Chapter Sixteen.
Preparing for Flight.
“I say, Cil, I don’t quite know what to make of it,” said Perry, a few days later. “These people are as civil and amiable as can be; they surely won’t try to stop us when we want to go?”
“You wait and see,” was the reply. “They will. I know them better than you do.”
“But they don’t think we have got anything to take away.”
“Perhaps not; but they will think that as soon as we are out of their sight we shall be searching for and taking something away that they want to preserve, and if we do get away unseen, they will be after us directly.”
“Well, we shall soon see,” said Perry rather gloomily, as he sat gazing down into a deep valley running due south, in whose depths a bright gleam here and there told of the presence of water.
“Yes, we shall soon know now. Your father and John Manning have been carefully examining the mules, and going over the stores and packages.”
“Have they? I didn’t know.”