“Her dad, he’s Jacob Jukes, the big ship-owner, was ashore there in the warehouses with the captain, fixing up an invoice,” Jack heard one of the sailors explaining. “Little Miss here was playing on the dock, waiting till her dad came back.
“All at once, afore any of us knowed a thing, there she was overboard. We all lost our heads, I guess. Anyhow, if it hadn’t been for a lad that suddenly bobbed up from no place in particular she might have drown-ded.”
“Here’s her dad coming now!” cried another.
Someone had found the ship-owner, and, hatless and white-faced, he was racing down to the dock from the gloomy red brick pile of warehouses ashore.
“She’s all right, sir!” shouted one of the sailors. “See, she’s openin’ her eyes, sir!”
“Thank God!” breathed her father reverently. “I should never have left her. Get my automobile, somebody. I must rush her home at once.”
In a few minutes a big limousine came purring down the dock from the rear yard of the storehouses. In the meantime Mr. Jukes, a handsome, florid-faced man of about fifty years of age, with a somewhat overbearing manner, as perhaps became his importance and wealth, had been informed of Jack’s brave rescue while he stood with his little daughter bundled up tenderly in his arms, the water from her wet clothing streaming, unregarded by him, down his broadcloth coat.
“Where is he? Where is that boy?” he demanded. “I want to see him. I must reward him handsomely.”
But Jack had vanished.
“He must be found. Does nobody know his name?” asked Mr. Jukes as if he were issuing an order. “I want to see him at once. Who is he? Does he live hereabouts?”