It was wonderful, the manner in which that Shell girl swam!
She was like the birds which swim and dive and dip, and know of nothing
which they fear if only they are in the water far enough away from where
there is the need of stalking over soil and stone. It was not that the
Shell girl was other than at home on land. She was quite at home there and
reasonably fleet, but the creek and river had so been her element from
babyhood that the chase of the hill man had been, from the start, a sheer
absurdity.
Ab lifted himself in the waters and gazed upon the dark spot far away,
and, piqued and maddened, put forth all the swimming strength there was
left in his brawny body. It seemed for a brief time that he was almost
equal to the task of gaining upon what was little more than a dot upon the
surface far ahead. But his scant prospect of success was only momentary.
The trifling spot in the distant drifts of the river seemed to have
certain ideas of its own. The speed of its course in the water did not
abate and, in a moment, it was carried around the bend, and lost to sight.
Ab drifted to the turn and saw, below, a girl clambering into safety among
the rafts of the fishing Shell People. What she would tell them he did not
know. That was not a matter to be much considered.
There was but one thing to be done and that was to reach the land and
return to a life more strictly earthly and more comfortable.
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