He seemed to be convinced, but he did not take the matter seriously enough to suit Pen. He seemed to be thinking more of her than of his own situation. He took a step nearer to her.
"How fine of you to come to warn me!" he said warmly.
Pen retreated into deeper water. "Please!" she said sharply. "There is not an instant to lose!"
"But if I've got to go ... I must thank you," he said.
It was not part of Pen's plan to let him go, but not wishing to provoke another argument, she let the words pass for the moment.
"Anyhow, come out of the water," he pleaded. "Your feet must be chilled through."
He put down a paddle at the edge of the water and Pen stepped out on it. He looked at her longingly.
"Hurry! Hurry!" Pen said.
With a sigh he commenced to pull up the pegs that fastened down his tent.
It was soon bundled into the canoe together with his grub-box, his valise, and the odds and ends of his baggage.
"Get in," he said. "I'll paddle you back to the wharf."
Pen sat down in the bottom of the canoe while he perched on the stern seat wielding the paddle with the easy grace of long custom. She watched him through her lashes. The moon was behind him, silhouetting his strong frame and making a sort of aureole about his bare head.
The tide was high and the water had risen to within three feet of the floor of the wharf. Pen climbed out upon it.
"Well, is this good-by?" he said dolefully,
"No," said Pen breathlessly. Her instinct told her there was another struggle of wills ahead. "You're not going. I'm going to keep you here."
"What!" he cried. "Oh, if you knew how you tempted me!"
"Tempt you!" she said crossly. "This is no time for sentiment!"
"I couldn't let you," he said firmly.
"Where could you go?" she demanded.
"I'll manage to keep out of sight."
"There is no place you could go!" she insisted. "TheSun-paper is read on the remotest creeks. Do you realize what a hue and cry will be raised in the morning? Fifty boats will be out searching the river, the bay, the creeks. How could you hope to escape? Where would you get food and fresh water?"
"I'll find a way," he said stubbornly. "I'm going back to New York."
"Stay here!" she pleaded.
"I couldn't! What would you think of a man who unloaded all his troubles on a woman like that?"
"What would I think of him?" Pen was on her knees at the edge of the wharf reaching down for his things. The moonlight was in her face. She suddenly smiled at him in an oddly tender, an indulgent sort of way. "Don't be silly!" she said brusquely. "Hand me up that valise."
The advantage was all with her now. His man's pride was hardly strong enough to tear him away from her. He passed up the valise.
"I'll find some way to square the account," he grumbled.
Pen smiled still.
"What will we do with the canoe?" he asked, when their cargo was unloaded on the wharf.
"Sink it in deep water at the end of the wharf," she said.
"Good! I'll empty my clothes out and fill the valise with stones."
"Such a good valise," objected the prudent Pen. "Couldn't you just load the stones in the canoe?"
"No. She'd roll them out and come to the top. I can tie the valise to a thwart."
How Pen loved to have him talk to her offhand as to another man!
While he was attending to the canoe Pen busied herself dividing his belongings into two equal lots to carry up the hill. Her eyes ever glancing in the direction of the Island finally saw a tiny red and a green eye turn on them from afar.
"They've started back," she said quietly. "We'll have to carry everything in one trip."
"Oh, throw everything overboard that will sink."
"You'll need it."
"What are you going to do with me?"
"Hide you in the woods."
Presently the put-put of the noisy little boat came to them across the water.
"No time to lose!"
When Counsell came to her he coolly appropriated half her load. They wasted a good minute quarreling over it. Pen was not accustomed to having her will opposed by a man. Her undisputed sway at Broome's Point had made her a little too autocratic perhaps. A hot little flame of anger shot up in her breast. When she became angry Counsell laughed delightedly. This was outrageous. Nevertheless she liked it. She found a curious pleasure in giving in to him, and meekly accepted what he said she might carry. "What is happening to me?" she asked herself for the dozenth time that day.
They plodded up the hill under their loads, Pen in advance. Their shadows marched before them. The whole earth was held in a spell of moonlight and the perfume of the wild grape. It sharpened their senses intolerably. Life seemed almost too much to be borne. Neither could speak. Once Counsell bending under the weight of his pack, mutely put his hand forward and groped for hers.
"Don't! Don't!" she said painfully.
"Oh, Pen!" he murmured.
As they progressed along the top of the bank the motor-boat was completing her journey below them. They could glimpse the boat through the interstices of the bushes, but those in the boat could not have seen them.
"We must hurry," said Pen. "They must see already that your tent is gone."
Reaching the tenant cottage outside the grounds Pen said: "We could save time by cutting across here, but we'd leave a wide open track through the wet weeds. We'll have to go around."
They followed the road to the broken gate, and making the turn, kept along outside the fence until they got well in the rear of the cottage. Here the faintly marked path worn by Pen crossed the road, and they turned into it. The motor-boat had come to her moorings. Breaking into a sort of staggering run under their burdens they were soon received into the woods.
"I must get back to the house before they do," Pen panted.
The glade with its tiny temple presented a scene of unearthly beauty. A shaft of moonlight was silvering the pale dome. The deep bowl below the bank was full to the brim of moonlight.
A gasp of astonishment escaped Counsell. "What's this?"
"Afraid of ghosts?" asked Pen.
"Try me!" he laughed.
They cast their burdens on the ground. There was no time for lengthy explanations or leave-takings.
"Listen!" said Pen. "Pitch your tent among the bushes at the back of the tomb."
"I'll rig it from the branches," he said. "Won't drive stakes."
"Good! Keep back from the edge of the bank during the day. A small boat might come into the pond, looking for you. But no native will come near this spot. It's not safe to build a fire. What have you to eat?"
"Plenty of bread, cooked meat, eggs."
"When I come again I'll bring more. And a little oil stove. The water in the pond is not fit to drink, but you'll find a spring at the foot of the bank. Watch well before you show yourself in the open."
"When will you come again?" he asked urgently.
"When it is safe ... To-morrow night I think."
"The time will pass slowly until then," he said simply. He picked up her hand and pressed it hard to his cheek.
Pen snatched away her hand and fled—fled from she knew not what. Trying to fly from the shattering commotion in her breast perhaps, which of course she carried with her.
As she ducked through her own particular gap in the fence she could quite clearly hear the two men, coming up the road from the beach talking together in tones of chagrin. She sped to the house and upstairs to her room. Aunt Maria was asleep in a chair. Pen awakened her with a violent shake, and commenced to undress.
"Quick! my night-dress!" she cried. "Throw these wet things into a closet. Remember to say you put me to bed as soon as Dad went out and we both fell asleep!"
