"I've found it, I guess," he said, coming back to the vehicle. "Anyhow, it looks like it. We'll be over in a few minutes now. Git dap, you!"
Horace Greeley shivered as the cold water splashed his legs, but waded bravely in. They moved further from the shore and the water seemed to grow no deeper.
"Guess this is the crossin' all right," said the Captain, who had cherished some secret doubts. "Here's the deep part comin'. We'll be across in a jiffy."
The water mounted to the hubs, then to the bottom of the carryall. Miss Davis' feet grew damp and she drew them up.
"Oh, Perez!" she faltered, "are you sure this is the ford?"
"Don't git scared, Pashy! I guess maybe we've got a little to one side of the track. I'll turn 'round and try again."
But Horace Greeley was of a different mind. From long experience he knew that the way to cross a ford was to go straight ahead. The bottom of the carryall was awash.
"Port your hellum, you lubber!" shouted the driver, pulling with all his might on one rein. "Heave to! Come 'bout! Gybe! consarn you! gybe!"
Then Horace Greeley tried to obey orders, but it was too late. He endeavored to touch bottom with his forelegs, but could not; tried to swim with his hind ones, but found that impossible; then wallowed wildly to one side and snapped a shaft and the rotten whiffletree short off.
The carryall tipped alarmingly and Miss Patience screamed.
"Whoa!" yelled the agitated Perez. "'Vast heavin'! belay!"
The animal, as much frightened by his driver's shouts as by the water, shot ahead and tried to tear himself loose. The other sun-warped and rotten shaft broke. The carryall was now floating, with the water covering the floor.
"No use; I'll have to cut away the wreck, or we'll be on our beam ends!"
shouted the Captain.
He took out his jackknife, and reaching over, severed the traces. Horace Greeley gave another wallow, and finding himself free, disappeared in the darkness amid a lather of foam. The carriage, now well out in the channel, drifted with the current.
"Don't cry, Pashy!" said the Captain, endeavoring to cheer his sobbing companion, "we ain't shark bait yit. As the song used to say:
"'We're afloat, we're afloat, And the rover is free.'
"I've shipped aboard of 'most every kind of craft," he added, "but blessed if I ever expected to be skipper of a carryall!"
But Miss Patience, shut up in the back part of the carriage like a water nymph in her cave, still wept hysterically. So Captain Perez continued his dismal attempt at facetiousness.
"The main thing," he said, "is to keep her on an even keel. If she teeters to one side, you teeter to t'other. Drat that fox!" he ejaculated. "I thought when Web's place burned we'd had fire enough to last for one spell, but it never rains but it pours."
"Oh, dear!" sobbed the lady. "Now everything 'll burn up, and they'll blame me for it. Well, I'll be drownded anyway, so I shan't be there to hear 'em. Oh, dear! dear!"
"Oh, don't talk that way. We're driftin' somewheres, but we're spinnin'
'round so I can't tell which way. Judas!" he exclaimed, more soberly, "I remember, now; it ain't but a little past seven o'clock, and the tide's goin' out."
"Of course it is," resignedly, "and we'll drift into the breakers in the bay, and that 'll be the end."
"No, no, I guess not. We ain't dead yit. If I had an oar or somethin' to steer this clipper with, maybe we could git into shoal water. As 'tis, we'll have to manage her the way Ote Wixon used to manage his wife, by lettin' her have her own way."
They floated in silence for a few moments. Then Miss Patience, who had bravely tried to stifle her sobs, said with chattering teeth, "Perez, I'm pretty nigh froze to death."
It will be remembered that the Captain had spoken of the weather as being almost as warm as summer. This was a slight exaggeration. It happened, fortunately for the castaways, that this particular night, coming as it did just at the end of the long thaw, was the mildest of the winter and there was no wind, but the air was chill, and the damp fog raw and biting.
"Well, now you mention it," said Captain Perez, "it IS cold, ain't it?
I've a good mind to jump overboard, and try to swim ashore and tow the carryall."
"Don't you DO it! My land! if YOU should drown what would become of ME?"
It was the tone of this speech, as much as the words, that hit the Captain hard. He himself almost sobbed as he said:
"Pashy, I want you to try to git over on this front seat with me. Then I can put my coat 'round you, and you won't be so cold. Take hold of my hand."
Miss Patience at first protested that she never could do it in the world, the carriage would upset, and that would be the end. But her companion urged her to try, and at last she did so. It was a risky proceeding, but she reached the front seat somehow, and the carryall still remained right-side-up. Luckily, in the channel between the beaches there was not the slightest semblance of a wave.
Captain Perez pulled off his coat, and wrapped it about his protesting companion. He was obliged to hold it in place, and he found the task rather pleasing.
"Oh, you're SO good!" murmured Miss Patience. "What should I have done without you?"
"Hush! Guess you'd have been better off. You'd never gone after that fox if it hadn't been for me, and there wouldn't have been none of this fuss."
"Oh, don't say that! You've been so brave. Anyhow, we'll die together, that's a comfort."
"Pashy," said Captain Perez solemnly, "it's mighty good to hear you say that."
It is, perhaps, needless to explain that the "dying" portion of the lady's speech was not that referred to by the Captain; the word "together" was what appealed to him. Miss Patience apparently understood.
"Is it?" she said softly.
"Yes--yes, 'tis." The arm holding the coat about the lady's shoulder tightened just a little. The Captain had often dreamed of something like this, but never with quite these surroundings. However, he was rapidly becoming oblivious to such trivial details as surroundings.
"Pashy," he said huskily, "I've been thinkin' of you consider'ble lately. Fact is, I--I--well, I come down to-day a-purpose to ask you somethin'. I know it's a queer place to ask it, and--and I s'pose it's kind of sudden, but--will--will you--Breakers! by mighty!"
The carryall had suddenly begun to rock, and there were streaks of foam about it. Now, it gave a most alarming heave, grounded, swung clear, and tipped yet more.
"We're capsizin'," yelled Perez. "Hang on to me, Pashy!"
But Miss Patience didn't intend to let this, perhaps the final opportunity, slip. As she told her brother afterward, she would have made him say it then if they had been "two fathom under water."
"Will I what, Perez?" she demanded.
The carryall rose on two wheels and begun to turn over, but the Captain did not notice it. The arms of his heart's desire were about his neck, and he was looking into her eyes.
"Will you marry me?" he gasped.
"Yes," answered Miss Patience, and they went under together.
The Captain staggered to his feet, and dragged his chosen bride to hers.
The ice-cold water reached their shoulders. And, like a flash, as they stood there, came a torrent of rain and a wind that drove the fog before it like smoke. Captain Perez saw the shore, with its silhouetted bushes, only a few yards away. Beyond that, in the blackness, was a light, a flickering blaze, that rose and fell and rose and fell again.
The Captain dragged Miss Patience to the beach.