“How can I tell? It’s wonderfully hidden.”
“If they do find it, what will you do?”
I did not reply. I did not know what I would do. But one thing I did know: Brack would not lead us away as his prisoners.
“Gardy,” she whispered, “if they are going to find us tell me, because there’s something I’ve got to tell you if—if—anything happens.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I whispered assuringly. “Be easy on that. Nothing will happen to you.”
“Even if they do find us?”
“Even if they do find us. Hush now. We’d better not even whisper.”
We sat waiting in silence, our eyes upon the brush-mask across the cavern’s mouth. We were cornered. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for what fate might allot us. Each second I expected to see a face peering through the brush, and to hear the shout that would announce our discovery. But the seconds, infinitely long and throbbing, passed and became minutes, and still we had no sign of Brack and his men.
It was at least half an hour after the men had started up the hill that a spruce grouse, flushed from the ground, flashed across the opening, so close that its wings touched the brush. By the rising flight of the bird I knew that it had been flushed but a few yards away, and, I judged, by some one who was coming toward the cave. They would be here soon now.