FOR minutes they stood looking after the boat. They could not believe it true. Left on the island, far from any habitation! It seemed as if some one must miss them, as if the steamer would surely come chugging back after them.

But instead it went farther and farther away, and presently out of sight.

As the last gleam of light disappeared around a far point of land, Erminie turned in dismay.

“Oh, Billy, do you know the way to the Beckets’?”

“Who are they? I never heard of them.”

“They live on this island, but I don’t know the direction.”

“The island is five miles long and wooded like a jungle. We might wander in a circle for hours and not get five hundred yards from where we started.” Billy spoke calmly and rather absently. He was sizing up the situation, trying to see the best way out of it. While they talked, clouds that had been earlier hovering on the horizon, now joined and veiled the moon.

“Gee! If Luna goes back on us we’ll have to give up travel by land.”

“Perhaps there’s a boat—canoe or rowboat.”

“I’ll see. You stay here a minute—”

She caught his hand. “Billy! If you leave me I’ll scream; and if I do that I’ll faint, I know I will. There may be wild cats!”

Billy laid an impressive hand on her arm. “Kid, there are no wild animals about here. We’re just as safe here as anywhere. And whatever comes, we’ve got to buck up and take it, haven’t we?”

“Ye-es, I suppose so. Oh, I’ll try to be game if—if only you won’t leave me, Billy.”

“All right. It’s partnership, then. Come on.”

They went to the wharf and skirted the lake up and down a few steps, but found nothing.

“Perhaps that path we took leads to some house,” Erminie suggested.

They climbed the hill to the pavilions again, and followed the path; but it ended in the little clearing where they had sat a few minutes before—hours it seemed to Billy.

“Possibly there’s some other trail leading off from the park; let’s investigate.”

They went back, and slowly, and with many scratches from blackberry vines, Billy leading, they felt their way around it, diving into the dense thickets at each promising bit of openness, only to be met after a few steps with close-woven vines, breast-high ferns braided like a net, or fallen logs covered with briers.

Erminie stumbled and almost fell; rose pluckily before Billy could reach her; tried again; fell prone the next time, and was not quite on her feet when he came.

“Erminie, you can’t stand this. We’ll have to give it up. It’s so dark anyway with the moon hidden that if there was a path we’d likely miss it.”

“What then, Billy? We can’t give up trying.”

“Suppose we try the shore again. Perhaps we can make it that way to some house.”

She agreed, and they went to the water’s edge and started north. But their progress was stopped by the very promontory from which, high above, they had looked out on the moonlit lake. The bank rose perpendicularly from the water, which was deep here; and the only way to proceed was to climb back to the cleared space and down on the other side, a course they had already proved unfeasible.

Next they tried the southern way. Unlike the shores of salt water, there was no beach to be bared by lowering tides; and they could only pick their way along shore at the edges of the same dense growth as above, a growth that in spots even trespassed on the water.

They succeeded in going some distance; and once were cheered by discovering an unmistakable path; but when they had followed it a little distance it grew less plain, and broke into half a dozen blind trails which all ended in the blank wall of green.

They tried one or two of these, their courage and Erminie’s strength growing less with each effort.

“What made trails like these, I wonder?” Billy asked, half to himself.

“Could they be deer trails? There were ever so many on the island years ago; dad used to come here to hunt.”

“Whatever they are they aren’t for us.” Billy looked at his watch. “Twelve o’clock! We’ve been thrashing round for nearly two hours, and got nowhere; and you’re all in, Erminie. We must go back to the picnic ground and think out some other scheme.”

Erminie made no objection. She was too weary and frightened to do anything but fall in with his suggestions. Billy himself, as perplexed as she was, and with the added weight of responsibility for her safety, felt the need of a little respite for fresh planning.

In silence they climbed the hill again, each thankful for the broad smooth path that led up from the steamer landing.

“The first thing is a snack, Erminie. It’s a great thing for us that my mother’s eyes are bigger than our appetites,—at least for a first trial.”

He left her in the pavilion and went to look for his basket, but it was gone. Puzzled and more weary than he knew till this fresh disappointment revealed it, he dropped to the ground for an instant in sheer discouragement. What next? They would have to remain all night,—there was no other way. And what would that mean?

