"Come now, Miss Lizzie," she said, "how can I help when I don't know
what is being done? I've done my best up here to keep you comfortable
and restrain Miss Tish's recklessness; but I ought to know something."
She was right; and, Tish or no Tish, then and there I told her. She was
more than astonished. She sat in the motor boat, with a lantern at her
feet, and listened.
"I see," she said slowly. "So the--so Mr. McDonald is a spy and has sent
for dynamite to destroy the railroad! And--and the red-haired man is a
detective! How do you know he is a detective?"
I told her then about the note we had picked up from beside her in the
train, and because she was so much interested she really seemed quite
thrilled. I brought the cipher grocery list and the other note down to
her.
"It's quite convincing, isn't it?" she said. "And--and exciting! I don't
know when I've been so excited."
She really was. Her cheeks were flushed. She looked exceedingly pretty.
"The thing to do," she said, "is to teach him a lesson. He's young. He
mayn't always have had to stoop to such--such criminality. If we can
scare him thoroughly, it might do him a lot of good."
I said I was afraid Tish took a more serious view of things and would
notify the authorities. And at that moment there came two or three
shots--then silence.
I shall never forget the ride after Tish and how we felt when we failed
to find her; for there was no sign of her. The wind had come up, and,
what with seeing Tish tied to that wretched canoe and sinking with it or
shot through the head and lying dead in the bottom of it, we were about
crazy. As we passed Island Eleven we could see the spy's camp-fire and
his tent, but no living person.
At four in the morning we gave up and started back, heavy-hearted.
What, therefore, was our surprise to find Tish sitting by the fire in
her bathrobe, with a cup of tea in her lap and her feet in a foot-tub of
hot water! Considering all we had gone through and that we had obeyed
orders exactly, she was distinctly unjust. Indeed, at first she quite
refused to speak to any of us.
"I do think, Tish," Aggie said as she stood shivering by the fire, "that
you might at least explain where you have been. We have been going up
and down the river for hours, burying you over and over."
Tish took a sip of tea, but said nothing.
"You said," I reminded her, "that if there was shooting, we were to
start after you at once. When we heard the shots, we went, of course."
Tish leaned over and, taking the teakettle from the fire, poured more
water into the foot-tub. Then at last she turned to speak.
"Bring some absorbent cotton and some bandages, Hutchins," she said. "I
am bleeding from a hundred wounds. As for you"--she turned fiercely on
Aggie and me--"the least you could have done was to be here when I
returned, exhausted, injured, and weary; but, of course, you were
gallivanting round the lake in an upholstered motor boat."
Here she poured more water into the foot-tub and made it much too hot.
This thawed her rather, and she explained what was wrong. She was
bruised, scratched to the knees, and with a bump the size of an egg on
her forehead, where she had run into a tree.
The whole story was very exciting. It seems she got the green canoe
without any difficulty, the spy being sound asleep in his tent; but
about that time the wind came up and Tish said she could not make an
inch of progress toward our camp.
The chewing gum with which we had repaired our canoe came out at that
time and the boat began to fill, Tish being unable to sit over the leak
and paddle at the same time. So, at last, she gave up and made for the
mainland.
"The shooting," Tish said with difficulty, "was by men from the Indian
camp firing at me. I landed below the camp, and was making my way as
best I could through the woods when they heard me moving. I believe they
thought it was a bear."
I think Tish was more afraid of the Indians, in spite of their
sixty-three steel engravings and the rest of it, than she pretended,
though she said she would have made herself known, but at that moment
she fell over a fallen tree and for fifteen minutes was unable to speak
a word. When at last she rose the excitement was over and they had gone
back to their camp.
"Anyhow," she finished, "the green canoe is hidden a couple of miles
down the river, and I guess Mr. McDonald is safe for a time. Lizzie, you
can take a bath to-morrow safely."
Tish sat up most of the rest of the night composing a letter to the
authorities of the town, telling them of Mr. McDonald and enclosing
careful copies of the incriminating documents she had found.
During the following morning the river was very quiet. Through the
binocular we were able to see Mr. McDonald standing on the shore of his
island and looking intently in our direction, but naturally we paid no
attention to him.
The red-haired man went in swimming that day and necessitated our
retiring to the tent for an hour and a half; but at noon Aggie's
naturally soft heart began to assert itself.
