he whirlpool--one of the--one of the dead men!"

Though Prime was still scarcely more than half conscious of his
condition and cripplings, the protective instinct was clamoring to be
heard, dinning in his ears to make him realize that his companion was a
woman, and that her miraculous courage had for some cause reached its
ultimate limit. With a brand from the fire for a torch, he crept half
mechanically on hands and knees to the edge of the bowl-like whirlpool.
In due time he had a glimpse of a black object circling past in the
froth and spume, and he threw the firebrand at it. A moment later he was
setting the comforting prop of explanation under Lucetta's toppling
courage.

"It is nothing but a log--just a broken log of wood," he assured her.
"Forget it, and tell me more about how I came to get this bushel-basket
head of mine. It aches like sin!"

She described the plunge of the unmanageable canoe over the fall and its
immediate consequences, minifying her own part in the rescue.

"You needn't try to wiggle out of it," he said soberly at the end of the
brief recounting. "You saved my life. If you hadn't pulled me out, I'd
be down there in that pool right now, going round and round like that
bally log of wood. What do you charge for saving a man's life, Lucetta?"

"A promise from the man to be more careful in future. But we mustn't
slide back into the artificial things, Donald. For all you know, my
motive might have been altogether selfish--perhaps it was selfish. My
first thought was a screaming horror of being left alone here in this
wilderness. It made me fight, _fight_!"

"Is that the truth, Lucetta?" he inquired solemnly.

"Y-yes."

"All of the truth?"

"Oh, perhaps not quite all. There is such a thing as the life-saving
instinct, isn't there? Even dogs have it sometimes. Of course I
couldn't very well swim out and leave you to drown."

"No," he put in definitively, "you couldn't--and what's more, you hadn't
the first idea of doing such a thing. And that other thing you told me
was only to relieve my sense of obligation. You haven't relieved it--not
an ounce. And I don't care to have it relieved. Let it go for the time
being, and tell me what became of the canoe."

"I haven't the faintest notion. I didn't see it again after we went over
the fall. Of course it is smashed and ruined and lost, and we are
perfectly helpless again."

For a long minute Prime sat with his throbbing head in his hands, tryin