Pem’s heels drummed more excitedly on the sod–the starry heavens were her scope.
“But we have a good deal of fun with the big compound microscope, too–and more without it,” acknowledged Studley. “Fancy last week we caught a huge pike which had jumped clear out of the water, on to the bank, after a water-hen!”
“Where was that? How–how big was it?” The girlish questions mounted helter-skelter.
“The pike? Oh! he weighed about fifteen pounds. It was right over there, on the other side of the lake,” pointing to the spot where the party interested in egg-boats had landed that morning. “He–he gobbled the hen, too.”
“Did he?” But he might have been threatening to gobble her, judging by the start which the girl gave at the moment.
Her heart jumped down to the water’s edge as abruptly as did the cliff beneath her.
Her eyes were on a boat rowing out of the sunset’s eye directly across the lake from that very spot.
There was but one individual in it and he–he was rowing by instinct, as the birds fly, for his gaze was glued to a newspaper sheet, the sun’s own evening edition, gorgeously printed by the painted rays in every hue of the spectrum.
He was heading straight–straight for the floating wharf with its plank-bridge running out ashore.
Jack at a Pinch again!