ot to the spot where the accident had occurred a
crowd had risen up as though by magic. It was impossible to see at once
who had been hurt. Tom pushed his way through the outer fringe of the
crowd. There was a woman in tears, offering her bottle of smelling
salts to a girl. A flushed man was bending over the same girl,
entreating her forgiveness. A fat policeman was demanding everybody's
name.

Tom heard the girl say: "I am not hurt a bit, thank you. I was
frightened; that was why I screamed. The front of your car just grazed
me, but you stopped it in time. No, policeman, I don't wish to have
anybody arrested. Please let me go. I was trying to catch up with a
friend. He will be out of sight if I don't hurry."

And it was thus that Tom beheld Madge, whom, a minute before, in his
gloomy reverie, he had given up for lost!

"O Tom!" she cried joyously as he hurried toward her, "I did make you
look around, after all. We were not drowned. Aren't you glad to see
me?"

Tom held Madge's small brown hands in his. "Madge!" was all he found
words for.

Tom Curtis was not ashamed of the tears in his eyes as he looked at
Madge. The first moment he had feared that she was an apparition that
might vanish while he gazed upon it.

"I'm real, Tom; please don't look at me like that," faltered Madge,
feeling her own eyes fill with tears. "We have been lost on a desert
island, and a battleship brought us home to-day. Why did you run away
from me when I tried so hard to catch up with you? I am sure it does
not become a young woman to go dashing through the streets after a man
who won't even glance back her way."

Madge spoke in this flippant fashion to hide the real emotion she felt
in seeing her friend again.

"But, Tom, we must hurry back to the wharf. Miss Jenny Ann and the
girls promised to wait on the dock for me until I brought you back. I
am afraid they will think I have been gone an awfully long time. Let's
go at once."

Madge was amazed to discover how far she had followed Tom when they
turned back. She tried to make Tom understand the story as they hurried
along. But Tom simply couldn't take in all the facts. He knew that
Madge and the houseboat party were alive and well, and, for the time
being, this was news enough.

It took them nearly twenty minutes to get back to the spot where Madge
had told Miss Jenny Ann to wait for her. When they reached the end of
the pier there was no chaperon, no Lieutenant Lawton, no Jeff!