Rusty was overshadowed by a tragedy. The body of the trapper, Hilliard's first messenger, had been found under the melting snow, a few days before, and to the white-faced young stranger was given that stained and withered letter in which Hilliard had excused and explained his desertion. Nothing, at Rusty, had been heard of Sheila. No one knew even that she had ever left Miss Blake's ranch--the history of such lonely places is a sealed book from snowfall until spring. Their tragedies are as dumb as the tragedies of animal life. No one had ever connected Sheila's name with Hilliard's. No one knew of his plans for her. The trapper had set off without delay, not even going back to his house, some little distance outside of Rusty, to tell his wife that he would be bringing home a lodger with him. There was, to be sure, at the office a small bundle of letters all in the same hand addressed to Miss Arundel. They had to wait, perforce, till the snow-bound country was released. "It's not likely even now," sly and twinkling Lander of the hotel told Dickie, "that you can make it to Miss Blake's place. No, sir, nor to Hilliard's neither. Hidden Creek's up. She's sure some flood this time of the year. It's as much as your life's good for, stranger." But Dickie merely smiled and got for himself a horse that was "good in deep water." And he rode away from Rusty without looking back. He rode along a lush, wet land of roaring streams, and, on the bank of Hidden Creek, there was a roaring that drowned even the beating of his heart. The flood straddled across his path like Apollyon. A dozen times the horse refused the ford--at last with a desperate toss of his head he made a plunge for it. Almost at once he was swept from the cobbled bed. He swam sturdily, but the current whirled him down like a straw--Dickie slipped from the saddle on the upper side so that the water pressed him close to the horse, and, even when they both went under, he held to the animal with hands like iron. This saved his life. Five blind, black, gasping minutes later, the horse pulled him up on the farther bank and they stood trembling together, dazed by life and the warmth of the air.