The boy laughed, as he turned the canoe with powerful, sweeping strokes.
"Surely I will paddle hard, and in whatsoever direction you command me. Am I not the most obedient of your slaves?"
This pleased Barbara. She loved slaves. She accepted his servitude at once and fully.
"Paddle straight out into the river, and then down!" she commanded.
At the imperious note in her voice, the boy looked both amused and pleased. Obeying without a word of question, he sent the canoe leaping forward under his deep, rhythmical strokes at a speed that filled Barbara with admiration.
"Oh, how strong you are and how well you paddle!" she cried, her eyes wide and sparkling, her lips parted, the crisp, rebellious curls blowing about her face. Never had Robert seen so bewitching a picture as this small figure curled up happily in the bow of the canoe, her little shoes of red leather and her black-stockinged ankles sticking out demurely from under her short blue striped skirt, her nut-brown, slender, finely modelled arms emerging from short loose sleeves. He was proud of her praise. He was partly engrossed in displaying his skill and strength to the very best advantage. But above all he was thinking of this picture, which was destined to flash back into his memory many a time in after days, with a poignancy of vividness that affected his action like a summons or an appeal.
In a few minutes the canoe was fairly out upon the bosom of the main stream, and headed downward with the strongly flowing current. Barbara clasped her hands with a movement which expressed such rapture and relief that the boy's curiosity was excited. He began to feel that there was some mystery in the affair. Slackening his pace ever so slightly, he remarked:
"I suppose you are staying with friends somewhere in this neighbourhood. How fortunate I am—that is, if you will graciously permit me to go canoeing with you often while you are here."
But even as he spoke, his eyes took in, for the first time, the significance of the bundle and the basket, which he had been so far too occupied to notice. His wonder came forward and spoke plainly from his frank eyes, and Barbara was at a loss to explain.
"No," she said, "I am not staying anywhere in this neighbourhood. I don't know a soul in this neighbourhood but you."