"Well, here we are!" he said tentatively, pressing his teeth together to hide their chattering. "It is a mighty good thing you swim so well, isn't it? Now we must get out of this as soon as possible--your lips are blue. I suppose you really ought to run about a little, oughtn't you?"
"I suppose so," she assented wearily, "but I shall not do so, nevertheless. Is there no house near here?"
They gazed about them, but no chimney, no red barn, no white steeple, rewarded the inspection. Robinson upon his isle could have felt himself no more abandoned. Jutting headlands cut off their 78 view up and down the river; high pasture land broken with woods covered all they could see on the opposite bank, and the one upon which they found themselves appeared to consist entirely of sand pits, gnarled roots, and fallen trees, with what seemed a rather formidable forest behind.
"It seems idiotic," Antony began, "and of course we must be somewhere--this is a ridiculous sort of country; one would think we were in the middle of Africa--but just at the moment I cannot say that I see any signs of humanity but this old boathouse. I will take a run up beyond that little promontory and look about. Please jump up and down while I am gone, and could you not take that skirt off and dry it in the sun?"
She nodded.
"And by the way," she observed casually, "where is the motor-car, do you suppose?"
Antony sat down from sheer force of surprise. He had utterly forgotten the motor-car. Life to him had begun anew when he staggered up the bank. He looked piteously over the shining river.
"Well, we've done it, now!" he exclaimed, and as he sat in huddled misery a fit of senseless laughter shook him, nor was his dripping companion long in joining him. They laughed till the decayed 79 old boathouse echoed, and when, from very fatigue, they stopped, no trifles such as cold or wet or isolation or the justly merited terror of the Law could cloud their invincible youth after that baptism of mirth.
"Anyway," Antony began, his voice still shaking, "we are on the other side of the river, and there is no bridge for two miles, certainly, and we came through a pasture to get here and so the old car is pretty safe to be under the mud by the time she could be traced. They say the bottom is mostly quicksand all about here--if we are here--for heaven's sake, what is that?"