ears and completed her discomfiture. She
took the hint implied in his movement, and bent down, blushing
furiously, to pull up the fallen stocking, and let down her skirt.

When she sat erect again the man had not changed his position; and she
seized the opportunity to study him. His figure, though she had just
had proof of his strength, was lean almost to thinness, very straight,
and borne, she fancied, with a certain dignity and even majesty in its
erectness. The straight, black hair under the sombrero was touched
with gray. He was not young, past middle age perhaps; but she could
hazard no nearer guess at his age. No matter! Looking at him thus, she
began to feel her resentment falling away, as if every shaft from her
angry eyes had broken harmlessly on that serene and unoffending back.
Even her embarrassment began to seem inexcusable. The man had carried
her ashore in much the manner he would have used if she had been a
sack of oats to be saved from wetting.

"You are very strong!" Marion said at last.

He turned slowly toward her. His face was grave and expressionless,
but by no means dull; and his eyes were very black and bright.

"You--are--all--right--now?" he asked, ignoring her praise.

There was a curious slowness and lack of emphasis in his speech, with
a pause after each word, that gave a singular impressiveness to all he
said.

"But why did you do it?" she demanded.

"'Fraid you fall," was his simple answer.

"But I don't mind getting wet."

"Easy drown in little water," he said laconically.

She laughed at the idea of her drowning in a pool like that--she who
had battled triumphantly with the breakers at Atlantic City, Newport,
and Bar Harbor.

"But I can swim!" she assured him.

"I not know that," he replied, unmoved.

True. And she must have appeared to be greatly in need of assistance.

"Anyhow, I thank you!" she said sincerely. "But who am I thanking,
please?"

"Pete."

"Pete! Pete who?"

"Only Pete."

"But have you no other name?"

"Yes. Indian name."

And he rolled out a string of guttural syllables that sounded like
names of places in the Maine woods.

Indian name! Marion started; and in a flash she knew. Haig's man
Friday! Here was luck indeed.

"You are Mr. Haig's--" She hesitated.

"Friend," he said, completing her sentence.

Marion was again embarrassed. She did not know what to say next,
fearing to say the wrong thing, and so to throw away a golden
opportunity.