"Bless God, honey! Bless God!" repeated Aunt Maria. Nevertheless she bestirred herself.
When the two men knocked on the door a sleepy voice bade them enter. All was peace within the room. Aunt Maria struggled to her feet assiduously knuckling her eyes; Pen lay in bed with the bedclothes to her chin, her eyes languourous as if but just opened.
"You see," said Doctor Hance. "It is just as I told you. Everything is all right."
Pendleton's feelings were mixed. He was relieved, and as soon as he was relieved he remembered his suspicions. In order to divert attention from Aunt Maria whose delineation of sleepiness was rather melodramatic, Pen smiled at her father and murmured that she felt better.
He looked at her queerly. He could no longer contain his chagrin. "He's gone!" he said.
Pen, aware that the doctor was keenly observing her, made her eyes wide. "Gone?" she echoed. "Where?"
"Pushed off in his canoe somewhere."
"We'll get him in the morning," the doctor added, watching her still. "He can't get far."
Pen made her face an indifferent blank.
Pendleton was sent out of the room while the doctor made his examination. Hance was a frowsy old man with a rough tongue and a compassionate irascible eye. Everybody quarreled with him and depended on him as on a tower. He had no illusions left about mankind, but he gave all his strength to tending them. Pen dreaded being left alone with him. However he said no more about the escaped canoeist. From the character of his grunts as he sounded her she knew she had not deceived him at all. When the door closed behind him she flew to it to hear what he would say to her father.
Pendleton was just outside the door. "Well?" he asked anxiously.
"She's all right," was the gruff reply. "A bit of a shock maybe. No organic trouble."
"Hum," said Pendleton, and his thoughts immediately flew off to the other matter. "That engine of mine makes such a confounded racket! He must have heard me start off and guessed that I was on to him and had gone for help."
"I suppose so," said Dr. Hance with a grim chuckle.
They passed downstairs.
Pen thought with a thankful heart: "He's not going to give me away! Blessed old man!"
At all times Pen was an early riser but next morning she was up with the sun. While she was dressing, her collie Dougall set up a great barking in the back yard. At night he was kept fastened in his kennel there to keep watch that no fox or 'possum came after the poultry. Pen knew that it could not be one of those marauders now because it was broad day and there was no alarm amongst the chickens. So she paid no attention. Doug, like the best of dogs, sometimes raised a false alarm.
Night was too far away to wait for. Secure in the feeling of their solitude Pen planned to carry Don Counsell what he needed and get back to the house before anyone stirred. Her father arose like clockwork at six and Aunt Maria turned up in the kitchen yawning about that hour, or later. It was a queer thing to visit a man at five o'clock in the morning—but for humanity's sake! He would be asleep in his tent and would never know she had been there until he awoke and found what she had left. Pen's heart gave a queer little jump at the thought of being able to look at him sleeping without any necessity of veiling her eyes.
She billowed softly down the great stairway—it was a treat to stand at the bottom and see Pen come down with her toes pointing—and scampered into the pantry. From a high shelf she got down an old primus stove which had not been used in a long time, and cleaned it and filled it with oil. Then she made up a basket of bread, butter, cream, eggs, strawberries, etc., and started out of the house.
Some instinct of caution impelled her to put her things down on a chest in the hall, while she gave a preliminary peep out of doors. She was greatly taken aback to discover another young gentleman of the world sitting on the porch playing with one of her innumerable kittens. He sprang up, and snatching off his cap, bade her good morning.
Pen could only stare and stammer. "Why ... who ... how." Finally she managed to blurt out: "Where did you come from?"
His air was ingratiating—a shade too ingratiating perhaps. "Rowed over from the Island," he explained. "I arrived there about three and had a snooze on the seat of my car. As soon as it began to get light I hunted about until I found a skiff with oars in it, and came on over. I suppose there'll be a row when the owner finds it gone, but I'll square myself with him later. I knew your house by the cupola."
Pen lacked a key to all this. She looked her further questions.
"I'm on the —— newspaper," he went on cheerfully. "Claude Banner is my name. Last night somebody telephoned from the Island that Don Counsell had been here all day yesterday, so I got a car at once and started. Lost my way a couple of times. I aimed to come here direct by road, but the hills in the woods were washed so badly I had to turn around and go to the Island."
"Mr. Counsell has gone," said Pen. "You have had your journey for nothing."
"Not at all!" he said with his assured and agreeable smile. "It's your story that I came after."
Pen looked at him with a kind of horror. This possibility had not occurred to her. She withdrew into herself. "I have no story to tell," she said coldly.
He was not at all abashed. "My paper was the only one got the tip last night, and I've got to get my story over the phone in time for the evening edition. You have a phone here I see. The wires were the first things I looked for. It'll be a rare scoop. There'll be a mob down later."
Pen shivered inwardly and looked down. She was much confused, things were so different from what one imagined. Only last night she had said to herself: "If I could get hold of the men who write for newspapers I'd make them be fair to Don." (She already called him Don in her thoughts.) Well, here was her chance, but the brash young Danner antagonized her so she could scarcely be civil to him. She struggled with her feelings.
"You'll have to excuse me. I don't consider that the public has any interest in me ... or any right to intrude upon my privacy! I hate to read that sort of story in the newspapers ... But of course that's not your fault ... I'm willing to answer any proper questions, but I must not be quoted. There must be no descriptions of me or of my home!"
The young man's face fell. "But I've got to tell my story," he protested. "It'll be the scoop of the year. If I don't tell all about you the others will. I can appreciate your feelings, but the others are hard-boiled guys I assure you. But you'll like what I write about you when you see it. Everybody does."
Pen smiled wryly. "I don't know ... You'll have breakfast with us?"
"Oh no!" he said.
"You must. There's no place else for you to go. And you've been up all night."
He saw that she did not like him, and he appreciated her invincible hospitality. "Say, I wish I wasn't here on a story!" he said impulsively.
"So do I," said Pen. "I must ask you to wait here until I get things started in the house."
"But my story?"
"I'll be back shortly."
Pen went in and put away the things in her basket with a heavy heart. No chance now of seeing Don until night. All day he would be watching for her. In the course of time Aunt Maria turned up and breakfast was set in train.
