The Adventures of a Modest Man

"That is jolly!" she exclaimed, greatly relieved. "Helen, I really think we should be starting – "

But Helen, pencil poised, gazed obdurately at Ellis out of brown eyes which were scarcely fashioned for such impartial and inexorable work.

"If your name is not Smith I should be very glad to note it," she said.

So he laughed and told her who he was and where he lived; and she wrote it down, somewhat shakily.

"Of course," she said, "you cannot be the artist– James Lowell Ellis, the artist – the great – "

She hesitated; brown eyes and grey eyes, very wide now, were concentrated on him. Jones, too, stared, and Ellis laughed.

"Are you?" blurted out Jones. "Great Heaven! I never supposed – "

Ellis joined in a quartet of silence, then laughed again, a short, embarrassed laugh.

"You don't look like anything famous, you know," said Jones reproachfully. "Why didn't you tell me who you are? Why, man, I own two of your pictures!"

To brown-eyes, known so far as "Helen," Ellis said: "We painters are a bad lot, you see – but don't let that prejudice you against Mr. Jones; he really doesn't know me very well. Besides, I dragged him into this villainy; didn't I, Jones? You didn't want to trespass, you know."

"Oh, come!" said Jones; "I own two of your pictures – the Amourette and the Corrida. That ought to convict me of almost anything."

Grey-eyes said: "We – my father – has the Espagnolita, Mr. Ellis." She blushed when she finished.

"Why, then, you must be Miss Sandys!" said Ellis quickly. "Mr. Kenneth Sandys owns that picture."

The brown eyes, which had widened, then sparkled, then softened as matters developed, now became uncompromisingly beautiful.

"I am dreadfully sorry," she said, looking at her notebook. "I trust that the school authorities may not press matters." Then she raised her eyes to see what Jones's expression might resemble. It resembled absolutely nothing.

After a silence Miss Sandys said: "Do you think Helen, that we are – that we ought to report this – "

"Yes, Molly, I do."

"I'm only an architect; fine me, but spare my friend, Ellis," said Jones far too playfully to placate the brown-eyed Helen. She returned his glance with a scrutiny devoid of expression. The thunder boomed along the flanks of Lynx Peak.

"We – we are very sorry," whispered Miss Sandys.

"I am, too," replied Ellis – not meaning anything concerning his legal predicament.

Brown-eyes looked at Jones; there was a little inclination of her pretty head as she passed them. A moment later the two young men stood alone, caps in hand, gazing fixedly into the gathering dimness of Caranay forest.

CHAPTER XV

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

"Ellis," said Jones, earnestly, as they climbed to the camp and stood gazing at the whitening ashes of their fire, "the simple life is a state of mind. I'm in it, now. And – do you know, Ellis, that – I – I could learn to like it?"

Ellis prodded the back-log, and tossed on some dry sticks.

"Great Heaven!" breathed Jones, "did you ever see such eyes, Ellis?"

"The grey ones? They're very noticeable – "

"I meant – well, let it go at that. Here be two of us have lost a thousand shillings to-day."

"And the ladies were not in buckram," rejoined Ellis, starting a blaze. "Jones, can you prepare trout for the pan with the aid of a knife? Here, rub salt in 'em – and leave all but two in that big tin – dry, mind, then cover it and sink it in the spring, or something furry will come nosing and clawing at it. I'll have things ready by the time you're back."

"About our canoes," began Jones. "I've daubed mine with white lead, but I cut it up badly. Hadn't we better attend to them before the storm breaks?"

"Get yours into camp. I'll fetch mine; it's cached just below the forks. This storm may tear things."

A quarter of an hour later two vigorous young men swung into camp, lowered the canoes from their heads and shoulders, carried the strapped kits, poles and paddles into the lean-to, and turned the light crafts bottom up as flanking shelters to headquarters.

"No use fishing; that thunder is spoiling the Caranay," muttered Ellis, moving about and setting the camp in order. "This is a fine lean-to," he added; "it's big enough for a regiment."

"I told you I was an architect," said Jones, surveying the open-faced shanty with pride. "I had nothing else to do, so I spent the time in making this. I'm a corker on the classic. Shall I take an axe and cut some wood in the Ionic or Doric style?"

Ellis, squatting among the provisions, busily bringing order out of chaos, told him what sort of wood to cut; and an hour later, when the echoing thwacks of the axe ceased and Jones came in loaded with firewood, the camp was in order; hambones, stale bedding, tin cans, the heads and spinal processes of trout had been removed, dishes polished, towels washed and drying, and a pleasant aroma of balsam tips mingled with the spicy scent of the fire.

"Whew!" said Jones, sniffing; "it smells pleasant now."

"Your camp," observed Ellis, "had all the fragrance of a dog-fox in March. How heavy the air is. Listen to that thunder! There's the deuce to pay on the upper waters of the Caranay by this time."

"Do you think we'll get it?"

"Not the rain and wind; the electrical storms usually swing off, following the Big Oswaya. But we may have a flood." He arose and picked up his rod. "The thunder has probably blanked me, but if you'll tend camp I'll try to pick up some fish in a binnikill I know of where the trout are habituated to the roar of the fork falls. We may need every fish we can get if the flood proves a bad one."

Jones said it would suit him perfectly to sit still. He curled up close enough to the fire for comfort as well as æsthetic pleasure, removed his eyeglasses, fished out a flask of aromatic mosquito ointment, and solemnly began a facial toilet, in the manner of a comfortable house cat anointing her countenance with one paw.

"Ellis," he said, blinking up at that young man very amiably, "it would be agreeable to see a little more of – of Miss Sandys; wouldn't it? And the other – "

"We could easily do that."

"Eh? How?"

"By engaging an attorney to defend ourselves in court," said Ellis grimly.

"Pooh! You don't suppose that brown-eyed girl – "

"Yes, I do! She means mischief. If it had rested with the other – "

"You're mistaken," said Jones, warmly. "I am perfectly persuaded that if I had had half an hour's playful conversation with the brown-eyed one – "

"You tried playfulness and fell down," observed Ellis, coldly. "If I could have spoken to Miss Sandys – "

"What! A girl with steel-grey eyes like two poniards? A lot of mercy she would show us! My dear fellow, trust in the brown eye every time! The warm, humane, brown eye – the emotional, the melting, the tender brown – "

"Don't trust it! Didn't she kodak twice? You and I are now in her Rogues' Gallery. Besides, didn't she take notes on her pad? I never observed anything humane in brown eyes."