She reached for the first place quickly, knowing that if she hesitated she would never dare it. Her shoe slipped forward, leaving her balance backward, and her rear foot to save her went down quickly into four inches of water. But it touched solid, and she covered the rest of the crossing in four desperate splashing leaps. Without comment Bert turned and went on. Her feet were soaked and felt muddy, but she was relieved at being safe, and hoped that they would not have to go back by the same path. They reached higher, dryer footing and walked out of the willows into a larger field, also roughly triangular. Here the willows had a rearguard of sycamores and alders. Bert passed slowly in their shadow, the meadow looking white in the moonlight. At the far side were lines of little slant shadows low down which for a moment puzzled Flo. Then she realized that there were muck lumps awaiting spreading, and that by a moon trick the shadows showed more than the lumps. She had just solved this when she noticed movement beyond. She stopped to make sure, and Bert at once looked the same way and exclaimed, “The young devil!”
He touched her sleeve for her to keep motionless. From the far willows she saw a man or youth walk out. He paused temporarily, looking keenly about, his face showing up as a pale disc; then he turned quickly towards the point, but after fewer than a dozen paces went out of their sight again in the willows.
“Stay here,” ordered Bert. “If it’s Jack Knight, I’ll cripple the bastard.”
Swiftly whispering he told her to keep in shadow and watch, He would go back and across the bottom side and work up from behind. “If he breaks cover to run, shout.”
Too excited to speak, Flo nodded. Bert went deeper into the shadow by the willows and disappeared. Flo concentrated on the far side, but the intruder kept hidden, too. She listened till she fancied she heard her ear-drums creaking. The night was as silent and still as a photograph, and her excitement gave place to doubt. Suppose it were Jack Knight and he were to break out of the bushes behind her! She glanced back, then laughed uncertainly and stared rightward, hoping to see Bert. When she looked across again there was the intruder walking more slowly. Her lips opened. She stopped only just in time, for he was still going towards the point. She stared, trying to make out if it was Jack. He was two hundred yards off, and the light, which seemed so clear, held a baffling mistiness only apparent when one made an effort to pick out details. Nevertheless, she thought it was Jack’s figure. She remembered that Bert had said that Jack would trade in anything. But this was thieving . . . she had not thought him a thief. No, that was wrong. Poacher, not thief. But was poaching, stealing? She recalled having read somewhere that wild birds and animals couldn’t possibly belong to anybody while they were free to fly and run; not until they were dead. And then they ought to belong to the person who shot them. Perhaps that was what Jack thought. She remembered the blue of his eyes when he had spoken with her, and found that she couldn’t think of him as a thief.
The intruder had gone again, but now far to the right she saw another figure, which she guessed was Bert, stooping and moving quickly. Her speculations stopped; she stared half-right, then half-left, wholly occupied with watching. Little tremblings shook her, and she touched the rough alder bole for steadiness. Bert went in among the rods and was lost again. The intruder came out and looked about. Because he was so obvious in the open she felt that she must be obvious, too, and therefore she, cringed back behind the trunk. But after a moment he went out of sight once more. Eventually Bert reappeared much nearer, moving more slowly. He stared across as if trying to locate her; only he had been explicit that she was not to betray herself.
He crept on, pausing every now and then in the bent attitude of a listener. He went into the rods once more, and once more she was solitary in the still world. She did not see anything more of the intruder, and many moments passed. Perhaps they had grappled in the bushes and were fighting. She wondered if she ought to rush across. She listened, taut as wire, but she could not hear anything. Then surprisingly Bert came out and waved and she crossed through the moonlight.
“Must have seen me, or heard me, the damn blighter,” he exclaimed while she was still ten yards off.
“Got away?” asked Flo incredulously, yet with a sensation of relief.
“Ay; but he got a soaking,” said Bert with some satisfaction.
“Was it Jack Knight?” she asked, unable to stop herself. Bert turned into the willows, pushing through and letting them whip back so that she had to hold her hands to her face and got three stinging slashes on her wrists. She missed his reply. He went on down the little slope of beach, and she saw a slurred black track in the mud just by the water.