The St. Allwoods’ car was rolling out to Hopyard when they came back.  By the time Benton had turned the canoe over to the boathouse man and reached the wharf, the horn of the returning machine sounded down the road.  They waited.  The car came to a stop at the abutting wharf.  The driver handed two suitcases off the burdened hood of his machine.  From out the tonneau clambered a large, smooth-faced young man.  He wore an expansive smile in addition to a blue serge suit, white Panama, and polished tan Oxfords, and he bestowed a hearty greeting upon Charlie Benton.  But his smile suffered eclipse, and a faint flush rose in his round cheeks, when his eyes fell upon Benton’s sister.

CHAPTER III

HALFWAY POINT

Miss Benton’s cool, impersonal manner seemed rather to heighten the young man’s embarrassment.  Benton, apparently observing nothing amiss, introduced them in an offhand fashion.

“Mr. Abbey—­my sister.”

Mr. Abbey bowed and murmured something that passed for acknowledgment.  The three turned up the wharf toward where Sam Davis had once more got up steam.  As they walked, Mr. Abbey’s habitual assurance returned, and he directed part of his genial flow of conversation to Miss Benton.  To Stella’s inner amusement, however, he did not make any reference to their having been fellow travelers for a day and a half.

Presently they were embarked and under way.  Charlie fixed a seat for her on the after deck, and went forward to steer, whither he was straightway joined by Paul Abbey.  Miss Benton was as well pleased to be alone.  She was not sure she should approve of young men who made such crude efforts to scrape acquaintance with women on trains.  She was accustomed to a certain amount of formality in such matters.  It might perhaps be laid to the “breezy Western manner” of which she had heard, except that Paul Abbey did not impress her as a Westerner.  He seemed more like a type of young man she had encountered frequently in her own circle.  At any rate, she was relieved when he did not remain beside her to emit polite commonplaces.  She was quite satisfied to sit by herself and look over the panorama of woods and lake—­and wonder more than a little what Destiny had in store for her along those silent shores.

The Springs fell far behind, became a few white spots against the background of dusky green.  Except for the ripples spread by their wake, the water laid oily smooth.  Now, a little past four in the afternoon, she began to sense by comparison the great bulk of the western mountains,—­locally, the Chehalis Range,—­for the sun was dipping behind the ragged peaks already, and deep shadows stole out from the shore to port.  Beneath her feet the screw throbbed, pulsing like an overdriven heart, and Sam Davis poked his sweaty face now and then through a window to catch a breath of cool air denied him in the small inferno where he stoked the fire box.