Excellency not only knew him, but for days now, taking up the trail at a certain canal, he had traveled hard over roads strangely littered with hay and food and linen collars—­to find that romantic ensemble.  He added with grim humor that he fancied the Duke of Connecticut knew him too.  The Duke dryly admitted that this might be so.  His memory, though conveniently porous at times, was for the most part excellent.

“What is he doing?” asked the Baron with an ominous glint of his fine eyes.

“Excellency,” said Philip, staring hard at the end of his cigarette, “by every subtle device at his command, he is making graceful love to Miss Westfall, who is sufficiently wholesome and happy and absorbed in her gypsy life not to know it—­yet!”

The Barents explosive “Ah!” was a compound of wrath and outraged astonishment.  Philip felt his attitude toward his chief undergoing a subtle revolution.

“His discretion,” added Philip warmly, “has departed to that forgotten limbo which has claimed his beard.”

The Baron was staring very hard at the camp fire.

“So,” said he at last,—­“it is for this that I have been—­” he searched for an expressive Americanism, and shrugging, invented one, “thunder-cracking along the highway in search of the man Themar saw by the fire of Miss Westfall.  ‘It is incredible—­it can not be!’ said I, as I blistered about, searching here, searching there, losing my way and thunder-cracking about in dead of night—­all to pick up the trail of a green and white van and a music-machine!  ’It is unbelievable—­it is a monstrous mistake on the part of Themar!’ But, Poynter, this love making, in the circumstances, passes all belief!” The Baron added that twice within the week he had passed the hay-camp but that by some unlucky fatality he had always contrived to miss the music-machine.

“Days back,” rumbled the Baron thoughtfully, “I assigned to Themar the task of discovering the identity of the man who—­er—­acquired a certain roadster of mine and who, I felt fairly certain, would not lose track of Miss Westfall but Themar, Poynter, came to grief—­”

“Yes?” said Philip coolly.  “You interest me exceedingly.”

“He made his way back to me after many weeks of illness,” said the Baron slowly, “with a curious tale of a terrible thrashing, of a barge and mules, of rough men who kicked him about and consigned him to a city jail under the malicious charge of a mule-driver who swore that he loved not black-and-tans—­”

“Lord!” said Philip politely; “that was tough, wasn’t it?”

“Just what, Poynter,” begged the Baron, “is a black-and-tan?”

Mr. Poynter fancied he had heard the term before.  It might have reference to the color of a man’s skin and hair.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the Baron’s camp.  The Baron himself was the first to break it.

“Poynter,” said he bluntly, “the circumstances of our separation at Sherrill’s have engendered, with reason, a slight constraint.  There was a night when you grievously misjudged me—­”