Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/46

34 share in any venture of the kind, and I did not like the look he gave Chester when my brother laughed the matter off—"

"Look!" Keith interrupted, pointing far out to sea, where a white sail was glinting in the high noon sun.

"That is the Kestrel," the girl announced with a deep sigh of satisfaction. "She ought to be here within half an hour. Let us go down to the beach to meet her."

The girl's eyes were dancing with pleasure at the thought of her brother's return. She had borne up bravely under the anxiety and uncertainty, and now the strain was over, her relief was palpable.

"Chester will be surprised to find he has a visitor," she said as they scrambled down the path to the water's edge.

Keith smiled; but he was wondering what sort of man he was about to meet. He was wondering, too, whether Chester Trent would resent the resence of a stranger on Tao Tao. In common decency the girl's brother would naturally be polite to a man cast on to his island, but there was an atmosphere about Tao Tao suggesting that strangers might be in the way. It was a pity, because few places in the world would have suited Keith as well for the present as that lonely island. There was little fear of any one asking awkward questions and—moreover, there was Joan Trent. She, it