When Steering could talk at all, he gasped out how it had happened. He had gone much farther up than Madeira Place, and had not put his boat about until two hours before; and then only because a great many logs were coming down, and he decided that he did not want to be caught among them when night should drop. He had got along all right until a log smashed into his skiff and overturned him. He thought he must have struck his head as he went over. At any rate, things were very mixed for a good while. He knew that he had swum for what seemed to be hours, and that then he had realised that he was numb, and had used what little strength he had left to climb upon another log that passed him. He had been on it ever since, flat out, an eternity. Piney was getting the skiff inshore fast, as Steering talked, and once Steering stopped to admire his youthful vigour. He was a strong man himself, and it was a new sensation to lie weakly admiring strength in somebody else. "Do you know, Piney, I'm dead-beat," he whispered. "You've had a good deal to stan' in more ways than one to-day," replied Piney. "What do you mean by that?" asked Steering. "We're a'most in." It was only a few minutes later that Piney effected his landing, and, river-lashed and dripping, both scrambled out and fell on the bank by the Redbud shack. For a little while, even Piney was past any further exertion, but when he could use himself again, he got up agilely, hunted up dry wood and made a roaring fire. The twilight had closed into night now; the rain had shifted with the wind and passed by Redbud. Piney brought a blanket from the shack and wrapped Steering in it. Before the fire, Steering lay with his eyes shut for a time, a smile on his face. "You are precious good to stand by me like this, Piney," he said once. "Where have you been for so long, you stingy nigger? Why have you cut me lately?" "Well, I--oh, I d'n know adzackly." Piney's voice was flat, his face tragic. He was heaping wood on the fire, and in the yellow flare he looked pale with the exhaustion of his work on the river and the excitement under which he was labouring. During this last half hour that he had been working hard to save Steering, taking care of him, helping him, he had had another revulsion of feeling that had swung him up close to his hero again. But crisis was still following crisis in his emotions. "Well, you turned up at just the right minute for me, Piney. How did you happen along?" "Oh, I wuz a-huntin' fer you, I reckon. I wuz sent aout to hunt fer you. I gotta letter fer you,--f'm--f'm Miss Madeira." Steering opened his drowsy eyes and regarded Piney. "Yes, I have. I gotta letter fer you. Y'see, Miss Sally, she's found aout sumpin--sumpin that you didn' want her to find aout." The fire leaped and crackled; Bruce leaned away from its scorch, nearer to Piney. "Y'see, she knows abaout the Tigmores naow," went on Piney steadily. "Unc' Bernique didn' tell her. I told her."