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. Id 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."