"If—if he'd been here very long," she said, sagely, "his stockings would have been faded. Things fade pretty fast on the lake shore. Perhaps if I poke him he'll wake up."
Mabel prodded the unfaded legs very gently with a pointed stick. There was no response.
"I guess he's dead," she sighed. "But I s'pose I ought to feel his pulse to find out for sure—ugh! I sort of hate to—suppose he is dead!"
But, bravely overcoming her distaste for this obvious duty, Mabel laid a trembling finger on the slim white hand. It was not as cold and clammy as she had feared to find it. Mabel touched it again, this time with several fingers. Yes, the hand was actually a little bit warm.
As she bent closer to the golden head, it seemed to Mabel that she could detect a sound of breathing, rather heavy breathing, Mabel thought; a little like Mrs. Crane's, when that good lady snored.
Mabel crouched patiently near the prostrate lad and listened. The labored breathing certainly came from that recumbent boy.
"But," argued Mabel, "if he's only taking a nap, why is he all tangled up in that net? And there's that life-preserver. He's been wrecked and tossed up, I believe. And he's still all wet underneath. Perhaps I ought to wake him up—he ought not to sleep in such wet clothes."
So Mabel grasped her discovery very firmly by one thin shoulder and shook him quite vigorously; but he still slept. Then, clutching him by both shoulders, she succeeded in dragging the heavy sleeper a few inches from the log; but he seemed rather too firmly anchored to his resting-place for this method to work successfully. Still, she had gained something, for now one ear and a bit of one cheek were visible. They were not white like the extended hand, but darkly red and very hot to the touch.
"Boy!" called Mabel. "Why don't you wake up? Don't you know that you're not drowned? Wake up, I say! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!"
But the boy, in spite of what should have proved alarming sounds, made, as they were, in his very ear, still slumbered on in a strange, baffling fashion; and Mabel, after watching him in a puzzled way for several moments longer, found a broad shingle, which she balanced neatly on the boy's unconscious head.