The "interview" that followed was hardly a success. So few of Danner's questions came under the head of what Pen called "proper" questions. And the way he kept sizing her up out of the corners of his eyes made her stiffer and stiffer. She wished not to be stiff; she wished to win Danner to Don's side. But she soon discovered that it was hopeless; that the young reporter's sole business was to cater to the public taste. The sly look that appeared in Danner's eyes when she casually expressed a doubt of Don's guilt soon put her off that line. Meanwhile she was suffering horribly at the thought of having their poverty exposed in the newspapers. Obviously Banner missed nothing; the rotting porch, the patched screens, that ridiculous barricade around her sprouting dahlias.
Pendleton Broome presently came downstairs and Danner got along much better with him. The reporter knew just how to set up the little man in his own esteem. Pendleton admired the newspapers and his greatest pleasure was to see his name in print. So far he had only won to the correspondence columns. Pendleton encouraged, adopted a throaty voice and a magisterial air that caused poor Pen to squirm afresh, thinking of the fun the clever young man could have with her father.
During breakfast Pen was obliged to hear the story of the previous day's happenings told and retold with much irrelevant detail. Danner exerted himself to please her; he was not a bad sort of fellow; but Pen thinking of the other breakfasting on cold victuals and water, resented every swallow of hot coffee that he took.
"When I first read the story in the paper," thus Pendleton, "the fellow was still in the house. He was talking to my daughter in the drawing-room—a very gentlemanly, attractive sort of fellow you understand..."
"So I understand," said Danner, glancing sidelong at Pen.
"But there was something in his eye...!"
Pen could not stand for this. "Why, father," she protested with as good-natured and offhand a smile as she could muster, "be fair! You never discovered that 'something' until you read the paper."
"You are wrong, my dear. From the first I was aware of a curious prejudice against him. But of course I could not let it show while he was our guest."
Pen smiling at whatever cost, let it go.
"Where was I?" asked Pendleton.
Danner prompted: "He was in the drawing-room."
"Oh yes! For the moment I was at a loss. Frightfully awkward situation. By the time I had resolved on a course of action he had left the housewithout bidding me good-night!"
"Without bidding you good-night!" echoed Danner.
"Without bidding me good-night!"
Danner turned to Pen. "Why do you suppose he didn't say good-night to your father?"
"I don't know," said Pen carelessly. "I suppose he forgot."
"Perhaps he had a glimpse of the newspaper?"
"He couldn't see my father from where he was."
"Did he seem agitated?"
"Not in the least."
"What did you do then?" Danner asked Pendleton.
"My first plan was to get the lighthouse keeper to help me apprehend the fellow. But as I was setting out from the house my daughter had a sudden attack..."
Danner had the grace not to look at Pen, but she was aware of his sharp spring to attention.
"And as I was obliged to go to the Island for the doctor I decided to let him help me. But when we got back the fellow had struck his tent and pushed off."
"That taken in connection with his failure to bid you good-night..." suggested Danner.
"Exactly!" said Pendleton.
Pen felt she would scream if she were obliged to listen to any more of this. Making believe to discover an errand in the kitchen, she left the room.
When she came back Danner asked with hypocritical solicitude: "Are you quite well again this morning?"
"Perfectly," said Pen.
Useless to expect anything from Danner. Though he was clearly sensible to Pen's charm, the story was everything to him, and his nostrils were quivering now on the scent of a story much more dramatic than he had expected.
Pendleton went on: "Doctor Hance is coming back in a motor-boat this morning, and we will search the bay shore.... We have an idea of the direction he took," he added mysteriously.
"Wish you luck," said Danner. "We had a message from New York last night that a reward of five thousand dollars had been offered for Counsell's capture."
He looked at Pen as he said it. She kept her eyes down, and rested her hands on the edge of the table that they might not shake.
"What!" cried Pendleton. "Well! ... that lets me out then. No business for a gentleman, of course."
Pen's sore heart warmed gratefully towards her father.
"Who offers the reward?" Pen asked quietly. (Poor Pen! She suspected that her parade of indifference would never deceive the sharp-eyed reporter. What she ought to have shown was a frank, natural interest in the matter. But that was beyond her powers of dissimulation.)
"Ernest Riever, the well-known millionaire," said Danner. "An intimate friend of the murdered man, I believe."
When they finished breakfast several motor-boats were seen coming across from the Island. Danner made haste to get his story over the phone. This was an ordeal for Pen. The connection was bad, and Danner had to shout his "human interest" stuff at the top of his lungs. Pen went to her room and shut the door, and buried her head in the pillows. Still she could hear the horrible sentences that outraged every feeling of privacy she had. After that she gave up all pretense of trying to be agreeable to Danner.
The first comers from the Island were volunteer searchers. News of the reward had been telephoned down from Baltimore. They came to Broome's Point with the instinct of picking up the trail where it started, forgetting that water holds no tracks. One spot around the shores was as good as another to begin the search. Dr. Hance was not among them. Possibly the reward had put him off too. Others who had not the initiative to institute a search, merely came to hang around and stare and ask foolish questions. A little later Captain Spinney brought over a whole party of reporters from Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. These gentlemen undertook to interview Pen in a body. She liked them less than young Danner. She referred them to her father, and fled to her room.
Pendleton, enthroned on the porch, the center of interest for the crowd, was in his element. He graciously accepted the reporters' excellent cigars, and little by little, without realizing it, embroidered on his tale. In an expansive moment he asked them to lunch en masse, and then in terror went to Pen to tell her what he had done.
She merely nodded. "There's enough for one meal. But we'll run short at supper."
She gave the necessary orders for the meal, but declined to appear herself. Not until she knew the men were all gathered around the table did she venture to come down the back stairs and see to some of the things that had been left undone that distracted morning. Then she shut herself up again.
During the afternoon an automobile with a broken spring managed to win through by the road. It brought a load of New York reporters. These in asking their way had spread the news along the Neck, and the poor whites who lived there hidden in the woods began to straggle in in ox-carts, to share in the excitement.
Reporters made themselves at home all over the lower floor of the big house, even in the kitchen where they chaffed Aunt Maria and questioned her adroitly. This was a source of great uneasiness to Pen. She was divided between anxiety and indignation. There was something old English in Pen. Thus to have her castle invaded was the greatest outrage she could conceive of. But what could she do? She experienced a sickening loss of identity.
She could not stay in her room all the time. Whenever she went downstairs it was to be waylaid by one or half a dozen inquisitors who according to their natures tried to cajole her or to entrap her into answering their questions. Meanwhile the natives pressed their faces against the windows and stared in. Finally Pen sought her father.
"How long have I got to submit to this?" she demanded.
"To what, my dear?" he asked, sparring for time.
"To having my house overrun by strangers!"
"Patience, my child. They're not doing any real harm."
