cing with
fitful gleams of steel and copper from the sunset's last saffron
afterglow. The yellow headlight of a low-lying grain boat stole nearer,
unheeded till the straining mules toiled by.

"I don't know what keeps me from--"

Shelby's lips were tardy of framing what his heart lusted.

"Fear, perhaps."

"If you think that, then--"

A rain of oaths from the driver warned them too late of the trailing
tow-line. They tripped together, and in an embrace of self-preservation
together fell into the cool still waters which ever draw unruffled,
though their banks smoulder with passion and political intrigue from the
Niagara to the Hudson.

Shelby rose first, half-strangled, and laid hold upon the wall. Still
cursing fluently, the driver pulled him to the string-piece, and both men
peered out over the watery blackness, now cut with a widening shaft of
light from the boat's lantern. Graves seemed to have vanished utterly,
and Shelby made the banks echo with his name, but the canal returned no
answer. The man was now as ready to save as a moment since he had been
ready to destroy, but before he could slip again into the water, the boat
glided past, discovering Graves in dim silhouette against the gray
timbers, swimming at ease.

With a parting curse, indicative of relief, the driver set off down the
tow-path after his mules, while Shelby waited on the brink till the boat
went by, intending aid if the swimmer's strength should fail. But Graves
was of no mind to cause him the lifting of a finger, and to the watcher's
bewilderment cut directly behind the great rudder into the swirling wake,
headed for the heel-path, which he attained with a dozen vigorous
strokes, and clambering the sloping embankment, disappeared in a clump of
willows.

The autumn frosts nip Tuscarora betimes, but Shelby sat staring in his
sodden clothes, till he fathomed his rival's motive, and chattered forth
a laugh. Then he hurried across the dock to the little tin-roofed office
of the Eureka. He was without a key, but he rummaged a pick from one of
the neighboring sheds, forced the staple of the padlock, and, popping
into the oven warmth of the cabin, mended the fire in the tiny sheet-iron
stove. His first precaution was to drain his pocket flask, which had
somehow come through unscathed, and, as he peeled away his clinging
garments in the flickering light, he telephoned the Tuscarora House for a
change of clothing. In the reflective half