Chapter XII The Camp Fire
“No, I don’t need your coat. With the heat from the fire the white scarf is sufficiently warm. I am grateful to you for making me bring it along. I don’t think we had best sit still at present. You are so overheated, it will be wiser to cool off slowly. Do you mind my taking your arm? I am blind in the dark, blinder than most persons, and although this coast is chiefly sand there are a few rocks in unexpected places.” The girl extended her hand.
With a groan at Gill’s words, Allan Drain half arose to a sitting posture.
“Don’t be so sensible; I realize that it would be more intelligent to tramp about until we get rid of the stiffness from our cramped position in the boat and until I feel less like a wet blanket, yet the desire of my heart at present is to stretch out here by the fire and not to stir save to put on fresh firewood.”
“Poor woodsman, how long would our few sticks last?” Gill remonstrated. “Be a man; if you won’t come with me I shall have to go stumbling along in the dark, picking up more driftwood until we have a supply that will last all night. After a time we shall probably be too sleepy to exert ourselves. It is rather fun, isn’t it, playing Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, when we cannot be more than a few miles from the house and the lagoon? At dawn we can reach home in an hour or so, but to go tramping about the island in the dark with no idea of the direction strikes me as the height of absurdity. I am sorry you do not like sensible persons, because I do try to be sensible on occasions. I suppose it is too much to expect of a poet. Come with me, please?”
“Did you suppose I would allow you to wander off alone, even if I am poet, or struggle to be one?” Allan Drain demanded, feeling Gill’s slender fingers close firmly on his arm. “Do you know it never occurred to me that you and I would be friends, but after to-night I shall insist upon it, whether you like me or not. Don’t dare say that I do not like sensible persons, I never liked anything better than the calm fashion in which you accept our dilemma, treating it as if it were rather a joke, than a disaster. Do you mind if I mention that you have not once suggested that there might be any gossip, or even discussion of the fact that you and I are forced to spend the night, in this—in this—well, in this informal fashion.”
Gill laughed and stumbled a little, her companion promptly assisting her.
“Of course I have thought of it, but it makes no difference. This is no special virtue on my part; as soon as we are able to explain, none of the house party will consider the subject again. Yet I believe I am capable of going ahead in this world and doing what I think right, even if people should talk. Perhaps I am mistaken, one really never knows about oneself. Isn’t that a log I fell over a moment ago? If you take one end and I the other it will burn a long time. Then in case any one comes to look for us they can discover us by the sign of the red flower.”
“Red flower? What are you talking about?” Allan Drain said irritably, feeling uninterested in further physical exertion, now that he had landed Gill safely on the island and had only to wait a few hours before they could row or walk home.
“Wait until I can tell you,” Gill answered.
A few moments after, when they had carefully laid the old log, cast up on the island after voyaging upon what unknown waters, on the camp fire and stood watching the flames leap up into the night, blue, rose and gold, Gill added:
“Did you not know that in the old days our forefathers called flame, the ‘Red Flower’? If by any chance the tribal fire died out they went forth, sometimes to war, to steal the ‘Red Flower’ from the enemy.”
Allan Drain remained silent.
Glancing at him and seeing his face lit by the glow, Gill was startled by his expression.
“You can’t guess what you have just done for me? Oh, it may not seem of importance to you, and yet I can scarcely explain how much it means to me. For months and months I have been trying to find a title for my new play and now you have given me the perfect title: ‘The Red Flower’. It’s a wonder! The theme of my play is the flame of life that burns for good or ill in each one of us, and burns with greater beauty and purity in my heroine than in any one else.
“Forgive me, to think of my daring to talk of my play and myself (for at times they seem the same thing) with you here in the cold and dark, waiting for morning! Shall we continue to walk, or will you rest for a little, while I explore. It is possible I may find a more comfortable place than this for you.”
Gill sat down, resting her chin in her hand and gazing into the fire. She could hear the waves lapping against the shore of the little island and behind her the wind rustling in the trees.
After to-night, surely she and Allan Drain must be good friends as he had stated. In any case her former prejudice against him was vanishing.
If he were willing to believe that this night’s experience canceled the injury she had done him, the price was not severe.
Gill looked up at the stars; it must now be between two and three o’clock in the morning. She only could hope that her Camp Fire guardian, her hostess and friends were not seriously troubled. This thought alone made her unhappy, although she was beginning to feel weary and lonely now that Allan Drain had disappeared, if only for a few moments.
“Miss Gilchrist, Gill,” she heard him calling, using her diminutive name in his excitement for the first time in their acquaintance. “I have discovered a tiny house an eighth of a mile back from the shore, a fisherman’s cottage I think it must be. I have noticed one or two of these huts when I have tramped over the island. It isn’t clean and it is pretty dark, but it is under shelter and if you will go in and rest I’ll keep guard outside until daylight.”
Gill shook her head.
“Leave our fire and the stars and the outdoors? Thank you, no. We will sit here together and you won’t mind if I doze now and then. See here, Mr. Drain, Allan Drain, when we met in the Adirondacks you did not like me because you thought I was like a boy. I know it is unattractive, but to-night suppose you try to think of me as a boy, as if we were two comrades who had met with an unexpected adventure, for which one was no more to blame than the other, and that we were both determined to make the best of it.
“If you don’t mind sitting closer I’ll lean against your shoulder a few moments. If I am a nuisance don’t hesitate to say so.”
