Then he sat down, loaded his pipe, and smoked until he could hardly see the walls of his little room.

From the moment of his landing on the island he turned the events of the day over in his mind.

Yet when he arrived at the end of them he was no less mystified than when he began.

Who was Obadiah Price?
Who was the girl that fate had so mysteriously associated with his movements thus far?
What was the plot in which he had accidentally become involved?
With tireless tenacity he hung to these questions for hours.

That there was a plot of some kind he had not the least doubt.