we need, and I thought, since Simon always did, we’d go on down the South Shore a ways and then come back here to start for—”
“Home!” concluded Desiré, “and what fun we’ll have settling down in it.”
“More fun in a wag’n,” declared René.
“You’d holler all right, when the snow blew in on you,” said Priscilla.
Jack hardly heard what they were saying, so puzzled and disturbed was he over the reappearance of his enemy. Was the man following them, or was the meeting purely accidental? Had he been tampering with the horses the night Priscilla roused them? If the fellow were bent on revenge, they were likely to suffer from the effects of his anger and jealousy almost any time.
The next morning they were following the very irregular South Shore line along the Atlantic; past ragged points, around deep bays, through tangles of woodland, then back beside the yellow sands again. Numerous offshore islands looked so inviting that Priscilla was always wishing they could drive out to them. As they rounded St. Margaret’s Bay, the sunshine was brilliant; but almost without warning, a mile farther on, they were completely enveloped in fog which cut off all view of the ocean.
“Do be very careful, Jack,” pleaded Desiré nervously, as they almost felt their way around an especially blind curve. “Someone might run into us.”
They reached Chester in safety, and spent some time looking about that busy little town. The souvenir shop up the hill above the Lovett House especially attracted Priscilla, and it was with great reluctance that she left it.
“I’d like to have money enough to buy everything I wanted there,” she said, looking longingly back at it.
In a few minutes they missed René, who had been lagging along behind them.
“That boy is hopeless,” groaned Jack, as they retraced their steps to look for him.
Not very far back they discovered him, leaning over the edge of a cobblestone well, trying to lower the heavy bucket.
“I was thirsty,” he explained, as Jack detached him.
“But you might have fallen in!” said Desiré severely.
“I’ll tell you what we can do,” proposed Priscilla; “tie a rope to him, like you do to a little dog, and I’ll lead him. I saw a lady at Halifax with a little boy fastened that way,—”
The proposal called forth a howl from René.
“Won’t be tied like a dog! Won’t have Prissy lead me!”
“Well, let’s go on now before we get into any more difficulties,” said Jack, starting for the shed where he had left the wagon.
“That is Mahone Bay,” he told them, as they gazed out over the large arm of the ocean upon which Chester is located; “and all this section was once a great retreat for pirates. There are so many islands where they hid their booty, and so many little bays and inlets where they could take refuge if pursued.”
“Want to go out there and see pirates,” announced René, as Jack tightened the reins, and Dolly and Dapple began to move.
“There are no pirates there now,” said Priscilla in a disgusted tone.
“Go and see. I’m going to be a pirate when I grow up. I think they’re fine.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t give us that piece of information before, Jack,” laughed Desiré, “or we should have been swimming out to find Renny.”
Not very far beyond Chester, they ran into fog again. The road was winding, and very much up and down hill; and as they were about to round a curve near Lunenburg, a heavy automobile loomed up suddenly at their left, out of the grey blanket which enfolded the landscape.
CHAPTER XVIII
A COLLISION
Jack turned aside as quickly and as far as he dared, but the machine struck the side of the wagon, ripped off a wheel, and disappeared into the gloom. The children were thrown violently to the floor of the wagon, and Desiré against the side; but Jack managed to keep his seat. The horses stopped instantly, and stood quiet like the intelligent, well-mannered animals that they were. To the accompaniment of René’s cries, Jack got his little family out of the tilting wagon and took stock of their injuries. Priscilla had a bad nosebleed, and Desiré a bruised arm. René was only badly frightened, and Jack himself entirely uninjured.
“We certainly can be very thankful,” breathed Desiré with relief, after first aid had been given.
“We certainly can,” agreed Jack fervently, going to examine the condition of the wagon; “we were very lucky.”
“What can we do with it?” inquired Desiré.
“Fortunately we’re not very far from Lunenburg,” he replied, “and I suppose I can get it fixed there; but it will mean quite a delay, I imagine. If the fog would only lift so that we could see something.”
“Why not stay right here until it does?” proposed Desiré.
“Should you be afraid to stay here with the children while I walked to town?” began Jack. “It would save time if I could get the work started today—”
“Not afraid for us, Jack; but for you. Something might hit you. Suppose another automobile should come along!” She shuddered.
“Well, then we’ll try to get the wagon just off the road, and make ourselves as comfortable as we can until the fog is gone.”
With much difficulty, and many pauses for rest, they succeeded in getting the wagon off the road.
It was a tiresome afternoon, and seemed many hours longer than it really was. Just about six o’clock the grey blanket was whisked away as suddenly as if someone had picked it up, and the land was flooded with late afternoon sunshine. On one side of them were fields with groups of trees here and there; on the other, a wide beach.
“Why not camp in this field?” asked Desiré, as the children darted across to play in the sand. “If we’re going to be held up for a day or two, this is probably as good a place as any.”
Jack agreed. So after charging the children not to go into the water, they set about making a permanent camp. It was too late to go to town that night, but early the next morning Jack took the broken wheel and started out.
“I can have it the day after tomorrow,” he announced upon his return, which Desiré assured him was “not so bad.”
The two days passed very pleasantly. Twice a day, much to René’s delight, they all went in bathing. Playing in the sand became almost as much of a joy to the older ones as to the children, and they laid out wonderful towns across the beach. In the middle of the day, when it was too hot near the water, they spent their time in the grove, and made friends with the squirrels who were busy laying in their stores for the winter. The little creatures got so tame that they would venture into the very laps of the invaders of their domain.
“Now for the road again!” cried Jack, on the evening of the second day, as he put the new wheel on the wagon. “We’ll go to bed early, and
