Across the gulf he cried
to his friend to return to him.
"Bobby, come back, lad, come back! We'll find some other way."
But there came no voice in answer, no sound of any sort. The desert had
received back its secret. He was alone....
IX
"Now, don't bother any more about me!" commanded Betty Derwent,
establishing herself with an air of finality on the edge of the trout
stream to which she had just suffered herself to be conducted by her
companion. "I am quite capable of baiting my own hook if necessary. You
run along up-stream and have some sport on your own account!"
The companion, a very young college man, looked decidedly blank over
this kindly dismissal. He had been manoeuvring to get Betty all to
himself for days, but, since everybody seemed to want her, it had been
no easy matter. And now, to his disgust, just as he was congratulating
himself upon having gained his end and secured a _tete-a-tete_ that,
with luck, might last for hours, he was coolly told to run along and
amuse himself while she fished in solitude.
"I say, you know," he protested, "that's rather hard lines."
"Don't be absurd!" said Betty. "I came out to catch fish, not to talk.
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