He could make out nothing but a little
patch of water and a few ghostly tree trunks near by. Even the stern of
the boat was half hidden by the fog.
"Wa'al," thought the shiftless one philosophically, "ef it's hard fur me
to find anything it'll be hard fur anything to find us."
But his troubled mind would not be quiet. Philosophy was not a sufficient
reply to the warning of the sixth sense, and, leaning far over the edge of
the boat, he listened with ears long trained to every sound of the
wilderness. He heard only the stray murmur of the wind among the
leaves--and was that a ripple in the water? He strained his ears and
decided that it was either a ripple or the splash of a fish, and he sank
back again in his seat.
Although he had resumed his old position, the shiftless one was not
satisfied. The feeling of apprehension, like a mysterious mental signal,
was not effaced. That thick, whitish fog was surcharged with an alien
quality, and slowly he raised himself up once more. Hark! was it the
ripple again? He rose half to his feet, and instantly his eye caught a
glimpse of something brown upon the edge of the boat. It was a human hand,
the brown, powerful hand of a savage.
The glance of Shif'less Sol followed the hand and saw a brown face
emerging from the water and fog.
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