tealer, I'll make you hop high! I'll snatch you
bald-headed so quick that you'll think you never had any hair!"

"I'll settle with you in the morning, Jackson," laughed the riverman.

"You want to eat a good breakfast, then, because you won't have no
appetite for dinner."

The men roared, with encouraging calls. The riverman put on a ludicrous
appearance of offended dignity.

"Oh, you needn't swell up like a poisoned pup!" cried old Jackson
plaintively, ceasing his attacks from sheer weariness. "You know you're
as safe as a cow tied to a brick wall behind that table."

Thorpe seized the opportunity to approach.

"Hello, Jackson," said he.

The old man peered at him out of the blur of his excitement.

"Don't you know me?" inquired Thorpe.

"Them lamps gives 'bout as much light as a piece of chalk," complained
Jackson testily. "Knows you? You bet I do! How are you, Harry? Where
you been keepin' yourself? You look 'bout as fat as a stall-fed knittin'
needle."

"I've been landlooking in the upper peninsula," explained Thorpe, "on
the Ossawinamakee, up in the Marquette country."

"Sho'" commented Jackson in wonder, "way up there where the moon
changes!"

"It's a fine country," went on Thorpe so everyone could hear, "with a
great cutting of white pine. It runs as high as twelve hundred thousand
to the forty sometimes."

"Trees clean an' free of limbs?" asked Jackson.

"They're as good as the stuff over on seventeen; you remember that."

"Clean as a baby's leg," agreed Jackson.

"Have a glass of beer?" asked Thorpe.

"Dry as a tobacco box," confessed Hines.

"Have something, the rest of you?" invited Thorpe.

So they all drank.

On a sudden inspiration Thorpe resolved to ask the old man's advice as
to crew and horses. It might not be good for much, but it would do no
harm.

Jackson listened attentively to the other's brief recital.

"Why don't you see Tim Shearer? He ain't doin' nothin' since the jam
came down," was his comment.

"Isn't he with the M. & D. people?" asked Thorpe.

"Nope. Quit."

"How's that?"

"'Count of Morrison. Morrison he comes up to run things some. He does.
Tim he's getting the drive in shape, and he don't want to be bothered,
but old Morrison he's as busy as hell beatin' tan-bark. Finally Tim, he
calls him. "'Look here, Mr. Morrison,' says he, 'I'm runnin' this drive.
If I don't get her there, all right; you can give me my time. 'Till then
you ain't got nothin' to say.'