Chapter 15 - Page 2

steps of the La Branche mansion. He approached with a view to parleying, but the man forestalled him" saying warningly:

"You can't go in. They've got smallpox in there."

"Smallpox!"

"Go away from that door!" screamed Myra Nell; but the fellow merely scowled.

"I hate to offend the lady," he explained to Norvin, in a hoarse whisper; "but I can't let her out."

Miss Warren repeated in a fury:

"Go away, I tell you. These are friends of mine. If you were a gentleman you'd know you're not wanted. Norvin, make him skedaddle."

Blake shook his head. "You've scared us all blue. If you're quarantined I don't see what we can do."

"The idea! You can at least come in."

"If you go in, you can't come out," belligerently declared the watchman. "Them's orders."

"Oh-h! You monster!" cried his prisoner.

"She says herself she's got it," the man explained.

"I never did!" Myra Nell wrung her hands. "Will you stand there and let me perish? Do you refuse to save me?"

"Where is Madame la Branche?" Norvin asked.

"Asleep. And Cousin Montegut is playing solitaire in the library."

"Then who has the smallpox?"

"The cook! They took her screaming to the pest-house an hour after I came. I shall be the next victim; I feel it. We're shut up here for a week, maybe longer. Think of that! There's nothing to do, nobody to talk to, nothing to look at. We need another hand for whist. I--I supposed somebody would volunteer."

"I'd love to," Rilleau called, faintly, from the curb, "but I wouldn't survive a week. My heart is beating its last, and besides--I don't play whist."

Mr. Cline called the attention of his companions to two figures which had appeared in the distance, and began to chant:

"The animals came in two by two, The elephant and the kangaroo,"

"Gentlemen, here come the porpoise and the antelope. We are now complete."

The new arrivals proved to be Bernie Dreux and August Kulm, the latter a fat Teutonic merchant whose place of business was down near the river. Mr. Kulm had evidently run all the way, for he was laboring heavily and his gait had long since slackened into a stumbling trot. His eyes were rolling wildly; his fresh young cheeks were purple and sheathed in perspiration.

Miss Warren exclaimed, crossly:

"Oh, dear! I didn't send for Bernie. I'll bet he's furious."

And so it proved. When her half-brother's horrified alarm had been dispelled by the noisy group of rescuers it was replaced by the blackest indignation. He thanked them stiffly and undertook to apologize for his sister, in