emed a
tame and little thing to the wrath that leaped from calm to blazing
eruption in the woman's eyes.

"Whilst we're aboard this hyar raft," Alexander announced with an
utterance that cut like a zero wind, "I'm boss an' I aims fer men ter
stay sober. Ef thet don't suit you--go ashore."

"How?" inquired Jase with a heavy irony and Alexander replied shortly,
"Thet's yore business."

She turned on her heel and walked away leaving the discomfited Lothario
staring after her with so malign an anger that the men within ear-shot
stifled their twitters of amusement and pretended to have overheard
nothing.

CHAPTER V

As Alexander passed him, Brent did not miss the suppressed fury in her
eyes or the disdainful tilt of her chin. Her bearing was that of a
barbaric princess, and a princess of meteorically vivid beauty. There
had been a deliberate purpose in the clear carrying tones with which
she had repulsed Jase Mallows. He had been the first man to make
advances, because he was the boldest, but for all her guise of
unconsciousness she had seen the passion smoulder in the eyes about her
and later others might become emboldened unless they were discouraged
by a clear precedent. Heretofore her father's stern repute had
safeguarded her. Now she was dependent upon herself alone.

Down the yellow river swept the two uninjured rafts and the one that
carried a fringe of raggedness. For the most part the men were busy
with sweep and pike-pole fending off the cumbering drift and clearing
the whirlpools where hidden reefs threatened destruction. There were
sharp turns and angles too, where the yellow water roared into fretful
and vehement menace. With night-fall the heights seemed to draw in and
huddle close and the dirge of flood and wind mounted into a heavier
timbre.

Fires leaped into fitful radiance. Banjos and "dulcimores" came out of
hiding and sounded plaintively over the waste of waters. Scraps of
almost mediaeval life showed out in thumb-nail sketches between the
sooty shadow world and the red flare of the bonfires. Voices were
lifted into weird minors and lugubrious tunes, recitative, of sad love
themes--and these were, of course, addressed to Alexander. She joined
no group, but sat with her hands clasped about her updrawn knees and
her gaze ranging off into distance. The carmine and orange
illumination played upon her color of cheek and hair and eyes and when,
unconsciously her face fell into a r