Rod let go the branch. They paddled against the eddy, crossed the small stretch of broken water where a lesser flood poured in from behind Little Dent, and slid down on the tide along the Valdez shore to a point a mile inside the rapids. Facing north, looking across the channel into Mermaid Bay, a planked float gave them landing. Back from the beach an unpainted house of split cedar lifted in a square of cleared land in the edge of virgin forest.
Mary sprang lightly to the float.
"What's the rush?" Rod asked, breaking a long silence. "What's wrong anyway? What made you turn clam all at once?"
"Me?" she turned a pair of clear hazel eyes on him with every indication of surprise. "Nothing. I have to pick some blackberries for mamma before supper."
Rod sawed the paddle blade up and down in the green water streaming under the float.
"Shall I come and help?"
"No," she said decisively. Then mockingly, "Thanks very much for your offer of assistance, just the same, Mr. Norquay."
Rod smiled at her.
"All right," he acquiesced. "I'll go home, if you're going to be haughty. Listen. If I can get away from that bunch to-morrow, I'll bring my tackle and we'll hike up to the lake and get some trout. Eh?"
"Maybe. If mamma'll let me."