"But our house,ourhouse? Have we no rights in it?"
"I know, I know. But what can I do?"
"Request them to leave. They can at least wait outside the fence."
"But my dear!" said Pendleton aghast. "We've got to stand in well with the Press. Suppose they were to give the impression in their stories that we were concealing this fellow!" This was accompanied by his furtive glance of suspicion.
Pen thought in dismay: "One of them has put that idea into his head!" She said no more, but marched indignantly back to her room.
Worse trials were in store for her. About five, from her window she saw a new party of men come in by the drive. Even at the distance she could see that they differed subtly from the reporters, stupider looking men who carried themselves with the arrogance of conscious rectitude. After awhile Aunt Maria came to the door of her room, the whites of her eyes showing.
"Miss Penny, honey," she gasped. "Yo' Paw say, please to come downstairs."
"What's the matter, Aunt Maria?"
"Detecatifs, honey!" said Aunt Maria in an awe-struck whisper. "Detecatifs fum Noo Yawk!"
Without bestirring herself at all, Pen changed her dress and went slowly downstairs. As soon as she entered the drawing-room she regretted her dilatoriness, for they already had Aunt Maria on the carpet, and the old negress was sweating in agitation. Pen instantly conceived a violent dislike of her inquisitor. He was a bull-necked, ageing man with pendulous cheeks and dull, irascible blue eyes. He lolled in a chair by the window, with an arm over the back, and his fingers interlaced. He nodded to Pen and curtly requested her to be seated.
Pen flared up inwardly. ("Asking me to sit down in my own house!") In order to show that she was still mistress there, she moved calmly about the room, setting things in order. They had presumed to shove her center table over to the fireplace to give themselves room. She shoved it back. The chief with an annoyed glance resumed his questioning of the scared negress.
The room was full of people. There were four lesser officers grouped around the chief's chair. The reporters were gathered in a group under the arch that led to the back drawing-room. Pen soon learned that there was an excellent working agreement between these two parties, the reporters dependent on the detectives for news, and the detectives dependent on the reporters for public recognition of their efforts. Over by the other front window sat Pendleton, leaning back in an old swivel chair, trying to appear at his ease.
Aunt Maria was saying: "Soon as Mist' Pendleton go out Ah undress Miss Penny and put her in baid. She done drap right off lak a kitten."
"Then what did you do?" the man asked in the rasping voice inquisitors affect.
"Me? Ah didn't do nuffin, suh. Ah jes sot."
"Did you go to sleep too?"
"Ah reckon Ah did."
"How long did you sleep?"
"'Deed I caint tell. I aint know nuffin else till Miss Penny wake me up again."
"So she woke you up?"
Aunt Maria perceived that she had made a slip. "Yessuh! Yessuh!" she stammered. "Miss Penny done want a drink of watah."
"How did she wake you?"
Again Aunt Maria's tongue slipped. "She done shook mah ahm."
"So she was out of bed?"
"No suh! No suh!" cried Aunt Maria in a panic. "I misrecollect that. She jes hollered at me."
It would have been patent to a child that Aunt Maria was lying. The scene was intolerable to Pen's pride.
"Aunt Maria, tell the truth," she said sharply.
The poor old negress turned a face of complete dismay to her mistress. What was she to make of this? In her confusion she was unable to get anything else out.
To Pen the chief detective said harshly: "Please be silent, Miss. You will have a chance to tell your story in a minute."
Pen's eyes blazed. "You are not to suppose that you are entrapping me or my servant!" she said hotly. "I have no objection to your knowing that I went down to the beach last night and warned Mr. Counsell that he was liable to arrest!"
It had the effect of a bombshell there in the room. For a second all the men stared at Pen open-mouthed. Then of one accord the reporters made a rush out into the hall where the telephone was. He who first laid hand on it was allowed to get his call in first. Pen was too angry now to be terrified by further publicity. Their precipitancy merely disgusted her. Was there no such thing as human dignity?
Pendleton Broome's swivel chair had come forward with a snap. He looked clownish. He was the only one really surprised by Pen's disclosure. What astonished the others was that she should have admitted it. For a fleeting instant Pen felt sorry for the little man, but she had too much on her mind for the feeling to linger. The detective was not surprised, but he had counted on dragging out the admission, and it annoyed him excessively to have it flung in his face. He affected to be consulting with his subordinates while he recovered himself.
"You had better question me," Pen said. "Aunt Maria knows nothing more."
"Allow me to be the judge of that," he said sarcastically.
Pen shrugged. He went on questioning the negress, but she was reduced to a gibbering state. In the end he had to let her go. Aunt Maria hung in the hall, just around the corner of the door, listening with stretched ears. The reporters straggled back into the room.
Pen and the detective faced each other. The man cleared his throat and settled his collar, gave attention to his finger nails, and glanced carelessly out of the window—all time-honored devices to break up the composure of one's opponent. Pen merely looked at him. Suddenly he rasped at her:
"So you assisted this murderer to escape?"
"Don't speak to me like that," said Pen quietly, with heightened color. "He is not yet proved a murderer." Meanwhile her inner voice was saying despairingly: "You should not antagonize him! You should not antagonize him!" But it was impossible for her to act otherwise towards this great, stupid bully.
He smiled disagreeably; nevertheless he modified his tone. "What did you do it for?" he asked.
"He had had dinner and supper with us," said Pen. "I differed with my father as to its being our duty to inform against him."
"Where did he go from here?"
"I don't know."
"What! It was a bright moonlight night. Didn't you have interest enough to watch which way he went after having warned him?"
"He paddled straight out from the shore. I didn't wait. The motor-boat was coming back."
"Why didn't they see your tracks in the sand?"
"I walked at the edge of the water."
"What did you want to deceive your father for?"
"I beg your pardon," said Pen with her chin up. "That is between my father and me."
The detective abandoned this line of questioning. "Didn't Counsell tell you where he was going?" he demanded.
"No."
"Didn't you talk down on the beach?"
"Certainly."
"What about?"
"I had to tell him what was in the newspaper."
"Didn't he know already?"
"He did not."
The detective looked around at his subordinates with a leer, and they all laughed. Instead of disconcerting Pen it had the effect of stiffening her. She looked at one after another so steadily that their eyes suddenly found business elsewhere.
The chief said suddenly with the air of one springing a disagreeable surprise: "Had you ever seen Counsell before yesterday?"
"Never," said Pen.
"Are you sure of that?"
Pen merely looked at him.
"Answer my question, please!"
"I have already answered it."
