But the face of the driver
amazed them more.

"Why, it's Miss Swaim, that teacher up at New Eden!" one man exclaimed.

At the word, a boy, unrecognizable for the mud caking him over, leaped
forward toward Jerry's car.

"What are you doing, Miss Swaim?" he cried. "You mustn't go any farther!
The river's undermined everything! Please don't go! Please don't!" he
pleaded.

"Why, Clare Lenwell!" Jerry exclaimed, in surprise.

"Yes. This isn't my full-dress I wore at Commencement the other night,
but I've been saving lives to-day, and feeding the hungry, too," the boy
declared, forgetting his besmeared clothing in the thought of his
service.

"Tell me, Clare, where is Joe Thomson--I mean the young man whose ranch
is just below here."

Clare's face couldn't go white under that mud, but Jerry saw his hand
tremble as it caught the edge of her wind-shield.

"He's gone down-stream, I'm afraid. They say his home is clean gone. We
have been across the river and came over on that high bridge. I don't
know much about this side. They said Thelma Ekblad tried to save him and
nearly got lost herself. Her brother, the cripple, you know, couldn't
get away. Their house is gone now. He and the Belkap baby were given up
for lost when old Fishin' Teddy got to them some way. He knew the high
stepping-stones below the deep hole and hit them true every step. They
said he went nearly neck deep holding Paul and striking solid rock every
time. He'd lived by the river so long he knew the crossing, deep as the
flood was over it. Paul made him take the baby first, and he got out
with it, all right, and would have been safe, but he was bound to go
back for Paul, too; and he got him safe to land, where the baby was; but
I guess the effort was too much for the old fellow, and he loosed his
hold and fell back into the river before they could catch him. He saved
two lives, though, and he wasn't any use to the community, anyhow. A man
that lives alone like that never is, so it isn't much loss, after all.
But that big Joe Thomson's another matter. And he was so strong, he
could swim like a whale; but the Sage Brush got him--I'm afraid."

Jerry's engine gave a great thump as she flung on all the power and
dashed away on the upper road toward Joe Thomson's ranch.

"At the bend of the river you turn toward the three cottonwoods." Jerry
recalled the directions given her on her first and only journey down
this valley three years before.

"Why, why,