“Exactly,” said Mr. Bell.  “I’ve thought of that.  Something to make her gun-shy and camera-shy.  It’s curious about her.  In some ways she’s a timid girl.  She’s afraid of thunder, for one thing.”

Tish bent forward.  “Do you know,” she said, “the greatest weapon in the world?”

“Weapon?  Well, I don’t know.  These new German guns—­”

“The greatest weapon in the world,” Tish explained, “is ridicule.  Man is helpless against it.  To be absurd is to be lost.  When the bandits take the money, where do they go?”

“Down the other side from the pass.  A photographer will photograph them there, making their escape with the loot.”

“And the young lady?”

“I’ve told you that,” he said bitterly.  “She is to be captured by the attacking party.”

“They will all be armed?”

“Sure, with blanks.  The Indians have guns and arrows, but the arrows have rubber tips.”

Tish rose majestically.  “Mr. Bell,” she said, “you may sleep to-night the sleep of peace.  When I undertake a thing, I carry it through.  My friends will agree with me.  I never fail, when my heart is set on it.  By the day after to-morrow the young lady in the case will hate the sight of a camera.”

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?”