Whereat I smiled at her heartily, and said to Boyd:
"We pass not outside our lines, of course."
"Oh, no!" he answered carelessly. Which left me still reluctant and unconvinced. But he walked forward with Lana through the open forest, and I followed beside Lois; and, without any signal from me my Indians quietly glided out ahead, silently extending as flankers on either side.
"Do you notice what they are about?" said I sourly. "Even here within whisper of the fort?"
"Are you not happy to see me, Euan?" she cooed close to my ear.
"Not here; inside that log curtain yonder."
"But there is a dragon yonder," she whispered, with mischief adorable in her sparkling eyes; then slipped hastily beyond my reach, saying: "Oh, Euan! Forget not our vows, but let our conduct remain seemly still, else I return."
I had no choice, for we were now passing our inner pickets, where a line of bush-huts, widely set, circled the main camp. There were some few people wandering along this line—officers, servants, boatmen, soldiers off duty, one or two women.
Just within the lines there was a group of people from which a fiddle sounded; and I saw Boyd and Lana turn thither; and we followed them.
Coming up to see who was making such scare-crow music, Lana said in a low voice to us: