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Winn knew this as well as any one, and the knowledge did not tend to reassure him. If he only had some one with him to help work the heavy sweeps by which the raft's course might be directed, or even to advise him what to do. It was dreadful to be alone. What a foolish thing he had done, after all, in attempting to manage this affair by himself. If he had only gone back for Billy Brackett.
It was no slight task for Winn to get the girl into the boat, for she was unconscious, and formed a dead weight, that was made heavier by her soaked clothing. He finally succeeded; and as he laid the limp form in the bottom of the skiff and took his first good look at her face, he uttered a cry of amazement, and doubted the evidence of his senses.
"You'd better go to bed now," Winn said at last. "People will be up soon. He died quite peacefully. He didn't want you to be disturbed. I think that's all, Mrs. Bouncing." She got up and went again to the bed. "I suppose I oughtn't to kiss him?" she whispered. "I haven't any right to now, have I? You know what I mean? But I would have liked to kiss him."
She never quite discovered what it did come from, because it didn't occur to her that Winn would very much rather have died than offend or tire the woman he loved. She thought that Winn was rather coarse, but he wasn't as coarse as that! Estelle had a great deal that she wanted to talk over about the wedding. The whole occasion flamed out at her a perfect project, perfectly carried out.
She looked past her husband to where in fancy she beheld the aisle of a church and the young Adonis, who had been his best man, with eyes full of reverence and awe gazing at her approaching figure. "I thought," she said indifferently, "you liked that man you insisted on having instead of Lord Arlington at the wedding?" "I do," said Winn. "He's my best friend.
Although the interior of the Venture's "shanty" still seemed unfamiliar to Winn, he could no longer doubt that the raft was his father's. In the small room that he was to have occupied he now found most of his own possessions just where he had left them. Among the things that he was particularly glad thus to find were several changes of clothing, of which he stood greatly in need.
He emerged from the timber at the abandoned camp of the traders; but without stopping to examine it, he ran to the water's edge, and gazed anxiously both up and down stream. There was no sign of the raft nor of any moving object. "It must be farther up, around that point," thought Winn, and he hurried in that direction.
Exhausted as he was, Winn was on the point of letting go his hold on the sapling and making a desperate effort to overtake the rapidly receding skiff. Fortunately he had enough practical sense, though this is not generally credited to sixteen-year-old boys, to restrain him from such a rash act.
The man was gone; there was no doubt of that; and now came the harrowing question, who was he? Winn had not seen his face. It could not have been the owner of the Whatnot, because, with his wooden leg, he could not swim. It was not Solon, for the head had been that of a white man.
I have to be careful; but, Lord! when I see the things people do up here! The risks they take! You, for instance. I've seen you do heaps of things that are perfectly deadly; and yet there you are getting better. Funny, isn't it?" Winn said it was funny, but he supposed one must take his chance. "Yes, I know; that is what people keep saying," Mr. Bouncing admitted.
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