Stranded in Arcady

by Francis Lynde

  XIV

  OF THE NAME OF BANDISH

  THE next morning Prime waited until after breakfast before tellingLucetta about the visit of the intruder, the postponement basing itselfupon a very natural disinclination to re-align himself, evenconstructively, with such a brutal humorist as Watson Grider. Indeed,when he told the story, he omitted to mention the barbarian's name;would never have mentioned it if Lucetta had not pushed him into acorner.

  "You say you saw the man; was it a stranger, or some one you knew?" shequestioned.

  "I couldn't be sure," Prime evaded. "The fire wasn't burning verybrightly, and he had just blinded me with his flashlight."

  The gray eyes were regarding him calmly.

  "It is to be hoped, Cousin Donald, that you will never have to fibyourself out of a real difficulty. You prevaricate so clumsily, youknow."

  "I wasn't lying," he protested; "really, you know, I couldn't be sure."

  "But you thought you recognized him."

  "Yes, I did," he admitted doggedly. "I didn't mean to tell you, but Ifancy it doesn't make any great difference now. It was Grider, ofcourse."

  "You are sure?"

  "I have just said that I wasn't sure. I didn't see his face. But I saw agolf cap and a sweater, and Grider wears both upon any and alloccasions; he has even been accused of sleeping in them."

  "But why should he come here like that and then run away again?"

  "He wanted to find out how his execrable joke was getting along, ofcourse! I had a mind to fire at him after he got into the boat, and Iwish now that I had. You didn't hear any of the noise?"

  "Not a sound." They had taken the cooking utensils down to the riveredge to wash them, and Lucetta scoured for a silent half minute on theskillet before she picked the one comforting grain of assurance out ofthe midnight adventure. "We ought to be obliged to this outrageousfriend of yours for one thing, anyway," she commented. "He has told usthat there are no more rapids to be shot. If he could come up the riverin a motor-boat, we can go down it safely in a canoe."

  "That is so," said Prime; "I hadn't thought of that. I wonder if ourpatch is sticking all right. Suppose we go and see."

  They went to look, and what they saw struck them both dumb. The clampedpatch was still in place, but a glance at the upturned canoe bottomshowed them what the midnight marauder had done and explained for Primethe cause of the ripping noise he had heard. For a distance fullyone-third of its length the thin sheathing of the canoe had been cut asif with the slashing blow of a sharp knife.

  Prime was the first to find speech, and what he said would have kindleda fire under wet wood. Then he remembered and made gritting amends. "Ibeg your pardon; I couldn't help it, Lucetta. I'm not taken that wayvery often, but I should have blown up like a rotten boiler if Icouldn't have relieved the pressure. Did you ever hear of such aninfernally idiotic scoundrel in all your life? I wish to gracious I'dhad the courage of my convictions and turned loose on him with the gun!He deserves to be shot!"

  Lucetta was examining the damaged canoe bottom more closely. "But why?"she protested. "Why should he follow us up so vindictively, Donald?Surely it has passed all the limits of any kind of a joke by this time."

  "Of a joke?--yes; I should say so! I hate to think it of him, Lucetta--Ido for a fact. If I hadn't seen him I wouldn't believe it was Watson;but seeing is believing."

  "Not always," was the reflective dissent. And then: "This is the work ofa spiteful enemy, Donald; not that of any friend, however harebrained.It is the work of some one who has a particular object in keeping usfrom getting back to civilization."

  "We have been over all that ground until it is worn out," Prime broke inimpatiently. "It is Grider; it can't be anybody else; and I wish I hadpotted him while I had the chance. But that is a back number now. Themischief is done and we must repair it if we can. Get your glue-potready and I'll go and hunt for some more of the sticky stuff."

  Lucetta was laughing silently.

  "We are so humanly inconsistent--both of us!" she commented. "Yesterdaywe were almost willing to be sorry because our woods idyll couldn't lastforever; and now we are ready to draw and quarter Mr. Grider--or whoeverdid this--because it makes the idyll last a few days longer."

  It took them the better part of the day to patch the knife-gash, and,though the other patch seemed to be holding satisfactorily, they weredoubtful of the results in the more serious hurt. It was impossible todevise any clamp for the greater rent, but they did their best,overlaying the fresh patches with clean sheets of the bark and weightingthe whole down with flat stones carried laboriously from the riverbrink.

  That night Prime slept with one eye open and with both guns where hecould lay his hands upon them quickly. Somewhile past midnight he got upand built a small fire beyond the canoe as another measure of safety,locking the stable carefully after the horse had been stolen. When hewent back to his blankets he found Lucetta up and sitting under theturned-up flap of the shelter-tent.

  "Did you hear anything?" she inquired.

  He shook his head. "No; I thought I'd light up a little more so that wecouldn't be stalked again as we were last night."

  "You are losing too much sleep. Let me have one of the guns and I'llkeep watch for a while."

  "What could you do with a gun?" he demanded gloomily.

  "I can at least make a noise and waken you if needful."

  There was no sleep for either of them for a long time; but after a whilePrime lost himself, and when he awoke it was daylight and Lucetta wascooking breakfast.

