On the turns they sometimes got a current of wind in their faces and came to a dead stop. Now that they no longer required it, the wind was momentarily strengthening.
"Wouldn't it be better to take the sail down?" Sam suggested.
"Can't tak' it down wi'out land on shore," Bela answered sullenly.
Sam comprehending what was the matter, chuckled inwardly. On the next bend, seeing her struggles with the baffling air-currents, he asked teasingly:
"Well, why don't you go ashore and take it down?"
"If I land, you promise not run away?" she said.
Sam laughed from a light heart. "Not on your life!" he said. "I'm my own master now."
"Where are you bound for?" Sam presently asked.
"I'll have to be leaving you," said Sam mockingly. "I'm going the other way. To the head of the lake."
"I'll lie low till they're thrown off the scent. I'll walk around the north shore."
"If you stay with me little while, pretty soon we meet police comin' up," she suggested. "Then they can't touch you."
"Much obliged," replied Sam. "I've no fancy to be jumped on at night again and tied up like a roasting fowl."
"I promise I not do that again," said Bela.
"Sure!" retorted Sam. "No doubt you've got plenty other tricks just as good."
"If you look at me you see I speak truth," she murmured. "I your friend, Sam."
The threatened break in her voice brought all his old disquiet surging up again. As he put it, he suspected her of "trying to put one over on him again." "I don't want to look at you!" he returned with a harsh laugh.
An adverse puff of wind blew them into an overhanging willow-bush, which became entangled with the sail and the stay-rope. Sam saw his chance. Seizing the branches, he pulled himself to his feet and managed to swing ashore at the cost only of wet ankles.
A sharp cry was wrung from Bela. "Sam, don't go!"
Gaining a sure footing on the bank, he faced her, laughing. "Well, how about it now?"
There was nothing inscrutable about her face then. It worked with emotion like any woman's.
"Don't go by yourself!" she pleaded. "You not know this country. You got not'ing. No grub! No gun! No blanket!"
"I can walk it in two days or three," he said. "I'll build a fire to sleep by. You can give me a little grub if you want. I'll trade my pocket-knife for it. It's all I've got. You got me into this, anyhow."