The End Of The Rainbow Part 7

He set to work again briskly, but though the girl helped, it was without enthusiasm. She was going through an entirely new experience.

In all her happy life, untouched by sorrow or privation of any kind, she had never felt the need of help. Fred and she had been chums since they were babies, and were going to be married some day, perhaps. Fred was a good, jolly fellow, he was well off, well-dressed, and quite the leader of all the young men of the town. But now, for the first time, her dauntless gay spirit was forsaking her, and a vision of how inadequate Fred might be in time of stress was coming dimly to her awakening woman's heart. She would almost rather have drowned than play the coward. But she wanted Fred to be afraid for her. She was more of a woman than she knew.

And then, just as a wave of fear was coming over her, Roderick McRae, in his canoe, came out around the point and paddled straight towards them.

She gave a cry of joyful relief. "A canoe! Oh, look, Fred!

Somebody's coming this way from McRae's cove!"

The young man turned with some apprehension mingling with his joy. He would almost as soon be detected appropriating funds from the bank where he clerked, as be caught in this ignominious plight. There was just a slight sense of relief, however, for they had been a long time in the water. But he would not admit that.

"Pshaw!" he grumbled. "I wish they'd waited a minute longer."

"Well, I don't!" cried his companion tremulously.

The boy looked across the canoe at her. Never, in the twenty years he had known Leslie Graham intimately, had he before seen her daunted.

"What's up?" he demanded. "You're not losing your nerve, Leslie?"

"No, I'm not!" she snapped, trying desperately to hide an unexpected quaver in her voice. "But--"

"You're not chilled, are you?"

"No. Not much."

"Nor cramped?"

"No."

"Well, you're all right then. Goodness, you've been in the water hours longer than this, heaps of times. Cheer up, old girl, you're all right. What's the matter, anyhow?"

But she did not answer, for she hardly knew herself. She had no real fear of being drowned, that seemed impossible. But strange new feelings had begun to stir in the heart, that so far had been only the care-free heart of a girl, almost the heart of a daring boy. She did not realise that what she really wanted was that Fred should be solicitous about her. If he had shown the slightest anxiety over her she would have become recklessly daring. But young Fred would as soon have shown tender care for a frisky young porpoise in the water, as Leslie, even had it been his nature to care unduly for any one but Fred Hamilton.

The canoe was approaching swiftly, and the man in it was near enough to be recognised. "I say," cried Fred, "it's Rod McRae. I didn't know he was home. Ship ahoy, there!" he shouted gaily. "Hurrah, and give us a lift; it's too damp for the lady to walk home!"

Leslie Graham looked at the approaching canoeist. She and Fred Hamilton had both attended the same school, Sunday-school and church as Roderick McRae. But she could remember him but dimly as an awkward country boy, in her brief High School days, before she "finished" with a year at a city boarding-school. Her life at school had been all fun and mischief, and rushing away from irksome lessons to more fun at home; his had been all serious hard work, and rushing away from the fascination of his lessons to harder work on the farm. Fred Hamilton had never worked at school, but he knew him better; the free-masonry of boyhood had made that possible.

"Why, what's happened?" cried Roderick as he swept alongside the wreck.

"Fred Hamilton! Surely you're not upset?"

"Doesn't look like it, does it?" enquired the young man in the water rather sarcastically. "Here, give this thing a hoist, will you, Rod?

I can't understand how such an idiotic thing happened? Miss Graham and I were paddling along as steadily as you are now, and--"

But Roderick was paying no attention to him. He was looking at the girl hanging to the upturned canoe, her eyes grieved and frightened.

With a quick stroke he placed himself at her side.

"Why, you're all tired out," he cried. "You must get in here."

She looked up at him gratefully. She had never realised how welcome a sympathetic voice could sound. She answered, not the least like the dauntless Leslie, "I just can't! I can't climb over the bow. It's no use trying."

Roderick was at his best where any one was in distress. His knightly young heart prompted him to do the right thing.

"You don't need to," he said gently. "I can take you in over the side.

Here, Fred, come round and help."

Fred came to her, and Roderick slipped down into the bottom of the canoe. He leaned heavily to the side opposite the girl, and extended his hand. "Now, you can do it quite easily," he said encouragingly.

"Catch the thwart; there--no, sideways--that's it! Steady, Fred, don't hurry her. There you are. Now!" She had rolled in somehow over the side, and sat soaked and heavy, half-laughing and half-tearful, right at his feet.

"Oh," she said, "I'm making you all wet."

"Well, that's the neatest ever," cried Fred Hamilton in involuntary admiration.

The work of emptying the other canoe, with the help of such an expert, was an easy matter. When it was ready Roderick held it while Fred tumbled in. Stray cushions and paddles, and even an armful of soaking golden-rod were rescued, and then the two young men looked involuntarily at the girl.

"Hop over the fence, Leslie!" cried Fred. He was in high good humour now, for Rod McRae would never tell on a fellow, or chaff him in public about an upset.

But Leslie Graham shook her head. Something strange had happened, she had grown very quiet and grave.

"No," she said in a low voice, "I don't want any more adventures to-night. You'll take me home, won't you--Roderick?" She hesitated just a moment over the name, but remembering she had called him that at school, she ventured.

"It would give me the greatest pleasure," he cried cordially. His diffidence had all vanished, he was master of the situation.

He glanced half-enquiringly at the other young man, to see relief expressed quite frankly on his face.

"All right, Leslie! Thanks ever so, Rod. I can scoot over to the boathouse and get some dry togs, before I go home. And say--you won't say anything about this now, Les, will you?"

The girl's spirits were returning. "Why not?" she asked teasingly.

"It wouldn't be fair to keep such a gallant rescue a secret."

"Oh, please don't!" cried Roderick in dismay.

"But it would make such a nice column for The _Chronicle_," said the girl demurely. "I really can't promise, Fred. Tom Allen would give me ten dollars for it, I am sure."

"If you dare!" cried the young man wrathfully. "I'd never hear the end of it. And your mother would never let you out on the water again, you know that, Les," he added threateningly.

"That's so," she admitted. "Well, I'll see, Freddy. Cheer up. If I do tell I promise to make you the hero of the adventure."

She waved her hand to him laughingly, as Roderick's long strokes sent them skimming away over the darkening water. When they were beyond earshot, she turned to her rescuer.

"It's all right to joke about it now," she said, her tone tremulous, "but it was beginning to be anything but a joke. I--I do believe-- Why, I just know that you saved my life, Roderick McRae. And there is one person I am going to tell, I don't care who objects, and that's my father. And you'll hear from him; for he thinks, the poor mistaken man, that his little Leslie is the whole thing!"

And even though Roderick protested vigorously, he could not help feeling that it would be a great stroke of good fortune to have Algonquin's richest and most powerful man feel he was in his debt.

CHAPTER V

FOLLOWING THE GLEAM

When the _Inverness_ b.u.mped against the wharf at Algonquin, the strange girl, standing with her bag in her hand, waiting to step ash.o.r.e, was surprised to see the late enemy of the boat drive down upon the dock.