Winthrope turned away, crimson with indignation. Blake paused only for a parting word with Miss Leslie. “If you want something to do, Miss Jenny, try making yourself a pair of moccasins out of the scraps of skin. You can’t stay in this gully all the time. You’ve got to tramp around some, and those slippers must be about done for.”
“They are still serviceable. Yet if you think–”
“You’ll need good tough moccasins soon enough. Singe off the hair, and make soles of the thicker pieces. If you do a fair job, maybe I’ll employ you as my cobbler, soon as I get the hide off one of those skittish antelope.”
Miss Leslie nodded and smiled in response to his jesting tone. But as he swung away after Winthrope, she stood for some time wondering at herself. A few days since she knew she would have taken Blake’s remark as an insult. Now she was puzzled to find herself rather pleased that he should so note her ability to be of service.
When she roused herself, and began singeing the hair from the odds and ends of leopard skin, she discovered a new sensation to add to her list of unpleasant experiences. But she did not pause until the last patch of hair crisped close to the half-cured surface of the hide. Fetching the penknife and her thorn and catgut from the baobab, she gathered the pieces of skin together, and walked along the cleft to the ladder-tree. There had been time enough for Blake and Winthrope to set up the signal, and she was curious to see how it looked.
She paused at the foot of the tree, and gazed up to where the withered crown lay crushed against the edge of the cliff. The height of the rocky wall made her hesitate; yet the men, in passing up and down, had so cleared away the twigs and leaves and broken the branches on the upper side of the trunk, that it offered a means of ascent far from difficult even for a young lady.
The one difficulty was to reach the lower branches. She could hardly touch them with her finger-tips. But her barbaric costume must have inspired her. She listened for a moment, and hearing no sound to indicate the return of the men, clasped the upper side of the trunk with her hands and knees, and made an energetic attempt to climb. The posture was far from dignified, but the girl’s eyes sparkled with satisfaction as she found herself slowly mounting.
When, flushed and breathless, she gained a foothold among the branches, she looked down at the ground, and permitted herself a merry little giggle such as she had not indulged in since leaving boarding-school. She had actually climbed a tree! She would show Mr. Blake that she was not so helpless as he fancied.
At the thought, she clambered on up, finding that the branches made convenient steps. She did not look back, and the screen of tree-tops beneath saved her from any sense of giddiness. As her head came above the level of the cliff, she peered through the foliage, and saw the signal-flag far over near the end of the headland. The big piece of white duck stood out bravely against the blue sky, all the more conspicuous for the flocks of frightened seafowl which wheeled above and around it.
Surprised that she did not see the men, Miss Leslie started to draw herself up over the cliff edge. She heard Winthrope’s voice a few yards away on her left. A sudden realization that the Englishman might consider her exploit ill-bred caused her to sink back out of sight.