rrow. If you like, you can give him the canoe. It'll never
come back, nor him neither!"

"You've been down with me," she responded, suggestively. "And you went
down once by yourself."

He shook his head. "I ain't been so well this summer. My sight ain't what
it was. I can't stand the racket as I once could. 'Pears to me I'm gettin'
old. No, I couldn't take them rapids, Jinny, not for one frozen minute."

She looked at him with trouble in her eyes, and her face lost some of its
color. She was fighting back the inevitable, even as its shadow fell upon
her. "You wouldn't want a man to die, if you could save him, Uncle
Tom--blown up, sent to Kingdom Come without any warning at all; and
perhaps he's got them that love him--and the world so beautiful."

"Well, it ain't nice dyin' in the summer, when it's all sun, and there's
plenty everywhere; but there's no one to go down the river with him.
What's his name?"

Her struggle was over. She had urged him, but in very truth she was urging
herself all the time, bringing herself to the axe of sacrifice.

"His name's Dingley. I'm going down the river with him--down to Bindon."

The old man's mouth opened in blank amazement. His eyes blinked
helplessly.

"What you talkin' about, Jinny? Jake's comin' up with the minister, an'
you're goin' to be married at noon to-morrow."

"I'm takin' him"--she jerked her head toward the room where Dingley
was--"down Dog Nose Rapids to-night. He's risked his life for his friend,
thinkin' of her that's dead an' gone, and a man's life is a man's life. If
it was Jake's life in danger, what 'd I think of a woman that could save
him, and didn't?"

"Onct you broke off with Jake Lawson--the day before you was to be
married; an' it's took years to make up an' agree again to be spliced. If
Jake comes here to-morrow, and you ain't here, what do you think he'll do?
The neighbors are comin' for fifty miles round, two is comin' up a hundred
miles, and you can't--Jinny, you can't do it. I bin sick of answerin'
questions all these years 'bout you and Jake, an' I ain't goin' through it
again. I've told more lies than there's straws in a tick."

She flamed out. "Then take him down the river yourself--a man to do a
man's work. Are you afeard to take the risk?"

He held out his hands slowly and looked at them. They shook a little.
"Yes, Jinny," he said, sadly, "I'm afeard. I ain't what I was. I made a
mistake, Jinny. I've took too much whiskey. I'm older th