"And as soon as your
boys reach home we will bring them to you. Be careful of this big
rock. Ah, here's the boat." And talking all the time, softly and
soothingly as one would to a child, Betty at last succeeded in seating
the derelict old man in the equally derelict old boat.
The girls tumbled in after him, and with a prayer in her heart Betty
pushed off from shore.
That ride back across the river was as weird and unreal as any
nightmare the girls had ever lived through. Their queer passenger,
seeming the most unreal of all, was quiet for the most part but
occasionally he would sit up and look about him wildly and could only
be soothed back to reason by Betty's sweet voice telling him of his
boys-- Jimmy and Arnold.
Somehow they reached the opposite shore, and, after pulling the boat
up among the bushes once more, they started back, the old man with
them, to Wild Rose Lodge.
CHAPTER XXV
THE OLD CROWD AGAIN
Mrs. Irving, who had been worried by their prolonged absence, met the
girls at the door as they stumbled with the almost exhausted old man
up the steps of the porch.
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