"Now Gladys," she said, sitting down on the steps of the shack,
"I want you to tell me everything that happened this afternoon.
How did it come that you were out in a canoe and had to be
rescued?"
Gladys told a straight story, not sparing herself in the least. She told about the dreadful mood she had been in that afternoon after the girls had gone away; how she had broken Sahwah's racket, and then, filled with a very devil of rebellion, had taken out one of the canoes. It happened to be the leaky one and her punishment overtook her swift as the wings of a bird. She had given up all hope when Sahwah had appeared magically from somewhere and towed her in, in spite of her broken arm. Gladys's face was crimson with shame when she told how she had tried to make Sahwah take her out in the sponson during rest hour, and had called her a coward because she refused. She told Nyoda everything except the letter she had written to her father. She could not bring herself to tell that. It lay on her conscience like a lump of lead.
Nyoda said very little about the matter and did not upbraid her at all. She saw that Gladys's sins had come down on her head in a manner which would make a very deep impression, and that Gladys would emerge from the experience a sadder and wiser girl.
"I haven't been a very good camper, Nyoda," said Gladys humbly, "but I'm going to try to be after this."
"I know you will," said Nyoda, putting her arm around her, "and you are going to succeed, too. And now let's go and see how Sahwah is."
Sahwah was tossing on the bed and muttering when they came in. She had a high fever and was living over again her strenuous escapade of the afternoon. She cried aloud that the shore was running away from her, that the clouds were tumbling down on her, that a big fish had a hold of her arm. "This rock I am pushing against," she moaned, "is so heavy, I shall never get around it." Nyoda gave her the fever medicine left by the doctor and she sank into a heavy sleep. All that night and all the next day she alternately raved and slept.
Nyoda fetched the doctor again the next day and he predicted that Sahwah would soon be better. "She is a strong von, dat Missis Sahvah," he said. "She has bones like iron! A weak von vould maybe haf brain fever, but not she, I don't tink!" Nor did Sahwah disappoint him. She had a constitution like a nine-lived cat, and her active outdoor life kept her blood in perfect condition, and it was not long before she began to get the upper hand of the fever.
During the second night she woke up feeling delightfully cool and comfortable. The fever had left her sometime during sleep. The moon was setting over the lake, making a long golden streak across the water. Sahwah smiled happily at the peaceful scene. Then she became aware of a figure crouching on the floor beside her bed. It was Gladys, sitting on a low stool beside her, keeping watch.
"Hello, Gladys," she said, weakly but cheerfully.
Gladys started up. "Do you really know me?" she said joyfully.