as he ran. "They don't care a split pea what happens when they've got
the pip. Look at her--my hair's bleachin'."

"She's got the pip all right," stuttered Jowett as he plunged along; "but
she's foreign, and they've all got the pip, foreign men and women both--
but the women go crazy."

"She keeps pretty cool for a crazy loon, that girl. If I owned her,
I'd--"

Jowett interrupted impatiently. "You'd do what old man Druse does--you'd
let her be, Osterhaut. What's the good of havin' your own way with one
that's the apple of your eye, if it turns her agin you? You want her to
kiss you on the high cheek-bone, but if you go to play the cat-o'-nine-
tails round her, the high cheek-bone gets froze. Gol blast it, look at
her, son! What are the wild waves saying? They're sayin', 'This is a
surprise, Miss Druse. Not quite ready for ye, Miss Druse.' My, ain't
she got the luck of the old devil!"

It seemed so. More than once the canoe half jammed between the rocks,
and the stern lifted up by the force of the wild current, but again the
paddle made swift play, and again the cockle-shell swung clear. But now
Fleda Druse was no longer on her feet. She knelt, her strong, slim brown
arms bared to the shoulder, her hair blown about her forehead, her daring
eyes flashing to left and right, memory of her course at work under such
a strain as few can endure without chaos of mind in the end. A hundred
times since the day she had run these Rapids with Tekewani, she had gone
over the course in her mind, asleep and awake, forcing her brain to see
again every yard of that watery way; because she knew that the day must
come when she would make the journey alone. Why she would make it she