Ken had finished preparing the small fish, and had placed them side by side on a platter that his teacher had brought out. He handed the dish to her, and having wiped his knife, he closed it before he replied.
“It’s a queerish kind of trouble,” he said. Then he told the story, beginning with Mr. Clayburn’s great kindness to them, and ending with the favor which he had asked them to do for him. “Of course Dixie’s right, she always is, but it’s awful uncomfortable having some one in the house who won’t speak pleasant when she’s spoken to.” Then the troubled expression vanished as the lad declared brightly, “I shouldn’t wonder, though, if by now Dixie has won the game.”
Miss Bayley looked puzzled. “What game, dear?” she inquired. The lad explained the pretend-game which Grandmother Piggins had originated when Sue had disliked her room-mate. “That blessed old lady,” the young teacher declared warmly. Then she added: “And that blessed sister of yours, too. Of course she has won the game, Ken, and I’ll prophesy that you’ll all be in school to-morrow with your guest. Please tell Sylvia Clayburn that the teacher of the Woodford’s Cañon school will be so glad to have her, either as a visitor or as a pupil, just as she may prefer.”
“Thanks, Miss Bayley, Dixie’ll be powerful grateful to you for sending that message, and now I must be goin’ along. It gets dark awful early, doesn’t it? Good-by, teacher!”
The lad had not gone far through the deepening dusk when he heard a sweet voice calling after him, “Ken, do you think your old hermit would let me go fishing with him some day?”
“I’ll—I’ll ask him,” was the lad’s reply; then he raced off into the darkness of the cañon.
Here was a new problem, and one which the small boy might have realized was ahead of him. If his beloved Miss Bayley ever saw Frederick Edrington, she’d know he wasn’t an “old hermit,” and, worse than that, she’d know that Ken hadn’t told the square-honest truth.
But he felt better when he recalled that the young engineer very much disliked girls, and so, of course, he would keep in hiding, and equally of course it would not be very long before he would leave the mountain country.
How Ken wished that he had never agreed to let teacher think that Mr. Edrington was so old. To be sure, he hadn’t really told any lies. What he had said was that the man who had built the camp-fire had said that his name was Rattlesnake Sam, and Mr. Edrington had said that, and of course even teacher knew it was an assumed name. Then, when she had asked if the camper was old, Ken hadn’t said he was old; he had replied that Rattlesnake Sam wasn’t a hundred yet. But, after all, he hadn’t been square-honest. He could hardly wait until Saturday to ask Mr. Edrington if he might tell teacher the whole truth.
When Ken neared the log cabin, he suddenly stopped and listened as though he were much surprised at what he heard. Surely that was Dixie singing, and Carol piping in at the chorus. Then, when the song was finished, there was a joyful clapping of small hands. What could it mean, he wondered. Ken had dreaded this home-coming, believing that he would find the girls both on the verge of tears after a long hard day of playing the pretend-game.