ening and he had never heard its
hissing sound upgathered into such a booming roar as now greeted them.
He stopped his team and looked from under drawn brows at the water.

"You'd better get out," he said shortly.

"But I won't!" she retorted hurriedly. "And, since we are going to make
the crossing ... go ahead, quick!"

He winked both eyes at the rain driving into his face and sat still,
measuring his chances. While he did so she looked up and down; not a
hundred paces from them, upstream on the near bank, the figure of a man
loomed unnaturally large in the wet air. He was mounted upon a tall,
rangy horse that might have been foaled just for the purpose of carrying
a man of his ilk, a pale yellow-sorrel whose two forefeet, had it not
been for the mud, would have shone whitely. She wondered what he was
doing there. His attitude was that of one who was patiently waiting.

"Hold on good an' tight," said Smith suddenly. "I'm goin' to tackle it."

She gripped the back of the seat firmly, braced her feet, set her teeth
together, a little in quick fear, a great deal in determination. Smith
swung his team upstream fifty paces, then in a short arc out and away
from the creek; then, getting their heads again to the stream he called
to them, one by one, each of the four in turn, saying crisply: "You,
Babe! Charlie! that's the boy! Baldy! You Tom, you Tom! Into it; into
it; _get up_!"

With shaking heads that flung the raindrops from tossing manes, with
gingerly lifted forefeet, with a snort here and a crablike sidling dance
there, they came down to the water's edge at a brisk trot. The off-lead,
Charlie, fought shy and snorted again; the long whip in Hap Smith's hand
shot out, uncurled, flicked Charlie's side, and with a last defiant
shake of the head the big bay drove his obedient neck into his collar
and splashed mightily in the muddy current. Babe plunged forward at his
side; the two other horses followed as they were in the habit of
following.

The girl, fascinated, saw the water curl and eddy and whiten about their
knees; she saw it surge onward and rise about the hubs of the slow
turning wheels. Higher it came and higher until the rushing sound of it
filled her ears, the dark yellow flash of it filled her eyes and she
sat breathless and rigid.... A quick glance showed her the man,
Thornton, still above them on the bank of the stream. She noted that he
had drawn a little closer to the water's edge.

They were half w