Tom was awakened by the clutch of a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t believe it at first. He tried to sink back, to submerge again, to that delicious depth of sleep from which the hand had partially raised him. But the grip of fingers tightened on his shoulders and he became conscious of an insistent voice in his ear. He opened his eyes and saw dimly that some one crouched over him. There was no more than a ghost of light to see by—a pale filter of faint starshine; and there was no glow from the fire across the open front of the lean-to, for it had fallen to a bank of ash-filmed embers against the charred back-log.
“What’s the matter, Mick?” he asked, sleepily.
The dim figure drew back and stood upright.
“It isn’t Mick,” said Catherine, in an excited and distressed whisper. “Ned Tone and another man are at the house—a policeman of some sort—a detective. They came this afternoon—looking for you, Tom. I got away as soon as they were asleep, to warn you.”
Tom was sitting up before she got this far with her statement, you may be sure. He threw aside his blankets, stepped out from the shelter of the tarpaulin and kicked a little pile of dry spruce branches onto the coals. Tongues of flame licked up through the brush, crackling sharply; and in the flickering light he turned to the girl and took her mittened hands in his bare hands.
“You came alone!” he exclaimed. “Six miles through these woods in the dark, alone! Cathie, you’re a wonder.”
“That’s nothing,” she said. “I knew the way and I’m not afraid of the dark. The thing was to get here quickly. You must pack up immediately and move over to Racquet Pond; and Mick Otter will know where to go from there. You are lucky to have Mick for a friend.”
“I am lucky in my friends, sure enough,” he replied.
He persuaded her to enter the shelter and rest. He placed more wood on the fire.
“How did it happen?” he asked. “What did Tone and the other fellow say? Have they the right dope?—or is Tone just trying to start something on his own?”