In spite of her fatigue and fright the girl laughed brightly as Eric's feet touched bottom and he stood up.
"It might him, but it won't me," she said, with a joyous disregard of grammar. "And Jack's buying the boat mainly for me. I really can swim quite well, but I suppose the explosion scared me. I don't believe I'd have been frightened a bit if I had jumped in of my own accord. But it was all so sudden!"
"Well," said Eric, "it's a good thing for you it didn't happen a long way from shore. And I'm glad I was able to help a bit, too, because this is my last day on duty and having helped you is about the best way of celebrating it that could have happened."
"Your last day?" she said, with a note of regret in her voice. "You're going away?"
"Yes," Eric replied, as they came to the water's edge and the crowd began to congregate to meet them, "I'm just getting ready to join the Coast Guard!"
"Great!" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling, as she shook back her wet hair. "But how can I thank you?"
"You have thanked me," the boy answered, as he took her to the beach where the lifeboat had landed and where her friends were anxiously awaiting her, "you've given me a chance to quit in a sort of 'blaze of glory.' Don't you think that's something?"
"But won't you tell me who you are?" she pleaded.
"United States Volunteer Life-Saving Corps," he answered with a smile, as he turned to go back to the station, "that's where the credit ought to go."
"So this is your last day, Eric," said the Eel, an hour or so later, as the boy stood on the platform of the life-saving station, looking regretfully at the strip of beach.