The laugh died out of Hanna’s face as he looked after the flying boat. He glanced up and down the bayou, and Lockwood chuckled maliciously. He was on the wrong side of the water; he would have to go by the turpentine camp and up to the bridge over the creek in order to get home—a full three-mile walk, and it was a hot day. Hanna looked dubiously at the muddy water as if he thought of swimming; once across, and it was not a mile in a bee line to Power’s house. But he thought better of it, and turned into the woods.
Still greatly amused, Lockwood rode on his route which led down the bayou shore. He guessed that Hanna had annoyed the girl by his talk, and had been rightly served. Then as he rode round the curve of the bayou he was astonished to see the boat lying motionless not far ahead and close inshore.
Miss Power was leaning back in her seat, doing nothing—waiting perhaps, Lockwood thought, for Hanna to come after her. But when he came a little nearer he saw that the boat had run a third of its length upon a sand bar projecting into the channel as it curved, and was fast aground.
He rode down to the margin and took off his hat.
“Can’t I help you? I see you’re aground,” he said.
“I certainly am,” answered the girl without embarrassment, and she gave him a quick smile that almost seemed to imply an understanding. “But I don’t know whether you can help me much or not. I can’t start the engine to back her off.”
“Well, I can try, anyhow,” Lockwood responded, dismounting. He hung his reins over a gum-tree bough, and splashed through a little mud and water to the stranded boat.
The sound of the girl’s voice deepened the certitude that he had somewhere met her before. She had a soft, slurred Gulf-coast accent that you could cut with a knife—not that this surprised him, for he was used to it, and he had a fair share of Southern accent himself. He took a quick, sharp look at her as he got into the boat. She must be about twenty, he thought. Her dark hair was tucked under a red cloth cap, and she was wearing a raw-silk blouse with a wide, red-embroidered collar, showing the fine, somewhat sunburned curves of her neck.
“I ran on this sand bar without seeing it. I was coming down the bayou pretty fast, and I’m not used to this boat,” she explained.
“Yes, I saw you going by,” said Lockwood.