useboat. If she had not invited the girls
to anchor in such dangerous waters, their boat would never have torn
loose from its moorings.

Tom was idling on the dock, simply because there was nothing else to
do, no place to go, except to return to his mother with the report from
the dredging crew. He took no special interest in the slow approach of
another great battleship from the waters of Hampton Roads. Although it
was usually good fun to watch the sailors come ashore after they had
been away on a long cruise, to-day nothing was worth while. His
thoughts were on the lost girls.

Just before the boat got in he concluded that he was bored with fooling
around the wharf; he would take a walk through the town. He turned his
back on his friends and deliberately strolled away from the water.

Once Tom Curtis did turn his head. He had heard an unusual stir behind
him. The sailors, who were lined up preparatory to going ashore, had
given the houseboat party a rousing cheer as they left the ship. But
even with this chance for discovering his friends, Tom was blind. The
crowd hid the little party of women from view, and Tom strode on faster
than ever up the river bank toward one of the narrow streets of the
town.

"O Miss Jenny Ann!" pleaded Madge as soon as her feet touched land, "I
saw Tom Curtis leave the pier just a second ago. He can't be very far
away. Won't you let me run after him? I will find him and bring him
back in a minute."

Without waiting to hear her chaperon's reply Madge darted up the street
at full speed.

Run as hard as she would, Madge could not catch up with Tom. Every time
she arrived at one end of a street Tom was about in the act of crossing
over to the next one. She could keep him in sight, but she could not
reach him. She forgot that Miss Jenny Ann and the rest of her party
were waiting for her, and that she really ought to have given up her
chase, remembered nothing but the fact that she must see Tom. As she
plunged recklessly across a side street, an automobile whirled into it.

At the opposite end of the square Tom Curtis's attention was arrested
sharply. He heard the shrill, harsh protest from an automobile horn,
then a cry of terror from a girl's throat. Her cry was taken up by half
a dozen voices. There was no need to ask questions. He knew what had
happened. An automobile had run down a young girl.

It took but a minute for Tom to run back the entire length of the
block. But before he g