Chapter IV: What Max DID

Max ran up the beach at top speed, intent upon finding his "chum," and telling him that Gwen was actually in the tub, and then, daring him to race back and see her floating about in the shallow water.

Max and Jack had wagered a quantity of marbles that no girl, not even Gwen Harcourt, would dare to float in the rough old tub.

When Max reached the place where Jack had promised to wait for him, Jack was no where to be seen.

"Scamp!" cried Max. "He's gone off so as not to pay over those marbles I won. Well, he'll not get off so easy, for I'll find him, and _make_ him pay!"

With never a thought of Gwen, he started along the beach to search for Jack.

"Well, I'd not be mean enough to skin out like that," he cried as he hurried over the hard, damp sands. He thought it very mean to elude paying the little bet, and as he ran, he told himself that he would have promptly paid the marbles if he had owed them to Jack, which was true.

Jack was mischievous, but he would never have left a little girl in the plight in which Max, with all his boasting, had left Gwen.

And although Max Deland searched in every place where Jack was likely to be, he did not find him.

"I'll not hunt for him!" he cried at last, "but I'll make him pay when I catch him!"

"Max! Max Deland!"

The voice was shrill and piping.

"Hello! Where are you?" Max shouted in reply, and the trim waitress from her position on the ledge, cried back;

"It's not where I am, but where you are that's worrying your mother. You're the first boy I ever saw that had to be called to dinner. Come in!"

She turned and ran into the house, while Max rushed toward the big dining-room.

He thought of Gwen during dinner, but he felt no fear for her safety. He believed that she had soon become tired of floating in the shallow water, had sprung from the leaky tub, and for hours had been playing with her friends.

That was not the case, however. Gwen, crouching in the tub, had waited quite patiently, watching for Max who was to return with Jack, while the tub bobbed and danced on the shallow water, and for a time she had found it rather amusing.

The clumsy craft had floated lightly, now toward the beach, now away, and she felt no fear because as often as a receding wave took her a few feet from the beach, an incoming wave brought her back.

Then the unexpected happened.

The tide had been turning, and a big wave snatched at the tub, bearing it farther out than it had yet been, while the next inrolling wave went up onto the beach without so much as touching it.

Gwen screamed with fright, when she saw that now the tub was steadily going away from the shore.

There was no one in sight, and she sank in a little heap on the bottom of the tub, too tired to continue shouting, and frightened at the thought of drifting out to sea.

The gulls flew down and looked at her as if wondering what she might be, and Gwen cowered, afraid of their great, flapping wings.

No one could say what might have happened, but just at the moment when her last bit of courage had fled, a fortunate thing occurred.

A tiny fishing craft was coming in, and as it neared the shore, one of the crew spied the floating tub, then a few moments later the man exclaimed:

"Why, there's a child in that leaky old tub, as true as I live!"

"Hi, there!" he shouted, and Gwen looked up, and wildly waved her hands.

"Sit still!" he commanded, "or something'll happen. Keep still, an' we'll pull ye in when ye come 'long side."

Very thankful was Gwen when later, she found herself safe on the deck, the rough tub bobbing away across the waves, while the fishermen listened to her story of the trick that Max had played.

"If that boy was mine I know what he'd get, for doing a mean trick like that!" said one man, to which another responded:

"And I'd be glad ter help ye give it ter him."

One would have thought that Mrs. Harcourt might have been anxious because of Gwen's long absence, and her non-appearance at the noon meal, but such was not the case.

Some one at the table spoke of Gwen, asking if she were ill.

"Oh, dear no!" Mrs. Harcourt said, with a light laugh; "Gwen is never ill, but she is so very popular that when she does not appear at meal time, I know that someone has urged her to lunch at her home. Gwen is dearly loved, and so is constantly being coaxed to remain at this house or that."

The other guests could not be blamed if they wondered who it might be who continually longed to have Gwen as a guest.

