COASTING
It was a mean trick, and one that might have had serious consequences. It was certain that Spink had seen the drifting Fly-up-the-Creek and might have averted the collision.
“If that lad over there had been able to talk plain,” declared Dan, helping the girls out from under the smother of canvas, “we could have gotten out of the way. He tried his best to tell us what was coming.”
Mildred was crying a little, for she was frightened; but Lettie Parker, Billy declared, sputtered like a bottle of soda.
“What a mean, mean thing to do!” she stammered. “I—I could box that Spink boy’s ears myself! Stop crying, Milly—we’re not all dead yet.”
Billy chuckled—he had to. “We’re far from dead; but Dan looks kind of bright-eyed. I wonder what he’d do to Barrington Spink right now?”
“Come on, Mildred,” said the older Speedwell, patting the shoulder of the doctor’s daughter. “Don’t you mind. We’re none of us really hurt, and neither is the boat—much.”
Billy was examining the broken cables. The canvas, too, was badly slit where it had got under the sharp runners.
“We don’t get to Karnac Lake to-day, I reckon,” he said. “Guess you’d better have taken up that fellow’s offer, girls.”
“I’ll never speak to Barrington Spink again!” declared Lettie.