Morning found Winthrope more irritable and peevish than ever. Though he had not been called on watch by Blake until long after midnight, he had soon fallen asleep at his post and permitted the fire to die out. Shortly before dawn, Blake was roused by a pack of jackals, snarling and quarrelling over the half-dried seafowl. To charge upon the thieves and put them to flight with a few blows of his club took but a moment. Yet daylight showed more than half the drying frames empty.

Blake was staring glumly at them, with his broad back to Winthrope, when Miss Leslie appeared. The sudden cessation of Winthrope’s complaints brought his companion around on the instant. The girl stood before him, clad from neck to foot in her leopard-skin dress.

“Well, I’ll be–dashed!” he exclaimed, and he stood staring at her open-mouthed.

“I fear it will be warm. Do you think it becoming?” she asked, flushing, and turning as though to show the fit of the costume.“Do I?” he echoed. “Miss Jenny, you’re a peach!”

“Thank you,” she said. “And here is the skirt. I have ripped it open. You see, it will make a fine flag.”

“If it’s put up. Seems a pity, though, to do that, when we’re getting on so fine. What do you say to leaving it down, and starting a little colony of our own?”

Miss Leslie raised the skirt in her outstretched hands. Behind it her face became white as the cloth.

“Well?” demanded Blake soberly, though his eyes were twinkling.

“You forget the fever,” she retorted mockingly, and Blake failed to catch the quaver beneath the light remark.

“Say, you’ve got me there!” he admitted. “Just pass over your flag, and scrape up some grub. I’ll be breaking out a big bamboo. There are plenty of holes and loose stones on the cliff. We’ll have the signal up before noon.”

Miss Leslie murmured her thanks, and immediately set about the preparation of breakfast.

When Blake had the bamboo ready, with one edge of the broad piece of white duck lashed to it with catgut as high up as the tapering staff would bear, he called upon Winthrope to accompany him.“You can go, too, Miss Jenny,” he added. “You haven’t been on the cliff yet, and you ought to celebrate the occasion.”

“No, thank you,” replied the girl. “I’m still unprepared to climb precipices, even though my costume is that of a savage.”

“Savage? Great Scott! that leopard dress would win out against any set of Russian furs a-going, and I’ve heard they’re considered all kinds of dog. Come on. I can swing you into the branches, and it’s easy from there up.”

“You will excuse me, please.”

“Yes, you can go alone,” interposed Winthrope. “I am indisposed this morning, and, what is more, I have had enough of your dictation.”

“You have, have you?” growled Blake, his patience suddenly come to an end. “Well, let me tell you, Miss Leslie is a lady, and if she don’t want to go, that settles it. But as for you, you’ll go, if I have to kick you every step.”

Winthrope cringed back, and broke into a childish whine. “Don’t–don’t do it, Blake–Oh, I say, Miss Genevieve, how can you stand by and see him abuse me like this?”

Blake was grinning as he turned to Miss Leslie. Her face was flushed and downcast with humiliation for her friend. It seemed incredible that a man of his breeding should betray such weakness. A quick change came over Blake’s face.

“Look here,” he muttered, “I guess I’m enough of a sport to know something about fair play. Win’s coming down with the fever, and’s no more to blame for doing the baby act than he’ll be when he gets the delirium, and gabbles.”

“I will thank you to attend to your own affairs,” said Winthrope.

“You’re entirely welcome. It’s what I’m doing.– Do you understand, Miss Jenny?”

“Indeed, yes; and I wish to thank you. I have noticed how patient you have been–”

“Pardon me, Miss Leslie,” rasped Winthrope. “Can you not see that for a fellow of this class to talk of fair play and patience is the height of impertinence? In England, now, such insufferable impudence–”

“That’ll do,” broke in Blake. “It’s time for us to trot along.”

“But, Mr. Blake, if he is ill–”

“Just the reason why he should keep moving. No more of your gab, Win! Give your jaw a lay-off, and try wiggling your legs instead.”

Winthrope turned away, crimson with indignation. Blake paused only for a parting word with Miss Leslie. “If you want something to do, Miss Jenny, try making yourself a pair of moccasins out of the scraps of skin. You can’t stay in this gully all the time. You’ve got to tramp around some, and those slippers must be about done for.”

“They are still serviceable. Yet if you think–”

“You’ll need good tough moccasins soon enough. Singe off the hair, and make soles of the thicker pieces. If you do a fair job, maybe I’ll employ you as my cobbler, soon as I get the hide off one of those skittish antelope.”

Miss Leslie nodded and smiled in response to his jesting tone. But as he swung away after Winthrope, she stood for some time wondering at herself. A few days since she knew she would have taken Blake’s remark as an insult. Now she was puzzled to find herself rather pleased that he should so note her ability to be of service.

