Ann did not have to watch alone for the lantern that might again be seen flickering and swaying across the deck of the schooner. The band mounted guard in turn and watched so industriously that Mr. and Mrs. Seymour began to wonder what the children hoped to see out in the night.
Jo took upon himself the watch during the late hours, for he believed that no one would be likely to venture aboard the wreck while lamps still glowed from house windows so near. At least a man would not carry a lantern there during the early hours of the night but would creep about in the shadows or hang a covering over the portholes so that whatever light was needed would be hidden.
“I think that the reason you saw it that first night, Ann, was because pop and I go to bed so early. Whoever it was got careless. He thought we always were asleep by that hour and he didn’t know that you folks were coming.”
The evenings were long now; the sun did not set until after supper, and it made the time of watching for a lantern very short.
Mr. Seymour had been interested in hearing about the buck deer that Robin Hood had tracked to its lair and he joined with the band in several early forays. They picked their way stealthily through underbrush that dripped with dew and waited silently by the swamp pond, counting discomfort nothing if only they could sometime see a deer drink.
At last they were rewarded in the half-light of one clear dawn. A big buck stepped gently out from the end of the narrow trail they had followed that first day. He slowly approached the pond, cautious at first. But Jo had chosen a hiding place where the breeze would not betray their presence and the animal soon felt perfectly safe. First he nosed about through the tender young marsh grass which grew close to the water’s edge. He pulled a little of it, here and there, before he raised his head. Whether he signaled that all was safe the human beings could never know, although Jo said afterward that deer had ways of warning their own kind, but when he had taken several mouthfuls of grass he threw up his head and looked carefully about him, sniffing into the light rustling breeze.
Down the same trail by which he had entered, his doe came with mincing steps to take her place beside him. The legs that carried her slim body so easily seemed no thicker than the twigs of the trees through which she came so swiftly and quietly, and her big soft ears pricked forward over her gentle brown eyes.
The children hardly dared to breathe and they spoke no louder than a whisper even after the deer had vanished.
“Oh, father!” sighed Ben. “How lovely they are! You will show me how to draw them, won’t you?”
So Allan-a-Dale resigned temporarily from Robin Hood’s band and became the constant companion of his father. After his beans were hoed and his potatoes hilled—for both corn and potatoes had sprouted rapidly and gave promise of making an excellent crop—Ben took his canvas and easel and went with his father to the swamp pond. Here they set up their props and worked every day.