fact that to display so much interest in their ridiculous island involved a descent from my pinnacle. Indeed, the chill altitude of p

of the tropic moon wa

ranslucent line of

ea. Straight ahead ro

tainous shape o

rtune!" exclaimed Miss Browne. I think my aunt would not have

me on them original Argonaut f

followed by a nerve-racking pause before she found her equilibrium again. But she managed to wallow forward at a good gait, and the island grew clearer momently. Sheer and formidable from t

iled boots. I could not hope to rival this severely military get-up, but I had a blue linen skirt and a white middy, and trusted that my small stock of similar garments would last out our time on the island. All the luggage I was allowed to take was in a traveling bag and a gunny-sack, obligingly donated by the c

also over Miss Browne, for I saw her fling one wild glance around, as though in search of some impossible means of retreat. But she took the blow in a grim silence, while Aunt Jane burst out in lamentation. She would not, could not go in a boat. She had heard all her life that small boats were mos

but Mr. Tubbs, who had hastened to succor beauty in distress, and mingled broken exhor

ere really was no danger, and that Aunt Jane might wait if she liked till the last boat, as it would take several trips to transfer us and our baggage. I supposed of course that this wo

re to go in the next boat,

t were at all a shallow place I might use him as a stepping-stone and survive. I hoped drowning men didn't gurgle very much-meanwh

"Don't blame yourself too much. Everybody has to go

sook Mr. Tubbs and flew to the r

"Oh, my dear child! If it

nd I wished I had waited to see. Then the arms of the Honorable Mr. Vane received me. The strong rowers bent their backs, and the boat shot out over the mile or two of bright water between us and the island. Great slow swells lifted us. We dipped with a soothing, cradle-like

orious!" I cried

ish slang. Now an American would have said some little ol

hungry, menacing, now dying to a vast broken mutter. Now our boat felt the lift of the great shoreward rollers, and sprang forward like a living thing. The other boat, empty of all but the rowers and returning from the island to the shi

At the edge of dark woods beyond a fire burned redly. It threw into relief the black moving shap

rward heavily. The men sprang overboard, wading half-way to the waist. And the arms of

lending them a hand. The hard dry sand was crunching under the heels of Mr. Vane.

sh way. As we couldn't well, under the circumstances, maintain a fiction of m

you're not wet through. Cooki

ally, "Miss Harding's the most ripping sport, you kno

so afraid that if you had listened you might have heard my teeth chattering. But I had at least th

answered the dour Scot, with the fleeting shadow of an enraging smile. "Such di

re, that some day I would find the weapon that would pen

ng in the ruddy firelight, looked like a converted cannibal-perhaps won from his er

served my coffee with an air appropriate to mahogany and plate. It was something to see him wait on Cuthbert Vane. As Cookie told me later, in the course of our rapidly developing friendship, "dat young gemmun am sure one ob de qualit

ollo joined them. I was glad, for a heavy fatigue was stealing over me. Cookie, taking note of my sagging head, brought

us through the ashen dimness that precedes the dawn. I heard men shouting, "Here she comes!" "Stand by

are they?" I demanded,

a tone which seemed to have forgotten for the moment to be frigid-perhaps be

I would miss the spectacle of Aunt Jane and Miss Browne arriving? I e

truly gentle and forgiving nature-how it brings its own re

ul youth po

per for the parson, and all that, of course, but I fancy you are a

y of me, too!" I said timidly. I couldn

think that!" Through the dusk I

ill you?" And in the dusk I turned away to hide my triumphant smiles. I had found t

, hurled it forward, seemed all but to engulf it out leaped the sailors. Out leaped Mr. Tubbs, and disappeared at once beneath the waves. Shrill and prolonged rose the shrieks of my aunt and Miss Higglesby-Browne. Valiantly Mr. S

ubbs, overlooked by all but this thoughtful friend, h

angle-hold all right. Thinks I, I guess there'll be something doing when Wall S

red her form with surprising swiftness, "might well have sent

r Aunt Jane with feeling. She was piteously striving

e poor plump little woman wa

moment-unsettling. Is my helmet on straight, dear? I think it is a little severe for my type of face, don't you? There was a sweet little hat in a Fifth Avenue

o me as of yore as I