When the noon meal was over, the guests made their way out onto the piazza, seating themselves in little groups for an afternoon of chat and gossip.

Some of the ladies were doing fancy work with gay colored silks. Mrs. Harcourt always brought her embroidery frame to the piazza. Not that she did much needlework, but she thought it looked well to have it with her, even if she talked for hours, while the frame lay idle in her lap.

Someone said that the same piece of work was in the frame that was in it on the day of her arrival weeks before.

She had taken a seat at the far end of the piazza, and she now looked about her to see who might be near her.

A tall matron, standing at a short distance, turned, and seeing a large rocker behind Mrs. Harcourt, walked slowly over, and seated herself in it. She had just arrived, and so had not yet seen Gwen.

Here was a chance to talk to a listener who did not know her little daughter, and Mrs. Harcourt grasped it.

"You doubtless heard me telling the others how everyone loves my small girl," she said.

"Yes, I heard what you said," the woman replied, in a manner that implied her lack of interest, but Mrs. Harcourt did not notice that.

"Well, really, when you see Gwen, you will not wonder, for you, like everyone else, will enjoy her. She's _so_ original."

Just at this point those who sat near the railing noticed two odd looking figures toiling up the rough-hewn stairway on the cliff.

Those who watched them turned to exchange amused glances, and then look toward Mrs. Harcourt.

Quite unaware of what was going on, Mrs. Harcourt continued:

"As I was saying, Gwen is really very unusual, and original, and at the same time, she is so very sweet tempered, that----," but the sentence was interrupted by the appearance upon the piazza of a rough looking fisherman, and a drenched, and very dirty small girl, whose sailor frock was wet with sea water, and be-daubed with cement. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, her hair had lost its ribbon, and hung about her face. Truly she did not look attractive.

"Could any of you fine ladies put down your needles long 'nough ter hear where I found this little lass?" said the man, "fer she looks like she needed 'tendin' to."

Gwen could at once have run to her mother, but she chose to cling to the fisherman's rough hand, and be gazed upon as an abused child. Mrs. Harcourt, trying to decide which shade of silk to use, did not even look up. She did not dream that Gwen had returned.

So surprised were the guests that, for the moment, no one spoke, and the man continued:

"Me'n' my mates found her floating out ter sea in a ol' tub what the carpenters had been usin' fer cement, an' we pulled her in. As the tub was a leakin', I guess 'twas 'bout time 'less ye wanted her ter be drownded."

A shrill cry from Mrs. Harcourt followed by the sound of hurrying feet, and then:

"Oh, Gwen, my dear! Come away from that rough man!" she cried, and the instant silence showed the disgust that her words had provoked.

"Wal, I s'pose that's the kind of thanks that a poor feller can expect from a lady 'ristocrat!" said the fisherman as he turned to go, "but I'll say one thing more, an' that is that the young lad named Max is 'sponsible for the mischief. It was him what coaxed the little lass inter that ol' tub, an' then run off ter play."

"Three cheers for this man!" cried a young fellow who had listened intently, and the guests responded with a will, and Mrs. Harcourt from the hall whence she had vanished with Gwen, wondered what it was all about.

She considered herself a cultured woman, yet she had not spoken one grateful word to the man who had rescued Gwen from her perilous position!

Of course Max denied that he had intended to play a trick on Gwen. He was a coward, and a coward rarely cares to "own up" when guilty.

Instead, he insisted that he only "dared" her to get into the tub, but that he never thought she would stay in it a moment after he was out of sight.

His mother believed him; the guests did not, but little cared Max. So long as she thought him perfect, he was quite happy, because he could do, at all times, exactly as he chose. That he usually chose to be very disagreeable was not to be wondered at.

His mother thought his pranks most amusing, and his saucy speeches, smart, so he was quite content.

The oddest part of all was that Gwen really liked Max Deland. He was always getting her into scrapes, and as soon as she had escaped from one, she was ready for another.

