e.' It seems the coroner was already there a settin' on a corp' that
had come up in the eddy. 'Go on through, boys!' he hollers to 'em, 'I'll
wait for you down below. It'll save me another trip from Medders'."

Bruce worked on, apparently unperturbed by these discouraging
reminiscences.

"They say they's a place down there where the river's so narrow it's bent
over," volunteered a third pessimist, as he cut an artistic initial in a
plank with the skill of long practice. "And you'll go through the Black
Canyon like a bat out o' hell. But I has no notion whatsoever that
you'll ever come up when you hits that waterfall on the other end. When
her nose dips under, heavy-loaded like that, she'll sink and fill right
thar. Why--"

"Do you rickolect," quavered a spry young cub of eighty-two who talked
of the Civil War and the Nez Perce uprising as though they were the
events of yesterday, "do you remember the time 'Death-on-the-Trail' lost
his hull outfit tryin' to git through the 'Devil's Teeth'? The idee of
an old feller like him startin' out alone! Why he was all of seventy."

"An' the time 'Starvation Bill' turned over at Proctors's Falls?"
chortled another. "Fritz Yandell said the river was full of
grub--cracker cans, prunes and the like o' that, for clost to a week. I
never grieved much to hear of an accident to him for we'd had a railroad
in here twenty years ago if it hadn't been for Bill. The survey outfit
took him along for helper and he et up all the grub, so the Injin guide
quit 'em cold and they couldn't go on. I allus hoped he'd starve to
death somm'eres, but after a spell of sickness from swallerin' a
ham-bone, he died tryin' to eat six dozen aigs on a bet."

"Talkin' of Fritz Yandell--he told me he fished him a compass and
transit out'n the river after them Governmint Yellow-Legs wrecked on
Butcher's Bar." The speaker added cheerfully: "Since the Whites come
into the country I reckon all told you could count the boats that's got
through without trouble on the fingers of one hand. If these boats was
goin' empty I'd say 'all right--you're liable to make it,' but sunk deep
in the water with six or eight thousand pounds--Burt, you orter have
your head examined."

But Bruce refused to let himself think of accident. He knew water, he
could handle a sweep; he meant to take every precaution and he could, he
_must_ get through.

The river was rising rapidly now, not an inch at a time but inches, for
the days were