FullReads

The major’s long-latent jealousy of Darrow was now fully ablaze; purple, pop-eyed, and puffing, he toddled down the companion on his errand of consolation. Darrow watched him go. “That settles him!” he said. Then he called the engineer over and bade him rig up and launch the portable canoe.

“Put one paddle in it, Johnson, and say to Mrs. Haltren that she had better paddle north, because a mile below there is a camp belonging to a man whom Major Brent and I do not wish to have her meet.”

The grimy engineer hauled out the packet which, when put together, was warranted to become a full-fledged canoe.

“Lord! how she’ll hate us all, even poor Johnson,” murmured Darrow. “I don’t know much about Kathleen Haltren, but if she doesn’t paddle south I’ll eat cotton-waste with oil-dressing for dinner!”

At that moment the major reappeared, toddling excitedly towards the stern.

“What on earth is the trouble?” asked Darrow. “Is there a pizen sarpint aboard?”

“Trouble!” stammered the major. “Who said there was any trouble? Don’t be an ass, sir! Don’t even look like an ass, sir! Damnation!”

And he trotted furiously into the engine-room.

Darrow climbed to the wheel-house once more, fished out a pair of binoculars, and fixed them on the inlet and the strip of Atlantic beyond.

“If the Dione isn’t in by three o’clock, Haltren will have his chance,” he murmured.

He was still inspecting the ocean and his watch alternately when Mrs. Haltren came on deck.

“Did you send me the canoe?” she asked, with cool unconcern.

“It’s for anybody,” he said, morosely. “Somebody ought to take a snap-shot of the scene of our disaster. If you don’t want the canoe, I’ll take it.”

She had her camera in her hand; it was possible he had noticed it, although he appeared to be very busy with his binoculars.

He was also rude enough to turn his back. She hesitated, looked up the lagoon and down the lagoon. She could only see half a mile south, because Flyover Point blocked the view.

“If Mrs. Castle is nervous you will be near the cabin?” she asked, coldly.

“I’ll be here,” he said.

“And you may say to Major Brent,” she added, “that he need not send me further orders by his engineer, and that I shall paddle wherever caprice invites me.”

A few moments later a portable canoe glided out from under the stern of the launch. In it, lazily wielding the polished paddle, sat young Mrs. Haltren, bareheaded, barearmed, singing as sweetly as the little cardinal, who paused in sheer surprise at the loveliness of song and singer. Like a homing pigeon the canoe circled to take its bearings once, then glided away due south.

Blue was the sky and water; her eyes were bluer; white as the sands her bare arms glimmered. Was it a sunbeam caught entangled in her burnished hair, or a stray strand, that burned far on the water.

Darrow dropped his eyes; and when again he looked, the canoe had vanished behind the rushes of Flyover Point, and there was nothing moving on the water far as the eye could see.

* * * * *

About three o’clock that afternoon, the pigeon-toed Seminole Indian who followed Haltren, as a silent, dangerous dog follows its master, laid down the heavy pink cedar log which he had brought to the fire, and stood perfectly silent, nose up, slitted eyes almost closed.

Haltren’s glance was a question. “Paddl’um boat,” said the Indian, sullenly.

After a pause Haltren said, “I don’t hear it, Tiger.”

“Hunh!” grunted the Seminole. “Paddl’um damn slow. Bime-by you hear.”

And bime-by Haltren heard.

“Somebody is landing,” he said.

The Indian folded his arms and stood bolt upright for a moment; then, “Hunh!” he muttered, disgusted. “Heap squaw. Tiger will go.”

Haltren did not hear him; up the palmetto-choked trail from the landing strolled a girl, paddle poised over one shoulder, bright hair blowing. He rose to his feet; she saw him standing in the haze of the fire and made him a pretty gesture of recognition.