Deirdre's precautions proved to be most necessary. Gerda turned at the far headland, and took a survey of the bay before she scrambled round the point. She did not see the two heads peeping at her from behind the big rock, and, apparently, was satisfied that she had eluded pursuit. No sooner had she disappeared than Deirdre and Dulcie hurried forth, and, choosing what looked like a sheep track as the best substitute for a path, began their steep and toilsome climb. Excitement and determination spurred them on, and they persevered in spite of grazed knees and scratched fingers. Over jagged pieces of rock, between brambles that seemed set with more than their due share of thorns, catching on to tufts of grass or projecting roots for support, up they scrambled somehow, till they gained the level of the warren above. The course that followed was a neat little bit of scouting. Making a bee-line for the next cove, they then dropped on their hands and knees, and, crawling under cover of the gorse bushes to the verge of the cliff, peeped cautiously over. Gerda was just below them, standing at the edge of the waves and looking out to sea. This creek was a much smaller and narrower one than the others, and the rocks were too precipitous to offer foothold even to the most venturesome climber. Well concealed beneath a thick bush that overhung the brow of the crag, Deirdre and Dulcie had an excellent view of their schoolmate's movements without fear of betraying their presence. Gerda stood for a moment or two gazing at the water, then she gave a long and peculiar whistle, not unlike the cry of the curlew. It was at once answered by a similar one from a distance, and in the course of a few minutes a small white dinghy shot round the point from the west. It was rowed by a big, fine-looking, fair-haired man, who wore a brown knitted jersey and no hat. With powerful strokes he pulled himself along, till, reaching the shallows, he shipped his oars, jumped overboard, and ran his little craft upon the beach. He had scarcely stepped out of the water before Gerda was at his side, and the two walked together along the beach, he apparently asking eager questions, to which she gave swift replies. Up and down, up and down for fully ten minutes they paced, too absorbed in their conversation to look up at the cliff above, though had they done so they would scarcely have spied the two spectators who cowered close under the shelter of the overhanging hazel bush, squeezing each others' hands in the excitement of the scene they were witnessing.