iek.

"Nyoda! Where on earth did you come from? Nyoda! _Nyoda_!"

"Hinpoha!" cried the young woman in the sand, clinging to her in
amazement, while the man who had addressed Hinpoha gave vent to a long
whistle.

"Why, it's the immortal redhead!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know you in
the dark at all."

"It's the first time anybody ever said they didn't know me in the dark,"
said Hinpoha, laughing. "I didn't know you either without that famous
mustache. Sahwah!" she called. "Gladys! Come here quick!"

The Winnebagos had often pictured to themselves what their reunion with
Nyoda would be like when she made them the faithfully promised visit the
following year, but none of them had ever dreamed it would come so soon
or be like this. In the feeble light of their pocket flashes they
crowded around her, behind a point of the cliff which kept some of the
wind away, and all talked at once as they bubbled over with joy at the
meeting, and Sherry, against whom they had vowed eternal warfare for
stealing their beloved guardian away, came in for his share of
handshaking and rapturous greeting.

"Where were you going?" "What were you doing on the _Huronic_?"
"Why didn't you let us know you were so near?" "Did you intend to stop?"
"How does it feel to be shipwrecked?" "Were you scared when they took
you off the boat?" asked six voices at once.

Nyoda laughed and threw up her hands in a gesture of protest. "Have
mercy!" she pleaded. "Send up your questions in single file." Then she
told how Sherry had been instructed to go to Chicago when they were up
in Duluth and they had chosen to come down by water, and were having a
most delightful trip on the _Huronic_ when it was so rudely ended
by the storm. Her tale was somewhat disconnected, for she was constantly
being interrupted by outbursts of delight at seeing her again and
anxious inquiries as to whether she was cold, all more or less
accompanied by caresses.

During one of these pauses, when she was being nearly smothered in a
mackinaw by the over-solicitous Hinpoha, a voice was heard nearby,
saying, "First we see Jim's signal light go off and we knowed there was
a wreck somewhere. We was wondering why he didn't come back to report
when all of a sudden up comes a reg'lar giraffe of a girl on board an
imitation mule. She was sittin' facin' the stern an' listin' hard to
starboard. She tries to make port in front of the station, but the mule
he heads into the wind an' she jumps ov