THE castaways, forgetting that there were dishes to be washed, stood in an eager row on the bank above the beach. The floating object continued to approach. Soon they could see why it moved; the blade of a broad paddle gleamed in the sunlight.
"It's a boat!" cried Marjory.
"A canoe," announced Mr. Black. "See, one end is low, the other fairly out of the water. Let's stand behind these bushes, girls—the shack is so far back that the man in the canoe won't notice it if he doesn't see the tablecloth. I'll take it down, I guess. You see, there's just a chance that that fellow might not land if he saw people here—and we need him in our business. We'll be quiet, too. He seems to be making for this little bay."
The boat and its occupant were an even shade of dark brown, but the paddle gleamed golden in the sunshine. The canoe, skilfully propelled by a practised hand, shot rapidly toward the strip of sand at the very feet of the almost breathless watchers and, in a very few seconds more, was safely beached. A snarling, stealthy dog leaped ashore and began to sniff suspiciously at the sand; but his owner, fortunately, paid no attention to him. The paddler proved to be an Indian half-breed, bareheaded and clad only in shirt and trousers. His clothes were old and greasy, his bare brown feet far from clean. He flung from the canoe a fish-net, two dead muskrats, and, although it was out of season, a small saddle of venison. He spread the net on the sand to dry, threw the venison upon his shoulder, and climbed the bank.
Mr. Black, stepping from the sheltering bush, met him when he reached the top.
"Good-morning," said he.
The startled Indian almost dropped his burden.
"Goo'-morn'," he grunted, surlily.
"Why!" exclaimed Mr. Black, closely scrutinizing the half-breed's not very prepossessing countenance, "I think I've met you before. You're Dave Gurneau, the man I bought this land from."
"Yass, I guess, mebbe-so," returned Dave. "You ol' Pete Black, I t'ank so?"
"Yes," admitted the gentleman, "I'm old Pete Black. But what are you doing here? I thought I bought this land with the understanding that you were to vacate it—leave it—get off of it? How long have you lived here?"
The culprit wriggled his toes in the sand.
"Ever since Ah'm sell heem," returned Dave, whose small black eyes were shifty.
"Well!" gasped Mr. Black, "that's nerve for you—stayed right here, did you?"
"Yass, Ah'm stay hon dose plass. Me, I must sell dese lan' to you so I can buy proveesion enough for leeve hon heem—som' leetle onion, som' potate, som' flour——"
"You—you sold me the land so you could live on it!"
"Yass—Ah'm got to buy proveesion sometam'. You good, easy man, Ah'm tole."
"He means easy mark," breathed Mrs. Crane.
"Well, I'll be—switched," declared Mr. Black, endeavoring to frown at guilty Dave; but, meeting Bettie's dancing eyes, he laughed instead.
"Dave," said he, "you're an unprecedented rascal. You've caught my fish, picked my berries, killed my game; but I'll forgive you if you'll do an errand for me. Do you think you could walk to Lakeville?"
"Sure t'ing," replied Dave, whose shifty eyes had traveled speculatively from one to another of the group. "Ah'm walk dere plantee tam'. Got to sleep two-t'ree hour, den go."
"Very well," returned Mr. Black; "I'd rather you'd start at once, but if you need sleep, you'd better get it now than on the way. I'll write Saunders (Saunders was Mr. Black's trusted secretary) to send a launch or a wagon for us and horses for the automobile."
"Peter," queried Mrs. Crane, wistfully, "do we have to go home? You know we talked of coming here to camp, anyway. Now that we're here, why can't we stay? I suppose it's a crazy scheme; but that road is too rough to travel over very often, and you know I never did like the water—I'm always seasick. Saunders could send us all the things we need—tents and everything else. And all the parents would be willing—they were all in favor of a camping trip sometime. We'd write and explain——"
"Oh, do stay," cried Jean.
"Oh, do," implored Bettie, flinging her arms about Mr. Black's neck.
"Please do," begged Henrietta, impulsively seizing a hand.
"Oh, do, do, do," shrieked Marjory, seizing the other hand.
"I'll wash all the dishes," promised Mabel, throwing her arms about Mr. Black's stout waist, "and everybody knows that that's a job I hate."
"I'll get fat," promised Bettie.
Now, Mr. Black was ever a warm-hearted and obliging man, with a wonderful love for children in general—his own little dark-eyed daughter had died in infancy—and for Bettie in particular. Even if the plan did seem a bit wild and venturesome (and Mr. Black himself was something of an adventurer, in the best sense of that word), it was not easy to say no with all those clinging arms about him, those eager, pleading young faces upturned expectantly to his. Moreover, few persons, Mr. Black least of all, were able to resist the appeal in Bettie's big, black, always rather pathetic eyes. And already, best argument of all, the slender little maid seemed to be improving under these new conditions.
"Well," capitulated Mr. Black, "it will take Dave some hours to get to Lakeville, and it may take considerable time for Saunders to find a boat or horses to come up here—we'll have to leave all that part of it to his discretion. It may be to-morrow morning before we are rescued. Now, I'll agree to this. We'll send him a list of everything we need. If we are still desirous of staying when the things come, and if there's nothing in my mail to call me to town, we'll stay. If we're tired of it, we'll just cart the stuff home again. We'll each make out a list——"
"On what, I'd like to know?" interrupted Mrs. Crane. "I've used all the wrapping paper to start fires."
Mr. Black, shaking off the clinging children, searched in the pockets of his clothes.
"Nothing doing," said he. "The only scrap of paper I can spare is already covered with memoranda."
Dave, who had been silently waiting, laughed appreciatively. It was an unexpectedly pleasant sound, too; for the half-breed's voice was soft and deep.
"Lots of paper on top of som' tree," he said. "Ah br-r-reeng som'."
"I can see leaves," laughed Henrietta, squinting upward, "but no pages."
"He means birch bark," explained quick-witted Marjory. "See, he's cutting big squares of it."
When the squares were peeled into many thin sheets (the girls thought that great sport) Mr. Black distributed them among the other castaways.
"Here are two pencils," said he. "I'll use my fountain pen."
"And I always have pencils in my bag," said Mrs. Crane. "I'll tend to the provisions, Peter, if you'll look out for the other things. Be sure, girls, to ask for extra shoes and stockings; you'll need those and something warm to sleep in."
Noting that one more pencil was needed, Dave began to fumble in an apparently bottomless pocket. From the depths he finally produced a grimy, greasy stub, which he offered to pencil-less Marjory.
But Marjory, fastidious little maid that she was, drew back from it, loathingly, and declined.
Gentle-mannered Jean, promptly surmising that Dave's feelings might be hurt, handed her own clean, long pencil to Marjory and accepted Dave's offering, with a sweet-voiced "thank you."
From that moment, Dave was Jean's abject slave; and, if the proofs of his devotion were not always welcome, they at least proved numerous.