“Shucks! It’s too bad,” she said. “You play it so well it’s a shame
you don’t like to do it.”
We ran alongside the ledge and found that its flat top was just out of
reach above our heads. A canoe offers no safe foundation to leap from
and for the moment I was nonplused.
Betty, her hand resting on the flat surface of the rocks, found a
crevice. On closer examination it proved to be only a slight crack,
not large enough to provide a foothold, but Betty was thrusting at the
opening with the blade of her paddle.
“Ah! There we are!” she chuckled, as the thin paddle entered the
crack. “There’s a step for us.”
“How did you ever think of that?” I exclaimed.
“I used to play Injun, too,” she replied.
With the paddle as a step I was able to reach the top of the ledge and
draw myself up. Betty then passed me the paddles and the painter of
the canoe. Lying flat down on the ledge I stretched my arms downward
until our hands met. Her strong warm fingers gripped my wrists and I
promptly imitated her grasp.
“Now!” I said, and as she leaped I pulled upward with all my might.
Her hair brushed my eyes as she came up over the edge, and when our
fingers released each other’s wrists, I was vaguely conscious that
something strange had happened, though I did not know what. We drew
the canoe up together. It had been my intention merely to hide it in
the brush out of sight of the bay, but now another idea presented
itself.
I gave Betty the paddles and with the canoe on my back started up the
hill for my cave.
“No, sir,” objected Betty. “That isn’t fair. If we’re going to play
Injun I want my share of the game.”
I protested; the distance was short, the weight slight; but in the end
the march was resumed with each of us sharing equally the weight of
the canoe.
A seventy-pound canoe is no burden for two people in the open. But our
way lay in the darkness up a rocky ridge, through brush and timber,
and we tripped and fell, ran into trees, got caught in the brush, and
suffered other minor mishaps until I stopped and insisted that Betty
allow me to carry the canoe alone.
“No, sir,” she repeated firmly. “I’m not stumbling any more than you
are. Be fair and let me play, too.”
We compromised by putting down the canoe, and, leaving Betty to wait
beside it, I went on to locate my cave. I found it, as I had that
morning, by stumbling into it.
I struck a match and glanced at the spot where I had hid the rifle.
Then I stood staring dumbly until the match burned down to my fingers.
For the second time that night I experienced the same shock; the rifle
was gone; someone had been in the cave.
* * * * *
When I returned to Betty my self-control had been regained. Whatever
the significance of the rifle’s disappearance might be Betty must have
shelter for the night, and the cave was the only place available for
that purpose. We carried the canoe thither and I lighted my piece of
candle and stepped down.
The cave really was a wedge-shaped opening in the side of the hill,
its mouth probably twenty feet across, and about the same in depth.
Betty cried out as the candle-light revealed the place.
“Why it’s almost jolly! It’s a perfect place to play Injun.”
We slid the canoe down and placed it as near the back of the cave as
it would go.
“That,” said I, “is going to be your bed,” and clambering out I began
to gather armfuls of fragrant small branches and brush.
The canoe was soon half filled, and, spreading the blanket over the
boughs, I said—
“Whenever you are ready to retire, there is your chamber.”
“How jolly!” she cried.
Then she stopped. A new expression, which I misread, came into her
eyes.
“I have my lodgings up the hill a ways,” I said hurriedly. “I’ll bid
you good night.”
“Mr. Pitt!” she said, and for the first time her under lip trembled
suspiciously.
“It’s a considerable distance away,” I assured her. “I’ll be quite out
of sight. Really, you needn’t——”
Her lip ceased trembling. A tiny twinkle came into her eyes, a trace
of a smile showed in the corners of her mouth.
“Good gracious!” she cried. “I believe that you—you think I’m
worrying—about being alone with you!”