  On this day they were fairly out of an occupation. With the stoneweightings removed, the canoe patches seemed to be sticking bravely,but they still required to be daubed with another coating of the pitch,which must dry thoroughly before they could venture upon a relaunching.The small job done, they took turns sleeping through the forenoon, andafter the midday meal Prime went fishing, taking care, however, not togo beyond calling distance from the glade.

  When night came they carried the precious canoe to the exact centre ofthe clear space and built a circle of small fires all around it, at theimminent risk of burning it up or at least of melting the pitch from itsseams. The afternoon had been cloudy and there were indications of astorm. Prime made the fastenings of the shelter-tent secure and stowedthe provisions under the overturned birch-bark, leaving a space where hecould crawl under himself if the storm should break. For a long timeafter supper they sat together beside the cooking-fire. The mosquitoeswere worse than usual, and Prime had provided some rotting wood for asmudge, in the reek of which they wept in sympathetic companionship.

  "Speaking of smoked meat," Prime grumbled, after they had exhausted allother topics, "that jerked stuff under the canoe hasn't any the best ofus." Then, with a teasing switch to their rapidly disintegratingclothes: "How would you like to walk into your classroom in the girls'school just as you are?"

  "Just about as well as you'd like to walk down Fifth Avenue under thesame conditions," was the choking reply. "My! but that smoke isdreadful!"

  "It is like the saw-off between any two evils: when you are enduring theone you think you'd rather endure the other. Let us hope and pray thatthis is the last night for us in this particular sheol, at least. I'veheard and read a good bit about the insect pests of the northern woods,and I have always taken it with a grain of salt. That is another mistakeI shall never make again."

  "They were not bad on the St. Lawrence nor in Quebec," observed theother martyr.

  The mention of Quebec started a new subject or, rather, revived an oldone, and they fell to talking of their short experience in the historiccity. One thing leading to another, Prime went more specifically intohis evening excursion with the athletic young fellow who had seemed soanxious to increase the dividends of the motion-picture houses and thecafes.

  "He was a handsome fellow, and he didn't begin to have the face of avillain," he commented. "A good talker too. He had travelled--beeneverywher
e. One of the pictures we saw was a 'Western,' and that broughton more talk. I remember he told me a lot about his own experience inthe British Columbia mines. It was great stuff. He had been manager andgeneral factotum for some rich old money-bags--if he wasn't lying to meand making it all up out of whole cloth."

  "He didn't do anything to make you suspect that he might have designsupon you?"

  "Not a thing in the world. He was as frank and open-hearted as a boy.There wasn't anything peculiar about him except his habit of looking athis watch every few minutes. I asked him once if I was keeping him froman appointment, and he laughed and said he wished that I were; wishedthat he were well enough acquainted in the city to be able to makeappointments."

  "Did he tell you his name?" queried the weeping listener.

  "He did, and ever since we woke up and found ourselves back yonder onthe lake shore I have been trying to recall it. It is gone completely.'Bender' is the nearest I can come to it, and that isn't it."

  "Would you know it if you should hear it?"

  "I am sure I should. It was a queer name, and I remember thinking at thetime that I would jot it down and use it for the name of a character ina story--simply because it was so delightfully odd."

  "Tell me," she broke in quickly; "was this young man of yours fair, withblue eyes, and hair that reminded you a little of a hayfield?"

  "That is the man!"

  "How would 'Bandish' do for the name?" she asked.

  "You've got it! That's what it was. How in the name of all that iswonderful did you know?"

  "I was merely putting one and one together to make two," was the quietrejoinder. "The young woman I was with that same night was Mrs. Bandish.She was the one whose careless sleeve-pin scratched my arm and put me tosleep."

  "Then you knew them both?" Prime demanded.

  "Only slightly. They claimed to be teachers from some little town inIndiana. I don't know where they joined our party, but I think it wasbefore we took the St. Lawrence River boat. Anyway, it was somewhere inCanada. They were easy to get acquainted with. At first I didn't likethe young woman any too well; there was something about her that gave methe idea that she was--well, that she was somehow too sophisticated. Butthat wore off. She was quick-witted and jolly, and both she and herhusband were the life of the party coming down the big river."

  "Do you suppose Grider bribed them to join the party and thus get you intow?" Prime asked.

  "No, I don't suppose anything of the kind. You are forgetting that Mr.Grider didn't even know of my existence at that time--if he does now,"she added, after a moment's hesitation.

  "Grider knew, and he knew that we were cousins," Prime insisted. "Thatis a guess, but you will see that it will turn out to be the right one.But even that doesn't explain why he should come up here in the woodsand cut a hole in our canoe, confound him!"

  "It doesn't explain a good many things which are much more mysteriousthan they were before," said Lucetta; and shortly after that she smokedher tent blue with a bit of smudge wood and disappeared for the night,leaving Prime to pull reflectively at a clumsy pipe which he hadcontrived to whittle out of a bit of birch wood during the day ofwaiting, to smoke and to hope that the threatening rain-storm wouldmaterialize and drown a few millions of the tormenting mosquitoes.