“Didn’t you? Well, it got across the country to Manhattan Island—that’s where I was when it reached me,” and she smiled quizzically. “You know Mrs. Huzzard writes me letters sometimes.”
“And do you mean—did she—”
“Yes, she did—mentioned your name very kindly, too,” she said, as he hesitated in a confused way. Then, with all the gladness of home-coming in her heart and her desire that no heart should be left heavy, she added: 345 “And, really, as I told you before, I don’t think you need much help.”
The kindly, smiling eyes of the man thanked her, as he drove the canoe through the clear waters. Above them the stars were commencing to gleam faintly, and all the sweet odors of the dusk floated by them, and the sweetest seemed to come to her from the north.
“We will not stop over—let us go on,” she said, when he spoke of Sinna Ferry. “I can paddle while you rest at times, or we can float there on the current if we both grow tired; but let us keep going.”
But ere they reached the little settlement, a canoe swept into sight ahead of them and when it came near, Captain Leek very nearly fell over the side of it in his anxiety to make himself known to Miss Rivers.
“Strangest thing in the world!” he declared. “Here I am, sent down to telegraph you and wait a week if need be until an answer comes; and half-way on my journey I meet you just as if the message had reached you in some way before it was even put on paper. Extraordinary thing—very!”
“You were going to telegraph me? What for?” and the lightness of her heart was chased away by fear. “Is—is any one hurt?”
“Hurt? Not a bit of it. But Harris thinks he is worse and wanted you, until Dan concluded to ask you to come. I have the message here somewhere,” and he drew out a pocket-book.
“Dan asked me to come? Let me see it, please,” and she unfolded the paper and read the words he had written—the only time she had ever seen his writing in a message to her. 346