” said Eliza, still flushing furiously.

“You would if I continued to let it grow.”

“Hm-m!  I think, myself, it’s a sort of bluish gray,” said Dan.

“You are still working miracles,” Natalie told O’Neil, an hour later, while he was showing his visitors the few sights of Omar—­ “miracles of kindness, as usual.”

Dan and his sister were following at a distance, arm in arm and chattering like magpies.

“No, no!  That cottage is nothing.  Miss Appleton had to have some place to stop.”

“This all seems like magic.”  Natalie paused and looked over the busy little town.  “And to think you have done it in a year.”

“It was not I who did it; the credit belongs to those ‘boys’ of whom I told you.  They are all here, by the way—­Parker, McKay, Mellen, Sheldon, ‘Doc’ Gray—­he has the hospital, you know.”