"Do you expect me to believe that you undertook to save a total stranger from the law?"
"I have stated the facts."
The detective sprang to his feet and shook a violent forefinger at Pen—the old trick of the inquisitor. "You have seen this man before!"
"Don't shout at me," said Pen coolly. "I am not a criminal."
"As to that we'll see," he said ominously. "Did you ever hear of accessory after the fact."
"Well, if I am a criminal," said Pen, "I don't have to testify against myself."
"Don't argue with me if you please," he said. "Just answer my questions."
"Answer me a question if you please," said Pen clearly.
He stared. He was not accustomed to having the tables turned like this.
Before he could explode Pen asked her question: "You are from New York, aren't you?"
"What of it?"
"What are your rights in Maryland?"
His face turned ugly. "You'll see!" He addressed one of his men. "Keesing, you have heard this young woman's admissions. There's a justice of the peace over on the Island. Go to him and make the necessary affidavit to secure a warrant for her arrest."
The man left the room. Pen believed this to be a bluff, and scornfully smiled. Her father was impressed though. He wilted down in his chair, and put out an imploring hand towards his daughter. He was incapable of speaking.
"Do you want anything else of me?" Pen coolly asked her questioner.
Seeing that his threat had failed of effect, the detective judged it prudent not to prolong this scene. "That is all for the present," he said loftily. "You will please not leave the house."
"Thank you," said Pen, "but until I am arrested I shall do just what I am accustomed to do."
She left the room with her head up and went on up the stairs. She was not at all pleased with herself though. That inner voice said remorselessly: "You have only angered him without doing Don any good." To be sure, she had seen sympathy in the eyes of some of the reporters, but they could not say anything of course that might endanger their working agreement with the detectives. At the thought of danger to herself Pen smiled. She was in the frame of mind that welcomes persecution. But her heart was full of terror for Don. She had not foreseen that the place would be overrun like this. He was so near! And the detective's order to remain in the house suggested that they suspected he might still be on the place.
On her knees at her front window she watched the men leave the house in a body. Some shrubbery cut off her view of the gate, and she could not tell which way they turned after passing through it. Fortunately but an hour or two of daylight remained.
When Pen was sure that the house was emptied of strangers she went downstairs to see about the belated supper. She was mad with anxiety to know what was happening outside, but whatever comes, people must eat. Everything in the kitchen was at sixes and sevens of course, and Aunt Maria nowhere to be seen.
The old negress presently waddled in panting. She was both terrified and delighted by the gale of excitement that had suddenly blown upon the settled peace of Broome's Point. In order to divert her mistress' wrath, she made haste to give Pen the latest news from out-of-doors. It appeared that the detectives and the reporters had jointly hired the empty tenant cottage outside the gate, and were busy establishing themselves there. They had sent over to the island for supplies, and for all the cots and bedding available. They had hired a white woman from up the Neck to cook for them.
"Huh!" said Aunt Maria scornfully. "All Mis' Hat Dawkins evah cook is fat back and cawn pone!"
Pen breathed more freely.
Pen and her father supped alone together. The events of half a lifetime seemed to have occurred since the last time they had sat down without guests, That was breakfast the day before. By now every vestige of Pendleton's self-important air was gone. The situation had become too big for him. He was too much overcome even to blame Pen for anything that had happened. As always when things became difficult he depended like a child on Pen's superior strength. He had to blame something so he railed ceaselessly against the evil chance that had brought Counsell to their door.
Pen, busy with her own thoughts let him run on. Her brain was clicking like a well-oiled piece of machinery. Like a brave fighter she had to count up all the chances against her. How was she going to get out of the house that night, and how reach Don when their enemies were camped squarely beside her path? How could she guide him to a safer hiding-place, and yet leave the way open to carry him what he needed from time to time? How could she get him away from that dangerous neighborhood altogether? But perhaps after all Broome's Point was the safest place in the world for him. But if he stayed near what prodigies of courage, of astuteness, of resourcefulness would be demanded from her! Not for an instant would she be able to relax. Nerved as she was it was a prospect to make her tremble.
Pen enjoyed one great advantage in knowing every foot of ground around the place. The daily hunt for her vagrant turkeys, as well as the search every Spring for their nests, had taught her that. She knew she could find her way on the darkest night, but she was a good deal troubled by the natives wandering around the place. A party of them had built a fire over in the northeast corner of the grounds as if they intended to bivouac there. The darker the night the better for her. She watched the sky anxiously. It was quite heavily overcast, but with the moon at the full there would be a good deal of diffused light just the same.
Another danger was that her dog Dougall might betray her. She got around that by instructing Thedo' to shut him up in the barn. She had a convenient reason for doing so in that Doug had not been at all hospitable to the strangers during the day. "He might hurt somebody," Pen said.
The hours after supper were very hard for Pen to put in. Her plans were complete now, but she needed darkness and quiet to put them into motion. Somebody had brought their mail over from the Island, and Pendleton was absorbed in the latest accounts of the Counsell case. There was nothing about Broome's Point as yet save the bare announcement that Counsell had turned up there in a canoe. Pen was obliged to read the paper too, though it nauseated her. This day's story contained nothing of especial significance. There was an interview with Ernest Riever the millionaire who had put up the reward for Counsell's capture. Pen determined to ask Don about him.
Towards dark one of the detectives without so much as by your leave, came and took up his station in a chair on the front porch. Pen hearing him slapping at the mosquitoes out there, smiled dryly to herself. She went out into the dark kitchen and found as she expected, that there was another man on the kitchen porch. This relieved her mind. Much better to know where the watchers were than to have them concealed about the grounds. Pen had her own way of getting out of the house.
She could not get her father started to bed until she first made believe to go herself. She lay down on the outside of her bed fully clothed. When, after an age-long wait, she heard the sound of his snores from across the hall, she rose again and flitted noiselessly downstairs. For the past hour she had heard no sound from outside. She was accustomed to moving around the house in the dark, and she already had everything she wanted to carry with her placed handy to her hand. Wrapping each article separately in newspaper she put them all in a jute bag. Then satisfying herself that the watchers were still on the front and the back porch, she made her way down cellar. There was a possibility that there might be other men stationed out in the grounds, but she had to chance that.
On the north side of the house under the kitchen the cellar communicated with the outside by half a dozen steps and inclined doors in the old style. The milk was brought in this way and the doors were always open. A clump of bushes outside accounted for the fact that the opening had not yet been discovered. This was the blind side of the house.
