to pull if need be."

"Go along, boy, I will follow," said the man, and Katherine saw him
breathing deep and hard as Phil bounded lightly across, reaching
the boat without any mishap.

"Now is your turn; be quick!" she cried authoritatively, but her
heart seemed to fairly stop beating as the poor man took his first
step forward and reeled on the sinking oars. "Quick!" she
screamed, giving a sharp tug at the cord, which seemed to rouse
him, for then he came on sharply enough.

Katherine, standing up in the boat, put out her hands to steady him
when he came within reaching distance, and tried not to show how
she shrank from his exceeding filthiness.

"There," she said soothingly, as he sank in a limp heap in the seat
she had cleared for him, "you are safe now, and you will soon get
over the fright."

"Thank you!" he murmured, but seemed incapable of further speech,
and sat silent while they dragged up the bridge of oars, which had
sunk out of sight.

"It was lucky you tied them together," said Phil, when the oars
were dragged up and the handles cleansed on the rushes.

"Yes, if I had not thought of doing that we might have whistled for
our oars," said Katherine, with a laugh that had a nervous ring.
The man sitting in the boat was, so far as she could see, a
stranger, although he was so liberally coated with mud that it was
exceedingly difficult to make any guesses about his identity, so
there was nothing to account for the trembling which seized upon
her as she looked at him. It was a hard struggle getting the boat
back into the channel, and her hands were so sore with hauling on
the rope that it was positive torture to use the paddle. The sun
was pouring down with scorching brilliancy, and the flies gathered
in black swarms about her face and head as she worked her way into
the main channel again. Arriving there, she leaned forward and
spoke to the man, who sat silent and apparently dazed in the stern
of the boat.

"Are you staying at Seal Cove, and at whose house?" she asked
gently, feeling exceedingly pitiful for the poor fellow, who must
have lost his life if she had not chosen to bring her boat through
the weedy back channel that afternoon.

"No, I have a house at Roaring Water Portage; my name is
Selincourt," he answered.

The paddle which Katherine was stowing in the boat dropped from her
hands with a clatter, and there was positive terror in her eyes as
she gasped: "You are Mr. Selincourt, _the