“Hunting? What for?”
“Oh, for a nice, big white yacht, for one thing. I’ll be gone only a short while. In the meantime you sleep.”
“O-um-mum,” murmured the little head and sank comfortably out of sight in the canoe.
Parting the brush that hid the cave, I stepped out and went down the hillside a short distance. Looking back I was pleased to find that the cave was so well hidden that unless one knew its location it might be passed close by without its existence being suspected. Save for the possibility that man who had taken the rifle was one of Brack’s gang the cave offered a fairly safe hiding place.
My first move was to assure myself that the yacht was not anchored near by. I went cautiously up the bay for half a mile, scrutinizing each inlet in vain for a sight of the Wanderer’s white sides. I then swung up into the hills, marching a circle around the cave, impelled by the instinctive desire to ascertain the possible presence of any enemy.
At a distance of a city block from the cave I found a tiny spring sending its rivulet down the hillside to the bay, and as I lay down to drink I saw huddled beneath a tiny fir a flock of grouse watching me from a distance of ten or twelve feet.
Instinct promptly whispered: “Food” and I recalled the scant supply I had taken from the cabin, and reached for my pistol. The pistol, however, would roar like a cannon in that morning stillness and my supply of ammunition was limited to the ten cartridges in the magazine.
Lying motionless I looked around until my eyes fell upon a club. It was out of reach, but the foolish birds, confident that they were hidden, sat still while I secured the club and hurled it with all my might into their midst. I leaped forward instantly, and in the roar and flurry of the covey’s rising pounced upon two fluttering birds which my club had stunned.
Betty was up and wide awake when I returned to the cave. She had made her hair into one thick braid which hung down her back, and her face was rosy from sound sleep. She shuddered first at the sight of the birds.
“Oh, the poor, pretty things!” she murmured, stroking their feathers. “I wish you hadn’t hurt them.”