Max never helped her. Instead, he left her to help herself. Gwen was wilful with all of her girl playmates, but she would agree to anything that Max proposed, so when, in the afternoon of the following day, he told her that he was going to take a long tramp, Gwen was wild to know just where he was going, and coaxed to go too.

"_Where_ are you going?" she asked for the third time.

"Oh, somewhere great!" Max said with a provoking chuckle.

"It would serve you just right if I said I didn't care where you went, but I do care, because I want to go too," Gwen said.

"I only wanted to tease you," Max replied, "and I'll let you go with me, Gwen. Turn 'round and look at that high hill over back of the house where we're staying. I'm going to climb to the top of that hill, and go down on the other side, just to see what there is 'round behind that hill."

"Then why don't you walk around it, instead of climbing?" questioned Gwen.

"Smarty!" Max said, at he same time looking very unpleasant.

"Oh, I don't care," Gwen hastened to say. "I like to climb. Come on!"

It did not look like much of a hill, but it proved to be hard to climb, for its sides were steep, and covered with wiry grass.

The sun was hot, and long before reaching the top, Gwen wished that she had not started at all.

Twice she stopped to take short pieces of stems or dry twigs from her slippers, and often the thorny branches of the low bushes scratched her bare arms.

Her sleeves were short, and thus her arms were unprotected. Max's arms were covered by his jacket sleeves.

"What a fuss you make over a little scratch!" he said, sharply.

"I'm _not_ fussing over _a_ scratch!" snapped Gwen. "I'm fussing over 'bout a hundred scratches!"

"Oh,--o--o!" Max drawled, as if he doubted the number.

"Well, look!" cried Gwen, holding her little arms red with scratches.

"Too bad," Max said, and Gwen, surprised, and pleased, followed him, as he made his way just ahead of her, holding back the bushes.

"Oh, Max, you're good," she said, and Max blushed at her praise. He thought himself exceedingly good, but he was delighted that Gwen thought so.

"This hill didn't look so very high, when we stood on the beach and looked back at it," said Gwen.

"N-no," admitted Max, "but all the same I'm glad we started early, and we'll reach the top 'fore long. Then we'll see what's on the other side, and when we climb down, we can just run around on the level ground, and tell the folks where we've been, and what a climb we had!"

"Oh, yes," agreed Gwen, and once more they pushed forward, and up toward the summit, that seemed, no matter how long they climbed, to be not the least bit nearer.

For a time they climbed in silence, when, all at once, Gwen tripped over a loose root, and promptly sat down.

"I'll have to rest a few minutes," she said.

"I'll sit down because you do," Max said. He would not say that he, too, was tired.

He was not contented long to sit resting, and soon the two were once more trudging up the steep incline, Max leading the way, and Gwen, following close behind him.

"We're 'most to the top," he said, at last, to which Gwen replied:

"I don't believe it! The more we climb, the farther away it seems, and I do believe that horrid old hilltop moves away as fast as it sees us coming!"

"Now, Gwen, you know better! Just look!" Max said, and Gwen looked.

"Well,--the top isn't any farther off than it was the last time I looked up," she said, grudgingly.

She knew that it looked nearer, but she could not bear to say that.

"It's nearer, and you know it!" Max declared, stoutly. "Come on!"

"Wait till I fix my shoe," wailed Gwen.

"I'll bet that's the tenth time you've stopped to pull your shoe off since we started to climb this hill," Max cried in disgust.

Gwen was about to say that she should stop again if she wished to, but a glance at Max caused her to change her mind. His face was far from pleasing, so without a word, she fastened her shoe, and silently the two tramped on.

Max was wishing that he had taken the trip alone.

Gwen heartily wished that she had remained on the beach.

She was not only tired, but her feet were sore and blistered.

Max walked ahead, and Gwen found it hard work to keep up.

"Oh, Max!" she cried at last, "Do wait for me!" but Max either did not hear, or hearing, refused to wait, and Gwen, unable to take another step, sank down on the coarse grass and burst into tears.