"Oh, please let Mr. Verslun come," cried Miss Barbara. "It will make it ever so much more pleasant."
"I was thinking of the stock of food," growled Leith, as if attempting to explain his evident displeasure.
"I'll go on half measure and let Mr. Verslun have the other half," laughed Holman.
"And he can have some of mine," cried Miss Barbara.
"And mine," murmured Edith.
Leith grinned as he noted the feeling of the party. It would not be diplomatic to go against the wishes of all, and he knew it. With a wave of his hand he ordered Kaipi to the fire where Soma and the other five islanders were sitting, and nodded his head as an intimation that I could stay.
"By the way," he growled, as I fell upon the plate of tinned salmon which Edith Herndon handed to me, "who was doing the shooting this afternoon?"
"I was," I replied. "I fired my revolver half a dozen times when we got off the trail and couldn't find our way back to it. I thought on account of the way that the path wound in and out that your party might be near the spot where we were bushed."
He made no further comment and I breathed a sigh of relief. Unless Newmarch sent a second messenger to make sure that the news of my desertion would reach Leith, I felt that I was safe.