ater and skim the rocks so menacingly close
to the surface.

"There's nothin' left to do now but say our prayers." Smaltz's
jocularity broke the silence.

"My wife hasn't quit snifflin' since she heard the weight I was goin' to
take," said Saunders, the boatman upon whom Bruce counted most. "If I
hadn't promised I don't know as I'd take the risk. I wouldn't, as it is,
for anybody else, but I know what it means to you."

"And I sure hate to ask it," said Bruce answered gravely. "If anything
happens I'll never forgive myself."

"Well--we can only do the best we can--and hope," said Saunders. "The
water's as near right as it ever will be; and I wouldn't worry if it
wasn't for the load."

"To-morrow at eight, boys, and be prompt. Every hour is counting from
now on, with two more trips to make."

Bruce walked slowly up the street and went to his room, too tired and
depressed for conversation down below. The weigh-bill from the
station-agent was even worse than he had expected; and the question
which he asked himself over and over was whether Jennings's
under-estimation of the weight was deliberate misrepresentation or bad
figuring? Whatever the cause the costly error had shaken his faith in
Jennings.

Bruce was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. The last thing
he remembered was Smaltz's raucous voice in the bar-room below boasting
of the wicked rapids he had shot in the tumultuous "Colo-rady" and on
the Stikine in the far north.

The noise of the bar-room ceased at an early hour and the little
mountain town grew quiet but Bruce was not conscious of the change. It
was midnight--and long past--well toward morning when in the sleep which
had been so profound he heard his mother calling, calling in the same
dear, sweet way that she used to call him when, tired out with following
his father on long rides, he had overslept in the morning.

"Bruce! Bruce-boy! Up-adaisy!"

He stirred uneasily and imagined that he answered.

The voice came again and there was pleading in the shrill, staccato
notes:

"Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!"

The cry from dreamland roused his consciousness at last. He sat up
startled. There was no thought in his mind but the boats--the boats! In
seconds, not minutes, he was in his clothes and stumbling down the dark
stairway. There was something ghostly in the hollow echo of his
footsteps on the plank sidewalk as he ran through the main street of the
still village.

He saw that one boat w