Helen began to sob again. She was working herself up into a highly nervous state and her imagination was "running away with her," as Ruth often said.
Just then she almost lost the punt-pole, and this near-accident startled her. She might need that pole yet—especially if the boat drifted into shallow water.
She looked all around. She stood up, so as to see farther. Not a moving object appeared along either shore of the lake. This was a veritable wilderness, and human habitations were far, far away.
She raised her eyes to the chain of hills over which she and her brother and Ruth had ridden the day before. At one point she could see the road itself, and just then there flashed into view an auto, traveling eastward at a fast clip.
"But, of course, they can't see me 'way down here," said Helen, shaking her head. "They wouldn't notice such a speck on the lake."
So she did not even try to signal to the motor-car, and it was quickly out of sight.
The current was now stronger, it seemed. The punt drifted straight down the lake toward the broad stream through which Long Lake was drained. Helen hoped the boat would drift in near one shore, or the other, but it entered the stream as near the middle as though it had been aimed for that point!
Here the water gripped the heavy boat and drew it onward, swifter and swifter. At first Helen was not afraid. She saw the banks slipping by on either hand, and was now so far from the Gypsies, that she would have been glad to get ashore. Yet she did not think herself in any increased danger.
Suddenly, however, an eddy gripped the boat. To her amazement the craft swung around swiftly and she was floating down stream, stern foremost!
"Oh, dear me! I wish I had a pair of oars. Then I could manage this thing," she told herself.