Betty made no answer in words, but a soft and eloquent little hand was slipped into his and allowed to rest there.

Presently a light wind stirred the dead dense atmosphere, the mist lifted and enveloped the shore, showing them the river between piled-up masses of vapor.  Apparently it ran for their raft alone.  It was just twenty-four hours since Carrington had looked upon such another night but this was a different world the gray fog was unmasking—­a world of hopes, and dreams, and rich content.  Then the thought of Norton—­poor Norton who had had his world, too, of hopes and dreams and rich content—­

The calm of a highly domestic existence had resumed its interrupted sway on the raft.  Mr. Cavendish, associated in Betty’s memory with certain earsplitting manifestations of ferocious rage, became in the bosom of his family low-voiced and genial and hopelessly impotent to deal with his five small sons; while Yancy was again the Bob Yancy of Scratch Hill, violence of any sort apparently had no place in his nature.  He was deeply absorbed in Hannibal’s account of those vicissitudes which had befallen him during their separation.  They were now seated before a cheerful fire that blazed on the hearth, the boy very close to Yancy with one hand clasped in the Scratch Hiller’s, while about them were ranged the six small Cavendishes sedately sharing in the reunion of uncle and nevvy, toward which they felt they had honorably labored.

“And you wa’n’t dead, Uncle Bob?” said Hannibal with a deep breath, viewing Yancy unmistakably in the flesh.

“Never once.  I been floating peacefully along with these here titled friends of mine; but I was some anxious about you, son.”

“And Mr. Slosson, Uncle Bob—­did you smack him like you smacked Dave Blount that day when he tried to steal me?” asked Hannibal, whose childish sense of justice demanded reparation for the wrongs they had suffered.

Mr. Yancy extended a big right hand, the knuckle of which was skinned and bruised.

“He were the meanest man I ever felt obliged fo’ to hit with my fist, Nevvy; it appeared like he had teeth all over his face.”

“Sho—­where’s his hide, Uncle Bob?” cried the little Cavendishes in an excited chorus.  “Sho—­did you forget that?” They themselves had forgotten the unique enterprise to which Mr. Yancy was committed, but the allusion to Slosson had revived their memory of it.

“Well, he begged so piteous to be allowed fo’ to keep his hide, I hadn’t the heart to strip it off,” explained Mr. Yancy pleasantly.  “And the winter’s comin’ onat this moment I can feel a chill in the air—­don’t you-all reckon he’s goin’ to need it fo’ to keep the cold out,’ Sho’, you mustn’t be bloody-minded!”

“What was it about Mr. Slosson’s hide, Uncle Bob?” demanded Hannibal.  “What was you a-goin’ to do to that?”

“Why, Nevvy, after he beat me up and throwed me in the river, I was some peevish fo’ a spell in my feelings fo’ him,” said Yancy, in a tone of gentle regret.  He glanced at his bruised hand.  “But I’m right pleased to be able to say that I’ve got over all them oncharitable thoughts of mine.”