Tate, in recognition of his grievance as an outraged distiller, had
been given the leadership of one of the largest of the search parties,
which it was his secret purpose to lead far afield on a blind trail.
Inasmuch as Bear Cat had been specifically cautioned against going in
the direction of his own dwelling place, and yet since that would seem
a logical goal, Dog had maneuvered his hunters into territory between
the abandoned cabin and Little Slippery.

He himself had been in the woods across the waters of the suddenly
swollen creek, when an outburst of rifle fire told him that something
had gone wrong and brought him running back to the guidance of that
musketry.

He arrived at the edge of the swirling, drift-encumbered water in time
to see the silhouetted figure on the opposite bluff totter and plunge
head first into the moonlit whirlpool. Dog knew that he was the only
man on that side of the stream, but any effort to plunge in and try for
a rescue would mean death to himself without hope of saving the man who
had fallen. As he watched he made out what seemed to be the lifeless
body come to the surface, to be swept in a rushing circle and, as
chance would have it, to catch and hang lodged in a mass of floating
dead-wood. The creek at ordinary times ran shallow and though it was
gushing now beyond its normal borders it was still not wide. The
deadwood swirled, raced forward, and fouled the out-jutting root of a
giant sycamore.

Dog Tate crawled out along the precarious support of the slimy rootage
and slowly drew the mass of drift into shallow water. It was tedious
work since any violent tugging might loosen the lightly held tangle and
send the body floating away unbuoyed.

The night was all a thing of blue and silver moonlight and sooty
shadows, but under the muddy bulwark at the base of the overhanging
sycamore the velvet denseness of impenetrable black prevailed.

Once Dog saw figures outlined on the bluff from which Bear Cat had
fallen, and had to lie still for the seeming of hours, trusting to the
favor of the shadow.

Eventually he succeeded in drawing the mass of flotsam shoreward until
he could wade in to the shallows, chancing the quicksands that were
tricky there. Then he stumbled up the bank with his burden and
deposited it between two bowlders where without daylight it would
hardly be found. Dog was thinking fast, now.

He did not yet know whether he had saved a living man or retrieved a
dead