"I don't wonder. But I say I how like a trump you bowled that fellow over, on the beach. I was just wondering how we could down him without giving him a chance to alarm the camp, when all at once you had the job done. How did you happen to think of it?"
"I hadn't been thinking of anything else from the first," replied the paymaster, "and I knew your thoughts were running in the same direction, for I noticed the glances exchanged between you and Christie. Poor fellow! I wonder what will become of him."
"Yes. The dear old chap is in the worst of it now," sighed Donald. "We can only hope he'll be held for ransom or exchange. How I wish he were with us, not only for his own sake, but for the aid he could afford in the task we have undertaken."
"What task?"
"The rescue of my sister and Madam Rothsay, of course."
"You don't mean that you propose, unarmed and unaided, to attempt anything so hopeless as that?"
"Certainly I do. And that is what we are going to the island for. You wouldn't leave them in captivity, would you?"
"No, I wouldn't do that; but I would wait in hiding somewhere for the arrival of the reinforcements that must surely be coming up the lake by this time."
"And so give the Indians ample opportunity for removing their captives to some remote and inaccessible place, which I only hope they have not done already. No, indeed, that would never do. We must act promptly, and before those chaps on the island have a suspicion of our coming."
"But there are at least a dozen of them, and all are well armed."