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Show -BEN AMES WILLIAMS WILLIAMS W.N. U. FEATURES Pat asked, as though anxious to , be sure: "A fisherman?" Angus nod- . ded. Pat frowned in a puzzled way. "Now what would a fisherman be doing off here so early in the morning?" morn-ing?" . Angus suggested: "Maybe they saw our monument last night and came off to see who was here." Robin looked at him. "Then Romeo Ro-meo would tell , them he built the monument, wouldn't he? So they'll not think anything more about it when they see it still here. So they won't come for us." Angus said: "He'll tell them about us." Mr. Jenkins spoke in a quizzical amusement. "You trust men too easily, McPhaiL Romeo won't tell them anything. Why should he? I beat him up. Miss Dale there cut his cheek open. He knows you don't like him any more; and he won't want to see Pat again. Romeo's well out of it. He'D keep his mouth shut and go clear." "He'll have to tell them how he got here." "He'll say your boat bucked the ledge, say you and Pat went down with her, say he got ashore alone." The rain began again, in a little spiteful sprinkle that came nard and harder. Robin spoke. "Then we'll have to make ourselves at home, won't we?" She tried to laugh. "At least we won't have to carry rocks any more to build the cairn." THE STORY SO FAR: Robin Dale, a young artist, goes to Moose Bay to see her fiance, Will McPhail. When Will is accidentally killed, his brother Angus blames Robin. She goes to Angus' fishing fish-ing cruiser to see him. While she is on board the boat sails, carrying her, Angus, Pat Donohoe and Romeo toward Labrador. Labra-dor. The boat Is seized by a man named Jenkins who is trying to escape from a government patrol. The boat runs aground and sinks. When Jenkins Jen-kins tries to steal the last of the food, there Is a free-for-all fight. Coming on Jenkins lying on the ground, Angus has Just asked, "Are you hurt?" Jenkins looks at him In contempt and fear. t Now continue with the story. CHAPTER XVI Angus jumped down beside the other man. "Hurt?" he muttered. Mr. Jenkins grinned at him. "What do you think?" he countered in sardonic question. "Think I'm lying here to watch the pretty clouds?" His lips twisted venomously; venomous-ly; his words were vitriol, cursing Angus, cursing Pat. cursing Robin Robin most of all. He had not moved at all, lay flat on his back in the beating rain. The raging anger boiling out of his help-i help-i less body was a terrible thing to see. Angus said gently: "I'll get you under un-der cover, Jenkins." He bent to lift the man, and Mr. Jenkins' hands flew up and fastened weakly on his throat. Angus caught the other's wrists, tore those hands away, flung them down. Jenkins had no strength in him. His bands were as weak as in her arms he seemed infinitely far away. She said: "I'm all right in daylight." Night was full of terrors; ter-rors; and sleet and rain came on a howling, hungry wind. They were silent for a while, and she felt his shoulders against her breast relax in weary stupor that counterfeited sleep. Her eyes were wide, staring star-ing into blackness. Once she felt Pat stir and mutter; and she whispered: whis-pered: "All right, Pat?" "Sure, ma'am, fine." She thought presently that she was the only one of them still awake. She held Angus closer, brooding over him. Somewhere outside the shelter a rock slid and rolled down the slope below them, the sounds growing less as it bounded toward the ' sea. That sharpened all her senses. Something had set the rock rolling. It must be Romeo, prowling prowl-ing near. But she did not rouse Angus till a little later she saw a darker shape in the darkness a dozen feet away. Then dreadful terror filled her; and she spoke in McPhail's ear. "Angus!" She felt him wake. "Romeo's "Ro-meo's sneaking up on us. See him, there, in front of you." McPhail sat up. He cried in sharp challenge: "That you, Romeo? What do you want?" Romeo without answering, raced away, scrambling up the slope. They heard the rattle of rocks dislodged by his flying feet. From the safety After a moment Angus saia: i try to catch some fish today, find something to eat." He distributed another morsel of chocolate to each one of them. "We'll make this last as long as we can," he said. Mr. Jenkins refused his portion. "Give it to Miss Dale." he directed. "I'm done, anyway. No use wasting wast-ing it on