Part 24

Something in the confidence of her manner made him go to the door again and look out. There was scarcely any current now, and the cabin seemed motionless. Even the wind, which might have acted upon it, was wanting. They were apparently in the same position as before, but his sounding-line showed that the water was slightly falling. He came back and imparted the fact with a certain confidence born of her previous praise of his knowledge. To his surprise she only laughed and said lazily, “We'll be all right, and you'll be free, in about two hours.”

“I see no sign of it,” he said, looking through the door again.

“That's because you're looking in the water and the sky and the mud for it,” she said, with a laugh. “I reckon you've been trained to watch them things a heap better than to study the folks about here.”

“I daresay you're right,” said Hemmingway cheerfully, “but I don't clearly see what the folks about here have to do with our situation just now.”

“You'll see,” she said, with a smile of mischievous mystery. “All the same,” she added, with a sudden and dangerous softness in her eyes, “I ain't sayin' that YOU ain't kinder right neither.”

An hour ago he would have laughed at the thought that a mere look and sentence like this from the girl could have made his heart beat. “Then I may go on and talk?”

She smiled, but her eyes said, “Yes,” plainly.

He turned to take a chair near her. Suddenly the cabin trembled, there was a sound of scraping, a bump, and then the whole structure tilted to one side and they were both thrown violently towards the corner, with a swift inrush of water. Hemmingway quickly caught the girl by the waist; she clung to him instinctively, yet still laughing, as with a desperate effort he succeeded in dragging her to the upper side of the slanting cabin, and momentarily restoring its equilibrium. They remained for an instant breathless. But in that instant he had drawn her face to his and kissed her.

She disengaged herself gently with neither excitement nor emotion, and pointing to the open door said, “Look there!”

Two of the logs which formed the foundation of their floor were quietly floating in the water before the cabin! The submerged obstacle or snag which had torn them from their fastening was still holding the cabin fast. Hemmingway saw the danger. He ran along the narrow ledge to the point of contact and unhesitatingly leaped into the icy cold water. It reached his armpits before his feet struck the obstacle,--evidently a stump with a projecting branch. Bracing himself against it, he shoved off the cabin. But when he struck out to follow it, he found that the log nearest him was loose and his grasp might tear it away. At the same moment, however, a pink calico arm fluttered above his head, and a strong grasp seized his coat collar. The cabin half revolved as the girl dragged him into the open door.

“You bantam!” she said, with a laugh, “why didn't you let ME do that? I'm taller than you! But,” she added, looking at his dripping clothes and dragging out a blanket from the corner, “I couldn't dry myself as quick as you kin!” To her surprise, however, Hemmingway tossed the blanket aside, and pointing to the floor, which was already filmed with water, ran to the still warm stove, detached it from its pipe, and threw it overboard. The sack of flour, bacon, molasses, and sugar, and all the heavier articles followed it into the stream. Relieved of their weight the cabin base rose an inch or two higher. Then he sat down and said, “There! that may keep us afloat for that 'couple of hours' you speak of. So I suppose I may talk now!”

“Ye haven't no time,” she said, in a graver voice. “It won't be as long as a couple of hours now. Look over thar!”

He looked where she pointed across the gray expanse of water. At first he could see nothing. Presently he saw a mere dot on its face which at times changed to a single black line.

“It's a log, like these,” he said.

“It's no log. It's an Injun dug-out*--comin' for me.”

* A canoe made from a hollowed log.

“Your father?” he said joyfully.

She smiled pityingly. “It's Tom Flynn. Father's got suthin' else to look arter. Tom Flynn hasn't.”

“And who's Tom Flynn?” he asked, with an odd sensation.

“The man I'm engaged to,” she said gravely, with a slight color.

The rose that blossomed on her cheek faded in his. There was a moment of silence. Then he said frankly, “I owe you some apology. Forgive my folly and impertinence a moment ago. How could I have known this?”

“You took no more than you deserved, or that Tom would have objected to,” she said, with a little laugh. “You've been mighty kind and handy.”

She held out her hand; their fingers closed together in a frank pressure. Then his mind went back to his work, which he had forgotten,--to his first impressions of the camp and of her. They both stood silent, watching the canoe, now quite visible, and the man that was paddling it, with an intensity that both felt was insincere.

“I'm afraid,” he said, with a forced laugh, “that I was a little too hasty in disposing of your goods and possessions. We could have kept afloat a little longer.”

“It's all the same,” she said, with a slight laugh; “it's jest as well we didn't look too comf'ble--to HIM.”

He did not reply; he did not dare to look at her. Yes! It was the same coquette he had seen last night. His first impressions were correct.

The canoe came on rapidly now, propelled by a powerful arm. In a few moments it was alongside, and its owner leaped on the platform. It was the gentleman with his trousers tucked in his boots, the second voice in the gloomy discussion in the general store last evening. He nodded simply to the girl, and shook Hemmingway's hand warmly.

Then he made a hurried apology for his delay: it was so difficult to find “the lay” of the drifted cabin. He had struck out first for the most dangerous spot,--the “old clearing,” on the right bank, with its stumps and new growths,--and it seemed he was right. And all the rest were safe, and “nobody was hurt.”