“What you going to do, ’Laddin?”

“You ’ll see.  Help look.”

They crept along the edge of the island, now among the close-growing trees and now on the bare strip between them and the water, until at length they came upon a big log, lying like some gnarled amphibian half in the river and half on the dry land.

“Help push,” said Aladdin.

They could move it only a little, not enough.

“Wait till I get a lever,” said Aladdin.  He went, and came back with a long, stiff little birch, that, growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots.  And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching.  Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from the look in the pale, set, freckly, almost comical face of the boy, that deeds more serious were afoot, and when he said, “Somebody’ll pick me up, sure, Marg’ret, and help me come back and get you,” she broke out crying afresh and said, “Don’t, ’Laddin!  Doo-on’t, ’Laddin!”

“Don’t cry, Marg’ret,” said Aladdin, with a gulp.  “I’d do more’n that for you, and I can swim a little, too—­b-better’n I can row.”

“Oh, ’Laddin,” said Margaret, “it’s so cold in the water.”

“Shucks!” said Aladdin, whose teeth had been knocking all night.  “She’s the stanch little craft” (he had the phrase of a book) “Good Luck.  I’m the captain and you’re the builder’s daughter”—­and so she was.  “Chrissen ’er, Marg’et.  Kiss her on the bow an’ say she’s the Good Luck.”

Then Margaret, her hat over one ear, and the draggled ostrich feather greatly in the way, knelt, and putting her arms about the shoreward end of the log, kissed it, and said in a drawn little voice

“The Good Luck.”

“And now, Margaret,” said Aladdin, “you must stay right here’ n’ not go ’way from the shore, so’s I can find you when I come back.  But don’t just sit still all the time,—­keep moving, so’s not to get any colder,—­’n I’ll come back for you sure.”

Then, because he felt his courage failing, he said, “Good-by, Marg’ret,” and turning abruptly, waded in to his ankles and bent over the log to give it that final impetus which was to set it adrift.  In his heart were several things:  the desire to make good, fear of the river, and, poignant and bitter, the feeling that Margaret did not understand.  He was too young to believe that death might really be near him (almost reckless enough not to care if he had), but keenly aware that his undertaking was perilous enough to warrant a more adequate farewell.  So he bent bitterly over the log and stiffened his back for the heave.  It must be owned that Aladdin wanted more of a scene.