For himself it did not matter; he would tell his people just how it happened, and they would believe him; they always did. But Erminie—would other people—strangers—believe? Think as well of her as before? Would her father——Her father! What would he say? Billy knew he was a violent man; what would he do?

She called him, and there was a pitiful note of distress in her voice that warned Billy he must not leave her alone. “I’m coming!” he answered, and sprang up, aroused by her need to fresh action and a semblance of cheer. “You can’t shake me, you see.” He ran up the steps toward her.

“I’m so afraid when you are not near me, Billy.” Her voice trembled.

“I couldn’t find our basket. I guess Mumps or some of them thought I had forgotten it, and took it along.”

A sudden gust shook the trees above them, and the noise coming so unexpectedly on the dead quiet of the cloudy night, startled them.

“It’s going to rain; and you’re shivering, too,” he added as he took her outstretched hand at the top of the steps. “The first thing to do is to make a fire.”

“Can you? Have you any matches?”

“No, but I guess there will be some coals under the ashes.”

They went down and raked over the fireplace, but the boys had obeyed the rules only too well; every vestige of live coal was gone.

For a minute they stood speechless, looking out over the dark and angry water. There seemed to Erminie absolutely nothing further to be done. She was worn and faint, and with difficulty restrained her tears.

“There’s nothing for it but to try to make a fire camp fashion. It will be tough work, even if it doesn’t rain.”

As if in answer to this last, another gust swept through the trees, louder than the first.

“Erminie, you’re just all right. You’ve never once hinted that I was the boss slob to get you into this.”

“Why, Billy, I wouldn’t think of such a thing. I saw as plain as you that half-past ten was the leaving hour. It’s the fault of the steamer people; or——Are you sure your watch is right?”

“Yes. It’s never failed yet. My brother Hal said it was guaranteed. He gave it to me. It hasn’t varied a minute in two months. But this isn’t work. You go back and cuddle as close in that corner as you can, little girl, and try to keep warm, while I see what I can do with my jack knife. Here’s a time when a fellow that smokes has the advantage.”

“I don’t see why he couldn’t carry matches if he didn’t smoke.”

“I know one chump that will after this.”

But Erminie did not settle to uselessness.

“While you’re trying to make a fire I’ll see what was shaken out of the tablecloth. I saw them hold it over this corner; and if we could find a roll or a bit of meat,—you wouldn’t mind eating scraps just about now, would you, Billy?”

The cheer that came into her tone with the prospect of something to do heartened Billy as much as herself. “Mind? I could eat the shell right off the eggs. You’re a bright kid, you are, all right.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will be something better than egg-shells.”

“Go to it. You may find a course dinner there in the grass, or at least the nice brown tint on one of Bess Carter’s biscuits.”

She laughed, which pleased him; and he went to a spot in the path where he remembered to have stubbed his toe on a projecting rock, intending to get it for a flint. But he had barely found it when she called to him.

“Billy! Billy! I’ve found a match-box with one match in it.”

“Bully! We’re saved!” He was by her side in a second.

“But one match,—it’s—”

“It’s as good as ten.”

He was woodsman enough to succeed with his fire very quickly.

“How did you come to be so clever, Billy?”

She watched him intently as he prepared his gathered paper, twigs, bits of bark, and boughs; and struck his precious match within the shelter of his coat.

Soon a crackling blaze cheered and warmed them. And when Erminie found some sandwiches and a few bits of ham thrown away in its wrappings of oiled paper, they felt as if a second feast had been like manna dropped from heaven to save them. The moon broke through the clouds for a minute, and Billy, rummaging in the grass, found the discarded coffee sack.

“Good enough! Hot coffee in five minutes!” he called softly. Without realizing it they had not spoken really aloud. Unconsciously they felt and acted as if a thousand sentient, invisible beings surrounded them, hearing and seeing their every word and move.

Billy found a lard pail, one among the many thrown away, washed it, saw it did not leak, and put the coffee to boil a second time. When a few minutes later they drank it, without sugar or cream, they thought it better than any coffee they had ever tasted before.

With hunger banished and the cheer of the warm fire, the situation seemed less direful; and they sat with feet to the embers and talked more calmly.

