“You must go away,” said Joslin at last.—“Go over there in the brush and sit down. I’ll have to drop the boat down.” He did drop it down to a point where the ledge dipped so that he could make some sort of landing. Slowly, with very much difficulty, he managed to disembark the ghastly cargo. Able to do no more, he literally dragged the body of James Haddon out and let it lie upon the sand at the edge of a thicket. But she had followed him and looked down speechless as she knelt now, her hands still at her face, her head shaking from side to side. “Jim! Jim!” she whispered. “Oh! Oh!” “I feel as though it had been my fault,” broke out Joslin. “I put out that set-line myself when I came through yesterday. We fish there for catfish all the time—they run in that deep water out there. He must have got fouled in the line somewhere when he got in. My God!—I feel as though I had killed him myself.” CHAPTER XX THE COMING OF JAMES HADDON THE sun was gone, and the shadows were black in the defile. The ancient river went on with its mocking of them, now low and hoarse, now cynically shrieking, as the voice of flowing water will come, altered by the currents of the air. The two thus alone in the wilderness spoke not at all for some time, and then Joslin could only go on in his own self-reproach. “It was where we built the fires, Ma’am,” he said vaguely, still endeavoring to explain what could not be explained save in the books of the gods. “I’ve sat there myself more than one night—I studied there, Ma’am, read my lessons, getting ready to teach. I read while I waited for the fish to bite. I set that line my own self. I never knew—oh! it seems as though I had done this with my own hand.” “Don’t,” she said, gentle and just even now. “I was afraid you both were gone. Please don’t talk. I’m afraid—oh, I’m afraid!—and I’m so cold—I’m so very cold.” She was shivering now, Joslin as well. He hurried to his flung coat and found matches this time, came with bits of drift wood, pieces of dry brandies. He built a little fire. “You must get warm,” said he. “What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do? This awful place—oh, this awful place!” “Wait just a little,” said David Joslin. “You must get warm.” They cowered at the fire, two small human objects here in the grip of the wilderness, in the hands of fate indeed. It was some time before Joslin raised his head. “There’s someone coming—I hear a wagon on the rocks, Ma’am,” said he, starting up. “You stay here—I’ll go see—it must be someone on the trail above.” He hurried to the edge of the undergrowth and disappeared. The sound of wheels became apparent to her ears. Soon after they stopped she saw Joslin come again, accompanied by a tall gaunt man his equal in stature, a man who came and stood near by her, looking down in pity. “Ma’am,” said he, “this is mighty bad—mighty bad.” “Help me, Absalom,” said David Joslin. “Mrs. Haddon, you go over there. We’re going to take him to the wagon.”