The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-27

distinct in the noise of the motors exhaust.
 Emily. How he loved her. In that last moment Of parting, all rancor, all differences had been forgotten. He had felt only the soft tenderness of her lips, thrill ing him again as they did each time he kissed her. If he had to die tonight, he thought, let 1t be soon, before the memory of that kiss is erased.
 The boat swerved sharply to the right and he was thrown against Farrell. Before he could recover his equilibrium he caught a glimpse of half submerged tree floating past, heard the scraping of broken branches along the bot tom of the launch.
 Missed that one by an inchp he heard Eric shout. Everybody all right?" Then the glare of 1fashlight on their faces. Weber, picking himself up from the bot tom of the boat, pulling his coat tighter about him; Father John son, his lips moving in silent pray CT. Farrell's half grin. The blind- ing glare in his own eyes. Grady, strangely pale, peering over the gunwale.
 Impenetrable darkness all around them, except for the two needles of light reaching ahead, trying to find unknown dangers. The slap of waves against the prov; the feel of spray in his face; the pounding of the motor in his ears and the throb of the propeller under his feet. Why must they go so slowly?
 They were in the middle of the river, now, he knew. This was the most dangerous part of the trip. If they could just make Prices Point in safety, the remainder of the trip would be comparatively easy.
 Prices Point. A scant two miles from the curve in the highway where he had found Eric, half frozen in the blizzard. Eric. Up forward scanning the black water for floating disaster, that might bring death to them all. Eric and Emily. He did not want to think about them.
 He remembered Prices light for him the night of the storm. Price would be out on the Point tonight, his automobile lights a welcome beacon, if he knew they were out on the river. Price had & boy working on the dam; maybe two. Alan wondered if they had es- capped, unharmed. Harry Brown with his wife still in the hospital with 8 new son was up there, too.
 Slowly they inched their way up- stream. Eric peereo out into the night, searching for landmarks he could not see. Mentally he calculat- ed the iaunch's speed, glanced at the watch on his wrist from time to time. Thirty minutes. Twenty min- utes. Fifteen minutes. Ten minutes more and they should be abreast the Point.
 The spotlights glistened on float ing boards, bobbing along in the waves. Occasionally one grated against the side of the launch, then went sliding on downstream.
 'Lucks' holding, so far" Eric shouted into the ear of the man at the wheel. "No big stuff - yet. Five minutes!"
 The. man nodded, gripped the wheel tighter. He leaned for ward, muscles taut, as if to see beyond the light.
 Eric tried to remember how the Point - long finger of land - stretched out into the stream, how the river made broad sweeping curve around it. He could see it as well as if the map had been be- fore him. Down in front of Sum- ner the river flowed from north east to southwest; above the sharp bend at Prices Point from north west to southeast. Once past the point, they could hug the right hand bank, out of the current, and land just below the dam. If they could get past the Point!
 They were still heading directly into the current. Eric knew, for waves kept slapping the prov splashing spray over right and