"Can't you see that we're in distress?" she cried, hotly.
He surveyed her deliberately—her legs, bare from the knees down, her skirtless trunks, her white, rounded arms.
"I can see very little of anything," was his comment.
"Why, you——"
But even though she choked on her words, there was no need for her to finish them. Pete stepped to within a yard of the stranger.
"I don't like the color of your hair," he said, "and that, of course, leaves me no alternative."
So he tapped the young man on the nose, so unexpectedly and with such speed and virility that the owner of the nose lost his balance and sat in the sand.
Pete turned and seized Mary by the hand.
"Run like hell," he counseled.
"But where?"