“Yes. We—”
“Well, I heard it and came dashing from the tent. My foot struck something and sent it bounding into the fire. Before I could grab it, there came a blinding white flare. I jumped back just in time to save myself. And now—”
“And now,” Greta broke in, “Vincent Stearns will come all the way up the ridge from—from wherever he is. He—he’ll bring others, like as not, to—to save us from some—something terrible. Oh!” she fairly wailed, “that’s what one gets for keeping secrets! He gave me those flares before we started. And I—I never told you!” Greta seemed ready for tears.
“It might be a great deal worse,” Percy O’Hara broke in. His tone was reassuring. He seated himself comfortably on a mossy rock. “I think that scream really meant trouble of some sort. It would seem to be our duty to investigate. And when there’s investigating to be done there’s safety in numbers. I think we’ll do well to await the arrival of your friend. Perhaps someone will come with him.
“By the way,” his tone changed and his bright eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Have I been smelling bacon, coffee and all that these days, or have I not?”
“Pure imagination!” Florence laughed. “We live on nuts and berries.” For all her laughing denial, she set about the task of sending delicious aromas drifting along the slope of Greenstone Ridge.
The “phantom’s” delight in the food set before him could not have been denied. No empty words of praise were his. For all that, fingers that trembled ever so slightly, eyes that smiled in a way one could not forget, told Florence her skill as brewer of coffee and broiler of bacon was appreciated fully.
When the simple meal had ended, with a low fire of bright coals gleaming red on the great flat rock, they settled themselves upon cushions of moss to wait.
“Wait for what?” Greta asked herself. “For the coming of Vincent Stearns. And then?”
Who could find an answer? Before her mind’s eye the seaplane once more soared aloft to at last settle down upon that narrow lake. She looked again upon those black waters, saw the rowboat, the moving figures, the helpless one being carried away.