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Show tough short mano where it began He sidled away from her, cars back' shaking his head, stamping out furiously furi-ously now with his nervous hoofs. Lurk, her hand hard and firm on Ins neck, made a springing leap from the ground, scrambling for a scat on his back, for a kneehold about that slim quick red-brown barrel. bar-rel. It was her skirts that hampered ham-pered her, her awkward billowing stinish skirts. Almost, she was secure, se-cure, gripping with knees that were cramped from the crawling and waiting. Red Raskall reared before she was ready, reared and came down like a catapult, head low now legs stiff for the jarring impact, and Lark knew she'd lost him, knew her seat wasn't firm and right, knew it and went rolling headlong into the sand riffle of the ridge base. But even as she knew it, even as she sobbed in the sickening disappointment disap-pointment of the fall, she saw Gait spring for the horse, spring from the ridge where he'd lain hidden, spring and throw a long, sure sinewy sin-ewy leg over the plunging horse's shoulders, bend close along the neck, lace strong bare arms around Red Raskall's neck, and then the rider and horse were out of sight over the ridge top, and she heard the slither of hoofs in the downward down-ward rush for the beach, heard the splash and echo of a heavy body striking water. . . . Lark raced for the ridge top and saw Gait, still on the Raskall's back, far out in the water now. He was trying to urge the horse back to- hereoverrnned-at L"k- He looked "cr over, curiously. muddl""" hVaid' hIs voice thick, muddy, un be a sweet-meat, prop- buc,rV,hat PPinjay' Gait! That who iv,VfP' a-soapin' hissel' tor who laid the raill White shirtin' his- for ua"telUn' he was sailin' out f oyschersl" ar,HU,1Cnyl" Galt said furiously, the h U3t man Iaid a "and on his be," ' PiSt01 hangin torn m''hatbe un's name, sweetmeat? sweet-meat? Cony walked toward Lark. tie was short and powerfully made, astonishingly hairy, even his long arms covered by a thatch of sunburned sun-burned hair that grew from Angers to shoulders. He had broad flat features fea-tures and ruddy, stubbled skin, that gathered in folds under bulging black eyes. He wore only filthy trousers and a filthier cap. Over his head Lark's eyes met Gait s despairing ones. He was trying try-ing hard to tell her something, some wordless warning. "I say, 'I lash hell out o' un, Gait, a-keepin' secrets from me.' " Cony laughed enormously, winking at. Lark. "Where un come from, sweetmeat? sweet-meat? I ain't never seed un Horn-town Horn-town way." "I was shipwrecked on the Tem-pora," Tem-pora," Lark said coldly. "I'm Lark Shannon, a minister's daughter, on my way to Mistress Mara Hastings' Dame School in Norfolk, Virginia. And if you dare to lash Gait I'll report re-port you to the authorities there." "Blast me for a blow-toad, now!" Cony grinned. "How un figure to git to Norfolk, sweetmeat?" "Stage or carriage. However people peo-ple usually go." "Stage or carriage, now! Has un money for stage or carriage?" "Not here. Of course not! I told you I was shipwrecked. I'll send word to Mr. David North, of the Cargoe Riske Company in Norfolk. He'll be coming from England. He'll send money, or come for me." "Un be warm spirited," Cony said gravely. "Un say un got Cargoe Riske money to call on, sweetmeat?" sweet-meat?" Lark hesitated, saying finally, "Mr. David North of that company is a friend. He will certainly see I get to Norfolk." "Gait can write the Cargoe Riske," Cony said, chuckling. "He be a great hand for letters, Gait. How come he have the handsome luck to find un, sweetmeat?" "I seed her here," Gait said, sullenly. sul-lenly. "I seed her an' put in." Cony snorted, looking interestedly at the dinghy marks and Gait's bare footprints in the sand. Then his eyes followed Gait's and Lark's prints toward the ridge break, beyond which lay the little secret cache of Gait's, and Red Raskall, grazing in the valley. Lark's breath shortened as if she had been running. "Sure," Cony said. "Then whyn't un come to land with Gait this dawn? My notion, is, he