"Didn't _you_?"
"I--I never even thought of it. F-fire crackers frighten me. I thought
it would be all I could do to fire off my shot-gun." And she bit her lip
with vexation.
"Why," he said, "it would take a gang of men a week to cut through this
Causeway, besides building a coffer-dam." He looked at her curiously.
"How did _you_ expect to begin operations all alone?"
"I--I expected to dig."
He looked at her delicate little hands:
"You meant to dig your way through with pick and shovel?"
"Yes--if it took a year."
"And how did you expect to construct your coffer-dam?"
"I didn't know about a coffer-dam," she admitted, blushing. After a
moment she lifted her pretty, distressed eyes to his: "I--I had no
knowledge--only courage," she said.... "And I needed money."
A responsive flush of sympathy and pity passed over him; she was so
plucky, so adorably helpless. Even now he knew she was unconscious of
the peril into which her confidence and folly had led her--a peril
averted only by the mere accident of his own arrival.
He said lightly: "Shall we try to solve this thing now? Shall we take a
chance, set our charges, and blow a hole in this Causeway big enough to
drain that water off in an hour?"
"Could you do _that_?" she exclaimed, delighted.
"I think so."
"Then tell me what to do to help you."
He turned toward her, hesitated, controlling the impulsive reply.
"To help me," he said, smilingly, "please keep away from the dynamite."
"Oh, I will," she nodded seriously. "What else am I to do?"
"Would you mind preparing dinner?"
She looked up at him a little shyly: "No.... And I am very glad that I
am not to dine alone."
"So am I," he said. "And I am very glad that it is with _you_ I am to
dine."
"You never even looked at me in the galleries," she said.
"Then--how could I know you were reading Valdez if I never looked at
you?"
"Oh, you may have looked at the _book_ I was reading."
"I did," he said, "--and at the hands that held it."
"Never dreaming that they meant to wield a pick-axe," she laughed, "and
encompass your discomfiture. But after all they did neither the one nor
the other; did they?"
He looked at the smooth little hands cupped in the shallow pockets of
her white flannel Norfolk. They fascinated him.
"To think," he said, half to himself, "--to think of those hands
wielding a pick-axe!"
She smiled, head slightly on one side, and bent, contemplating her right
hand.
"You know," she said, "I certainly would have done it."
"You would have been crippled in an hour."
Her head went up, but she was still smiling as she said: "I'd have gone
through with it--somehow."
"Yes," he said slowly. "I believe you would."
"Not," she added, blushing, "that I mean to vaunt myself or my
courage----"
"No: I understand. You are not that kind.... It's rather extraordinary
how well I--I _think_ I know you already."
"Perhaps you _do_ know me--already."
"I really believe I do."
"It's very likely. I am just what I seem to be. There is no mystery
about me. I am what I appear to be."
"You are also very direct."
"Yes. It's my nature to be direct. I am not a bit politic or diplomatic
or circuitous."
"So I noticed," he said smilingly, "when you discussed finance with me.
You were not a bit politic."
She smiled, too, a little embarrassed: "How could I be anything but
frank in return for your very unworldly generosity?" she said. "Because
what you offered _was_ unworldly. Anyway, I should have been direct with
you; I knew what I wanted; I knew what you wanted. All I had to do was
to make up my mind. And I did so."
"Did you make up your mind about me, also?"
"Yes, about you, also."
They both smiled.
She was so straight and slender and pretty in her white flannels and
white outing hat--her attitude so confident, so charmingly determined,
that she seemed to him even younger than she really was--a delightful,
illogical, fresh and fearless school-girl, translated by some flash of
magic from her school hither, and set down unruffled and unstartled upon
her light, white-shod feet.
Even now it amazed him to realise that she really understood nothing of
the lonely perils lately confronting her in this desolate place.
For if there were nothing actually to fear from the wild beasts of the
region, _that which the beasts themselves feared_ might have confronted
her at any moment. He shuddered as he thought of it.
And what would she have done if suddenly clutched by fever? What would
she have done if a white-mouthed moccasin had struck her ankle--or if it
had been the diamond-set Death himself?
"You don't mind my speaking plainly, do you?" he said bluntly.
"Why, no, of course not." She looked at him inquiringly.
"Don't stray far away from me, will you?"
"What?"
"Don't wander away by yourself, out of sight, while we are engaged in
this business."
She looked serious and perplexed for a moment, then turned a delicate
pink and began to laugh in a pretty, embarrassed way.
"Are you afraid I'll get into mischief? Do you know it is very kind of
you to feel that way?... And rather unexpected--in a man who--sat for
three days across the aisle from me--and never even looked in my
direction. Tell me, what am I to be afraid of in this place?"
"There are snakes about," he said with emphasis.
"Oh, yes; I've seen some swimming."
"There are four poisonous species among them," he continued. "That's one
of the reasons for your keeping near me."
She nodded, a trifle awed.
"So you will, won't you?"
"Yes," she said, taking his words so literally that, when they turned to
walk toward the tents, she came up close beside him, naively as a child,
and laid one hand on his sleeve as they started back across the
Causeway.
"Suppose either one of us is bitten?" she asked after a silence.
"I have lancets, tourniquets, and anti-venom in my tent."
Her smooth hand tightened a little on his arm. She had not realised that
the danger was more than a vague possibility.
"You have spring water, of course," he said.
"No.... I boiled a little from the swamp before I drank it."
He turned to her sternly and drew her arm through his with an
unconscious movement of protection.
"Are you sure that water was properly boiled--_thoroughly_ boiled?" he
demanded.
"It bubbled."
"Listen to me! Hereafter when you are thirsty you will use my spring
water. Is that understood?"
"Yes.... And thank you."
"You don't want to get break-bone fever, do you?"
"No-o!" she said hastily. "I will do everything you wish."
"I'll hang your hammock for you," he said. "Always look in your shoes
for scorpions and spiders before you put them on. Never step over a
fallen log before you first look on the other side. Rattlers lie there.
Never go near a swamp without looking for moccasins.
"Don't let the direct sunlight fall on your bare head; don't eat fruit
for a week; don't ever go to sleep unless you have a blanket on. You
won't do any of these things, will you?" he inquired anxiously, almost
tenderly.
"I promise. And I never dreamed that there was anything to apprehend
except alligators!" she said, tightening her arm around his own.
"Alligators won't bother you--unless you run across a big one in the
woods. Then keep clear of him."
"I will!" she said earnestly.
"And don't sit about on old logs or lean against trees."
"Why? Lizards?"
"Oh, they're not harmful. But wood-ticks might give you a miserable week
or two."
"Oh, dear, oh, dear," she murmured, "I am so glad you came here!" And
quite innocently she pressed his arm. She did it because she was
grateful. She had a very direct way with her.