“Catch!” cried Dick, throwing the ball to Katafa. She caught it, and he held out his hands, and she flung it back hard and swift and sure. She could throw a stone a hundred yards and throw it like a man.
He showed her the stick and, tossing the ball back to her, ran to the tree, pointed to it, and then stood with the stick, ready to defend it.
She understood at once.
When Kearney came forth from his afternoon rest he found Dick tired out, sitting by the house, and the girl by the lagoon bank, dabbling her feet in the water. It looked almost as though they had quarrelled, but they had not in the least. One of Dick’s moody fits had come on him, as they often did after excitement or strenuous exertion. He was a different creature from the Dick of only a moment ago, and when these fits took him, it was always the same; he seemed caught away to another world, and liked to sit by himself.
If ever a mother “came out” in a child, the lost Emmeline came out in Dick during these moods. It was almost as though he had changed sex.
“What have you been doin’ with the stick?” asked Kearney.
“Playin’,” said Dick, waking from his reverie.
CHAPTER X
A FIRE ON THE REEF
Kearney had put shelves in the house to hold the ships so that they did not interfere with the floor space where he slept with Dick.