Finally, Johnny Challan, uttering a loud
whoop, leaped aboard a log and went through the chute standing bolt
upright. By a marvel of agility, he kept his balance through the
white-water below, and emerged finally into the lower waters still
proudly upright, and dry above the knees.
Carroll had arisen, the better to see.
"Why," she cried aloud, "it's marvellous! Circus riding is nothing
to it!"
"No, ma'am," replied a gigantic riverman who was working near at
hand, "that ain't nothin'. Ordinary, however, we travel that way on
the river. At night we have the cookee pass us out each a goose-
ha'r piller, and lay down for the night."
Carroll looked at him in reproof. He grinned slowly.
"Don't git worried about me, ma'am," said he, "I'm hopeless. For
twenty year now I been wearin' crape on my hat in memory of my
departed virtues."
After the rear had dropped down river from Redding, Carroll and Orde
returned to their deserted little box of a house at Monrovia.
Orde breathed deep of a new satisfaction in walking again the
streets of this little sandy, sawdust-paved, shantyfied town, with
its yellow hills and its wide blue river and its glimpse of the lake
far in the offing. It had never meant anything to him before.
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