blind channels opening off the bed of the Ahwewee. They were the terror
of those who were travelling in boats, for they were easily mistaken for
the river itself, and they led to nothing but impenetrable marsh. From
this particular inlet David Brown had discovered a passage to the land,
and Ann pursued the new untried way boldly. Somewhere farther on David
had told her a little creek flowed in where the eye could not discern
any wider opening than was constantly the case between the drowned
trees. Its effect upon the current of the water was said to be so slight
that the only way to discover where it ran was by throwing some light
particles upon the water and watching to see whether they drifted
outwards from the wood steadily. She turned the boat gently against a
broken stump from which she could take a decaying fragment. An hour
passed. She wearily crossed the water to and fro, casting out her chips
of punk, straining her eyes to see their motion in the moonlight. The
breeze that had moved the smoke had gone again. Above the moon rode
through white fleecy clouds. The water and air lay still and warm,
inter-penetrated with the white light. The trees, without leaf or twigs,
cast no shadow with the moon in the zenith.

The patient experimenting with the chips was a terrible ordeal to Ann.
The man whom she supposed to be her father lay almost the whole length
of the canoe so close to her, and yet she could not pass his
outstretched feet to give him food or stimulant. At last, at last, to
her great joy, she found the place where the chips floated outward with
steady motion. She then pushed her canoe in among the trees, thankful to
know that it, at least, had been there before, that there would be no
pass too narrow for it. The canoe itself was almost like a living
creature to her by this time. Like an intelligent companion in the
search, it responded with gentle motion to her slightest touch.