“No,” smiled Asher. “I guess she liked the decoration—I mean your scalp hung at her belt. Girls are queer.”
Chapter 68. Erbium
They left the steamer at Encampment, but were delayed there for a long time, being unable to hire a skiff. About five o’clock however the Black Hawk returned from Canada in his own canoe, and lent it to them. Asher Ferry carefully paddled it four miles northward to the Duckling.
Marvin pointed out the tent, landed his guest below it, and excused himself. He meant to run up to the house and take the force of Chase Mahan’s wrath before it did any harm.
He failed to find his father, but he did find his girl. She was in the kitchen preparing supper, and was so surprised to see him that she barely escaped kissing him.
Left alone on an uninhabited island, Asher Ferry felt pleasantly wild and free. He had come in an Indian canoe, was going to sleep on the ground like an Indian, and was going to discuss the most interesting of all problems with an authority. So he ran up the path like a boy and stood looking into the cozy tent.
But there was some one already in it! On the blankets lay a man with smooth face and grizzled hair, reading. The man glanced up and gave a start.
“You can’t come in here!”
“Is it your tent?”
“No.”