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Show I don't want either of you too near me. It gives me the fidgets." He took a step toward them, said over his shoulder: "Come on, Romeo, work up a sweat and you'll feel better about that pretty face of yours." He told Robin grimly: "Romeo's "Ro-meo's afraid the girls won't like him any more, after the way you cut him up. You'd better keep away from him. He doesn't like you as much as he did." He came on, and Robin stared past him, trying to see into the shelter, shel-ter, wondering whether they had found the chocolate. Hunger was a wolf in her. She had never wanted anything as much as she wanted that cake of chocolate now. Angus held her arm, drawing her back as Mr. Jenkins and Romeo came toward them. A moment later lat-er they stood in two groups, twenty feet apart; and Mr. Jenkins surveyed sur-veyed the situation. This small island is-land wa's humpbacked, as its name implied. Its top was naked rock, rising to a high' point fifty yards away from where they stood. There Pat and Angus had already piled some loose rocks together. On the THE STORY SO FAR: Robin Dale, A young artist, goes to Moose Bay to see her fiance, Will McPhall. When Will la accidentally killed, hit brother Angus blames Robin. She goes to Angus' fishing fish-ing cruiser te see him. While she Is on board the boat sails, carrying her, Angus, An-gus, Pat Donohoe and a cabin boy named Romeo toward Labrador. The boat is seized by a man named Jenkins. Caught running contraband alcohol, Jenkins is trying to escape from a government patrol. It sinks, leaving them stranded on an island. Angus, Pat and Robin are trying to get some chocolate hidden In a cave held by Jenkins. Robin has Just vetoed their plan for a rushing attack. Now continue with the story. CHAPTER XIV The two men turned together; but Robin said quietly: "Wait, please. Suppose he kills both of you?" They stood before her like guilty children, the heat of battle dying in their eyes. Then Angus nodded in a sort of submission. "She's right, Pat," he said. "We can't risk that. We'll try to manage without a fight." Pat after a moment suggested uncertainly: un-certainly: "If there's no fighting to be done yet a while, sorr, we could He bent to tumble a big boulder over and over up the ledge. She tried to help him, but he put her aside. "I can manage," he said. "You'll hurt your hands." "He thought people were the same way," she suggested. She said "Maybe Mr. Jenkins would give that chocolate to me if I asked him." He looked up at her quietly. "Miss Dale, in a tight place, any woman is a liability. Don't expect chivalry chival-ry from Jenkins or Romeo." "You and Pat gave me your clothes. They might give me my chocolate, if I asked them." "If they knew it was there they would eat it. Naturally. Unless they've already done so." "I wish I hadn't left it there. When Pat called that he could see land, I forgot all about it." He did not answer. He rolled the boulder laboriously upward to add to the little pile already gathered on top of the ledge. She found one she could carry; and by the cairn, Pat met them. "Sorr," he said, "by the feel of the wind, it's colder." He added, pointing: "The land's off that way, (lis v be after building that rock pile you mentioned. The work will keep us warm. It'll need to be plenty high, eight or ten feet anyway, for them to see ashore." Robin said: "I can help some." Angus looked at her appraising-ly. appraising-ly. Rain drove about them, though thinly now. Her heavy sweater was sodden with water, hanging about her hips. Her head was bare, her hair wet and dripping; and her lips were white with cold, her teeth clicking. click-ing. He stripped off his leather jacket, came toward her. "Sorry I didn't think of this before," be-fore," he said. "Put it on. It's sopping sop-ping wet, but it will break the wind a little." "No, please," she urged. "I'll have to take my chances with the rest of you." "You can't stand as much as we can. Here." She submitted; and Pat pulled his stag shirt off over his head and came chuckling to make her put it on. They laughed together to-gether at the figure she made, lost in its immensities. It hung like an overcoat, almost to her knees. The two men turned to attack the task, and Robin followed them. The rounded ledge, like a hump that was bare of boulders and rock fragments. frag-ments. The materials for the cairn they meant to build would have to be carried laboriously to the peak, or if they were too heavy to lift, rolled over and over up the ledge. They went methodically to work; but Robin chose to stay near Angus, to help him when she could, to talk to him. When they were away from Pat she said slowly: "Will you tell me honestly just how bad this is? Was that story true, the one Pat told about the people peo-ple who could see shore, freezing and starving?" "I never heard it," he said. "But Pat's Newfoundland born and bred. Probably it was true." "I came to Newfoundland fishing bald ledge a few rounded bouiaers were scattered here and there; and Angus said now: "The handiest rocks are on the other side, in a fissure of the ledge." Jenkins said: "Okay. You and Pat work from there and we'll work from here. I don't want to get too close to you. You might get funny and I'd have to kill you after alT." Angus nodded. "Right," he agreed. He turned away; and Pat and Robin followed him. During the hours that followed, while the wind blew colder and the skies began to clear a little, the four men worked top speed at this task that might bring rescue; but Mr. Jenkins and Romeo never forgot to protect themselves them-selves against surprise. They took care not to come near either Pat or Angus. If Mr. Jenkins approached the growing pile of rocks when they were near it, he dropped his load twenty or thirty feet away, left it for them to fetch. He worked stoutly stout-ly enough, and so did Romeo; but they maintained an equal vigilance. Robin worked as she could; but she had to rest often, and when she rested, cold drained life and strength out of her. She was desperately des-perately hungry, arid the thought of the chocolate, and the question whether it was still where she had left it, was like a madness in her. She thought she might somehow manage to reach the'shelter unseen and recapture it; and once the thought took form, it obsessed her. She began to watch for any chance. But for a long time the enterprise was clearly hopeless. Jenkins and Romeo were lugging boulders up out of that break in the cliff where the shelter lay, and one or the other was almost always there. Midday came and went. Once the sun shone briefly, then lost itself again in a driving scud of low clouds. The four men became