“Don’t you think a steamer will be along early in the morning, Billy?”

“I don’t know the Sunday schedule very well. I think they stop here only for picnic parties; but I shall tie my handkerchief to the signal pole; maybe she’ll see it out there if she has a regular run to town.”

“There’ll be the Sunday picnics! But we don’t want—we must not be seen by—by anybody here.”

The tone of desperation told him that she had waked to the fact that had troubled him ever since he knew they were left,—what might be said when their plight became known.

“It’s lucky to-morrow’s Sunday; it needn’t be known at school,” he comforted.

“How can it be helped?”

“If we can’t get a steamer in the early morning you can hide in the brush by the wharf till the boat discharges her passengers; and when they are climbing the hill, you step into the path and head for the steamer. No one will know that you are not one of them, and the steamer people will think you came only for the boat ride, or—oh, they won’t notice you any way.”

“But the picnickers, Billy; they’ll know I don’t belong—”

“Sure they won’t. At those promiscuous public picnics half are strangers to the rest.”

“But you, Billy? When—?”

“Don’t worry about this kid. If we’re not seen together, no one will be able to say certainly that we were here. You just ’phone my mother that I’m safe—” He stopped suddenly, his face pale with another thought which he did not voice,—her people might be seeking her, telephoning to the pupils, the police. That would mean certain disclosure of the whole situation. “Your mother will be having a bad time, I’m afraid,” he said calmly.

To his consternation Erminie showed no concern. “Oh, no; ma won’t worry. She’ll think I’ve gone home with one of the girls.”

“Is it—is it often—that way? Doesn’t she know where you go?”

“Not to which house. I’ve a lot of chums, most of them out of school; and their young men—when I don’t have one of my own—take us to the theatre, and to supper afterwards; and it’s late then; and if I stay with the girl the young fellow doesn’t have to make another trip taking me home.”

Billy was silent, wondering what his mother would think of a girl who went about thus. It revealed to him a new sort of girl-life. In his boyhood town of Vina such a situation as this could not have happened; and in his city life he had known intimately only the cherished and protected daughters of careful parents.

His own evenings were full of boyish things, meetings, study, decorous calls, and work or play at home. His attendance at the theatre was rare, either in school groups or with his mother, or alone, high among the “gallery gods.” He tried to put out of mind the feeling of “commonness” that Erminie’s story gave him.

As if she divined his thought, she said a little plaintively, “I know lots of mothers don’t think it nice for girls to run about so; but mine always told me to go ahead and have a good time while I could. When I am married, she says, all such fun will be over.”

“Well, it won’t be!” Billy’s vehemence startled her. “But it will be a long time before we can be married; I’ve got to learn how to earn a living first. But it shall be a good enough living to include a little fun.”

“Billy!” Surprise, gratitude, and besides these a more genuine and womanly emotion than she had ever experienced, came out in the single word. “Billy, what do you mean?”

“Mean? Why, our marriage of course. At first I felt badly because you would have to wait so long; but I don’t any more. I had a good chin with my mother. You and I—we’ll both of us be all the better for waiting and—learning things.”

For a time Erminie sat quite still save for absently stirring the ashes with a twig. When she did speak her voice was low, with a half timid note in it that touched Billy. “How splendid you are, Billy! Too good for me. I didn’t dream you thought that—that we were engaged.”

“Gee! How else could I save you from Alvin Short?”

“But, Billy, that—that is not exactly a reason for—for—”

“Don’t you care for me? Wasn’t that what you meant that night I—I kissed you?”

“Oh, yes, I care for you, Billy; ever so much; but I never got as far as an engagement. I—”

“But that kiss—”

“Oh, I just thought you kissed me because—well—because—Oh, Billy, do you tell your mother everything?”

He caught the anxiety in her speech, and wondered if kisses of the sort he had given her were so common in her life that she could dismiss them with merely a “because.” But his reply was to her question only.

“’Most everything. You see I’m just the common transparent sort,—she reads me anyway. But of course I didn’t tell her about you; that’s your secret. I shall not tell that till you give me leave.”

She caught up his hand in both her own. “I believe you’re the best boy that ever lived.”

