But his
laughter alarmed the girl, who ran to the door, crying, "What is it,
Brian?"
"Look!" he shouted, madly, and pointed toward the river. "Look, Betty
Jo!"
Martha Kent, alone in one of the clubhouse boats, was rowing with
drunken clumsiness toward the head of the Elbow Rock rapids.
The woman's friends had missed her, and, guessing, from some remark she
had made, where she had gone, had sent four men of the party after her;
for they realized that she was in no condition to be alone in a boat
on the river, particularly on that part of the stream near Auntie Sue's
place. After leaving Brian and Betty Jo, she had gone back to her boat
in the eddy at the foot of the garden, and was pulling out into the
stream when she saw her friends approaching. With a drunken laugh, she
waved her hand, and began rowing from them directly toward the swift
water. The men shouted for her to stop, and pulled with all their
strength. But the woman, taking their calls as a challenge, rowed the
harder, while every awkward pull of the oars carried her nearer the
deadly grip of the current.
Betty Jo, as she reached Brian's side, and saw what was happening on the
river, grasped the man's arm appealingly, with a cry: "Brian! Brian! She
is going into the rapids! She will be carried down to Elbow Rock!"
But Brian Kent, for the moment, was beside himself.
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