milin' and bright," continued George, "and He looked
at me very pleasant. Then He went away, and I dreamed we went right
down the river and came out in Grand Lake near where we had left it
comin' up, and we found Blake there, and he fed us and gave us all the
grub we wanted, and we had a fine time."

It was quite evident that George was greatly impressed by his dream. I
give it here simply for what it is worth. At the same time I cannot
help characterising it as remarkable, not to say extraordinary; for
none of us had had even a suspicion that the river we were on emptied
into Grand Lake at all, much less that its mouth was near the point
where we left the lake. But I myself attached no importance to the
dream at the time, whatever I may think now; I was chiefly influenced,
I suppose, in my opposition to the abandonment of the river by the
unspeakable dread I had felt all along of returning to the Susan
Valley--was it a premonition?--and no doubt it was only natural that
Hubbard should disregard the dream.

"It surely was an unusual dream," he said to George; "but it isn't
possible, as you know, for this river to empty into Grand Lake. We were
talking about leaving the river until late last night, and you had it
on your mind--that's what made you dream about it."

"May be it was," said George calmly; "but it was a mighty strange
dream, and we'd better think about it before we leave the river. Stick
to the canoe, Hubbard, that's what I say. Wallace and I 'll shoot the
rapids all right. They're sure to be not so bad as we've had, and I
think they'll be a lot better. We can run 'em, can't we, Wallace?"

I added my opinion to George's that there would be more water to cover
the rocks farther down, and said that however bad the rapids might be I
should venture to take the stern paddle in every one that George dared
to tackle. But Hubbard only said:

"I still think, boys, we should take the trail we know."

"That means suicide," I said for the second time, rather bitterly, I
fear. "We'll surely leave our bones in that awful valley over there.
We're too weak to accomplish that march."

Once more Hubbard marshalled his arguments in favour of the overland
route, and George and I said no more that morning.

Soon after we relaunched the canoe something occurred to change the
current of our thoughts. A little way ahead of us, swimming slowly
down the river, George espied a duck. No one spoke while we landed
him,