Quick Action Part 24

XVII

After a silence, she lay back among her cus.h.i.+ons and glanced at us with a faint smile.

"One day last winter," she said, "after the last client had gone and office hours were over, I sat here thinking, wondering what in the world could be worse for a girl than to have no parents.... And I happened to glance into my crystal, and saw there an incident beginning to evolve that cheered me up, because it was a parody on my more morbid train of thought. After all, the same Chance that gives a child to its parents gives the parents to that child. You may think this is Tupper," she added, "but it is Athalie. And that being the case, n.o.body will laugh."

n.o.body did laugh.

"Thank you," she said sweetly. "Now I will tell you what I saw in my crystal when I happened to be feeling unusually alone in the world." And with a pretty nod to us, collectively, she began.

The bulk of the cargo and a few bodies were coming ash.o.r.e at the eastern end of the island, and that is where the throngs were--people from the Light House, fishermen from the inlet, and hundreds of winter tourists from St. Augustine, in white flannels and summer gowns, all attracted to Ibis Island by the grewsome spectacle of the wreck.

The West Indian hurricane had done its terrific business and had gone, leaving a turquoise sky untroubled by a cloud, and a sea of snow and cobalt.

Nothing living had been washed ash.o.r.e from the wreck. As for the brig, she had vanished--if there had been anything left of her to disappear except the wreckage, human and otherwise, that had come tumbling ash.o.r.e through the surf all night long.

So young Gray, seeing that there was nothing for him to do, and not caring for the spectacle at the eastern end of the island, turned on his heel and walked west through thickets of sweet bay, palmetto, and beach-grape.

He wore the lightest weight solaro, with a helmet and close-fitting puttees of the same. Two straps crossed his breast, the one supporting a well filled haversack, the other a water bottle. Except for fire arms he was equipped for darkest Africa, or for anything else on earth--at least he supposed so. He was wrong; he was not equipped for what he was about to encounter on Ibis Island.

It happened in this manner: traversing the seaward dunes, because the beach no longer afforded him even a narrow margin for a footing, shoulder deep in a tangle of beach-grapes, he chanced to glance at the little sandy cove which he was skirting, and saw there an empty fruit crate tumbling in the smother of foam, and a very small setter puppy clinging to it frantically, with every claw clutching, and his drenched tail between his legs.

Even while Gray was forcing his eager way through the tangle, he was aware of somebody else moving forward through the high scrub just west of him; and as he sprang out onto the beach and laid his hand on the stranded fruit crate, another hand, slimmer and whiter than his, fell on the crate as he dragged it out of the foamy shallows and up across the dry sand, just as a tremendous roller smashed into clouds of foam behind it.

"I beg your pardon," said a breathless voice at his elbow, "but I think I saw this little dog first."

Gray already was reaching for the s.h.i.+vering little thing, but two other hands deprived him of the puppy; and he looked up, impatient and annoyed, into the excited brown eyes of a young girl.

She had taken the dripping, clawing little creature to her breast, where it s.h.i.+vered and moaned and whined, shoving its cold nose up under her chin.

"I beg your pardon," said Gray, firmly, "but I am really very certain that I first discovered that dog."

"I am sorry you think so," she said, clasping the creature all the tighter.

"I _do_ think so," insisted Gray. "I _know_ it!"

"I am very sorry," she repeated. Over the puppy's s.h.i.+vering back her brown eyes gazed upon Gray. They were very pretty, but hostile.

"There can be no question about the owners.h.i.+p of this pup," persisted Gray. "Of course, I am sorry if you really think you discovered the dog. Because you didn't."

"I _did_ discover him," she said, calmly.

"I beg your pardon. I was walking through the beach-grapes----"

"I beg yours! I also was crossing the sweet-bay scrub when I happened to glance down at the cove and saw this poor little dog in the water."

"That is exactly what _I_ did! I happened to glance down, and there I saw this little dog. Instantly I sprang----"

"So did I!--I _beg_ your pardon for interrupting you!"

"I was merely explaining that I first saw the dog, and next I noticed you. But first of all I saw the dog."

"That is the exact sequence in my own observations," she rejoined calmly. "First of all I saw the dog in the water, then I heard a crash in the bush, and saw something floundering about in the tangle."

"And," continued Gray, much annoyed by her persistency, "no sooner had I caught hold of the crate than _you_ came up and laid _your_ hand on it, also. You surely must remember that I had my hand on the crate before you did!"

"I am very sorry you think so. The contrary was the case. _I_ took firm hold of the crate, and then you aided me to draw it up out of the water."

"It is extraordinary," he said, "how mistaken you are concerning the actual sequence of events. Not that I doubt for a moment that you really suppose you discovered the dog. Probably you were a little excited----"

"I was perfectly cool. Possibly _you_ were a trifle excited."

"Not in the least," he retorted with calm exasperation. "I never become agitated."

The puppy continued to s.h.i.+ver and drive its nose up under the girl's chin.

"Poor little thing! Poor little s.h.i.+pwrecked baby!" she crooned. And, to Gray: "I don't know why this puppy should be so cold. The water is warm enough."

"Put it in the hot sand," he said. "We can rub it dry."

She hesitated, flus.h.i.+ng perhaps at her own suspicions; but nevertheless she said:

"You would not attempt to take it if I put it down, would you?"

"I don't intend to s.n.a.t.c.h it," he said with dignity. "_Men_ don't s.n.a.t.c.h."

So they went inland a few paces where the sand was hot and loose and deep; and there they knelt down and put the puppy on the sand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I am in possession of the dog and you merely claim possession.'"]

"Scrub him thoroughly," she suggested, pouring heaping handfuls of hot, silvery sand over the little creature.

Gray did likewise, and together they rubbed and scrubbed and rolled the puppy about until the dog began to roll on his back all by himself, twisting and wriggling and waving his big, padded paws.

"What he wants is water," a.s.serted Gray, unstrapping his haversack and bottle. From the one he produced an aluminum pannikin; from the other he filled it with water. The puppy drank it all while Gray and the brown-eyed girl looked on intently.

Then Gray produced some beef sandwiches, and the famished little creature leaped and whirled and danced as Gray fed him cautiously, bit by bit.

"Do you think that is perfectly fair?" asked the girl gravely.

"Fair?" repeated Gray guiltily.

"Yes. Who first feeds a strange dog is recognised as the reigning authority."

"Very well, you may feed him, too. But that does not alter the facts in the case."