She had no reply to make to this. Neither spoke for a space, and then she cautiously stole a glance at him and was relieved to see that he was asleep. Careful to be noiseless she rose, took up a tin water pail and walked to the river.
The Humboldt rushed through a deep-cut bed, nosing its way between strewings of rock. Up the banks alders and willows grew thick, thrusting roots, hungry for the lean deposits of soil, into cracks and over stony ledges. By the edge the current crisped about a flat rock, and Susan, kneeling on this, dipped in her pail. The water slipped in in a silvery gush which, suddenly seething and bubbling, churned in the hollowed tin, nearly wrenching it from her. She leaned forward, dragging it awkwardly toward her, clutching at an alder stem with her free hand. Her head was bent, but she raised it with a jerk when she heard Courant's voice call, "Wait, I'll do it for you."
He was on the opposite bank, the trees he had broken through swishing together behind him. She lowered her head without answering, her face suddenly charged with color. Seized by an overmastering desire to escape him, she dragged at the pail, which, caught in the force of the current, leaped and swayed in her hand. She took a hurried upward glimpse, hopeful of his delayed progress, and saw him jump from the bank to a stone in mid-stream. His moccasined feet clung to its slippery surface, and for a moment he oscillated unsteadily, then gained his balance and, laughing, looked at her. For a breathing space each rested motionless, she with strained, outstretched arm, he on the rock, a film of water covering his feet. It was a moment of physical mastery without conscious thought. To each the personality of the other was so perturbing, that without words or touch, the heart beats of both grew harder, and their glances held in a gaze fixed and gleaming. The woman gained her self-possession first, and with it an animal instinct to fly from him, swiftly through the bushes.
But her flight was delayed. A stick, whirling in the current, caught between the pail's rim and handle and ground against her fingers. With an angry cry she loosed her hold, and the bucket went careening into midstream. That she had come back to harmony with her surroundings was attested by the wail of chagrin with which she greeted the accident. It was the last pail she had left. She watched Courant wade into the water after it, and forgot to run in her anxiety to see if he would get it. "Oh, good!" came from her in a gasp as he caught the handle. But when he came splashing back and set it on the rock beside her, it suddenly lost its importance, and as suddenly she became a prey to low-voiced, down-looking discomfort. A muttered "thank you," was all the words she had for him, and she got to her feet with looks directed to the arrangement of her skirt.
He stood knee-high in the water watching her, glad of her down-drooped lids, for he could dwell on the bloom that deepened under his eye.
"You haven't learned the force of running water yet," he said. "It can be very strong sometimes, so strong that a little woman's hand like yours has no power against it."
"It was because the stick caught in the handle," she muttered, bending for the pail. "It hurt my fingers."
"You've never guessed that I was called 'Running Water,' have you?"
"You?" she paused with look arrested in sudden interest. "Who calls you that?"
"Everybody—you. L'eau courante means running water, doesn't it? That's what you call me."