"Spy or no spy," she said to Tish, "we ought to feed him."
"Huh!" was Tish's rejoinder. "There is no sense is wasting good food on
a man whose hours are numbered."
We were surprised, however, to find that Hutchins, who had detested Mr.
McDonald, was rather on Aggie's side.
"The fact that he has but a few more hours," she said to Tish, "is an
excellent reason for making those hours as little wretched as possible."
It was really due to Hutchins, therefore, that Mr. McDonald had a
luncheon. The problem of how to get it to him was a troublesome one, but
Tish solved it with her customary sagacity.
"We can make a raft," she said, "a small one, large enough to hold a
tray. By stopping the launch some yards above the island we can float
his luncheon to him quite safely."
That was the method we ultimately pursued and it worked most
satisfactorily.
Hutchins baked hot biscuits; and, by putting a cover over the pan, we
were enabled to get them to him before they cooled.
We prepared a really appetizing luncheon of hot biscuits, broiled ham,
marmalade, and tea, adding, at Aggie's instructions, a jar of preserved
peaches, which she herself had put up.
Tish made the raft while we prepared the food, and at exactly half-past
twelve o'clock we left the house. Mr. McDonald saw us coming and was
waiting smilingly at the upper end of the island.
"Great Scott!" he said. "I thought you were never going to hear me.
Another hour and I'd have made a swim for it, though it's suicidal with
this current. I'll show you where you can come in so you won't hit a
rock."
Hutchins had stopped the engine of the motor boat and we threw out the
anchor at a safe distance from the shore.
"We are not going to land," said Tish, "and I think you know perfectly
well the reason why."
"Oh, now," he protested; "surely you are going to land! I've had an
awfully uncomfortable accident--my canoe's gone."
"We know that," Tish said calmly. "As a matter of fact, we took it."
Mr. McDonald sat down suddenly on a log at the water's edge and looked
at us.
"Oh!" he said.
"You may not believe it," Tish said, "but we know everything--your
dastardly plot, who the red-haired man is, and all the destruction and
wretchedness you are about to cause."
"Oh, I say!" he said feebly. "I wouldn't go as far as that. I'm--I'm
not such a bad sort."
"That depends on the point of view," said Tish grimly.
Aggie touched her on the arm then and reminded her that the biscuits
were getting cold; but Tish had a final word with him.
"Your correspondence has fallen into my hands, young man," she said,
"and will be turned over to the proper authorities."
"It won't tell them anything they don't know," he said doggedly. "Look
here, ladies: I am not ashamed of this thing. I--I am proud of it. I am
perfectly willing to yell it out loud for everybody to hear. As a matter
of fact, I think I will."
Mr. McDonald stood up suddenly and threw his head back; but here
Hutchins, who had been silent, spoke for the first time.
"Don't be an idiot!" she said coldly. "We have something here for you to
eat if you behave yourself."
He seemed to see her then for the first time, for he favored her with a
long stare.
"Ah!" he said. "Then you are not entirely cold and heartless?"
She made no reply to this, being busy in assisting Aggie to lower the
raft over the side of the boat.
"Broiled ham, tea, hot biscuits, and marmalade," said Aggie gently. "My
poor fellow, we are doing what we consider our duty; but we want you to
know that it is hard for us--very hard."
When he saw our plan, Mr. McDonald's face fell; but he stepped out into
the water up to his knees and caught the raft as it floated down.
Before he said "Thank you" he lifted the cover of the pan and saw the
hot biscuits underneath.
"Really," he said, "it's very decent of you. I sent off a grocery order
yesterday, but nothing has come."
Tish had got Hutchins to start the engine by that time and we were
moving away. He stood there, up to his knees in water, holding the tray
and looking after us. He was really a pathetic figure, especially in
view of the awful fate we felt was overtaking him.
He called something after us. On account of the noise of the engine, we
could not be certain, but we all heard it the same way.
"Send for the whole d--d outfit!" was the way it sounded to us. "It
won't make any difference to me."
V
The last thing I recall of Mr. McDonald that day is seeing him standing
there in the water, holding the tray, with the teapot steaming under his
nose, and gazing after us with an air of bewilderment that did not
deceive us at all.
