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 sec 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
