The evening was a gloomy one as compared to others, and although they built a camp-fire as usual there was none of the customary gaiety around it.
Mr. Stott sat alone on his saddle-blanket lost in meditation of a sombre nature, and Pinkey and Miss Eyester whispered apart.
Wallie was in no mood for conversation, while Mr. Hicks, with the delicacy which now marked his every action, smoked alone in the shadow, making no effort to intrude himself upon his betters. Even "Red" McGonnigle, reclining on his elbow staring into the embers, seemed pensive and disinclined to take advantage of the opportunity which the silence gave him to hear his own voice. So only Aunt Lizzie Philbrick remained to give life to the party, and Aunt Lizzie, while a woman of high principle and fine character, was, admittedly, not stimulating.
Aunt Lizzie had snow-white hair drawn tightly from her forehead and a corpse-like pallor to match it. She could not possibly look any different in her coffin, because so far as appearances went she might have been dead for a decade. Her manner was helpless, her voice gentle and hesitating, while in repose she ordinarily gave the impression of being in a state of suspended animation.
But to-night she was strangely restless, her thin white hands fluttered nervously, and she moved her camp chair so often that everyone wondered silently what was the matter with her. There was a red spot on either cheek which might have been the heat of the fire or excitement. At any rate, it was plain to the least observant that Aunt Lizzie was perturbed by something.
Finally, during one of her frequent movings, she inadvertently set the leg of her camp chair in a hole and went over backward. Mr. Hicks, who bounded from the shadow, was the first to reach her and everyone was astonished to hear her cry, when he would have assisted her.
"Don't touch me!"
Everyone felt rather sorry for Hicks when he returned to his seat crestfallen while Aunt Lizzie went off at a stiff-legged trot to her teepee without saying good-night to anybody.
When some extraordinary accident was not befalling Aunt Lizzie, who seemed the essence of mediocrity, she was always doing the unexpected, so little was thought of it after the first surprise at her rudeness, and the others shortly said good-night and retired also.
Wallie stood alone by the dying camp-fire, wondering what the morrow might hold for him--if any bad luck could come that had not already happened. If so, he could not imagine it, for it seemed he had run the gamut of misfortune.