"If possible, then extremely probable," declared Peter, laughing; "I've just told the girls, Dad, that I'll haunt them like a continuous performance, if conditions allow. Want me to appear to you, too?"
"Don't be so flippant, Son. If you die while away from us, and if your spirit can return and communicate with me, I shall, indeed, be glad to receive such messages, no matter through what medium."
"Oh, goodness, gracious!" exclaimed Carlotta; "not through a medium, I beg of you, Peter! I don't want spook messages that way! I don't mind a nice little Ouija or Planchette, but a common, blowsy, untidy medium person, and they're all like that, I can't stand for!"
"Why, you little rascal, what do you know about mediums?" Peter Boots frowned at her.
"I went to a séance once, but, wow! never again!"
"I should hope not! You stay away from such places, or I won't come home to you at all, dead or alive! How would you like that?"
"Not at all, oh, despot, oligarch, Grand Panjandrum, or whatever you call yourself. Please come back, and all will be forgiven."
It was tea time in the Crane home, and though the home was only a summer cottage, up Westchester way, yet the big living room, with its hospitable easy chairs and occasional tables, its willow and chintz, gave an impression of an English household. It was late in July and, though warm, it was not sultry, and the breeze coming in at the big windows was crisp and fresh.
Mrs. Crane drifted into the room almost at the same moment two men appeared from outdoors.
A happy complacency was the chief attribute of Peter's mother, and this spoke from every smile of her amiable face and every movement of her plump but still graceful form.
As Peter adjusted the cushions she took a low willow chair and smiled a greeting at all, including the newcomers.
These were Kit Shelby and Gilbert Blair, the two companions of the Labrador trip.
They were good-looking, well set-up chaps, quite evidently unable to talk of anything save the plans for the momentous journey.
"Got a wonder for a guide," began Shelby, as soon as decent greetings had been made. "He's just been let loose by Sir Somebody of Somewhere, and I nailed him. Name o' Joshua, but we can stand that. He really knows it all, without continually proclaiming the fact."
"I'm thankful that you've a fine guide," murmured Mrs. Crane, in her satisfied way. "It means so much to me to know that."
"You're right, Lady Crane," assented young Blair. "And old Peter will have to obey him, too."
"Of course I shall," put in Peter. "I always bow to authority, when it's greater than my own. Oh, won't it all be great! I'm crazy to start. Think of it, Dad, we three fellows sitting around a camp fire, smoking our pipes and spinning yarns of an evening, after a long day's hike over the ice and snow!"
"Thought you were going in a canoe," said his sister.
"Part of the way, but, later, we abandon the craft and hoof it."
"Maybe and maybe not," said Shelby. "It all depends on the weather conditions. But the season is just right, and we'll have good going, one way or another, I'm sure."
"You're the surest thing I know, Kit," Gilbert Blair said; "now with no hint of pessimism, I own up I look for pretty hard lines a good bit of the time."
"Calamity Howler!" returned Shelby; "why damp our enthusiasm like that?"
"Can't damp mine," and Peter beamed with glad anticipation. "Let the hard lines come if they like. I'm expecting them and expecting to enjoy them along with the rest."
"Pollyanna Peter!" chaffed Carlotta; "shan't you mind it if the blizzard blows down your tent and the dogs run away with your dinner and your feets give out?"
"Nixy! I'll set up the tent again, get some more dinner from the larder and rest my feet for a spell."
"That's right, boy," said his father, "that's the spirit. But do take enough provisions and, if they run low, make a dash for home."
"Just my idea, Dad, exactly. And as Shelby's looking after the commissariat, and Blair attending to the tents and cooking outfit, something tells me they'll be top hole. Maybe not such traps as these " and Peter nodded toward the elaborate tea service being brought in and arranged before Mrs. Crane, who was in her element as hostess.
"No, you poor boys," she said, "I suppose you'll drink out of horrible thick china "
"Not china at all, ma'am," corrected Blair; "lovely white enamel, though, with blue edges "
"I know!" cried Carlotta, "like our motor lunch-box."
"Yes, that sort, and not bad, either. Oh, we'll rough it more or less, but it won't be absolutely primitive, not by a long shot!"
"It'll be absolutely perfect," said Peter, dreamily gazing off into space, and seeing in his mind great white stretches of snowy landscape, or black, gurgling holes in ice-bound rivers.
"You are so ridiculous!" declared his sister. "You're a regular Sybarite at home. You love easy chairs and pillows and fresh flowers all about, and all that, then you want to go off where you'll have nothing nice at all, not even a laundry!"
"Right you are, Sis. The Human warious is hard to understand. Come along, Carly, take me for a walk."
Rather slowly the girl rose, and the two sauntered forth, across the wide veranda, across the lawn and down a garden path. Neither spoke until, coming to a marble bench, they sat down and turned to look into each other's eyes.
"Going to say yes before I go, Carly, or after I come back?"
"After you come back," was the prompt response.
"Oh, good! You promise to say it then?"
"Well, I don't say how soon after."
"I'll decide on the soonness. Then I take it we're engaged?"
"You take it nothing of the sort! You know, Peter Crane, you can't boss me as you do your own family!"
"Heaven forbid! Why, dear, I want you to boss me! Our life together will be one grand boss, and you can be it!"
"Don't be silly, I'm in earnest. I couldn't be happy with a dominating, domineering man."
"Of course you couldn't. But I assure you I'm not one. You see, I only dictate in my own family because they like to have me to do so. Mother would be awfully upset if I didn't tell her what to do. Dad the same, although I'm not sure the old dear knows it himself. And as for Julie, why she just depends on me. So I naturally gravitate to the place of Grand Mogul, because I can't help it. But with you, it's different. You're a whole heap wiser, better and more fit to rule than I. And if you'll rule me, I'll be greatly obliged, honest, I will."
"Oh, you're so absurd, Peter! I don't want to rule, either. I want us to be equally interested in everything, and have equal say in any matter."
"All right, equality goes. I'll race you to see which can be the equalest. Now, are we engaged?"
"No, Peter, not till you come back."
"But I want to kiss you, and I can't, I suppose, until we are engaged. Oh, can I?"
"Of course not! Take your hand off my hand."
"Lordy, can't I even touch your hand?"
"Not with that ownership grasp! I am afraid of your possessive qualities, Peter."
"Meaning just what?"
"Oh, that if I do give myself to you, you'll own me so so emphatically."
"I sure shall! And then some. Don't imagine, my child, that I'll accept you with any reservations. You'll be 'mine to the core of your heart, my beauty'! Bank on that!"
"I do, and if I'm yours at all, it will be that way. But wait till you come back. There's time enough. I suppose there's no chance for letters?"
"No; not after the first few days. We'll be out of reach of mail very soon."