Potter, half blind, dizzy, suffering agonies, crept out of the wreckage. One leg dragged helplessly. There was a wrenching pain inside. Dumbly he looked for Hildegarde. She lay at a little distance--without movement. She was stretched at full length, her face pillowed on her arm as if she had lain down on the grass for a nap. Peacefully, gracefully she lay--but very still. Potter dragged himself toward her, reached her. Then he was conscious that a man was running to them, was stooping over them. He looked up into the man's face. It was very confusing. He seemed to know the man, yet it was impossible the man should be there.... "How do you do, Cantor?" he said. "Did you--bring--your letters?..." Then his arms failed him and he slumped downward, his face resting on Hildegarde's knees. The man Potter had called Cantor turned the young man over gently, wiped the blood from his face with his handkerchief, and grunted. He opened Potter's clothing and laid an ear to his breast. The heart was beating feebly.... Hasty examination showed him Hildegarde was alive, too. "Start the boat," he called over his shoulder. "Be quick about it." He lifted Hildegarde and carried her past the house to a tiny dock and handed her aboard a narrow, cabined motor-boat. "Two of you get the man," he said. "What will we do with them?" a man asked, in German. "To the hospital in that town--Mount Clemens," the man in authority replied, in the same language. "They're badly hurt. I doubt if he lives to get there." "So much the better," growled the man. "Do you go with us?" "I remain.... You found them on the shore ten miles from here. Don't be definite. To-night we'll get the wreck of this machine across and out of the way." "What was he doing here, Herr?" "Nothing for you to worry about.... The chances are he'll never regain consciousness. If he does he won't be able to remember anything.... Make haste, for he's more valuable alive than dead." The motor-boat swung into the channel and sped away. Once in open water, it showed an astonishing gift of speed as it made for the mouth of the Clinton River. Not as they wound their way up the narrow river, not as they touched the wharf, did Potter or Hildegarde betray a sign of returning consciousness. The man in charge leaped ashore. He had chosen his landing with judgment, for the spot was deserted. For ten minutes he disappeared, returning with two men from a near-by office. "We found them on the shore ten miles up," said the man who habitually spoke in German, but whose English was acceptable. "They fell with an aeroplane." "Who are they?" The man shook his head. "I don't know anything.... We found them, that's all."