ht.

Through a little, silvered surf of cross-waves, they were shot, after an
hour of this uneasy going, into the broad, clean sweep of the Little
Bowleg River. After the troubled progress of the lesser current it
seemed very quiet and secure; almost placid. But the banks slipped by in
an endless chain. Presently they came abreast of three horsemen riding
the river trail, who urged their horses into a gallop, keeping up with
them for a mile or more. As they fell away, Io waved a handkerchief at
them, to which they made response by firing a salvo from their revolvers
into the air.

"We're making better than ten miles an hour," Banneker called over his
shoulder to his passenger.

They shot between the split halves of a little, scraggly, ramshackle
town, danced in white water where the ford had been, and darted onward.
Now Banneker began to hold against the current, scanning the shores
until, with a quick wrench, he brought the stern around and ran it up on
a muddy bit of strand.

"Grub!" he announced gayly.

Languor had taken possession of Io, the languor of one who yields to
unknown and fateful forces. Passive and at peace, she wanted nothing but
to be wafted by the current to whatever far bourne might await her. That
there should be such things as railway trains and man-made schedules in
this world of winds and mystery and the voice of great waters, was hard
to believe; hardly worth believing in any case. Better not to think of
it: better to muse on her companion, building fire as the first man had
built for the first woman, to feed and comfort her in an environment of
imminent fears.

Coffee, when her man brought it, seemed too artificial for the time and
place. She shook her head. She was not hungry.

"You must," insisted Ban. He pointed downstream where the murk lay
heavy. "We shall run into more rain. You will need the warmth and
support of food."

So, because there were only they two on the face of the known earth,
woman and man, the woman obeyed the man. To her surprise, she found that
she was hungry, ardently hungry. Both ate heartily. It was a silent
meal; little spoken except about the chances and developments of the
journey, until she got to her feet. Then she said:

"I shall never, as long as I live, wherever I go, whatever I do, know
anything like this again. I shall not want to. I want it to stand
alone."

"It will stand alone," he answered.

They met the rain within half an hour, a wall-like