“Jerry!” Richard caught her arm and pressed it significantly.
“Oh, I’m on!” Walter snapped. “Go to it, you two. It’s all right. It’s all right, I tell you. I don’t care. I’m no squealer, I tell you. Go ahead; on’y no use puttin’ up no bluff with me.”
In a moment Jerry was standing before him, her eyes blazing. She was about to seize Walter and shake him. But Richard followed quickly and put his arm completely about her shoulders and held her to him.
“There now, Jerry,” he soothed. “Of course Walter’s on. Why shouldn’t he be? He’s a good sport, and he might as well be in this, too. I’ll have no secrets from Walter. I tell him everything. It’s the only way to treat pards——” Richard’s pressure on her arm was telling her to join in the stratagem, that it was the only thing to do; but it took her several bewildering seconds before she comprehended. Then she made amends; her dramatic instinct came to the fore, and she laughed softly.
“Walter, you’re a keen one,” she nodded towards him, and slowly disengaged herself from Richard’s grip. “You’ve got the mind of a——”
“Tshoti-non-da-waga,” Richard put in quickly for fear she would spoil all with a too ironic figure.
“Well, that’s not what I was going to say,” she considered, “but it will do.”... She moved briskly to re-enter the house. “Prowl around, Richard. I’ve a duty or two in the house and then let’s all go down to the Lake. I’m keen for a swim in real water.”
“But Walter doesn’t swim,” Richard objected. She stopped at the doorway. Geraldine was not always considerate of Walter, but Richard remembered that the care of Walter was his chief claim to “Red Jacket.”
“Never mind me,” Walter crouched in his chair sullenly.
“Haven’t you a boat?” Richard turned to the boy.