“No, sir,” objected Betty. “That isn’t fair. If we’re going to play Injun I want my share of the game.”
I protested; the distance was short, the weight slight; but in the end the march was resumed with each of us sharing equally the weight of the canoe.
A seventy-pound canoe is no burden for two people in the open. But our way lay in the darkness up a rocky ridge, through brush and timber, and we tripped and fell, ran into trees, got caught in the brush, and suffered other minor mishaps until I stopped and insisted that Betty allow me to carry the canoe alone.
“No, sir,” she repeated firmly. “I’m not stumbling any more than you are. Be fair and let me play, too.”
We compromised by putting down the canoe, and, leaving Betty to wait beside it, I went on to locate my cave. I found it, as I had that morning, by stumbling into it.
I struck a match and glanced at the spot where I had hid the rifle. Then I stood staring dumbly until the match burned down to my fingers. For the second time that night I experienced the same shock; the rifle was gone; someone had been in the cave.
When I returned to Betty my self-control had been regained. Whatever the significance of the rifle’s disappearance might be Betty must have shelter for the night, and the cave was the only place available for that purpose. We carried the canoe thither and I lighted my piece of candle and stepped down.
The cave really was a wedge-shaped opening in the side of the hill, its mouth probably twenty feet across, and about the same in depth. Betty cried out as the candle-light revealed the place.
“Why it’s almost jolly! It’s a perfect place to play Injun.”
We slid the canoe down and placed it as near the back of the cave as it would go.