"Pshaw! Who's going to take him down the river to-night? You're goin' to be married to-morrow. If you like, you can give him the canoe. It'll never come back, nor him neither!"
"You've been down with me," she responded suggestively. "And you went down once by yourself."
He shook his head. "I ain't been so well this summer. My sight ain't what it was. I can't stand the racket as I once could. 'Pears to me I'm gettin' old. No, I couldn't take them rapids, Jinny, not for one frozen minute."
She looked at him with trouble in her eyes, and her face lost some of its colour. She was fighting back the inevitable, even as its shadow fell upon her. "You wouldn't want a man to die, if you could save him, Uncle Tom—blown up, sent to Kingdom Come without any warning at all; and perhaps he's got them that love him—and the world so beautiful."
"Well, it ain't nice dyin' in the summer, when it's all sun, and there's plenty everywhere; but there's no one to go down the river with him. What's his name?"
Her struggle was over. She had urged him, but in very truth she was urging herself all the time, bringing herself to the axe of sacrifice.
"His name's Dingley. I'm going down the river with him—down to Bindon."
The old man's mouth opened in blank amazement. His eyes blinked helplessly.
"What you talkin' about, Jinny! Jake's comin' up with the minister, an' you're goin' to be married at noon to-morrow."
"I'm takin' him"—she jerked her head towards the room where Dingley was —"down Dog Nose Rapids to-night. He's risked his life for his friend, thinkin' of her that's dead an' gone, and a man's life is a man's life. If it was Jake's life in danger, what'd I think of a woman that could save him, and didn't?"