shoot too, if they only knew the channel."

"It isn't enough to know the channel," said Pathfinder; "it needs
narves and skill to keep the canoe straight, and to keep her clear
of the rocks too. There isn't another boatman in all this region
that can shoot the Oswego, but Eau-douce there, with any sartainty;
though, now and then, one has blundered through. I can't do it
myself unless by means of Providence, and it needs Jasper's hand
and eye to make sure of a dry passage. Fourteen spoonfuls, after
all, are no great matter, though I wish it had been but ten, seeing
that the Sergeant's daughter was a looker-on."

"And yet you conned the canoe; you told him how to head and how to
sheer."

"Human frailty, master mariner; that was a little of white-skin
natur'. Now, had the Sarpent, yonder, been in the boat, not a word
would he have spoken or thought would he have given to the public.
An Indian knows how to hold his tongue; but we white folk fancy
we are always wiser than our fellows. I'm curing myself fast of
the weakness, but it needs time to root up the tree that has been
growing more than thirty years."

"I think little of this affair, sir; nothing at all to speak my
mind freely. It's a mere wash of spray to shooting London Bridge
which is done every day by hundreds of persons, and often by the
most delicate ladies in the land. The king's majesty has shot the
bridge in his royal person."

"Well, I want no delicate ladies or king's majesties (God bless