As I look back, there is only one thing we might have noticed at the
time. This was the fact that Hutchins, having started the engine, was
sitting beside it on the floor of the boat and laughing in the cruelest
possible manner. As I said to Aggie at the time: "A spy is a spy and
entitled to punishment if discovered; but no young woman should laugh
over so desperate a situation."
I come now to the denouement of this exciting period. It had been Tish's
theory that the red-haired man should not be taken into our confidence.
If there was a reward for the capture of the spy, we ourselves intended
to have it.
The steamer was due the next day but one. Tish was in favor of not
waiting, but of at once going in the motor boat to the town, some thirty
miles away, and telling of our capture; but Hutchins claimed there was
not sufficient gasoline for such an excursion. That afternoon we went in
the motor launch to where Tish had hidden the green canoe and, with a
hatchet, rendered it useless.
The workings of the subconscious mind are marvelous. In the midst of
chopping, Tish suddenly looked up.
"Have you noticed," she said, "that the detective is always watching our
camp?"
"That's all he has to do," Aggie suggested.
"Stuff and nonsense! Didn't he follow you into the swamp? Does Hutchins
ever go out in the canoe that he doesn't go out also? I'll tell you what
has happened: She's young and pretty, and he's fallen in love with her."
I must say it sounded reasonable. He never bothered about the motor
boat, but the instant she took the canoe and started out he was hovering
somewhere near.
"She's noticed it," Tish went on. "That's what she was quarreling about
with him yesterday."
"How are we to know," said Aggie, who was gathering up the scraps of the
green canoe and building a fire under them--"how are we to know they are
not old friends, meeting thus in the wilderness? Fate plays strange
tricks, Tish. I lived in the same street with Mr. Wiggins for years, and
never knew him until one day when my umbrella turned wrong side out in a
gust of wind."
"Fate fiddlesticks!" said Tish. "There's no such thing as fate in
affairs of this sort. It's all instinct--the instinct of the race to
continue itself."
This Aggie regarded as indelicate and she was rather cool to Tish the
balance of the day.
Our prisoner spent most of the day at the end of the island toward us,
sitting quietly, as we could see through the glasses. We watched
carefully, fearing at any time to see the Indian paddling toward him.
[Tish was undecided what to do in such an emergency, except to intercept
him and explain, threatening him also with having attempted to carry the
incriminating papers. As it happened, however, the entire camp had gone
for a two-days' deer hunt, and before they returned the whole thing had
come to its surprising end.]
Late in the afternoon Tish put her theory of the red-haired man to the
test.
"Hutchins," she said, "Miss Lizzie and I will cook the dinner if you
want to go in the canoe to Harvey's Bay for water-lilies."
Hutchins at once said she did not care a rap for water-lilies; but,
seeing a determined glint in Tish's eye, she added that she would go for
frogs if Tish wanted her out of the way.
"Don't talk like a child!" Tish retorted. "Who said I wanted you out of
the way?"
It is absolutely true that the moment Hutchins put her foot into the
canoe the red-haired man put down his fishing-rod and rose. And she had
not taken three strokes with the paddle before he was in the blue canoe.
Hutchins saw him just then and scowled. The last we saw of her she was
moving rapidly up the river and the detective was dropping slowly
behind. They both disappeared finally into the bay and Tish drew a long
breath.
"Typical!" she said curtly. "He's sent here to watch a dangerous man and
spends his time pursuing the young woman who hates the sight of him.
When women achieve the suffrage they will put none but married men in
positions of trust."
Hutchins and the detective were still out of sight when supper-time
came. The spy's supper weighed on us, and at last Tish attempted to
start the motor launch. We had placed the supper and the small raft
aboard, and Aggie was leaning over the edge untying the painter,--not a
man, but a rope,--when unexpectedly the engine started at the first
revolution of the wheel.
It darted out to the length of the rope, where it was checked abruptly,
the shock throwing Aggie entirely out and into the stream. Tish caught
the knife from the supper tray to cut us loose, and while Tish cut I
pulled Aggie in, wet as she was. The boat was straining and panting,
and, on being released, it sprang forward like a dog unleashed.
