It took her more than an hour to do it, to pull and lift and shove the
inert figure! Afterward she used to wonder how she had done it; wonder
how she had given the final _push_, which got his sagging body up on to
the floor of the wagon! It had strained every part of her;--her shoulder
against his hips, her head in the small of his back, her hands gripping
his heavy, dangling legs. She was soaking wet; her hair had loosened,
and stray locks were plastered across her forehead. She grunted like a
toiling animal.

It seemed as if her heart would crack with her effort, her muscles
tear; she forgot the retreating rumble of the storm, the brooding,
dripping forest stillness; she forgot even her certainty that he would
die. She entirely forgot herself. She only knew--straining, gasping,
sweating--that she must get the body--the dead body perhaps!--into the
wagon. And she did it! Just as she did it, she heard a faint groan. Her
heart stood still with terror, then beat frantically with joy.

_He was alive!_

She ran back to the cabin for the cushions he had saved from the rain,
and pushed them under his head; then tied the lantern to the whip
socket; then recalled what he had said about "roping a log on behind as
a brake." "Of course!" she thought; and managed,--the splinters tearing
her hands--to fasten a fairly heavy piece of wood under the rear axle,
so that it might bump along behind the wagon as a drag. She pondered as
she did these things why she should know so certainly how they must be
done? But when they were done, she said, _"Now!"..._ and went and stood
between the shafts.

It was after midnight when the descent began. The moon rode high among