The small girl wheeled about suddenly and descended from her perch and stamped her foot; her long, straight hair of an indefinite brown, shaken by the tempest the boy's words had awakened.
"No; but you won't," said Rob, promptly.
There was an ominous silence; but instead of the tirade the anxious watchers expected, a tear appeared on Cary's little nose and quietly dropped into the waters of the moat. Cary was nothing if she was not a bundle of contradictions. Johnny shuffled nervously from one foot to the other, but Rob grew impatient.
"Well, are you coming?" he asked after the pause in which he had vainly waited for Cary to smile again.
"No, I'm tired. I hate walking, too," said Cary peevishly.
"'Course not—to walk," said Rob, scornfully. "We can steal Lieutenant Burden's boat."
"You wouldn't dare," said Cary, but her voice was tremulous with eagerness, and the tears she had forgotten to wipe away were still shining on her cheeks.
"Wouldn't I, though! Come along and see!"
Cary balanced herself carefully on one foot and considered. It wasn't well to let Rob think she didn't have to be persuaded. He had been so cross too.
"I haven't got my sunbonnet," she began. "And I've forgotten the gun I put it in."