"And so," he continued, after a pause, "you 're all his tenants, I suppose."
"I s'pose so," replied the boy, breaking out into impish laughter. When they had started climbing again, he threw back, "’Specially the Old Man,—Matt Lehane,—oh, yes!" And for some distance up the rocky path under the brushing firs, the child laughed to himself in a kind of pert irony.
At last, gaining the summit, they found themselves high in the open, on a bare ledge. Over this landward side of the island there still lay a twilight in which the stars looked pale, and which showed the gleam of water far below, and the land sloping downward in long, hollow fields.
"See that light?" said the boy. "That's Powell's. Did Peter say he'd take ye in? Then p'raps he will. I never seen no one there." Instantly he had slipped out of sight among the firs, through which Archer heard him brushing his way down to Black Harbor again.
As no reply came to his shout of thanks. Archer began the long descent toward the
