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 CHAPTER X

EN had not much time for these visits. The Sturgis Water Line was so popular that he could not even find a spare day or two in which to haul out the Dutchman and give her the "lick of paint" she needed. He had feared that, with the filling of the cottages at the beginning of the season, business would fall off, but so many weekly visitors came and went at the hotels that the Dutchman rarely made a trip entirely empty, and quite often she was forced to leave, till the next time, a little heap of luggage which even her wide cockpit could not carry. Sometimes Ken made an extra trip, which brought him back to the pier at Asquam as the first twilight was gathering.

He had just come in from such an "extra," one day during the busy Fourth of July weekend, and climbed out upon the wharf when the 121