In ten minutes Allan Drain discovered that his companion was asleep, this time in reality.
Her red-brown hair having tumbled partly down—Gill had unloosened it, so that it hung crisp and straight to her shoulders—her pallor seemed strangely to have departed with the night’s adventure, or else her skin was warmed by the heat from the fire; her lips, irregular in shape, were slightly parted.
An interesting face, Allan Drain concluded, if not a beautiful one, and a nature, generous and faulty, which so far was not fully awakened. Doubtless she would fight valiantly for a friend, but might prove a formidable enemy.
Gill stirred, and without being aware of the fact her companion smiled.
After the night’s experience would they be enemies or friends? He hoped and intended they should be friends, as he had announced earlier in the evening.
Few girls, in his estimation, possessed the gift for friendship. And personally there was no possibility of a relation deeper than friendship in his own life for many years; whether as a physician or a writer, he had a long and difficult road to travel before he could expect even a fair amount of wealth.
Now and then during the next few hours Allan dozed. Occasionally he would have to awaken Gill by rising and going forth in search of fresh firewood.
At dawn they both opened their eyes at the same moment.
A mist was rising from the sea, curling heavenward and scattered by light winds.
In the sky there was an indefinite, faint glow.
Later the clouds parted and Allan recalled his reading of the Iliad and Homer’s description of Apollo and his immortal horses and chariot. Almost one could see them move across the sky trailing clouds of glory. Then the colors blended and day arrived.
In the interval neither Allan nor Gill spoke after their first good morning.
Finally Gill stood up, stretching out her arms, her face radiant.
“Never shall I forget the beauty of this dawn, never as long as I live. I had not thought to see the morning come up out of the ocean. I beg your pardon if I seem too enthusiastic; please remember that I was born and brought up in Kansas and an island in the midst of the sea is almost as thrilling an experience as the sight of a new planet. Now I’ll descend to realities and go and wash my face in the salt water. Shall we walk or row back home? I’m starving, aren’t you?”
“Then what do you say to remaining an hour longer and catching fish and frying them for breakfast? Perhaps I can find fishing tackle in the hut I stumbled into last night.”
On the way to the water Gill called back over her shoulder.
“Don’t tempt me, we must return as soon as possible.”
“Then we will row home; it will be quicker and save the trouble of bringing the boat in later. Besides, how much more dignified to row calmly up the blue lagoon than to tramp across the island!”
Gill rejoined him and was attempting to fix her hair.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but there is nothing to suggest dignity in either one of us at present. I am judging by your appearance and guessing at my own.”
“Sure you feel none the worse for the night outdoors?”
Then as she shook her head, Allan made no further comment, although conscious of the fact that few persons would have passed through the discomforts of such a night and on awaking make no reference to anything save the beauty of the morning.
There were a number of other circumstances Allan felt he would like to mention—the soreness of his arms and back, the stiffness of his legs, a general shiveriness and a sensation of not having been to sleep in ages. Yet in the face of Gill’s better sporting instinct he declined to complain. The freshness and splendor of the dawn had brought a physical as well as spiritual exaltation.
Landing at the accustomed place in less than an hour, as they approached the old house no one appeared to be stirring except the birds in the eaves.
“Do you suppose by some good fortune no one has missed us? One scarcely knows whether to be pleased or chagrined. At least I shall awaken Bettina and recount our adventure. Good-by, I shall try to sleep most of the day and see you to-night I hope.”
As Gill nodded her farewell, Allan left her at the door of the big house and went on to one of the cabins nearby, which was at present occupied by the half dozen masculine guests.
By this time it was approaching six o’clock and Gill discovered that one of the maids had unlocked the front door. Going in, she went directly to Bettina’s room. When there was no immediate answer to her knock she walked quietly in.
Bettina sat up in bed, looking like a princess in a fairy tale with her two long braids of light hair falling over her shoulders and her nightdress of silk and lace. Notwithstanding Bettina’s ideas of service and devotion to the less fortunate, her mother insisted, and Bettina was not unwilling, that she wear beautiful clothes. As her mother bought the clothes and gave them to her, Bettina had no alternative.
“Gill, what is the matter? Are you ill, do you need anything? Why you are dressed in the same frock that you wore last night at the dance.”
Bettina rubbed her eyes, becoming more aware of her surroundings, as Gill stood laughing and gazing down upon her.
“So this is what it means to be shipwrecked and spend the night on an island in the society of a poet? One returns to find one never has been missed.”
“Sit down, Gill, and talk sensibly. Shipwrecked? Island? Are you still dreaming? Did you not go up to your room last night before the dance was over and retire before the rest of us? When I found you had vanished, Sally told me that you had said you were tired and that no one was to pay any attention to you if you disappeared.”
“Yes, I did tell Sally that and was about to depart when Allan Drain asked me to go for a walk with him. Afterwards we went to row for a half hour on the lagoon, managed to slip into the bay and, when the tide turned, were carried farther out. We discovered the island, but not the blue lagoon and were forced to wait until daylight. I am sorry, I realized when it was too late that I should not have gone, but tried to make the best of it and to accept the situation in a matter-of-fact fashion. I am going to bed now. Will you explain to your mother and Mrs. Burton that I’ll go into the details of our adventure when I am not so tired. At least the thing I feared did not occur, you were not frightened and did not believe the water had swallowed us up.”