“Yes, and for once I’m glad to be found.” The man laughed low. “This is growing a bit thick—a fire to the right of us, one to the left of us, and I not able to walk a step. Badly sprained ankle,” he explained.
“You see,” he went on, “Beth and I decided to make a secret visit to this beautiful island.”
“Grandfather’s always so busy,” the girl put in. “So we just ran away.”
“Today was the first time we knew of the fire,” said the gray-haired man. “Been on the other side of the island. When we saw it we got all excited, and I took the wrong kind of step. So here we are. Looks dangerous to me. Think we’d better get going?”
“No-o,” Dave looked away to the southwest. “It’s going to storm. Getting down’s going to be slow. The fire won’t get here for three hours at best.”
“So we’d better weather the storm in the little tent I carried on my back for just this purpose.” The old man smiled.
“That’s it,” Dave agreed.
“You may have been wondering,” the gray-haired man said, after the tent had been set up and they were comfortably seated inside, “why Beth didn’t go for help, when she found I could not walk properly. Truth is, she refused to go.” He chuckled.
“Why should I?” the girl demanded, “The fire was coming our way. There was no one on our side of the island. We had been alone there. I did see a light down on your side but knew nothing about you people. Besides, these trails are terrible.”
“Mostly no trails,” Florence agreed.