reel, that bizarre costume, that sparkling
face--was she the distressed maid he had fought for the night before?
Yes, he remembered that vivid, expressive face. By George, she was a
beauty!

She was, without doubt, an uncommonly pretty girl, and the strange
costume she wore accentuated, rather than hid, her charms. A serge
skirt came but little below her knees, and beneath it Martin saw feet
and ankles encased in stout, trim, absurdly small sea boots.

She wore a sailor's pea-coat, open at the front and disclosing a
guernsey covering a swelling bosom. The great mass of dark hair Martin
remembered so well was knotted and piled atop her head, and a blue,
peaked cap perched saucily aslant the mass.

Her face was alive, vivacious. The eyes were large, dark, bright, the
lips were ripe and smiling, the cheeks weather-bronzed but not swarthy.

Martin drank in the details of her appearance greedily, and they left
him tongue-tied. Yes, by George, she was a beauty! Her carriage was
regal, and there was about her an air of competence, of authority. She
was not disturbed by her surroundings--she laughed. What had she
called the storm? A puff! She seemed, by George, like a sprite of the
storm! Like the steersman yonder, she seemed to belong to this setting
of laboring ship and tumultuous sea. Here she came toward him with
hand outstretched.

She walked easily, body inclining gracefully to the ship's whims,
disdaining aid of skylight or hatch. Martin clung to the hatch with
one hand and extended his other.

He thrilled to the warm clasp she gave him. He glowed at the friendly
light in her eyes. She was tall, taller than she looked at a distance,
almost as tall as he. She did not seem to raise her voice, yet her
words reached him distinctly above the howl of the wind. He had to
shout his answers.

"How does your head feel?" were her first words.

He answered reassuringly, and remembered of a sudden that it was those
brown, shapely fingers that wrapped the bandage.

"I am Ruth Le Moyne," she continued. "I would like to thank you for
what you did last night. You were splendid! Little Billy has told us
how promptly you volunteered your aid, when you knew it meant danger to
yourself. It was brave of--oh, words are so tame! But you can guess
what it meant to me--I, a girl, and Carew----"

Yes, Martin knew. He hastened to shout that he knew. The girl's
attitude made him uncomfortable. He shouted that he