The girls boosted. Mr. Black, with the long, thin boy hanging limply over his shoulder, started toward camp. Mabel, a wet shoe dangling from each hand, plodded after.
"Isn't it exciting?" breathed bright-eyed Henrietta, falling into line. "A boy right out of the skies."
"I guess you mean right out of the lake," corrected Marjory. "I hope he'll wake up pretty soon—I'm dying to know how he got behind that log."
"Perhaps it was a good thing," said Bettie, "that the log was there. The end of that pole swung under the log and held him right there, or the waves might have carried him out again or hurled him against the rocks—ugh!"
"His father," declared Henrietta, dreamily, "was the captain of a gallant ship. When the vessel was about to sink he said: 'Men! Save yourselves. As for me, I perish with her.' Then he lashed his only son to the mast of the sinking ship——"
"What for?" demanded practical Marjory.
"I guess maybe he didn't," amended Henrietta, reflectively. "He made a raft out of one of the hatches and tied him to that with the only thing he had at hand—a fish-net."
"But first," added Marjory, "he fastened a life-preserver about him."
"If I could run the way I used to," said thoughtful little Betty (this was the longest walk she had taken since her arrival at Pete's Patch), "I'd rush ahead and help Mrs. Crane with that bed. As it is, I'm willing to help with one of the baskets we're coming to—I guess Mabel's forgotten all about them."
"I'll help Mrs. Crane," promised nimble-footed Marjory, "if you and Henrietta will bring the wood—they may need it for the fire that Jean is to build."