“And you, too,” she said, in reply. “Oh, you must keep up! For my sake!” “For yours? Then, indeed, I will.” They needed whatever encouragement and strength they could get all around before the punt arrived, but then Zeb Fuller and Hy Allen seemed to make nothing at all of pulling in the girls, one after the other. In fact, Brayton was compelled to say: “Gently, now, boys,” more than once, by way of moderating their somewhat headlong strength and eagerness. Bar had been on hand to help, but now he swam back to the _Sibyl_ and clambered in. That unlucky craft was beginning to be a little less water-logged, and Zeb Fuller tossed over a big, rusty tin basin, with the aid of which the work went on tenfold more rapidly. “Saved, thank God!” exclaimed George Brayton, as he sank, dripping and exhausted, on a seat of the punt, opposite to Effie and his sister. Neither of them said a word aloud, but there was no doubt they were saying the same thing in their hearts. “Those two brave boys, too,” said Effie, a moment later. “I scarcely know how we are to thank them.” “And Zeb and his friends,” began George Brayton, but that young worthy interrupted him with: “No thanks, please, Mr. Brayton. It’s an every-day matter with us. We get our pocket money by it. If the man’s drowned we charge only a dime, but if we get him ashore alive, it’s twenty-five cents. We’ve done lots of harm that way.” “Harm?” exclaimed Sibyl. “Yes, indeed,” said Zeb, gravely, “but then it’s so hard to decide, on the spur of the moment, whether we ought to let a man drown or not. I fear we are influenced too much by the odd fifteen cents.” Worn out as he was by his long struggle in the water, Brayton was forced to laugh at Zeb’s way of avoiding unwelcome gratitude, and Effie Dryer’s face half lost the expression of deep, sweet thoughtfulness it had worn ever since she came out of the water. As for Sibyl, she was intently watching Bar and Val at their work, which was now nearly completed. In a few moments the _Sibyl_ was once more in sailing trim and the picnic party could abandon the slow safety of the punt and start for home. CHAPTER XXVIII TWO IMPORTANT TELEGRAMS The results of that boating excursion were nothing short of “nuts and honey” to Mrs. Dr. Dryer. Never in all her life had she been blessed with so magnificent an opportunity to say: “I told you so!” She said it, too, very abundantly, and what puzzled her, as well as took away half the sweetness of her triumph, was the fact that her unsubmissive stepdaughter did not seem to be in the slightest degree cast down about it. In fact, no sooner had Effie put on dry clothing than she seemed to look back upon her day of danger and disaster as one whose happiness had been absolutely without a cloud. She praised the drive, the sail, the lunch, the boys; she even expressed a decided liking for a compulsory bath in Skanigo. And then she put on an obstinate fit of silence and refused to say another word about it.