“But they won’t,” said the boy. “When we don’t come home they will think we are camping over. They won’t know till Mr. Cunningham gets back that we were coming home to-night, and he is not coming back for two days.”
“Oh, they will all know I wouldn’t have taken you children out camping with only Mr. Pearson along; besides Bobbie’s mother knows we didn’t take any bedding along, and even if she didn’t, she would know that if we had intended to be gone overnight you would have asked Bobbie to take care of the chickens.”
“Well, anyway, what if they do know we meant to be back? They don’t know where we are. Hunting the Rosalie Group over won’t find us.” Then he smiled a little grimly. “Do you know, Marian, it will be the chickens that will tell them about it? They won’t worry about us to-night; they will s’pose, of course, we will get in all right; but in the morning all our chickens and old Peter Duck and Madam Waddle and the whole brood of ’em will simply swoop down when Bobbie goes to feed his chickens. Then they will begin to investigate. That’s all the good it will do them; they won’t find us,” he concluded moodily.
“Marian,” he burst forth presently, unable in his nervous state to put up with his sister’s silence,—“Marian, what do you think?”
“Delbert,” she answered, pausing in her work and looking up at him, “the biggest thing in my mind just now is that bunch of bananas we saw over on the other side.”
Delbert’s eyes roved over the provisions before him. “How long will this last us?” he inquired.
“Well, I planned it for perhaps two meals for six people; as it happens, there are only five to eat it, and we have Mr. Cunningham’s eatables as well, you remember,”—she gave a little laugh. “You remember he said we were welcome to them, if we didn’t have enough of ours.”
“Huh! I should think so. You bet Mr. Cunningham would never do a dirty trick like that. We—we can starve here for all Pearson knows or cares.”
Marian put down the kettle and went to her brother, with his flushed face and flashing eyes winking back the tears. She drew the slender little form into her arms close and tipped up the handsome, quivering little face.
“Delbert boy, darling,” she said softly, “we are not going to starve. The children might if you and I were not here, but we are here; there are clams and crabs for the gathering, and I know a boy who, with his jack-knife, can make a trap that will catch quail, and I once knew him to kill a rabbit with a bow and arrow.”