Part 7 (1/2)

He set to work again briskly, but though the girl helped, it was without enthusiasm. She was going through an entirely new experience.

In all her happy life, untouched by sorrow or privation of any kind, she had never felt the need of help. Fred and she had been chums since they were babies, and were going to be married some day, perhaps. Fred was a good, jolly fellow, he was well off, well-dressed, and quite the leader of all the young men of the town. But now, for the first time, her dauntless gay spirit was forsaking her, and a vision of how inadequate Fred might be in time of stress was coming dimly to her awakening woman's heart. She would almost rather have drowned than play the coward. But she wanted Fred to be afraid for her. She was more of a woman than she knew.

And then, just as a wave of fear was coming over her, Roderick McRae, in his canoe, came out around the point and paddled straight towards them.

She gave a cry of joyful relief. ”A canoe! Oh, look, Fred!

Somebody's coming this way from McRae's cove!”

The young man turned with some apprehension mingling with his joy. He would almost as soon be detected appropriating funds from the bank where he clerked, as be caught in this ignominious plight. There was just a slight sense of relief, however, for they had been a long time in the water. But he would not admit that.

”Pshaw!” he grumbled. ”I wish they'd waited a minute longer.”

”Well, I don't!” cried his companion tremulously.

The boy looked across the canoe at her. Never, in the twenty years he had known Leslie Graham intimately, had he before seen her daunted.

”What's up?” he demanded. ”You're not losing your nerve, Leslie?”

”No, I'm not!” she snapped, trying desperately to hide an unexpected quaver in her voice. ”But--”

”You're not chilled, are you?”

”No. Not much.”

”Nor cramped?”

”No.”

”Well, you're all right then. Goodness, you've been in the water hours longer than this, heaps of times. Cheer up, old girl, you're all right. What's the matter, anyhow?”

But she did not answer, for she hardly knew herself. She had no real fear of being drowned, that seemed impossible. But strange new feelings had begun to stir in the heart, that so far had been only the care-free heart of a girl, almost the heart of a daring boy. She did not realise that what she really wanted was that Fred should be solicitous about her. If he had shown the slightest anxiety over her she would have become recklessly daring. But young Fred would as soon have shown tender care for a frisky young porpoise in the water, as Leslie, even had it been his nature to care unduly for any one but Fred Hamilton.

The canoe was approaching swiftly, and the man in it was near enough to be recognised. ”I say,” cried Fred, ”it's Rod McRae. I didn't know he was home. s.h.i.+p ahoy, there!” he shouted gaily. ”Hurrah, and give us a lift; it's too damp for the lady to walk home!”

Leslie Graham looked at the approaching canoeist. She and Fred Hamilton had both attended the same school, Sunday-school and church as Roderick McRae. But she could remember him but dimly as an awkward country boy, in her brief High School days, before she ”finished” with a year at a city boarding-school. Her life at school had been all fun and mischief, and rus.h.i.+ng away from irksome lessons to more fun at home; his had been all serious hard work, and rus.h.i.+ng away from the fascination of his lessons to harder work on the farm. Fred Hamilton had never worked at school, but he knew him better; the free-masonry of boyhood had made that possible.

”Why, what's happened?” cried Roderick as he swept alongside the wreck.

”Fred Hamilton! Surely you're not upset?”

”Doesn't look like it, does it?” enquired the young man in the water rather sarcastically. ”Here, give this thing a hoist, will you, Rod?

I can't understand how such an idiotic thing happened? Miss Graham and I were paddling along as steadily as you are now, and--”

But Roderick was paying no attention to him. He was looking at the girl hanging to the upturned canoe, her eyes grieved and frightened.

With a quick stroke he placed himself at her side.

”Why, you're all tired out,” he cried. ”You must get in here.”

She looked up at him gratefully. She had never realised how welcome a sympathetic voice could sound. She answered, not the least like the dauntless Leslie, ”I just can't! I can't climb over the bow. It's no use trying.”