The Adventures of a Modest Man

To Ellis and the grey-eyed dragon, and to Professor Rawson, who had crawled to a dry spot on the ridge, there was a dreadful fascination in watching that swaying pyramid of Jones, Lohengrin, and swan tottering landward, knee-deep through the flood. The pyramid swayed dangerously at times; but the girl in the tin armour clasped Jones around the neck and clung to the off leg of the swan, and Jones staggered on, half-strangled by the arm and buffeted by the flapping bird, until his oozing shoes struck dry land.

"Hurrah!" cried Ellis, his enthusiasm breaking out after an agonizing moment of suspense; and Miss[Pg 191][Pg 192] Sandys, forgetting her plight, waved her lizard claws and hailed rescuer and rescued with a clear-voiced cheer as they came up excited and breathless, hustling before them the outraged swan, who waddled furiously forward, craning its neck and snapping.

"What is that?" muttered Jones aside to Ellis as the dragon and Lohengrin embraced hysterically. He glanced toward the Rhine-maiden, who was hiding behind a tree.

"Rhine wine with the cork pulled," replied Ellis, gravely. "Go up to camp and get her your poncho. I'll do what I can to make things comfortable in camp."

The girl in armour was saying, "You poor, brave dear! How perfectly splendid it was of you to plunge into the flood with all that pasteboard dragon-skin tied to you – like Horatius at the bridge. Molly, I'm simply overcome at your bravery!"

And all the while she was saying this, Molly Sandys was saying: "Helen, how did you ever dare to try to save the boat, with those horrid swans flapping and nipping at you every second! It was the most courageous thing I ever heard of, and I simply revere you, Helen Gay!"

Jones, returning from camp with his poncho, said: "There's a jolly fire in camp and plenty of provisions;" and sidled toward the tree behind which Professor Rawson was attempting to prevent several yards of cheese cloth from adhering too closely to her outline.

"Go away!" said that spinster, severely, peering out at him with a visage terminating in a length of swan-like neck which might have been attractive if feathered.

"I'm only bringing you a poncho," said Jones, blushing.

Ellis heard a smothered giggle behind him, but when he turned Molly Sandys had shrunk into her dragon-skin, and Helen Gay had lowered the vizor of her helmet.

"I think we had better go to the camp-fire," he said gravely. "It's only a step."

"We think so, too," they said. "Thank you for asking us, Mr. Ellis."

So Ellis led the way; after him slopped the dragon, its scaled tail dragging sticks and dead leaves in its wake; next waddled the swan, perforce, prodded forward by the brown-eyed maid in her tin armor. Professor Rawson, mercifully disguised in a rubber poncho, under which her thin shins twinkled, came in the rear, gallantly conducted by Jones in oozing shoes.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SIMPLEST SOLUTION OF AN ANCIENT PROBLEM

In the silence befitting such an extraordinary occasion the company formed a circle about the camp-fire.

Presently Professor Rawson looked sharply at the damp dragon. "Child!" she exclaimed, "you ought to take that off this instant!"

"But – but I haven't very much on," protested Molly Sandys with a shiver. "I'm only dressed as a – a page."

"It can't be helped," retorted the professor with decision; "that dragon is nothing but soaking pulp except where the tail is on fire!"

Ellis hastily set his foot on the sparks, just as Molly Sandys jumped. There was a tearing, ripping sound, a stifled scream, and three-quarters of a page in blue satin and lisle thread, wearing the head and shoulders of a dragon, shrank down behind Professor Rawson's poncho-draped figure.

"Here's my poncho," cried Ellis, hastily; "I am awfully sorry I ripped your gown – I mean your pasteboard tail – but you switched it into the fire and it was burning."

"Have you something for me?" inquired Miss Gay, coloring, but calm; "I'm not very comfortable, either."

Jones's enraptured eyes lingered on the slim shape in mail; he hated to do it, but he brought a Navajo blanket and draped in it the most distractingly pretty figure his rather nearsighted eyes had ever encountered.

"There," explained Ellis, courteously, "is the shanty. I've hung a blanket over it. Jones and I will sleep here by the fire."

"Sleep!" faltered Molly Sandys. "I think we ought to be starting – "

"The forests are flooded; we can't get you back to the Summer School to-night," said Ellis.

Professor Rawson shuddered. "Do you mean that we are cut off from civilization entirely?" she asked.

"Look!" replied Ellis.

The ridge on which the camp lay had become an island; below it roared a spreading flood under a column of mist and spray; all about them the water soused and washed through the forest; below them from the forks came the pounding thunder of the falls.

"There's nothing to be alarmed at, of course," he said, looking at Molly Sandys.

The grey eyes looked back into his. "Isn't there, really?" she asked.

"Isn't there?" questioned Miss Gray's brown eyes of Jones's pleasant, nearsighted ones.

"No," signalled the orbs of Jones through his mud-spattered eyeglasses.

"I'm hungry," observed Professor Rawson in a patient but plaintive voice, like the note of a widowed guinea-hen.

So they all sat down on the soft pine-needles, while Ellis began his culinary sleight-of-hand; and in due time trout were frying merrily, bacon sputtered, ash-cakes and coffee exhaled agreeable odors, and mounds of diaphanous flapjacks tottered in hot and steaming fragrance on either flank.

There were but two plates; Jones constructed bark platters for Professor Rawson, Ellis and himself; Helen Gay shared knife and fork with Jones; Molly Sandys condescended to do the same for Ellis; Professor Rawson had a set of those articles to herself.

And there, in the pleasant glow of the fire, Molly Sandys, cross-legged beside Ellis, drank out of his tin cup and ate his flapjacks; and Helen Gay said shyly that never had she tasted such a banquet as this forest fare washed down with bumpers of icy, aromatic spring water. As for Professor Rawson, she lifted the hem of her poncho and discreetly dried that portion of the Rhine-maiden's clothing which needed it; and while she sizzled contentedly, she ate flapjack on flapjack, and trout after trout, until merriment grew within her and she laughed when the younger people laughed, and felt a delightful thrill of recklessness tingling the soles of her stockings. And why not?

"It's a very simple matter, after all," declared Jones; "it's nothing but a state of mind. I thought I was leading a simple life before I came here, but I wasn't. Why? Merely because I was not in a state of mind. But" – and here he looked full at Helen Gay – "but no sooner had I begun to appreciate the charm of the forest" – she blushed vividly "no sooner had I realised what these awful solitudes might contain, than, instantly, I found myself in a state of mind. Then, and then only, I understood what heavenly perfection might be included in that frayed and frazzled phrase, 'The Simple Life.'"

"I understood it long ago," said Ellis, dreamily.

"Did you?" asked Molly Sandys.

"Yes – long ago – about six hours ago" – he lowered his voice, for Molly Sandys had turned her head away from the firelight toward the cooler shadow of the forest.

"What happened," she asked, carelessly, "six hours ago?"

"I first saw you."

"No," she said calmly; "I first saw you and took your picture!" She spoke coolly enough, but her color was bright.

"Ah, but before that shutter clicked, convicting me of a misdemeanor, your picture had found a place – "

"Mr. Ellis!"

"Please let me – "

"No!"

"Please – "

A silence.