“Do you think it would be _safer_ if I crossed in the canoe?” she asks. Wash grins a little. “I’m willin’ to take you over ef you like, ma’am,” he answers, “but the river’s down low enough for fordin’ now.” “Go on, then, John,” she says, tremulously. At all times Laurel is deep fording; and the current is very swift and strong, but we accomplish the passage safely—John being the best of drivers, and the horses true as steel. “Good-by to Laurel!” says Sylvia, as she rides out of the clear water on the farther side. “I shall never, never forget it.” “I sha’n’t nuther,” says John, “fur it’s the only place I ever heard of takin’ a carriage to pieces and carryin’ it over on a canoe.” We have not left this famous stream—and Laurel has fame of more kinds than one—half a mile behind, when the expected rain comes—a white, hard shower, which all in a second, as it were, sweeps over the mountains and pours upon us. “Of course it begins again as soon as we start,” says Aunt Markham, who plainly thinks that there is strong evidence of _malice prepense_ on the part of the clouds. We draw on our water-proofs, raise the carriage-top, and resign ourselves to our fate. The masculine portion of the party put on their overcoats and pull down their hats. “Greatest country for rain ever I see!” says John, as we plod along the narrow road, hemmed by towering cliffs and turbulent river, with the rain pouring in a white sheet as far as our vision extends. Before long the violence of the storm abates, the clouds pass as quickly as they came, the sun breaks forth—Nature is drenched, but how beautiful! Rocks, trees, ferns, and mosses—all are dripping with moisture which the sunlight turns to diamonds. We throw off our wraps and put back the top, careless that the drooping boughs under which we pass rain down absolute showers upon us as the breeze stirs them. We wind around a rocky curve, and a magnificent river-view is before us—the stream plunging and whirling against the bowlders that bar its way, and tossing in white-capped waves over the ledges, the great overshadowing hills wearing a faint-blue tint as the vista recedes, and mists like white smoke rising from the gorges. The rain has swollen all the short mountain streams, which come leaping down the hillsides in white cascades. One narrow creek, into which we plunge without due consideration, is so high that the water runs into the carriage, wetting our feet and invading our lunch-basket. Aunt Markham’s face as she sits with her feet elevated on the front seat, while the horses struggle through the turbid torrent—which three or four feet lower pours over a ledge of rock into the river—is a study of mingled expressions. “O John, how frightful!” she says, when we have gained the steep bank and are safe. [Illustration: A Wet Ford.]