“Non–sense!” shrieked Betty and then stood still on the wharf, apparently weighing Eleanor’s last opinion.
“Go ahead,” called Katherine in muffled tones from above.
Betty did not answer.
“Thinks I’m another owl, I suppose,” muttered Katherine, and limped down the bank to the wharf, frightening the nervous, overwrought Betty almost out of her wits at first, and then vastly relieving her by taking the entire direction of affairs into her own competent hands.
“You go right ahead. It’s the only way, and it’s perfectly easy in a heavy boat. That canoe might possibly go down with the current, but a big boat wouldn’t. Rachel and I tried it last week, when the river was higher. Now cross straight over and feel along the bank until you get to her. Then beach the canoe and come back the same way. Give me some matches. I’ll manage that part of it and then retire,–unless you’d rather be the one to wait here.”
“No, I’ll go,” answered Betty eagerly, vanishing into the boat-house after a pair of oars.
“She must be hanging on to something on shore,” went on Katherine, when Betty reappeared, “and she’s lost her nerve and doesn’t dare to let go. If you can’t get her into your boat, I’ll come; but somebody really ought to stay here. I had no idea the fog was so thick. Hurry now and cross straight over. You’re sure you’re not afraid?”
“Quite sure.” Betty was off, splashing her oars nervously through the still water, wrapped in the mist, whispering over and over Katherine’s last words, “Hurry and go straight. Hurry, hurry, go straight across.”
When she reached the other shore she called again to Eleanor, and the sobbing cry of relief that answered her made all the strain and effort seem as nothing. Cautiously creeping along the bank where the river was comparatively quiet, backing water now and then to test her strength with the current, she finally reached Eleanor, who had happened quite by chance to run near the bank and now sat in the frail canoe hanging by both hands to a branch that swept low over the water, exactly as Katherine had guessed.
“Why didn’t you beach the canoe, and stay on shore?” asked Betty, who had tied her own boat just above and was now up to her knees in the water, pulling Eleanor in.