ed up
among the writhing coils. Then a slim white arm with a little brown hand
swept the long hair away from a pair of dancing eyes, and the swimmer came
slipping through the water like a seal.

But suddenly, some stronger coil of the waters below caught the glancing
white limbs. They sprawled awry from their stroke, a startled look dimmed
the dancing eyes with a strain of fear.

"Phil!"

And in a moment the boy in the boat had drawn in his oars, and kicked off
his shoes, and was ploughing sturdily through the belching coils.

"You're all right, Carette," he cried, as he drove up alongside, and the
swimmer grasped hurriedly at his extended arm. "We've done stiffer bits
than this. Now--rest a minute!--All right?--Come on then for the boat. Here
you are!--Hang on till I get in!"

He drew himself up slowly, and hung for a moment while the water poured out
of his clothes. Then, with a heave and a wild kick in the air, he was
aboard, and turned to assist his companion. He grasped the little brown
hands and braced his foot against the gunwale. "Now!" and she came up over
the side like a lovely white elf, and sank panting among the golden-brown
coils of vraic.

"It was silly of you to jump in there, you know," said the boy over his
shoulder, as he sat down to his oars and headed for Pierre au Norman again.
"The Race is too strong for you. I've told you so before."

"You do it yourself," she panted.

"I'm a boy and I'm stronger than you."

"I can swim as fast as you."

"But I can last longer, and the Race is too strong for me sometimes."

"B'en! I knew you'd pick me up."

"Well, don't you ever do it when I'm not here, or some day the black snake
will get you and you'll never come up again."

He was pulling steadily now through the backwater of Havre Gosselin;--past
the iron clamps let into the face of the rock, up and down which the
fishermen climbed like flies;--past the moored boats;--avoiding hidden
rocks by the instinct of constant usage, till his boat slid up among the
weed-cushioned boulders of the shore, and he drew in his oars and laid them
methodically along the thwarts.

The small girl jumped out and wallowed in the warm lip of the tide, and
finally squatted in it with her brown hands clasped round her pink-white
knees,--unabashed, unashamed, absolutely innocent of any possible necessity
for either,--as lovely a picture as all those coasts could show.

Her long hair, dark with the water, hung in wet