ry, no doctors at all, in fact, this side
of Boonville, twenty miles away.

He marveled at his coolness as he flung the cork into the stream and
raised the bottle to his lips. His pulse was even, his mind was
untroubled. He drank the contents, filled the bottle and let it sink;
then rose to his feet, and, bearing his weight upon the gunwale of his
canoe, swamped it.

Burdened as he was with shells and hunting-gear he sank, but the cold
water sent him fighting and gasping to the surface again. The blind
instinct of self-preservation mastered him and, being a powerful
swimmer, he struck out. He had planned too well, however. His boots
filled, his clothing became wet and he went down for a second time. Then
commenced a senseless, terrible struggle, the more terrible because the
man fought against his own determination. He rose slowly to the surface,
but the shore was far away, the canoe, bottom up, was out of reach. He
gasped wildly for breath as his face emerged, but instead of air he
inhaled water into his lungs. He choked, horrible convulsions seized
him, his limbs threshed, his ears roared, his chest was bursting. He
rose and sank, rose and sank, enduring the agony of suffocation, all the
time fighting with a strong man's desperation. After a time he seemed to
hear shouting; something tugged and hauled at him; he discovered he
could breathe again. His senses wavered, left him, returned; he saw
faces bending above him. A moment later he heard his name spoken, then
found himself awash in the bottom of a gamekeeper's batteau.

As in a dream he heard his rescuers explain that they had been out in
search of poachers and had rounded the bend below in time to behold him
struggling for his life. They were hurrying him back to the club-house
now as fast as arms and oars could propel them, and after he had gained
sufficient strength he sat up.

He strove to answer their excited questions, but could not speak. A
strange paralysis numbed his vocal cords; he could not swallow; his
tongue was thick and unmanageable. This silence alarmed the wardens, but
Murray knew it to be nothing more than a local anaesthesia due to the
contact of the cocaine. He became conscious of feeling very wretched.

They helped him up to the club-house, and on the way he caught glimpses
of horrified black faces. He saw the superintendent preparing to send to
Boonville for a doctor, but, knowing that the launch had already left,
calculated the time it w