"It's the puddlers, after all!" he said. "We'll have to hail them and get them to send that ass of a boatman. Wouldn't you think that Emerson Riley would have had sense enough to wait and see that we got over safely?"
I fairly clutched at his arm.
"You'll do nothing of the sort," I said. "They'll know you if they're from your mill, and they'll know I am not Ida! It will be in the papers!"
Ferd looked sulky.
"What am I to do, then?" he demanded. "Swim to the bank?"
"Couldn't you swim to the other island and steal one of their boats?"
He did not want to. I could see that; but what else was there to do?
"It's a good way off," he said. "It won't help things any for me to be drowned, you know."
"It would be better than a scandal, wouldn't it?"
He threw up his hands.
"Oh, if that's the way you feel——"
"That isn't half the way I feel!"
He went off at that in a fury, leaving me alone on the little dock in a state of frenzy. I kept thinking of Day's getting home sooner than he expected and finding me gone, and calling up the police; and my wandering in about daylight with my slippers worn through. I made up a story—if the worst happened—about having had an attack of loss of memory, coming to myself seven miles from town and walking in.
There was no sign of Ferd. The puddlers' picnic was noisier than ever; they had brought a phonograph, too, and were dancing.
When I had waited for what seemed half the night I got frightened about Ferd. He had said it was a good way to go; and if he was drowned—and Ida really fond of him, and welcome to him so far as I was concerned—it was all up with me. Day would loathe the very sight of me. I knew that.
The grass looked snaky in the moonlight and I felt I was taking my life in my hands; but, somehow or other, with my hair pulled down by branches, and ankle-deep in mud every now and then, I got to the place where the two islands faced each other, end to end. There was not a sign of Ferd.
I just sank down on the ground and hoped for death. There was no way out. Jane and the others would think we had the boat and could hire a machine or something to get to the city, and they would not give us another thought. Even if I hailed the puddlers and told them, they would never believe my story. And, of course, there was poor Ferd in the river mud—sure to float in and spoil any story I could make up about loss of memory.
It was when I had reached that point that pandemonium broke loose on the other island. I could hear shouting—men and women together—and, in a pause, the frantic splashing of oars. The next moment a boat appeared round the corner of the island, with Ferd rowing like mad, and a perfect pandemonium from the shore. He had stolen their boat and they had found it out. I was almost crazy. I waded out to my knees and called to him; and he saw me. There was no other boat after him yet, but some one was yelling to follow him.
Ferd was rather steadied by the excitement, I think. He reached over and dragged me in without a word, and the next instant we were pulling for the shore in the moonlight, with the entire puddlers' picnic on their bank, calling awful things to us.
That was not all, though. One of the men had got into their other boat and was coming after us. He could row, too. I implored Ferd to hurry—hurry. And I kept turning round to see whether he was gaining. That was how I discovered why they were so wrought up. There were two dozen quart bottles of champagne in the stern of that boat! We were carrying off the picnic! I told Ferd. "Throw it overboard!" he said. "It'll lighten the boat."
So I did, basket after basket; and, whether it lightened the boat or not, we drew ahead. Ferd rowed like a demon. In the moonlight his face was white and set, with the queerest expression.
We struck the shore with a bump that sent me on my knees, but Ferd grabbed my hand and jerked me out.
"Now run—if you ever ran in your life!" he said. "Make for that grove over there, and bend over. The bushes will hide us."
"I can't," I panted after a minute. "And why should I, Ferd? He's got his old boat by this time——"
"Run!" gasped Ferd. And I ran.
We crouched down in the grove. My teeth were chattering, but I was nothing to Ferd. He was pallid. The puddler landed just then. We heard him throw his oars into the boat and drag it up on the beach, and I knew he was examining the other boat and finding that the wine was gone. We could hear him breathing hard, and he even made a start toward us, beating the bushes with an oar. He was in a red fury, muttering to himself in the most horrible manner. I had been in Ferd's mill once or twice, and I remembered the enormous shoulders the men had, and how they simply toyed with steel rails; and I was paralysed. A puddler turned Berserk!
He gave it up just in time, however, and started back for the boat. I could see him moving about—a huge creature in white flannels. And he seemed to have cut himself on a branch or something, for he was tying a handkerchief round his forehead.
We did not dare to move until he had started back and was safely out from shore. Ferd's voice had lost its strained quality and he looked a little less like death. We could hear the picnic party calling to the man in the boat about the wine, and his calling back that we had got away with it, but for some of them to come over and they could beat the bushes. They couldn't come, of course, until he took the boat back.
"We've got to get out of here, Fan," Ferd said. "In ten minutes the whole shooting match will be here. Can you run any more?"
"Not a foot—I'm all in. And I lost a shoe in the water at the island."
Ferd groaned.
"They'll have us up for stealing their champagne," he said. "I suppose you can walk."
"I can limp along, I dare say." I was wet and cold, and horribly miserable. "Don't let me detain you. They can't arrest me for stealing their wine. You did that."
He turned to me suddenly.
"Fan," he said solemnly, "don't ask me why, but we must get out of here quick. Must! If you can't walk, roll. Now come on!"
There were no houses in sight. The trolley line ends there, and I think it is a picnic grove. He took my hand and dragged me along. I lost my other slipper, but he paid no attention when I told him of it; and just when I was about to sink down and die we reached a road.
"Now," said Ferd, "they came in something—machines probably—for they'll have to get back, and there are no more cars. Ah, there they are!"
There were two machines. I gripped Ferd's arm and held him back desperately.
"The chauffeurs?" I gasped.
"We'll kill 'em, if necessary," he said between clenched teeth.
We were loping down the road toward the machines—Ferd sloshing, rather, with each step; and we could hear loud calling from the islands and the banging of oars in oarlocks.
"F-Ferd," I managed to say, "c-can—you—drive—a—car?"
"Why, you can, can't you?"
"I—can—d-drive—my—own car. I d-don't—know about—any other."
"They're all alike. The principle's the same."
"I don't know anything about the principles," I said despairingly. "And I won't touch a strange machine."
"Oh, very well!" said Ferd sulkily. "We'll make a deuce of a stir—arrested here for stealing a case of champagne; but never mind. It'll blow over."
"We