“I’m lost out here.” The voice, floating across the hidden surface, rang clear as from the throat of a singer. “One oar went overboard, and the more I pull, the faster this thing goes round and round. And the tide’s running down—out, I mean—and I’m frightened.” The bumping noise broke in again, and again ceased. “No use! Hallo! Why, now you’re clear round on the other side!”
“Stay where you are!” cried Miles eagerly. “Wait. There’s no danger. I’ll come out and tow you.”
He scrambled down to the beach, and along it to where Tony, for no apparent use, maintained a small boat moored on an endless rope. Hauling home till the black bow came cleaving the fog, he ordered peremptorily,—
“Keep on shouting, there! What’s the matter with you? How can I find—”
“I was just thinking,” replied the voice calmly, from no great distance. “If you come out, you may get lost, too.”
Miles cast off, and jumped in.
“On this river?” He laughed somewhat breathlessly, half at the warning, half at a strange excitement which had mastered him. This drifting voice he had known, from the first hail, to be a girl’s; what girl’s, he had nearly guessed from the second; and pulling vigorous oars, he was not surprised to see, after blind exploration and shouting, the square bow of the magician’s punt focusing from out the heavy smoke.
Bareheaded, half turned on a thwart, and peering anxiously through that smoke, sat a misty figure, whose light, strong lines of active youth not even a man’s cardigan jacket could muffle. She gave a little cry of deliverance.
“It’s fine of you—” Something cut her praise curiously short, just as gunwale swept gunwale.
“Come aboard,” said Miles. Sheepish, and suddenly flushed, he found himself out of all measure preoccupied with an unshipped oar. “Careful. Step in the middle,” he added mechanically. His outstretched hand met a warm, firm little grasp, in the same delighted instant that two ankles, quick and slender as the feathered ankles of mythology, whipped over into the bottom of the boat.