Chapter XX: Shadows of Doubt

On the way home it was pretty plain that Rip was peeved at Westy. He said nothing to either of them and when they left Lola at her cabin he said goodnight with the rest, but didn’t speak again the rest of the way to their own little shack. There seemed to be a tacit understanding between them, too, that nothing but silence should prevail.

Mr. Wilde and Billy were dog-tired after a long strenuous day, and they were too engrossed in their own affairs to notice anything amiss with the boys. So Westy decided not to mention anything of the haunted cliff and lake that evening.

Rip immediately went to his bunk and pretty soon they all followed suit. As Westy lay in his bunk thinking of his comrade’s foolish statement, he heard the cries of a wildcat not far off. Then an owl hooted dismally in the distance and soon he felt the warm delicious drowsiness of sleep enveloping him like a cloak, protecting his senses from the disturbing night noises.

When he arose in the morning everyone was up and about. In fact, the faithful Billy and Mr. Wilde bore all the evidences of readiness for departure.

“Say, Westy,” Mr. Wilde said on seeing him up, “I didn’t call you because there’s no hurry for you two kids this morning. Billy and I are going down on the lower range to shoot at some wild plant life and all that kind of bunk. There wouldn’t be anything for either of you to do, and it’s pretty narrow in some places, Lola tells me, so you’re better off keeping the home fires burning. Take a run over and see her this afternoon, why don’t you? You two boys are as welcome in that poor kid’s lonely life as the rain in the desert, and that reminds me that it looks as though we’ll have a drop or two on our noble brows before the day is over, don’t you think so, Billy?”

“Uh huh!”

“You mean you don’t care whether it does or not, is that it, Billy? Well, come on, we better get along. S’long, Westy!”

“S’long!”

It wasn’t until then that Westy became aware of Rip’s absence. He looked outside and then concluded that he must have slipped down to the brook to wash. Westy decided to have breakfast first before he did that very thing also.

He ate slowly and listened to hear Rip’s footsteps coming up from the brook.

“I s’pose he’s still peeved and is taking his time so he won’t have to talk first. Well, he needn’t stay away on account of that, because I intended to apologize to him this morning before I was even up. I can’t think what I did or said to make him peeved, but it doesn’t make any difference what it was--I’ll apologize anyhow.”

Westy was that kind of a chap.

He gathered up the breakfast dishes and placed them in a neat pile, noting absently by the presence of the fourth cup and plate that at least Rip had not fasted in making his anger complete.

A few minutes later after he had become tired of waiting, Westy trudged leisurely toward the brook and whistled loudly on purpose to warn his friendly enemy of his casual approach.

Whistling as he was, he also was thinking and planning what he would say to Rip when he met him at the brook.

“I’ll say to him, when I see him, I’ll say just like this: ‘Rip, if I said anything yesterday to make you sore, why I’m darned sorry, yes, sir!’ Then I’ll say just to make him laugh: ‘We’ll kiss and make up, how about it?’ He’s bound to fall for that, I should think.”

Hands in his pockets and sauntering nonchalantly toward the little stream, he started another tune, but it stopped abruptly on his lips as he reached there. He looked about wonderingly.

Rip was nowhere to be seen.