A breathless, heavy hush lay over the valley. Shutting their eyes to the motion of the distant boats, they could have believed that the world had suddenly died around them, leaving them alone and forgotten. There was not a sound, not a ripple of air, not even the whirring of a bat or the cheep of a bird. Wardwell, over sensitive and craving for the homely cheery noises of things moving, stirred uneasily. But Augusta, child though she was of shut in city walls, had in her enough of the primitive to know that there was a physical cause for the hush that had fallen upon nature. She could feel a storm coming. How would Jimmie stand it? She had thought of this when she was planning--if indeed she had really done any planning--to make this adventure. But it was a fact that she had thought only vaguely of warm rain beating harmlessly against the tight roof of the wagon, of falling dreamily off to sleep in the dark listening to the soft patter and drip of rain among the trees. Now she looked fearfully at Jimmie, and at the frail walls of their home. And she trembled as she thought of the security and comfort from which she had brought him to this, where she had but a bit of dripping canvas to put between him and exposure. Already in the process of mothering him she had come to think of him as a helpless child. And vague, terrifying memories played upon her, of things heard and imagined, of great trees crashing down in forests, of roaring winds and furious, driving rain beating down to death the little wild things of the woods. Now she realized, for the first time it seemed, that Jimmie's life hung perilously on the care that she could give him, that even a wetting, such as, for herself, she could laugh at, would perhaps cost him more than he could gain by days and days in the open. With a determined shrug she threw off the impression and rising began to rattle the dishes. "Jimmie," she said lightly "take the pail from under the wagon and go out to the spring for water. I've let the fire die down and now I'll have to build it up again, for nothing but boiling water will take the fat off these dishes." "You should have camped near a hot water spring." "There isn't any such thing." "Sure there is; there's Arkansas Hot Springs--Why didn't you camp there?--And Virginia Hot Spring, and San Antone, and--" "Take Donahue with you, if you must talk. He'll listen, if you give him a drink." "Donahue," he said sadly as he unhooked the pail from under the wagon, "we be brothers in calumny. She blackens your character. She belittles my powers of charming converse. Let us retire to the unfrequented spring and there we shall mingle our bitter tears with the sweet waters." Donahue saw the pail being taken from its place, knew that the pail was going where there was water, and followed without comment.