Adventure stories; Love stories; Treasure troves -- Fiction
Mentally resolving to dive for them if such a procedure became
necessary, Drew stepped upon the stringpiece of the pier beside her and
looked down.
She gave a joyous exclamation as she saw the package lying in the
bottom of a small boat that floated at the stern of a steamer moored to
the pier.
"Oh, there they are!" she cried delightedly. "How lucky!" Then her
face changed. "But after all it is going to be hard to get them," she
added. "The pier is high and there don't seem to be any cleats here to
climb down by."
"Easiest thing in the world," returned Drew confidently. "I'll go
aboard the steamer, haul the boat up to the stern, and drop into it."
"But the stern is so very high," she said, measuring it with her eye.
"That doesn't matter," he replied. "If you'll just wait here, I'll go
aboard and be back with the letters before you know it." He glanced
around swiftly. "I don't think that fellow will trouble you again."
"I am not at all afraid of that man. He only startled me for the
moment. But I hate to put you to so much trouble," she added, looking
at him shyly.
"It will be a pleasure," protested Drew, returning her look with
another from which he tried to exclude any undue warmth.
It is to be feared that he was not altogether successful, judging from
the faint flush that rose in her cheek as she dropped her gaze before
his.
His mind awhirl, the young man hurried up to the gangway of the steamer
where he found one of the officers. He briefly explained that he
wanted to secure a package that a young lady had dropped into the boat
lying astern, and the officer, with an appreciative grin, readily
granted permission to him to go aboard.
Drew hurried to the stern, which, as the steamer had discharged her
cargo, rose fully twenty feet from the water. He hauled in the boat
until it lay directly beneath. Then he gathered up the slack of the
painter and wound it about a cleat until it was taut. This done, he
dropped over the rail and let himself down by the rope until his feet
touched the thwart of the tender.
He worked his way aft carefully, and picking up the package placed it
in his breast pocket. Then he caught hold of the rope and climbed up,
hand over hand.
It was unaccustomed work for a landsman, but Drew was supple and
athletic and he mounted rapidly. Not for a fortune would he have
faltered with those hazel eyes fixed upon him. With the girl watching
him, he felt as though he could have climbed to the top of the
Woolworth Building.
It was his misfortune that he could not see the look of admiration in
her eyes as they followed his movements--a look, however, which by the
exercise of maidenly repression she had changed to one of mere
gratitude when at last, breathing a little quickly, he approached her
with the packet he had recovered in his hand.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, taking it eagerly and clasping it tightly, "how
very good of you to take all that trouble! I don't know how to thank
you enough."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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