“Put me down,” she said at length, as she saw the water shoaling.  It was hip deep to me, but waist deep to her; and I felt her shudder as she caught its chill.  Her little hand gripped tight to mine.

By this time the others had also descended from the snag.  I saw old Auberry plunging methodically along, at his side Mrs. McGovern, clasping the hand of her son.  “Come on here, you boy,” she said.  “What ye skeered of?  Tall as you air, you could wade the whole Missouri without your hair gettin’ wet.  Come along!”

“Get up, Auberry,” I said to him as he approached, and motioned to the long, overhanging branches from the driftwood.  He swung up, breaking off the more insecure boughs, and was of the belief that we could get across in that way.  As he reached down, I swung the young woman up to him, and she clambered on as best she could.  Thus, I scarce know how, we all managed to reach the solid drift, and so presently found ourselves ashore, on a narrow, sandy beach, hedged on the back by a heavy growth of willows.

“Now then, you men,” ordered Mandy McGovern, “get some wood out and start a fire, right away.  This here girl is shaking the teeth plumb out’n her head.”

Auberry and I had dragged some wood from the edge of the drift and pulled it into a heap near by, before we realized that neither of us had matches.

“Humph!” snorted our leader, feeling in her pockets.  She drew forth two flasks, each stoppered with a bit of corncob.  The one held sulphur matches, thus kept quite dry, and this she passed to me.  The other she handed to the young woman.

“Here,” said she, “take a drink of that.  It’ll do you good.”

I heard the girl gasp and choke as she obeyed this injunction; and then Mandy applied the bottle gurglingly to her own lips.

“I’ve got a gallon of that back there on the boat,” said Auberry ruefully.

“Heap of good it’ll do you there,” remarked Mandy.  “Looks to me like you all never did travel much.  Fer me, I always go heeled.  Wherever I gits throwed, there my rifle, and my matches, and my licker gits throwed too!  Now I’ll show you how to, light a fire.”

Presently we had a roaring blaze started, which added much to the comfort of all, for the chill of night was over the river, despite the fact that this was in the springtime.  Mandy seated herself comfortably upon a log, and producing a corncob pipe and a quantity of natural leaf tobacco, proceeded to enjoy herself in her own fashion.  “This here’s all right,” she remarked.  “We might be a heap worse off’n we air.”

I could not help pitying the young woman who crouched near her at the fireside, still shivering; she seemed so young and helpless and so out of place in such surroundings.  As presently the heat of the flame made her more comfortable, she began to tuck back the tumbled locks of her hair, which I could see was thick and dark.  The firelight showed in silhouette the outlines of her face.  It seemed to me I had never seen one more beautiful.  I remembered the round firmness of her body in my arms, the clasp of her hands about my neck, her hair blown across my cheek, and I reflected that since fortune had elected me to be a rescuer, it was not ill that so fair an object had been there for the rescuing.