"That was the sun too," I laughed, a trifle boisterously. "I suppose you'll
wonder next if that fellow in the boat--"

I suddenly decided not to finish the sentence. He was in the act again of
listening, turning his head to the wind, and something in the expression of
his face made me halt. The subject dropped, and we went on with our
caulking. Apparently he had not noticed my unfinished sentence. Five
minutes later, however, he looked at me across the canoe, the smoking pitch
in his hand, his face exceedingly grave.

"I did rather wonder, if you want to know," he said slowly, "what that
thing in the boat was. I remember thinking at the time it was not a man.
The whole business seemed to rise quite suddenly out of the water."

I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this time there was
impatience, and a strain of anger too, in my feeling.

"Look here now," I cried, "this place is quite queer enough without going
out of our way to imagine things! That boat was an ordinary boat, and the
man in it was an ordinary man, and they were both going down-stream as fast
as they could lick. And that otter was an otter, so don't let's play the
fool about it!"

He looked steadily at me with the same grave expression. He was not in the
least annoyed. I took courage from his silence.

"And, for Heaven's sake," I went on, "don't keep pretending you hear
things, because it only gives me the jumps, and there's nothing to hear but
the river and this cursed old thundering wind."