"You mean it's up to me to turn the old one down, after your
encouraging him and taking advantage of his work clear from Dyea
here?"

"It's a hard trail, Liverpool, and only the men that are hard will
get through," Charles strove to palliate.

"And I'm to do the dirty work?" Liverpool complained, while
Tarwater's heart sank.

"That's just about the size of it," Charles said. "You've got the
deciding."

Then old Tarwater's heart uprose again as the air was rent by a
cyclone of profanity, from the midst of which crackled sentences
like: --"Dirty skunks! . . . See you in hell first! . . . My mind's
made up! . . . Hell's fire and corruption! . . . The old codger
goes down the Yukon with us, stack on that, my hearty! . . . Hard?
You don't know what hard is unless I show you! . . . I'll bust the
whole outfit to hell and gone if any of you try to side-track him!
. . . Just try to side-track him, that is all, and you'll think the
Day of Judgment and all God's blastingness has hit the camp in one
chunk!"

Such was the invigoratingness of Liverpool's flow of speech that,
quite without consciousness of effort, the old man arose easily
under his load and strode on toward Happy Camp.

From Happy Camp to Long Lake, from Long Lake to Deep Lake, and from