gested Thorpe, irresistibly impelled towards the attempt,
"suppose I should offer you two hundred dollars a month to stay on the
river. Would you stay?"

"Carrie don't like it," replied Junko.

"Two hundred dollars is big wages," persisted Thorpe. "It's twice what I
give Radway."

"I'd like to ask Carrie."

"No, take it or leave it now."

"Well, Carrie says she don't like it," answered the riverman with a
sigh.

Thorpe looked at his companion fixedly. Somehow the bestial countenance
had taken on an attraction of its own. He remembered Big Junko as a wild
beast when his passions were aroused, as a man whose honesty had been
doubted.

"You've changed, Junko," said he.

"I know," said the big man. "I been a scalawag all right. I quit it. I
don't know much, but Carrie she's smart, and I'm goin' to do what she
says. When you get stuck on a good woman like Carrie, Mr. Thorpe, you
don't give much of a damn for anything else. Sure! That's right! It's
the biggest thing top o' earth!"

Here it was again, the opposing creed. And from such a source. Thorpe's
iron will contracted again.

"A woman is no excuse for a man's neglecting his work," he snapped.

"Shorely not," agreed Junko serenely. "I aim to finish out my time all
right, Mr. Thorpe. Don't you worry none about that. I done my best
for you. And," went on the riverman in the expansion of this unwonted
confidence with his employer, "I'd like to rise to remark that you're
the best boss I ever had, and we boys wants to stay with her till
there's skating in hell!"

"All right," murmured Thorpe indifferently.

His momentary interest had left him. Again the reactionary weariness
dragged at his feet. Suddenly the remaining half mile to town seemed
very long indeed.

Chapter LIII

Wallace Carpenter and Hamilton, the journalist, seated against the
sun-warmed bench of Mrs. Hathaway's boarding-house, commented on the
band as it stumbled in to the wash-room.

"Those men don't know how big they are," remarked the journalist. "That's
the way with most big men. And that man Thorpe belongs to another age.
I'd like to get him to telling his experiences; he'd be a gold mine to
me."

"And would require about as much trouble to 'work,'" laughed Wallace.
"He won't talk."

"That's generally the trouble, confound 'em," sighed Hamilton. "The
fellows who CAN talk haven't anything to say; and those who have
something to tell are dumb as oysters. I've got him in though.