When she roused herself, and began singeing the hair from the odds and ends of leopard skin, she discovered a new sensation to add to her list of unpleasant experiences. But she did not pause until the last patch of hair crisped close to the half-cured surface of the hide. Fetching the penknife and her thorn and catgut from the baobab, she gathered the pieces of skin together, and walked along the cleft to the ladder-tree. There had been time enough for Blake and Winthrope to set up the signal, and she was curious to see how it looked.

She paused at the foot of the tree, and gazed up to where the withered crown lay crushed against the edge of the cliff. The height of the rocky wall made her hesitate; yet the men, in passing up and down, had so cleared away the twigs and leaves and broken the branches on the upper side of the trunk, that it offered a means of ascent far from difficult even for a young lady.

The one difficulty was to reach the lower branches. She could hardly touch them with her finger-tips. But her barbaric costume must have inspired her. She listened for a moment, and hearing no sound to indicate the return of the men, clasped the upper side of the trunk with her hands and knees, and made an energetic attempt to climb. The posture was far from dignified, but the girl’s eyes sparkled with satisfaction as she found herself slowly mounting.

When, flushed and breathless, she gained a foothold among the branches, she looked down at the ground, and permitted herself a merry little giggle such as she had not indulged in since leaving boarding-school. She had actually climbed a tree! She would show Mr. Blake that she was not so helpless as he fancied.

At the thought, she clambered on up, finding that the branches made convenient steps. She did not look back, and the screen of tree-tops beneath saved her from any sense of giddiness. As her head came above the level of the cliff, she peered through the foliage, and saw the signal-flag far over near the end of the headland. The big piece of white duck stood out bravely against the blue sky, all the more conspicuous for the flocks of frightened seafowl which wheeled above and around it.

Surprised that she did not see the men, Miss Leslie started to draw herself up over the cliff edge. She heard Winthrope’s voice a few yards away on her left. A sudden realization that the Englishman might consider her exploit ill-bred caused her to sink back out of sight.

She was hesitating whether to descend or to climb on up, when Winthrope’s peevish whine was cut short by a loud and angry retort from Blake. Every word came to the girl’s ears with the force of a blow.

“You do, do you? Well, I’d like to know where in hell you come in. She’s not your sister, nor your mother, nor your aunt, and if she’s your sweetheart, you’ve both been damned close-mouthed over it.”

There was an irritable, rasping murmur from Winthrope, and again came Blake’s loud retort.“Look here, young man, don’t you forget you called me a cad once before. I can stand a good deal from a sick man; but I’ll give it to you straight, you’d better cut that out. Call me a brute or a savage, if that’ll let off your steam; but, understand, I’m none of your English kinds.”

Again Winthrope spoke, this time in a fretful whine.

Blake replied with less anger: “That’s so; and I’m going to show you that I’m the real thing when it comes to being a sport. Give you my word, I’ll make no move till you’re through the fever and on your legs again. What I’ll do then depends on my own sweet will, and don’t you forget it. I’m not after her fortune. It’s the lady herself that takes my fancy. Remember what I said to you when you called me a cad the other time. You had your turn aboard ship. Now I can do as I please; and that’s what I’m going to do, if I have to kick you over the cliff end first, to shut off your pesky interference.”

The girl crouched back into the withered foliage, dazed with terror. Again she heard Blake speak. He had dropped into a bitter sneer.

“No chance? It’s no nerve, you mean. You could brain me, easy enough, any night–just walk up with a club when I’m asleep. Trouble is, you’re like most other under dogs–’fraid that if you licked your boss, there’d be no soup bones. So I guess I’m slated to stay boss of this colony–grand Poo Bah and Mikado, all in one. Understand? You mind your own business, and don’t go to interfering with me any more! . . . . Now, if you’ve stared enough at the lady’s skirt–”

The threat of discovery stung the girl to instant action. With almost frantic haste, she scrambled down to the lower branches, and sprang to the ground. She had never ventured such a leap even in childhood. She struck lightly but without proper balance, and pitched over sideways. Her hands chanced to alight upon the remnants of leopard skin. Great as was her fear, she stopped to gather all together in the edge of her skirt before darting up the cleft.

At the baobab she turned and gazed back along the cliff edge. Before she had time to draw a second breath, she caught a glimpse of Blake’s palm-leaf hat, near the crown of the ladder tree.

“O-o-h!–he didn’t see me!” she murmured. Her frantic strength vanished, and a deathly sickness came upon her. She felt herself going, and sought to kneel to ease the fall.

She was roused from the swoon by Blake’s resonant shout: “Hey, Miss Jenny! where are you? We’ve got your laundry on the pole in fine shape!”

The girl’s flaccid limbs grew tense, and her body quivered with a shudder of dread and loathing. Yet she set her little white teeth, and forced herself to rise and go out to face the men. Both met her look with a blank stare of consternation.

“What is it, Miss Genevieve?” cried Winthrope. “You’re white as chalk!”

“It’s the fever!” growled Blake. “She’s in the cold stage. Get a pot on. We’ll–”

“No, no; it’s not that! It’s only–I’ve been frightened!”

