Just then Cicely clutched her cousin’s arm and drew her back behind a screen of elder bushes. At the same moment Anne seized her hand. “There is somebody under that tree!” she whispered.
Sure enough. Under a drooping fir tree a figure was crouched, her knees drawn up to her chin. By her side was a bundle.
“It looks like a witch!” murmured Nancy. And Cicely thought so too. But Anne knew better. “It’s the Indian woman,” she said, “Sal Seguin.”
“So it is!” The girls stared. And Anne had a dreadful thought. “Maybe she has Patsy in that bundle. Maybe she took him for his beautiful fur!” But she did not tell this thought to Nancy.
The old woman sat with her shawl drawn over her head, apparently dozing. The girls watched her, without moving—five, perhaps ten minutes. Then Sal Seguin stirred and glanced over her shoulder, almost as if she felt someone was looking at her. Presently she got up and went down to the water’s edge, taking her bundle with her. They saw her get into her canoe and paddle silently away towards the Harbor. Her skilful strokes made no sound.
“What do you suppose she was doing down here?” asked Cicely, the first to speak.
“I hope she hasn’t got Patsy in that bundle!” shivered Anne, unable to conceal her fear any longer.
“Patsy! Oh, she couldn’t keep him in there!” cried Nancy. “He is too full of life and temper. You would know if you had ever tried to put him in his traveling basket, Anne.”
But Anne thought about that silky white fur, and was not convinced.
They did not need the North Star, or the bright Cassiopea’s Chair that stood over the camp, to show them the way back. The path was as plain as day. The thought of that old woman behind them made them glance over their shoulders now and then as they crept silently back up the hill, and perhaps made them walk a little faster.