Well, that was the worst of it, and perhaps it was not so much, after all, to any but herself.  For when she recovered her senses it was bright sunlight, and dead low water.  There was a confused noise of guttural voices about her, and an old squaw, singing an Indian “hushaby,” and rocking herself from side to side before a fire built on the marsh, before which she, the recovered wife and mother, lay weak and weary.  Her first thought was for her baby, and she was about to speak, when a young squaw, who must have been a mother herself, fathomed her thought and brought her the “mowitch,” pale but living, in such a queer little willow cradle all bound up, just like the squaw’s own young one, that she laughed and cried together, and the young squaw and the old squaw showed their big white teeth and glinted their black eyes and said, “Plenty get well, skeena mowitch,” “wagee man come plenty soon,” and she could have kissed their brown faces in her joy.  And then she found that they had been gathering berries on the marsh in their queer, comical baskets, and saw the skirt of her gown fluttering on the tree from afar, and the old squaw couldn’t resist the temptation of procuring a new garment, and came down and discovered the “wagee” woman and child.  And of course she gave the garment to the old squaw, as you may imagine, and when he came at last and rushed up to her, looking about ten years older in his anxiety, she felt so faint again that they had to carry her to the canoe.  For, you see, he knew nothing about the flood until he met the Indians at Utopia, and knew by the signs that the poor woman was his wife.  And at the next high tide he towed the tree away back home, although it wasn’t worth the trouble, and built another house, using the old tree for the foundation and props, and called it after her, “Mary’s Ark!” But you may guess the next house was built above high-water mark.  And that’s all.

Not much, perhaps, considering the malevolent capacity of the Dedlow Marsh.  But you must tramp over it at low water, or paddle over it at high tide, or get lost upon it once or twice in the fog, as I have, to understand properly Mary’s adventure, or to appreciate duly the blessings of living beyond High-Water Mark.

A LONELY RIDE

As I stepped into the Slumgullion stage I saw that it was a dark night, a lonely road, and that I was the only passenger.  Let me assure the reader that I have no ulterior design in making this assertion.  A long course of light reading has forewarned me what every experienced intelligence must confidently look for from such a statement.  The storyteller who willfully tempts Fate by such obvious beginnings; who is to the expectant reader in danger of being robbed or half-murdered, or frightened by an escaped lunatic, or introduced to his ladylove for the first time, deserves to be detected.  I am relieved to say that none of these things occurred to me.  The road from Wingdam to Slumgullion knew no other banditti than the regularly licensed hotelkeepers; lunatics had not yet reached such depth of imbecility as to ride of their own free will in California stages; and my Laura, amiable and long-suffering as she always is, could not, I fear, have borne up against these depressing circumstances long enough to have made the slightest impression on me.