could have knocked him down where he stood. But no one had. Not even
when he got halfway down,--on his knees, and it would have been
easier still to knock him down or kick him. People do miss a lot of
chances.

Still, as I say, neither Yodel nor Morison nor anyone thought about
there being an accident until just after sundown when they--

Well, have you ever heard the long booming whistle of a steamboat two
miles out on the lake in the dusk, and while you listen and count and
wonder, seen the crimson rockets going up against the sky and then
heard the fire bell ringing right there beside you in the town, and
seen the people running to the town wharf?

That's what the people of Mariposa saw and felt that summer evening
as they watched the Mackinaw life-boat go plunging out into the lake
with seven sweeps to a side and the foam clear to the gunwale with
the lifting stroke of fourteen men!

But, dear me, I am afraid that this is no way to tell a story. I
suppose the true art would have been to have said nothing about the
accident till it happened. But when you write about Mariposa, or hear
of it, if you know the place, it's all so vivid and real that a thing
like the contrast between the excursion crowd in the morning and the
scene at night leaps into your mind and you must think of it.


But never mind about the accident,--let us turn back again to the
morning.