"Well, I couldn't save 'em both, because I was pulling a boy out of Lake Windermere; and I was just going for Liz when I saw that you were after her, so that I was able to land Blossom-blossom just in time."
"Was that her name?" asked Doris.
Fat Bill nodded.
"That's the English of it," he said. "But her people are savages."
Then he disappeared for a moment, and there was nothing but the starlight and the clup, clup of the water; and it was while he was gone that there came into Doris's mind a wild but just possible idea. She turned to Cuthbert.
"I tell you what," she said. "Why shouldn't he take us to Hotoneeta? I expect he could somehow, if he really wanted to; and you did help to save Blossom-blossom."
Cuthbert considered.
"Well, of course he might," he said, and then Fat Bill was sitting beside them again.
"Just been to Ohio," he said, "to a place called Columbus—kid fell into a lake there—nobody by."
He laid down his landing-net and rubbed his hands.