This time he managed better, working it under his left arm, end to the current, keeping it as straight as possible, and guiding it so that he had less difficulty when the point began to sway round and, in turn, was swept against the next tree, while he passed the near end over his head and dropped it between him and the trunk. The passing along it, too, he managed more easily, though he shuddered as he felt how it bent when he reached the middle, and hurried so as to get to the next tree to rest. The third stage was easier still, and he crept on in this way from tree to tree, six, eight, and ten feet at a time, till, to his great delight, he found the water waist instead of breast-high. Ten minutes later it was not more than half-way up this height, and in another five he left the rafter still pressed against two trunks, and waded through the rushing stream, holding on by bough after bough, till he stood triumphantly upon dry land. Then after walking a few yards to an open patch by a pit where the sun shone warmly, he dropped upon his knees in hot, loose, yellow sand, and crouched there till his breath came regularly and he could look more calmly round. The place was in the wood, shut in by a few trees and great patches of golden-blossomed furze. The sun came down warmly, birds twittered in the boughs, and a couple of rabbits showed their white cottony tails for a moment or two as they plunged down into their burrows, while above all, in a low, deep, roaring bass, there was the heavy thunder of the river as it swept sand, gravel, trees, and everything it could tear from its flooded banks, toward the sea. Richard Frayne felt that he must be miles away from Primchilsea, and that he was in as lonely a country place as he could have selected; and now for the first time the discomforts of his personal condition began to make themselves felt, as there was no more serious call upon his brain. His hat had gone when he first plunged into the river, but he did not seem to have lost anything else, for his jacket was buttoned tightly over the little case; but the hot sunshine now, paradoxical as it may sound, began to make him feel chilly--of course, from the great evaporation going on. Taking off his garments, then, one by one, he wrung and spread them on the hot sand, emptying his boots and serving them the same, when, after wringing out his socks and placing them to dry, a good idea occurred to him, and he filled his boots with the hottest, dryest sand he could find.