"I was winded a bit when I got here, but I am all right again," I answered.
"You're an Englishman?"
"How did you guess it?" I asked, as if I were giving her credit for unearthing a great mystery.
Before answering, she sat down on the grass, clasping her hands over her knees. I squatted a short distance from her.
"Only Englishmen go swimming hereabouts in the morning."
"Do you often stumble across stray, swimming Englishmen?" I asked in banter.
"No!—but three summers ago there were some English people staying in that house at the wharf that's now closed up:—the one next Horsfal's, and they were in the water so much, they hardly gave the fish a chance. It was the worst year we ever had for fishing."
I laughed, and she looked up in surprise.
"Then we had an English surveyor staying with us for a month last year. He was crazy for the water. He went in for half an hour every morning and before his breakfast, too. You don't find the loggers or any of the settlers doing silly stunts like that. No, siree.
"Guess you're a surveyor?"