THE boy was really better; but very, very weak. Every time he opened an eye, that next day, solicitous Mrs. Crane was ready with a bowl of broth. Once he did not fall asleep immediately but followed her with big, questioning blue eyes as she moved about the tent. He remained awake for twenty minutes that time and even moved his hands slightly.
"You've been real sick," explained Mrs. Crane, sociably, her soft dark eyes very kind and encouraging. "You're pretty weak yet, but you're twice the boy you were yesterday. Could you eat more broth?"
For an instant something that looked like a genuine smile flickered across the boy's lips; and his eyes, Mrs. Crane said afterwards, almost twinkled. Then, in a very thin, weak voice, he said: "Please."
After that he again fell into a long, deep sleep. But now his prolonged slumbers were no longer terrifying, for his breathing was natural, his fever entirely gone.
"Can't we see him next time his eyes are open?" pleaded Mabel, waylaying Mrs. Crane in the provision tent, "and couldn't I be the first one? I found him, you know, so he's really mostly mine."
"Ye—es," replied Mrs. Crane, pondering this matter. "I guess it's only fair that you should be the first. If you'll stay where you can see the door of my tent, I'll wave a towel when the time comes. But it won't be right away, for he's just gone to sleep again."
"That boat ought to get here to-day," said Mr. Black, who had been expectantly gazing from time to time at the lake, "but I suppose that rascal Dave stopped all along the way to set traps."
Mr. Black was quite right. Dave had stopped to set traps. But first of all, with characteristic stealth, the conscienceless half-breed had begun his journey with a comfortable nap. For almost two hours, within five minutes' walk of Pete's Patch, Dave had slumbered, with no thought of anything but his own comfort. After that, he attended leisurely to the numerous traps along his almost invisible trail. Fortunately—or he might never have reached his destination, he found only a solitary muskrat. The big rat was still living. Dave eyed him reflectively.
"Goo'-by, li'le son," said Dave, liberating the bright-eyed prisoner. "You ees more bodder dan you ees wort', to-day. An' w'at for Ah'm eat moskrat! Me, Ah'm go for eat dose bifsteak, dose pork shop, dose baked bean hon top of Lakeveele. Go home, you son of a moskrat—Ah catch you som' more nex' veek."
The limping rat splashed into the river, and Dave, after one half-regretful glance at the eddying water, at last started briskly along the trail that led to Lakeville.
He spent the night with his cousin on the outskirts of the town, who refreshed him so generously that faithless Dave didn't know, next morning, whether he was headed toward Lakeville or toward camp. So he slept all that day and the next; while his good friend Mabel, at Pete's Patch, made brave efforts to save him from threatened disaster.
Mabel and all the other girls knew that Dave had every reason to fear the game warden. The youthful castaways, who were not very clear as to the duties of game wardens in general, considered them the natural enemies of all hunters and fishermen. Dave had once shown the girls a battered, yellowed newspaper containing a full-length picture of a brawny, khaki-clad game warden arresting a lawless sportsman. The half-breed had said, half laughingly, half seriously:
"Eef you ees see dose man som' tam', Mees Mabelle, Mees Bettee, don't you go for tole her som't'ing about Dave Gurneau, or maybe, me, Ah'm got maself lock up for sure. Or maybe Ah'm go for pay feefty dollar fine."
The idea of a fifty-dollar fine had probably tickled Dave, who, at that poverty-stricken moment would have found it impossible to pay even fifty cents.
But the girls had been deeply impressed. They saw clearly that a visit from the game warden would result disastrously to Dave, whom the youngsters liked, in spite of his many irregularities; for the ignorant half-breed was always good to them in his own peculiar way. And then, too, Mr. Black had said that Dave was to be protected from all chance visitors.
Very soon after the arrival of the nails, Mr. Black had built a rain-proof shed to shelter the disabled "Whale." As it was possible to reach this spot without tumbling into either the lake or the river, Mabel often strolled that way to look for berries, flowers, mushrooms, or mosses—she was apt to return with specimens of all four jumbled untidily together in the skirt of her dress.
This fine morning, Mrs. Crane having suggested that a few mushrooms would add flavor and bulk to the noon meal, Mabel and Henrietta, with the praiseworthy intention of gathering a bushel or two, walked along the swampy, woodsy road that led to Lakeville.
