The girl dropped her eyes to hide the gratitude that welled up in them. What had it cost Acey Smith to make that magnanimous statement? For she knew now that he knew what she could not give to him would be Hammond’s for the asking.
They watched the plane make a landing, saw the airman examine the grounds and buildings, then re-enter his machine and fly away over the cliffs.
“Evidently thought better of staying overlong in the Cup,” commented Acey Smith. “Oh, well, there was nothing for him to fear; my men have instructions to molest no one coming here from now on.”
“You mean that the Cup will no longer be a secret retreat?”
“That all depends; it is a matter now for some one else to decide,” he answered. “Let’s go on up to the top.”
III
The summit of Lookout Cliff offered a wonderful view on this clear day of the lake and the forests below. Nannabijou camp from there seemed a tiny gash in a world of wilderness; the river and Solomon Creek silver threads winding down to Superior. On the outer side the cliff descended, a sheer wall, five hundred feet to the woods on the side of the mountain, the elevation being one thousand seven hundred and fifty feet above sea-level. The cliff is known among sailormen of the Great Lakes as the highest piece of land on the North Shore.
“This pinnacle,” Acey Smith was saying, “was held sacred by the pagan Indians as the eerie of the Thunder Eagle, a demi-god supposed to rule the land and the water as far as his eyes could see.
“It therefore did not seem unfitting,” he continued quietly, “to bring you to this spot to declare you, as I do now, undisputed mistress of the North Shore.”
She looked at him thoroughly bewildered, for the moment unable to think what answer to make.