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168 came to Odell, alternately diminishing and increasing in volume as if they were walking up and down nearby. He heard the regular slap and gurgle of water somewhere below but felt no motion; and he listened in vain for the creak of hawsers or the vibrating hum of an engine which would show that they were on board a craft of some kind.

The brief glance which he had essayed before the sound of footsteps had warned him, revealed the fact that he was in a small room which might very well have been a cabin; but he had noticed neither windows nor portholes, and now once more he ventured to open his eyes.

He was lying upon a low couch with dirty gray blankets covering him to the chin; and within his range of vision were three chairs and a table of rough unpainted pine, rows of shelves against a wall of unplastered laths, and a window through which he could see the waving branches of a tree, its leaves already tinged with autumnal flame.

Yet the water was not lapping against the shore; he could hear it all about him underneath the floor. Clearly he must be in some sort of house built out over the edge of a bay or river; and save for the rumble of his captors' voices and that liquid gurgle and wash everything was very still.

He raised his hand weakly to steady the ice-bag and turned his head with infinite caution. A window in the opposite side of the room looked out upon a clear expanse of dancing blue waters, with a far shore-line and tiny white sails scudding between. Odell concluded that he must be facing due south, for the sun was setting low on his right. As he turned his eyes from the window they encountered a long, graceful canoe lying against the wall beyond the head of his couch, and the paddle standing in a corner; and from