“I don’t care! I don’t care!” repeated the good-hearted Frances. “Oh, dear me! Suppose Mr. Lavine should be drowned? What would Bessie do? And they so much to each other!”
The girls saw the catboat round to suddenly, and Mr. Jarley drop the sail. The Coquette seemed to drive straight across the spot where the burned motor boat had gone down.
They saw the boatman bend over the rail once–and then again. Each time he lifted in–or helped lift in–some object; but whether it was the men he picked up, or some of the floating wreckage, the girls could not see.
They drove their canoes on, however, and Mr. Jarley saw them when he brought the catboat about. So he sailed down to pick them up likewise.
“Did you get them? Did you get them?” shouted Wyn, resting on her paddle.
Frankie was crying–and she was not a “weepy” girl as a general thing. But the peril seemed so terrible that she could not control herself for the moment.
Mr. Jarley–whose figure was all the girls could see in the catboat–leaned over and waved his hand to the girls. Was it meant to be reassuring? They did not know until the Coquette tacked so as to run down very close to them.
“Is that his girl with you, Miss Mallory?” demanded Polly’s father.
“No. She did not come. She doesn’t know,” cried Wyn. “Oh, Mr. Jarley! is he all right?”
At that Mr. Lavine’s head and shoulders appeared above the rail.