“I daresay you’re right,” said Hemmingway cheerfully, “but I don’t clearly see what the folks about here have to do with our situation just now.”

“You’ll see,” she said, with a smile of mischievous mystery.  “All the same,” she added, with a sudden and dangerous softness in her eyes, “I ain’t sayin’ that you ain’t kinder right neither.”

An hour ago he would have laughed at the thought that a mere look and sentence like this from the girl could have made his heart beat.  “Then I may go on and talk?”

She smiled, but her eyes said, “Yes,” plainly.

He turned to take a chair near her.  Suddenly the cabin trembled, there was a sound of scraping, a bump, and then the whole structure tilted to one side and they were both thrown violently towards the corner, with a swift inrush of water.  Hemmingway quickly caught the girl by the waist; she clung to him instinctively, yet still laughing, as with a desperate effort he succeeded in dragging her to the upper side of the slanting cabin, and momentarily restoring its equilibrium.  They remained for an instant breathless.  But in that instant he had drawn her face to his and kissed her.

She disengaged herself gently with neither excitement nor emotion, and pointing to the open door said, “Look there!”

Two of the logs which formed the foundation of their floor were quietly floating in the water before the cabin!  The submerged obstacle or snag which had torn them from their fastening was still holding the cabin fast.  Hemmingway saw the danger.  He ran along the narrow ledge to the point of contact and unhesitatingly leaped into the icy cold water.  It reached his armpits before his feet struck the obstacle,—­evidently a stump with a projecting branch.  Bracing himself against it, he shoved off the cabin.  But when he struck out to follow it, he found that the log nearest him was loose and his grasp might tear it away.  At the same moment, however, a pink calico arm fluttered above his head, and a strong grasp seized his coat collar.  The cabin half revolved as the girl dragged him into the open door.

“You bantam!” she said, with a laugh, “why didn’t you let me do that?  I’m taller than you!  But,” she added, looking at his dripping clothes and dragging out a blanket from the corner, “I couldn’t dry myself as quick as you kin!” To her surprise, however, Hemmingway tossed the blanket aside, and pointing to the floor, which was already filmed with water, ran to the still warm stove, detached it from its pipe, and threw it overboard.  The sack of flour, bacon, molasses, and sugar, and all the heavier articles followed it into the stream.  Relieved of their weight the cabin base rose an inch or two higher.  Then he sat down and said, “There! that may keep us afloat for that ‘couple of hours’ you speak of.  So I suppose I may talk now!”

“Ye haven’t no time,” she said, in a graver voice.  “It won’t be as long as a couple of hours now.  Look over thar!”