Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/286

260 drumming, flamboyant chariot which had swooped down from the big hotel five miles to the northward. When the car became a swerving speck and then vanished beyond a feathery clump of cabbage palms, the youth turned back to the station muttering:

"Now that Tarpon Inlet has closed up, I suppose we'll be pestered to death with these silly tourists. But, whew! it was like getting letters from home to see my kind of people again. I'd forgotten what they looked like."

The lusty surfman rubbed his tousled head as was his habit when restless or perplexed, and focused his irritation on the red-roofed cottage in which hitherto he had found contentment.

"This life-saving business in Florida is all tommy-rot. Here it is the middle of winter, no ice and sleet, no storms, nothing you ever read about to fit in with this game. I'm due to take a day off and get away from it."

He flung himself into the house, past the surf -boat that filled the lower floor, and climbed to the airy living-room above.