Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/231

 ing spot you-all have put in my career," he said. "Good-by! I surely am glad to have met you, too, Miss Kirkland. I'll shove your boat off."

He gave the Cymba a push that sent her ten feet from the gangway and ran up to the deck, where he stood waving his cap.

"Steve is a nice child," said Elspeth, as they pulled away, "but he's so very young and strenuous. Are you steering, Garth, or are you asleep? We don't want to go into Quimpaug just at present."

"I'm not asleep," said Garth, hastily pulling the yoke-lines. "I was just looking at those movies."

The destroyers stayed all the next day, filling the harbor with busy life and movement. The clear sound of their bells swung across the water; their launches zig-zagged perpetually back and forth; the signal-flags fluttered up and down; the men semaphored endlessly. But the following morning Silver Shoal woke to find an empty bay.

"They've gone!" Garth lamented, as Joan came downstairs. "Just gone, before we were awake, Oh, I wanted them to stay longer!"

They had slipped out, like gray wraiths in the