me." Robin protested. "Please! Eat it, Mr. Jenkins. You mustn't give up. Somebody's sure to find us soon." He grinned at her, looked at Angus. An-gus. "You're a sentimental lot, taking tak-ing me in, taking care of me. If I were in your place, I'd dump me off the cliffs below here. I'm glad to have your company for a day or two, of course, so I hope you won't do it till I'm dead. But I won't eat your chocolate." a child's. "Be sensible man, Angus An-gus said. "Let me take care of you." Jenkins spoke in sudden full surrender. sur-render. "All right. I'm done. My back's broken, McPhail. Do as you please." "We'll do what we can," Angus said. He lifted the hurt man, managed man-aged somehow to carry him up to the shelter. From weakness or from pain Mr. Jenkins lapsed into unconsciousness un-consciousness again on that short journey. Robin moved aside when Angus appeared and he laid Mr. Jenkins in the shelter. Mr. Jenkins opened his eyes. He was, clearly, paralyzed from the waist down, yet there was life in him. When Angus gave him a bit of chocolate, he gobbled it without a sound. i Robin said: "Now we must band- age Pat's leg somehow, Angus. Isn't there anything?" "Handkerchiefs not big enough?"1 "No, not nearly." "My underwear, then." Angus started to unbutton his shirt; but Mr. Jenkins spoke. "Take my shirt, McPhail," he said. His tone was mild enough. The fog of battle rage had left him, and he was sane again. "It's white, and I don't need it. There's no warmth in it, anyway; not enough to do me any good." Robin felt her eyes sting. She ' ' thought she could almost like Mr. Jenkins. Pat sDoke for all of them. )tifl i ' j A f , c : Angus scanned the sky. "No sign of better weather," he said. "Pat, we've got to have a fire as soon as we can. I'll go look for more firewood. fire-wood. You try to dry our matches." He had a box half full, of the safety type, and Pat and Mr. Jenkins had each a few. "Put them on a dry rock, Pat. Maybe the air will dry them. If we can have a fire tonight we'll all feel better." He brought under shelter the few scraps of firewood fire-wood they had already collected. "You can whittle off the outside of these sticks, Pat," he suggested. "Get at the dry wood inside, shave enough kindling to start a fire, if our matches ever dry." But when he and Robin left the shelter, he decided to add a few boulders to the cairn. "Just on the chance," he told Robin. "Maybe they haven't seen it from shore. Maybe Romeo won't speak of it." It was raining hard and the wind was icy cold. He had made her wear the oilskin coat. They worked side by side. Hunger was a cry of pain in her, and she was cold, and her hands were bruised and sore; bu she did what she could. At noon, Angus decided the cairn would do. It was eight or nine feet high, wide at the base, tapering to the top. "If the weather clears they may see it," he said. "Now "You had tHe makings of a man, Jenkins," he said. "It's a sorry end you've come to." Mr. Jenkins chuckled. "I'm luckier luck-ier than the rest of you," he said with grim humor. "You're cold all over; but I'm only cold from the waist up. Can't feel it, in my legs, at all. I'd trade my shoes for a flannel shirt, right now." Robin still wore McPhail's leather leath-er jacket, with Pat's great stag shirt over it. She began to strip them off. Mr. Jenkins should have the one, Pat the other. They protested; but Angus supported her and she had her way. By the time Pat's leg was bandaged, band-aged, early dusk was settling around them. Angus distributed bits of chocolate to each of them. Robin, chewing her morsel, making it last as long as possible, felt warmth and strength run through her body like a flood. For the night they all packed into the shelter side by side; first Mr. Jenkins, then Pat, then Robin, then Angus himself in the open end, with Mr. Jenkins' oilskin for protection ( against the rain. Dark came down, and Robin pressed nearer Pat. Angus An-gus sat like a wall between her and the weather. After a while she spoke to him. "Come closer," she said. "We can all get under here." "I've the oilskin. I'm all right." "I need you to keep me warm. Lie back against me. Take it off and tuck it around us." He hesitated, then obeyed. She "Be sensible, man," Angus said. of the ledge above where they lay, he flung imprecations back at them; yet even while he cursed them all, he moved farther and farther away