Kennebec "--

"Three cheers for the Saco! Hats off, boys!" shouted Jed Towle,
and his directions were followed with a will.

"As I was sayin'," continued the old man, peacefully, "I've seen
things on the Kennebec that wouldn't happen on a small river,
an' I've be'n in turrible places an' taken turrible resks--
resks that would 'a' turned a Saco River man's hair white; but
them is the times when my wits work the quickest. I remember
once I was smokin' my pipe when a jam broke under me. 'T was a
small jam, or what we call a small jam on the Kennebec,--only
about three hundred thousand pine logs. The first thing I
knowed, I was shootin' back an' forth in the b'ilin' foam,
hangin' on t' the end of a log like a spider. My hands was
clasped round the log, and I never lost control o' my pipe. They
said I smoked right along, jest as cool an' placid as a
pond-lily."

"Why'd you quit drivin'?" inquired Ivory.

"My strength wa'n't ekal to it," Mr. Wiley responded sadly. "I
was all skin, bones, an' nerve. The Comp'ny wouldn't part with
me altogether, so they give me a place in the office down on the
wharves."

"That wa'n't so bad," said Jed Towle; "why didn't you hang on to
it, so's to keep in sight o' the Kennebec?"

"I found I couldn't be confined under cover. My liver give all