XXIII
The water was so rough, the weather so thick, and their point of view sovery low down in the world that Maud and the Carolinians could neithersee the shore from which they had departed nor that toward which theywere slowly drifting. The surface water was warm, however, owing to aweek of sunshine, and it was not necessary to drop one's legs into theicy stratum beneath.
It is curious that what the three complained of the most was theincessant, leaden rain. Their faces were colder than their bodies. Theyadmitted that they had never been so wet in all their lives. Maud andColonel Meredith, not content with the slow drifting, kicked vigorously;but Bob Jonstone had all he could do to cling to the guide boat and keephis head above water. His legs had a way of suddenly rising toward thesurface and wrapping themselves half around the submerged boat. Aneffort was made to right the boat and bale her out. But Maud'swater-soaked skirt and a sudden case of rattles on the part of Jonstoneprevented the success of the manoeuvre.
Half an hour passed.
"Personally," said Jonstone, "I've had about enough of this."
His clinging hands looked white and thin; the knuckles were beginning toturn blue. He had a drawn expression about the mouth, but his eyes werebright and resolute.
"I've always understood," said Colonel Meredith, "that girls suffer lessthan men from total submersion in cold water. I sincerely hope, MissDarling, that this is so."
"Oh, I'm not suffering," said she; "not yet. My father used to let us goin sometimes when there was a skin of ice along shore. So please don'tworry about me."
Mr. Jonstone's teeth began to chatter very steadily and loudly. And justthen Maud raised herself a little, craned her neck, and had a glimpse ofthe shore--a long, half-submerged point, almost but not quiteobliterated by the fog and the splashing rain.
"Land ho!" said she joyfully. "All's well. There's a big shallow offhere; we'll be able to wade in a minute."
And, indeed, in less than a minute Bob Jonstone's feet found the hardsand bottom. And in a very short time three shipwrecked mariners hadwaded ashore and dragged the guide boat into a clump of bushes.
"And now what?" asked Colonel Meredith.
"And now," said Maud, "the luck has changed. Half a mile from here is acave where we used to have picnics. There's an axe there, matches, andprobably a tin of cigarettes, and possibly things to eat. It's allup-hill from here, and if you two follow me and keep up, you'll be warmbefore we get there."
Her wet clothes clung to her, and she went before them like some swiftwoodland goddess. Their spirits rose, and with them their voices, sothat the deer and other animals of the neighboring woods were disturbedand annoyed in the shelters which they had chosen from the rain.Sometimes Maud ran; sometimes she merely moved swiftly; but now and thenwhile the way was still among the dense waterside alders, she broke herway through with fine strength, reckless of scratches.
The following Carolinians began to worship the ground she trod and tostumble heavily upon it. They were not used to walking. It had alwaysbeen their custom to go from place to place upon horses. They pantedaloud. They began to suspect themselves of heart trouble, and they hadone heavy fall apiece.
Suddenly Maud came to a dead stop.
"I smell smoke," she said. "Some one is here before us. That's goodluck, too."
She felt her way along the face of a great bowlder and was seen to enterthe narrow mouth of a cave.
"Who's here?" she called cheerfully.
The passageway into the cave twisted like the letter S so that you camesuddenly upon the main cavity. This--a space as large as aball-room--had a smooth floor of sand, broken by one or two ridges ofgranite. At the farther end burned a bright fire, most of whose smokeafter slow, aimless drifting was strongly sucked upward through a holein the roof. Closely gathered about this fire were four men, who lookedlike rather dissolute specimens of the Adirondack guide, and a youngwoman with an old face. Maud's quick eyes noted two rusty Winchesterrifles, a leather mail-bag, and the depressing fact that the men had notshaved for many days.
It is always awkward to enter your own private cave and find it occupiedby strangers.
"You mustn't mind," said Maud, smiling upon them, "if we share thefire. It's really our cave and our fire-wood."
"Sorry, miss," said one of the men gruffly, "but when it comes on torain like this a man makes bold of any shelter that offers."
"Of course," said Maud. "I'm glad you did. We'll just dry ourselves andgo."
She seated herself with a Carolinian on either side, and their clothesbegan to send up clouds of steam.
The young woman with the old face, having devoured Maud with hungry, sadeyes, spoke in a shy, colorless voice.
"It would be better, miss, if you was to let the boys go outside. Icould lend you my blanket while your clothes dried."
