To stay, or to flee?
The worn nerves could not keep their present tension much longer.
It was just by the brook, or, as they say in Indiana, the "branch[26]," that something happened which brought him to a sudden decision.

Ralph never afterward could forget that brook.

It was a swift-running little stream, that did not babble blatantly over the stones.

It ran through a thicket of willows, through the sugar-camp, and out into Means's pasture.

Ralph had just passed through the thicket, had just crossed the brook on the half-decayed log that spanned it, when, as he emerged from the water-willows on the other side, he started with a sudden shock.