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"Then my little jaunt will be over! But you must not surrender me until you have seen my uncle, Mr. Stane." Stane laughed. "I will hold you against the world until then, Miss Yardely." "And perhaps you will see Gerald Ainley, as you wish," she said, glancing at him to watch the effect of her words. The laughter died swiftly from his face, and a stern light came into his eyes.
Both of them recognized the piece of wreckage as belonging to the canoe in which Helen Yardely had left the camp, and the Indian, with a glance at the gorge which had vomited the wreckage, gave emphatic utterance to his belief. "All gone." Gerald Ainley made no reply. He had no doubt that what the Indian said was true, and the truth was terrible enough.
Ten minutes later the pole failed to touch bottom, and a current of water setting across the lake began to drift them well from the shore. As he saw that, Stane gave a sigh of relief. "You can sit down and rest now, Miss Yardely. There is nothing further to be done for the present. It is a case of time and tide now, but I think we are perfectly safe."
She forced a little laugh as she spoke the words, but once outside the tent, a look of deepest anxiety clouded her beautiful face. Never in her life had Helen Yardely worked so hard as she worked in the next two hours.
Helen Yardely glanced swiftly at her companion, and surprised a look of something very like consternation in his eyes. "That was very queer!" she said quickly. "What was very queer?" asked Ainley. "That girl's action. Did you see how she looked at you? She was going to speak to you and changed her mind." Ainley laughed a trifle uneasily. "Possibly she blames me for the disappearance of her lover!"
"Oh, I don't suppose anything very serious has happened," replied Sir James, with an uneasy laugh, "but it is just as well to take precautions." "Yes, Sir James! I will go at once and take one of the Indians with me one who knows the river. And it may be as well to send upstream also, as Miss Yardely may have changed her mind and taken that direction."
"You see it in the glamour of romance," he said. "The reality I imagine was pretty beastly." "Well!" replied the girl quickly. "What would life be without romance?" "A dull thing," answered Ainley, promptly, with a sudden flash of the eyes. "I am with you there, Miss Yardely, but romance does not lie in mere barbarism, for most men it is incarnated in a woman." "Possibly!
"Keep cheerful, Miss Yardely, and don't let Stane get dumpy about the past." "I think you have effectually saved him from that," she answered quietly. "Jolly glad if I have! He's a good fellow, is Hubert. Till our next meeting! Au revoir, Miss Yardely! So long, Stane!" The next moment he turned to his dogs. "Moosh! Moosh Michele!" The leading dog gave a little yelp.
As he paddled, the problem of his deportation exercised his mind; and nowhere could he find any explanation of it, unless it had to do with Miskodeed. But that explanation failed as he recalled the words of her father: "It is an order." Who had given the order? He thought in turn of the factor, of Sir James Yardely, of Gerald Ainley.
The Indian nodded his head gravely, and fitted his little finger in the groove. "Bullet-mark!" Ainley did not dispute the contention, nor apparently was he greatly troubled by the Indian's contention. He looked round a little anxiously. "But where is the canoe?" he asked. "And Miss Yardely?" The Indian waved a hand down river.
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