“Gee-whiliker,” Gerald said when the girl to whom everything seemed distasteful had retired. “Ain’t she a wet blanket?”
Before Dan could rebuke him for criticizing his elders, Julie burst in with, “Why, Gerry Abbott, didn’t you promise Dad you wouldn’t ever say ain’t, and there you said it.”
The boy squirmed uncomfortably. “It’s an awful long time since I said it before,” he tried to excuse himself. “I bet you I won’t do it again. You see if I do.”
Dan was looking at the empty hearth. “We should have cut some wood and had a roaring fire tonight. Let’s do it tomorrow and make it more cheerful for Jane, if——” He paused as though he had said more than he had intended, but his alert companions would not let a sentence go unfinished.
“If what, Dan?” Julie asked curiously.
The boy was not yet ready to tell, even these two, that he might think it best to start Jane and Julie on their homeward way the next day. He knew that the older girl would be overjoyed, but the younger would be so disappointed that it seemed almost a cruel thing to contemplate. “I’ll tell you tomorrow noon,” he compromised, when he saw both pairs of eyes watching him as though awaiting his answer.
In a very short time the children were nodding sleepily and Dan was glad when Julie took a candle and Gerry a lantern and bade him good-night.
“We’re going to get up to see the sunrise,” Julie said.
“If you wake up,” Dan laughingly told them. Then, putting out the remaining lights, he, too, retired to his cot on the porch. He placed his loaded gun in the corner, back of him, where it could not be reached by anyone else without awakening him.
For long hours he lay with wide eyes watching the sky, which seemed to be a canopy close above him, brilliant with stars. A slight wind kept the mosquitos away and, as it rustled through the pine boughs that were so near, a sense of peace stole into his heart—his fears were banished and he seemed to know that all was well.