"That's very good of you," said Maud, "but I'm very warm and comfortableand drying out nicely."
One of the men rose, grinned awkwardly, and said:
"I'll just have a look at the weather." With affected carelessness hecaught up one of the Winchesters and passed from sight toward theentrance of the cave. This manoeuvre seemed to have a cheering effectupon the other three.
"What do you find to shoot at this time of year?" asked Maud, and shesmiled with great innocence.
"The game-laws," said the man who had spoken first, "weren't written forpoor men."
"Don't tell me," exclaimed Maud, "that you've got a couple of partridgesor even venison just waiting to be cooked and eaten!"
"No such luck," said the man.
Neither of the Carolinians had spoken. They steamed pleasantly andappeared to be looking for pictures in the hot embers. Their eyes seemedto have sunk deeper into their skulls. Men who were familiar with themwould have known that they were very angry about something and asdangerous as a couple of rattlesnakes. After a long while they exchangeda few words in low voices and a strange tongue. It was the dialect ofthe Sea Island negroes--the purest African grafted on English so purethat nobody speaks it nowadays.
"What say?" asked one of the strangers roughly.
Colonel Meredith turned his eyes slowly upon the speaker.
"I remarked to my cousin," said he icily, "that in our part of the worldeven the lowest convict knows enough to rise to his feet when a ladyenters the room and to apologize for being alive."
"In the North Woods," said the man sulkily, "no one stands on ceremony.If you don't like our manners, Mr. Baltimore Oriole, you can lump 'em,see?"
"I see," said Colonel Meredith quietly, "that that leather mail-bag overthere belongs to the United States Government. And I have a strongsuspicion, my man, that you and your allies were concerned in the latehold-up perpetrated on the Montreal express. And I shall certainly makeit my business to report you as suspicious characters to the properauthorities."
"That'll be too easy," said the man. "And suppose we was what you think,what would we be doing in the meantime? I ask you _what_?"
Mr. Jonstone interrupted in a soft voice.
"Oh, quit blustering and threatening," he said.
"Say," said a man who had not yet spoken, "do you two sprigs of jasmineever patronize the 'movies'? And, if so, did you ever look your fill ona film called 'Held for Ransom'? You folks has a look of being kind o'well to do, and it looks to me as if you'd have to pay for it."
"Why quarrel with them?" said Maud, with gravity and displeasure in hervoice, but no fear. "Things are bad enough as they are. I saw that theminute we came in. Just one minute too late, it seems."
"That's horse-sense," admitted one of the men. "And when this rain holdsup, one of us will take a message to your folks saying as how you arestopping at an expensive hotel and haven't got money enough to pay yourbill."
"And that," said Colonel Meredith, "will only leave three of you toguard us. Once," he turned to Maud, "I spent six hours in a Turkishprison."
"What happened?" she asked.
"I didn't like it," he said, "and left."
"We don't intend to leave till it stops raining," put in Mr. Jonstonesweetly.
"Miss Darling," said Colonel Meredith, "you don't feel chilled, do you?You mustn't take this adventure seriously. These people are desperatecharacters, but they haven't the mental force to be dangerous. It willbe the greatest pleasure in the world both to my cousin and myself tosee that no harm befalls you." He turned once more to the unshaven menabout the fire.
"Have you got anything worth while in that mail-bag?" he asked. "I readthat the safe in the Montreal express only contained a few hundreddollars. Hardly worth risking prison for--was it?"
"We'll have enough to risk prison for before we get through with you."
"You might if you managed well, because I am a rich man. But you aresure to bungle."
He turned to the woman and asked with great kindness:
"Is it their first crime?"
"Yes, sir," she said. "Mr.----"
"Shut up!" growled one of her companions.
"A gentleman from New York turned us out of the woods so's he could havethem all to himself and after we'd spent all our money on lawyers. So myhusband and the boys allowed they had about enough of the law. And sothey held up the express, but it was more because they were mad clearthrough than because they are bad, and now it's too late, and--and----"
Here she began to cry.
"It's never too late to mend," said Maud.
"Have you spent any of the money they took?" asked Colonel Meredith.
"No, sir; we haven't had a chance. We've got every dime of it."
"Did you own the land you were driven off?"
