Leslie's Loyalty - Charles Garvice

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else, found the desire irresistible. Half unconsciously he took up a stone and shied it at the end pile of the breakwater. He missed it, mechanically took another aim, and hit it, then he absently found a piece of wood—the fragment of some wreck which had gone down outside in the bay, perhaps—and threw that as far as he could into the sullen, angry waves, which rolled and showed their teeth along the sand.

      A minute, perhaps two, afterward, he heard a cry of distress behind him, and looking round saw Leslie standing and gazing seaward, with a troubled, anxious look in her gray eyes.

      Yorke was astounded. What on earth had happened? Had she caught sight of a vessel going down, a boat upset—what?

      She began to run down the beach, her small feet touching the big bowlders with the lightness and confidence of familiarity, and once more she cried out in distress.

      Yorke strode after her, and gained her side.

      "What's the matter?" he shouted above the dull sea roar.

      She turned her face to him with a piteous look of entreaty and alarm.

      "Dick! It's Dick!" she said.

      "Dick! Who—which—where?" he demanded, looking in the direction of her eyes.

      "It's a little dog—there!" she answered, quickly, and pointing. "A little black and tan, don't you see him? Ah, he is so small!"

      "I see him!" said Yorke. "What's he doing out there? And can't he swim?"

      "Yes, oh, yes, but the tide is going out, and he has got too far, and the current is dreadfully strong. Oh, poor, poor Dick! He went out after a piece of wood or something that some one threw."

      Yorke flushed. He felt as guilty and uncomfortable as if he had been detected in an act of killing a human being.

      "See, he cannot make any way! Oh, poor little Dick! I am—so—sorry. I am so fond of him, and he is such a nice——." She stopped and turned her head away as if she could not go on, and could look no longer.

      "I threw the piece of wood," said Yorke. "I didn't see the dog; he's so small—oh, for goodness sake, don't cry! It's all right."

      He got out of his coat with the cool quickness of a man who is used to emergencies in the sporting way, and running across the sand, sprang into the sea, and struck out.

      Leslie was too astonished for a moment to realize what he had done, then she raised her voice with a warning cry.

      "The current!" she called to him. "The current. Oh, come back, please come back!"

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      Yorke soon found himself out of his depth, and almost as quickly discovered what the young lady meant by shouting, "The current!" But he was a good swimmer—there was scarcely anything Yorke Auchester could not do, except earn his living—and, though he found his boots and clothes very much in the way, he got through the waves at a fair pace, and reached the black and tan.

      Saving a fellow creature is hard work enough, but it is almost as bad to rescue a dog, even so small a one as Dick, from a watery grave.

      When Yorke had succeeded in getting hold of him with one hand Dick commenced to scratch and claw, no doubt under the impression that the great big man had come to hasten his death rather than prevent it, and Yorke was compelled to swim on his back, and hold the clawing, struggling little terrier pressed hard against his chest.

      It was hard work getting back, but he found himself touching the sand at last, and scrambling to his feet waded through what remained of the water, and set Dick upon his four legs at Leslie's feet.

      Of course the little imp, after shaking the water off his diminutive carcase, barked furiously at his preserver.

      Now the handsomest man—and, for that matter, the prettiest woman also—is not improved in appearance by a bath; that is, before he has dried himself and brushed his hair.

      The salt water was running off Yorke's tall figure at all points; his short hair was stuck to his forehead; his mustache drooped, his eyes were blinking, and his clothes adhered to him as if they loved him better than a brother. He didn't look in the least heroic, but extremely comical, and Leslie's first impulse was to laugh.

      But the laugh did not—indeed, would not—come, and she picked up the damp Dick and hugged him, and looked over his still snarling countenance at his preserver with a sudden shyness in her eyes and a heightened color in her face.

      She looked so supremely lovely as she stood thus that Yorke forgot his sensation of stickiness, and gazed at her with a sudden thrill agitating his heart.

      Leslie found her voice at last, but there only came softly, slowly, the commonplace—

      "Thank you."

      It sounded so terribly commonplace and insufficient that she made an effort and added:

      "It was very kind of you to take so much trouble. How wet you must be! You must not stand about."

      Yorke smiled, and knocked the hair from his forehead and wrung his shirt sleeves.

      "It's all right," he said. "It was my fault. If I hadn't chucked the piece of wood he wouldn't have gone in. He hasn't come to any harm apparently."

      "Oh, no, no. He's all right," said Leslie. "He can swim very well when the tide is coming in, but when it is going out it is too strong for him, and—he would have been drowned if you had not gone after him," and her eyes dropped.

      "Poor little chap," said Yorke, putting on his coat. "That would never have done, would it, doggie?"

      "It is a very dangerous place for bathing," said Leslie. "The current is very strong, and that is why I called out."

      "Yes thanks," he said, to spare her the embarrassment of explaining that sudden frightened cry of hers. "I could feel that. But I have to thank Dick for an enjoyable bath, all the same. I suppose he will never forgive me; the person whose life you save never does."

      He sat down on the breakwater and began to empty his pockets. There were several papers—bills—reduced to semi-pulp; Yorke did not sorrow over them. His watch had stopped; his cigars and cigar case were irretrievably ruined. He held them up with a laugh, and laid them on top of the breakwater in the sun; then suddenly his happy-go-lucky expression grew rather grave as he took up an envelope and looked at it.

      "By George!" he said. "All the rest doesn't matter, but this doesn't belong to me."

      Leslie stood and looked down at him anxiously. She was thinking of colds and rheumatism, while the young fellow sat so perfectly contented in his wet clothes.

      "Don't you think—had you not better go home and change your things as quickly as possible?" she said, forgetting her shyness in her anxiety.

      He looked up from the envelope.

      "Why, I shall be dry in ten minutes," he said, carelessly, "and I sha'n't take any harm if I'm not. I never caught cold in my life; besides, salt water never hurts."

      Leslie shook her head gravely.

      "I don't believe that; it's a fallacy," she said. "Some of the old fishermen here suffer terribly from rheumatism."

      "That's because they're old, you see," he said, smiling up at her. "And if you think it's so dangerous hadn't you better put Master Dick down? He is making you awfully wet."

      She shook her head, and held Dick all the more tightly.

      "I

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