"He's an awful smart driver for one that don't foller drivin' the year round,"
continued Ivory; "and he's the awfullest clean-spoken, soft-spoken feller I
ever see."

"There's be'n two black sheep in his family a'ready, an' Steve kind o' feels
as if he'd ought to be extry white," remarked Jed Towle. "You fellers that
belonged to the old drive remember Pretty Quick Waterman well enough? Steve's
mother brought him up."

Yes; most of them remembered the Waterman twins, Stephen's cousins, now both
dead,--Slow Waterman, so moderate in his steps and actions that you had to fix
a landmark somewhere near him to see if he moved; and Pretty Quick, who shone
by comparison with his twin. "I'd kind o' forgot that Pretty Quick Waterman
was cousin to Steve," said the under boss; "he never worked with me much, but
he wa'n't cut off the same piece o' goods as the other Watermans. Great
hemlock! but he kep' a cussin' dictionary, Pretty Quick did! Whenever he heard
any new words he must 'a' writ 'em down, an' then studied 'em all up in the
winter-time, to use in the spring drive."

"Swearin' 's a habit that hed ought to be practiced with turrible caution,"
observed old Mr. Wiley, when the drivers had finished luncheon and taken out
their pipes. "There's three kinds o' swearin',--plain swearin', profane
swearin', an' blasphemious swearin'. Logs air jest like mules: there's times
when a man can't seem to rip up a jam in good style 'thout a few words that's
too strong for the infant classes in Sunday-schools; but a man hed n't ought
to tempt Providence.When he's ridin' a log near the falls at high water, or
cuttin' the key-log in a jam, he ain't in no place for blasphemious swearin';
jest a little easy, perlite 'damn' is 'bout all he can resk, if he don't want
to git drownded an' hev his ghost walkin' the river-banks till kingdom come.