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Morse had lived before in aguish districts, and had no fear.

“And you never heard that some night the whole river will rise up and walk over you and your cabin and your stock?”

“No. For I reckon to move my shanty farther back.”

The man shut up his penknife with a click and rose.

“If you’ve got to get up at sunrise, we’d better be turning in. I suppose you can give me a pair of blankets?”

Morse pointed to the wagon. “Thar’s a shakedown in the wagon bed; you kin lie there.” Nevertheless he hesitated, and, with the inconsequence and abruptness of a shy man, continued the previous conversation.

“I shouldn’t like to move far away, for them steamboats is pow’ful kempany o’ nights. I never seed one afore I kem here,” and then, with the inconsistency of a reserved man, and without a word of further preliminary, he launched into a confidential disclosure of his late experiences. The stranger listened with a singular interest and a quietly searching eye.

“Then you were watching the boat very closely just now when you saw me. What else did you see? Anything before that–before you saw me in the water?”

“No–the boat had got well off before I saw you at all.”

“Ah,” said the stranger. “Well, I’m going to turn in.” He walked to the wagon, mounted it, and by the time that Morse had reached it with his wet clothes he was already wrapped in the blankets. A moment later he seemed to be in a profound slumber.

It was only then, when his guest was lying helplessly at his mercy, that he began to realize his strange experiences. The domination of this man had been so complete that Morse, although by nature independent and self-reliant, had not permitted himself to question his right or to resent his rudeness. He had accepted his guest’s careless or premeditated silence regarding the particulars of his accident as a matter of course, and had never dreamed of questioning him. That it was a natural accident of that great world so apart from his own experiences he did not doubt, and thought no more about it. The advent of the man himself was greater to him than the causes which brought him there. He was as yet quite unconscious of the complete fascination this mysterious stranger held over him, but he found himself shyly pleased with even the slight interest he had displayed in his affairs, and his hand felt yet warm and tingling from his sudden soft but expressive grasp, as if it had been a woman’s. There is a simple intuition of friendship in some lonely, self-abstracted natures that is nearly akin to love at first sight. Even the audacities and insolence of this stranger affected Morse as he might have been touched and captivated by the coquetries or imperiousness of some bucolic virgin. And this reserved and shy frontiersman found himself that night sleepless, and hovering with an abashed timidity and consciousness around the wagon that sheltered his guest, as if he had been a very Corydon watching the moonlit couch of some slumbering Amaryllis.

He was off by daylight–after having placed a rude breakfast by the side of the still sleeping guest–and before midday he had returned with a horse. When he handed the stranger his pouch, less the amount he had paid for the horse, the man said curtly:

“What’s that for?”

“Your change. I paid only fifty dollars for the horse.”

The stranger regarded him with his peculiar smile. Then, replacing the pouch in his belt, he shook Morse’s hand again and mounted the horse.

“So your name’s Martin Morse! Well–goodby, Morsey!”

Morse hesitated. A blush rose to his dark check. “You didn’t tell me your name,” he said. “In case–“

“In case I’m WANTED? Well, you can call me Captain Jack.” He smiled, and, nodding his head, put spurs to his mustang and cantered away.