"My gracious, how dark it is! Think you can find the crossin'?"

"GOT to find it; that's all. 'Tis dark, that's a fact."

It was. They had gone but a few hundred yards; yet the fire was already merely a shapeless, red smudge on the foggy blackness behind them. Horace Greeley pounded along at a jog, and when the Captain slapped him with the end of the reins, broke into a jerky gallop that was slower than the trot.

"Stop your hoppin' up and down!" commanded Perez, whose temper was becoming somewhat frayed. "You make me think of the walkin' beam on a steamboat. If you'd stop tryin' to fly and go straight ahead we'd do better."

They progressed in this fashion for some distance. Then Miss Davis, from the curtained depths of the back seat, spoke again.

"Oh, dear me!" she exclaimed. "Are you sure you're on the right track? Seems 's if we MUST be abreast the station, and this road's awful rough."

Captain Perez had remarked the roughness of the road. The carryall was pitching from one hummock to another, and Horace Greeley stumbled once or twice.

"Whoa!" commanded the Captain. Then he got down, lit a match, and, shielding it with his hands, scrutinized the ground. "I'm kind of 'fraid," he said presently, "that we've got off the road somehow. But we must be 'bout opposite the crossin'. I'm goin' to drive down and see if I can find it."

He turned the horse's head at right angles from the way they were going, and they pitched onward for another hundred yards. Then they came out upon the hard, smooth sand, and heard the water lapping on the shore. Captain Perez got out once more and walked along the strand, bending forward as he walked. Soon Miss Patience heard him calling.

"I've found it, I guess," he said, coming back to the vehicle. "Anyhow, it looks like it. We'll be over in a few minutes now. Git dap, you!"

Horace Greeley shivered as the cold water splashed his legs, but waded bravely in. They moved further from the shore and the water seemed to grow no deeper.

"Guess this is the crossin' all right," said the Captain, who had cherished some secret doubts. "Here's the deep part comin'. We'll be across in a jiffy."

The water mounted to the hubs, then to the bottom of the carryall. Miss Davis' feet grew damp and she drew them up.

"Oh, Perez!" she faltered, "are you sure this is the ford?"

"Don't git scared, Pashy! I guess maybe we've got a little to one side of the track. I'll turn 'round and try again."

But Horace Greeley was of a different mind. From long experience he knew that the way to cross a ford was to go straight ahead. The bottom of the carryall was awash.

"Port your hellum, you lubber!" shouted the driver, pulling with all his might on one rein. "Heave to! Come 'bout! Gybe! consarn you! gybe!"

Then Horace Greeley tried to obey orders, but it was too late. He endeavored to touch bottom with his forelegs, but could not; tried to swim with his hind ones, but found that impossible; then wallowed wildly to one side and snapped a shaft and the rotten whiffletree short off. The carryall tipped alarmingly and Miss Patience screamed.

"Whoa!" yelled the agitated Perez. "'Vast heavin'! belay!"

The animal, as much frightened by his driver's shouts as by the water, shot ahead and tried to tear himself loose. The other sun- warped and rotten shaft broke. The carryall was now floating, with the water covering the floor.

"No use; I'll have to cut away the wreck, or we'll be on our beam ends!" shouted the Captain.

He took out his jackknife, and reaching over, severed the traces. Horace Greeley gave another wallow, and finding himself free, disappeared in the darkness amid a lather of foam. The carriage, now well out in the channel, drifted with the current.

"Don't cry, Pashy!" said the Captain, endeavoring to cheer his sobbing companion, "we ain't shark bait yit. As the song used to say:

"'We're afloat, we're afloat, And the rover is free.'

"I've shipped aboard of 'most every kind of craft," he added, "but blessed if I ever expected to be skipper of a carryall!"

But Miss Patience, shut up in the back part of the carriage like a water nymph in her cave, still wept hysterically. So Captain Perez continued his dismal attempt at facetiousness.

"The main thing," he said, "is to keep her on an even keel. If she teeters to one side, you teeter to t'other. Drat that fox!" he ejaculated. "I thought when Web's place burned we'd had fire enough to last for one spell, but it never rains but it pours."

"Oh, dear!" sobbed the lady. "Now everything 'll burn up, and they'll blame me for it. Well, I'll be drownded anyway, so I shan't be there to hear 'em. Oh, dear! dear!"

"Oh, don't talk that way. We're driftin' somewheres, but we're spinnin' 'round so I can't tell which way. Judas!" he exclaimed, more soberly, "I remember, now; it ain't but a little past seven o'clock, and the tide's goin' out."

"Of course it is," resignedly, "and we'll drift into the breakers in the bay, and that 'll be the end."

"No, no, I guess not. We ain't dead yit. If I had an oar or somethin' to steer this clipper with, maybe we could git into shoal water. As 'tis, we'll have to manage her the way Ote Wixon used to manage his wife, by lettin' her have her own way."

They floated in silence for a few moments. Then Miss Patience, who had bravely tried to stifle her sobs, said with chattering teeth, "Perez, I'm pretty nigh froze to death."

It will be remembered that the Captain had spoken of the weather as being almost as warm as summer. This was a slight exaggeration. It happened, fortunately for the castaways, that this particular night, coming as it did just at the end of the long thaw, was the mildest of the winter and there was no wind, but the air was chill, and the damp fog raw and biting.

"Well, now you mention it," said Captain Perez, "it IS cold, ain't it? I've a good mind to jump overboard, and try to swim ashore and tow the carryall."

"Don't you DO it! My land! if YOU should drown what would become of ME?"

It was the tone of this speech, as much as the words, that hit the Captain hard. He himself almost sobbed as he said:

"Pashy, I want you to try to git over on this front seat with me. Then I can put my coat 'round you, and you won't be so cold. Take hold of my hand."

Miss Patience at first protested that she never could do it in the world, the carriage would upset, and that would be the end. But her companion urged her to try, and at last she did so. It was a risky proceeding, but she reached the front seat somehow, and the carryall still remained right-side-up. Luckily, in the channel between the beaches there was not the slightest semblance of a wave.

Captain Perez pulled off his coat, and wrapped it about his protesting companion. He was obliged to hold it in place, and he found the task rather pleasing.

"Oh, you're SO good!" murmured Miss Patience. "What should I have done without you?"

"Hush! Guess you'd have been better off. You'd never gone after that fox if it hadn't been for me, and there wouldn't have been none of this fuss."

"Oh, don't say that! You've been so brave. Anyhow, we'll die together, that's a comfort."

"Pashy," said Captain Perez solemnly, "it's mighty good to hear you say that."

It is, perhaps, needless to explain that the "dying" portion of the lady's speech was not that referred to by the Captain; the word "together" was what appealed to him. Miss Patience apparently understood.

"Is it?" she said softly.

"Yes--yes, 'tis." The arm holding the coat about the lady's shoulder tightened just a little. The Captain had often dreamed of something like this, but never with quite these surroundings. However, he was rapidly becoming oblivious to such trivial details as surroundings.

"Pashy," he said huskily, "I've been thinkin' of you consider'ble lately. Fact is, I--I--well, I come down to-day a-purpose to ask you somethin'. I know it's a queer place to ask it, and--and I s'pose it's kind of sudden, but--will--will you-- Breakers! by mighty!"

The carryall had suddenly begun to rock, and there were streaks of foam about it. Now, it gave a most alarming heave, grounded, swung clear, and tipped yet more.