THE BET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE BET.

(By MAUREEN BURNS, 92, Victoria Road, Devonport, N.l, age lti. Original.)

"Where are you going, Phil?" asked Joan, as her cousin came into the room ■with his blazer over his arm.

"Across to Gulls' Island," replied her cousin. "Dick Sinclair ia coming with me. -We're going fishing."

"I'm coming too, then," Joan announced, dropping the book she had been reading and springing excitedly to her feet. "No, you're not," said Phil hastily. "Girls are too much of a nuisance. Besides," he added, "you don't know how to row, and it's a good mile to the island, so Dick and I will have to take it in turns." "Don't I!" responded his cousin, indignantly. "Dad's been teaching me alj the holidays, so there." "But I bet you can't all tlie same." "And I bet you I can," Joan declared determinedly, adding, "I think you re horrid, and I wouldn't come with you now if you begged me on ,your bended knees." "Girls are an awful nuisance," Phil confided to his, chum as they climbed into the dinghy and pushed off from the little jetty at the end of the bay. "Let's walk round. the cliffs to that little cove on the other side of the island," Dick suggested some half-hour later, as he helped his chum to drag the dinghy ashore. "We Can have our dinner" there and fish afterwards." Phil agreed whole-heartedly to this plan, and, having collected the lunch basket and their lines from tbe boat, they set off round the rocks. "It's worth the row across, isn't it?" Phil said enthusiastically as they sat side by side on the rocks eating sandwiches while they fished. "You bet, Dick agreed between mouthfuls of cake. "I say—hoorah, I've got a bite." He began hauling in his line quickly and a few seconds later landed a glistening snapper. The afternoon passed all too quickly, and it was after three o'clock when Phil said suddenly, "I say, how jolly cold it's getting. The sun seems to have disappeared altogether and tile sea's coming up quite rough.," he added, gazing out s across the bay. His chum eyed the darkening sky doubtfully. ' I believe we're in for a storm," lie remarked at length. "Let's pack and get back to the boat. It'll be raining soon." He turned his blazer collar up round his neck as he spoke and began to wind in his line. "We'll have to iij) over the cliffs," he continued. "The tide's too far in to go round the rocks. Grab the bag and hurry or you'll get drenched."

The two boys started off at a run Tip the grassy slope. Ten minutes Jatcr they began to descend the cliff path 011 to the bMch on the other side of the island. Already the first heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall. Halfway down Phil drew up with a startled exclamation. "Look, Dick—the dinghy —it's gone," he cried, pointing down into the ba.y. His chum, following the direction of his gaze, gasped incredulously. "I say, so it has. The tide must have come up and it's drifted away." For a few minutes the two boys regarded each other in blank dismay. Meanwhile the first few drops of rain had given place to a steady downpour and before they realised it both boys were soaked to the skin. "Let's find some sort of shelter or _ 1,. —i.

of water ran down his back. "But it serves lis right for being such asses. Wouldn't Joan laugh if she could see us now?''

But Phil wasn't listening—he was pointing excitedly out across the bay. "I say, Dick, I do believe it's a dinghy. It must be someone who was caught in the storm, and they're coining here for shelter." "It's a boat all right," exclaimed his chum. "What luck! Let's go down and see who it is before they row off again and leave us behind." llegaiuless of the drenching rain the two boys dashed clown the beach.to the water's edge. As the dinghy grounded on the shingle the rower sprang nimbly ashore. "Hullo, you two!" a familiar voice said cheerfully. "Gosh, it's Joan!" burst out Phil incredulously, "Yes, it's" mo all right," liis cousin replied, smiling up at the two dejected figures from beneath the dripping brim of her sou'-wester. "However —?" began Dick. "Why did you—?" gasped Phil. His cousin laughed and turned back to the dinghy. "For goodness' sake let's get home," she begged. "I'll explain 'everything then. I'm drenched." "There's really not very, much to explain," Joan said an hour'later as they sat huddled in armchairs before a cheerful log fire. "You see; after yon two had gone, I went for a walk into Seaville, and on the way back I got caught in the storm, so I decided to take a short cut home along the beach. I was nearly homo when I happened to catch sight of a dinghy bobbing about some hundred yards from the shore, so I dashed home and put on my oilskins, and hurried down to the beach again. By this time the dinghy had drifted (juite close in, and I was able, by wading into the sea, to drag it ashore. When I saw that it was yours I guessed almost at must have happened. As luck would have it there happened to be one of old Giles' dinghies lyiug nearby, and after a fearful lot of bother I succeeded in launching it. And then I discovered, that there weren't any oars in it, so I dashed up to the boatslied and as the door was locked I climbed in the window. Mrs. Giles saw me coming out, and I think she thought that I was a burglar, because she began calling out all kinds of things to me. |lt was fearfully rough coming across between the headlands, and I was dreadfully frightened. Once or twice the waves even came over the sides, and I began to have visions of the dinghy capsizing and myself being, flung into the SC? '"Werc vou really scared?" said Dick. "Yoil looked so jolly liappv when you jumped ashore that_ one would have imagined that you'd just been foi a joj U "Of course I was—terribly," Joan ildmitted .frankly. "Well, it was a little while later that I caught sight of you two running down the beach. I guessed that you had seen me, so I decided to row into that cove and see if I could land And the rest you know," she concluded, stooping to place another log upon the fire. , „ .. "Gollv. you've got pluck," Dick said admiringly. "Fancy rowing all that way by yourself in such a storm. „ '"And I said that you couldnt row, murmured her cousin. , "That's why I did it, Joan said i iu-Thin°lv "I wanted to prove that J. reafly "ould row." And then, "Phil, you don't think that girls are awful nuisances now, do you? Phil grinned across at his eousm. "Of course not," lie said. „ sa J> Joan, you win that bet, after all. A SUM.