he rest of you to come and take a look at him and tell
who he is and where he belongs," he said in conclusion.

"I'll know him if he belongs within forty miles of here in any
direction," said the doctor. But he shook his head when his eye rested
on Yancy. "Never saw him," he said briefly.

"How about them bandages, Doc?" demanded Cavendish.

"Oh, I reckon they'll do," replied the doctor indifferently.

"Will he live?"

"I can't say. You'll know all about that inside the next forty-eight
hours. Better let the rest have a look."

"Just feel of them bandages--sho', I got money in my pants!" Mr.
Cavendish was rapidly losing his temper, yet he controlled himself until
each man had taken a look at Yancy; but always with the same result--a
shake of the head. "I reckon I can leave him here?" Cavendish asked,
when the last man had looked and turned away.

"Leave him here--why?" demanded the doctor slowly.

"Because I'm going on, that's why. I'm headed for downstream, and he
ain't in any sort of shape to say whether he wants to go or stop,"
explained Cavendish.

"You picked him up, didn't you?" asked one of the men.

"I certainly did," said Cavendish.

"Well, I reckon if you're so anxious for him to stay hereabout, you'd
better stop, yourself," said the owner of the woodyard. "There ain't a
house within two miles of here but mine, and he don't go there!"

"You're a healthy lot, you are!" said Cavendish. "I wonder your
largeness of heart ain't ruptured your wishbones long ago!" So saying,
he retired to the stern of his raft and leaned against the sweep-handle,
apparently lost in thought. His visitors climbed the bank and
reestablished themselves on the wood-ranks.

Presently Mr. Cavendish lifted his voice and addressed Polly and the six
little Cavendishes at the other end of the raft. He asserted that he was
the only well-born man within a radius of perhaps a hundred miles--he
excepted no one. He knew who his father and mother were, and they had
been legally married--he seemed to infer that this was not always the
case. Mr. Cavendish glanced toward the shore, then he lifted his voice
again, giving it as his opinion that he was the only Christian seen in
those parts in the last fifty years. He offered to fight any gentleman
who felt disposed to challenge this assertion. He sprang suddenly aloft,
knocked his bare heels together and uttered an ear-piercing whoop. He
subsided and gazed off into the red eye of the sun wh