"No, not bad. We only drowned two men last year. You see, we had
to tow the boat up the river, and row across, as then we hadn't
the wire. Just above, on this side, the boat hit a stone, and the
current washed over her, taking off the team and two men."

"Didn't you attempt to rescue them?" I asked, after waiting a
moment.

"No use. They never came up."

"Isn't the river high now?" I continued, shuddering as I glanced
out at the whirling logs and drifts.

"High, and coming up. If I don't get the other teams over to-day
I'll wait until she goes down. At this season she rises and
lowers every day or so, until June then comes the big flood, and
we don't cross for months."

I sat for three hours watching Emmett bring over the rest of his
party, which he did without accident, but at the expense of great
effort. And all the time in my ears dinned the roar, the boom,
the rumble of this singularly rapacious and purposeful river--a
river of silt, a red river of dark, sinister meaning, a river
with terrible work to perform, a river which never gave up its
dead.



CHAPTER 2. THE RANGE