“The closer a man looks after his own interests the better off he is,” said Forest, when he had explained everything. “That’s why I am here. Mike Sullivan, the boss on this drive, is a good man when he lets liquor alone, but he will have his jamborees, and he lets everything go to the wind when he breaks away. I had to rush men up the river in a hurry, and it was a bad season to get drivers, so I was forced to take Sullivan. But I decided to come up and look after the drive myself. Now, if you gentlemen would like to go down the river with me on the drift, I shall be glad to have you. It will cost you nothing but your time, and you will see a feature of life that is new to you.”
“Will there be any excitement?” asked Bart Hodge, his dark face showing his interest.
“I should guess yes!” laughed Fred. “There will be excitement and perils, unless it is an unusually lucky drive. The watershed of the Penobscot River, which drains one-half of the State of Maine, it is said, has witnessed more deeds of heroism, and been the scene of more valorous acts than any other area of its size on the North American continent.”
“Aren’t you putting that rather strong?” grunted Bruce Browning, who was lazily puffing away at a fragrant cigar.
“Not a bit,” declared the young lumberman. “Of course the greater perils are encountered far north of here, but there are rapids below us, and many a poor fellow has gone down to his death between here and Milford.”
“Oxcuse me!” gurgled Hans. “I pelief I vill valk der rifer down pefore I vill let dot raft ride me down. I don’d vant to peen drownted.”
“Oh! there will be no danger for you,” assured Fred. “It is the river driver who lives a life of constant peril and hardship. The story of his sufferings, his heroic acts, his marvelous deeds of daring, has never been told.”
“That is singular,” said Merriwell. “I should think the field would be a good one for the story writer.”
“It is a great field,” asserted Forest; “and it has scarcely been worked at all. For half a century the reading public has been fed with tales of mining camps and frontier desperadoes, while brave engineers and hardy sailors, who have made the love of life subordinate to duty, have been praised in song and story. New England authors have crossed the continent to gain a local coloring for their fiction. All this time the noblest sacrifices and the greatest tragedies the world has ever known were being enacted within three hundred miles of Boston Common.”