"Patience, are we going into the river?"

"If-if nothing happens first," stammered the mountain girl, for the first time truly frightened.

"Can you swim?"

"Yes, can you?"

"Yes. Listen, Patience. We are older, we can stand much. Hallie is a small child. The cold of the river will kill her. Take off your cape and make it into a ball. Try to keep it dry. I'll do the best I can to protect her. Somehow we'll make sh.o.r.e. We-"

At that instant her lips were sealed by the sight that burst upon her startled eyes. Apparently directly beneath them, its silently sweeping waters yellow and swollen by recent rains, lay the river and upon it, having just emerged from behind a cloud, shone the moon.

The perils that lay before the two girls and their small charge, though great enough, were not so imminent as they had appeared. A sudden turn in the chute brought them to a more gradual slope. When at last their cushion of debris floated out upon the river, so slight was the splash it made that it seemed hard to believe that they had reached the end of their perilous glide to safety. But there was still danger, for all too soon their frail raft was water-logged and sinking.

"Remember the cape," cautioned Marion as, with her left hand holding little Hallie tightly upon what was left of the raft, she struck out into the dark, chilling waters.

"Let-let's keep together," she called through chattering teeth. "It-it's going to be hard, but we can make it. Let-let's try for the other sh.o.r.e."

Patience struck boldly out before her.

In spite of Marion's best efforts to protect the child, she was getting wet. She began to cry. The cry wrenched the older girl's heart. "If the water makes my teeth chatter, what must it mean to her!" she thought.

"Look!" she called to Patience. "What's that off to the right?"

"Looks like a log, a saw log. Ought we try for it?"

"Yes."

Instantly the course was changed. A moment later they were clambering aboard a great log of white wood that buoyed them up as easily as a boat.

Sitting astride the log, Marion wrapped Patience's warm dry cape about the child. Hardly a moment had elapsed before her crying ceased.

Of all the strange experiences that had come to Marion, this was the most weird. To have escaped from hounds and kidnappers with a child, to have come gliding down here in such a strange manner, to find herself sitting astride a huge log surrounded by black, rushing waters, and gliding steadily forward to an unknown destination, this was adventure of the most stirring kind. But Marion found little enough time for such reflections. Now that she had come to a time of inaction she began to realize how cold the water and night air were. She was seized with such a fit of shivering that she feared she would be shaken off the log.

"The wat-the water's better than this," she chattered, yet for the sake of the peacefully sleeping child she decided to endure the torture as long as possible.

Trees and bushes along the river's bank swept by. A dog at some cabin barked. Off in the far distance a light flickered, then went out. The cold was becoming easier to bear. She was growing drowsy. She wanted to sleep. Sleep-yes, that was what she needed. Sleep, one wink of sleep. Her head fell upon her breast. The cold was overcoming her, but she did not realize it.

She dreamed she had left the log, to find a roaring fire right by the river's bank, by which she was warming herself. Suddenly a jolt which almost threw her from the log rudely brought her back to life.

"Wha-what is it!" she exclaimed, gripping Patience with one hand and clinging frantically to the sleeping child with the other.

"We've gone aground," said Patience. "If we're careful we can get ash.o.r.e."

Three minutes later, beside a clump of paw-paw bushes, they were wringing the water from their garments.

"I saw a light just over yonder," said Patience. "We'd better try to find it."

A very few steps and they were out of the brush and on a well beaten road. A quarter mile down this road they came suddenly upon a broad clearing, in the midst of which were three large white buildings.

"A school!" exclaimed Marion. "The mission school! Oh, we are safe!"

For a moment, worn out as she was by over-exertion, excitement and cold, she was obliged to battle with an almost overwhelming desire to drop in her tracks. Her splendid will, however, stood her in good stead and with a firm "Let's go on," she led the way.

CHAPTER XVII THE LAST OF HER CLAN

There was a light in the lower right room of the nearest building.

Straight to the door of this room they went and the next second found them blinking at the light and at the same time looking into one of the most saintly faces they had ever seen, the motherly face of Miss Bordell, who had for many years devoted her life to the education of mountain children.

The girls quickly told their story. Almost before they knew it, having been a.s.sured that here they would be quite safe from any intruders, they found themselves tucked in between a pair of white sheets with Hallie sleeping peacefully between them.

"We're safe," Marion whispered to herself, "but the mystery is not solved. To-morrow-to-mor-" Her thoughts were never finished. Her weary brain had closed shop for the night.

"It's the most unusual thing I have ever heard of," said the school princ.i.p.al after she had heard the girls' story the next morning. "You say they were regular mountain folks?"

"Yes, ma'am," Patience nodded.

"That's what makes it so unusual," said the elderly lady, wrinkling her brow. "Mountain folks aren't given to stealing and kidnapping. That sort of crime seems almost foreign to their nature. I'll tell you what we will do. The Circuit Judge, John Bas...o...b.. happens to be down at the village.

We'll go down and talk it over with him. It's only a mile."

So down the road to the village they marched, Marion, Patience, little Hallie, and their benefactress.

They had reached the first cabin that stood by the creek road when of a sudden Patience, pulling excitedly at the princ.i.p.al's sleeve, whispered hoa.r.s.ely:

"That's them there! They're the three men that carried Hallie away!"

A single glance told Marion she was right. So great was her fear of them that her first impulse was to s.n.a.t.c.h up Hallie and flee. But her better judgment prevailed. Surely here they were safe.

The men, apparently without having seen them, turned up a side path to enter a cabin.

"Are you sure those are the men?" asked the princ.i.p.al.

"Yes, yes!" the girls answered in unison.

"Let's hurry, then."

A short time later they were telling their story to Judge Bas...o...b.. a kindly old man.

"First thing," he said after they had finished, "is to find out who the men are. Come on out and show me the cabin they entered."

"H'm," he mused as he sighted the cabin. "Can't be Long Jim. That's his cabin. He's laid up with rheumatism. Must be some of his friends. Here, John Henry," he called to a barefoot boy. "Who's visiting at Long Jim's?"

"Reckon hit's Black John Berkhart and his brother, Blinkie Bill, and mebby Hog Farley."

"H'm," said the judge. "I know 'em. We'll just step over there."