ar him by several hundred
yards. He lay quiet, watching. Despite its generous proportions--it was
a fair-sized cabin cruiser, deep-seaworthy in any ordinary weather--he
could see but a single person for all its crew. Seated astern, dividing
her attention between the side steering-wheel and the engine, she was
altogether ignorant of the onlooker. Only her head and shoulders showed
above the coaming: her head with its shining golden crown, her shoulders
cloaked with a light wrap gathered at the throat.

Whitaker, admiring, wondered....

Sweeping in a wide arc as it gathered speed, the boat presently shot out
smartly on a straight course for the barrier beach.

Why? What business had she there? And at an hour so early?

No affair of his: Whitaker admitted as much, freely. And yet, no reason
existed why he should not likewise take an impersonal interest in the
distant ocean beach. As a matter of fact (he discovered upon
examination) he was vastly concerned in that quarter. Already he was
beginning his fourth day on the Great West Bay without having set foot
upon its Great South Beach! Ridiculous oversight! And one to be remedied
without another hour's delay.

Grinning with amused toleration of his own perverse sophistry, he turned
over on his side and struck out in the wake of the motor-boat. He had
over a mile to go; but such a distance was nothing dismaying to a
swimmer of Whitaker's quality, who had all his life been on very
friendly terms with the sea.

No one held a watch on him; but when at length he waded ashore he was
complacent in the knowledge that he had made very good time.

He found the motor-boat moored in shallow water at the end of a long and
substantial dock. The name displayed in letters of brass on its stern
was, frankly, _Trouble_. He paused waist-deep to lean over the side and
inspect the cockpit; the survey drew from him an expression of approval.
The boat seemed to be handsomely appointed, and the motor exposed by the
open hatch of the engine pit was of a make synonymous with speed and
reliability. He patted the flanks of the vessel as he waded on.

"Good little boat!" said he.

A weather-beaten sign-board on the dock advertised a surf-bathing
station. Ashore a plank walk crossed first a breadth of sedge marsh and
then penetrated a tumbled waste of dunes. Where the summits of the
latter met the sky, there were visible a series of angular and unlovely
wooden edifices.

Whitaker climbed up o