For a moment Pen lingered behind the bushes listening, then came out. All along the northern side of the grounds ran a wind-break of arbor-vitæ. There was a gap in it, torn by the winter gales. Pen made for that. She neither ran nor crouched. While she wanted to escape observation, if she were seen, she wished to know of it. The fatal thing would be to unwittingly lead someone to Don's hiding-place.
She passed through the gap and hid herself on the other side to make sure she was not followed. Nobody came through.
She then had to make a long detour around the house grounds, across the old paddock and the stable yard in the rear, across the road which led up the Neck and thence via a small triangular field into the woods. Within shadow of the woods she waited again to make sure she was not followed across the field. Nothing stirred behind her. She could see pretty well.
There was no path through this part of the woods, and it was a matter of infinite difficulty to make her way through the underbrush and the thorny creepers without betraying herself. She forced patience on herself and proceeded foot by foot. The distance was not far and she laid a true course. She came out on her own path in the woods. Her heart began to beat in her throat. A hundred paces further lay the little temple.
He heard her coming and appeared ducking under his mosquito curtain. His arms went out to her involuntarily. Pen fearful of some outburst made a warning sound:
"Shh!"
That unthinking gesture of his melted her completely. How natural to have flung herself into his arms. All her carefully built-up strength seemed to run away like water. She fought against it desperately. Not for an instant could she afford to relax. She must think and be strong for both of them. She turned aside from his begging arms.
"I was delayed," she whispered faintly. "Much has happened."
"What does it matter?" he said warmly. "You're here! This is the longest day I've ever lived through. You told me you wouldn't be here till night, but I couldn't help expecting you. Every time a leaf stirred I thought it was you!" He sought to draw her to him.
"You mustn't!" whispered Pen sharply. "We're surrounded by danger. We must plan. This place is no longer safe. You must listen to me. Listen carefully."
His arms dropped to his sides. Pen hurriedly began to tell her story.
He interrupted her. "Come inside. The mosquitoes are too bad."
She hung back a little. Could she withstand him in the close intimacy of his little tent? She must! Steeling her breast she followed him in.
They sat side by side on the ground, nursing their knees and looking out through the mosquito curtain at the little temple outlined against the pale sky. Their shoulders pressed warmly together. That contact deprived Pen of the power of thinking, and she moved away a little. That hurt him; she knew it by the hang of his head. But she went doggedly ahead with her story.
When she came to the end Don said bitterly: "Well I've had plenty of time to-day to think things over. There's only one course open to me. I've got to give myself up."
Pen had expected this. "Wait!" she said urgently. "We must talk things over. You must read the papers I brought you before you make up your mind. You don't know yet what you're up against. I don't understand what makes the newspapers so bitter. Everybody who reads the stories is roused to a sort of craze to hunt you down. What sort of a trial would you get? Why they were even ready to arrest me because I took your part!"
Don was wildly indignant. "You have to go through such things while I sit here in safety!" he cried.
"That was nothing," said Pen. "He didn't mean it really."
"I can't stand it!" cried Don. "You don't know what I'm going through. Sitting here idle thinking about these things. I'd go out of my mind!"
"I do know what you're going through," murmured Pen.
"Suppose I did get away," he went on. "Would my life be worth saving with this accusation hanging over me? What sort of a life would I lead?"
"But the truth must come to light!" insisted Pen. "We will bring it to light."
"How can I fight for myself tied hand and foot like this?"
"You could use me," she murmured.
"That's just it!" he said bitterly. "I couldn't!"
"You haven't much of an opinion of women, have you?"
"You don't understand me. I don't doubt but you're a whole lot cleverer than I. But I have my pride. What would you think of a man who..." He ended with a shrug.
"We just argue round in a circle," said Pen dejectedly.
"So it seems."
"It's a waste of time," she said more firmly. "Let us talk things over first and find out where we're at. Your first thought was that it was a case of suicide."
"I've changed my mind," he said. "Dongan hadn't the nerve. He was the sort of man to cling to life. Besides the loss of seventy-five thousand wasn't a knock-out blow to him. He could have raised the money."
"Then it was murder," said Pen. "That agrees with the doctor's evidence. Who do you think killed him?"
"I swear I don't know," said Don helplessly. "I've been beating my brains all day without being able to hit out an idea. His life was as open as daylight."
"You knew him well?"
"About as well as one man can know another. We came of the same lot you see; old New York families that had been acquainted for three or four generations. Lord! we were too close for my comfort sometimes. He was one of these men with no reticence. His confidences were embarrassing. He was alone in the world, and he had a horror of his own company, see? Very often I was hard put to it to get away about my own concerns."
"But you were much attached to him?"
"Frankly, no!" said Don. "He was the sort of man you just take as a matter of course. Perfectly well-meaning, but a bit of a bore. No salt in him. I would never have gone in with him if I'd realized."
"The newspaper said he was your benefactor."
"Not exactly," said Don dryly. "When I came out of college I was at a loose end. I'm the last of my lot, you know. Not a near relation in the world. It's true Dongan offered me a partnership, but it was not altogether philanthropy. I had twenty-five thousand to put in. He had his seat on 'change and he needed the capital."
"You said he swindled you."
"It was his first crooked deal I'm sure. Even now I can't understand it. He must have been possessed!"
"How did it come out?"
"Friday night we had dinner together. Lord! it seems like a year ago instead of five days ... And now the earth is over him!" Don shuddered.
"You mustn't think of that," said Pen quickly.
"You're right! ... He had something on his mind. Said he wanted to talk to me. So I went up to his rooms afterward. There he blurted out that he was long on Union Central. The stock had broken thirteen points that day. He was seventy-five thousand in the hole. Hadn't a sou, he said. Evidently he'd been bucking the market for some time. Well, that was bad enough, but he actually had the cheek to suggest that I take the debt on my shoulders. I was young, he said, I could live it down, whereas it would ruin him. In the end it came out that he had already entered the transactions in my name in our private ledger, knowing that I never looked in the book. That made me see red. Such treachery! I blew up. I withdrew from the firm on the spot. Told him he could have my twenty-five thousand until he was on his feet, and he could borrow the rest from his wealthy friends."
"What did you do next?" asked Pen.
"I was so blazing mad I scarcely knew what I was doing. My one idea was to get shut of the whole boiling. Rotten game the Street; I was fed up with it anyhow. This only capped the climax. I longed for something clean like paddling a canoe in open water. My canoe was up at a boat-house on Spuyten Duyvil creek. I flung a few things into a valise and went right up there and got it. I paddled right through the rest of the night; down to Perth Amboy and up the Raritan river. By morning I was cooled off. You see I'd no reason to worry about the firm. Dongan had plenty of wealthy friends. If he'd lived he could have raised the money."
