f she had been a frightened child, standing over her until she breathed
easier.

"But then, if he is safe, why did you leave daddy? You are not hurt
yourself, are you?" she exclaimed suddenly, reaching up her hand and
catching the sleeve of his tarpaulin, a great lump in her throat.

"Me, hurt!--not a bit of it,--not a scratch of any kind,--see!" As an
object-lesson he stretched out his arm and with one clenched hand smote
his chest gorilla fashion.

"But you are all wet--" she persisted, in a more reassured tone. "You
must not stand here in this wind; you will get chilled to the bone. You
must go home and get into dry clothes;--please say you will go?"

Something warm and scintillating started from Jack's toes as the words
left her lips, surged along his spinal column, set his finger tips
tingling and his heart thumping like a trip hammer. She had called him
"Jack!" She had run a mile to rescue him and her father, and she was
anxious lest he should endanger his precious life by catching cold.
Cold!--had he been dragged through the whirlpool of Niagara in the
dead of winter with the thermometer at zero and then cast on a stranded
iceberg he would now be sizzling hot.

Again she repeated her command,--this time in a more peremptory tone,
the same anxious note in her voice.

"Please come, if daddy doesn't want you any more you must go home
at once. I wouldn't have you take cold for--" she did not finish the
sentence; something in his face told her that her solicitude might
already have betrayed her.

"Of course, I will go just as soon as you are rested a little, but you
mustn't worry about me, Miss Ruth, I am as wet as a rat, I know, but I
am that way half the time when it rains. These tarpaulins let in a
lot of water--" here he lifted his arms so she could see the openings
herself--"and then I got in over my boots trying to plug the holes in
the sluiceway with some plank." He was looking down into her eyes now.
Never had he seen her so pretty. The exercise had made roses of her
cheeks, and the up-turned face framed by the thatch of a bonnet bound
with the veil, reminded him of a Madonna.

"And is everything all right with daddy? And was there nobody in the
shanties?" she went on. "Perhaps I might better try to get over where he
is;--do you think I can? I would just like to tell him how glad I am it
is no worse."

"Yes, if you change boots with me," laughed Jack, determined to divert
her mind; "I was nearly swa