The sun came up in the time that we were washing the breakfast dishes. We could now see to have some fun. Borrowing the girl’s boat, Peg and Red went rowing. It was their plan, they told us, to make a circle of the island, keeping close to shore. There is always fun in doing that, for one can catch glimpses of interesting wild life at the water’s edge, beautiful spotted snakes and big bullfrogs and sometimes a long-legged heron or a mud hen.
Left alone, Scoop and I and the girl set out to explore the island afoot. Low and sandy in its western portion, a thicket of willows and scrub oaks, there was a sharp rise to the east, rocky and wooded.
A story is told about a strange hermit who [[127]]had lived and died on the island, and in the course of our excursion, having climbed the rocky hill, jumping from one bowlder to another, we came to the cave where, if the hermit story is true, the island’s queer early occupant had made his home.
And to view the cave from the inside one could not doubt that it had been an early habitation, for it was not a natural cave, like many of the caves in our section, but had been chiseled out of the white sandstone with unending patience. I know something about caves, and I could imagine, as I stood in this roomy chamber, that its builder had worked many months to complete it to his satisfaction.
After an hour or two of rambling through the island’s hidden spots, the girl suggested that we go back to the shore. It wasn’t improbable, she explained, that her grandfather would appear at any moment.
Peg and Red returned from their trip around the island, hilarious in the capture of an old gee-whacker of a snapping turtle. It was now bearing hard on nine o’clock, I noticed that the leader was moving restlessly up and down the sandy shore, looking at the anchored scow one moment and peering in the direction of the canal’s [[128]]channel the next. At his signal I followed him into the thicket. Crossing the island to the north shore, we had a drink at the spring in the rocks, then seated ourselves on the trunk of a fallen tree at the water’s edge.
“It’s time for us to start,” he said, looking at me with a troubled face.
I saw what was on his mind. He didn’t like the idea of pulling out at nine o’clock, as we had planned to do, leaving the girl alone on the island.
“We might take her with us,” I suggested, hating the thought of giving up our proposed show.
He shook his head.