Aggie had swallowed a great deal of water and was most disagreeable; but
the Mebbe was going remarkably well, and there seemed to be every
prospect that we should get back to the camp in good order. Alas, for
human hopes! Mr. McDonald was not very agreeable.
"You know," he said as he waited for his supper to float within reach,
"you needn't be so blamed radical about everything you do! If you object
to my hanging round, why not just say so? If I'm too obnoxious I'll
clear out."
"Obnoxious is hardly the word," said Tish.
"How long am I to be a prisoner?"
"I shall send letters off by the first boat."
He caught the raft just then and examined the supper with interest.
"Of course things might be worse," he said; "but it's dirty treatment,
anyhow. And it's darned humiliating. Somebody I know is having a good
time at my expense. It's heartless! That's what it is--heartless!"
Well, we left him, the engine starting nicely and Aggie being wrapped in
a tarpaulin; but about a hundred yards above the island it began to slow
down, and shortly afterward it stopped altogether. As the current caught
us, we luckily threw out the anchor, for the engine refused to start
again. It was then we saw the other canoes.
The girl in the pink tam-o'-shanter was in the first one.
They glanced at us curiously as they passed, and the P.T.S.--that is the
way we grew to speak of the pink tam-o'-shanter--raised one hand in the
air, which is a form of canoe greeting, probably less upsetting to the
equilibrium than a vigorous waving of the arm.
It was just then, I believe, that they saw our camp and headed for it.
The rest of what happened is most amazing. They stopped at our landing
and unloaded their canoes. Though twilight was falling, we could see
them distinctly. And what we saw was that they calmly took possession
of the camp.
"Good gracious!" Tish cried. "The girls have gone into the tent! And
somebody's working at the stove. The impertinence!"
Our situation was acutely painful. We could do nothing but watch. We
called, but our voices failed to reach them. And Aggie took a chill,
partly cold and partly fury. We sat there while they ate the entire
supper!
They were having a very good time. Now and then somebody would go into
the tent and bring something out, and there would be shrieks of
laughter.
[We learned afterward that part of the amusement was caused by Aggie's
false front, which one of the wretches put on as a beard.]
It was while thus distracted that Aggie suddenly screamed, and a moment
later Mr. McDonald climbed over the side and into the boat, dripping.
"Don't be alarmed!" he said. "I'll go back and be a prisoner again just
as soon as I've fired the engine. I couldn't bear to think of the lady
who fell in sitting here indefinitely and taking cold." He was examining
the engine while he spoke. "Have visitors, I see," he observed, as
calmly as though he were not dripping all over the place.
"Intruders, not visitors!" Tish said angrily. "I never saw them before."
"Rather pretty, the one with the pink cap. May I examine the gasoline
supply?" There was no gasoline. He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm afraid
no amount of mechanical genius I intended to offer you will start her,"
he said; "but the young lady--Hutchins is her name, I believe?--will
see you here and come after you, of course."
Well, there was no denying that, spy or no spy, his presence was a
comfort. He offered to swim back to the island and be a prisoner again,
but Tish said magnanimously that there was no hurry. On Aggie's offering
half of her tarpaulin against the wind, which had risen, he accepted.
"Your Miss Hutchins is reckless, isn't she?" he said when he was
comfortably settled. "She's a strong swimmer; but a canoe is uncertain
at the best."
"She's in no danger," said Tish. "She has a devoted admirer watching out
for her."
"The deuce she has!" His voice was quite interested. "Why, who on
earth--"
"Your detective," said Aggie softly. "He's quite mad about her. The way
he follows her and the way he looks at her--it's thrilling!"
Mr. McDonald said nothing for quite a while. The canoe party had
evidently eaten everything they could find, and somebody had brought out
a banjo and was playing.
Tish, unable to vent her anger, suddenly turned on Mr. McDonald. "If you
think," she said, "that the grocery list fooled us, it didn't!"
"Grocery list?"
"That's what I said."
"How did you get my grocery list?"
So she told him, and how she had deciphered it, and how the word
"dynamite" had only confirmed her early suspicions.
His only comment was to say, "Good Heavens!" in a smothered voice.
"It was the extractor that made me suspicious," she finished. "What were
you going to extract? Teeth?"
"And so, when my Indian was swimming, you went through his things! It's
the most astounding thing I ever--My dear lady, an extractor is used to
get the hooks out of fish. It was no cipher, I assure you. I needed an
extractor and I ordered it. The cipher you speak of is only a remarkable
coincidence."
