ar the more
or less familiar words, for he realised almost at once that neither
Priscilla nor Jimmy Kinsella understood them. He felt a warm affection
for Miss Rutherford rise in his heart when she told Jimmy, who sat
humped up over his oar, to keep his back flat. Jimmy merely smiled in
reply. He had known since he was two years old that the flatness or
roundness of the rower's back has nothing whatever to do with the
progress of a boat in Rosnacree Bay. A few minutes later she accused
Priscilla of "bucketing," and Frank loved her for the word. Priscilla
replied indignantly with an obvious misapprehension of Miss Rutherford's
meaning. Frank, who was rowing in his best style, smiled and was pleased
to catch sight of an answering smile on Miss Rutherford's lips. He had
established an understanding with her. She and he, as representatives of
the rowing of a higher civilisation, could afford to smile together over
the barbarous methods of Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella.

The tide was still against them, though the full strength of the ebb
was past. The stream which ran through the narrow water-way had to be
reckoned with.

The _Tortoise_, when being towed, behaved after the manner of her kind.
She hung heavily on the tow rope for a minute; then rushed forward as if
she wished to bump the stern of Jimmy's boat At the last moment she
used to change her mind and swoop off to the right or left, only to be
brought up short by the rope at which she tugged with angry jerks until,
finding that it really could not be broken, she dropped sulkily astern.
These manoeuvres, though repeated with every possible variation, left
Priscilla and Jimmy Kinsella entirely unmoved. They pulled with the same
stolid indifference whatever pranks the _Tortoise_ played. They annoyed
Frank. Sometimes when the tow rope hung slack in the water, he pulled
through his stroke with ease and comfort Sometimes when the _Tortoise_
hung back heavily he seemed to be pulling against an impossible dead
weight But his worst experience came when the _Tortoise_ altered her
tactics in the middle of one of his strokes. Then, if it happened that
she sulked suddenly, he was brought up short with a jerk that jarred his
spine. If, on the other; hand, she chose to rush forward when he had
his weight well on the end of his oar, he ran a serious risk of falling
backwards after the manner of beginners who catch crabs. The side swoops
of the _Tortoise_ were equally trying. They se