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 to breast the rushing waters. It seemed to him that this frantic battle with the current would never end. It finally did, however, and he was dragged out into shallow water. Here he had just sense enough left partly to help himself up on the low bank, and then he sank into a deep swoon caused by utter collapse.

Then he had dreams, when he was sometimes conscious, but often more dead than alive, of a great gray shape by his side, that hovered over him and licked his face. Finally Richard fell into a deep sleep of utter exhaustion and did not waken for several hours. When he at last awoke and sat up the sun was shining brightly, and the river was rushing by, just as though it had not tried with all its strength to pull him down to death. He looked about for a gray wolf which he remembered dimly or thought he remembered. At first he did not see him, but he finally discovered him standing by a thicket a hundred feet away watching him.

Instinctively Richard reached for his re-