It was not a passenger, however, that was left on the Winnebago dock, but a wooden box from the express company. The girls crowded around to get a look at it. It was addressed to the "Winnebago Camp Fire Girls, Camp Winnebago, Loon Lake, Maine." Sahwah ran and got a hammer and soon had the box open.
"What is it?" cried the girls.
"It's a sail!" exclaimed Sahwah, looking at it closely, "the kind you put on canoes."
Attached to the lid of the box was a card which read:
"To the Winnebagos, to save them the trouble of harnessing themselves to their canoe to make it go. In remembrance of a delightful day spent in their camp.
"EMERSON BENTLEY, FRANK D. WHEELER."
"O joy!" exclaimed Sahwah, clapping her hands. "Maybe we won't have some fun now! Just wait until I get it adjusted." She spent most of the day hoisting that sail on one of the canoes, but finally had it finished, and went darting around on the lake like a white-winged bird, taking the other girls out with her in turn. "It's too bad you can't go out in a canoe," she said to Gladys with real regret, "I should love to have you go sailing with me." There was no help for it, however, and Gladys had to stay on shore.
"Won't you let me help you?" she asked Gladys at the next swimming period. "I'll hold you up if you'll try to float." But Gladys would not let any one touch her in the water except Nyoda. When Nyoda was directing the other girls Gladys stood out on the beach. "How am I going to help Gladys learn to swim if she won't let me?" thought Sahwah in despair.
"Don't go too far out on the lake," Nyoda warned Sahwah that afternoon, her eye on a bank of clouds that was rolling up in the west.
"I know there's a storm coming, and I'll be careful," promised
Sahwah, mindful of her new resolution to think before she acted,
"but the wind is so strong now it's great fun to be out sailing.
I'll stay near shore."