Drifting 175 



prisoner. At last I struck it with an oar to 

 beat it back, and rocked the frail boat until 

 I feared plunging into the deep water and 

 deeper mud beneath. Deep water ? It sud- 

 denly occurred to me to try its depth, and 

 the truth was plain. I was far from the 

 channel, and might with safety have waded 

 to the shore. As usual, I had rashly jumped 

 at conclusions. The mouth of an inflowing 

 creek was near at hand, and this sunken tree, 

 a relic of some forgotten freshet, had been 

 lying here in the mud for several years. 

 The tide lifted and let fall the trunk, but the 

 root-mass was still strongly embedded. I 

 knew the spot of old, and now, fearing 

 nothing, was rational again. 



Such sunken trees, however, are well cal- 

 culated to alarm the unthinking. It is said 

 of one yet lying in the mud of Crosswicks 

 Creek, that it rose so quickly once as to over- 

 turn a boat. This is not improbable. That 

 occurrence, if true, happened a century ago, 

 and the same tree has since badly fright- 

 ened more than one old farmer. I am told 

 this of one of them who had anchored his 

 boat here one frosty October morning and 

 commenced fishing. While half asleep, or 



