This morning it felt different, the long ago seemed more actual than the present as she sat and smoked, her grizzled hair hanging in wisps upon her shoulders, and her sun-bonnet of yellow gingham pushed back upon her head. A something in the water, surging up through the surface and sinking again, leaving rings upon the current coming down, caught her eye as she sat gazing up stream. It might only be a log, but yet, how it carried back her thoughts to her old man hurried down on that Licken freshet into the muddy Ohio, and rolling on and on for hundreds of miles through the yellow oozy water, till the body stuck fast in a clay-bank and was hid for ever. It might be a log; but no, it was not, for now she saw white hair, which spread and shrank again, as it sank and rose in the water. A horse, was it? or an ox, with a hide worth stripping off to sell? but no--it was a man! She could see it plainly now, as it drifted near, and she felt the thud as it struck against the branches of her tree, branches which caught it and blocked its forward course. A man! and still alive, perhaps, for there was a redness as from oozing blood around. She threw her pipe away, and shouting to those within hail, she leaped into the water and waded out with the assistance of her tree. A youth had hurried to her aid, the water did not reach above his chest, and their united efforts drew the body ashore. "A fine clean-limbed man," sighed Jess, comparing him with her own old man, whom partial hap, alas, had carried away for ever. "A fine strapping man, but never so spry as thy own grandfer. Will. _He was_ the man, but he's away; let's see to this coon. Hm----" a smothered exclamation, and a suspicious glance at Will, to see if he had observed her pull a diamond ring from the drowned man's finger; but Will's attention was drawn to something else at the moment. "He ain't come by's end fair, granny," he said; "see to the blood on's back--running still, by gum! The man maybe ain't dead, granny." Granny slipped the ring into her mouth for safety, till she should find leisure and privacy to conceal it elsewhere, and then resumed her interest in the drowned man. "Runnin' sure, the blood is, Will. And shot he's been. I heard the crack of a gun up stream the now, I reckon, but I gave no heed. Lay down his head, lad, and lift his feet. Help shake the water out of him, and roll him round. There was none by to roll thy poor grandfer the day he fell in Licken River. Never fear to hurt him, lad! The man can't feel, and more's the pity. Shake him well and roll him round, keep down his head, and let the filthy water run off his stommick." There was little of that same fluid ever privileged to enter Jess's anatomy, or, indeed to come near her person, save in the inevitable form of rain or a fordable stream.