Then he dodged cautiously along the edge of the bushes, keeping half within their cover, and moved swiftly in the opposite direction toward the center of the island.

Nathaniel's blood leaped with a desire to follow.

The night before he had guessed that Obadiah with his gold and his smoldering passion was not a man to isolate himself in the heart of the forest.

Here--across the open--was evidence of another side of his life.

In that great square-built domicile of logs, screened so perfectly by flowering lilac, lived Obadiah's wives.