The Riverman

rs, square at both ends, was inconceivably clumsy, and weighed an unbelievable number of pounds. When loaded, it carried all the bed-rolls, tents, provisions, cooking uten

he current slacked; the sweeps kept he

the wanigan was to be moved, he rose fairly to the h

to a shriek. The cookees, bewildered by so much violence, lost their heads completely. Then Charlie abruptly fell to an exaggerated calm. He sat down amidships on a pile of bags, and gazed with ostentatious indifference out over the pond. Finally, in a voice fallen almost to a whisper, and with an elaborate politeness, Charlie proffered a request that his assistants acquire the sense God gave a rooster. Newmark, who had elected to accompany the wanigan on its voyage, evidently found it vastly am

er head-on. Even Charlie managed to look cheerful for an instant, and to gri

t now," h

the oars. The wanigan sh

he could for lack of his glasses, saw that the scow had evidently run her bow on an obstruction, and had been brought to a standstill square beneath the sluice-gate. Men seemed to be running toward them. The water was beginning to flow the entire length of the boat. Various lighter ar

current. He seized one of the long oars, thrust the blade under the edge of a thwart astern laid the shaft of the oar across the cargo, and by resting his weight on the handle attempted to bring it down to bind the contents of the wanigan to their places. The cookees saw what he was about, and came to his assistance

n, but Orde, appearing above, called a halt. After consultation with Reed, another rope was brought and the end of it tossed down to the shipwrecked crew. Orde pointed to the stern of the boat, revolving his hands in pantomime to show that the wanigan would be apt to upset if allowed to get side-on when freed. A short rope led to the top of

them little chanc

t much. Now get a move on you and bail out. You've

o himself and the other three as Orde moved away. "

all started in to bail. It was a back-breaking job, and consumed the greater part of two hour

m bed-rolls and turkeys," grum

ed and ironic encouragement; its tribulations--which at first, in the white-water, were many--the occasion for unsympathetic and unholy joy. Charlie looked on all sp

lipped by silently and mysteriously, like the unrolling of a panorama--little strips of marshland, stretches of woodland where the great trees leaned out over the river, thickets of overflowed swampland with the water rising and draining among roots in a strange regularity of its own. The sun shone warm. There was no wind. Newmark wrung out

better make camp. We'll be

oles. By pushing and pulling on the logs floating about t

ope in his hand, sur

n there by that littl

"two ton" of water soaked up by the cargo. The weight of the craft relentlessly dragged him forward. In vain he braced and struggled. The en

ore at the end of his rope, clinging desperately, trying at every solid tree to stop the career of his runaway, but in every instance being forced by the danger of jamming his hands to let go. Again he lost his derby. The landscape

uced by the closer crowding of the logs, she slowed down enough so that N

noon's work pitching camp and drying blankets, the first of the rear

e, "it's a wonder you wouldn't run th

hriek of rage, and with a carving-knife chased that man out into the brush. Nor wou

ter, around the campfire, "how

y interesting,"

the wanigan cr

" returned N

good time," invited Orde heartily, but turnin

k acknowledged this

supplies. That shipwreck of ours to-day mighty near cleaned us out of some things. Lucky Ch

" grumbled Charl

k. "Good work! I'm tickled to d

deck with his rope," remarked Johnny

t us two days with his damn nonsens

ily. "He means well enough. That's the way th