I scrambled over and down the rocks, to lend a hand.
"Any room for me, Miss Grant?" I asked boldly.
"Why, yes!" she smiled eagerly, "if only you would come. You promised once, you know, but, somehow, that promise is still unfulfilled."
I handed her into the boat, pushed off and leaped in beside her. She took the oars and, with the swift easy strokes, full of power and artistic grace, which I had noticed the first time I saw her on the water, she pulled out to the west of Rita's Isle.
Her hair was hanging negligently, in loose, wavy curls, over her shoulders. Her dimpled arms and her neck were bared to the sunshine. Her mouth was parted slightly and her teeth shone ivory-like, as she plied her oars.
"Let me take a turn now," I asked, "and run out your line."
She did so, and I took her slowly round the Island without her feeling so much as a tiny nibble.
"How stupid!" I exclaimed. "What's the good of me coming out here, if I do not try to discover the cause of your continual non-success as a fisher? Pull in your line and let me have a look at the spoon."
I examined the sinker and found it of the proper weight and properly adjusted, fixed at the correct length from the bait. Next, I took the spoon in my hand. It was a small nickel spinner,—the right thing for catching sea-trout round Rita's Isle. I was puzzled for a little, until I laid the spoon and the hook flat on the palm of my hand, then I knew where the trouble was.
The barb of the hook hung fully an inch and a half too far from the spoon.