The Riverman

"Blow, you son of a gun!" cried disgustedly one young fellow with a red bandana, apostrophising the wind. "I wonder if there's ANY side of this fire that ain't smoky!"

"Keep your hair on, bub," advised a calm and grizzled old-timer. "There's never no smoke on the OTHER side of the fire--whichever that happens to be. And as for wind--she just makes holiday for the river-hogs."

"Holiday, hell!" snorted the younger man. "We ought to be down to Bull's Dam before now--"

"And Bull's Dam is half-way to Redding," mocked a reptilian and red- headed giant on the log, "and Redding is the happy childhood home of--"

The young man leaped to his feet and seized from a pile of tools a peavy--a dangerous weapon, like a heavy cant-hook, but armed at the end with a sharp steel shoe.

"That's about enough!" he warned, raising his weapon, his face suffused and angry. The red-headed man, quite unafraid, rose slowly from the log and advanced, bare-hande