into the reeds,
and, taking down his sail, supped on cold bread and lake-water and lay
down in his canoe.

In the morning he found the river without difficulty. It was a sluggish
stream here, winding interminably between low cut banks, edged with
dangling grass-roots on the one side and mud-flats on the other. From
the canoe he could see nothing above the banks. Landing to take a
survey, Stonor beheld a vast treeless bottom, covered with rank grass,
and stretching to low piny ridges several miles back on either hand. No
tell-tale thread of smoke on the still air betrayed the camp of the man
he was seeking.

He resumed his way. Of his whole journey this part was the most
difficult trial to his patience. There was just current enough to mock
at his efforts with the paddle. He seemed scarcely to crawl. It was
maddening after his brisk progress up the lake. Moreover, each bend was
so much like the last that he had no sense of getting on, and the
invariable banks hemmed in his sight. He felt like a man condemned to a
treadmill.

He had been about two hours on the river when he saw a little object
floating towards him on the current that instantly caught his eye
because it had the look of something fashioned. He paddled to it with a
beating heart. It proved to be a tiny raft contrived out of several
lengths of stout stick, tied together with strips of rag. On the little
platform, out of reach of the water, was tied with another strip a roll
of the white outer bark of the birch. Stonor untied it and spread it out
on his knee with a trembling hand. It was a letter printed in crooked
characters with a point charred in the fire.

[Illustration:

WE WELL. HIM NOT HURT CLARE ENY. HIM SCAR OF CRAZEE CLARE SLEEP
BY ME. HIM GOIN CROST /\/\/\/\/\

FROM MARY]

A warm stream forced its way into the trooper's frozen breast, and the
terrible strained look in his eyes relaxed. For a moment he covered his
eyes with his arm, though there was none to see. His most dreadful and
unacknowledged fear was for the moment relieved. Gratitude filled him.

"Good old Mary!" he thought. "She went to all that trouble just on the
chance of easing my mind. By God! if we come through this all right I'll
do something for her!"

"Him scar of crazee," puzzled him for a while, until it occurred to him
that Mary wished to convey that Imbrie let Clare alone because he
believed that her loss of memory was akin to insanit