“Shucks! It’s too bad,” she said. “You play it so well it’s a shame you don’t like to do it.”
We ran alongside the ledge and found that its flat top was just out of reach above our heads. A canoe offers no safe foundation to leap from and for the moment I was nonplused.
Betty, her hand resting on the flat surface of the rocks, found a crevice. On closer examination it proved to be only a slight crack, not large enough to provide a foothold, but Betty was thrusting at the opening with the blade of her paddle.
“Ah! There we are!” she chuckled, as the thin paddle entered the crack. “There’s a step for us.”
“How did you ever think of that?” I exclaimed.
“I used to play Injun, too,” she replied.
With the paddle as a step I was able to reach the top of the ledge and draw myself up. Betty then passed me the paddles and the painter of the canoe. Lying flat down on the ledge I stretched my arms downward until our hands met. Her strong warm fingers gripped my wrists and I promptly imitated her grasp.
“Now!” I said, and as she leaped I pulled upward with all my might.
Her hair brushed my eyes as she came up over the edge, and when our fingers released each other’s wrists, I was vaguely conscious that something strange had happened, though I did not know what. We drew the canoe up together. It had been my intention merely to hide it in the brush out of sight of the bay, but now another idea presented itself.
I gave Betty the paddles and with the canoe on my back started up the hill for my cave.