"I'm ashamed of you, Rodman Cree!" Molly took the sheet line in her fingers once more. "Yes, sir, just plain ashamed of you for being a quitter! Why, if the wind wasn't coming up, I believe I'd make you walk ashore. So there!"
"It wouldn't make me feel any worse than I do now."
Scudding across the lake, ruffling the placid water into combing waves, a gust of wind was leaping toward them. Molly surveyed it with approval. Her chin was set in a firm little curve, and she nodded her head, quite as if she had suddenly come to a decision.
"Watch!" she said.
As the first breath of the breeze reached them, she let out the sheet. In less than a minute, as it tautened, the canoe was racing before the romping wind, its lateen sail almost at right angles to the craft.
In the exhilaration of the speed, Rodman forgot his troubles. "Be ready to turn—come about, I mean," he warned, "or you'll go ashore."
"I know what I am going to do," answered Molly, a peculiar note in her voice. "You sit tight and wait."
Straight as an arrow, the bow cut the water, with the growing wind tugging hard at the filled sail, till the canoe seemed pulled ahead by some great but invisible water animal.
"Ready!" shouted Rodman. "Sail's on the port side, you know; don't come about to port."
"Well, I'm going to."