it's just the lantern. Our pilot's comin' back, I guess likely. Well, he
ain't been washed away, that's one comfort."

Winnie S., holding the lantern in his hand, reappeared beneath the boot.
Raindrops sparkled on his eyebrows, his nose and the point of his chin.

"Judas priest!" he gasped. "If this ain't--"

"You needn't say it. We'll agree with you," interrupted Mrs. Barnes,
hastily. "Is anything the matter?"

The driver's reply was in the form of elaborate sarcasm.

"Oh, no!" he drawled, "there wasn't nothin' the matter. Just a few
million pines blowed across the road and the breechin' busted and the
for'ard wheel about ready to come off, that's all. Maybe there's a few
other things I didn't notice, but that's all I see."

"Humph! Well, they'll do for a spell. How's the weather, any worse?"

"Worse? No! they ain't no worse made. Looks as if 'twas breakin' a
little over to west'ard, fur's that goes. But how in the nation we'll
ever fetch East Wellmouth, I don't know. Git dap! GIT DAP! Have you
growed fast?"

General Jackson pulled one foot after the other from the mud and the
wagon rocked and floundered as its pilot steered it past the fallen
trees. For the next twenty minutes no one spoke. Then Winnie S. breathed
a sigh of thankfulness.