shouted to him before I
reached him:

"Hello! did you see a boat--a house, I mean,--floating up the river?"

"A boat-house?" asked the man.

"No, a house-boat," I gasped.

"Didn't see nuthin' like it," said the man, and he passed on, to his
wife and home, no doubt. But me! Oh, where was my wife and my home?

I met several people, but none of them had seen a fugitive canal-boat.

How many thoughts came into my brain as I ran along that river road! If
that wretched boarder had not taken the rudder for an ironing table he
might have steered in shore! Again and again I confounded--as far as
mental ejaculations could do it--his suggestions.

I was rapidly becoming frantic when I met a person who hailed me.

"Hello!" he said, "are you after a canal-boat adrift?"

"Yes," I panted.

"I thought you was," he said. "You looked that way. Well, I can tell you
where she is. She's stuck fast in the reeds at the lower end o' Peter's
Pint."

"Where's that?" said I.

"Oh, it's about a mile furder up. I seed her a-driftin' up with the
tide--big flood tide, to-day--and I thought I'd see somebody after her,
afore long. Anything aboard?"

Anything!

I could not answer the man. Anything, indeed! I hurried on up the river
without a word. Was the boat a wreck? I scarcely dared to think of it. I
scarcely dared to think at all.

The man called after me and I stopped. I could but stop, no matter what
I might hear.

"Hello, mister," he said, "got any tobacco?"

I walked up to him. I took hold of him by the lapel of his coat. It was
a dirty lapel, as I remember even now, but I didn't mind that.

"Look here," said I. "Tell me the truth, I can bear it. Was that vessel
wrecked?"

The man looked at me a little queerly. I could not exactly interpret his
expression.

"You're sure you kin bear it?" said he.

"Yes," said I, my hand trembling as I held his coat.

"Well, then," said he, "it's mor'n I kin," and he jerked his coat out of
my hand, and sprang away. When he reached the other side of the road, he
turned and shouted at me, as though I had been deaf.

"Do you know what I think?" he yelled. "I think you're a darned
lunatic," and with that he went his way.

I hastened on to Peter's Point. Long before I reached it, I saw the
boat.

It was apparently deserted. But still I pressed on. I must know the
worst. When I reached the Point, I found that the boat had run aground,
with her head in among the long reeds and mud, and