Sitting astride the log, Marion wrapped Patience’s warm dry cape about the child. Hardly a moment had elapsed before her crying ceased.
Of all the strange experiences that had come to Marion, this was the most weird. To have escaped from hounds and kidnappers with a child, to have come gliding down here in such a strange manner, to find herself sitting astride a huge log surrounded by black, rushing waters, and gliding steadily forward to an unknown destination, this was adventure of the most stirring kind. But Marion found little enough time for such reflections. Now that she had come to a time of inaction she began to realize how cold the water and night air were. She was seized with such a fit of shivering that she feared she would be shaken off the log.
“The wat—the water’s better than this,” she chattered, yet for the sake of the peacefully sleeping child she decided to endure the torture as long as possible.
Trees and bushes along the river’s bank swept by. A dog at some cabin barked. Off in the far distance a light flickered, then went out. The cold was becoming easier to bear. She was growing drowsy. She wanted to sleep. Sleep—yes, that was what she needed. Sleep, one wink of sleep. Her head fell upon her breast. The cold was overcoming her, but she did not realize it.
She dreamed she had left the log, to find a roaring fire right by the river’s bank, by which she was warming herself. Suddenly a jolt which almost threw her from the log rudely brought her back to life.
“Wha—what is it!” she exclaimed, gripping Patience with one hand and clinging frantically to the sleeping child with the other.
“We’ve gone aground,” said Patience. “If we’re careful we can get ashore.”
Three minutes later, beside a clump of paw-paw bushes, they were wringing the water from their garments.
“I saw a light just over yonder,” said Patience. “We’d better try to find it.”
A very few steps and they were out of the brush and on a well beaten road. A quarter mile down this road they came suddenly upon a broad clearing, in the midst of which were three large white buildings.