The long ranks of translucent clouds sailing down the wind with their shadows flitting down the hill ahead of them were just as they had looked from the lake. Out there several racing canoes like his own danced over the whitecaps and heeled down before the puffs of wind. That puzzled him. His had been the only one of that type of canoe left on the lake because they were thought pretty risky for such treacherous water. Golfers drove off, several foursomes, and passed on up the course, but he didn’t seem to know one of them. They seemed to be having a good time, but there wasn't any of the usual loud chaffing about handicaps and bets. Even the caddies were subdued. Somehow things were different.
A tall man, with a long, clean-shaven, pleasant face sat down beside him, nursing between his knees a formidable outfit of clubs. There was something about him that stirred Ripley's recollections, but he couldn’t place him. Ripley nodded, however, and the stranger greeted him pleasantly.
"I don't think I’ve met you before. You're Mr. Ripley, aren't you? My name's Longdon."
Ripley stared a little. Where had he heard of Longdon? There was a famous racing-canoe man of that name; but somehow it stuck in Ripley's mind that the Longdon he was thinking of had been in the navy during the war and had lost his life saving a lot of others from an explosion on board a destroyer. This man couldn't be the same Longdon.
"Playing today?" asked Longdon.
Ripley shook his head. "I thought I would, but I'm a little tired," he said. "Just had a bad spill on the lake and my head doesn't seem quite right. Got a knock against the mast going over. I think I'll hunt up Jimmy and get him to go out after my canoe."
"If you don't mind, I'll walk down with you for a cigarette," Longdon said; and together they went down the slope to the boathouse, Longdon clipping dandelion heads with his putter as they strolled along. Ripley was aware of a certain restraint about his companion, as if he wanted to say something and didn't quite know how to go about it. They reached the landing, and sat down on a bench, looking out over the water and smoking in silence.
Suddenly Ripley saw a queer thing. It seemed as if the pretty scene before them rolled aside, and out there was a dory where there had been no dory before. Three men were in it, dragging for something in the lake; and alongside the dory was a capsized canoe, its green hull and a bit of white sail showing on the water.
Longdon looked at him sympathetically, but Ripley couldn't understand the look.
"Why, that's my canoe!" cried Ripley. "Jimmy must have What in the world are they dragging for?”
Longdon said: "It is your canoe. Don't you understand now?"
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