telligibly. So, holding Necia by the arm, Stark helped her back to
a seat in the stern.

"This man will take you through," he said. "You can trust him, all
right."

The oarsman clambered in and adjusted his sweeps, then Stark laid a
hand on the prow and shoved the light boat out into the current,
calling softly:

"Good-bye, and good-luck."

"Good-bye, Mr. Stark. Thank you ever so much," the girl replied, too
numb and worn out to say much, or to notice or care whither she was
bound or who was her boatman. She had been swept along too swiftly to
reason or fear for herself any more.

Half an hour later the scattered lights of the little camp winked and
twinkled for the last time. Turning, she set her face forward, and,
adjusting the cushions to her comfort, strained her tired eyes towards
the rising and falling shadow of her boatman. She seemed borne along on
a mystic river of gloom that hissed and gurgled about her, invisible
but all-pervading, irresistible, monstrous, only the ceaseless,
monotonous creak of the rowlocks breaking the silence.

Stark did not return to his cabin, but went back instead to his saloon,
where he saw Poleon Doret still sprawling with elbows on the table, his
hat pulled low above his sullen face. The owner of the place passed
behind the bar and poured himself a full glass of whiskey, which he
tossed off, then, without a look to right or left, went out and down
towards the barracks. A light behind the drawn curtains of the
officer's house told that his man was not abed, but he waited a long
moment after his summons before the door was opened, during which he
heard the occupant moving about and another door close in the rear.
When he was allowed entrance at last he found the young man alone in a
smoke-filled room with a bottle and two empty glasses on the table.

For at the sound of his voice Gale had whispered to Burrell, "Keep him
out!" and the Lieutenant had decided to refuse his late visitor
admittance when he lighted on the expedient of concealing the trader in
the bedroom at the rear. It was only natural, he reasoned, that Gale
should dislike to face a man like Stark before he had regained his
composure.

"Go in there and wait till I see what he wants," he had said, and,
shutting the old man in, he had gone forth to admit Stark, resenting
his ill-timed intrusion and inquiring brusquely the cause of it.

Before answering, Stark entered and closed the door behind him.

"I've got so