"Yep. They up and told me while you were gathering fire-wood. Nina said she had promised you to put the full hand on the table at the first opportunity. She's done it."

"Nina! Didn't Madge say anything?"

"You bet your life. She was tickled to death. It's been worrying her no end."

"May I ask--"

"No, you mayn't. It was square of you, Alec, to insist that I should come in on the inside track. Of course, I wasn't born and bred in little old New York for nothing, and I had my doubts a while back. One day, too, you were within an ace of blurting out the whole yarn. I remember it well. I'm glad now you didn't. It would have made things kind of difficult for me. But both girls are a bit shy where you're concerned.

You don't blame 'em, do you?"

Maseden was absolutely bewildered. Sturgess was an irresponsible, devil-may-care fellow in many respects, but these effervescent qualities cloaked a fine sensibility, and it was astounding to find him treating the matter so lightly.

"I--I hardly know what to say," he stammered.

"Say nothing. The tangle will straighten out in time. We're going to win through all right, so let us forget the San Juan affair till it overtakes us. You ain't going to switch off from Nina on to Madge, I guess, so you and I won't quarrel, and the other kinks in the chain will sort themselves if we all go easy."

"Tell me this. What was the cause of the marriage?"

"I don't know."

"You don't _know_?" Each word was a crescendo of astonishment.

"No. What business is it of mine, anyhow?"

"But you yourself have told me that you mean to marry Madge."

"Sure as death."

"Yet--"

"Sorry, Alec. I've promised to keep mum. Suppose we leave it at that."

"What is there to keep mum about?"

"Hanged if _I_ can tell you, though you yourself haven't been what you might call bursting with information during the past month."

"It was a woman's secret, C. K."

"And that's just how I size it up at this sitting."

Sturgess's logic was unanswerable, but Maseden was in high dudgeon as he strode back to the camp-fire. He was far more angry with Nina than with Madge. He suspected that Madge simply followed her sister's instructions, and the injustice of this steady refusal of confidence was aggravated by the fact that Sturgess seemed to know more about the ins and outs of the affair now than he did.

True, the New Yorker said he was still in ignorance of the motive which led up to the marriage, yet he had hinted at the possession of knowledge withheld from the man who had saved their lives not once but a dozen times. Nina was to blame. Maseden was certain of that. He would have liked to shake her.

As it happened, she was either sound asleep or pretending it, so he, too, curled up in the sand and slept till long after dawn.

The new day began with an unexpected difficulty. The Indian girl was cheerful as a grig during breakfast. She ascertained their names, which she pronounced fairly well. "Nina" she had no trouble with. "Madge" she made into "Mad-je." Maseden was "Ah-lek," and Sturgess "See-ke." Her own name had a barbarous sound, if, indeed, it was a name at all; so Madge christened her "Topsy," which seemed to please her. But her light-heartedness vanished when she saw preparations being made to renew the voyage. She protested volubly, pointed to a colony of seals and well-filled beds of oysters, and generally implied an earnest desire to remain on the island.

Eastward, it would appear, were other "bad men" and "much smoke," but, whatsoever her motive, Maseden sternly overruled her. She was greatly distressed when placed on board the boat, and sulked for a couple of hours. As the coast drew near, however, she evinced renewed anxiety, and signified that she would act as pilot again.

The land seemed to be a replica of seaward islands; a fast-running tidal stream passed due east between two gaunt promontories. According to Maseden's reckoning the straits they were now entering should open into Smyth's Channel, and he bent his wits to the task of getting Topsy to understand that he wanted to meet one of the big ships which follow that route.

He believed she understood, but there could be no doubting she was so deeply concerned as to the probable whereabouts of the inhabitants of the coast region that she gave little heed to the wishes of her rescuers.

Oblivious of the pain she must be enduring, she contrived to perch herself in the bows, and scanned each bay and inlet of the ever-narrowing passage, though this was no subsidiary channel, but a deep and swift tide-way. The wind was strong and favorable and the boat was traveling fully eight knots an hour, a speed which no native craft could hope to rival. Still, Topsy's marked uneasiness led Maseden to examine the rifle and make sure that its mechanism was in good order and the magazine charged.

He had no definite notion as to the type of weapons used by the Indians.

Nearly all savages are armed with spears and clubs, but he believed that a people so low in the social scale as these South American nomads would not possess firearms. At any rate, he bade all hands keep a sharp look-out, and specifically ordered Sturgess and the girls to take cover in the event of an attack, unless an actual attempt was made to board the boat, in which case the girls could thrust with the rapiers and Sturgess might do good work with an ax.

They ran on several miles without incident, and were beginning to think that their guide was, perhaps, swayed more by recollection of earlier sufferings than by any active peril of the hour, when Topsy, whose piercing black eyes were ever and anon turned to the bluffs on either hand, uttered a sharp cry and pointed to a low cliff overhanging a bay they had just passed on the left.

Three thin columns of smoke were ascending from its summit.

Maseden could make nothing of her excited speech, but he understood her gestures readily, and took it that the smoke was a signal, while the danger, whatever it may be, lay ahead.

And, indeed, they had not long to wait for an explanation. From around a point not a mile distant, and directly in front, appeared a number of coracles, eight all told, and each containing two men, or a man and a woman. It was clear that this flotilla meant to waylay them, and the terror exhibited by the Indian girl was only too eloquent as to the fate of the boat's occupants if they allowed themselves to be overpowered.

Maseden disposed his forces promptly. Sturgess was given the tiller.

Topsy was put back on her couch in the bottom of the boat, and Nina and Madge were told to crouch by her side until their help was called for.

From the outset the Americans did not dream of attempting to parley.

Topsy's unfeigned dread was sufficient to ban any such quixotic notion.

The coracles were strung out in an irregular line, covering a width of about four hundred yards, and, in laying his plans, Maseden recalled the strategy of a certain great admiral.

"Head slap for their center," he told Sturgess confidently. "That was Nelson's favorite way of attack. If possible, he always broke the enemy's line in two, and I suppose it paid him. I think these heavy-caliber bullets will rip a native craft as though it were made of brown paper, and I should be able to sink at least four before the others can close in."

Sturgess nodded.

"What Nelson says goes," he grinned.

The battle opened at a range of one hundred yards, and Maseden's first shot buckled the framework of the nearest coracle, so that it sank like a stone. There was a spurt of steam as the fire which every Indian boat carries reached the water, and two men swam away like otters.

The second shot struck a little too high. It whizzed through the craft's hide cover and lodged in an Indian's body, because the man yelled frantically. Maseden fired again, and damaged another coracle.

But by this time he had made the unpleasing discovery that these light skiffs could be propelled very rapidly for a short distance. In each a man or woman was paddling with furious energy, while their companions were using slings. Small, heavy stones rattled against and into the boat.

Sturgess was struck twice on the breast and left shoulder, and was only saved from serious injury by the stout oilskin coat he was wearing. Even so, he went white with pain, but he neither uttered a word nor neglected his task, which was to keep the sail filled and the boat traveling.

Maseden had two objects in mind--to beat off their assailants and yet keep sufficient ammunition in stock lest other Indians were encountered later. He sank two more coracles, and had killed or wounded three men, when a flint pebble struck him on the head, finding the exact spot where he was injured during the wreck.

He sank to his knees, and tried to say something. He believed he heard a crash and some shouting. Then the sky and hills and swift-running waters whirled in a mad dance before his eyes, and he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SETTLEMENT