“Wait,” I said. “You need not tell me more, you must not—now; not until there is any danger. Keep your secret. If the woman—if THAT woman—ever places you in danger, then tell me all. But keep it to yourself now. And don’t fret because you have had dreams.”
“Well, as you wish,” he replied after a long time. As he sat in silence, I smoking hard, and he buried in thought, I heard the laughter of people some distance below us in the hills. I guessed it to be some tourists from the summer hotel. The voices came nearer.
A singular thought occurred to me. I looked at Roscoe. I saw that he was brooding, and was not noticing the voices, which presently died away. This was a relief to me. We were then silent again.
CHAPTER XII. THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME
Next day we had a picnic on the Whi-Whi River, which, rising in the far north, comes in varied moods to join the Long Cloud River at Viking.
[Dr. Marmion, in a note of his MSS., says that he has purposely
changed the names of the rivers and towns mentioned in the second
part of the book, because he does not wish the locale to be too
definite.]
Ruth Devlin, her young sister, and her aunt Mrs. Revel, with Galt Roscoe and myself, constituted the party. The first part of the excursion had many delights. The morning was fresh and sweet, and we were all in excellent spirits. Roscoe’s depression had vanished; but there was an amiable seriousness in his manner which, to me, portended that the faint roses in Ruth Devlin’s cheeks would deepen before the day was done, unless something inopportune happened.
As we trudged gaily up the canon to the spot where we were to take a big skiff, and cross the Whi-Whi to our camping-ground, Ruth Devlin, who was walking with me, said: “A large party of tourists arrived at Viking yesterday, and have gone to the summer hotel; so I expect you will be gay up here for some time to come. Prepare, then, to rejoice.”
“Don’t you think it is gay enough as it is?” I answered. “Behold this festive throng.”