Carrington looked eagerly around in search of Betty. She was sitting on an upturned tub, a pathetic enough figure as she drooped against the wall of one of the shanties with all her courage quite gone from her. He made his way quickly to her side. “La!” whispered Polly in Chills and Fever's ear. “If that pore young thing yonder keeps a widow it won't be because of any encouragement she gets from Mr. Carrington. If I ever seen marriage in a man's eye I seen it in his this minute!” “Bruce!” cried Betty, starting up as Carrington approached. “Oh, Bruce, I am so glad you have come--you are not hurt?” She accepted his presence without question. She had needed him and he had not failed her. “We are none of us hurt, Betty,” he said gently, as he took her hand. He saw that the suffering she had undergone during the preceding twenty-four hours had left its record on her tired face and in her heavy eyes. She retained a shuddering consciousness of the unchecked savagery of those last moments on the keel boat; she was still hearing the oaths of the men as they struggled together, the sound of blows, and the dreadful silences that had followed them. She turned from him, and there came the relief of tears. “There, Betty, the danger is over now and you were so brave while it lasted. I can't bear to have you cry!” “I was wild with fear--all that time on the boat, Bruce--” she faltered between her sobs. “I didn't know but they would find you out. I could only wait and hope--and pray!” “I was in no danger, dear. Didn't the girl tell you I was to take the place of a man Slosson was expecting? He never doubted that I was that man until a light--a signal it must have been--on the shore at the head of the bayou betrayed me.” “Where are we going now, Bruce? Not the way they went--” and Betty glanced out into the black void where the keel boat had merged into the gloom. “No, no--but we can't get the raft back up-stream against the current, so the best thing is to land at the Bates' plantation below here; then as soon as you are able we can return to Belle Plain,” said Carrington.