of the floor. But stay--yes, there was; something
white in one corner; he took one of the torches, and held it within for
a moment. Margaret gave a cry; the light was shining on bones--a white
breastbone with the ribs attached, and larger bones near.

He threw the torch into the water, where it went out with a hiss, and
sent the canoe rapidly away. This time he did not stop.

Margaret had hidden her face in her hands. "Well," he said, still urging
the light boat along, "the last hunter who occupied that cabin was not
as tidy in his habits as he might have been; he left the remains of the
last bear he had had for dinner behind him."

"Are you sure?" she asked, without looking up, still shuddering.

"Perfectly."

Winthrop held that in some cases a lie was right.

He paddled on for a few minutes more.

"Here's your reward for humoring me. Isn't this the 'narrow place?'"

And it was.

"Now that we've found it, hadn't we better try to go back?" he
suggested.

"I will do as you think best."

"You're thoroughly cowed, aren't you? By the skeleton of a bear."

"I think I am tired," she answered.

"Think? You mean you know you are." The mask of jesting had dropped
again. "How much more of this horrible place is there--I mean beyond
here?"

"We are a good deal more than half-way through; three quarters, I
think."

"Can we get out at the other end? Is there an outlet?"

"Yes--a creek. It takes you, I believe--I have never been so far as
that--to Eustis Landing, a pier on the St. John's beyond ours."

"If we try to go back we shall have to go through that damnable aisle of
miasma again."

"Perhaps I should not faint this time," she said, humbly.

"You don't know whether you would or not; I can't take any risks."

He spoke with bluntness. She sat looking at him; her eyes had a pathetic
expression, her womanish fears and her fatigue had relaxed her usual
guard.

"You think I'm rough. Let me be rough while I can, Margaret!"

He sent the boat forward towards the outlet, not back through the aisle
of flowers. "We'll go on," he said.

After a while she called her husband's name again.

"What's the use of doing that?" he asked. "He isn't here."

"Oh, but I am sure he is. Where else could he be?"

"How should I know?--Where he was for eight years, perhaps."

Presently they came to a species of canebrake, very dense and high;
there was no green in sight, only the canes. The channel wound
tortuously through