The brigands had finished their meal, and were peacefully employed in mending their clothes and moccasins, while the chief was seated under a tree, in close confabulation with Milosch. A sentry was stationed at the head of the track leading to the clearing, there was another on the brow of the mountain above, and a third, as Maurice knew, at the lower end of the wood. Everything seemed to portend a quiet day, without further wandering, and Maurice felt the fact an added trial, welcome though the prospect of rest was. If Wylie was not already dead, where was he, and what fate was intended for him? It was maddening to think of repeating these questions for a whole day, uninterrupted by any possibility of useful occupation.
As Maurice sat engrossed in his dreary meditations, Zoe came out of the hut, red-eyed and gruff-voiced, but overflowing with nervous energy.
“Do let us find something to do, Maurice, if we are to stay here all day,” she said. “Let us make a hut for you. I’m sure it will be better for you than sleeping in the open another night.”
Maurice rose at once, receiving a wholly unnecessary glance of advice from Eirene, which said, “Humour her; she needs something to divert her mind,” and going into the wood, began to choose fresh branches, and cut them down with the useful knife which served so many purposes. Zoe threw herself into the work with determination, and Eirene sat enthroned on a hillock at the foot of a tree and gave counsel.
“Make it large enough for Captain Wylie as well,” she said, as Maurice, thinking he had cut enough twigs, was gathering them into a bundle to carry back to the clearing; “he may be back to-night.”
“Eirene, how can you?” cried Zoe indignantly, and stopped, unable to say more.
“Look here, Eirene,” said Maurice, exasperated, “can’t you get something to do? It’s all very well to sit there looking on——”
“Oh, she can’t,” broke in Zoe. “Her arm got strained again in crossing that awful place yesterday, and it was rather bad when I dressed it this morning. Let her alone; I suppose she has her own idea of a joke.”
Eirene’s glance at Maurice said, “What did I tell you?” as she rose and picked her way daintily back to the clearing. When they returned thither with their burdens, she retired to a rock at some little distance, with an ostentatious air of leaving them to their obstinate ill-humour in peace. Finding that they took no notice of her, however, she came gradually nearer, in order to give them the benefit of her valuable advice, which proved more useful than might have been expected, since, as she said, she had often watched her father’s foresters build huts of birch-boughs in her childhood. When she repeated her suggestion that the hut should be made large enough for two, however, Maurice felt obliged to intervene with a pacific compromise.
“We have all day to spend over it,” he said, “so we can make a better job of it than the one we ran up in a hurry last night. You girls shall move into it, do you see? and I’ll succeed to the old one.”