“Now what do you know about that?” he asked himself. “It doesn’t seem possible that he’s sending up a hot-air balloon simply to amuse Helen. She’s too old for that kind of amusement, I should think. No, it must be a signal for someone.”
The wind took the balloon far out over the lake and he watched it until it was lost in the blue haze.
“There’s something phony about them sure as guns,” he muttered as he watched for their return.
But it was nearly a half hour before he again saw them. Then he could see that they were talking excitedly as they hurried back to their cabin.
“Kind of looks as though they’d had an answer already,” he thought. “What a mess it is. There seems to be more loose ends to this thing than you can shake a stick at. But just wait till Sicum gets here. Then I’ll bet there’ll be something doing unless that signal means ‘nothing doing at present.’”
A few minutes later he saw the girl come out of the cabin and, to his great alarm, she came directly toward his tree. She walked slowly, her eyes on the ground as though in deep thought, but she did not pause until she was right under him. Then she sat down on the ground and leaned her back against the trunk of the tree. Bob hardly dared to breathe. Why, of all places did she have to choose that particular tree to sit under? He was located in such a position that he could see her as he glanced down and he knew that, in case she looked up, she could not well help seeing him.
Dare he try to move around to the other side of the trunk? There was now only the slightest of breezes and it was so still that he could hear the thumping of his heart and it seemed almost as though she too might hear it. Still, if he remained where he was the chances were ten to one, he thought that she would, sooner or later, look up and then the fat would be in the fire for a fact. Finally he decided to make the attempt. He felt sure that he could do it without making a sound provided he could prevent the branches from rubbing against each other as he shifted his weight from one to the other. That was where the danger lay.
Reaching up he grasped hold of a large branch directly over his head and slowly pulled himself up until he was standing on the two limbs upon which he had been sitting. Unfortunately these branches were comparatively small and, although he was only a couple of feet from the trunk of the tree, he knew that they would move when he took his weight from them. But could he do it so slowly that there would be no noise? Carefully inch by inch he moved his weight in toward the trunk, and was congratulating himself that he was going to accomplish it in safety, when one of the branches sprang upward making a loud swishing sound. He knew instantly that it had been caught in some way beneath the other branch and the shifting of his weight had served to dislodge it.
He heard the girl give vent to a startled cry as she sprang to her feet, and, no longer delaying his movements, he quickly swung himself around to the other side of the trunk.
“Who’s there?”