An hour of decidedly slow progress convinced the wayfarers that they were not likely to accomplish the crossing of the island in a whole afternoon, not to mention doing it by three o’clock. It was a rough and rocky course that they had elected to travel, though the untamed beauty which they encountered at every step fully repaid them for the effort it entailed. Blazing their trail required continual stopping. Then, too, there was so much to see and wonder at. Had Blue Wolf been with them, his stoical patience would have been sorely tried. He would not have relished halting his march every two minutes while his charges went into raptures over what he had always taken for granted.
At half past two Miss Drexal called her flock together for a brief rest. “We won’t have time to go any farther, girls. Suppose we take it easy for fifteen minutes, then start back. We’ve done very well, I think, all things considered.” She glanced smilingly about at the bevy of girls. Each was carrying some trophy wrested from the woods. Anne and Emmy were laden with huge bunches of long-fronded ferns. Betty had found a deserted wasp’s nest—a queer, grayish looking affair. She had spied it hanging to a low limb of a tree, and secured it by poking it down with a long stick. Frances and Sarah had kept an open eye for fungi, of the smooth, creamy sort, on which they proposed to draw pictures. Marian rejoiced in the possession of a mammoth bunch of young wintergreens. Jane had devoted herself to accumulating long trails of green squaw berry-vines, dotted thickly with eatable scarlet berries. Ruth, however, had captured the prize. Quite a way back, while wandering a little distance off the trail, she had noticed a curious rock formation that jutted straight out and overhung a little hollow about ten feet below. About to go closer to examine it from above, she had prudently stopped to survey the prospect before attempting it. Deciding that it would be rather risky, she was about to turn away when she spied among a heap of loose stones close to her feet a flint arrow-head. Elated by her find, she snatched it up in a hurry, and ran back to show it to her friends, who were much impressed by it.
Blanche alone was empty-handed. She had set herself strictly to trying to carry out her unkind design, and had been given no opportunity to do so. Miss Drexal’s injunction against straying had blocked her plan to drop behind the others. Every few moments during the march, the registrar had turned to cast an anxious eye over her charges to see that none were missing.
In consequence, Blanche had been obliged to keep up with the others, which did not suit her at all. She had not given up all hope, however, of carrying out her plan. On the return trip, she would wait until they came near to the outcropping rocks where Ruth had picked up the arrowhead. She would lag behind under pretense of tying her shoe. By watching her chance, she might be able to approach them from below, crawl back under them and conceal herself. Perhaps Miss Drexal would be too busy following the blazings on the trees to notice her absence. Certainly, the girls wouldn’t trouble themselves about her. They cared nothing for her, and she cared still less for them. If they did miss her, then they would have the pleasure of hunting her until she chose to reappear.
All in all, it was a very senseless proceeding, but Blanche was too strongly bent on discomfiting others to realize the utter folly of it. Stalking grimly along at the tail of the procession, she took a morbid enjoyment in merely contemplating the trick she was about to play.
Fortune apparently decided to favor her. When at last the party reached a spot a few rods to one side of the shelving rocks, Miss Drexal again halted them for a breathing spell.
“Oh, look!” exclaimed Jane. “Right over there is the place where Ruth found the arrow-head. I’m going to see if I can find one, too.”
“So am I,” declared Frances. “May we, Miss Drexal? We’ll come right back.”
“Don’t be gone long, then,” stipulated the Guardian. Her consent was hardly given when the two raced off to the left, where the top of the ledge was just visible, rising above the surrounding green.
Frowningly, Blanche watched them go. As usual, Jane Pellew had provokingly interfered with her plans. At that very moment, the sudden upward flapping of a convention of crows startled by Frances and Jane, set all eyes gazing after them in an opposite direction. Like a flash, Blanche saw her chance and seized it. Making a swift, noiseless dash toward a rioting clump of bushes, she crouched behind it. The group still had............