“We weren’t out of sight,—not in the day-time anyway.”
“And to be on hand at the ten-thirty whistle.”
“But it wasn’t ten-thirty; it was ten.”
“We can’t make folks believe that.”
A sudden dash of rain fell upon them and made the fire sputter.
“Gee!” Billy sprang up and threw on the last of the wood, arranging it to cover the heart of the fire from the rain. “Get under shelter, quick! We’re in for a heavy shower.”
She stood, but did not move away. “Aren’t you coming too?”
“No. I must keep up the fire. Go and get under the table; that will be more sheltered. Here! Tie my handkerchief around your neck.”
There was a new insistence in his words. She obeyed as a little child, and he hastened to the fringing woods. He remembered where he had seen a fallen tree, and a lot of loose bark, and chips that might have been hewn from the rough beams that supported the floor of the pavilion.
But he did not touch any of these. Instead he whipped out his knife and began to slash at a fir that was thrashing in the rising wind. He worked fast, piling branches till he had all he could carry, when he took them to the pavilion where Erminie sat huddled on a seat.