"Oh!" cried Mabel, "I wish I had a million baskets! I know what I'll do. I'll just toss a lot of those go-in-a-basket pieces into a big pile way up there where the waves can't get them."
Gathering up the edges of her skirt, sturdy Mabel filled it with the clean, if not particularly dry, bits of wood, worn satin-smooth and white by long buffetings against graveled shores.
"I'll throw them behind that log," decided Mabel, toiling inland with her heavy burden. "They'll be perfectly safe up there—My! But they're pretty heavy. I guess there's room back of that big log for a whole wag—wow! ow!"
Mabel's final syllable was a curious, startled sound. While not precisely a gasp, a shriek, or a shout, it was a queer combination of all three.
Mabel was startled, and with good reason. The space behind the log was already occupied; and by something that looked human.
The surprised little girl saw first a pair of water-soaked shoes attached to two very thin, boyish legs in black stockings. Beyond the stockings was a gray mass of tangled fish-net wound about something bulky and white that Mabel concluded was a life-preserver. Beyond that, an extended arm was partly buried in the sand. A thin, white hand was firmly closed over a sharply projecting point of rock. Very close against the huge log, so close as to be almost under it, was a shining, golden ball, the back of a boy's close-cropped head.
The space behind the log was already occupied
For a long moment Mabel, who had unconsciously dropped her load on her own toes, stood still and gazed questioningly at her unexpected find. Then the astonished little adventurer climbed over the wood she had dropped, bent down, and, with one finger, touched the boy's stocking, gingerly.