"Huh!" said Tish. "And the paper you dropped in the train--was that a
coincidence?"
"That's not my secret," he said, and turned sulky at once.
"Don't tell me," Tish said triumphantly, "that any young man comes here
absolutely alone without a purpose!"
"I had a purpose, all right; but it was not to blow up a railroad
train."
Apparently he thought he had said too much, for he relapsed into silence
after that, with an occasional muttering.
It was eight o'clock when Hutchins's canoe came into sight. She was
paddling easily, but the detective was far behind and moving slowly.
She saw the camp with its uninvited guests, and then she saw us. The
detective, however, showed no curiosity; and we could see that he made
for his landing and stumbled exhaustedly up the bank. Hutchins drew up
beside us. "He'll not try that again, I think," she said in her crisp
voice. "He's out of training. He panted like a motor launch. Who are our
visitors?"
Here her eyes fell on Mr. McDonald and her face set in the dusk.
"You'll have to go back and get some gasoline, Hutchins."
"What made you start out without looking?"
"And send the vandals away. If they wait until I arrive, I'll be likely
to do them some harm. I have never been so outraged."
"Let me go for gasoline in the canoe," said Mr. McDonald. He leaned over
the thwart and addressed Hutchins. "You're worn out," he said. "I
promise to come back and be a perfectly well-behaved prisoner again."
"Thanks, no."
"I'm wet. The exercise will warm me."
"Is it possible," she said in a withering tone that was lost on us at
the time, "that you brought no dumb-bells with you?"
If we had had any doubts they should have been settled then; but we
never suspected. It is incredible, looking back.
The dusk was falling and I am not certain of what followed. It was,
however, something like this: Mr. McDonald muttered something angrily
and made a motion to get into the canoe. Hutchins replied that she would
not have help from him if she died for it. The next thing we knew she
was in the launch and the canoe was floating off on the current. Aggie
squealed; and Mr. McDonald, instead of swimming after the thing, merely
folded his arms and looked at it.
"You know," he said to Hutchins, "you have so unpleasant a disposition
that somebody we both know of is better off than he thinks he is!"
Tish's fury knew no bounds, for there we were marooned and two of us wet
to the skin. I must say for Hutchins, however, that when she learned
about Aggie she was bitterly repentant, and insisted on putting her own
sweater on her. But there we were and there we should likely stay.
It was quite dark by that time, and we sat in the launch, rocking
gently. The canoeing party had lighted a large fire on the beach, using
the driftwood we had so painfully accumulated.
We sat in silence, except that Tish, who was watching our camp, said
once bitterly that she was glad there were three beds in the tent. The
girls of the canoeing party would be comfortable.
After a time Tish turned on Mr. McDonald sharply. "Since you claim to be
no spy," she said, "perhaps you will tell us what brings you alone to
this place? Don't tell me it's fish--I've seen you reading, with a line
out. You're no fisherman."
He hesitated. "No," he admitted. "I'll be frank, Miss Carberry. I did
not come to fish."
"What brought you?"
"Love," he said, in a low tone. "I don't expect you to believe me, but
it's the honest truth."
"Love!" Tish scoffed.
"Perhaps I'd better tell you the story," he said. "It's long and--and
rather sad."
"Love stories," Hutchins put in coldly, "are terribly stupid, except to
those concerned."
"That," he retorted, "is because you have never been in love. You are
young and--you will pardon the liberty?--attractive; but you are totally
prosaic and unromantic."
"Indeed!" she said, and relapsed into silence.
"These other ladies," Mr. McDonald went on, "will understand the
strangeness of my situation when I explain that the--the young lady I
care for is very near; is, in fact, within sight."
"Good gracious!" said Aggie. "Where?"
"It is a long story, but it may help to while away the long night hours;
for I dare say we are here for the night. Did any one happen to notice
the young lady in the first canoe, in the pink tam-o'-shanter?"
We said we had--all except Hutchins, who, of course, had not seen her.
Mr. McDonald got a wet cigarette from his pocket and, finding a box of
matches on the seat, made an attempt to dry it over the flames; so his
story was told in the flickering light of one match after another.