"Here, my girl," he commanded in a voice of the seas. "Lean on me and come up to the station. Come along," this to the other scouts, "and you young ones keep back there," to the boys.
Louise took a few steps, then faltered. As if expecting this the captain stooped and lifted her in his arms, and it was a sight to remember, to see that old sailor, trudge along through the sands with the little girl scout almost on his broad shoulders.
And the remainder of the True Tred Troop were pressing along at his heels.
"Keep back there, keep away," warned the kind officer to the surging crowd, for the unspoken admiration for the Girl Scouts was now mounting high.
Tommie Johnson was so proud of "his friends" that something like mutiny seemed imminent in the boys' ranks.
"I told you, I told you!" he kept repeating, quite as if he had foretold the entire occurrence, when he only really referred to the courage of the Girl Scouts.
Up in the life saving station guards vied with one another in making hot tea, and giving such administrations as might benefit Louise, while she waited a few moments before being permitted to get in any one of the many cars, offered to take her home.
"But I am really only wet now," she insisted finally, "and I want to get out of this heavy uniform."
Realizing her mother might have heard any of the possible wild rumors, Captain Dave helped her into Cleo's car and very proud indeed, was the old sailor, of the wig wag rescue.
"No surprise to me," he told his men. "Those girls have the grit many a boy might well boast of, and when I saw her drop from that pier I did not have to hold my breath. I knew she'd make it."
"But how did she see that speck of a canoe creep around the pier?" asked Jim Barstow, the oldest member of the crew next to Captain Dave.
"Maybe she felt it," said the captain. "'Taint likely much would happen to Kitty without that little girl feeling it." But his men knew nothing of the trust he was recalling, that might have formed the link of confidence between the scouts and Kitty Scuttle.
Elizabeth, wise little friend, had rushed from the pavilion to the home of Louise, to make sure no report of drowning should reach the ears of the anxious mother.
"It was the most glorious sight," Elizabeth was just insisting when Gerald drew up with the blue car, and Louise jumped out into her mother's arms.