"
"Are they carrying knapsacks?"
"Khaki, puttees,--and knapsacks, I think."
"Some university men said they might happen along to-day. If they really
have knapsacks, and anything to eat in them, they're welcome. Otherwise, we
had better hide quick--and hope they'll lose the place and pass us by."
One of the advancing figures lifted a semaphoric arm. "Too late," said
Cope; "They recognize you."
"Then we'll walk on and meet them," declared Medora.
The new-comers were young professors and graduate students. They were soon
in possession of the thrilling facts of the past night, and one of them
offered to be a prisoner, if a prisoner was desired. When they heard how
Bertram Cope had saved the lives of defenseless women in a lonely land,
they inclined to smile. Two of them had been present on another shore when
Cope had "saved" Amy Leffingwell from a watery death, and they knew how far
heroics might be pushed by women who were willing to idealize. Cope saw
their smiles and felt that he had fumbled an opportunity: when he might
have been a truncheon, he had been only a megaphone.
The new arrivals, after climbing the sandy rise to the house, were shown
the devastated kitchen and were asked to declare what provisions they
carried.
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