It plunged him headlong for a single moment into what he believed to be the
absurdity of a situation. He had a quick mental picture of himself out on
the dead spruce, performing a bit of mock-heroism by dragging in a
half-drowned colt by one ear. In another instant this had passed, and he
was wondering why Joanne Gray was not on her way to Tete Jaune.
"It was splendid!" she was saying again, her eyes glowing at him. "I know
men who would not have risked that for a human!"
"Perhaps they would have been showing good judgment," replied Aldous.
He noticed now that she was holding with one hand the end of a long slender
sapling which a week or two before he had cut and trimmed for a fish-pole.
He nodded toward it, a half-cynical smile on his lips.
"Were you going to fish me out--or the colt?" he asked.
"You," she replied. "I thought you were in danger." And then she added, "I
suppose you are deeply grateful that fate did not compel you to be saved by
a woman."
"Not at all. If the spruce had snapped, I would have caught at the end of
your sapling like any drowning rat--or man. Allow me to thank you."
She had stepped down to the level strip of sand on which the colt was
weakly struggling to rise to its feet.
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