along, butt-end foremost, an’ struck that jam, full force, so’t every log in it shivered. There was a crack,—the crack o’ doom, sure enough, for Pretty Quick,—an’ one o’ the logs le‘p’ right out an’ struck him jest where he stood, with his axe in the air, blasphemin’. The jam kind o’ melted an’ crumbled up,[Pg 45] an’ in a second Pretty Quick was whirlin’ in the white water. He never riz,—at least where we could see him,—an’ we didn’t find him for a week. That’s the whole story, an’ I guess Steve takes it as a warnin’. Any way, he ain’t no friend to rum nor swearin’, Steve ain’t. He knows Pretty Quick’s ways shortened his mother’s life, an’ you notice what a sharp lookout he keeps on Rufus.”

[Pg 44]

[Pg 45]

“He needs it,” Ike Billings commented tersely.

“Some men seem to lose their wits when they’re workin’ on logs,” observed Mr. Wiley, who had deeply resented Long Dennett’s telling of a story which he knew fully as well and could have told much better. “Now, nat’rally, I’ve seen things on the Kennebec ”—

“Three cheers for the Saco! Hats off, boys!” shouted Jed Towle, and his directions were followed with a will.

“As I was sayin’,” continued the old[Pg 46] man, peacefully, “I’ve seen things on the Kennebec that wouldn’t happen on a small river, an’ I’ve be’n in turrible places an’ taken turrible resks—resks that would ’a’ turned a Saco River man’s hair white; but them is the times when my wits work the quickest. I remember once I was smokin’ my pipe when a jam broke under me. ’T was a small jam, or what we call a small jam on the Kennebec,—only about three hundred thousand pine logs. The first thing I knowed, I was shootin’ back an’ forth in the b’ilin’ foam, hangin’ on t’ the end of a log like a spider. My hands was clasped round the log, and I never lost control o’ my pipe. They said I smoked right along, jest as cool an’ placid as a pond-lily.”

[Pg 46]

“Why’d you quit drivin’?” inquired Ivory.

“My strength wa’n’t ekal to it,” Mr. Wiley responded sadly. “I was all skin, bones, an’ nerve. The Comp’ny wouldn’t[Pg 47] part with me altogether, so they give me a place in the office down on the wharves.”

[Pg 47]

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