"My name is Sam," he remarked as he stepped back into the boat. "Any time you need a launch, why—"
"I'll know whom not to engage," said Miss Chalmers, finishing the sentence.
The boatman laughed, started the engine, and headed across an open space in the river. Miss Chalmers glanced about her with a sigh of weary satisfaction. It was one o'clock, but she had arrived!
CHAPTER II
PAJAMAED VULGARIANS
That particular insular possession owned by Mr. Stephen Witherbee was, indeed, a dark corner of the earth. It was also insistently quiet and lifeless. Just which one of the insufficiently enumerated Thousand Islands it was did not concern Miss Chalmers in the least, any more than it concerns the reader. All she sought was shelter and a couch.
She walked the length of the little wharf and stared in among the trees that came down to meet it. Somewhere beyond was a house she knew—a house that contained Mr. and Mrs. Witherbee, Miss Gertrude Witherbee, perhaps Mr. Tom Witherbee, and various other persons who constituted a Witherbee house-party.
There was not the least doubt that they were all asleep. Miss Chalmers could not hear a sound save the ever-diminishing thump-thump of the one-cylinder launch.
"Asleep they are, certainly," she observed aloud. "I've done a ridiculous thing, of course. It serves me right for coming a day ahead of time. That boatman—ugh!
"Where the house is I haven't the least idea. But I can't stay here. I must find a place to sleep. Perhaps—just perhaps—somebody is up, after all."