"How did your revolver get away from you?"
"Oh! ... I don't know. While I was packing I noticed it wasn't there, but I was too much excited to think about it."
"Had Mr. Dongan any enemies?"
"No. How should he have? A man like that. Never did a positive act in his life, either good or bad."
"A love-affair maybe?"
Don shook his head with a smile. "Not Dongan's line at all. He had no luck with the sex."
"Who were his friends?"
"He had no really intimate friends. Nobody who cared about him particularly. Plenty of associates of course. There was Ernest Riever."
"I was going to ask you about him."
"You know him?"
"Only as a name."
"Son of Scott Riever the steel magnate. Scott Riever's one of the richest men in the country. Ernest is rich in his own right, too. He just fluffs around. Has a big place up in Westchester county where he raises peaches and so on. It's his hobby."
"What sort of man is he?"
"A queer Dick!" said Don deliberating. "A queer Dick! ... Hard to describe offhand."
"He has offered five thousand dollars reward for your capture," said Pen.
Don was electrified. "What!" he cried. "The devil you say! ... Riever has come out against me! ... By God, that's funny!"
"Does that make things clear to you?" Pen asked eagerly.
"Wait a minute! ... Let me think! ... It's damn funny! ... Riever! ... My God!"
"Tell me," pleaded Pen. "Begin at the beginning. Do you know Riever well?"
"Sure! It was I who introduced him to Dongan. He's the same age as me. We were class-mates in college. We passed as pals. But it was a queer sort of friendship. I never could make him out. I couldn't keep my end up with his gilded set. I went in for athletics. But he used to come around me all the time. Flattered me and so on. Yet he didn't seem to like me either. I'd catch him looking at me in no friendly way. He'd let out sneering remarks."
"Is he a little man, ill-favored?" asked Pen.
"Why yes. How did you know?"
Pen smiled to herself. "Nothing. Go on. You were popular in college?"
"So they said," Don said offhand. "College popularity doesn't saw much wood in later life."
"But you were prominent?"
"Oh yes. Captain of the crew in my senior year."
"I see. Go on about Riever."
"Well, after we got out of college there was a sort of mix-up. Nasty mess. Riever had married upon graduation. Her name was Nell Proctor, daughter of the coal trust. I don't believe he cared anything about her, nor she about him. It was just the union of two powerful families that both sides were trying to bring about.
"Meanwhile I'd gone into the brokerage business. Riever would always be asking me up to his place and I went of course. I didn't like him any better than before, but I had to cultivate my graft. I don't suppose Riever's stock operations meant much in his life, but he was far and away the biggest customer Dongan and Counsell had. We got business merely through being associated with him.
"I didn't mention, did I, that Riever had a rotten streak in him, particularly where women were concerned. As time went on I noticed the fair Nell growing ever paler and more tight-lipped and I guessed that an explosion was coming. Then Riever stopped asking me up there any more. I wondered. He still came around the office and gave us his orders. There was a lot of talk around town, and finally a fellow told me they were saying that Nell Riever had done me the honor ... well you know."
Pen's breast grew tight.
"I laughed at the story. Why we'd scarcely ever exchanged a word in private. She wasn't my sort at all. Riever's attitude towards me hadn't changed in the least.
"Soon there was a complete bust-up of the Riever establishment. Nell sued him for divorce. She had cause enough God knows. His affairs were notorious. He set up a countersuit and produced a letter in court that Nell had written to some unnamed man. Ernest had intercepted it. Well this letter was published and I knew by internal evidence that it was ... well you know ... it had been written to me. A man hates to tell these things about himself! Poor girl! Just a foolish impulse no doubt, that she regretted as soon as she had given away to it! Anyhow the letter was thrown out and she got her divorce with thumping alimony."
Poor Pen was thinking to herself: "I wish I hadn't had to hear about this woman. I shall remember her!"
Don went on: "My name had not been mentioned openly, and Riever still came around the office. He still made out to treat me as an intimate friend, but that was just to put off the gossips. I began to be aware of a change. Once or twice I caught his eyes fixed on me with an expression that was simply poisonous!"
A sharp exclamation escaped from Pen.
"Made me damned uncomfortable," said Don. "Not that I was afraid of him, poor little runt! But one hates to know that there are ugly feelings like that around. He got in the way of giving Dongan his orders. He and Dongan became quite thick."
"Did this have any effect on Mr. Dongan's attitude towards you?" asked Pen.
"Yes," said Don, "now that you speak of it; Dongan had been acting queerly towards me for some time past. Relations were a little strained. But I never gave it much thought."
"Would Mr. Dongan have consulted Mr. Riever about his speculations?" asked Pen.
"Sure! Any tip that Riever let drop would be received as gospel."
"How about that stock you spoke of?"
"Union Central?"
"Do you suppose Mr. Riever advised Mr. Dongan to buy it?"
"Scarcely. Scott Riever's on the Board of Union Central. He'd have inside information if anybody had."
"But suppose Mr. Riever purposely advised him wrong."
"Why should he?"
"To get at you through him."
"Good God!" said Don.
There was a silence while each was thinking hard.
"Wait a minute," said Don. "There's a flaw in your reasoning. How could Riever have known that Dongan was trying to put it off on me?"
Pen shrugged. "Who knows what may have passed between the two men? A suggestion may have been dropped."
"I have it!" cried Don. "Riever could easily tell Dongan to put the orders through in my name so that it would not be guessed that the tip came from him. Everybody knew Riever and I were at outs, you see."
"Well there you are," said Pen.
There was another silence.
"You know what I am thinking," said Pen at last.
"My God, yes!" said Don. "Me too! ... But it's incredible!"
"Somebody shot Collis Dongan," said Pen simply. "Somebody who hated you. For look how cleverly the crime has been fastened on you. That is no accidental train of circumstances. Your revolver! And somebody keeps sending stuff to the newspapers that is cunningly designed to poison the public mind against you!"
"But how could Riever get away with it?" asked Don in a maze. "He's too public a character. Like some sort of potentate you know. He never goes out alone. Even if he did shake his body-guard, every newsboy on the street would recognize him."
"I don't suppose he did it himself," said Pen. "But with his money he could easily get it done, couldn't he? One reads of such things."
"But if I was his mark, why didn't he take a shot direct at me?" said Don.
"That wouldn't satisfy a man like that," said Pen. "Instant death is painless."