“Boy! That’s just what I am! And you need a man, right now, to protect you.”

“You are doing it,—doing it better than any man I ever knew.”

He threw on some more wood. “I’ll have to hunt fuel in a minute,” he said, and stirred the fire to a blaze.

“What did your mother say that changed your mind about—about—”

“About waiting to get married?” he finished as she hesitated, and repeated much of the conversation prompted by the pinching of the geranium buds.

Erminie was silent again, and Billy waited on her mood. When she did speak her words were plaintive and halting. “Billy,—Billy, dear, it would be a very wrong thing for you to marry me. I am older, anyway, and it would wreck your life to be hampered with a—a wife when you’re so young. Perhaps—perhaps there’ll be—”

“Perhaps children,” he finished fearlessly. “I’ve thought that all out; but you need me to take care of you; and after—this—this night, it’s got to be.”

“Oh! oh!” She cowered a little closer. “People won’t know of—of this—” She put her hand over her eyes and shivered.

“They may; and—”

“It’s awful!” she burst out. “Just because an accident happens, for people to talk—say bad things about us.”

“They won’t think it an accident, Erminie. Don’t you see? I have a watch—all our set know how foolishly I’ve bragged about it. We had our strict orders not to go out of sight—”

“We weren’t out of sight,—not in the day-time anyway.”

“And to be on hand at the ten-thirty whistle.”

“But it wasn’t ten-thirty; it was ten.”

“We can’t make folks believe that.”

A sudden dash of rain fell upon them and made the fire sputter.

“Gee!” Billy sprang up and threw on the last of the wood, arranging it to cover the heart of the fire from the rain. “Get under shelter, quick! We’re in for a heavy shower.”

She stood, but did not move away. “Aren’t you coming too?”

“No. I must keep up the fire. Go and get under the table; that will be more sheltered. Here! Tie my handkerchief around your neck.”

There was a new insistence in his words. She obeyed as a little child, and he hastened to the fringing woods. He remembered where he had seen a fallen tree, and a lot of loose bark, and chips that might have been hewn from the rough beams that supported the floor of the pavilion.

But he did not touch any of these. Instead he whipped out his knife and began to slash at a fir that was thrashing in the rising wind. He worked fast, piling branches till he had all he could carry, when he took them to the pavilion where Erminie sat huddled on a seat.

“That won’t go, kid! You’ve got to obey orders. Here!”

He threw down the branches and began to strip off the soft tips.

“Let me help you, Billy.” She set at it, glad of action.

“There!” He piled them under the table, spread them smoothly, and stood back. “In with you! I’ll have to spread the covers. You can’t do it for yourself,—not in this boarding-house.”

She was not deceived by his jocularity, but something compelled her to submit without words. She lay down in the sweet-smelling litter, and he covered her thick with the boughs.

“Sorry my blankets are so heavy, but they’re the best the house affords.”

“But where is your—what will you do, Billy? You must be awfully tired.”

“I’d be a nice lad to go to sleep now, wouldn’t I? The fire must be kept up, the wolves scared away; bears, too, and—”

“Oh, Billy, don’t!” Her self-control broke, and she began to cry.

“Say! Kid! If you do that I’ll run away! I’ll jump into the drink! I can fight a bear, but I can’t stand salt water—not that sort!”

He reached down, felt for her face, and patted her cheek. “You’ve been as plucky as— Do you know, I really can’t—”

What in Cain was the matter with him? Would he snivel too? Right there! Before her? He scorned himself silently, not knowing that the situation and her pitiful tears were enough to break an older and calmer fellow than he was.

“There, Billy! Good boy! I’m all right now. I won’t cry another tear. Why should I? I have the best, the bravest—”

“Cut it out! I’m the fool that got you left.”

He ran off with her half laughing challenge to fate ringing in his ears. “Billy, I almost don’t care. It’s awfully grand to see any one prove all to the good the way you do.”

Back to the chips and the bark he hurried, and had hard work to nurse his fire in the rain. Only by a constant piling of the dried fir branches that he found around the prostrate tree did he defy the shower,—which was harder now,—and keep the blaze going till it passed. When at last the clouds broke and the moon appeared it was behind the hill, leaving the little clearing in the shadow; but a faint tinge of lighter gray in the east heralded the dawn.

