ge of the swamp, which could be reached by the way he
had marked out, a small farmhouse stood. Possibly the people in this
house might not yet have heard of Markham the murderer; or possibly, if
they had heard, they might be won for pity's sake to let him regain
strength there and go in peace. It was her only chance. The moon was
rising now, and she would find the way. She felt strength to do anything
when she had realised that the heart beneath her hand was still beating.

Ann moved the canoe under the fallen log, and moving down it upon her
knees, she took the rope from the prow, secured it round the log from
which the sick man must descend, and fastened it again to the other end
of the boat. This at least was a guarantee that they could not all sink
together. Even yet the danger of upsetting the canoe sideways was very
great. It was only necessity that enabled her to accomplish her task.

"Father, rouse yourself a little." She took Markham's old felt hat, upon
which the insensible head was lying, and set it warmly over his brow.
She unfastened the bands that tied his body to the log. She had not come
without a small phial of the rum that was always necessary for her
father, in the hope that she might find him alive. She soaked some
morsels of bread in this, and put it in the mouth of the man over whom
she was working. It was very dark; the only marvel was, not that she did
not recognise Toyner, but that she and he were not both engulfed in the
black flood beneath them in the struggle which she made to take him in
the canoe.

Twice that day Toyner had stirred and become conscious; but
consciousness, except that of confused dreams, had again deserted him.
The lack of food, if it had preserved him from fever, had caused the
utmost weakness of all his bodily powers; yet when the small amount of
bread and rum which he could swallow gave him a little strength, he was
roused, not to the extent of knowing who he was or where, but enough to
move his muscles, although feebly, under direction. After a long time
she had him safely in the bottom of the canoe, his head lying upon her
jacket which she had folded for a pillow. At first, as she began to
paddle the canoe forward, he groaned again and again, but by degrees the
reaction of weakness after exertion made him lapse into his former state
that seemed like sleep.

Ann had lost now all her fears of unknown and unseen dangers. All that
she feared was the loss of her way, or t