“Hang him! What does he mean?” broke out Chanler querulously, as soon
as we were out of hearing. “What does he mean, Gardy? What’s he got up
his sleeve? He means something. Probably got some of the crew waiting
to waylay us, steal our canoe, or something like that. Hang it!”
“I don’t think so, George,” said Betty. “There haven’t been any of the
men about since we got here. They went straight on into the woods, and
Dr. Olson and the captain went with them. The captain came back alone,
something over an hour ago. He said the rest were hunting gold up in
the hills and wouldn’t be back for some time.”
“Well, hang it! He’s got something,” began George again, but I managed
to catch him by the arm and draw him back out of Betty’s hearing.
“Forget yourself for the present,” I whispered. “Think of Miss Baldwin
a little.”
“I think he’s bluffing,” I said aloud. “As Miss Baldwin says, there
can’t be any of the men around here. He was talking to frighten us.
We’ll go straight down to the canoe.”
“Surely, surely!” said George, with an assumed laugh. “I see now he
was bluffing. It’s all right, Betty. Jolly, little evening party, I
call it.”
I dropped behind, letting them go on ahead, and I heard the rumble of
George’s voice without hearing what he was saying. But from its tone I
knew what it was: he was apologizing, explaining, promising.
“I’m sorry I said what I did when I first saw you, George,” Betty was
saying as we neared the place where our canoe was tied.
“What was that? ’Bout my being sober? Ha! I deserved that, Betty;
don’t let that trouble you. It’s all over now. Every thing’s turning
out fine now, and—there’s our canoe. Nothing to that bluff of cappy’s,
Gardy,” he called back to me.
“Of course not,” I said. “Now we’ll just paddle home and——”
“And live happy ever afterward,” he laughed.
Betty seated herself in the middle of the little craft without a word,
and we remained silent while we shot down the river, into the bay, and
turned our bow toward the yacht.
“Tell us all about it, Betty,” said George, at last. “By Jove! You
made cappy look foolish.”
Betty waited several minutes before replying:
“Well, when Captain Brack came back the first time, in the morning, he
said that you, Mr. Pitt, had decided to go with them when they left
the yacht at daylight, and that you had remained up at the mine with
the men. Then he went away again and returned about noon. He said that
you were still up there, and that you’d suggested it would be a
pleasant thing for me to come up when they returned. I don’t suppose I
should have gone, really, but there wasn’t anything about that to keep
me from going, was there?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “On the contrary it was quite natural that
you should go.”
“I know it. But at the same time I had a feeling—a tiny, tiny
feeling—that everything wasn’t quite right. There wasn’t any reason
why I should, unless possibly it was the way he looked at me. I can’t
explain what it was, but I had that feeling. I wanted to ask somebody,
but—but——”
“Rub it into me, Betty,” laughed George. “I deserve it: I wasn’t fit
to be asked anything.”
“I didn’t know then, George,” she said gently. “You’ll forgive me?”
“All my fault; make it up, though,” he said. “Go on.”
“Then I saw Dr. Olson getting into the boat, but still I didn’t feel
quite right about going. Then the captain—” she hesitated a
moment—“Captain Brack said: ‘Get in; you know you are coming with us.
Don’t delay.’ And before I knew it I was in the boat and we were
rowing away.
“There was a man waiting for us when we got up at the mine—that big,
rough man.”
“Garvin.”
“And he spoke something to Captain Brack, and the captain and the
doctor and the man hurried away into the hills on the other side of
the lake. The captain said that you were out there with the men, Mr.
Pitt, and that he’d tell you that I was there and you’d be back soon.
Well, that’s about all. I had a lovely time roaming around that lake
by myself for hours. And every minute I was getting more and more
convinced that the captain had lied. When he came back alone I knew
that he had.”
“Because he was alone?”
“No-o-o! Not only that. It was the way he looked at me. On the yacht
I’d often wondered if he really was nice, or if he was just
pretending. Now he’d quit pretending, and he—he wasn’t nice at all.
You can’t guess what he did?”