An oak tree, upturned, its roots stretched forth appealingly in the air, its branches washing helplessly to and fro in the stream, a broken scow lying high upon the beach, bottom up, a great crevasse in the side of the canal through which could be seen an imprisoned and deserted canal-boat, told of the spring flood. The Juniata had fallen again to its natural courses, but it was still turbulent and the current was running strongly. It was fast growing dark. Heavy clouds were rolling along the mountains from the west whence sounded the low grumbling of the coming storm. Eben Huckin, standing by his boat, looked anxiously up the river, and then across to where the village had been lost in the fast gathering blackness. By a hard pull to the opposite bank and a run up half a mile of level road he might make the shelter of the mill before the clouds broke. But this meant tremendous exertion and Eben, with the rust of sixty years in his joints, preferred a drenching. So he tucked his basket in the locker in the stern and fixed his oars as deliberately as though the sun were smiling overhead. Then he began to push out into the stream. The rattle of gravel flying before fast falling feet and a crashing of laurel bushes along the towpath caused him to pause. “Hold on there!” came a voice. “Take me over.” A moment later a man emerged from among the trees and came tumbling down the bank. It was Dawson. He stopped short and hesitated when he saw Eben, and was about to turn back when the old man said brusquely, “Git in.” Impelled by a flash of lightning on the mountain side and a crash of thunder overhead, the rector scrambled into the stern of the boat. Eben gave it a shove and climbed in after him. The river had seized the clumsy craft and had swept it far out from the bank before the old man could fix his oars and get it under control. Then with steady strokes he bore away for the other side. As Dawson sat watching the coming storm and felt the boat moving along through the water, carrying him nearer and nearer to the lights of the village, he forgot the incident of the mule and the quarrel of the previous day and remembered only that his enemy was taking him from the dark, forbidding mountains behind, where the very trees were thrashing their limbs and straining to and fro as though they would break from their imprisonment and run for shelter too. “I can never thank you enough for rowing me over, Mr. Huckin,” he said.