Dalton heard Sarita laugh at this.
“I didn’t know, Leslie,” Dalton returned. “I didn’t expect to play football up here, you know. Please hunt me up the bottle,—that’s a good girl!”
Leslie made no reply, for she was already hunting the liniment. Handing it in through the flap of the tent, she said, “Let me rub your shoulder for you, Dal.”
“Thanks. I’ll do it this time, but it knocks out my going anywhere with my good clothes on. Did you ever see such luck!”
“Don’t worry, Dal. If Mr. Ives really is going to do anything mean, all he would have to do would be to telephone somebody to fix it up and that would get ahead of you anyhow. It is too late to go to-day, seems to me. Get up early to-morrow morning and start.”
“Perhaps I will, but I’ll go to the village and get some means of transportation arranged for.”
Shortly Dalton was out, arrayed in his camp outfit, an old shirt and a sweater covering the aching shoulder. But he looked more dogged than happy as he started down the trail again, and Sarita remarked to Leslie that Dalton was blue.
“I believe that he is more worried over what Mr. Ives said to us than he will say. But I’m not going to worry. Whatever is right will be found out, I hope, and anyhow we are in this lovely country. It wouldn’t cost much to put our things in a truck and go somewhere else, but not on any old land of Mr. Ives’! We could rent a spot near here. But what I’m wondering about is if he has any reason why he wouldn’t want us to stay around. There are other tourists, though, in cottages.”
“But none so near Steeple Rocks, Leslie, or on the bay. Maybe he just wants what he thinks is his own land.”
“Or wants to think it.”