He had gauged the intelligence of the
pursuers correctly. When he peered through the brush along the river
bank he saw the skiff in the reeds below, just as they had left it.
There was the lunch basket, the wee bit of a steamer trunk with all its
labels, a parasol and a small handbag.
"Goody, goody!" Marjory cried like a happy child.
"Don't show yourself yet, dearie. I'll make sure. They may have an
ambuscade. Wait here for me."
He crept down the bank and back again before she could fully subdue the
tremendous thumping his temerity had started in her left side.
"It's safe and sound," he whispered joyously. "The idiots have forgotten
the boat. Quick, dear; let's make a dash for it! Their raft is upstream
a hundred yards, and it is also deserted. If we can once get well across
the river we can give them the laugh."
"But they may shoot us from the bank," she protested as they plunged
through the weeds.
"They surely wouldn't shoot a woman!" he cried gayly.
"But you are not a woman!"
"And I'm not afraid of mice or men. Jump in!"
Off from the weeds shot the light skiff. The water splashed for a moment
under the spasmodic strokes of the oarsman, and then the little boat
streaked out into the river like a thing of life. Marjory sat in the
stern and kept her eyes upon the bank they were leaving. Jack Barnes
drove every vestige of his strength into the stroke; somehow he pulled
like a man who had learned how on a college crew.
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