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
