Chapter VI (3)

"Exactly," said Mr. Bell. "I've thought of that. Something to make her gun-shy and camera-shy. It's curious about her. In some ways she's a timid girl. She's afraid of thunder, for one thing."

Tish bent forward. "Do you know," she said, "the greatest weapon in the world?"

"Weapon? Well, I don't know. These new German guns--"

"The greatest weapon in the world," Tish explained, "is ridicule. Man is helpless against it. To be absurd is to be lost. When the bandits take the money, where do they go?"

"Down the other side from the pass. A photographer will photograph them there, making their escape with the loot."

"And the young lady?"

"I've told you that," he said bitterly. "She is to be captured by the attacking party."

"They will all be armed?"

"Sure, with blanks. The Indians have guns and arrows, but the arrows have rubber tips."

Tish rose majestically. "Mr. Bell," she said, "you may sleep to-night the sleep of peace. When I undertake a thing, I carry it through. My friends will agree with me. I never fail, when my heart is set on it. By the day after to-morrow the young lady in the case will hate the sight of a camera."

Although not disclosing her plan, she invited the young man to join us. But his face fell and he shook his head.

Tish said that she did not expect to need him, but that, if the time came, she would blow three times on a police whistle, which she had, with her usual foresight, brought along. He agreed to that, although looking rather surprised, and we parted from him.

"I would advise," Tish said as he moved away, "that you conceal yourself in the valley below the pass on the other side."

He agreed to this, and we separated for the night. But long after Aggie and I had composed ourselves to rest Tish sat on a stone by the camp-fire and rolled cigarettes.

At last she came into the tent and wakened us by prodding us with her foot.

"Get all the sleep you can," she said. "We'll leave here at dawn to-morrow, and there'll be little rest for any of us to-morrow night."

At daylight next morning she roused us. She was dressed, except that she wore her combing-jacket, and her hair was loose round her face.

"Aggie, you make an omelet in a hurry, and, Lizzie, you will have to get the horses."

"I'll do nothing of the sort," I said, sitting up on the ground. "We've got a man here for that. Besides, I have to set the table."

"Very well," Tish replied, "we can stay here, I dare say. Bill's busy at something I've set him to doing."

"Whose fault is it," I demanded, "that we are here in 'Greenland's Icy Mountains'? Not mine. I'd never heard of the dratted place. And those horses are five miles away by now, most likely."

"Go and get a cup of tea. You'll have a little sense then," said Tish, not unkindly. "And as for what Bill's doing, he's making revolvers. Where's your writing ink?"

_I had none!_ I realized it that moment. I had got it out at the first camp to record in my diary the place, weather, temperature, and my own pulse rate, which I had been advised to watch, on account of the effect of altitude on the heart, and had left the bottle sitting on a stone.

When I confessed this to Tish, she was unjustly angry and a trifle bitter.

"It's what I deserve, most likely, for bringing along two incompetents," was her brief remark. "Without ink we are weaponless."

But she is a creature of resource, and a moment later she emerged from the tent and called to Bill in a cheerful tone.

"No ink, Bill," she said, "but we've got blackberry cordial, and by mixing it with a little soot we may be able to manage."

Aggie demurred loudly, as there are occasions when only a mouthful of the cordial enables her to keep doing. But Tish was firm. When I went to the fire, I found Bill busily carving wooden revolvers, copying Tish's, which lay before him. He had them done well enough, and could have gone for the horses as easy as not, but he insisted on trimming them up. Mine, which I still have, has a buffalo head carved on the handle, and Aggie's has a wreath of leaves running round the barrel.

In spite of Aggie's wails Tish poured a large part of the blackberry cordial into a biscuit pan, and put in a chip of wood.

"It makes it red," she said doubtfully. "I never saw a red revolver, Bill."

"Seems like an awful waste," Bill said. But having now completed the wreath he placed all three weapons--he had made one for himself--in the pan. The last thing I saw, as I started for the horses, was the three of them standing about, looking down, and Aggie's face was full of misery.

I was gone for a half-hour. The horses had not wandered far, and having mounted mine, although without a saddle, I copied as well as I could the whoop Bill used to drive them in, and rounded them up. When I returned, driving them before me, the pack was ready, and on Tish's face was a look of intense satisfaction. I soon perceived the reason.

Lying on a stone by the fire were three of the shiniest black revolvers any one could want. I eyed Tish and she explained.

"Stove polish," she said. "Like a fool I'd forgot it. Gives a true metallic luster, as it says on the box."

Tish is very particular about a stove, and even on our camping-trips we keep the portable stove shining and clean.

"Does it come off?"

"Well, more or less," she admitted. "We can keep the box out and renew when necessary. It is a great comfort," she added, "to feel that we are all armed. We shall need weapons."

"In an emergency," I observed rather tartly, "I hope you will not depend on us too much. While I don't know what you intend to do, if it is anything desperate, just remember that the only way Aggie or I can do any damage with these things is to thrust them down somebody's throat and strangle him to death."

She ignored my remark, however, and soon we were on our horses and moving along the trail toward the pass.