The river lay ahead, and for him the river had become the soul and the promise of life.  It was Marette’s river and his river, and in a little while they would be on it.  And Marette would then tell him about Kedsty.  He was sure of that.  She would tell him what had happened while he slept.  His faith was illimitable.

They came into the sodden dip at the foot of the ridge, and the lightning revealed to him the edge of the poplar growth in which O’Connor had seen Marette many weeks ago.  The bayou trail wound through this, and Kent struck out for it blindly in the darkness.  He did not try to talk, but he freed his companion’s hand and put his arm about her when they came to the level ground, so that she was sheltered by him from the beat of the storm.  Then brush swished in their faces, and they stopped, waiting for the lightning again.  Kent was not anxious for it to come.  He drew the girl still closer, and in that pit of blackness, with the deluge about her and the crash of thunder over her head, she snuggled up against his breast, the throb of her body against him, waiting, watching, with him.  Her frailty, the helplessness of her, the slimness of her in the crook of his arm, filled him with an exquisite exultation.  He did not think of her now as the splendid, fearless creature who had leveled her little black gun at the three men in barracks.  She was no longer the mysterious, defiant, unafraid person who had held him in a sort of awe that first hour in Kedsty’s place.  For she was crumpled against him now, utterly dependent and afraid.  In that chaos of storm something told him that her nerve was broken, that without him she would be lost and would cry out in fear.  And he was glad!  He held her tighter; he bent his head until his face touched the wet, crushed hair under the edge of her turban.  And then the lightning split open the night again, and he saw the way ahead of him to the trail.

Even in darkness it was not difficult to follow in the clean-cut wagon path.  Over their heads the tops of the poplars swished and wailed.  Under their feet the roadway in places was a running stream or inundated until it became a pool.  In pitch blackness they struck such a pool, and in spite of the handicap of his packs and rifle Kent stopped suddenly, and picked Marette up in his arms, and carried her until they reached high ground.  He did not ask permission.  And Marette, for a minute or two, lay crumpled up close in his arms, and for a thrilling instant his face touched her rain-wet cheek.

The miracle of their adventure was that neither spoke.  To Kent the silence between them had become a thing which he had no desire to break.  In that silence, excused and abetted by the tumult of the storm, he felt that a wonderful something was drawing them closer and closer together, and that words might spoil the indescribable magic of the thing that was happening.  When he set Marette on her feet again, her hand accidentally fell upon his, and for a moment her fingers closed upon it in a soft pressure that meant more to him than a thousand words of gratitude.