“It’s–it’s—” began Slim, and then choked, while tears of laughter ran down his face.
“It’s–it’s—” began Katherine, and choked, likewise.
“It’s a wooden lady!” they both shrieked together, with a final successful effort at breath.
“Oh, oh, doesn’t she look real?” giggled Katherine. “With her arm sticking up like that!”
Slim remembered how that arm had nearly given him heart failure a minute ago and shook anew.
“She’s an Indian lady,” said Katherine, leaning over the side to inspect the floating damsel.
79“She’s a cigar store Indian,” said Slim.
“But she certainly did look real,” said Katherine, “bobbing around out here and going under the way she did. Look at her one foot sticking up, too. She certainly had me fooled.”
“We ought to rescue her, anyway,” said Slim gallantly. “It isn’t right to let a lady drown under your eyes if she is only a wooden cigar store Indian.”
In a moment they had her on board and were speeding back to Ellen’s Isle. She lay out stiffly in the boat, her painted eyes open in a fixed stare. They carried her up the path and set her against a tree.