The girl stood for a moment staring out across the river. Then she sat down with her back to him.
“You are quite right,” she agreed, quietly, and bent above her shoes.
“We’ll turn the box upside down and put our clothes upon it,” went on Stewart, cheerfully. “They will keep dry there. The water isn’t very cold, probably, but we shall be mighty glad to have some dry things to get into once we are out of it.”
She did not reply, and Stewart went rapidly on with his undressing. When that was finished, he rolled his trousers, shoes and underclothing into a compact bundle inside his coat, and tied the sleeves together.
“Now I’m going to launch the raft,” he said. “Roll your clothes up inside your coat, so that nothing white will show, and wade out to me as soon as you are ready.”
“Very well,” she answered, in a low tone.
With his bundle under one arm, Stewart turned the box over and dragged it into the water. He had been shivering in the night air, but the water was agreeably warm. Placing his bundle upon the top of the box, he pushed it before him out into the stream, and was soon breast-deep. Then, holding the box against the current, he waited.
Minute after minute passed, but she did not come. He could not see the shore, but he strained his eyes toward it, wondering if he should go back, if anything had happened. So quiet and unquestioning had been her acceptance of his plan that he did not suspect the struggle waging there on the bank between girlish modesty and grim necessity.
But, at last, from the mist along the shore, a white figure emerged, dim and ghostlike in the darkness, and he heard a gentle splashing as she came toward him through the water. He raised his arm, to make certain that she saw him, then turned his head away.
Near and nearer came the splashing; then the box rocked gently as she placed her clothing on it.