They worked out a heliograph code that day, and they planned an exploring trip to Taylor Rock the next time Jack was relieved.  It seemed very important that Jack should have a picturesque hide-out there; a secret cave, perhaps, with a tilting rock to cover the doorway.

“It would be great,” declared Marion, clasping her hands together with her favorite ecstatic gesture.  “If we could just find a cave with a spring away back in it, don’t you know, and a ledge outside where you could watch for enemies—­wouldn’t that be keen?  It makes me wish I had done something, so I had to hide out in the hills.  And every day at a certain time, I can come up here where that hydrometer thing was before it burned, and signal to you.  And we’ll find a place where I can leave magazines and things like that, and you can come and get them.  Honestly, I’ve always wished I could be an outlaw—­if I could be one without doing anything really bad, you know.  I’d love having to live in a cave somewhere.  You’re lucky, Jack—­Johnny Carew—­if you only knew it.”

“I do know it.  I never found it out till today, though,” Jack told her with what he fancied was an enigmatic smile.

“Now listen.  If you want me to help you enjoy being an outlaw, Jack Corey, you simply must cut out the sentimental stuff.  Let me tell you how I feel about it.  It’s nothing new to have men make love—­any kind of a man will sit up and say ‘bow-wow’ if you snap your fingers at him.  That’s deadly common.  But here you are, a bandit and an outlaw without being bad or tough—­I don’t think you are, anyway.  You didn’t do such awful things to get in bad with the law, you see.  But you’re hiding out just the same, with the police sleuthing around after you, and disowned by your mother and all, just like the real thing.  Why, it’s a story in real life!  And I want to live in that story, too, and help you just like a book heroine.  I think we can make it awfully interesting, being real enough so it isn’t just make-believe.  It’s keen, I tell you.  But for once I want to see if a boy and a girl can’t cut out the love interest and be just good pals, like two boys together.”  Marion got up and stood before him, plainly as ready to go as to stay.  “If you’ll agree to that I’ll go and help you find your cave.  Otherwise, I’ll go back to camp and stay there, and you can look after yourself.”

“Be calm!  Be calm!” Jack pushed back his mop of hair and grinned derisively.  “You should worry about any lovemaking from me.  Take the bunch out at the beach, or at a dance, and I can rattle off the sentimental patter to beat the band.  But it doesn’t seem to fit in up here—­unless a fellow meant it honest-to-goodness.  And I ain’t going to mean it, my dear girl.  Not with you.  I like you as a friend, but I fear I can never be more than a step-brother to you.”  He pulled off a dead twig from the bush beside him, snapped it in two and flipped the pieces down the slope.  “I’d look nice, making love to a girl, the fix I’m in!” he added with a savage bitterness that gave the lie to his smiling indifference.  “A fellow ought to make sure his canoe is going to stay right side up before he asks a girl to step into it.”