Now what will he do?
Oh, how I wish I could get back! Why didn't I think of all this before leaving the island?
That was a horrid sound in the woods, though.

And that animal! I wonder what it could have been ?" By this time the current had carried the skiff close in to the drowned bottom-lands of the Illinois shore.

They were covered with a heavy growth of timber, and Winn knew that in many places the wellnigh impassable swamps which this concealed extended back a mile or more from the channel.

Otherwise he would have abandoned the skiff and made the attempt to swim ashore.
The Iowa bluffs rose invitingly on the opposite side of the river.

On them he saw a few scattered settlements, but they were too far away, and he must wait until the current set him in that direction before thinking of making a landing.