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 They sat staring incredulously over the side of the boat at the bobbing cushion and paddle; and for a long and disturbing minute neither of them spoke again. Then she put a trembling hand upon his arm. "Ought we—ought we to've made him come with us, Platter?"

"That's what everybody'll say, I guess," he answered huskily. He coughed, and his tone became querulous. "You heard me warn him. You can prove I did. You heard me tell him he had no business to be out here in that"

"Platter!" she cried, interrupting him, in sharpest distress. "You mean you think if anything's happened they'll blame us?"

"I guess they will."

"But why? How could people be so terrible? We didn't have a thing to do with it—not a thing! We told him it was dangerous for him to be out here in that canoe; we begged him to get in our boat."

"Yes. I know; but they'll say"

"It's just horrible!" she said, and she began to cry. "We tried to make him come with us, and if something's happened to him it was absolutely his own fault, and if people—if they could be so mean