"Truly it must be very lonesome for a lantern—living all alone like this," observed the Brown Khaki Lady's faintly mocking voice.
Then suddenly out of the further shadows where pier and land presumably met, creeping low on its belly, and whimpering with 152 excitement, emerged a little dark body edging frenziedly toward them.
"Why—what the dickens?" cried Jaffrey Bretton. "Why, how in thunder? Well, I should think Martha had 'got something'! Why it's Creep-Mouse!" he shouted, and jumped ashore.
Scramblingly the Brown Khaki Lady followed after him.
"Here! Wait for me!" she begged.
As he swung round to help her a single phrase passed his lips.
"Pull down your hat-brim!" he ordered. "In this light your hair looks almost crimson!"
Then man, and woman, and dog faded into the shadow.
With a grunt of indifference, Lost Man and the Outlaw resumed their eternal job of tinkering with the engine. Shadows working on shadows!
"Oh, a lot anybody seems to care what be comes of me!" quivered Daphne. "Even Old-Dad didn't say 'Good-bye'. Even Creep-Mouse— didn't say Howdy! What's it all about?" she questioned tartly. 153 "What's—what's anything all about?" With a swift experimental impulse she slid over to the edge of the fore-deck and tested the shallow tide with one slender foot and ankle. In an other instant while the two men wrangled she had slipped over into the water and was speeding up the unknown beach. "I'll go find something of my own!" raged her wild little heart. "Something that will say 'Good-bye' to me! Something that will say 'Howdy!' Good—bad—living or dying—something all my own!"