shrouded in a cloud of steam. He backed and headed his sluggish craft for the bulky darkness of the left shore.

“I’m glad I didn’t tell him,” he reflected. “He’d have laughed and sneered, the way he does about everything he doesn’t know anything about. And I’m mighty glad I didn’t say anything about the little girl—about her coming to the point all alone and me finding her drifted against the net stakes. He’d have made the worst of that—would have said Sherwood had run away and deserted her and sneered at both of them.”

When he got into shallow water he headed upstream and exchanged the paddle for the pole. He had paddled and drifted far below the tail of the little island. The water was not swift and the bottom was firm. He poled easily, keeping close inshore. He searched his knowledge of his neighbors and his somewhat limited experience of life and human nature for a solution of the puzzle and for a reason for the removal and destruction of the red pirogue. But he failed to see light. The more he thought of it, the more utterly unreasonable it seemed to him. It was a mystery; and he had inherited a taste for the mysterious with his McAllister blood.

Upon reaching the tail of the island Ben kept to his course and entered the thoroughfare between the island and the left shore. Here the shallow water ran swiftly over sand and bright pebbles in a narrow passage. In some places the water was so shoal that Ben had to heave straight down on the pole to scrape over and in other places it eddied in deep pits in which water-logged driftwood lay rotting and big eels squirmed. Both the island shore and the mainland shore were grown thick and tall with willows, water maples and elms. Under the faint stars the thoroughfare was black as the inside of a hat.

Ben was almost through the dark passage, almost abreast of the head of the island, when he thrust the pole vigorously into seven feet of water instead of into seven inches and lost his balance. The crank little pirogue did the rest and Ben went into the hole with a mighty splash. He came to the surface in a second, overtook the drifting craft in a few strokes and herded it into shallow water under the wooded bank. He waded hurriedly toward the stranded bow and collided with something alive—something large and alive.

Ben was staggered, physically and in other ways, for several seconds. Then he pulled himself together, shook his O’Dell courage to the fore and jumped straight with extended arms. But the thing was gone. He stumbled, recovered his balance and listened breathlessly. 

 Prev. P 18/90 next