The strange girl was already unfastening the rope from the ring in the bow of the boat. She threw the line ashore and then pushed the boat off with such vigor that she ran knee deep into the river again.
“Oh! oh!” squealed Dot. “You’ll lose our boat.”
“I want to lose it,” declared the girl, coming back very red in the face from her exertions. “I got you kids ashore, ’cause you might have been tipped over, or hurt in some way. I’m not going to be bothered by that boat.”
“But that’s Ruthie’s boat,” exclaimed Tess.
“I can’t help it! You young ones go into the bushes there and sit down. Keep quiet, too. Take the dog with you and keep him quiet. Don’t let him run about, or bark. If he does I’ll tie him to a tree and muzzle him.”
“Why—why, I don’t think that’s very nice of you,” said Tess, who was too polite, and had too deep a sense of gratitude, to say just what she really thought of this conduct on the part of the strange girl. “We might have saved the boat for Ruth.”
“And it would give me dead away,” declared the big girl, angrily. “You children be satisfied that I took you ashore. Now keep still!”
“I—I don’t believe I like her very much, Tess,” Dot whispered again.
The older Corner House girl was not only puzzled by the strange girl’s actions and words, but she was somewhat frightened. She and Dot sat down among the bushes, where they were completely hidden from the river and the opposite shore, and called Tom Jonah to them.
He lay at their feet. He had shaken himself comparatively dry, and now he put his head on his paws and went to sleep.