At sound of the launch the girl on the shanty-boat had turned to observe it. Now she stood up and waved a hand. Pud grunted merely, but Tim, more polite, waved back. Pud turned the nose of the _Vengance_ toward the shanty-boat and prepared to hail it. He was going to say ‘Hello!’ and then ‘Say, mind if we camp beyond you folks?’ All he did say, though, was ‘Hello!’, for at the same instant the girl spoke. ‘Help!’ she called. The occupants of the launch stared in surprise. Doubtless, though, they had misunderstood her, and Pud asked, ‘What did you say?’ This time there was no mistaking. ‘_Help!_’ said the girl. Pud looked about him in every direction. So did Tim. So, too, did Harmon. Not a person was to be seen. Never, indeed, had any one of them ever looked on a more quiet, peaceful, and lonely scene. Pud viewed Tim blankly and received as blank a gaze in reply. By this time the two boats were close together and mechanically Pud eased the launch up to the stern of the other, motioning Tim to throw out the clutch. Harmon, in the rôle of deck-hand, laid hold of the shanty-boat. Pud now gave serious attention to the girl. She was apparently thirteen, possibly fourteen years old, with a thin, deeply tanned face and coppery-brown hair drawn tightly back from her forehead into a long braid which, at the present moment, hung across one shoulder and terminated in a bow of bright red ribbon. She wore a dress of some thin stuff that showed blue flowers on a white ground. It was not a new dress, nor, observed Pud, was it particularly clean. Brown cotton stockings enclosed a pair of painfully thin ankles. A pair of scuffed black shoes completed her costume. Pud decided that she was not at all pretty. In fact, he took an instant, if mild, dislike to the girl; but this was more because she was regarding him with an intense, unwavering stare from a pair of large dark eyes, a stare that disconcerted him unpleasantly. Tim, untroubled by the hypnotic gaze, voiced his curiosity. ‘Say, what’s the matter?’ he demanded. ‘What you yelling “Help” for?’ ‘Because,’ replied the girl, still regarding Pud, ‘I want to be rescued.’ She had rather a nice voice, sort of low and gurgly, and there was such a tragic note in it that Tim thrilled and once more gazed apprehensively about over the desolate scene. ‘Rescued!’ echoed Pud. ‘What――who――Say, what are you doing? Getting funny with us?’ ‘Oh, no!’ The girl leaned nearer and dropped her voice. ‘You must take me away from here before they come back! You will, won’t you? Oh, say you will not desert me!’ ‘Take you where? Who is it’s coming back?’ asked Pud dazedly.