"

She nodded, her eyes on the slicker at the window.

"It's pretty safe," said Kent, fishing out his pipe, and beginning to
fill it. "Everybody asleep, probably. But we won't take any chances."
The scow was swinging sideways in the current. Kent felt the change in
its movement, and added: "No danger of being wrecked, either. There
isn't a rock or rapids for thirty miles. River clear as a floor. If we
bump ashore, don't get frightened."

"I'm not afraid--of the river," she said. Then, with rather startling
unexpectedness, she asked him, "Where will they look for us tomorrow?"

Kent lighted his pipe, eyeing her a bit speculatively as she seated
herself on the stool, leaning toward him as she waited for an answer to
her question.

"The woods, the river, everywhere," he said. "They'll look for a
missing boat, of course. We've simply got to watch behind us and take
advantage of a good start."

"Will the rain wipe out our footprints, Jeems?"

"Yes. Everything in the open."

"But--perhaps--in a sheltered place--?"

"We were in no sheltered place," he assured her. "Can you remember that
we were, Gray Goose?"

She shook her head slowly. "No. But there was Mooie, under the window."

"His footprints will be wiped out."

"I am glad. I would not have him, or M'sieu Fingers, or any of our
friends brought into this trouble."

She made no effort to hide the relief his words brought her. He was a
little amazed that she should worry over Fingers and the old Indian in
this hour of their own peril. That danger he had decided to keep as far
from her mind as possible. But she could not help realizing the
impending menace of it. She must know that within a few hours Kedsty
would be found, and the long arm of the wilderness police would begin
its work. And if it caught them--

She had thrust her feet toward him and was wriggling them inside her
boots, so that he heard the slushing sound of water. "Ugh, but they are
wet!" she shivered. "Will you unlace them and pull them off for me,
Jeems?"

He laid his pipe aside and knelt close to her. It took him five minutes
to get the boots off. Then he held one of her sodden little feet close
between his two big hands.

"Cold--cold as ice," he said. "You must take off your stockings,
Marette. Please."

He arranged a pile of wood in front of the stove and covered it with a
blanket which he pulled from one of the bunks. Then, still on his
knees, he drew the cane chair close to the fi