“Frightened?”

“By a–a dreadful beast!”

“Beast!” repeated Blake, and his pale eyes flashed as he sprang across to where his bow and arrows and his club leaned against the baobab. “I’ll have no beasts nosing around my dooryard! Must be that skulking lion I heard last night. I’ll show him!” He caught up his weapons and stalked off down the cleft.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Winthrope; “the man really must be mad. Call him back, Miss Genevieve. If anything should happen to him–”

“If only there might!” gasped the girl.

“Why, what do you mean?”

She burst into a hysterical laugh. “Oh! oh! it’s such a joke–such a joke! At least he’s not a hyena–oh, no; a brave beast! Hear him shout! And he actually thinks it’s a lion! But it isn’t–it’s himself! Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do?”

“Miss Genevieve, what do you mean? Be calm, pray, be calm!”

“Calm!–when I heard what he said? Yes; I heard every word! In the top of the tree–”

“In the tree? Heavens! Miss–er–Miss Genevieve!” stammered Winthrope, his face paling. “Did you–did you hear all?”

“Everything–everything he said! What shall I do? I am so frightened! What shall I do?”

“Everything he said?” echoed Winthrope.

“You spoke too low for me to hear; but I’m sure you faced him like a gentleman–I must believe it of you–”

Winthrope drew in a deep breath. “Ah, yes; I did, Miss Genevieve–I assure you. The beast! Yet you see the plight I am in. It is a nasty muddle–indeed it is! But what can I do? He is strong as a gorilla. Really, there is only one way–no doubt you heard him taunt me over it. I assure you I should not be afraid–but it would be so horrid–so cold-blooded. As a gentleman, you know–”“No; it is not that!” broke in the girl. “He is right. Neither of us has the courage–even when he is asleep.”

“My dear Miss Genevieve, this beast instinct to kill–”

“Yes; but think of him. If he is a beast, he is at least a brave one. While we–we haven’t the courage of rabbits. I thought you called yourself an English gentleman. Are you going to stand by, and not lift a finger?”

“Really, now, Miss Genevieve, to murder a man–”

“Self-defence is not a crime–self-preservation. If you have a spark of manhood–”

“My dear–”

“For Heaven’s sake, if you can’t do anything, at least keep still! Oh, I’m sure I shall go mad! If only I had been drowned!”

“Ah, yes, to be sure. But really now, what you ask is a good deal for a man to risk. The fellow might wake up and murder me! Should I take the risk, might I–er–expect some manifestation of your gratitude, Miss Genevieve?”

“Of course! of course! I should always–”

“I–ah–refer to the–the–bestowal of your hand.”

“My hand? I– Would you bargain for my esteem? I thought you a gentleman!”“To be sure–to be sure! Who says I am not? But all is fair in love and war, you know. Your choice is quite free. I take it, you will not consider his–er–proposals. But if you do not wish my aid, you have another way of escape–that is–at least other women have done it.”

The girl gazed at him, her eyes dilating with horror as she realized his meaning.

“No, no; not that!” she gasped. “I want to live–I’ve a right to live! Why, I’m only just twenty-two–I–”

“Hush!” cautioned Winthrope. “He’s coming back. Be calm! There will be time until I get over this vile malaria. It may be that he himself will have the fever.”

“He will not have the fever,” replied the girl, in a hopeless tone, and she leaned back listlessly against the baobab, as Blake swung himself up, frowning and sullen, and flung his weapons from him.

“Bah!” he grumbled, “I told you that brute was a sneak. I’ve chased clean down to the pool and into the open, and not a smell of him. Must have hiked off into the tall grass the minute he heard me.”

“If only he had gone off for good!” murmured Miss Leslie.“Maybe he has; though you never can count on a sneak. Even you might be able to shoo him off next time; but, like as not, he’d come along when we were all out calling, and clean out our commissary. Guess I’ll set to and run up a barricade down there where the gully is narrowest. There’re shoals of dead thorn-brush to the right of the pool.”

“Ah, yes; I fancy the vultures will be so vexed when they find your hedge in the way,” remarked Winthrope.

“My! how smart we’re getting!” retorted Blake. “Don’t worry, though. We’ll stow the stuff in Miss Jenny’s boudoir, and I guess the birdies’ll be polite enough to keep out.”

“I must say, Blake, I do not see why you should wish to drag us away from here.”

“There’re lots of things you don’t see, Win, me b’y–jokes, for instance. But what could you expect?–you’re English. Now, don’t get mad. Worst thing in the world for malaria.”

“One would fancy you could see that I am not angry. I’ve a splitting headache, and my back hurts. I am ill.”

Blake looked him over critically, and nodded. “That’s no lie, old man. You’re entitled to a hospital check all right. Miss Jenny, we’ll appoint you chief nurse. Make him comfortable as you can, and give him hot broth whenever he’ll take it. You can do your sewing on the side. Whenever you need help, call on me. I’m going to begin that barricade.”