They got in under the weedy shore of Little Dent and worked up to the overfall. They got ashore. Rod took a light line from the bow and hauled. Mary held the canoe off with a slender pole. Thus they worked their craft up over the jump-off and reached the northern side of the small island where the flood tide parted and where its sweep was slow. Then they reëmbarked and stood clear, paddling in a wide detour until they drove into the straight current again and were swept down like a gaudy arrow. Close on their heels as they made the second voyage came a white power cruiser, all agleam in the afternoon sun, her housework varnished oak, bright flashes reflected off polished brass and copper. She plowed down the green spillway, her bow wave spreading like an ostrich plume. When Rod and Mary skilfully picked smooths in the broken water and swung aside into the comparative calm of the great eddy the white cruiser followed and hauled up close to them. Out her pilot-house window a capped, red face grinned genially. On her low after deck half a dozen people sat in wicker chairs, the women in cool summer stuff, the men in flannels and colored sweaters. A girl about Mary Thorn's age, a fair-haired, blue-eyed creature like a bisque doll, stood with one arm around the slender signal mast. A little below her a tall young man with the reddish-brown hair and fine clear skin and grayish-blue eyes of the boy in the canoe leaned over the pipe rail. "Hello, everybody," Rod greeted casually. His brother disregarded this. "Better climb aboard and tow that thing," he suggested. "How did you manage to get caught in the rapids?" "We didn't get caught," Rod answered mildly. "Then what the deuce are you doing in them?" Phil demanded. "Oh, just running 'em for fun," Rod drawled. "For fun!" One of the matrons on the after deck contrived a horrified inflection. Phil Norquay's brow wrinkled a trifle. He looked inquiringly down at his brother. That youth gazed up at him with bland innocence. "You'll be getting in among those big swirls if you don't watch out," Rod said to him. "Never mind about us." Phil glanced, up and ahead, called an order to the man leaning out the pilot house. "You'd better----" But his sentence to Rod was cut off, for that imperturbable youth drove the dugout well clear of the power boat with a thrust of his paddle, and Mary Thorn's blade dipped in unison. They pointed straight for shore. The launch swung in a short circle, gathered way, passed up the channel. Rod steered the canoe over to Little Dent, caught a drooping bough and held it against the streaming tide. Mary looked after the white cruiser, turning now into Mermaid Bay. "What a pretty girl that was by the mast. Who is she?" "Oh, Isabel Wall. Sister to a girl Phil's got half a crush on," Rod answered carelessly. "I don't think she's so pretty. Too dolly-dolly. Shall we run 'em once more?"