“That’s it—­orchids!” breaks in Mr. Robert.  “Robbie expects a bunch from me about every so often.  The very thing!”

So less’n an hour later I’m on my way, with fifty dollars’ worth of freak posies in a box, and instructions to stick around Thundercaps as long as I can, with my eyes wide open and my ears stretched.  Mr. Robert figures I’ll land there too late for the night train back, anyway, and after that I’m to use my bean.  If I finds the case desp’rate, I’m to beat it for the nearest telegraph office and wire in.

“Poor little girl!” is Mr. Robert’s closin’ remark.  “Poor little Robbie!”

Cheerful sort of an errand, wa’n’t it, bein’ sent to butt in on a Keno curtain raiser?  Easy enough workin’ up sympathy for the abused bride.  Why, she wa’n’t much more’n a kid, and one who’d been coddled and petted all her life, at that!  And here she ups and marries offhand this two-fisted young hick who turns out to be bad inside.  You wouldn’t have guessed it, either; for, barrin’ a kind of heavy jaw and deep-set eyes, he had all the points of a perfectly nice young gent.  Good fam’ly too.  Mr. Robert knew two of his brothers well, and durin’ the coo campaign he’d rooted for Nick.  Then he had to show a streak like this!

“But wait!” thinks I.  “If I can get anything on him, he sure will have it handed to him hot when Mr. Robert arrives.  I want to see it done too.”

You don’t get to places like Thundercaps in a minute, though.  It’s the middle of the afternoon before I jumps the way train at a little mountain station, and then I has to hunt up a jay with a buckboard and take a ten-mile drive over a course like a roller coaster.  They ought to smooth that Adirondack scenery down some.  Crude stuff, I call it.

But, say, the minute we got inside Thundercaps’ gates it’s diff’rent—­smooth green lawns, lots of flowerbeds, a goldfish pool,—­almost like a chunk of Central Park.  In the middle is a white-sided, red-tiled shack, with pink and white awnings, and odd windows, and wide, cozy verandas,—­just the spot where you’d think a perfectly good honeymoon might be pulled off.

I’m just unloadin’ my bag and the flowerbox when around a corner of the cottage trips a cerise-tinted vision in an all lace dress and a butterfly wrap.  Course, it’s Robbie.  She’s heard the sound of wheels, and has come a runnin’.

“Oh!” says she, stoppin’ sudden and puckerin’ her baby mouth into a pout.  “I thought someone was arriving, you know.”  Which was a sad jolt to give a rescuer, wa’n’t it?

“Sorry,” says I; “but I’m all there is.”

“You’re the boy from Uncle Robert’s office—­Torchy, isn’t it?” says she.

“It is,” says I.  “Fired up with flowers and Mr. Robert’s compliments.”

“The old dear!” says she, grabbin’ the box, slippin’ off the string and divin’ into the tissue paper.  “Orchids, too!  Oh, goody!  But they don’t go with my coat.  Pooh!  I don’t need it, anyway.”  With that she, sheds the butterfly arrangement, chuckin’ it casual on the steps, and jams the whole of that fifty dollars’ worth under her sash.  “There, how does that look, Mr. Torchy?” says she, takin’ a few fancy steps back and forth.