After a time Miss Coburn joined them, and, the Ford car being brought out, the party set off on their excursion. They visited a part of the wood where the trees were larger than near the sawmill, and had a pleasant though uneventful afternoon. The evening they spent as before at the Coburns' house.

Next day the friends invited their hosts to join them in a trip up the river. Hilliard tactfully interested the manager in the various "gadgets" he had fitted up in the launch, and Merriman's dream of making tea with Miss Coburn materialized. The more he saw of the gentle, brown-eyed girl, the more he found his heart going out to her, and the more it was borne in on him that life without her was becoming a prospect more terrible than he could bring himself to contemplate.

They went up-stream on the flood tide for some twenty miles, until the forest thinned away and they came on vineyards. There they went ashore, and it was not until the shades of evening were beginning to fall that they arrived back at the clearing.

As they swung round the bend in sight of the wharf Mr. Coburn made an exclamation.

"Hallo!" he cried. "There's the Girondin. She has made a good run. We weren't expecting her for another three or four hours."

At the wharf lay a vessel of about 300 tons burden, with bluff, rounded bows sitting high up out of the water, a long, straight waist, and a bridge and cluster of deckhouses at the stern.

"Our motor ship," Mr. Coburn explained with evident pride. "We had her specially designed for carrying the pit-props, and also for this river. She only draws eight feet. You must come on board and have a look over her."