“We’re all right, Peter,” she cried, even in that moment when she knew she had lost.  “We’re all ri—­”

And then suddenly the bright glory of her head went down, and with her went Peter, still held to her breast under the sweeping rush of the flood.

Even then it was thought of Peter that filled her brain.  Somehow she was not afraid.  She was not terrified, as she had often been of the flood-rush of waters that smashed down the creeks in springtime.  An inundating roar was over her, under her, and all about her; it beat in a hissing thunder against the drums of her ears, yet it did not frighten her as she had sometimes been frightened.  Even in that black chaos which was swiftly suffocating the life from her, unspoken words of cheer for Peter formed in her heart, and she struggled to hold him to her, while with her other hand she fought to raise herself by the stub of the log to which she clung.  For she was not thinking of him as Peter, the dog, but as something greater—­something that had fought for her that day, and because of her had died.

Suddenly she felt a force pulling her from above.  It was the big log, turning again to that point of equilibrium which for a space her weight had destroyed.  In the edge of a quieter pool where the water swirled but did not rush, her brown head appeared, and then her white face, and with a last mighty effort she thrust up Peter so that his dripping body was on the log.  Sobbingly she filled her lungs with air.  But the drench of water and her hair blinded her so that she could not see.  And she found all at once that the strength had gone from her body.  Vainly she tried to drag herself up beside Peter, and in the struggle she raised herself a little, so that a low-hanging branch of a tree swept her like a mighty arm from the log.

With a cry she reached out for Peter.  But he was gone, the log was gone, and she felt a vicious pulling at her hair, as Jed Hawkins himself had often pulled it, and for a few moments the current pounded against her body and the tree-limb swayed back and forth as it held her there by her hair.

If there was pain from that tugging, Nada did not feel it.  She could see now, and thirty yards below her was a wide, quiet pool into which the log was drifting.  Peter was gone.  And then, suddenly, her heart seemed to stop its beating, and her eyes widened, and in that moment of astounding miracle she forgot that she was hanging by her hair in the ugly lip of the flood, with slippery hands beating and pulling at her from below.  For she saw Peter—­Peter in the edge of the pool—­making his way toward the shore!  For a space she could not believe.  It must be his dead body drifting.  It could not be Peter—­swimming!  And yet—­his head was above the water—­he was moving shoreward—­he was struggling—­