river and
down to the blasted tree. She felt a repulsion for the whole death-like
place to-night that she had not felt before. She had been sure the
other night of meeting some one at the end of her secret journey, and
now the best she could hope was that the place would be empty; and even
if it were empty, perhaps, for all she knew, one of the men for whom she
was seeking might be lying dead in the water beneath. Certainly the
inexplicable appearance of her father the night before had shaken her
nerves. Ann was doing a braver thing than she had ever done in her life,
because she was a prey to terror. Lonely as the desolate Ahwewee was, to
turn from it into the windings of the secret opening seemed like leaving
the world behind and going alone into a region of death. There was no
sound but the splash of paddle, the ripple of the still water under the
canoe, the occasional voice of a frog from the swampy edges of the lake,
and the shrill murmur of crickets from the dry fields beyond.

When Ann came near she saw the bound figure reclining in the arms of the
fallen tree. Then she believed that her worst fear had been true--that
Bart had been unfaithful, and that her father had died in this wretched
place. He must be dead because she had seen his spirit!

She came nearer. He had not died of starvation; the bag of food which
she had hung upon the branch hung there yet. She set the canoe close
against the tree, and, holding by the tree, raised herself in it. She
had to be very careful lest the canoe should tip under her even while
she held by the tree. Then she put forth a brave hand, and laid it upon
the breast of the unconscious man.

He was not dead. The heart was beating, though not strongly; the body
was warm.

"Father, father." She shook him gently.

The answer was a groan, very feeble. It told her at once that the man
before her was stricken with some physical ill that made him incapable
of responding to her.

And now what was she to do? It was necessary by some means to get her
father into the canoe. To that she did not give a second thought, but
while he still lived it seemed to her monstrous to take him either back
to Fentown Falls or down to The Mills. Her horror of prison and of
judgment for him had grown to be wholly morbid and unreasonable, just
because his terror of it had been so extreme. Only one course remained.
She had the chart that David Brown had given her. He had told her that
at that northern ed