“Tom thinks a bird in the hand is worth a score of cuffs! and Angelique’s so determined to have somebody die—I hope it won’t be he. A pity, though, that harm should have happened to her own pets. Hark! what is that?”
“Some poor woodland creature in distress. The storm—”
“That’s no sound belonging to the forest. But it is—distress!”
CHAPTER III
AN ESTRAY FROM CIVILIZATION
THEY paused by the cabin door, left open by Angelique, and listened intently. She, too, had caught the alien sound, the faint, appealing halloo of a human voice—the rarest of all cries in that wilderness. Even the eagle’s screeches could not drown it, but she had had enough of anxieties for one day. Let other people look out for themselves; her precious ones should not stir afield again—no, not for anything. Let the evil bird devour the dead chickens, if he must, her place was in the cabin, and she rushed back down the slope, fairly forcing the others inward from the threshold where they hesitated.
“’Tis a loon. You should know that, I think, and that they’re always cryin’ fit to scare the dead. Come! The supper’s waitin’ this long time.”
With a smile that disarmed offense, Margot caught the woman’s shoulder and lightly swung her aside out of the way.
“Eat, then, hungry one! I, too, am hungry, but—hark!”
The cry came again, prolonged, entreating, not to be confounded with that of any forest wildling.
“It’s from the north end of our own island!”