“Well, you see, we kept pretty close to the shore. I doubt if you could have seen us. Didn’t you hear us shout?”
“No, we didn’t hear anything. We didn’t hear them shout, did we, Miss Sommerton?”
“No,” replied that young woman, looking at the dying fire, whose glowing embers seemed to redden her face.
“Why, do you know,” said Mason, “it looks as if you had been quarrelling. I guess I came just in the nick of time.”
“You are always just in time, Mr. Mason,” said Miss Sommerton. “For we were quarrelling, as you say. The subject of the quarrel is which of us was rightful owner of that canoe.”
Mason laughed heartily, while Miss Sommerton frowned at him with marked disapprobation.
“Then you found me out, did you? Well, I expected you would before the day was over. You see, it isn’t often that I have to deal with two such particular people in the same day. Still, I guess the ownership of the canoe doesn’t amount to much now. I’ll give it to the one who finds it.”
“Oh, Mr. Mason,” cried Miss Sommerton, “did the two men escape all right?”
“Why, certainly, I have just been giving them ‘Hail Columbia,’ because they didn’t come back to you; but you see, a little distance down, the bank gets very steep—so much so that it is impossible to climb it, and then the woods here are thick and hard to work a person’s way through. So they thought it best to come down and tell me, and we have brought two canoes up with us.”
“Does Mrs. Mason know of the accident?”