that,rain or no rain, you are going on?"
"Certainly I am going on," said Tish, shutting her jaw. "You and Aggieneedn't come. I'm sure you asked yourselves; I didn't."
Well, that was true, of course. I crawled out and, going over, proddedat Aggie with my foot.
"Aggie," I said, "it is raining and Tish is going on anyhow. Will you goon with her or start back home with me?"
But Aggie refused to do either. She was terribly stiff and she had sleptnear a bed of May-apple blossoms. In the twilight she had not noticedthem, and they always bring her hay-fever.
"I'b goi'g to stay right here," she said firmly between sneezes. "Youcad go back or forward or whatever you please; I shad't bove."
Tish was marking out a route on the road map by making holes with ahairpin, and now she got up and faced us.
"Very well," she said. "Then get your things out of the suitcase, whichhappens to be mine. Lizzie, the canned beans and the sardines are yours.Aggie, your potato salad is in those six screw-top jars. Come,Modestine."
She untied the beast and, leading him over, loaded her sleeping-bag andher share of the provisions on his back. She did not glance at us. Atthe last, when she was ready, she picked up her rifle and turned to us.
"I may not be back for a week or ten days," she said icily. "If I'mlonger than two weeks you can start Charlie Sands out with a posse."
Charlie Sands is her nephew.
"Come, Modestine," said Tish again, and started along. It was rainingbriskly by that time, and thundering as if a storm was coming. Aggiebroke down suddenly.
"Tish! Tish!" she wailed. "Oh, Lizzie, she'll never get back alive.Never! We've killed her."
"She's about killed us!" I snarled.
"She's coming back!"
Sure enough, Tish had turned and was stalking back in our direction.
"I ought to leave you where you are," she said disagreeably, "but it'sgoing to storm. If you decide to be sensible, somewhere up the valleyis the cave Charlie Sands hid in when he ran away. I think I can findit."
It was thundering louder now, and Aggie was giving a squeal with everypeal. We were too far gone for pride. I helped her out of hersleeping-bag and we started after Tish and the donkey. The rain poureddown on us. At every step torrents from Thunder Cloud and the Camel'sBack soaked us. The wind howled up the ravine and the lightning playedround the treetops.
We traveled for three hours in that downpour.
III
Only once did Tish speak, and then we could hardly hear her above therush of water and the roar of the wind.
"There's one comfort," she said, wading along knee-deep in a torrent."These spring rains give nobody cold."
An hour later she spoke again, but that was at the end of that journey.
"I don't believe this is the right valley after all," she said. "I don'tsee any cave." We stopped to take our bearings, as you may say, and aswe stood there, looking up, I could have sworn that I saw a man with agun peering down at us from a ledge far above. But the next moment hewas gone, and neither Tish nor Aggie had seen him at all.
We found the cave soon after and climbed to it on our hands and knees,pulling Modestine up by his bridle. A more outrageous quartet it wouldhave been impossible to find, or a more outraged one. Aggie let down herdress, which she had pinned round her waist, releasing about a quart ofwater from its folds, and stood looking about her with a sneer. "Idon't think much of your cave," she said. "It's little and it's dirty."
"It's dry!" said Tish tartly.
"Why stop at all?" Aggie asked sarcastically. "Why not just have kepton? We couldn't get any wetter."
"Yes," I added, "between flowering hedgerows! And of course these springrains give nobody cold!"
Tish did not say a word. She took off her shoes and her skirt, got hersleeping-bag off Modestine's back, and--went to bed with the worstattack of neuralgia she had ever had.
That was on Wednesday, late in the afternoon.
It rained for two days!
We built a fire out of the wood that was in the cave, and dried out ourclothes, and heated stones to put against Tish's right eye, and broughtin wet branches to dry against the time when we should need them. Aggiesneezed incessantly in the smoke, and Tish groaned in her corner. I wasabout crazy. On Thursday, when the edge of the neuralgia was gone, Tishpromised to go home the moment the rain stopped and the roads dried.Aggie and I went to her together and implored her.
But, as it turned out, we did not go home for some days, and when wedid----
By Thursday evening Tish was much better. She ate a little potato saladand we sat round the fire, listening to her telling how they had foundthe runaways in this very cave.
"They had taken all the hatchets and kitchen knives they could find andstarted to hunt Indians," she was saying. "They got as far as this cave,and one evening about this time they were sitting round the fire likethis when a black bear----"
We all heard it at the same moment. Something was scrambling andclimbing up the mountainside to the cave. Tish had her rifle to hershoulder in a second, and Aggie shut her eyes. But it was not a bearthat appeared at the mouth of the cave and stood blinking in the light.It was a young man!
"I beg your pardon," he said, peering into the firelight, "but--youdon't happen to have a spare box of matches, do you?"
Tish lowered the rifle.
"Matches!" she said. "Why--er--certainly. Aggie, give the gentleman somematches."
The young man had edged into the cave by that time and we saw that hewas limping and leaning on a stick. He looked round the cave approvinglyat our three sleeping-bags in an orderly row, with our toilet things setout on a clean towel on a flat stone and a mirror hung above, and atour lantern on another stone, with magazines and books grouped round it.Aggie, finding some trailing arbutus just outside the cave that day, hadgot two or three empty salmon cans about filled with it, and the fur rugfrom Tish's sleeping-bag lay in front of the fire. The effect was reallycivilized.
"It looks like a drawing room," said the young man, with a long breath."It's the first dry spot I've seen for two days, and it looks likeHeaven to a lost soul."
"Where are you stopping?"
"I am not stopping. I am on a walking tour, or was until I hurt my leg."
"Don't you think you'd better wait until things dry up?"
"And starve?" he asked.
"The woods are full of nuts and berries," said Tish.
"Not in May."
"And there is plenty of game."
"Yes, if one has a weapon," he replied. "I lost my gun when I fell intoThunder Creek; in fact, I lost everything except my good name. What'sthat thing of Shakespeare's: 'Who steals my purse steals trash, ... buthe----'"
Aggie found the matches just then and gave him a box. He was almostpathetically grateful. Tish was still staring at him. To find on ThunderCloud Mountain a young man who quoted Shakespeare and had losteverything but his good name--even Stevenson could hardly have had amore unusual adventure.
"What are you going to do with the matches?" she demanded as he limpedto the cave mouth.
"Light a fire if I can find any wood dry enough to light. If I can't----Well, you remember the little match-seller in Hans Christian Andersen'sstory, who warmed her fingers with her own matches until they were allgone and she froze to death!"
Hans Christian Andersen and Shakespeare!
"Can't you find a cave?" asked Tish.
"I had a cave," he said, "but----"
"But what?"
"Three charming women found it while I was out on the mountainside. Theyneeded the shelter more than I, and so----"
"What!" Tish exclaimed. "This is your cave?"
"Not at all; it is yours. The fact that I had been stopping in it gaveme no right that I was not happy to waive."
"There was nothing of yours in it," Tish said suspiciously.
"As I have told you, I have lost everything but my good name and mysprained ankle. I had them both out with me when you----"
; "We will leave immediately," said Tish. "Aggie, bring Modestine."
"Ladies, ladies!" cried the young man. "Would you make me more wretchedthan I already am? I assure you, if you leave I shall not come back. Ishould be too unhappy."
Well, nothing could have been fairer than his attitude. He wished us tostay on. But as he limped a step or two into the night Aggie turned onus both in a fury.
"That's it," she said. "Let him go, of course. So long as you are dryand comfortable it doesn't matter about