It was not often that Mabel and Henrietta paired off together, for Henrietta was the oldest, Mabel the youngest of the five girls. But in some ways pretty, black-eyed Henrietta was more thoughtless, less responsible than Jean, Marjory, or Bettie. After the death of her young mother, various relatives, including an inexperienced father and a too-indulgent grandmother, had done their best to spoil attractive Henrietta. They hadn't exactly succeeded; but the unrestrained little girl, naturally impulsive, naturally a bit daring, and always very high-spirited, was apt to act first and do her thinking afterwards. As for Mabel—why, Mabel simply plunged into trouble. Still, it seemed safe enough to send this pair forth for mushrooms; so, with a basket between them, a smiling sky overhead, they set forth merrily.
"It's funny about mushrooms," observed Mabel. "You can gather all there are and the next day you find just as many more. But when you pick berries that's the last of them for a whole year."
"I wish," returned Henrietta, "it were just the other way."
"So do I," agreed Mabel, her mouth full of big, red wintergreen berries.
"It never is," sighed Henrietta, sentimentally. "Every time there's a storm, the sea brings in millions of cobblestones and only one agate. I love to hunt for agates."
"If they came in like cobblestones," said practical Mabel, "you wouldn't have the fun of hunting—— Why! There's something coming down the road. See! That way—toward Lakeville."
"A man on horseback!" exclaimed Henrietta. "Let's hide——"
"What for?" demanded Mabel, bravely.
"His clothes!" breathed Henrietta, in an agonized whisper, as she dragged Mabel backward. "Can't you see? It's the game warden—I know him by his leggings. Just like that picture. Hurry, Mabel—he's after Dave!"
"Oh! do you think so?" gasped Mabel, paralyzed with horror. "And all that venison hanging near Dave's wigwam! And all those partridge feathers on Mr. Black's land! They might arrest him, too! And us! Oh, Henrietta! What'll we do?"
"Run," urged Henrietta, tugging at Mabel's dress.
"But—but I can't!" gasped Mabel, helplessly. "And, anyway, it's too late—he's looking right this way. But, oh! We mustn't let him go anywhere near Pete's Patch."
"Sh!" breathed Henrietta, warningly; but with a quick, decisive nod that seemed vaguely reassuring. "Stop looking scared."
The rider, having cautiously and more or less successfully skirted a bad bit of swamp, caught sight of the girls and checked his travel-stained horse.
"Is this the way," he asked, politely, "to Barclay's Point?"
Henrietta's forefinger promptly pointed toward the north—directly toward the concealed Point.
"Just keep going," she advised. "It's quite a long way, but you're headed right for Barclay's."
"Yes," assisted Mabel, after a closer scrutiny of the telltale leggings, "you just keep going."
"I'm looking," explained the man, "for Mr. Black. He's at Barclay's Point, isn't he?"
"Sometimes," replied Henrietta, truthfully.
"How's the fishing up there?"
"I haven't fished," returned Henrietta, shortly. The game warden, it was plain, would get no incriminating information from Henrietta.
"This road, you say, leads to the Point?"
"Ye—es," faltered Mabel; "yes, if——"
"Never mind the 'if,'" hissed Henrietta, into Mabel's surprised ear. "Yes," she added aloud, and very convincingly, "it does lead to the Point. But you'd better hurry, or Mr. Black may be starting out for some other place."
"I'd hate to miss him," said the man, touching his hat. "Thank you, young ladies. I'll go at once—perhaps I'll see you later."
Mabel and Henrietta eyed each other in discreet silence until the sound of hoofbeats had gradually died away.
"We've been bad," breathed Mabel.
"It was necessary," sighed Henrietta. "Goodness knows, I'd rather be good. And that road does lead to Barclay's Point."
"Yes—if you're smart enough to find the turn off."
"That's why I told him to hurry—if he rides fast, he'll never see it."
"Nobody would," agreed Mabel. "Where does this road go, anyway?"
"Seventeen miles to an old lumber camp—Dave told me. There's another camp, not so far, but it has a 'blind turn-off'—you'd never find it if you didn't know just exactly where to look. Even then you'd think you were wrong. I guess it'll take him all day to find Pete's Patch. Anyhow, I hope so."
"Shall we tell the others?"
"N—no," decided Henrietta, contemplatively. "By the time he's reached the end of that swampy road without coming to anything he'll be too tired and discouraged to want to arrest anybody. He'll just make tracks for home. But when Dave comes we'll tell him to hide his venison."
"And," said Mabel, not knowing the depths of Dave's depravity, "he'll surely be here soon—he'll hurry right back with my father."
"Why, that's so," laughed Henrietta. "Your father is coming. Well, he won't know you—he'll think you're some relative of Dave's, and prescribe soap. But let's get those mushrooms. If that man comes back he mustn't find us here—he might ask questions we couldn't answer. And I think we'd better roll a log across the turn-off to Pete's Patch and throw a little old brush against it so it won't show."