"Anyhow, I'm not going," Walthew replied doggedly. "Our association is a partnership, and I mean to come along. I don't know that I'll be of much help to you, but the job you've undertaken is too big for one."
Grahame saw that objections would be useless, and, feeling that his pistol was loose, he walked up the beach, with Walthew following a few yards behind.
CHAPTER XXVI
TRAPPED
For a few minutes the men toiled silently across loose, wet sand, and then, on reaching a belt of shingle near high-water mark, stopped to look about. Lights gleamed in the town across the bay, but except for that it was very dark. A clump of trees that fringed the end of a ridge of higher ground could barely be distinguished, but Grahame decided that this must be the spot Evelyn had mentioned in her note. Though the shingle rolled beneath his feet, the sound it made was lost in the roar of the surf upon the point. Dry sand blew past, pricking his face, and when he turned toward the sea he saw a group of indistinct objects still standing about the boat.
"What are they waiting for?" he asked. "I told them to push off."
"I guess old Miguel takes an interest in us and wants to see we're all right. He knows something about these fellows' tricks, and may not share our confidence."
"Well, I guess those are the trees where we should meet our guide."
"The fellow might have come down to the beach," Walthew remarked. "I was busy helping Mack during the run and hadn't much time to think, but it now strikes me as curious that Miss Cliffe was able to send the note and arrange for a guide when she was a prisoner."
"She must have got into touch with some of Don Martin's spies, and his friends would be ready to help. But we had better get on."