The big cart floated like a raft part of the way, and we landed with no great difficulty.

They all agreed to turn to, after snowfall, on the river-land, cut a raft of timber, and send it to Montreal in the spring.

By the middle of May we began rolling in for the raft.

When we started the raft, early in June, that summer of 1810, and worked it into the broad river with sweeps and poles, I was aboard with D'ri and six other men, bound for the big city of which I had heard so much.

We had a little frame house on a big platform, back of the middle section of the raft, with bunks in it, where we ate and slept and told stories.

D'ri said they had broken the raft into three parts, ours being hindmost.

Then the roar fell back of us, and the raft grew steady.

Before I could gather my thoughts we were in a torrent of rushing air, and the raft had begun to heave and toss.

I knew the raft had doubled; it would fall and grind our bones: but I made no effort to save myself.

A side of the raft was in the water.

The ruined raft was torn and tumbled into a very mountain of logs at the edge of the water.

" Our sweepers and the other sections of the raft were nowhere in sight.

The captain said that the other sections of our raft had passed safely.

In a bay some two miles below we found, to our joy, the two sections of the big raft undergoing repairs.

" Those were the last words he said to me, and soon I was on the raft again, floating toward the great city of my dreams.

They belong to that class of whom it has been said that 'they would borrow money from Harpagon, and find truffles on the raft of the Medusa.'

There remained on the raft only three shuddering women and a little childand a handful of weary and discouraged men, sustained and led to a sense of duty by the dauntless master-spirit of one alonethe presence of Christian Garth, indomitable through all hardships.

There was not a dry eye on the deck when you and the rest wuz lifted from the raft!"

At his approach, the face within was turned, and I recognized, at a glance, that of my young aurora-like companion of the raft, Ada Greene.

I shall state, for your sake, that, after being rescued from the raft, you were partially insane, but still sufficiently mistress of yourself to coincide with me and your sisters in the wish to let your death as Miss Harz pass current with the world, until you should redeem your errors" (what errors?), "and be restored to health and perfect reason.

The selfishness of the old negress had struck me on the raft as something rare even in one of her shallow race, and my conviction of her cowardice and coldness prevented me from taking advantage of her cupidity, as I might have done otherwise.

"Owing to my knowledge of your condition for the last year, my dear child, I don't blame you for any thing that is past, not even for those delusions with regard to my own acts and intentions which formed your mania, nor for the misfortune and sense of shame which, no doubt, caused your hasty flight, and whose evidences you brought with you from the raft, in the shape of a nearly year-old child.

It served to divert my mind from its one fixed idea for a little time to arrange this singular hymn, which, together with those she had given voice to on the raft, proved her poetic powers.

For I would have walked cheerfully over the burning ploughshares of old, lived again through the hideous nightmare of the burning ship and raft, nay, clasped hands with the spectre of La Vigne himself, had it offered to lead me to purgatory, rather than have married the knave, the liar, the half-breed Gregory!

" "Were you courageous when you clung to your ropes on the sea-tossed raft!