“I’ve finished my poem,” he yelled jubilantly.
“Every last word of it. And now, boys,” he added briskly before they could recover their breath, “I’m with you on this capture question.”
For an instant, the others stared and blinked. “What do you mean, Pete?” Honey asked stupidly, after an instant.
“Well, I’m prepared to go as far as you like.”
“But what changed you?” Honey persisted.
“Oh, hang it all,” Pete said and never had his little black, fiery Irish face so twisted with irritation, so flamed with spirit, “a poet’s so constituted that he’s got to have a woman round to read his verse to. I want to teach Clara English so she can hear that poem.”
There was a half-minute of silence. Then his listeners broke into roars. “You damned little mick you!” Honey said. He laughed at intervals for an hour.
They immediately broke the news of Pete’s desertion to Merrill. Frank received it without any appearance of surprise. But he announced, with a sudden boom of authority in his big voice, that he expected them all to stand by their agreement. Billy answered for the rest that they had no intention of doing anything else. But the four were now in high spirits. Among themselves, they no longer said, “If we capture them,” but “When we capture them.”
The stress of the situation at once pulled Frank away from his books. Again he took complete charge of the little group. He was a natural disciplinarian, as they had learned at the time of the wreck. Now his sense of responsibility developed a severity that was almost austerity. He kept them constantly at work. In private the others chafed at his tone of authority. But in his presence they never failed of respect. Besides, his remarkable unselfishness compelled their esteem, a shy vein of innocent, humorless sweetness their affection. “Old Frank” they always called him.
One afternoon, Frank started on one of the long walks which latterly he had abandoned. He left three of his underlings behind. Pete painted a water-color; Clara, weaving back and forth, watched his progress. Ralph worked on the big cabin—they called it the Clubhouse—Peachy whirling back and forth in wonderful air-patterns for his benefit. A distant speck of silver indicated Julia; Billy must be on the reef. Honey had left camp fifteen minutes before for the solitary afternoon tramp that had become a daily habit with him.