Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/214

 Fiften minutes after Under-Sheriff Jordan had notified his impatient cohorts of an hour's postponement in the advance upon Hurricane Island, Henry Harrington, in the pitchy black of a moonless and starless night, was standing at the mouth of Cub Creek. A brooding silence lay upon the channel and the shadowy bulk of the Edgewater & Eastern's island. This silence Henry wakened with a shout. No answer came; but when he had twice repeated the call: "Adam! Adam John-n-n!" an owl hooted on the island. At least he had attracted the attention of an owl, and the owl was of an inquiring mood.

"Who? . . . who? . . ." demanded the bird of the night.

"Harrington! Henry Harrington!" sharp and clear, slightly irritated, went the answer to the owl.

The bird hooted once more, but on a descending cadence, as if its thirst for information had been satisfied. A minute or so later, Harrington heard another sound—a bass drumlike note, echoing from low upon the water; it was the casual beat of a paddle upon the side of a dug-out canoe. But it was not Adam John who stepped lightly out when a keel grated upon the gravel at the mouth of the creek. It was Lahleet. This was their first encounter since that angry parting of two weeks ago in Henry's office. But there was no stiffness in her manner.

For one thing she was too overcome by anxiety, too grateful for his coming. Besides, in very truth, she had never lost faith in Harrington. Within an hour after her impetuous, wrathful little soul had emptied itself in vitriolic denunciation on his head, she had been ready to trust him fully once more, believing that she read