"I am cold," said Quin. "I ought to get ashore." The boat itself touched a mud-bank. Quin felt bottom again and just as he was deciding to let go the boat swung off. Quin cried and was very angry. "I'll do it next time," said Quin. But he didn't. He was afraid to let go. And yet the shore was very close. Once more the boat touched and his feet were quite firm in the mud. But there was a bottom six inches down. He thought he prayed to something, to God perhaps, and then he saw the boat swing away from him. He was quite alone and very solitary. To lose the boat was like losing one's home. He staggered and fell flailing and found bottom with his hands. He hung to the very earth, but was dizzy. He waited quite a while to be sure of himself and then scrambled with infinite and most appalling labour to the shore. His limbs were as heavy as death, as lead. He dragged them after him. He ached. But at last he came out on the land. It was earth: he had got there. Was there ever in all human experience such a pleasant spot to lie down on, to sleep in? He just knew there wasn't. He forgot he was wet, that he was cold, that Pete was dead, that he was alive, and he went on his knees and scrabbled like a tired beast at the ground. And then he went to sleep, holding himself with his arms and making strange comfortable little noises. Sleep rolled over him like a river. Artillery would not have awakened him, nor thunder, nor the curious hands of friends or the hostile claws of creatures of prey. And within a few minutes of his going to sleep other boats came down the river and passed him. They picked up the capsized boat. "Quin's dead then," they told each other. It was quite possible Quin's body believed that, too. But his warm mind knew better, of course. He had got earth under him, and he warmed it. XXV "Oh, oho, the toketie papoosh: I love the papoosh, Jenny's papoosh," said Annawillee, as she held the baby. The shack was lighted by the burning Mill rather than by the stinking slush lamp on the foul table. Jenny cried for her baby, but Annawillee was after all a woman and loved children in her own way. For years she hadn't handled one. Her only child had died. Its father was not Chihuahua. "Oh, give him me, Annawillee," said Jenny. He was George's child, and now she knew that "Tchorch" was out on the great lonely river, hunting unhappy Pete. Men said they would never come back. Her soul was burning even as the Mill burnt. "Tchorch" loved her and yet had forgotten her. "Give him to me." But Annawillee sat on the floor and sang about the papoosh, a song of a poor Klootchman deserted by her man and left with her child: "Oh, nika tenas Hyas nika klahowyam, Hyu keely, Konaway sun, Nika tenas. "Ah, my little one, Sad am I---- I mourn and weep, Ah, still must cry, Ah, my little one, every day!" Annie screamed at her.