"No, sir, but we'd always lived on it, and it did seem as if we ought tobe left in peace----"
"To shoot out of season, to burn other people's wood, trap their fish,and show your teeth at them when they came to take what belonged tothem? I congratulate you. You are American to the backbone. And now youpropose to take my money away from me."
Colonel Meredith turned to his cousin, after excusing himself to Maud,and they conversed for some time in their strange Sea Island dialect.
"Can that gibberish," said one of the train robbers suddenly. "I'm sickof it."
"We shan't trouble you with it again, as we've already decided what todo."
The robber laughed mockingly.
"In view of your extreme youth," said Colonel Meredith sweetly, "in viewof the fact that you are also young in crime and that one member of yourparty is a woman, we have decided to help you along the road to reform.In my State there is considerable lawlessness; from this has evolved theuseful custom of going heeled."
He spoke, and a blue automatic flashed cruelly in his white hand. Hisaction was as sudden and unexpected as the striking of a rattlesnake.
"All hands up," he commanded.
There was a long silence.
"You've got us," said the youngest of the robbers sheepishly. "How aboutthe man on guard with a Winchester?"
"My cousin Mr. Jonstone will bring him in to join the conference. And,meanwhile, I shall have to ask the ladies to look the other way while mycousin changes clothes with one of you gentlemen."
Of the three villains, Jonstone selected the youngest and the tidiest,and with mutual reluctance, suspicion, and startled glances toward wherethe ladies sat with averted faces, they changed clothes.
A broad felt hat, several sizes too big for him, added the touch ofcompletion to the Carolinian's transformation. He took the spareWinchester and, without a word, walked quietly toward the mouth of thecave and was lost to sight.
Maud did not breathe freely until he had returned, unhurt, carrying bothWinchesters and driving an exceedingly sheepish backwoodsman before him.
He expressed the wish to resume his own clothes. This done, he and hiscousin broke into good-natured, boyish laughter.
The oldest and most sheepish of the backwoods-men kept repeating, "Whowould 'a' thought he'd have a pistol on him!" and seemed to find a worldof comfort in the thought.
"What are you going to do with them?" Maud asked almost in a whisper. "Ithink I feel a little sorry for them."
"Bob!" exclaimed Colonel Meredith.
"What?"
"_She_ feels a little sorry for them. Don't you?"
"Yes, _sir_!" replied Mr. Jonstone fervently.
Colonel Meredith addressed himself to the young woman with the old face.
"Do you believe in fairies?" he asked.
She only looked pathetic and confused.
"Miss Darling, here," he went on, "is a fairy. She left her wand athome, but if she wants to she can make people's wishes come true. Nowsuppose you and your friends talk things over and decide upon somesensible wishes to have granted. Of course, it's no use wishing youhadn't robbed a train; but you could wish that the money would bereturned, and that the police could be induced to stop looking for you,and that some one could come along and offer you an honest way of makinga living. So you talk it over a while and then tell us what you'dlike."
"Aren't you going to give us up?" asked one of the men.
"Not if you've any sense at all."
"Then I guess there's no use us talking things over. And if the younglady is a fairy, we'd be obliged if she'd get busy along the linesyou've just laid down."
All eyes were turned on Maud. And she looked appealingly from ColonelMeredith to Mr. Jonstone and back again.
"What ought I to say? What ought I to promise? _Can_ the money bereturned? Can the police be called off? And if I only had some work togive them, but over at The Camp----"
"Every good fairy," said Colonel Meredith, "has two helpers to whom allthings are possible."
"Truly?"
The Carolinians sprang to their feet, clicked their heels together intothe first position of dancing, laid their right hands over their hearts,and bowed very low.
"Then," said Maud laughing, "I should like the money to be returned."
"I will attend to that," said Colonel Meredith.
"And the police to be called off."
Again the soldier assumed responsibility.
"But who," she asked, "will find work for them?"
"I will," said Mr. Jonstone. "They shall build the house for my cousinand me to live in. You can build a house, can't you? A log house?"
"But where will you build it?" asked Maud. "You found fault with all thebest sites on the lake."
"The very first site we visited suited us to perfection."
"But you said the spring contained cyanide or something."
"We were talking through our hats."
"But why----"
The Carolinians gazed at her with a kind of beseeching ardor, until sheunderstood that they had only found fault with one promising buildingsite after another in order that they might pass the longest timepossible in her company.
And she returned their glance with one in which there was some feelingstronger than mere amusement.
The Seven Darlings Page 23