She stood up and called, her high voice rising
sharp and small through the trees. It seemed that some sound answered,
so she smiled and sat down. Ten minutes passed and he was still gone.
A cold alarm swept over her at that. She dropped the pan and ran out
from the trees.
Everywhere was the bright moonlight--over the wet rocks, and sand, and
glimmering on the slow tide of the river, but nowhere could she see
Wilbur, or a form that looked like a man. Then the moonlight glinted
on something at the edge of the river. She ran to it and found the
coffee-can half in the water and partially filled with sand.
A wild temptation to scream came over her, but the tight muscles of
her throat let out no sound. But if Wilbur were not here, where had he
gone? He could not have vanished into thin air. The ripple of the
water washing on the sand replied. Yes, that current might have rolled
his body away.
To shut out the grim sight of the river she turned. Stretched across
the ground at her feet she saw clearly the impression of a body in the
moist sand.
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