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Page 48
An hour ago he would have laughed at the thought that a mere look
and sentence like this from the girl could have made his heart
beat. "Then I may go on and talk?"
She smiled, but her eyes said, "Yes," plainly.
He turned to take a chair near her. Suddenly the cabin trembled,
there was a sound of scraping, a bump, and then the whole structure
tilted to one side and they were both thrown violently towards the
corner, with a swift inrush of water. Hemmingway quickly caught
the girl by the waist; she clung to him instinctively, yet still
laughing, as with a desperate effort he succeeded in dragging her
to the upper side of the slanting cabin, and momentarily restoring
its equilibrium. They remained for an instant breathless. But in
that instant he had drawn her face to his and kissed her.
She disengaged herself gently with neither excitement nor emotion,
and pointing to the open door said, "Look there!"
Two of the logs which formed the foundation of their floor were
quietly floating in the water before the cabin! The submerged
obstacle or snag which had torn them from their fastening was still
holding the cabin fast. Hemmingway saw the danger. He ran along
the narrow ledge to the point of contact and unhesitatingly leaped
into the icy cold water. It reached his armpits before his feet
struck the obstacle,--evidently a stump with a projecting branch.
Bracing himself against it, he shoved off the cabin. But when he
struck out to follow it, he found that the log nearest him was
loose and his grasp might tear it away. At the same moment,
however, a pink calico arm fluttered above his head, and a strong
grasp seized his coat collar. The cabin half revolved as the girl
dragged him into the open door.
"You bantam!" she said, with a laugh, "why didn't you let ME do
that? I'm taller than you! But," she added, looking at his
dripping clothes and dragging out a blanket from the corner, "I
couldn't dry myself as quick as you kin!" To her surprise,
however, Hemmingway tossed the blanket aside, and pointing to the
floor, which was already filmed with water, ran to the still warm
stove, detached it from its pipe, and threw it overboard. The sack
of flour, bacon, molasses, and sugar, and all the heavier articles
followed it into the stream. Relieved of their weight the cabin
base rose an inch or two higher. Then he sat down and said,
"There! that may keep us afloat for that 'couple of hours' you
speak of. So I suppose I may talk now!"
"Ye haven't no time," she said, in a graver voice. "It won't be as
long as a couple of hours now. Look over thar!"
He looked where she pointed across the gray expanse of water. At
first he could see nothing. Presently he saw a mere dot on its
face which at times changed to a single black line.
"It's a log, like these," he said.
"It's no log. It's an Injun dug-out*--comin' for me."
* A canoe made from a hollowed log.
"Your father?" he said joyfully.
She smiled pityingly. "It's Tom Flynn. Father's got suthin' else
to look arter. Tom Flynn hasn't."
"And who's Tom Flynn?" he asked, with an odd sensation.
"The man I'm engaged to," she said gravely, with a slight color.
The rose that blossomed on her cheek faded in his. There was a
moment of silence. Then he said frankly, "I owe you some apology.
Forgive my folly and impertinence a moment ago. How could I have
known this?"
"You took no more than you deserved, or that Tom would have
objected to," she said, with a little laugh. "You've been mighty
kind and handy."
She held out her hand; their fingers closed together in a frank
pressure. Then his mind went back to his work, which he had
forgotten,--to his first impressions of the camp and of her. They
both stood silent, watching the canoe, now quite visible, and the
man that was paddling it, with an intensity that both felt was
insincere.
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