Worn with anxiety more than with effort, Billy dragged some dryer limbs from under the tree, finding them by feeling rather than by sight, as indeed he had done nearly everything that night. After banking his fire high with bark, he shook his wet cap and put it to dry, threw open his wet coat to the heat, and prepared to watch out the rest of the short night.

Soon an irresistible drowsiness overtook him. He fought desperately, not wishing to stir about lest he should keep Erminie awake. In the midst of a moment that was perilously near unconsciousness, she called:

“The signal, Billy! You forgot it. Here’s the handkerchief.”

“Gee whiz!” He sprang up and went to her. “My forgettery deserves a medal. You should be proud to—”

“Stop calling yourself names, my—”

“It’s mean to take it,” he interrupted, “but I have nothing else.”

“I don’t need it. I am as warm as a kitten in a feather pillow. It was a shame to wake you.”

“Wake! Do you think I’d sleep when—” He stopped, recalling how near he had come to the Land of Nod.

“But you must,—a little anyway. I’m not afraid any more.” She reached the handkerchief up to him, and he took it, holding and patting her hand a second before he went on. “Good girl! You make a jolly fine pal all right. I’ll bank on you.”

With those words still on his lips as he ran down the path to the wharf, suddenly before him rose the face of May Nell. Something tugged at him, gave him a queer feeling that he could not understand. He wished Erminie’s mother had been like Mrs. Smith, that Erminie might know all the beautiful things May Nell knew, might look out on life with May Nell’s clear, loving vision of the soul of things.

Even as he thought, and chided himself for it, while he fixed the tiny, fluttering signal, a rosy light in the east told him the night was going, and deliverance near.

Another dilemma presented itself—suppose a steamer should answer his signal, what would the crew, the scattering passengers, think if Erminie came aboard alone at that early hour? Could she do it and not cause comment? A story for the papers perhaps?

With this in mind he ran back, thinking to ask her; but no words greeted his noisy steps, and he knew she must be asleep at last. He threw himself on the ground before the ash-covered embers and in five minutes he also was lost to his troubles.

He had taken the precaution to face the east in such away that the sun, surmounting some tall firs, would waken him as nearly as he could guess at about six o’clock. As the first ray struck into his eye he started up to find it nearer seven, though but for his watch and the dancing, diamond-tipped ripples in the track of the morning sun, he would have declared he had not slept five minutes.

“Half an hour for breakfast!” he called cheerily. Erminie answered, and soon came down to him.

At once Billy told her his latest worry, and asked her opinion.

“I believe I’d better risk it. If the captain says anything, I’ll tell him I got left. It will be about nine when I get home, and people I know won’t be out so early.”

“Then we’ll have another dish of manna, and—”

A whistle interrupted Billy.

“There she is now! What’s got into my watch? That’s been the joker all the time.”

“Do you suppose she’ll stop, Billy?” Erminie had already started down the hill.

“You’ll have to run for it. Got any money?” While he spoke he thrust a dollar in her hand and she flew down the path out of his sight.

He heard the signal to stop, heard the mate cry “All aboard!” as usual before the gang plank was lowered, and after a moment heard the vessel puff her way out on her course again.

When he was certain that Erminie was off he realized, as not before, his great fatigue. A search by morning light revealed many toothsome bits of picnic dainties in the high, clean grass, which he gathered, an egg in an unbroken shell, some butter in a covered jelly glass, and a bun which he toasted by the coals.

They did not taste very good. In spite of sunshine he was depressed. The night had revealed Erminie in a way that almost repelled him at the time; but now that she was gone she seemed nearer and dearer than ever before.

After eating, and raking out the fire, he carefully removed all traces of Erminie’s bed to a nook well hidden in the brush, and threw himself down on it to rest. He did not expect to sleep,—he had too much that was exciting to think of; but hardly had he touched his bed of fir when Morpheus claimed him. He heard nothing till the advent of noisy picnickers arriving on the four o’clock steamer, when he jumped up, drowsy still, skirted the park carefully, and barely made the steamer in time.

At half-past five, dishevelled and haggard, he walked into his mother’s room.