While she lay limp and exhausted, the young lady with her mopped her head with a handkerchief and fanned her. The engineer of the motor boat had got near to Frank. He looked pale and distressed. He kept his eye fixed on the sinking motor boat for a time.
“That’s the last of her,” he remarked, with a sigh.
“Yes,” responded Frank, “we couldn’t do anything toward saving her.”
“I should think not. I tell you, if you hadn’t known your business I don’t know what would have happened to us. Mrs. Carrington was entirely unmanageable, her companion can’t swim, and of course I wouldn’t leave them to perish.”
“The stout lady is Mrs. Carrington, I suppose?” asked Frank.
“That’s right.”
“And Peter, I suppose, is the brave young man who jumped overboard with the float?”
“He is her nephew, and a precious kind of a relative he is!” said the motor boat man, and his face expressed anger and disgust. “He would smoke those nasty cigarettes of his and throw the stubs where he liked. Honestly, I believe it was one of those that started the fire.”
“He hasn’t shown himself to be very valiant or courageous,” commented Frank.
There was a great crowd at the beach near the shore end of the pier where the launch landed. The skiff holding Randy, Pep and their dripping and shivering companion glided to the same spot as an officer saw that the launch was secured. He stared down in an undecided way at the helpless Mrs. Carrington. Peter, safe and sound now, leaped aboard the launch with the assurance of an admiral.