leave you?"

"I cannot order; I am a slave. My only privilege is to request, urge,
implore. I can merely insist that it will be best--best for us
both--for you to go. Surely you also must realize that this is true?"

"I do not know exactly what I realize," I said doubtfully. "Nothing
seems altogether clear in my mind. If I could leave you in safety, in
the care of friends, perhaps I should not hesitate--but now--"

"Am I any worse off than the others?" she interrupted. "I, at least,
have yet the chance of escape, while they remain helplessly in Kirby's
clutches. When--when I think of them, I no longer care about myself;
I--I feel almost responsible for their fate, and--and it would kill me
to know that I had dragged you down also. You have no right to
sacrifice yourself for such as I."

"You have been brooding over all this," I said gently, "sitting here
alone, and thinking while we worked. I am not going to answer you now.
There is no need. Nothing can be done until night, whatever we decide
upon. You will go back with us to the boat?"

"Yes; I simply cannot stay here," her eyes wandering toward the cabin.

I took the lead on the return, finding the path easy enough to follow
in the full light of day. The sincere honesty of her plea--the
knowledge that she actually meant it--only served to draw me closer, to
strengthen my determination not to desert. Her face was ever before me
as I advanced--a bravely pathetic face, wonderfully womanly in its
girlish contour--appealing to every impulse of my manhood. I admitted
the truth of what she said--it had been largely love of adventure, the
rash recklessness of youth, which had brought me here. But this was my
inspiration no longer. I had begun to realize that something deeper,
more worthy, now held me to the task. What this was I made no attempt
to analyze--possibly I did not dare--but, nevertheless, the mere
conception of deserting her in the midst of this wilderness was too
utterly repugnant for expression. No, not that; whatever happened, it
would never be that.

The last few rods of our journey lay through thick underbrush, and
beneath the spreading branches of interlacing trees. It was a gloomy,
primitive spot, where no evidence of man was apparent. Suddenly I
emerged upon the bank of the creek, with the rude log wharf directly
before me. I could hear in that silence the sound of those following,
as they continued to crunch a passage through t