more and more absorbed ab-sorbed in this business which engaged en-gaged them. They were drunk with their own labors, blind with a mounting fatigue, working in a rising ris-ing haste. The small huddle of houses ashore was visible now, miles away; for the fog had thinned, and the wind blew hard and cold. The men raced to accomplish as much as possible before dark came down. Once Mr. Jenkins mounted the growing pile and looked toward shore and waved his arms; and he even hallooed as though his voice might carry over the intervening miles. Jenkins was there, watching her. so that's bound to be east. That makes the wind northwest, the way it's coming. Angus said indifferently: "Yes." Pat urged: "Then it just might blow clear this afternoon, sorr. If we could build this pile of rocks high enough before dark, them ashore might see." He chuckled. "I'd as soon not spend another night like last unless I have to." Angus looked at him and his eyes quickened. He glanced toward the cleft below them where the shelter was. "We can't build it high enough to make much show, alone," he said. "But those two might help if we put it to them right. I'll try. They don't know, what we're doing." He went down toward the cleft, but before be-fore showing himself he called: "Halloo, Jenkins! I want a word with my father once. We had fog for two weeks even up the Codroy. Fog and rain and cold. Maybe it won't clear off for days." "Those spells do happen," he admitted ad-mitted soberly. "But we're not badly bad-ly off for a few days. We can keep warm by huddling together at night" "How long will it be, do you suppose, sup-pose, before someone comes? Will that plane be hunting?" He smiled at her in a quiet reassurance. re-assurance. "Don't try to think ahead. Live an hour at a time. And don't be frightened. Fright tires you out. Keep steady. A person can go a long time without food, if he's not scared. We've plenty of water as long as it rains, and there'll be some in pools in the ledge afterward; and when it stops raining, if the sun comes out, we can dry out, we can dry our matches, manage a fire. We'll pull through." They were working while they talked, panting side by side, climbing climb-ing to the peak of the ledge, he with a great rock in his arms, she with a lesser one. She realized suddenly that she was happy, toiling thus beside be-side him. Life was becoming simple, sim-ple, reduced to fundamentals. She smiled and said: "That cake of chocolate is the most important thing in the world, right now, isn't it? That and Mr. Jenkins' oilskins, and a chance to get out of the rain." He nodded. "Yes, of course." She said, half to herself: "It's queer to think we might all die here. People do queer things, have queer feelings when they're afraid of dying." She smiled at her own thought. "Angus, I know an old man In Maine. He has a big orchard, and he told me an interes'ing thing once. He said that if an apple tree Is dying, it bears better than ever toward the end. He said if you broke down a branch and left it hanging by the bark, that branch would think it was dying, and it would have lots of apples on it; cr if you take a two-year-old tree and tie a bit of copper wire around the bark at the foot, the tree will think it's going to die, and it will bear apples long before it would otherwise. He thinks the trees are trying to pass life on while they still can." with you!". Jenkins after a moment answered him. "Bring the Irishman and the girl so I can see the three of you." "Right! Here we come!" They approached the lip of the cleft. Jenkins, when they first saw him, was inside the shelter, watching watch-ing warily for their appearance; but as soon as he was sure they were all three together, he stepped outside, out-side, his weapon in his hand. "All right," he said. "Speak your piece." Angus did so, without preamble. He explained that they had seen the mainland, and a village, a while ago when for a moment the fog lifted. "Then the rain shut in again, but now the weather's changing. The wind's backing into the northwest. That means it may clear; but it will probably haul into the northwest north-west again tonight. If it does that, it may stay thick for days. This afternoon may be our last glimpse of shore for a while. Pat and I have started building a cairn, hoping they'll see it. But four of us can build something sizable a lot quicker quick-er than two of us. If we can make a showing before dark, and it clears, they may see us tonight." He asked crisply: "Will you help?" Mr. Jenkins considered. Romeo came to his side and they spoke in whispers. "Okay, McPhail, we'll help. Only it's understood that you won't try any tricks, and it's understood that the shelter here is ours tonight, or any time today if it starts to rain again," Jenkins said, slowly. "Nothing's understood," Angus told him curtly. "You can help or not, just as you like. There's no promise on either side." Jenkins grinned. "Have it your way; but if you start trouble, you take your own chances. And any time we want the shelter, we'll take it. I'm coming Mp now. Back off. But in mid-afternoon Mr. Jenkins and Romeo had already carried all the usable material from the upper part of the break in the cliff face up to the growing pile. Rather than descend the steep slope thirty or forty yards, they worked along the level, farther and farther from the cleft. Robin saw this; and since in the intoxication of their fatigue they paid less and less attention to her, she began by slow degrees to move nearer and nearer the spot where all her thoughts centered. Pat and Angus, on the other side of the dome, were out of her sight except when they approached the growing cairn. Romeo, 150 yards away to the south, was hidden behind an intervening in-tervening ledge. She chose a moment mo-ment when Mr. Jenkins, the only man in sight, had his back turned to her, and dropped down into the cleft and darted to the shelter. She had left the chocolate among the loose rock piled together as a windbreak at one end; but when she came there now she felt a sick dismay. dis-may. Romeo and Jenkins, to improve im-prove the barricade she had built on that side, had added other rocks to those she had piled there. If the chocolate was still there, it was deep buried. She began to drag the rocks away, working in desperate des-perate haste, peering into the cracks among them. She saw at last the thing she sought; but she had to move still more boulders before she could draw the cake of chocolate free. She managed it, and turned to crawl out into the open air. Then she stopped still, on hands and knees, sick with terror. Mr. Jenkins was there, a dozen feet away, watching her with an ironic mile. (TO HE COTlM F.Di |