“Do you s’pose I would, Tess Kenway?” demanded Dot, quite hurt by the suggestion.
“If she did fall overboard, Tom Jonah would save her, of course,” went on Tess.
“Oh! don’t you say such things,” cried Dot. “And do, please, stop the boat from jerking so!”
“I—I guess it wants to be steered,” Tess said.
The tiller ropes were at hand and Tess had observed Ruth and Agnes use them. She began experimenting with them and soon got the hang of using the rudder. But as the boat was propelled, only by the tide, it would “wabble.”
Tom Jonah watched all the small girls did with his keen eyes. But he scarcely moved. The boat floated on and on. Tess did not know how to work the boat ashore—indeed, caught as the craft was in the strong tide-rip, it would have taken considerable exertion with the oars to have driven it to land.
There chanced to be no other boats beyond the bend on this day. On either hand there were farms, but the houses were too far from the shores for the dwellers therein to notice the plight of the two small girls and the big dog in the bobbing cedar boat.
The shores at the river’s edge were wooded for the most part, as was the long and narrow island in the middle of the river, not far ahead. This latter was called Wild Goose Island, as Tess and Dot knew.
“Maybe the boat will go ashore there,” said Dot, more cheerfully.
“There are berries on that island,” cried Tess. “Only they were not ripe when we were there last week.” She was beginning to feel hungry; it was past midday.