s, with ragged walls of evergreen. Here and there in
the gap a stub was standing, trunk and limbs naked.

"Jerushy Jane Pepper!" D'ri exclaimed, with a pause after each
word. "It's cut a swath wider 'n this river. Don't b'lieve a
mouse could 'a' lived where the timber 's down over there."

Our sweepers and the other sections of the raft were nowhere in
sight.

III

We left the logs, and walked to Cornwall, and took a sloop down the
river. It was an American boat, bound for Quebec with
pipe-staves. It had put in at Cornwall when the storm began. The
captain said that the other sections of our raft had passed safely.
In the dusk of the early evening a British schooner brought us to.

"Wonder what that means?" said the skipper, straining his eyes in
the dusk,

A small boat, with three officers, came along-side. They climbed
aboard, one of them carrying a lantern. They were armed with
swords and pistols. We sat in silence around the cockpit. They
scanned each of us carefully in the light of the lantern. It
struck me as odd they should look so closely at our hands.

"Wha' d' ye want?" the skipper demanded. "This man," said one of
them, pointing to D'ri. "He's a British sailor. We arrest him--"

He got no farther. D'ri's hand had gone out like the paw of a
painter and sent him across the cockpit. Before I knew what was
up, I saw the lank body of D'ri leaping backward into the river. I
heard a splash and a stroke of his long arms, and then all was
still. I knew he was swimming under water to get away. The
officers made for their boat. My blood was up, and I sprang at the
last of them, giving him a hard shove as he was climbing over, so
that he fell on the boat, upsetting it. They had business enough
then for a little, and began hailing for help. I knew I had done a
foolish thing, and ran forward, climbing out upon the bowsprit, and
off with my coat and vest, and dived into the dark water. I swam
under as long as I could hold my breath, and then came up quietly,
turning on my back in the quick current, and floating so my face
only was above water. It had grown dark, and I could see nothing
but the glimmer of the stars above me. My boots were heavy and
dragged hard. I was going fast with the swift water, for at first
I had heard a great hubbub on the schooner; but now its voices had
grown faint. Other sounds were filling my ear.

After dark it is weird business to be swimming in stra