“He fired first,” said Tish.  “I never felt more peaceable in my life.  It’s absurd for him to say that he was watching our camp, as he had every night we’d been there.  Who asked him to guard us?  And the idea of his saying he thought we were Indians stealing things, and that he fired into the air!  The bullets sang past me.  I had hardly time to get my revolver out of my stocking.”

“And then?” asked Charlie Sands.

“And then,” said Tish, “we went calmly down the river to Island Eleven.  We went rapidly, for at first the detective did not know I had shot a hole in his canoe, and he followed us.  It stands to reason that if I’d shot his heel off he’d have known there was a hole in the boat.  Luckily the girl was in the bottom of the canoe when she fainted or we might have been upset.”

It was at this point, I believe, that Charlie Sands got his hat and opened the door.

“I find,” he said, “that I cannot stand any more at present, Aunt Tish.  I shall return when I am stronger.”

* * * * *

So I shall go back to my own narrative.  Really my justification is almost complete.  Any one reading to this point will realize the injustice of the things that have been said about us.

We were despairing of Tish, as I have said, when we heard the shots and then the approach of a canoe.  Then Tish hailed us.

“Quick, somebody!” she said.  “I have a cramp in my right leg.”

[The canoeing position, kneeling as one must, had been always very trying for her.  She frequently developed cramps, which only a hot footbath relieved.]

Mr. McDonald waded out into the water.  Our beach fire illuminated the whole scene distinctly, and when he saw the P.T.S. huddled in the canoe he stopped as though he had been shot.

“How interesting!” said Hutchins from the bank, in her cool voice.

I remember yet Tish, stamping round on her cramped limb and smiling benevolently at all of us.  The girl, however, looked startled and unhappy, and a little dizzy.  Hutchins helped her to a fallen tree.

“Where—­where is he?” said the P.T.S.

Tish stared at her.  “Bless the girl!” she said.  “Did you think I meant the other one?”

“I—­What other one?”

Tish put her hand on Mr. McDonald’s arm.  “My dear girl,” she said, “this young man adores you.  He’s all that a girl ought to want in the man she loves.  I have done him a grave injustice and he has borne it nobly.  Come now—­let me put your hand in his and say you will marry him.”

“Marry him!” said the P.T.S.  “Why, I never saw him in my life before!”

We had been so occupied with this astounding scene that none of us had noticed the arrival of the detective.  He limped rapidly up the bank—­having lost his heel, as I have explained—­and, dripping with water, confronted us.  When a red-haired person is pale, he is very pale.  And his teeth showed.