Part 38 (1/2)

Channing had an odd and perfectly irrelevant thought of that bulge in the clergyman's hip-pocket.

”Bother Philip! You'd suppose the man was a sort of watch-dog. I believe you're afraid of me to-night,” he teased, turning her face to his.

Her lips trembled as he kissed them. ”It is so dark,” she whispered.

”Little goose! Why should the darkness make a difference to you and me?”

”I don't know--but it does.” Suddenly she pushed him away, and jumped to her feet. ”Give me the matches, Mr. Channing. I want to light the lantern and go back.”

He obeyed with a shrug, wondering just where and how he had blundered. A sense of artistic incompleteness mingled with a keen personal sense of chagrin. Did the girl care less for him than he had thought? Or was it merely the instinct of self-preservation that had warned her?

Now that the blood ran more coolly in his veins, he blushed to realize that the instinct had been right.

They went back into the ravine, which, as Jacqueline had prophesied, had become as dark as a pocket. Without the lantern they could not have seen a foot ahead of them, and even with the lantern their way was not easy.

They stumbled along, still hand-in-hand and silent; but it was no longer the delicious, thrilling silence of the earlier adventure. The glamour of it seemed to have departed with the moon.

Jacqueline, stiff with an embarra.s.sment she did not understand (she thought it the fault of the negligee and the stockingless feet) was eager to get back to the shelter of the crowded cabin. Channing was by this time as eager as herself, having discovered that riding-boots are not the most comfortable equipment for mountain tramping.

”There's our cornfield, at last!” said the girl, and both heaved sighs of relief.

They climbed laboriously toward the outline of corn stalks against the starlit sky, with a darker outline looming behind; but as they came into better sight of the cabin, she gave a cry of dismay.

”It's all lighted. Oh, Mr. Channing! They've missed us!”

”d.a.m.n!” said the author.

At that moment voices reached them: loud, drunken voices, mingled with laughter, and a s.n.a.t.c.h of song.

”Why--why!” muttered Channing, blankly. ”That can't be our cabin!”

Nor was it. They had trusted to the wrong landmark.

They turned and hurried down into the ravine again. But Channing stumbled, and the sound reached the quick ears of the mountaineers above. There was a shout, in a voice suddenly sobered.

”Who's down thar?”

It was followed by the sharp ping of a bullet.

”Good gad, but they're shooting!” gasped Channing.

”They certainly are,” said the girl, with a giggle. ”It must be a still or something, and they think we're revenue officers!”

”Wh-what shall we do?”

”Run,” she quoted him, laughing, and seizing his hand suited the action to the word. She seemed perfectly unafraid. ”They won't get our range in the dark. Isn't this exciting?”

But the bullets followed them, too close for comfort.

”It's the lantern!” exclaimed Channing, and was about to drop it when the girl seized it out of his hand.