He called several times: "Are you in trouble? Can I help you?" But only mocking echoes, and the harsh screams of a flock of gulls circling about the very place where he had seen her, came to him in answer. He sought for some means of scaling the cliff, but found none. Everywhere it was smooth and sheer. Never in his life had the young man been so baffled and never so loath to own himself beaten; but he was at length warned by the setting of the sun to give over his quest and row vigorously back the way he had come.
Twilight was merging into darkness when he again entered Laughing Fish Cove, but a bright fire on the beach served at once as a beacon and a promise of good cheer.
A comfortable cabin of poles and bark had been built by the men during his absence. In it were all the stores, as well as a quantity of spruce boughs and hemlock tips for bedding. The chill evening air was filled with a delicious fragrance of burning cedar, mingled with the pleasant odor of boiling coffee. Several white-fish nailed to oak planks were browning before a bed of glowing coals, while slices of a lake-trout were sizzling together with bits of bacon in the frying-pan.
Supper was ready, as Joe, who superintended the culinary operations, announced with a shout the moment Peveril's skiff grated on the beach. Several of the fisher-huts were lighted, others had bright fires blazing outside their doors. The boats had returned, and there was a pleasant bustle about the little settlement.
Peveril did not mention the perplexing vision he had seen that afternoon, though it continually haunted him, and a decided zest was given to his work of the coming week by the thought of this mystery. As he lay on his couch of fragrant boughs that evening planning how to solve it, he almost forgot his unhappiness of the morning, and a little later a new face had found its way into his dreams.