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 stranger for help that I, as his friend of long standing, would have loved to give.”

“I see,” said Jamie, quietly. “I am sorry you weren’t here. I think you are right about any one doing anything he asked, because here I am, and any one less suited for what he asked of me couldn’t have been found in the State. But because he asked it, I am here to try.”

A dry smile crossed Margaret Cameron’s face. Her eyes narrowed as they followed a line of vision that carried through the living room, through the combination kitchen and dining room, across the back porch and out to unmeasured leagues of the sea beyond—the Pacific Sea, the peaceful ocean that smiles and lures and invites and so very seldom shows the fangs and the jaws of the monster that lies lurking in its depths.

“I understand,” she said, quietly. “I know why you are here and I can see that you are not fit for work, Doctor Grayson mentioned that you looked mighty seedy. He thought you might have been one of ours, across.”

Jamie ran his fingers in his pocket and produced a Service Bar and two decorations for valour and held them toward her, and Margaret Cameron came forward and took his unsteady white hand in both of hers and said: “God love you, boy! I’ve got the Bee Master’s routine by heart myself, and while I don’t know as much about the bees as he has really been making a business of teaching the little Scout, I know enough to show you where the water pans are and how to keep them filled with the right combination of water—strange, but they like a sprinkle of