ng is wrong," he returned desperately, "But the immediate
wrong is that she has disappeared--I must find her."

Therese arose at once and called to Betsy who was occupied on the
front veranda.

"Yas, um," the girl answered to her mistress' enquiry. "I seed ma'am
Hosma goin' to'ads de riva good hour 'go. She mus' crost w'en Nathan
tuck dat load ova. I yain't seed 'er comin' back yit."

Hosmer left the house hastily, hardly reassured by Betsy's
information. Therese's glance--speculating and uneasy--followed his
hurrying figure till it disappeared from sight.

The crossing was an affair of extreme difficulty, and which Nathan was
reluctant to undertake until he should have gathered a "load" that
would justify him in making it. In his estimation, Hosmer did not meet
such requirement, even taken in company with the solitary individual
who had been sitting on his horse with Egyptian patience for long
unheeded moments, the rain beating down upon his back, while he waited
the ferryman's pleasure. But Nathan's determination was not proof
against the substantial inducements which Hosmer held out to him; and
soon they were launched, all hands assisting in the toilsome passage.

The water, in rising to an unaccustomed height, had taken on an added
and tremendous swiftness. The red turbid stream was eddying and
bulging and hurrying with terrific swiftness between its shallow
banks, striking with an immensity of power against the projection of
land on which stood Marie Louise's cabin, and rebounding in great
circling waves that spread and lost themselves in the seething
turmoil. The cable used in crossing the unwieldly flat had long been
submerged and the posts which held it wrenched from their fastenings.
The three men, each with his long heavy oar in hand began to pull up
stream, using a force that brought the swelling veins like iron
tracings upon their foreheads where the sweat had gathered as if the
day were midsummer. They made their toilsome way by slow inches, that
finally landed them breathless and exhausted on the opposite side.

What could have been the inducement to call Fanny out on such a day
and such a venture? The answer came only too readily from Hosmer's
reproaching conscience. And now, where to seek her? There was nothing
to guide him; to indicate the course she might have taken. The rain
was falling heavily and in gusts and through it he looked about at the
small cabins standing dreary in their dismantled fi