“Nonsense, child!” he said.  “Don’t be silly.”

“Don’t you try to put me out.  I’ll hang on and—­kick.  Don’t you say ‘please,’ either,” she warned him.

“I must,” he protested.  “Please don’t insist.”

She scowled like an angry boy, and seized the gunwales firmly.  Her expression made him smile despite his annoyance, and this provoked her the more.

“I’m going!” she asserted, darkly.

This outing had done wonders for both girls.  The wind and the sunshine had tanned them, the coarse fare had lent them a hearty vigor, and they made charming pictures in their trim short skirts and sweaters and leather-banded hats.

“Very well!  If you’re going, take off your boots,” commanded O’Neil.

“What for?”

“We may be swamped and have to swim for it.  You see the man has taken his off.”  Murray pointed to the raw-boned Norwegian oarsman, who had stripped down as if for a foot-race.

Eliza obeyed.

“Now your sweater.”

Natalie had watched this scene with evident concern.  She now seated herself upon a boulder and began to tug at her rubber boots.

“Here!  Here!  You’re not going, too!” O’Neil exclaimed.

“Yes, I am.  I’m frightened to death, but I won’t be a coward.”  Her shaking hands and strained voice left no doubt of her seriousness.

“She can’t swim,” said Eliza; and O’Neil put an end to this display of heroism with a firm refusal.

“You’ll think I’m afraid,” Natalie expostulated.

“Bless you, of course we will, because you are!  So am I, and so is Eliza, for that matter.  If you can’t swim you’d only be taking a foolish risk and adding to our danger.  Besides, Eliza doesn’t know the feel of cold water as we do.”

Natalie smiled a little tremulously at recollection of the shipwreck.

“I’d much rather walk, of course,” she said; and then to Eliza, “It—­it will be a lovely ramble for us.”

But Eliza shook her head.  “This is material for my book, and I’ll make enough out of it to—­to—­”

“Buy another orchard,” Murray suggested.

Feeling more resigned now that the adventure had taken on a purely financial color, Natalie at length allowed herself to be dissuaded, and Eliza settled herself in her seat with the disturbing consciousness that she had made herself appear selfish and rude in O’Neil’s eyes.  Nevertheless, she had no notion of changing her mind.

When the other girl had gone the oarsman completed his preparations by lashing fast the contents of the skiff—­a proceeding which Eliza watched with some uneasiness.  O’Neil showed his resentment by a pointed silence, which nettled her, and she resolved to hold her seat though the boat turned somersaults.

Word was finally given, and they swung out into the flood.  O’Neil stood as best he could on his firm leg, and steered by means of a sculling-oar, while the Norwegian rowed lustily.