till the sound of his babbling rage grew faint and died. Robin said wretchedly: "Poor man! Maybe he just wanted to get warm. Can't we take him in, give him a chance to get out of the rain?" Angus did not reply. She thought of Romeo running to and fro like an animal, pitifully questing in the night for shelter. Cold crept into her; and somewhere far below them she heard the growling of the hungry hun-gry sea. Robin woke before the others in the morning. It was daylight when she roused, a gray hopeless dawn. She would not wake them; but while she lay cramped and stiff, holding herself motionless so that Angus might not be disturbed, she heard, far away across the island, a cry. She knew it must be Romeo; and she shuddered, thinking he was like a coyote howling from sheer loneliness, loneli-ness, thrust out of their small society so-ciety into the naked emptiness of this rocky, rain-swept world. She pitied him, and wished they might take him in to share their slight shelter, and when Angus woke at last, she suggested this. "I heard him crying, just a few minutes ago," she said. "It was pretty terrible. Can't he be with us?" I'll try to make us more comfortable. comforta-ble. Let's see if Pat's all right." They went down to the shelter together. to-gether. Pat was cheerful, but Mr. Jenkins was as silent as a trapped animal. Robin thought him weaker. Pat had shavings ready, but the matches were not dry. Angus told Robin to stay here and rest awhile. "I'm going to bring seaweed to chink the cracks in the wall," he explained. ex-plained. "I'll Ax it so the wind won't come through." She was too tired to" argue so she obeyed him. He returned presently with a great armful of seaweed. The stuff was wet, but it did improve im-prove the rocky barrier across the closed end of the shelter. Pat and Robin put it in place while Angus brought more and more, till there was enough to make a sort of mattress mat-tress on which they could lie. Also, he walled up part of the open end of drew him back against her, in her arms. He spread the oilskin coat A to cover them both. "There!" she cried, almost con tentedly, but he felt her trembling. "Cold?" he asked. "No. Just scared." "Don't be. Keep vour nerve. Ve'll manage. The rain can't last forever. And we won't starve. I'll get some fish tomorrow, trap them in the shallows when the tide goes out. Then there are shellfish, snails at least, in the seaweed. We'll find food, something." After a moment she snid softly: "Angus, I'm glad you're not here alone. If this was going to happen to you I'm glad I'm with you." He said, after 0 little hesitation, in a defensive tone: "Don't be afraid. We'll come through." She felt chilled, rebuffed by the remote impersonality of his words. She knew she loved him; yet even Angus stood up, stiff with cold. "I'll have a look around," he said. "I'U talk to him." He scaled the slope to the ledge above them and went out of their sight. A moment later they heard him shout, and shout again, the sounds receding. Robin thought he was trying to find Romeo, calling to the man. He was gone what seemed a long I time; and when he came back, she saw in his eyes something like despair. de-spair. He squatted facing them and said quietly: "Romeo's gone. A fish- ' erman took him off." Robin felt her heart pound. Mr. Jenkins began to swear in a still, vitriolic way. Angus explained: "When 1 came up on the cairn. I could just see the boat, a dory with a sail. It was half a mile away toward to-ward shore, just going out of sight in the rain. I yelled, but they didn't hear me." this cranny under the ledge, and before dark they had a compact refuge ref-uge with walls and a roof to shut out rain and wind. They ate the last of the chocolate that night. The matches were still soggy, so they did not try for a fire. Robin slept against Pat, with Angus between her and the pitiless rain. Once in the night she heard Mr. Jen-kinsfnaking Jen-kinsfnaking meaningless sounds, either ei-ther in his sleep or in a delirium. In the morning she was a little lightheaded. light-headed. The world was become unreal. un-real. She looked out through gray dawn light at shares that moved and changed their form, that were blurred and strange. Ar.gus was still asleep, and her arms tightened around him. She wanted to protect pro-tect him and to comfort him and shelter him against all thee adver sities. i 110 BE COTIM ID) |