Quick,- an' one o' the logs le'p' right out an' struck him jest where he
stood, with his axe in the air, blasphemin'. The jam kind o' melted an'
crumbled up, an' in a second Pretty Quick was whirlin' in the white water. He
never riz,- at least where we could see him,--an' we did n't find him for a
week. That's the whole story, an' I guess Steve takes it as a warnin'. Anyway,
he ain't no friend to rum nor swearin', Steve ain't. He knows Pretty Quick's
ways shortened his mother's life, an' you notice what a sharp lookout he keeps
on Rufus."

"He needs it," Ike Billings commented tersely.

"Some men seem to lose their wits when they're workin' on logs," observed Mr.
Wiley, who had deeply resented Long Dennett's telling of a story which he knew
fully as well and could have told much better. "Now, nat'rally, I've seen
things on the 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 would n'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."