Instead, she sat up and smiled her sweetest smile, so that, bedraggled as she was, she was still beautiful. The boys, man-like, each urged his particular offering upon her.
"Put that coffee down, Hal!" commanded the tall, fair youth at her right. "A lady who has just fainted doesn't want coffee."
"I do, though," Linda assured him. "I want water, and coffee—and anything else you have to eat. I fainted from hunger as much as from anything else."
The boy called "Hal" looked pleased at her acceptance of his gift, and he hurried back to the canoe for some food.
"Are you alone?" asked the other, who remained at Linda's side. "And how do you happen to be here?"
"It's a long story," replied the girl, wondering just how much of it she had better tell. It was all so incredulous, that perhaps they wouldn't believe her if she did tell them.
"First have some food," suggested the boy who had gone to the canoe. "How long has it been since you ate?"
"Only yesterday noon—and I even had some chocolate about six o'clock. But after that I waded and swam from Black Jack Island to this place—whatever it is."
"This is 'Billy's Island,'" the boys informed her. "Named after 'Billy Bowlegs,' the Indian who once lived here.... But, Great Guns!" exclaimed Hal, "that's five miles at least! Nobody ever tried to swim the Okefenokee Swamp before!"
"Well, it seemed like twenty-five," remarked Linda. "And I hope nobody ever has to try it again."