There was a gleam of moonlit water in his eyes, and as he dimly realized that he was on the bank of a river, strong arms bore him into the cabin of a queer-looking craft that lay moored to the forest trees. Here the boy was gently laid down, and was vaguely conscious that Brace Barlow was bidding him good-bye, when the sleepy eyelids again closed and the child passed into dream-land.
The young man stood looking at the sleeping boy for a full minute. As he did so he said softly: “Dear little chap! I hate to have you go away, and to think I may never see you again. But I suppose it’s the best thing to be done, or I wouldn’t have lifted a hand to help it along. I only hope it will come out all right, and that you’ll have a happier life in the place you’re going to than you ever could have had here. God bless you.”
It was a benediction, as well as the farewell of one brave soul to another. As he uttered it the young man slipped a bank bill between two pages of the book the boy had clasped so closely, but which had now fallen from his hands.
“It’s little enough,” he said to himself as he turned away, “but it’s all I’ve got, and may be it will help him out of a fix some time.” Then he went out to assist Uncle Phin, who was casting off the fastenings of the boat, and preparing to push it from the shore.
In another minute the clumsy old craft had swung clear of the bank, and was moving slowly down stream in the shadow of the great trees that grew to the water’s edge. Brace Barlow watched it until it became a part of the shadows, and he could no longer distinguish the white-headed figure bending over the long sweep that was made to do duty as a steering oar or rudder. Then he again mounted the seat of his light wagon, and started on his long homeward drive, feeling more lonely than he had ever felt in all his life.
CHAPTER X.
ON BOARD THE ARK.
The craft on which the old man and the sleeping boy were now slowly drifting down the broad, moonlit stream, was a tiny house-boat, such as are common on all American rivers. It had floated down, empty and ownerless, with the high waters of the preceding spring, and had stranded and been left by the receding flood at the point where Uncle Phin discovered it some weeks before. It was a small, flat-bottomed scow, on which was built a low house, ten feet long and six wide. This house contained but a single room; and beyond it, at either end, the deck of the scow projected about four feet. At each end of the house was a door, and on each side a square hole or window, that closed with a wooden shutter.
At the stern was a steering oar, as has been stated. It hung on a swivel and its long handle projected up over the end of the roof, on which the steersman stood. From each side of the roof hung a heavy sweep, by means of which the craft might be slowly propelled or turned in any desired direction. When not in use, the lower ends of these could be lifted from the water by ropes attached to their blades, and fastened to the sides of the house. A rude ladder reached from each of the small end decks to the top of the roof. The whole affair was strong and in good condition, but rough and unpainted.
When it came down with the flood and stranded on the river bank, it contained nothing in the shape of furniture, save a couple of bunks built against the sides, the same number of rough benches, and several shelves put up here and there in convenient corners.
Uncle Phin had not thought of making use of this stranded craft, when he first found it among the trees that he was marking to be cut down for firewood. He slept in it one night, and merely regarded it as a convenient shelter that he could occupy when working in that distant and lonely place. When, however, he and Arthur conceived the idea of running away, and he made up his mind that if they did, it must be to travel in the direction of Dalecourt, a vision of the little old house-boat crossed his mind.