told un ugly tales, scarin' un, like. How I see it, be ., Ti s FAR: l ark Shan-lsST Shan-lsST L,t Macloc, was sol.1 to ,lfbt i " ""' s"lls '"" It lor America. David North. PtK ?v 10 mall '"e lr"' , ', Hiainiolnts her by salllnu fJr'5 L , Uu-il m sUht of Ihe ,t tue ship encounUTS n vlo-f:Ii'"' vlo-f:Ii'"' lark manuRM to e-t Into a ""Lit II swamped. She. Brabs a "W .1. r, sM ''"-"s "ls 50"d I"' bTli sees Lancer, the Rod W ""' ! ' ,orse who escaped from "lU"' '.inklni in qoleksand. With the P; slud l.er she saves him. The " nit Witlie, a hound servant, 6, i on the Island. CHAPTER VII ,w be alone," he said "You ,? " that fella North ain't this t water, and the Hastings likely don't know you re Who's going to look for you cari'tget away from the inn? S it be taken for a fact you .tded on the Tempora?" Vby to the world would thcy Want m me at the inn?" . could teU you," Gait said un-. un-. Ov "Lot o' rough uns coming , total, time to time. I-just fJuim to take you there. That's u end to it. I aim to go now, and B-e back for you and make for E;mtom after dark, tonight." Suppose you don't get to the airland, now?" dlt looked at the placid sky and eating water. "Why?" It could storm you could crown." Hat be foolish." He turned back U to dinghy. "I can tell you this. 1 dl come back for you. And If ft been your fine David North, I rddn't on no account missed that Tempora barkentine. I wouldn't of nut a note, I'd have been there." lark said scornfully, ragingly, you you . . . you're not fit to pol-14 pol-14 tie boots of a man like David J'orih. You're" 1 ain't studying 'bout polishing Ej boots." Gait pushed the dinghy tee from the wet clinging beach. 1 just said truth. I'd have been fate. Til be here tonight." "Ponies." Gait dropped down at see, out of sight against the side of tie boat. "Lie flat, Lark." "Hey land at the point," Lark old indifferently. "I've seen them it it time and again, since I've :en here. There's some soft grass h the valley they like." Gait nod-id, nod-id, watching. tod then the indifference, the Itjelessness was washed from Lark tause she saw the lead- horse, the big red-brown stallion, rising from fie water, finding his footing on the ruck? point, standing there in the Eirsb grass, wet, gleaming, mag-r&ent, mag-r&ent, dwarfing the ponies that Banned up about him. "Bat's Red Raskall!" She bare-rf bare-rf made the words. "Look, Gait! Ws the horse I told you about. He's come back. ... If we could only Don't you move! I think he itts us!" "It be was but the stallion named lacer," Gait said excitedly, "and te could but snare him, Squire Terrace Ter-race would give a hundred pound maid for him. So I heard him say, ai that's what his posted reward to. I read it. A special retard." re-tard." He brought a coil of tarred rope, iron under the prow seat of the and handed it to Lark. "See can 'ashion a halter, while I "HP to the ridge top. If we could W a hand on, we'd have to have a "J to hold him, and I don't like to tf him. Too much chance he'll himself. I've seen many a W Jo that. They be wilder than Icons." Eed Raskall reared before she was ready. wards the shore, turning him with knee-pressure, talking to him, his arms hugging the stallion's neck. . . . And then Red Raskall was floundering, turning, coming back now, slipping on the shells and pebbles, peb-bles, coming up, quivering, a hundred hun-dred yards up-island in an outgrowth out-growth of thick marsh reeds. "Gait how did you do it? Gait that was unbelievable!" Lark watched the dinghy with her ill-made sail-rag, get her back to the breeze and scud for the western land smudge. After a while it took this. Gait had him some good reason rea-son to come here, first off. Tain't nature to come 'thin fi' mile o' old Ghost. Quicksand here, an' a horde o' dead bones, an' a stinkin' undertow under-tow second to none. Now why'd he come?" "He was fishing." The big hoof-prints hoof-prints of Red Raskall were clear, along here, Lark noticed. She tried to hurry. "What un's haste, sweetmeat?" Cony reached out, pinched her arm gently. "Un ben't weak nor undue thin, bidin' a full week here alone. Maybe un got other