"I'm glad of that. I like to be on the go in the early morning,"
said Joe, cheerfully.

"Most folks from over Eastways ain't in a hurry to tackle the
river," replied Lynn, eyeing Joe sharply.

"It's a beautiful river, and I'd like to sail on it from here to
where it ends, and then come back to go again," Joe replied, warmly.

"In a hurry to be a-goin'? I'll allow you'll see some slim red
devils, with feathers in their hair, slipping among the trees along
the bank, and mebbe you'll hear the ping which's made when whistlin'
lead hits. Perhaps you'll want to be back here by termorrer
sundown."

"Not I," said Joe, with his short, cool laugh.

The old frontiersman slowly finished his task of coiling up a rope
of wet cowhide, and then, producing a dirty pipe, he took a live
ember from the fire and placed it on the bowl. He sucked slowly at
the pipe-stem, and soon puffed out a great cloud of smoke. Sitting
on a log, he deliberately surveyed the robust shoulders and long,
heavy limbs of the young man, with a keen appreciation of their
symmetry and strength. Agility, endurance and courage were more to a
borderman than all else; a new-comer on the frontier was always
"sized-up" with reference to these "points," and respected in
proportion to the measure in which he possessed them.

Old Jeff Lynn, riverman, hunter, frontiersman, puffed slowly at his