He halted almost in
horror--stricken to the heart when he understood.
"Alone?" he muttered.
"Yep," was the reply. "She's playing she's a castaway. Nobody but me
knows it."
Then, fearing he had said too much, John-Ed ran away.
Tunis descended the bluff by a perilous path--he would not delay to
go around by the cart track--and came in plain view of the cabin.
The door hinge had been repaired, and the door now swung freely. A
strip of cotton cloth had been tacked over the gaping window. There
was that neatness about the abandoned cabin which must always be
associated in his mind with Sheila Macklin, even had he not seen her
sitting pensively upon a driftwood timber by the door.
The ax had been doing good service, for there was a great
heap of wood cut into stove lengths. The fragrant odor of
something--chowder, perhaps--simmering on the stove, floated
through the open door.
It was the coarse sand crunching under his boots which aroused her.
She did not start at his approach, but raised her eyes languidly. He
wondered if she had expected him. She must have seen the _Seamew_
pass several hours earlier as they headed in toward the channel.
"My God, Sheila!" he exclaimed with bitterness, but without anger.
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