They waited some minutes, and then Kitty appeared in the entrance to the
cabin. Vane called to her.

"Won't you look in the locker, and bring along anything you think would
be nice? We'll make a fire and have supper on the beach--if it isn't
first-rate, you'll be responsible!"

A few minutes later they paddled ashore, and Vane landed them on a
strip of shingle. Beyond it a wall of rock arose, with dark firs
clinging in the rifts and crannies. The sunshine streamed into the
hollow; the wind was cut off; and not far away a crystal stream came
splashing down a ravine.

"There's a creek at the top of the inlet," Vane told them, as he and
Carroll thrust out the canoe, "and we're going to look for a trout. You
can stroll about or rest in the sun for a couple of hours, and if the
wind drops after supper we'll make a start again."

They paddled away, with a fishing-rod and a gun in the canoe, and it
was toward six o'clock in the evening when they came back with a few
trout. Vane made a fire of resinous wood, and Carroll and Kitty
prepared a bountiful supper. When it was finished, Carroll carried the
plates away to the stream; Mrs. Marvin and the little girl followed
him; and Vane and Kitty were left beside the fire. She sat on a log of
driftwood, and he lay on the warm shingle with his pipe in his hand.
The clear green water splashed and tinkled upon the pebbles close at
his feet, and a faint, elfin sighing fell from the firs above them. It
was very old music: the song of the primeval wilderness; and though he
had heard it often, it had a strange, unsettling effect on him as he
languidly watched his companion. There was no doubt that she was