“So this is Batter Creek,” went on Jack. “I see how it happened. You steered over to the left at the junction, Cora, instead of following the right shore—I mean the right hand shore.”
“I suppose I must have,” Cora admitted. “But I couldn’t see in all that storm.”
“Of course not,” said Hazel, slipping her arm around Cora’s waist. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Certainly not,” added Walter and Paul in a duet.
“Jack, please shut the window,” begged Belle. “That is, if you have finished talking to that man. The damp wind will——”
“Take all the frizz out of your hair—I know!” Jack cut in. “All right. Much obliged to you, sir,” he continued.
“Don’t mention it,” replied the man of the yellow oilskins. “Quite a drizzle; isn’t it?”
“Regular Scotch mist!” chuckled Walter, in exaggerated Highland accents.
“I suppose we can get to Riverhead by turning around, following the left shore here until we come to the place where Batter Creek runs into the Chelton, and then go up the river?” suggested Jack, as he slowly slid the window shut.
“That’s right,” returned the fisherman. “But don’t go up this creek any further, or you’ll run aground in a swamp.”