the four negroes had divided by couples and gone opposite ways.

"Call them back!" I urged. "Blow your horn!" But I was ignored.




XVI

[Chester sat looking at a newly turned page as though it were illegible.

"I'm wondering," he lightly said, "what public enormity of to-day the
next generation will be as amazed at as we are at this."

"Ah," Mme. Castanado responded, "never mine! Tha'z but the moral!
Aline and me we are insane for the story to finizh!" And the story was
resumed, to suffer no further interruption.]


At the river we burst out upon a broad, gentle bend up and down which
we could see both heavily wooded banks for a good furlong either way.

The sun's last beams shone straight up the lower arm of the bend. On
the upper bayed Charmer and Dandy, unseen. On the lower we heard the
younger pair. On the upper we saw only the clear waters crinkling in a
wide shallow over a gravel-bar, but down-stream we instantly discovered
Luke and his wife. Silhouetted against the level sunlight, heaving
forward with arms upthrown, waist deep in the main current, they were
more than half-way across. At that moment two small dark objects, the
two dogs, moved out from the shore, after them, each with its wake of