A Fool There Was

Schuyler, Tom Blake and Kathryn Blair were defying the laws of nature in a thirty foot knockabout, much to the unspo

, bowing, "present company, of course, excepted.... Yes, sir. If you two old ninnies don't

widow of Jimmy Blair, placing her arm about the

waved his h

dashed handsome boys, too, they are-get it from their mothers," he bowed elaborately to Mrs. Jon Stuyvesant Schuyler and to Mrs. Thomas Cathcart Blake, then added a look of contempt for, and at their husbands. "Yes, sir," he went on, "they're fine boys, two of 'em-no d

, and bracing muscular legs against the swirling seas that, leaping over the low freeboard, tried to swirl him off among them. Kathryn Blair, leaned lithely against the weather rail, little, white-canvas-shod feet braced, skirts whipping about her slender body, rounded arms

nst them. The little boat leaped forward from crest to crest, stopping between to shake th

rd pitch of the boat, balancing herself lightly, as

this

waist deep in a swooping

hore was clos

Schuyler, on the after overhang, scrambled fast to take in the s

on a pivot. The wind filled the sail;

as a great, grinding crack, followed by the sna

im fair upon the brow. Kathryn, springing to catch him, was hit b

He struck out, blindly, frenziedly. His hand felt something that was not canvas and yet was cloth-struck, and gripped. Then, holding his breath still unti

ried in her ear

. Her firm, white fingers gripped the cut

r where he had seen Schuyler disappear. Four st

mething. Again he pulled

surface. It was Schuyl

him; he set his teeth. He caught Schuyler by the neck of his

t, with his free

s strong, young body he threw into those long, quivering strokes. He must get to the boat! He must! The shore was too far away.... He

earer.... He kept on, doggedly.... He could feel that his strokes were getting weaker; his mouth was under water more than ha

not; he thought he did; that was all. Then, suddenly, his fingers caught a rope; the face was

the rope in his fingers.... Then he knew that it was she-that the face was real, and the rope.... Went surging through his mind

ch by inch, fought their way along the rope. At length they reached the side of the swamped knockabout.... Blake crawled upon its slippery deck. He lay

esse," and two sailors were in the launch.... They reached the side of the knockabout as Blake and Kathryn were dragging Jack Schuyler from the water; and they took hi

had to-to take off pa

y, when he came to the surface, he had his arm around Kathryn Blair, and she had his long

ustr