Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/63

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BLUE PETER
49

slope, smooth-curved as an amphitheatre, sheltered, and facing the warmth of the southwest, the grass lay greener than elsewhere, and there grew a clump of alders. Toward this she led him, and pointed proudly to a tiny spring of clear water, with a bottom of pink sand. A song-sparrow, surprised in his bath, flitted into the bushes, leaving the water all a-quiver.

"Was n't that good divining for an inexperienced witch?" she asked, elated. "I found it the first day. Afterward I tried to find gold and silver, but never did; and so I played more round this spring, and made up things about it. Some of them I made up so hard that I believe them even now,—like this, that whoever drinks of it must come back to the island before he dies."

Archer flung himself down, bent his shining head, and drank deep of the cool water. He rose, laughing, but more than half in earnest.

"I'm glad you did that," said Helen, in the same spirit. And they moved away, silent, along the slope of the amphitheatre.