THE RED PIROGUE

“UP CAME THE RAGING WATERS, UP AND PAST THE JUMPING, SQUIRMING CANOE.”

“Up came the raging waters, up and past the jumping, squirming canoe.”

“For a few seconds the two gazed in silence”

“The old man drew alongside and peered at Ben”

“Sat down on a convenient chopping block”

“'To shoot gentlemen with?’ asked the little girl in an awe-struck whisper”

“'Stand there and stand steady’”

 CHAPTER IA QUEER FISH 

CHAPTER I

A QUEER FISH

Young Ben O’Dell emerged from the woodshed into the dew and the dawning day with a paddle in his hand, crossed a strip of orchard, passed through a thicket of alders and choke cherries and between two great willows and descended a steep bank to a beach of sand and pebbles. Thin mist still crawled in wisps on the sliding surface of the river. Eastward, downstream, sky and hills and water were awash and afire with the pink and gold and burnished silver of the new day.

Ben was as agreeably conscious of the scents of the place and hour as of the beloved sights and sounds. He sniffed the faint fragrance of running water, the sweeter breath of clover blooms, the sharper scent of pennyroyal. He could even detect and distinguish the mild, dank odors of dew-wet willow bark, of stranded cedar blocks and of the lush-green stems of black rice and duck grass.

He crossed the beach to the gray sixteen-foot pirogue which was used for knocking about between the point and the island and for tending the salmon net. It wasn’t much of a craft—just a stick of pine shaped by ax and draw knife and hollowed by ax and fire—but it saved Uncle Jim McAllister’s canvas canoe much wear and tear. It was heavy and “crank,” but it was tough.

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