"She is going to marry Bill Barnes, a friend of mine," retorted the sailor sarcastically, his heavy shoulders shaking with savage amusement. "He ain't much to look at. It's kind of a case of Beauty and the Beast with him and my Moll. But she's powerful fond of him."
"Mike!" a shrill voice screamed from the shanty boat kitchen, "come along in here."
Mike glared at his questioners, his face set in savage lines. "Don't never come here agin," he growled. "If you do, I ain't sayin' what will happen to you." Turning abruptly he strode toward his boat, leaving the girls standing where he had first met them.
There was nothing for Madge and Phil to do but to return once more to their own boat. "O Madge! it is too dreadful!" exclaimed Phil in a husky voice. "I understand now what poor Mollie meant. She said there was one thing she would never do, no matter how cruel her father might he with her. Of course, she knew they were going to try to force her to marry some frightful looking fisherman. We simply must try to find her and save her. It is a wicked shame!"
"Don't be so wretched, Phil," comforted Madge, though she felt equally miserable. "You are right; we must find out how to save poor, pretty Mollie. I can't think what we ought to do, just this minute, but we must do our best. Now I think we shall have to go home and talk things over with Miss Jenny Ann and the girls. We will come back to-morrow, prepared to make a fight to save Mollie. Surely she can't be married by that time."
The two friends stopped by the tent for their basket of food and sat down just outside it under a tree to eat their luncheon. Neither of them noticed that they had seated themselves with their backs to the water, and they were so interested in talking of Mollie that they gave no thought to the outgoing tide. By rising they could see their boat drawn up on the shore, where, as arranged with Lillian and Eleanor, it had been left by the farm boy. What they failed to notice, however, was the distance it lay from the water line, and they also had forgotten that it was time for the going out of the tide.
As they sat quietly eating their luncheon the sound of running feet was borne to their ears. Nearer and nearer they came. Then round the curve of the beach darted the object of their morning's search. With a wild cry she flung herself upon Phil. "You said you would help me," she moaned. "Oh, help me now." Little rivulets of water ran from her ragged clothing. The pupils of her dark blue eyes were distended with fear. Her dress was torn across her shoulder and an ugly bruise showed through it. There was a long, red welt on her cheek that looked as though it had been made with a whip, and another across one forearm.
Madge and Phyllis rushed toward the frightened girl. Phil put her arm protectingly about Mollie while Madge stood on guard. Resolution and defiance looked out from their young faces. They were not afraid of poor Mollie's captors. They would fight for her.
"How did you come to us? Where have you been?" questioned Phil.
Five minutes had passed and no one had appeared. "Sit down here, Mollie. We won't let any one hurt you."