friends washed up with un. Maybe un's Mr. David North be round about, fendin' for un." "You don't believe any castaway would hide out when a rescue boat came, do you? Why don't you search the island?" His eyes were thoughtful, shrewd. "That ben't a bad idea. Yet I think un tell it true that un be alone. Yet who feed un?" "A tin of biscuits washed up, Lark said. "I ate them." His grunt was skeptical. "Un say Gait found un only today?" "Do you really think I'd have stayed here all this time if I'd been found by Gait or anybody else? Do you?' . , "Now, now." Cony gestured her toward the yawL "Us be gettin' home. Sought to fool me, did un, Gait? Push off nowl" Lark climbed into the boat, sitting sit-ting as far from Cony as she could. She was thankful that the failing light, and the fact Bed ".stall had come back to land in the thick marsh reeds, had kept Cony from guessing the whole truth, but she was shaken and frightened. The night wind moaned over the island behind them. Un be thinkin'," Cony said, as what the Cargoe Riske'U pay for un. nn keep clear o' yon Gait. Cony be un's' friend. Un look to C Au'tne way in. the sick soreness that it had been her hysterical out-ZsX out-ZsX at Gait that had done the dam-ae dam-ae haunted Lark. She had caUed Wm d'd up in a PeUc effort to C r.se her and so Cony had become please her, ana STCde paiHng handling the saU cuTafd she was sick with teaf' (TO BE CONTINUED) looked back and beckoned and 'Mowed, conscious of the rus-noise rus-noise of her salt-crusted skirts, " I e might cough or sneeze, with hope and excitement. JLAaskaU was grazine a little " toeherd, and Gait and Lark JfWbjck down the ridge to the '"and ran along quietly, swift-Gait swift-Gait said they must be t opposite the horse now. if he ''"moved too much. r,hl!-get back in the midst C'J breathlessly, "we'll set near him." J eased back up the ridge, and n??.1 cautious head t0 Whh , t . ?' Was electrifled to feet away, there. . hawTetryI" Lark Iald the w AT 'Tm Sure he,U m- I believe I can-" Xhfr0? ae sheIter of With t'ltostVj d caut'onLark be- "ltk and could ""mo U "'and touch him Softly i,rodleSSly' he whistled 'Wh rngly' She spoke his B&.L;n.c!rwb08, boy- teedin?"' Stpped' stood H MertT?'' Watching Lark. twardbatChkandhe tamped, k tan r , S StartIed Pnles L I mg like a snapping toward him J sti "e space w'th her WbT' taUtinS to him. He ; ft edgily' making ,!"llinVe, SUnd again- his Ber h 8 Wh,te and unsure. . . 0'hisbP!a,S,on his neck, the u&'Mred-brown neck. Knott'ng her fingers in the on grace and a certain beauty, lhe strange wild-haired young fellow sailing her was straight and beautiful beauti-ful too, now. Distance was kind to his disreputable disreputa-ble clothes, the old white scars, his matted hair, and tragic eyes. It pointed up the long clean lines of him, his ease and sureness as the dinghy bobbed and shivered, dissolving dissolv-ing finally in a dancing shadow, a point, nothingness. . . . With the sudden fear that Red Raskall was gone, Lark hurried through the ridge break and saw that he was there, hitching his head up and down, trying to shake off the hobble and halter. It was almost twilight when she saw a boat coming from the direction direc-tion 'of the mainland. It was bigger big-ger than the dinghy of the morning. It looked like the small fishing boats Lark had seen off the Cornish coast, one summer's trip. It was a ' little yawl with mast, mainsail and jib and a tiny jigger mast stepped far astern. It was manned by two strange men. Lark realized now. A thick-set heavy man, with a cap pulled low over his eyes tended the mainsail and ,.b. A taller, younger-looking figure, with neat clubbed hair and a white shirt, was at the tiller in the yawl's stern. Neither of them responded to Lark's waving, but when they came nearer, she saw that the younger young-er one the man in the fresh white shirt and clean faded sailors breeches, was Gait. I thought you'd evr come Lark called. "Oh, Gait, I am so glad to see you. You look splendid, GSh7hushed before the loo : on his face, the guarded, sullen .look. The squat heavy man jumped out first, as the boat touched. |
