went was quite so rough. But then I should have heard the rumble on the
bridge, and I felt convinced that I had not. It shows to what an extent
a man may be hypnotised into insensibility by a constant sameness of
view, that I was mistaken. If we were on the dam and missed the turn at
the end of it, on to the correction line, we should infallibly go down
from the grade, on to muskeg ground, for there was a gap in the dam. At
that place I had seen a horse disappear, and many a cow had ended there
in the deadly struggle against the downward suck of the swamp...

I pulled the horses back to a walk, and we went on for another half
hour. I was by this time sitting on the left hand side of the side,
bicycle lantern in my left hand, and bending over as far as I could to
the left, trying, with arm outstretched, to reach the ground with my
light. The lantern at the back of the buggy was useless for this. Here
and there the drop-laden, glistening tops of the taller grasses and
weeds would float into this auxiliary cone of light--but that was all.

Then no weeds appeared any longer, so I must be on the last half-mile of
the dam, the only piece of it that was bare and caution extreme was the
word. I made up my mind to go on riding for another five minutes and
timed myself, for there was hardly enough room for a team and a walking
man besides. When the time was up, I pulled in and got out. I took
the lines short, laid my right hand on Peter's back and proceeded. The
bicycle lantern was hanging down from my left and showed plainly the
clayey gravel of the dam. And so I walked on for maybe ten minutes.

Suddenly I became again aware of a glimmer to the left, and the very
next moment a lantern shot out of the mist, held high by an arm wrapped
in white. A shivering woman, tall, young, with gleaming eyes, dressed
in a linen house dress, an apron flung over breast and shoulders, gasped
out two words, "You came!" "Have you been standing here and waiting?" I
asked. "No, no! I just could not bear it any longer. Something told me.
He's at the culvert now, and if I do not run, he will go down into the
swamp!" There was something of a catch in the voice. I did not reply I
swung the horses around and crossed the culvert that bridges the master
ditch.

And while we were walking up to the yard--had my drive been anything
brave--anything at all deserving of the slightest reward--had it not in
itself been a thing of beauty, not to be missed by self