"But what do you know about Riever?" asked Don.
"My intuition tells me," she said simply. "For years he has been jealous of you; jealous of everything you were that he was not. It was like a corroding ulcer in his breast. That letter of course brought it to a head.... Don't you see? to drag you down, to disgrace you so completely, to bring you to such an unspeakable death, that is the only thing that would give him satisfaction."
"Good God! I can't grasp such fiendish villainy!" cried Don.
"I can," said Pen quietly. "... I guess my soul is older than yours."
"Suppose we're right," said Don. "What good? There is not a scintilla of evidence!"
"He showed his hand once," said Pen. "In offering that reward. Your going away on a trip was the one thing he couldn't have foreseen. It has upset all his calculations."
"The reward aroused my suspicions," said Don. "But it's not evidence."
"We'll get evidence."
"We're up against it all right," said Don harshly. "What is known as the Riever group in New York controls a billion dollars, I guess."
"Then you're satisfied that I was right, aren't you?" asked Pen.
"How do you mean?"
"If you gave yourself up you'd be playing directly into Riever's hands."
Don dropped his head between his hands. "You're right!" he groaned. "But good God! how am I going to stand it!"
Poor Pen! Her breast yearned over him; her arms ached to enfold him. But she could only sit there like a wooden woman, staring at the ground. There was nothing she could have said which would not have been a mockery.
He said at last: "I ought to be in New York."
"It would be impossible to make the trip just now," Pen said quickly. "If you only had somebody there to act for you."
"I have friends, plenty of them," he said gloomily. "But whom could I trust in an affair of this sort? It's not their loyalty I doubt, but their good sense ... Anyhow how could I get my side of the case before them?"
"Couldn't I carry messages to your friends?" asked Pen diffidently. "Perhaps I could find someone competent to act for you ... Perhaps I could get acquainted with Riever. If I could see him I'dknow. A woman might discover his weak spot ..."
"I wouldn't let you have anything to do with Riever," he said quickly. "He's a swine!"
Pen was charmed by his proprietary air.
"Besides all that would take money," Don went on dejectedly. "I have only a few dollars. A check would be fatal."
"Perhaps I could find the money," murmured Pen.
"I couldn't let you do that," he said painfully. "Please don't speak of it."
"But if it is necessary!" she persisted. "This is no time for the silly little conventions of life. We must speak of it again... What time is it?"
He flashed a pocket light on his watch. "Two o'clock."
Pen rose. "We must hurry," she said. "It gets light at four and we've a long way to go."
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To the main woods, up the Neck. The detectives and the reporters are housed within a quarter of a mile of this spot. If they look around at all in the morning they can't help but discover the path that leads here. Strangers wouldn't be kept off by the bad reputation of the place."
"How can we get away without passing them?" Don asked. "Give me some idea of the lie of the land."
"The woods are full of old roads," said Pen. "Since I was a child I have been exploring them. Some were laid out by my grandfather for the gentry to drive over. Others have been cut for the purpose of taking out logs. Across the pond there's a road comes down to the shore. We must make our way to that."
Again they went through the business of packing up. In a few minutes they were ready to start. With Don's flashlight Pen searched all about the clearing to make sure that no evidence of his sojourn had been left there. Don made a bundle of his tent and tied it on his back. He took his grub-basket in his hand, and stuck his hatchet in his belt. Pen stuffed his bundle of clothes into the grass bag with the things she had brought. They started down to the water's edge.
Don's spirits instantly began to rise. "I feel like a human being again," he said. "Instead of a caged rat."
From the spring Pen struck into the underbrush, using Don's flashlight to pick her way slowly and cautiously through the tangle. A few yards back from the water's edge it was more open.
"We'll leave a wide open track behind us here," she said, "but I don't suppose those New York detectives are very good woodsmen."
"Why couldn't we wade around the edge of the pond?" he asked.
"The bottom is soft. We'd sink to the knees."
Finally they struck into the old road where the going was easy. They could walk abreast.
"When Dad sells wood they haul the logs down here to the water's edge and float them out to the bay at high tide," said Pen.
She warned him to avoid the paler spots in the road. These were patches of sand. "Doesn't matter so much if they find my tracks," she said, "anybody around here would tell them that I am always wandering."
It was a hot still night with distant lightning. Something seemed to press down upon them from above. The woodsy smell compounded of leaf mold and pine needles was extraordinarily pungent. The silence under the trees was absolute. Not a leaf rustled, not a bird cheeped, not an insect strummed. Only when they paused to rest could they hear little stealthy stirrings in the mold.
"Mink or weasel," said Pen.
Though they had now put their enemies far behind them, out of respect for the great silence they still talked in murmurs. The wild creatures were less sensitive. Once they heard quite close the sharp bark of a fox, and again from farther away a wild laugh came ringing.
"What's that?" asked Don startled.
"Loon," said Pen. "There's another pond in that direction."
Little by little they became one with the night and the wildness; their worldly concerns slipped off; their breasts were light. It was enough merely to smell and to hear; to stretch their muscles.
"Why do people live in houses?" said Don.
"Poor things! They know no better," said Pen.
More than once the road forked but Pen always made her choice unhesitatingly.
"How can you be so sure in the dark?" he asked.
"I just have a general notion," she laughed. "We couldn't go far wrong. The Bay is on one side of us, the fields on the other."
After a long walk they came suddenly to the edge of the woods. A rail fence divided woodland and clearing. There was a barred opening into the field. Pen dropped her bag on the other side and vaulted over like a boy. Don more heavily encumbered had to climb over. On the other side some dim shapes rose awkwardly in the grass and trotted away.
"My sheep," said Pen. "I know where we are. I mended that fence myself to keep them from straying."
At one step they had entered the civilized world again. Up the river the steamboat blew for a wharf, and they could hear from far-off the barking of a dog, and all those vague little sounds that rise from a peopled land at night. The field was populous with crickets and the wide space was made lovely by myriad fire-flies floating about like vagrant stars. The field was a broad one, and the going rough underfoot. Young pine trees were springing up everywhere.
"Hanged if I know where I am," said Don.
"We're facing north now," said Pen. "That pale glow in the clouds is the reflection of the lights of Washington, seventy miles from here."
"Fancy the Nation's capital ... and this!" said Don.
"That bunchy black shadow away off to the left is the grove of tall trees that surrounds our house. We have circled round it you see. The long line on the right is the main woods which fills the whole Neck for miles above. All our fields lie on this side. The woods are gradually taking them back."
"If you put me in those woods will I ever see you again?" he asked apprehensively.