Quick Action. Chambers Robert William

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      He went over to the canoe and gazed at the tent.

      "I think I could pitch it for you," he said.

      "Oh, thanks so much! May I help you? I think I'll put it here on this pretty stretch of white sand by the water's edge."

      "I'm afraid that wouldn't do," he said, gravely.

      "Why?"

      "Because the lagoon is tidal. You'd be awash sooner or later."

      "I see. Well, then, anywhere in the woods will do – "

      "Not anywhere," he said, smiling. "High water leaves few dry places in this forest; in fact – I'm afraid that my shack is perched on the only spot which is absolutely dry at all times. It is a shell mound – the only one in the Dead Lake region."

      "Isn't there room for my tent beside yours?" she asked, a trifle anxiously.

      "Y-es," he said, in a voice as matter of fact as her own. "How many will there be in your party?"

      "In my party! Why, only myself," she said, with smiling animation.

      "Oh, I see!" But he didn't.

      They lugged the tent back among the trees to the low shell mound, where in the centre of a ring of pines and evergreen oaks his open-faced shack stood, thatched with palmetto fans. She gazed upon the wash drying on the line, upon a brace of dead ducks hanging from the eaves, upon the smoky kettle and the ashes of the fire. Purest delight sparkled in her blue eyes.

      Erecting her silk tent with practiced hands, he said carelessly:

      "In case you cared to send any word to the yacht – "

      "Did I say that I came from the yacht?" she asked; and her straight eyebrows bent a trifle inward.

      "Didn't you?"

      "Will you promise me something, Mr. Jones?"

      The things he was prepared to promise her choked him for a second, but when he regained control of his vocal powers he said, very pleasantly, that he would gladly promise her anything.

      "Then don't ask me where I came from. Let me stay three days. Then I'll go very quietly away, and never trouble you again. Is it a promise?"

      "Yes," he said, not looking at her. His face had become very serious; she noticed it – and how well his head was set on his shoulders, and how his clipped hair was burned to the color of crisp hay.

      "You were Harvard, of course," she said, unthinkingly.

      "Yes." He mentioned the year.

      "Not crew?"

      "No."

      "Baseball?"

      "'Varsity pitcher," he nodded, surprised.

      "Then this is the third time I've seen you… I wonder what it is about you – " She remained silent, watching him burying her water bottles in the cool marl.

      When all was in order, he smiled, made her a little formal bow, and evinced a disposition to retire and leave her in possession.

      "I thought we were going to work at once!" she said uneasily. "I am quite ready." And, as he did not seem to comprehend, "I was going to help you to examine the little caterpillars, one by one; and the minute I saw anything trying to bite them I was going to call you. Didn't you understand?" she added wistfully.

      "That will be fine!" he said, with an enthusiasm very poorly controlled.

      "You will show me where the little creatures are hiding, won't you?"

      "Indeed I will! Here they are, all about us!" He made a sweeping gesture over the low undergrowth of scrub-palmetto; and the next moment:

      "I see them!" she exclaimed, delighted. "Oh, what funny, scrubby, busy little creatures! They are everywhere —everywhere! Why, there seem to be thousands and thousands of them! And all are eating the tiny green bunches of fruit!"

      They bent together over a group of feeding larvæ; he handed her a pocket microscope like his own; and, enchanted, she studied the tiny things while he briefly described their various stages of development from the little eggs to the pretty, pearl-tinted moth so charmingly striped with delicate, brown lines – a rare prize in the cabinet of any collector.

      V

      Through the golden forest light of afternoon, they moved from shrub to shrub; and he taught her to be on the watch for any possible foes of the neat and busy little caterpillars, warning her to watch for birds, spiders, beetles, ichneumon flies, possibly squirrels or even hornets. She nodded her comprehension; he went one way, she the other. For nearly ten minutes they remained separated, and it seemed ages to one of them anyway.

      But the caterpillars appeared to be immune. Nothing whatever interfered with them; wandering beetles left them unmolested; no birds even noticed them; no gauzy-winged and parasitic flies investigated them.

      "Mr. Jones!" she called.

      He was at her side in an instant.

      "I only wanted to know where you were," she said happily.

      The sun hung red over the lagoon when they sauntered back to camp. She went into her tent with a cheerful nod to him, which said:

      "I've had a splendid time, and I'll rejoin you in a few moments."

      When she emerged in fresh white flannels, she found him writing in a blank-book.

      "I wonder if I might see?" she said. "If it's scientific, I mean."

      "It is, entirely."

      So she seated herself on the ground beside him, and read over his shoulder the entries he was making in his field book concerning the day's doings. When he had finished his entry, she said:

      "You have not mentioned my coming to you, and how we looked for ichneumon flies together."

      "I – " He was silent.

      She added timidly: "I know I count for absolutely nothing in the important experiences of a naturalist, but – I did look very hard for ichneumon flies. Couldn't you write in your field book that I tried very hard to help you?"

      He wrote gravely:

      "Miss Cassillis most generously volunteered her invaluable aid, and spared no effort to discover any possible foe that might prove to be parasitic upon these larvæ. But so far without success."

      "Thank you," she said, in a very low voice. And after a short silence: "It was not mere vanity, Mr. Jones. Do you understand?"

      "I know it was not vanity, even if I do not entirely understand."

      "Shall I tell you?"

      "Please."

      "It was the first thing that I have ever been permitted to do all by myself. It meant so much to me… And I wished to have a little record of it – even if you think it is of no scientific importance."

      "It is of more importance СКАЧАТЬ