Turning, they plunged through the green walls of the swamp. Sard put her brown hands to her mouth. "Coming!" she called. Meanwhile two canoes rounded the little green promontory that walled in the "race" and floated in toward the small beach where Sard's party were encamped. One of these, propelled by Dunstan Bogart, moved slowly, halted now and then by the movements of a girl leaning in the stern. This girl's idea of humor seemed to be to lean forward and grasp the paddle as it went in the water. From side to side the two leaned, Dunstan trying to evade the paddle-grasper amid the snorts and chuckles of them both. Suddenly the paddle was arrested in mid-air. "Pshaw! somebody has been here ahead of us! Look at those traps on the bank there." Dunstan, his face unlike its usual merry self, a somewhat sodden look to his faun eyes, looked about for the advance pearl hunters. Jumping out, he kicked the empty mussel shells about, he reached forward and inspected the picnic trappings and thermos bottles. "Sandwiches!" he called out to the others. "They haven't had supper, whoever they are; look, there's a pile of driftwood for their fire," then with a whistle, "Holy Cat--I say, Gert, here's my sister's thermos bottle; look at the monogram, S. B. And that's Minga's plaid steamer rug. I know, because I got her a pillow to match. Say, for heaven's sake! Let's get out of here; we don't want to piggy-mix in their party. Pshaw! they've beat us to it, pearls and all!" Gertrude, lying back in the canoe, smoking, raised her head. There was a gold serpent bracelet around one of her brown arms, and around the waist of her thin green jersey another huge gold serpent twined. She made a strange exotic picture in the leafy dimness of the late afternoon. Her dark hair, brilliant cheeks and lips suggested Eastern things; one instinctively put her against some background of pyramids and sphinxes. When she spoke, however, the illusion vanished; Gertrude employed the "chewing gum" accent in all its undiscipline of inflections and jawful mouthings. She had only to open her mouth and one knew that however subtle and old the soul that lay within her, the brain that controlled that soul had only one idea, to get things, and to get them quickly. "Why get out?" she asked indolently. "I thought we were booked till midnight." Gertrude had prepared her golden snakes for a forest moonlight. "Well, if you think it's fair to Cinny." At this the girl in the second boat sat up staring about her. Her fair hair was tousled, her eyes were dull, and her mouth hung loosely. "What's the matter with Cinny?" she demanded. "I'm all right--I'm a li'l' slipp--sleepy, that's all. Dunce, who's got the chawclets? I want some more." With a burst of silly laughter the girl lay down again, her eyelids drooping heavily, the young, full lips pushed out in a coarse way, hateful to see.