“The same prevailing stupidity,” he laughed. “Though I didn’t realize it for that quality. Just thought I was smart, you know—conceit. I—I—well, I didn’t get on so very well at the lumber camp I’d joined. I wasn’t used to work of that sort, and there didn’t seem to be room, even in the woods, for a greenhorn. I thought it was easy enough. I could find my way anywhere, in any wilderness, with my outfit. I’d brought that along, or bought it after I left civilization; so one night I left, set out to paddle my own canoe. I paddled it into the rapids, what those fellows called Rips, and they ripped me to ruin. Upset, lost all my kit, tried to find my way back, wandered and walked, forever and ever, it seemed to me, and—you know the rest.”
“But I do not. Did you keep hallooing all that long time? How did it happen we heard you?”
“I was in a rocky place when that tornado came, and it was near the water. I had just sense enough left to know the rocks would shelter me and crept under them. Oh! that was awful—awful!”
“It must have been, but I was so deep in our cave that I heard but little of it. Uncle and Angelique thought I was out in it and lost. They suffered about it, and uncle tried to make a fire and was sick. We had just returned home when we heard you.”
“After the storm I crawled out and saw you in the boat. You seemed to have come right out of the earth, and I shouted, or tried to. I kept on shouting even after you were out of sight, and then I got discouraged and tried once more to find a road out.”
“I was singing so loud I suppose I didn’t hear at first. I’m so sorry. But it’s all right now. You’re safe, and some way will be found to get you to your home, or that lumber camp, if you’d rather.”
“Suppose I do not wish to go to either place—what then?”
Margot stared. “Not—wish—to go—to your own dear—home?”
The stranger smiled at the amazement of her face.
“Maybe not. Especially as I don’t know how I would be received there. What if I was foolish and didn’t know when I was well off? What if I ran away, meaning to stay away forever?”