"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.