“I’ll be somewhere down the river,” she said, “and safe enough, most likely, unless there are falls.”

Hutchins watched in a puzzled way, for Tish did not leave until dusk.

“You’d better let me follow you with the launch, Miss Tish,” she said.  “Just remember that if the canoe sinks you’re tied to it.”

“I’m on serious business to-night, Hutchins,” Tish said ominously.  “You are young, and I refuse to trouble your young mind; but your ears are sharp.  If you hear any shooting, get the boat and follow me.”

The mention of shooting made me very nervous.  We watched Tish as long as we could see her; then we returned to the tent, and Aggie and I crocheted by the hanging lantern.  Two hours went by.  At eleven o’clock Tish had not returned and Hutchins was in the motor boat, getting it ready to start.

“I like courage, Miss Lizzie,” she said to me; “but this thing of elderly women, with some sort of bug, starting out at night in canoes is too strong for me.  Either she’s going to stay in at night or I’m going home.”

“Elderly nothing!” I said, with some spirit.  “She is in the prime of life.  Please remember, Hutchins, that you are speaking of your employer.  Miss Tish has no bug, as you call it.”

“Oh, she’s rational enough,” Hutchins retorted:  “but she is a woman of one idea and that sort of person is dangerous.”

I was breathless at her audacity.

“Come now, Miss Lizzie,” she said, “how can I help when I don’t know what is being done?  I’ve done my best up here to keep you comfortable and restrain Miss Tish’s recklessness; but I ought to know something.”

She was right; and, Tish or no Tish, then and there I told her.  She was more than astonished.  She sat in the motor boat, with a lantern at her feet, and listened.

“I see,” she said slowly.  “So the—­so Mr. McDonald is a spy and has sent for dynamite to destroy the railroad!  And—­and the red-haired man is a detective!  How do you know he is a detective?”

I told her then about the note we had picked up from beside her in the train, and because she was so much interested she really seemed quite thrilled.  I brought the cipher grocery list and the other note down to her.

“It’s quite convincing, isn’t it?” she said.  “And—­and exciting!  I don’t know when I’ve been so excited.”

She really was.  Her cheeks were flushed.  She looked exceedingly pretty.

“The thing to do,” she said, “is to teach him a lesson.  He’s young.  He mayn’t always have had to stoop to such—­such criminality.  If we can scare him thoroughly, it might do him a lot of good.”

I said I was afraid Tish took a more serious view of things and would notify the authorities.  And at that moment there came two or three shots—­then silence.

I shall never forget the ride after Tish and how we felt when we failed to find her; for there was no sign of her.  The wind had come up, and, what with seeing Tish tied to that wretched canoe and sinking with it or shot through the head and lying dead in the bottom of it, we were about crazy.  As we passed Island Eleven we could see the spy’s camp-fire and his tent, but no living person.