The little city girl had behaved wonderfully. She had sat wide eyed, calm and silent through it all.
The city boy puzzled Ruth most of all. Battling the waves like a veteran seaman, he reached them alone in the heavy dory. Then, without a word, he put his shoulder to an oar and began helping them to beat their way back to land.
“And he thinks life is a joke,” Ruth told herself. Then in a flash it came to her. This boy once thought that life was a joke. He did not really believe it; was not living as if life were a joke.
“He’ll forget all he thinks,” she told herself, “and become a wonderful man. I am glad.”
When they had circled a rocky point and come to the lea, they drove their boat on a narrow beach. There they built a roaring fire and sat down to dry their clothes. There Don joined them.
“How did you lose your mast? What was that explosion?” he demanded excitedly.
It was Ruth who told of the afternoon’s events. In the telling she was obliged to add much about old Fort Skammel and the bombing smugglers that he had not known before.
“But did you hear that explosion at sea?” he asked as she ended.
“Yes,” said Ruth, “and I have my ideas. Looks to me as if we had seen the last of those two men.”
“You think their motor boat blew up?”