“Surely, surely!” said George, with an assumed laugh. “I see now he was bluffing. It’s all right, Betty. Jolly, little evening party, I call it.”
I dropped behind, letting them go on ahead, and I heard the rumble of George’s voice without hearing what he was saying. But from its tone I knew what it was: he was apologizing, explaining, promising.
“I’m sorry I said what I did when I first saw you, George,” Betty was saying as we neared the place where our canoe was tied.
“What was that? ’Bout my being sober? Ha! I deserved that, Betty; don’t let that trouble you. It’s all over now. Every thing’s turning out fine now, and—there’s our canoe. Nothing to that bluff of cappy’s, Gardy,” he called back to me.
“Of course not,” I said. “Now we’ll just paddle home and——”
“And live happy ever afterward,” he laughed.
Betty seated herself in the middle of the little craft without a word, and we remained silent while we shot down the river, into the bay, and turned our bow toward the yacht.
“Tell us all about it, Betty,” said George, at last. “By Jove! You made cappy look foolish.”
Betty waited several minutes before replying:
“Well, when Captain Brack came back the first time, in the morning, he said that you, Mr. Pitt, had decided to go with them when they left the yacht at daylight, and that you had remained up at the mine with the men. Then he went away again and returned about noon. He said that you were still up there, and that you’d suggested it would be a pleasant thing for me to come up when they returned. I don’t suppose I should have gone, really, but there wasn’t anything about that to keep me from going, was there?”